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Video Games Are Boring

gamesindustry.biz

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Re: Video Games Are Boring

#81

Post by hood_syntax »

eswat wrote: post #70
COGlory wrote: post #38

I mostly disagree with this article. There's very few nonviolent games I've played that I enjoy. I guess you could say I'm the average consumer, but there are certain trends in industries that are predominant, because that's what people want. I think all media generally has its worth defined by how it is a conduit of unrealistic experience. For instance, the biggest blockbuster movies usually contain unrealistic scen…

> People willing to consume media are people that don't have or want the opportunity to be extraordinary in their lives. That’s an interesting thought that I can’t disagree with. Myself and many people in my circle, including clients, have had played games in the past, probably to the point of unhealthy obsession when we were kids and getting an education. But all of us became less enchanted by the medium as we becam…

I love Jade Empire, I always wish they continued that series. Even a modern remake with an updated combat system would be welcome...

Re: Video Games Are Boring

#82

Post by josephkern »

jylam wrote: post #10
baldfat wrote: post #2

single player games are boring. EDIT: I am a competitive person. I rather play against a human being and see how I can improve then get stuck into a math/algorithm battle vs programmers. Solitaire is fine for a bit but all single player games feel like solitaire due to my desire to compete against others and myself.

Multiplayer games are also boring. I just bought Battlefield 1, because I read there was a great solo campaign. I hope it will be fun, and I've no intention to multiplay that. I'm 36, and I really did like war games before they were that much multiplayer oriented. Call of Duty and Battlefield series had great solo campaigns, jadis. Then for a decade, there was this multiplayer trend. Being obliterated by teenagers, c…

The question becomes what did MGS:V get correct? Even in an unfinished state I have been judging every game I've played since by comparison.

I think it breaks down into a few categories;

1. Excellent controls. Probably the tightest and least obtrusive controls I've used in a long time.

2. Great characters. While the story itself isn't that great (because it's unfinished), the characters really drive the plot.

3. Amazing ambiance. I really felt that I was in Afghanistan and there were Russians I was trying to avoid. I eavesdrop on their conversations, hearing them yelling orders to each other, and even see them adapting to my tactics between missions.

What makes this game a great single player campaign is ... Weight. Everything has consequences because you care about the characters. Most AAA games don't have characters anyone remembers or cares about.

Re: Video Games Are Boring

#83

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

COGlory wrote: post #38

I mostly disagree with this article. There's very few nonviolent games I've played that I enjoy. I guess you could say I'm the average consumer, but there are certain trends in industries that are predominant, because that's what people want. I think all media generally has its worth defined by how it is a conduit of unrealistic experience. For instance, the biggest blockbuster movies usually contain unrealistic scen…

Games for gamers are a known quantity. The formula for mainstream games hasn't changed for decades.

What if there's a huge untapped market for games that don't focus on war, combat, crime, apocalypse, and gore?

Personally I'm more interested in exploring than in killing enemies. Put me in a shoot-em-up and I'll turn on god mode and play through to the end to experience the scenery and locations. The aliens/enemy forces/demons/monsters are mostly just a diverting distraction.

I don't particularly want to have relationships with characters. But I do want to have novel experiences I can't have anywhere else. Mainstream games don't do that for me.

Re: Video Games Are Boring

#85

Post by dota »

emp_zealoth wrote: post #43
arkitaip wrote: post #8

This captures a lot of what I've been feeling lately. I can't stand most games, they just make me anxious and I will quit playing them after a few hours or even minutes. Too much stress and surface experiences has had me looking in the other direction. Take, for example, GTA 5. I've probably spent more hours riding cars and bikes in GTA5's beautiful countryside and outback than playing actual missions. Just hours and…

Simple - don't buy AAA (apart from very few select titles) because 99% of those is rehashed garbage and cliches Buy gamess from small studios, made by a few people or even one guy, usually a lot of them are in Steam Early Access (yes, it is risky, some of them get abandoned or just never improve much) For me this is like a reneissance in gaming. Have a look at Factorio, Starbound, Rimworld, Banished, Pillars of Etern…

I also play Dota 2 on and off, since multiplayer interactions in it are so intense and so unpredictable

It's a shame to see how AAA companies have butchered the Dota-like genre. There's Valve's Dota 2 which is the shining example of what the genre should be and then there's all these garbage rehashes out there that have just tried to dumb down the game or introduce some kind of gimmick or cliche.

AAA games are just a race to the bottom in terms of design. They just try to appeal to the lowest common denominator and games get more shallow and casual with each iteration.

Re: Video Games Are Boring

#86

Post by cyxxon »

arkitaip wrote: post #8

This captures a lot of what I've been feeling lately. I can't stand most games, they just make me anxious and I will quit playing them after a few hours or even minutes. Too much stress and surface experiences has had me looking in the other direction. Take, for example, GTA 5. I've probably spent more hours riding cars and bikes in GTA5's beautiful countryside and outback than playing actual missions. Just hours and…

Interestingly enough, this is one of the reasons I still play World of Warcraft: I used to be pretty hardcore (never Realm Firsts or anything, but hard mode raiding during BC/WotLK), and thus invested into my main characters... but recently I much more enjoy leveling, questing, pet battles, and all these little things. I basically play it like a single player game and enjoy the scenery. I just can't bring myself to enjoy other new games like I used to, I have a huge library of unplayed or minimally played Steam games, because I will just play WoW anyway...

Re: Video Games Are Boring

#87

Post by dmichulke »

eswat wrote: post #70
COGlory wrote: post #38

I mostly disagree with this article. There's very few nonviolent games I've played that I enjoy. I guess you could say I'm the average consumer, but there are certain trends in industries that are predominant, because that's what people want. I think all media generally has its worth defined by how it is a conduit of unrealistic experience. For instance, the biggest blockbuster movies usually contain unrealistic scen…

> People willing to consume media are people that don't have or want the opportunity to be extraordinary in their lives. That’s an interesting thought that I can’t disagree with. Myself and many people in my circle, including clients, have had played games in the past, probably to the point of unhealthy obsession when we were kids and getting an education. But all of us became less enchanted by the medium as we becam…

+1 for Jade Empire

Re: Video Games Are Boring

#88

Post by elcapitan »

So - can the games industry be saved, or does it need to get "disrupted"?

From the outside it definitely looks like it has the same problem as the movie industry, that is lots of money going into large conservative projects, where change is perceived as pure risk and little upside.

To be honest the article itself put me off first with the "white male" stuff, but I must admit that it sums up mostly what I feel about games today. While I really admire the graphics (Battlefield 1 for example), the kind of dead end gameplay makes me sad.

I'm wondering what the necessary environment would be to incubate change there. It's still not the size of the movie industry (on a company level at least), so there should be room for development.

On the other hand, from a technical perspective, with the tools we have today (Unity etc.) there is a very solid foundation for quality independent developments. So that's at least one positive outlook.

Re: Video Games Are Boring

#89

Post by tnones »

There is nothing to support the author's typical feminist schtick of using diversity as a shorthand for blaming white men for the problems observed. Video games already have a diverse, demographically blind audience, that's why they're cheap mass entertainment. They're class and race-blind, and women do play them.

Games can offer a free space to explore, play and excel, away from the judgement of real life, often with a completely arbitrary character. For the entire bottom half of society, that's very appealing, and it's not "pseudo-masculine nonsense". Relationship mechanics are popular with men too, with Mass Effect's crew of cameraderie and romance being a hugely popular AAA example. So popular, the lack of a respectful ending pissed off its fanbase, whose desire for meaning and depth then got spun into an accusation of entitlement and obsession.

What we've seen the last 10 years is games have become more shallow, favoring gambling systems and skinner boxes over mechanics and systems. Ironically, it's mostly women playing these social and mobile games. In fact, it is hilarious that she talks of "rich, deep experiences" but then holds up "Kim Kardashian: Hollywood" as an example in the very next sentence, which is literally a cash-grab celebrity reskin of an existing game.

She complains that "we've stopped listening to each other", that the conversation is "evolving slowly" and that people don't think "women are human", but she pulls the same dehumanizing routine by painting the entire existing industry and its customers with the same tired old brush. Perhaps she should consider "that what [men] like is not less worthy nor boring nor wrong nor hard to understand". And if she wants "compassion and respect and fearlessness", she could start by practicing what she preaches.

Re: Video Games Are Boring

#90

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

edem wrote: post #17

I've been playing games since Commodore 64. I've played through Amiga, early PC, Playstation, etc games. The problem is that gaming became an industry and the companies behind AAA games want you to spend as much time playing their game as possible. The 100% fun of Chaos Engine which took 4 hours became 150 hours of boring side-questing (I look at you Skyrim). The somach-wrenching action of Freespace 2 became endless…

> ... took 4 hours became 150 hours of boring side-questing ...

There's a lot of lifestyle gamers who get angry if games are 'too short'.

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