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Video Gaming Will Take Over

matthewball.vc

141–150 of 310 posts

Re: Video Gaming Will Take Over

#141
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More PoPs and fiber. Both which are already much more ubiquitous than a few years ago and fast expanding. Plus you don't need to reach everyone for a successful product. Just a critical mass

I (and many, many others) notice lag in games with v-sync turned on vs off, and we're talking about single digit milliseconds there. It's possible that Stadia might be "good enough" for casual gaming (and granted, that's a very large market segment), but I don't think it will ever be good enough for anyone who is sensitive to latency.

>I (and many, many others) notice lag in games with v-sync turned on vs off, and we're talking about single digit milliseconds there.

Indeed, I found this recently out in a double-blind kind of way, when running at 165hz. I had to take out my GPU to fix the fan, so I wanted to try playing some demanding games on my integrated Intel GPU. I switched settings to the lowest (along with the game itself auto downgrading settings). After I put my GPU back, I put all the settings back, or so I thought. I was feeling some input lag and the mouse a little "floaty" but thought I just imagining it for a day or two. Afterwards I checked settings and lo behold, VSync was on.

I was surprised that I could tell the difference when running at 165hz and 165 fps.

Re: Video Gaming Will Take Over

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good book might hook someone into reading it all in a binge, but once it's done it's pretty much done. A game on the other hand can create a sort of rewards treadmill where no one ever really 'finishes'. A book can't adjust rewards in real time to fuel addictive behavior. Books don't really exploit gambling mechanics, which is what can drive some of the most pernicious addictions.

Yep, people sink literally thousands of hours in to a single game. Some popular games literally punish you for the time you spend not playing the game or give you daily rewards so that you log in frequently.

The op was specifically talking about minecraft - it has none of those dark patterns, it's just a good game.

It's literally virtual building blocks (+ hack and slash combat and crafting and exploration etc). Would you have the same level of derision for kids who sink thousands of hours into playing with lego? Kids have a lot of spare time to kill.

Re: Video Gaming Will Take Over

#143
post #98

Article seems to forget that there are vast swaths of the population that do not play games. They do not have the patience to learn how to play games, not even console games with simpler controls. Even casual games require some level of skill to play, or they're not any fun, and the joy of television is that you do not need any special skill to enjoy it. This isn't even getting into people who view games as a waste o…

Get in line. People have been making that argument since the dawn of time. Even "writing" was heavily criticized over memorization and oral story telling. Each criticism declaring the end and ruin of civilization. If I had to pick one of them to actually make this complaint against it would be computer (AI) generated content optimized for clicks on video websites (think kids videos on youtube).

It sounds like you think the OP is making a moral argument against games, but I don't believe they are.

I have no moral issue with time spent on games. My son plays quite a lot and I think that's fine.

I have zero interest in them though. There are a lot of reasons for this, but they aren't moral reasons - just preferences. I'd note that this also reflect in my lack of interest in board/card games.

I know a lot of people like me, from all age groups - they'll watch video content but have no interest in playing games. I think that the article author misses that.

Re: Video Gaming Will Take Over

#144
There are 6 billion viewers still slowing joining Hollywood's streaming media, it's being tapped in the movie industry well, TV is the next stop. It'll take decades to get the full market. That's a lot of up coming growth.

Plus as billions start getting leisure time, both Video Gaming and Media will grow, not sure analysing the internal market makes a lot of sense.

"7 Reasons Why Video Gaming Will Take Over" has no real meaning without some sort timelines and estimates. In 100 years time we will all just jack into VR..... meh sure. The fact the author seems to not fully understand the current limitations of Video Games points me to they are jumping the gun.

Re: Video Gaming Will Take Over

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curmudgeon, here. Why do books, paintings, photos, and film exist at all anymore? Maybe because we don't all want everything "interactive" all the time.

All of those things have been given interactive platforms in pre-internet settings: book clubs, museums, galleries and film festivals. It's of course important to have the option to enjoy them by yourself at times-- but you can do this with games, too. Nearly all visual & audio art can be presented in a game-like environment (such as a customized VR setting), so in a way a game engine is a superset of every piece of…

For me the lack of interactivity is the feature.

Re: Video Gaming Will Take Over

#146
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> FPS gaming with a keyboard and mouse isn't coming with you on your phone for the morning commute, and no amount of technology is going to change that because the main barrier is you won't want to play that game on your morning commute with a bunch of people around you, noise, and being unable to immerse yourself (even for reasons as simple as needing to remember to get off at your stop). PUBG and Fortnite are both…

I was going to say the same thing except with Call of Duty as my example. Having never played an FPS on my phone, I had to download Call of Duty to see how it worked, being a heavy kb+m FPS player in my youth. Played a dozen or so rounds in a couple weeks. It worked surprisingly well with plenty of skill gap between the players. A couple years ago I also tried a MOBA on my phone wondering how that could possibly work…

Paradox announced EU4 was coming to iOS and Android in 2013 but it seems nothing ever came of it:

https://www.digitalspy.com/videogames/a456278/europa-univers...

Somewhat bizarrely, a Nintendo DS port of EU2 was also in development at some point!:

https://imgur.com/a/O3Fu4

Re: Video Gaming Will Take Over

#147
post #133
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes me wonder what kind of spine and RSI issues that generation will have in 20 years

How's it different from a generation that grew up with books?

Books are way less addictive across the board in my experience. You might find a handful of people consuming them to the point of harm, but when you add together all of the addictive activities on a phone/tablet there's no question IMO

Re: Video Gaming Will Take Over

#148

For a medium that has growing revenue, the major players and properties are attempting increasingly manipulative, desperate, awful, and addictive mechanisms to squeeze more revenue.

Revenue may be growing, but so are costs and competition.

Re: Video Gaming Will Take Over

#149
post #109

No, it won't. While there are outstanding single player narrative experiences leveraging the format to further the narrative, there's nothing like a good TV show or movie for joint attention. When enjoying a narrative with friends or a loved one many people will not want to pause to argue furiously over what dialogue choice to make or how to deal with a moral dilemma. Games are a fantastic medium. But there have limi…

How much TV do you think is watched with others?

Re: Video Gaming Will Take Over

#150
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> FPS gaming with a keyboard and mouse isn't coming with you on your phone for the morning commute, and no amount of technology is going to change that because the main barrier is you won't want to play that game on your morning commute with a bunch of people around you, noise, and being unable to immerse yourself (even for reasons as simple as needing to remember to get off at your stop). PUBG and Fortnite are both…

I was going to say the same thing except with Call of Duty as my example. Having never played an FPS on my phone, I had to download Call of Duty to see how it worked, being a heavy kb+m FPS player in my youth. Played a dozen or so rounds in a couple weeks. It worked surprisingly well with plenty of skill gap between the players. A couple years ago I also tried a MOBA on my phone wondering how that could possibly work…

Something CK2-like ("sim RPG"?) had already been my hypothetical mobile game concept long before I even discovered (and immediately fell for) CK2: Macromanaging a player character that is basically just another NPC existing in a few layers of abstracted off-screen simulation, a slightly interactive story generator. Highly hypothetical of course, no way I'd ever make it a reality.

For example a pirate game would have a detailed social sim of the crew, an "FTL level" sim of the ship in combat, a "Sid M. Pirates" level sim of ship to ship combat (that is all NPC off-screen when the player character isn't in command of a ship) and a sim of baroque-era Caribbean economy. A low level sailor would just manage relationships and balance focus between categories like following orders, initiative, camaraderie, bravado and risk avoidance (each influencing how he fares in the off-screen social and "FTL combat" simulations), peppered with the occasional decision set-piece, whereas a pirate-king might decide on resource allocation and strategic city upgrades (but still not micro-manage anything but relations). The tactical level would be a much more interactive (if the PC happens to be in command) series of decisions, but still do exclusively fast-forward-to-pause timing. ("free form turns", imho mobile games should be as passive as a book whenever you put down the phone)

The pattern could be applied to anything that has a somewhat limited set of characters for the social layer (the CK2 courtier population might still be a bit heavy for mobile...) and involves separable tactical and strategic layers. The original idea came from the question of how one could do a WW2 air combat sim on mobile that is deeper than Sid M. Ace Patrol but unlike IL-2 still without a dexterity factor. The player would balance focus between e.g. spotting, engine operation and navigation when on mission but not in combat and during engagement between aiming, evading, energy conservation, situational awareness and so on (plus a series of decision points that might be seconds or minutes apart depending on situation). The social layer might involve storytelling decisions like choosing to "accidentally" miss an emergency scramble after a night of heavy stress relief or flying under the influence.

With a bottomless fantasy budget, this kind of game would come with full 3D modeling for illustrating every sim layer, but only ever show a single frame at each interaction, representing the state of the simulation (which is actually closer to board-game abstraction than to 3D physics) in a semi-randomized way. Reasoning: animations quickly get old no matter how good they are and single frames can be doused in nice-looking postprocessing that would cause unsightly artifacts if animated. An endless pool of informative flavor illustrations, not the usual showing-off of GPU power and production effort.

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