Video Games Are Boring • Hacker News Board

Re: Video Games Are Boring

#91

Post by saint_fiasco » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 3:14 PM UTC

hood_syntax wrote: post #47

hobs wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to remove all the other context, like the life of making said video games, and the thoughtfulness put everywhere else in the article, sure. The context is clearly "Hey, I really like video games but people like me clearly dont, why is that?" >I've devoted my life-no exaggeration-to video games for 14 years, working on titles such as Company of Heroes, a few Assassin's Creeds, and Child of Light.

Why do you think I removed the context? I understand her points, and I know there are a lot of video games like those she describes, but I disagree with her conclusions. Any industry is going to have the braindead blockbusters that get pumped out every 1-2 years, and gaming is no exception. I just believe there is plenty beyond that, there are a lot of amazing games out today that don't fit into that model. Papers Pl…

The author does sound like the type of person that would complain about braindead blockbusters in cinema and literature too.

Re: Video Games Are Boring

#92

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 3:15 PM UTC

panglott wrote: post #53

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 have very different fantasy lives. Some people have fantasy lives that revolve around social relationships. Others have fantasy lives that revolve around power-tripping and murder-hoboing. But I suspect that the former are actually much more common than the latter. It's a fantasy life because it is not actually reality! I always wondered why people play Guitar Hero when they could just practice the guitar inst…

I can't imagine realistic social gaming given today's technology. Relationships are complicated - much more complicated than game graphics. A system that accurately modelled human relationships would probably need to be within throwing distance of passing the Turing test.

One reason the industry keeps churning through the same ideas is because they're relatively tractable. Graphics, physics, texturing etc, are all solvable bounded problems.

It's easy to make trite multipath social games, but it's incredibly hard to make a social game with genuine depth. And realistically, if you do that you're not competing with other games, but with dating apps, job interviews, and the real social world.

Second Life was an interesting experiment. It started off as the great new hope for social gaming, and turned into a sterile strip mall and giant pimp hotel. It turns out that even if you give people free rein with their fantasies, most fantasies aren't all that original or interesting.

Re: Video Games Are Boring

#93

Post by saint_fiasco » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 3:25 PM UTC

Vaskivo wrote: post #46

This article is weird. It sort of addresses the solution to it's problem while it's problem is also almost non-existant. 1 - not every medium is for everybody. Getting my friends to play videogames (or getting my few gamer friends to play niche/weird game I recommend) is something I already gave up. I don't dislike cinema, but most of the movies the are made simply don't appeal to me. There's nothing wrong with cinem…

I think the author wants some validation and acknowledgement that a high-brow exists. Some of her friends thought the entire videogame industry is low-brow and the author says, quoting Tim Gunn, "this is a design failure and not a customer issue".

Re: Video Games Are Boring

#94

Post by Declanomous » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 3:30 PM UTC

dahart wrote: post #60

This is partly a story about getting older & wiser, and partly a story about consuming entertainment vs creating it. Games do get less fun as you grow older, and it happens a little faster if you're in the industry and start to see the big picture clearly. And consuming things is always less fun and engaging that making things. It's the same difference between buying software and writing your own. This article resona…

Have you played Dwarf Fortress at all? I'd be interested to know your thoughts on that.

Re: Video Games Are Boring

#95

Post by _ea1k » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 3:32 PM UTC

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…

You may want to try the multiplayer gaming in Battlefield 1 as well. I haven't tried the released version yet, but the beta was literally the only multiplayer FPS that I had enjoyed up until that point.

Because of the objectives, it is possible to contribute even if you aren't getting tons of kills and the game as a whole felt much more balanced than CoD. Even if the other players are much better, you can still get a few kills in and help your team.

Re: Video Games Are Boring

#96

Post by saint_fiasco » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 3:35 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #79

phpnode wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a grossly unfair mischaracterisation of the piece, did you actually read it?

Yes, and the self-loathing white male undercurrent runs throughout. The idea that gaming is a solely white male affair is itself a very parochial view. Calling it a male affair is probably reasonable based on the statistics, although that's still already a bit of an insult to some of the successful developers who sell female-dominated genres, but it's not white male; plenty of non-white males play games, and they're…

The author doesn't want more games for black males, or white women, or even minority women. Though the author may not realize it, that kind of demographics are a red herring.

What she really is looking for is games for what she feels is an under-served demographic: The kind of person who lives in "a state of constant shock, of constant stimulation" like her friends do. Her friends just happen to not be white males, so she latched on to that.

Re: Video Games Are Boring

#97

Post by hood_syntax » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 3:38 PM UTC

elcapitan wrote: post #88

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 g…

As you hinted, independent studios are already taking the ball and rolling with it. It doesn't need to be disrupted, although that would be welcome. There is already a thriving community of consumers (less numerous but more discretionary and willing to shell out money for quality) that actively seek the newest developments in the gaming scene.

Re: Video Games Are Boring

#98

Post by dahart » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 3:39 PM UTC

tnones wrote: post #89

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 wit…

Does this article scare you? You sound very defensive. I'm sorry to inform you that we do have a culture problem that is well documented, and you have identified yourself as part of the problem.

> Video games already have a diverse, demographically blind audience

Do you have some data to support your assertion there? That would mean that the same number of men and women play games. Because I've worked in games, and the publishers acknowledge that games are biased toward young white men. The publishers have been trying to create games for girls, and the girls frequently won't buy or play them because, according to their research, boys won't play games oriented toward girls at all, and the feeling that girl oriented games are less cool actually gets adopted by the girls. Meanwhile games specifically and intentionally oriented toward boys outsell other types and continue to be produced.

I've never seen a survey anywhere that showed equal or greater numbers of women playing games, and most surveys are trying to boost the number of women by including games that most young men don't play. This is simply not "demographically blind".

http://www.polygon.com/2016/4/29/11539102/gaming-stats-2016-...

"60 percent of those who buy games most often are men, while the remaining 40 percent are women."

http://www.theesa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/ESA-Essenti...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_culture#Demographic...

"according to a 2011 study showing that 58% of gamers are male and 42% female."

http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/12/15/who-plays-video-games-...

"Young men in particular play games and identify as “gamers.” Fully 77% of men ages 18 to 29 play video games (more than any other demographic group), compared with 57% of young women – a 20-point difference."

Re: Video Games Are Boring

#99

Post by dahart » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 3:42 PM UTC

Declanomous wrote: post #94

dahart wrote: post #60

This is partly a story about getting older & wiser, and partly a story about consuming entertainment vs creating it. Games do get less fun as you grow older, and it happens a little faster if you're in the industry and start to see the big picture clearly. And consuming things is always less fun and engaging that making things. It's the same difference between buying software and writing your own. This article resona…

Have you played Dwarf Fortress at all? I'd be interested to know your thoughts on that.

No, I'm not sure I've ever heard of it, but I'll check it out. I played thousands upon thousands of hours of Quake 3 back in the day. Possibly my favorite game recently was FEZ. Journey, mentioned in the article, was beautiful. These days I'm as much a sucker for online Boggle or Sudoku as any console game.

Re: Video Games Are Boring

#100

Post by ZeroGravitas » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 3:43 PM UTC

tnones wrote: post #89

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 wit…

> 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.

The sentence you refer to is calling attention to people sneering at that game. So you sneering at it is a bit weird. You're just supporting her point. I've heard it's a solid game, as you say it was mildly successful even before it had a big media franchise attached. Do you sneer at every TV show or movie tie-in? The Walking Dead by Telltale for example?