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There are too many video games

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Re: There are too many video games

#121

Post by meristohm »

scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #82

This is such an annoyingly simplistic take and such poison. Some of the things this guy says are outright nasty: like should you want to make your game to have only 10 people play it. Absolutely, yes. And if that detracts you, then maybe you don’t actually want to be making them. Games, like film, like music and like all the other storytelling mediums are a form of literature. It is completely normal and has always b…

“The market” reflects the emotional state of those with the power to play it. I’d rather flatten the boom-bust amplitude, and that’s an uphill battle as those with the capital to weather the storms benefit most.

Re: There are too many video games

#123

Post by mitchdoogle »

a_t48 wrote: post #54

Let's say for the sake of argument that there is too much art out there, that we need less people writing novels and more people fixing potholes and whatnot - fine. How does the author propose deciding _who_ gets to make art? Even if you have an oracle who can assign some sort of quality number to an art project before it's made...how are people supposed to get better at it? It's going to take thousands of cruddy Uni…

Art gets made by people who have the free time and/or people getting paid to do it. People do a pretty decent job at self-selecting for who gets to make art

Re: There are too many video games

#124

Post by pkaye »

friedman23 wrote: post #73
pkaye wrote: post #25

That is where universal basic income comes in place so everyone can work on the fun stuff they want to work on.

You are completely missing the point of his post. His point isn't that people can't work on what they want, his point is that people aren't working on "important" things.

But is he going to do that himself or expecting others to do it while he does fun stuff? Also who determines what the important things are?

Re: There are too many video games

#125

Post by happytoexplain »

dvt wrote: post #91
WaxProlix wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, that doesn't mirror my experience around any of those areas at all. I lived in LA and the bay area for almost a decade. Plenty of people wanted different tax structures, reduced regulatory burden on businesses (especially small businesses), reevaluation of existing expenditures over increased taxation, etc. Are there specific Republican views that you think are anathema?

> Are there specific Republican views that you think are anathema? Try wearing a MAGA hat in Santa Monica. The arguments here that it's just as cool to be a Democrat as it is to be a Republican is so divorced from reality, I feel like I'm being gaslit. Even on dating apps folks use "moderate" as a euphemism for "conservative" -- I've literally had this conversation on dates before.

>it's just as cool to be a Democrat as it is to be a Republican

Nobody is saying that. This is true of perhaps no location in the country. Also, wearing a MAGA hat is a behavioral subset of "being a Republican". Half the Republicans I know think MAGA hats are "gross". I think you're letting feelings of political hostility push you into rambly territory a bit. You keep loosening your phrasing to be more high level "Democrats vs Republicans".

Re: There are too many video games

#127

Post by meristohm »

a_t48 wrote: post #54

Let's say for the sake of argument that there is too much art out there, that we need less people writing novels and more people fixing potholes and whatnot - fine. How does the author propose deciding _who_ gets to make art? Even if you have an oracle who can assign some sort of quality number to an art project before it's made...how are people supposed to get better at it? It's going to take thousands of cruddy Uni…

After reading the post and comments, it feels more like the author (Jeff, maker of the Avernum series) is cautioning against too many of us moving too far away from life-sustaining activities like maintaining infrastructure (and I would add: teaching and parenting effectively, farming, using our bodies to do most of our work, practicing being more in tune with other life on Earth).

I’ve been escaping into videogame-land during most of my free time (I’m a homemaker & parent of a disabled kid), and while it’s helped me get along with my spouse (release valve, maybe?), it is not the healthiest solution in the long run. Okay for now, and I understand I have a lot of work yet to sync my real and ideal selves (where I know in the moment what I’m feeling and have agency to decide what to do next, rather than picking up the pieces later).

Re: There are too many video games

#128

Post by solarmist »

krapp wrote: post #77
solarmist wrote: post #12

I feel like his point is that we've put creators, of all forms of media, on such a high pedestal that we're neglecting the mundane things that keep life running smoothly. I guess it's a job/career version of "social media is making us all lonelier." Everyone wants to be a creator like everyone wants to be an influencer... Okay, sure, but why are we doing that? I feel like it's something more fundamental that's gone o…

We're not doing that. The author seems to assume that so many people are creating new art nowadays that the entire rest of civilization is being left to rot, but that's simply untrue, and a false dichotomy. Most artists work crushing hours in sweatshop conditions, or are constantly gigging on the razor's edge of subsistence, with what little value they produce going to expenses or middlemen. Then the internet decides…

Sure, but it damn well "appears" that we are. I think this the fundamental issue that the internet causes.

Humans are very well tuned to equate occurance/mention of a thing with prevelence of that thing, so because the internet amplifies provokative thoughts/comments/ideas and buries concensus/1+s/me toos our colletive sensibilities are being thrown completely out of whack. Add in that there's no feedback mechanism to chastise undesireable opinions (or even actions), as there is in in-person communication, and you have a recipe for the chaos we are seeing.

Re: There are too many video games

#129

Post by mitchdoogle »

arka2147483647 wrote: post #49

When I was young, it was plausible for a person to have read the latest books, watched the latest films, and played the latest games. I'm not sure anybody actually did that. But it was plausible. You could sample more-or-less everything, and choose what you like. Today there is so much of the stuff that you just can't. You don't know whats out there, and you never will.

No, it's never been plausible for a person to consume all new films, games, and especially not books. I suppose you could use some list, say the NYT Bestseller list and strive to read all those, which is somewhat plausible, but those lists are still around and probably more people now strive to do such things than in the past

Re: There are too many video games

#130

Post by selimthegrim »

jvanderbot wrote: post #57

At a global scale, everyone-in-the-search-space view, there is significant duplicity. That's life. If you look hard enough, you could find games, songs, books, paintings, even people that are essentially indistinguishable from each other. Yes, there's lot of artwork in the world. Ask yourself instead if the thing you are making should instead be an improvement to some other thing, or if you want to use your time on e…

Surely you mean duplication here.
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