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Games are designed to a) test arbitrary skills and b) shape player behavior towards a goal that the game provides. The architecture analogy isn't perfect but it's better than the appliance or narrative models. If you want to know where a game stands ideologically, look at what you have to do to win. Most people pick up on the narrative component easily enough (i.e. Half-Life 2 is about violent resistance to colonizing alien overlords, etc.) but you should go past that and look at what the game physically requires, the skills it tests, too. For example many MMOs are basically just a test of patience and cooperation, which earns them the disdain of people who value extreme performances of individual skill. A 1v1 game like Street Fighter, which is all about restricting and predicting the options of an individual opponent, has a different psychology than the opportunism of a free-for-all FPS deathmatch. A team game where even a very unskilled player is merely ineffective creates a very different atmosphere and culture than one where the enemy can "farm" that player in order to gain stacking advantages for themselves. There's an overwhelming population of people who only play singleplayer games because, while these effects still occur, they don't like the loss of control that necessarily happens when you're negotiating one player's desires and goals against another's. You can apply this logic to board games, physical sports, etc, as well. It's all about creating an artificial environment where the landscape (or architecture) pushes norms in a certain direction, determining who's included or excluded, who's celebrated or ridiculed, while keeping the stakes low enough that it's all "safe" compared to performing those relationships in real life. However, it still says something about who you are and who the game expects you to be. twodot posted:If we should ignore the story telling in a game, why not ignore the story telling in a book, and declare them glorified rocks? Storytelling in video games is (often) like the score in a film. You'd be dumb to ignore it, and it contributes to the overall meaning, but it's more of an accent than it is the primary medium. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 16:07 on May 17, 2016 |
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May 17, 2016 16:01
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They're generally for enjoyment and satisfaction, but that statement is fairly useless for taxonomic purposes. A deliberately unpleasant and grueling game might be poorly regarded but doesn't cease to be a game, and lots of non-game things are for enjoyment and satisfaction. If you want to hone in on the definition of game (and I'll admit, I'm not sure I have a comprehensive one) start looking at the margins -- is Where's Waldo a game? Is a carnival sideshow Test Your Strength machine a game? Is a footrace a game? How would you distinguish between a game and a toy? How do you distinguish between the physical objects that enable play and the game itself, and is it a sharp line or a blurry one?
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May 17, 2016 16:58
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Main Paineframe posted:Sounds like tabletop games, which have a similar variety of structure, are a much more appropriate comparison - can Connect 4 and Sorry! really be viewed through the same lens as Settlers of Catan or poker or the super-complex strategy games that crazy people play? Yes, at least under my framework.
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May 17, 2016 17:02
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Brass Key posted:The other part of the problem is that a lot of video game writing is just really, really bad. I honestly don't get it. It's like the entire industry saw Avatar with its pretty scenery and paper-thin story and went "yes, this is perfect". Hiring a couple of writers to fix your poo poo can't possibly cost more than modelling all those fancy particle effects and snake monsters with boobs. I suspect "snake monsters with boobs" is more about signaling who the game is for than anything else. Even more than genre fiction already is, videogames are about who gets to participate in, perform, and excel at the stories they tell. At its best, this creates meritocratic communities of people who are really good at and knowledgeable about X; at its worst, it creates "if you're not a teenage boy or willing to tacitly submit to the tastes of teenage boys, gently caress you, go away."
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May 17, 2016 20:14
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McGavin posted:I have one thing I want you to consider. Your avatar is of the Darkstalkers character "Sasquatch". Sasquatch is a Bigfoot from Canada. But Sasquatch is eating a banana. Now think about it; that does not make sense! Where would a Bigfoot, an 8-foot-tall Bigfoot, living in Canada, find a banana? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with how we talk about videogames? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with how we talk about videogames! It does not make sense! Look at me. My avatar is of a pig with a human head advertising Grove's Tasteless Chill Tonic! Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you're in here deliberatin' and conjugatin' the ethics of video game journalism, does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this dead, gay forum, it does not make sense! If Sasquatch eats a banana, you must acquit! The defense rests. Well, at least D&D has a higher quality of reflexive shitposting when this topic comes up than Games does.
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May 17, 2016 21:25
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DOSBox is available for games from that era, and virtual machines aren't that tricky to set up. The harder part is games that relied on central servers for multiplayer.
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May 24, 2016 16:57
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OneEightHundred posted:Playerbase depletion is a bigger problem for multiplayer, especially if you want to play mods or custom maps. From the perspective of actually playing them for fun, sure, but I'm talking about preservation. All you have to do to play something with no active playerbase (but all the necessary infrastructure still in place) is gather up enough like-minded friends. But if the game wasn't designed for players to run their own servers, and matchmaking or even certain parts of the game's content have to come from the central server, you're back to emulation again.
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May 25, 2016 03:57
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Jarmak posted:Who thinks video games are for weirdos? This isn't the 80s. Goons, mostly, in my experience.
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May 26, 2016 19:46
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Raxivace posted:A lot of times I think people get tripped up by trying to create some grand unifying theory that explains ALL video games, and I think that's a fool's errand. All games have mechanics, and an aesthetic theory of game mechanics isn't an unreasonable goal.
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May 28, 2016 02:38
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Raxivace posted:I don't agree, unless you're going to include picking dialogue options in VN's (And even then, there are VN's that don't even have that!) or something like Firewatch as a game mechanic. If a VN has a goal and picking dialogue options impedes or advances that goal, sure, that's game mechanics. If not, then it's just an ebook by another name. If it has choices that are meaningless or which represent different outcomes unbound by goals then it's probably a toy, which is an interesting subject all its own.
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May 28, 2016 02:54
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icantfindaname posted:I would argue game mechanics do not actually count as an aspect of aesthetics It's the only sensible way to evaluate them. Game design isn't a science or a craft; there's no objective measure of a good mechanic, and no practical purpose they can be evaluated against. People talk about mechanics being "elegant", or "harsh" or "muddled." They're a matter of taste and your tastes evolve the more you play, as you learn what you like. They're absolutely an aspect of aesthetics.
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May 30, 2016 16:34
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Jarmak posted:Those games mechanics make them functionally stressful, that doesn't make make mechanics part of aesthetics. Function in this case is complimenting form and vice versa. Okay, so, at least two levels to this: First, that's wrongheaded. You wouldn't say that brush strokes or word choice lack aesthetic qualities just because their function is to depict a scene, would you? If anything, given the infinite variety of options, the way you depict something, the method and the arrangement, is more a matter of taste and beauty than the actual subject. You can even dispense with the subject; abstract art doesn't cease to be art. Plus, we have a precedent for regarding a system of rules as beautiful: people say it of languages all the time. Which leads to the second point, that both you and the guy you're replying to seem to have overlooked -- that a system of rules with just the right balance of simplicity and complexity (and/or whatever qualities suit your tastes) can be artful in itself. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 14:14 on May 31, 2016 |
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May 31, 2016 14:12
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Popular Thug Drink posted:on a base level all entertainment should be fun, if it's not fun then it's boring and you stop consuming it. fun can take on different forms, such as interesting, frustrating, etc. the witness wasn't fun in a joyful sense, it was fun because it was intensely frustrating until you had an epiphany. schindler's list isn't pleasant to sit through or lightweight in its themes but it's fun because it produces in some way a powerful emotion like sympathy for the jews or hatred of the nazis which people find pleasurable in some bitter way. gone home was fun if you liked the atmosphere and environment, and it wasn't fun if you were expecting anything to happen or a more complex story I'm pretty sure you're saying the thing, it's just he's using fun to mean something more narrow than "enjoyable" and you're using them as synonyms.
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May 31, 2016 19:03
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Jarmak posted:I'm not sure why you think brush strokes or word choices are the appropriate analogue to game mechanics (or why you painting is a medium you can draw an analogue to game mechanics in at all for that matter) when they are wholly different things and direct analogues exists. Word choice is a matter of aesthetics is the way you can advance the exact same information in various ways, but the choice of how you do that is aesthetic in nature. Essentially the examples you gave are not functional or mechanical at all except in the construction of the aesthetic. Game mechanics aren't an analogue to word choice, if you'e trying to draw a line to a passive media they're an analogue to the information conveyed by the narrative. Again, form and function and impact and influence each other, but that doesn't mean that function is form. Nor does the idea that function can be beautiful mean that it "is" form, suggesting so makes the delineation meaningless. You can't advance "the exact same information in various ways" through word choice -- you're advancing slightly different information. Even using the exact same words doesn't guarantee that you'll be advancing the same information, because it depends on context. If you make "totally devoid of function" a prerequisite for something to have aesthetic properties that leads to absurd results; nothing meets that standard. Mechanics are not an analogue to the information conveyed by the narrative, because they aren't subjective. Your interpretation does not change whether a particular combo works in Street Fighter or not. (Although, much like words, whether or not you know what a "combo" is might change how you experience the mechanic.) They're a property of the game, of the artifact that you're observing or interacting with -- just like word choice or a physical deposit of paint.
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May 31, 2016 19:58
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Dr. Stab posted:What I was getting at there wasn't that floaty platforming is an objectively bad thing, but something that is subject to taste. Some people like it when a platformer feels a certain way, and some people don't. I think you're discounting how much the bits about games you don't like are intentionally designed. You're also discounting the subjectivity in determining the degree to which technical flaws in games contribute to the overall opinion of the game. Some flaws can be considered minor to some and major to others. Several of the most valuable, even central mechanics in competitive games developed as accidents. Combos were a glitch in the original Street Fighter; StarCraft: Brood War has literally dozens of unintended mechanics that contribute to its skillfulness, without which the game wouldn't have had anywhere near as much longevity. Movement in the original Tribes was so unique (and so poorly understood, even by its developers) that people have literally written academic articles on how to recreate it. Quake 3 had/has a subculture built around not even playing the game as a deathmatch shooter and instead just taking movement techniques that were originally discovered in that context and experimenting to see how far you could push them. I am of course coming from a school of thought that values skill, and even outright domination. The mountain of knowledge and practice required and the possibility of running into someone orders of magnitude better than you and losing without getting the chance to do anything are positives to me. These are not neutral values, even though they're very closely bound to mechanics. 3/4 of those twitter posts someone linked earlier were dumb as hell (who cares what Kojima said personally, what does that have to do with analyzing his game?) but he was getting closer to something important with the last one. In real life I'm a borderline pacifist, but my fantasy, and my aesthetic preferences in gaming, really are about "violence directed at living things" -- it's more fun to "beat" another player, a real person. I like control, hate randomness, and I like measuring my control against another player's in a zero-sum context. Of course, I don't accept the argument that these tastes are ethically bankrupt, which is why I emphasize aesthetics. There's a bit of both, but even the ethical side is more complicated than "violent game bad" -- for instance, is it bad for someone who grew up in poverty to fantasize about being judged on their merits in an environment completely stripped of bad luck, where everyone starts out on materially equal footing? There's all kinds of stuff about masculinity, class, subculture, etc. going on there. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 15:33 on Jun 1, 2016 |
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Jun 1, 2016 15:31
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reviews and criticism are not the same thing and conflating the two is a huge part of the reason why games criticism is so bad
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Jun 3, 2016 01:12
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my point was more that you're making a false dichotomy and the problem is not categorically that people are doing "intellectual wank exercises" but rather that just aren't very good at it mechanics are important, content is important, and good criticism (even good feminist criticism) is about understanding first, condemnation or approval second, but that doesn't mean it's all a waste
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Jun 3, 2016 03:45
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among other things wrong with that article, anyone who uses "geek" and "nerd" to imply a hierarchy where being the first is better deserves to be fed live gerbils
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Jun 3, 2016 20:26
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zack snyder is actually a pretty good filmmaker and practically a poster child for being a self-aware nerd
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Jun 3, 2016 22:17
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rkajdi posted:A good film has to transcend its genre trappings, this is some entry level high art / low art poo poo Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 02:01 on Jun 4, 2016 |
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Jun 4, 2016 01:42
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rkajdi posted:Why is this an issue? Most genre stuff is stuck in the genre ghetto, which fits the whole Sturgeon's Law deal. even when the actual message is, in fact, absolutely repulsive (Sucker Punch isn't even close, Michael Bay movies are possibly a better example) it can still be really rewarding to look at why and how a film does what it does, what its internal logic and contradictions are, and so on. turning away because you're uncomfortable is fine if you're speaking as a viewer, that's your business, but as a critic it's crippling the best horror movies are generally the most transgressive ones, not the least. both in terms of what they have to say and (often) in how well-constructed they are.
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Jun 4, 2016 02:02
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Panzeh posted:If it's totally indistinguishable from the real thing it's hard to call it that. You can't just make a movie and then when someone says it's dumb go "psych it's really satire!" This is why literacy in the medium is important, so that you can make distinctions. Also, there are entire schools of criticism dedicated to the idea that contradictions like "war is hell" and "war is a test of skill and wits" can or even inevitably do exist within every narrative, and depend on this when they interpret what the narrative has to say.
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Jun 5, 2016 01:53
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Panzeh posted:Would you call Triumph of the Will parody? Well, there are sort of two issues here, complicated by there not being a perfectly clear line between them. On the one hand, some works blatantly or subtly signal how you ought to read them. As a good critic, you should be able to pick up on this -- even while it's not the end of the conversation, and even while people will disagree about what's blatant or subtle or even what's being said. Saints Row 3 constantly lampshades the fact that the protagonist is a psychopath with a near-magical ability to avoid the consequences of their actions, but it's also absolutely about how funny it is to make light of violence. Sucker Punch near-explicitly tells the audience "convincing yourself that these sexytime fantasies are empowering is the same as being lobotomized" but it's also Zack Snyder's mea culpa for being someone who has and enjoys those fantasies. On the other hand, context is incredibly important, and can even be transformative. I wouldn't call Triumph of the Will a parody (and it's been years since I saw it) but I don't think it would take very much to push it over the line. Is it unimaginable that someone might show it to, say, a history class in order to provoke disgust at fascism and start a conversation along those lines? Is that somehow less legitimate than using it as Nazi propaganda?
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Jun 5, 2016 02:16
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Paolomania posted:To put it another way, baldly presenting some idea, in any medium, and expecting someone to take it as ironic criticism because to you it just seems so apparently wrong on its face presumes that they not only see the same face from their subjective vantage point, but also that they will necessarily conclude that the idea is bad. As SS Troopers / FC3 point out, this is easily not the case. That's not what I'm expecting. It is not the magnitude or over-the-top-ness of the games and movies I'm talking about that make them "ironic" (nor is "ironic" really the right word here but that's another discussion entirely), it's their actual content.
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Jun 5, 2016 16:11
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Think for a second about how you signal something is bad, and see if you can spot the problem. If I think lobotomies are a good and necessary psychiatric treatment, the turn in Sucker Punch isn't going to clue me in to the reading I've suggested in this thread. If I think that impersonally gunning down people from the sky is for the greater good, I'm not going to be (as) turned off by that sequence in Call of Duty 4. But in either case, assuming I've got the cultural context to understand what a movie is and know the language being spoken and so on, I can still see the sequence of events; "my dance is going to be different, it's going to mean something" -> "brain gets pulled out with an icepick" or "black op raids against a sovereign nation, killing hundreds of people, and trying to kidnap dictator's son for leverage / information" -> "nuclear apocalypse is averted" and draw my own conclusions from it. At some point, yes, I do have to assume shared context, otherwise criticism is not only useless but impossible. But the more capable you are of seeing how the pieces fit together, the longer you can suspend judgment, the less you have to assume.
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Jun 5, 2016 16:46
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