How do we/should we talk about video games?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > How do we/should we talk about video games?

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Guy DeBorgore posted:

From a criticism point-of-view it's best to just ignore the tacked-on storytelling and focus on what makes a video game a video game, namely being a set of rules with emergent properties. They're all just glorified versions of Chess or any of the other simple games humanity's been playing since the dawn of civilization.

If we should ignore the story telling in a game, why not ignore the story telling in a book, and declare them glorified rocks?

# ¿ May 17, 2016 15:46

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 22, 2024 12:31

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Incoherence posted:

This is a very old argument. It's one that anti-DLC people have mostly lost at this point, but it's a very old argument.

In line with what's been said earlier, I don't see how one could lose this argument. You either think paid for cosmetics in a game is good or not, both sides can buy, play, and review games as they see fit.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2016 16:33

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Zachack posted:

You can lose, or at least have rendered irrelevant, your argument by having weak or faulty foundations. If I argue that game X should cost me Y dollars on Z date and refuse to adjust either X, Y, or Z then I am specifying what those parameters are and may be wrong. For an obviously extreme example, if I declare that Overwatch should only cost $5 at launch with no dlc and weekly free maps and characters of equal "quality" as those shipped at launch, then I'm making direct statements on how much Overwatch cost to produce and maintain, and probably how much it will sell, and thus could be specifically wrong - Overwatch may need to cost $10 and DLC be released monthy simply to avoid violating California labor laws. When people compare "quality" and price of, say, Fallout 4 to Witcher 3 then again you run into this problem: the cost of developing in the US is not the same as developing in Poland. And this is just a super-rudimentary way of looking at development costs - what if your head programmer gets cancer? Should they be forced to work anyway because you've declared Z immutable?

Should statements can't be wrong. If I think Overwatch should cost $5 and have free high quality DLC, it is just a fact that I think that. The cost of producing such a product might be such that were a developer to attempt this, they would end up losing money, but as a game purchaser it isn't my responsibility to ensure that capitalists can rent seek effectively. Having that sort of requirement may mean I never buy a game again, but that doesn't make it wrong to have those requirements.

Incoherence posted:

The argument is lost in the sense that you are never going to convince publishers that they shouldn't ever put paid DLC in a paid-for game. They may or may not do so in any given game, and there's a whole range of kinds of DLC where different people can draw the line in different places, and you can make fun of people who pay for horse armor, but the DLC genie is out of the bottle at this point.

The fact that may or may not do so in any given game seems to suggest the argument isn't lost. This looks to me like saying the argument for not putting objectified women in games is lost, because there will always be at least one person that will do it.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2016 19:08

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Zachack posted:

Hence why I included "rendered irrelevant ", unless you're suggesting that arguing for 1860s slavery is a relevant argument (and even then it may still need to cost more than $5)

What does irrelevant mean here? Do you mean uncommon? "You shouldn't create DLC" is a very relevant argument to game design. Your use of need is also squirrelly, need to cost more than $5 to accomplish what? Things don't have intrinsic prices dictated by physics.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2016 21:45

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Zachack posted:

"I'm a sovereign citizen of spaceship earth " is an irrelevant argument when complaining about taxes because it shows an unwillingness to engage with even a modicum of contrary arguments and is rooted in fantasy.

"You shouldn't create DLC" doesn't have a contrary argument, it's a statement of preference, there's no facts to correct, no logic to refute.

quote:

Game development in 2016 does have intrinsic prices generated by food, shelter, and sleep requirements of humans, to say nothing of labor laws, utility costs, development equipment, etc, so either you need to engage with those largely currently immutable costs in your arguments or accept that your demand of charity/patronage development is likely irrelevant when discussing a game with high production values.

Again, what does irrelevant mean? It clearly doesn't mean "failed to engage with contrary arguments" in this paragraph. If it means "Likely to sway people in power to do what you want", then nothing anyone has said here has any relevancy. I also don't need to engage with cost concerns to state a preference. Like maybe it turns out no one is willing to do the thing I want, that's true of lots of things I want (essentially all things I want, since I already have the things people were willing to do), it doesn't mean I don't want those things, or that I'm somehow wrong or lost an argument because I wrote down a list of things I want.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2016 22:08

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > How do we/should we talk about video games?