230 réponses à ce sujet

[Jorji Costava]

"I think we're in urgent need of games which aren't fun"

 

https://archive.today/LwTvG

 

If by "fun" you just mean a catch-all term for anything that's good, then of course it's trivial that every game should be fun. But if fun means something more like "diverting" or "brings about pleasant and positive mental states in the player," then I actually agree that not every game needs to be fun. The best movie I saw last year was Joshua Oppenheimer's The Act of Killing. The film is not 'entertaining' in any conventional sense at all; in fact, it's pretty depressing. So if we're not going to insist that every movie must be entertaining, why insist that every game must be fun?

[In Exile]

If by "fun" you just mean a catch-all term for anything that's good, then of course it's trivial that every game should be fun. But if fun means something more like "diverting" or "brings about pleasant and positive mental states in the player," then I actually agree that not every game needs to be fun. The best movie I saw last year was Joshua Oppenheimer's The Act of Killing. The film is not 'entertaining' in any conventional sense at all; in fact, it's pretty depressing. So if we're not going to insist that every movie must be entertaining, why insist that every game must be fun?

I think we're a long way away from games where e.g. the clunkiness of the control scheme is some arsty metaphor for the human condition.

[Bod02]

If by "fun" you just mean a catch-all term for anything that's good, then of course it's trivial that every game should be fun. But if fun means something more like "diverting" or "brings about pleasant and positive mental states in the player," then I actually agree that not every game needs to be fun. The best movie I saw last year was Joshua Oppenheimer's The Act of Killing. The film is not 'entertaining' in any conventional sense at all; in fact, it's pretty depressing. So if we're not going to insist that every movie must be entertaining, why insist that every game must be fun?

Yea. I watch movies to cry. Haven't really found a game that can make me outright do that though.

 

Having said that I don't think anger is an emotion anyone intentionally seeks to experience in any activity, yet gaming is one of few hobbies that can routinely make people angry. Swearing at the screen is a universal phenomenon. The only other activity I can think of where you can expect to get angry is... sports.

[Seraphim24]

Yea. I watch movies to cry. Haven't really found a game that can might me outright do that though.

 

Eh I've found dozens of games that can get to me, personally.

[Kaiser Arian XVII]

Only several movies have made me cry and I have watched hundreds of movies.

 

Eh I've found dozens of games that can get to me, personally.

 

Oh you softie...

[Bod02]

Eh I've found dozens of games that can get to me, personally.

 

Oh I didn't mean they didn't get to me. Alistair, The Walking Dead, and Legion made me come close to it off the top of my head. But burst out in tears? Not yet

[Seraphim24]

Oh I didn't mean they didn't get to me. Alistair, The Walking Dead, and Legion made me come close to it off the top of my head. But burst out in tears? Not yet

 

Ok, but I also mean even things that aren't necessarily "movie like." I remember playing Super Mario Galaxy and thinking something like... this must be what it was like to experience a Disney movie in the 30s. It wasn't like this or that character necessarily, but just jumping from square to square, with the music and everything. Very intense.

[Cainhurst Crow]

If by "fun" you just mean a catch-all term for anything that's good, then of course it's trivial that every game should be fun. But if fun means something more like "diverting" or "brings about pleasant and positive mental states in the player," then I actually agree that not every game needs to be fun. The best movie I saw last year was Joshua Oppenheimer's The Act of Killing. The film is not 'entertaining' in any conventional sense at all; in fact, it's pretty depressing. So if we're not going to insist that every movie must be entertaining, why insist that every game must be fun?

 

We're not talking about movies, where you passively sit and observe projected and railroaded images and sounds. We're talking about games, where you actively need to participate in order to advance the images and sounds forward.
 

Think of it like a book. You need to turn the pages in order to advance events written about within the pages. Now imagine buying a book to read, opening up the book, and immediately being told that you must read the book from the bottom of the page to the top, and skip every even numbered page. And if you didn't, you wouldn't be able to turn any more pages and would need to flip the book back to the prologue and start again.

 

Now take that already frustrating book, and apply the standard of "Less Fun" to it. Does that sound like an experience you want? An experience of jumping through hoops, now being given a twist by someone who actively wants you to not enjoy going through this process?

 

And as an added bonus, when you raise questions about this book or its content, you get insults thrown at you by the creator and many other fans before your address is published onto the web so people can feel like they're avenging the great social injustice you did upon all women and minorities for daring to disagree with this white mans vision.

 

Yeah. Sounds great. Where do I sign up for that purgatory before death?

[Melra]

I tried playing The Walking Dead, it made me sad and from that day forth I realized it was better to be raging, monitor beating wacko than a sad nerd.

[Seraphim24]

Yea. I watch movies to cry. Haven't really found a game that can make me outright do that though.

 

Having said that I don't think anger is an emotion anyone intentionally seeks to experience in any activity, yet gaming is one of few hobbies that can routinely make people angry. Swearing at the screen is a universal phenomenon. The only other activity I can think of where you can expect to get angry is... sports.

 

Ha! If only, I think gaming is one of the few areas where it's just more accepted to have some kind of rage here and there. that doesn't mean stamp collectors probably didn't have their furious moments back in the day, but it was probably all in a passive form. 

 

I wonder if "rage' is really the right term. Just feeling energetic and wanting to disperse energy.

 

Well now that just sounds sexual to me. Ah whatev.

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

I tried playing The Walking Dead, it made me sad and from that day forth I realized it was better to be raging, monitor beating wacko than a sad nerd.

 

[Melra]

As we can see, tears clearly hinder your ability to "no-scope" scrubs.

[Cainhurst Crow]

I think it comes simply from the fact that games have gameplay to contend with, and when gameplay becomes difficult for a person to do, they feel they are being personally impeded or obstructed from doing something by either their own inadequacy or some outside force applying itself to hinder them.

 

It's basically frustration at, and a fear of, failure. Whether it be from self-blame or blaming anything but yourself, it tends to lead to frustration, exasperation, and eventually pure and simple burnout.

 

After all, it isn't as if board games or card games don't also draw out the rage within a person. How many have rage/despair quit from monopoly?

[Lotion Soronarr]

Do you even 360 no scope you n00bs?

YOLO

I fart in yr general direction.

I r L33t

gr8 b8 m8, why u no quit?

[Seraphim24]

After all, it isn't as if board games or card games don't also draw out the rage within a person. How many have rage/despair quit from monopoly?

 

I've experienced some seriously intense monopoly games, so yeah, I still wouldn't say that's games in particular.

 

Just about any hobby/fan/activity has this kind of thing going on... it's just whether you are aware of it or not.

[Bod02]

Ha! If only, I think gaming is one of the few areas where it's just more accepted to have some kind of rage here and there. that doesn't mean stamp collectors probably didn't have their furious moments back in the day, but it was probably all in a passive form. 

 

I wonder if "rage' is really the right term. Just feeling energetic and wanting to disperse energy.

 

Well now that just sounds sexual to me. Ah whatev.

I doubt it, stamp collecting is probably one of the least interactive things I can think of.

 

Then there's also the competion in multiplayer. As a very competitive person I do tend to get slighted whenever someonde does something to me I consider "underhanded"

 

[Nattfare]

Who is the person behind you?

It's his date for the evening.

[TheBunz]

Bunsy. Why are you sucking in your stomach?

Because I'm trying to hide the beer gut.

[mybudgee]

Bunsy.  Why are you sucking in your stomach? 

It's a ruse

[Jorji Costava]

Does that sound like an experience you want? An experience of jumping through hoops, now being given a twist by someone who actively wants you to not enjoy going through this process?

This whole argument seems to be based on a false dichotomy that games can only be either fun or frustrating. This is not the case. A game can fail to be 'fun' in any conventional sense for a variety of reasons: It might fail to be fun because it's depressing as hell, or because it requires you to make a fair amount of gut-wrenching moral decisions (Was shooting Mordin on Tuchanka fun? Would it be a good idea for the developers to have tried to make this sequence more fun?). A game might not be fun because the very act of playing it makes you feel complicit in something bad (i.e. Spec Ops, Hotline Miami, etc.).
 
The point of these examples is that we're not faced with this alternative of either making games 'fun' (honestly, I think this word deserves scare quotes given how vacuous it actually is) on the one hand, or making them frustrating, mechanically broken pieces of crap on the other. Sure, you can argue that games that have attempted this sort of thing haven't succeeded particularly well (in fact, I'd make this exact argument about Spec Ops), but I hardly see that as a good reason to never try again.
 

And as an added bonus, when you raise questions about this book or its content, you get insults thrown at you by the creator and many other fans before your address is published onto the web so people can feel like they're avenging the great social injustice you did upon all women and minorities for daring to disagree with this white mans vision.

Honestly, I have no idea what this has to do with anything I said, so I'll just leave it.

[Cainhurst Crow]

This whole argument seems to be based on a false dichotomy that games can only be either fun or frustrating. This is not the case. A game can fail to be 'fun' in any conventional sense for a variety of reasons: It might fail to be fun because it's depressing as hell, or because it requires you to make a fair amount of gut-wrenching moral decisions (Was shooting Mordin on Tuchanka fun? Would it be a good idea for the developers to have tried to make this sequence more fun?). A game might not be fun because the very act of playing it makes you feel complicit in something bad (i.e. Spec Ops, Hotline Miami, etc.).
 
The point of these examples is that we're not faced with this alternative of either making games 'fun' (honestly, I think this word deserves scare quotes given how vacuous it actually is) on the one hand, or making them frustrating, mechanically broken pieces of crap on the other. Sure, you can argue that games that have attempted this sort of thing haven't succeeded particularly well (in fact, I'd make this exact argument about Spec Ops), but I hardly see that as a good reason to never try again.
 

Honestly, I have no idea what this has to do with anything I said, so I'll just leave it.in

 

Your assumption relies on the definition of fun being purely traditional or conventional. People can have fun even with the sad, shocking,  or provocative games or events in games from experiencing those intense emotions and in the after math of those events. Essentially drawing enjoyment out of the experience and thus having fun.

 

No fun though? That just plain sucks. It comes from a lack of engagement,  from the audience deriving nothing meaningful in the content presented. Basically what you advocate, , k owingly or otherwise, is to bore an audience and call it intellectual,  instead of making games that foster intelligent thought or challenging ideas, thus allowing people to derive fun from the memorable experience. 

[Seraphim24]

I doubt it, stamp collecting is probably one of the least interactive things I can think of.

 

Then there's also the competion in multiplayer. As a very competitive person I do tend to get slighted whenever someonde does something to me I consider "underhanded"

 

I bet it existed, it was just not considered as appropriate to have it out when some guy in Kansas bought the last Sacajawea Idaho isssued whatever.

 

There's nothing interactive about classical music, but you can find snobs who are all period instruments are terrible or Mozart is the greatest of all time and anyone who likes Beethoven has no understanding or appreciation blah blah blah....

 

I think the video game innovation is just to kind say hey we'll since we're all about comparing everything to everything lets just do it in a more literal way.

[Jorji Costava]

Your assumption relies on the definition of fun being purely traditional or conventional. People can have fun even with the sad, shocking,  or provocative games or events in games from experiencing those intense emotions and in the after math of those events. Essentially drawing enjoyment out of the experience and thus having fun.

 

No fun though? That just plain sucks. It comes from a lack of engagement,  from the audience deriving nothing meaningful in the content presented. Basically what you advocate, , k owingly or otherwise, is to bore an audience and call it intellectual,  instead of making games that foster intelligent thought or challenging ideas, thus allowing people to derive fun from the memorable experience. 

 

Well, if you simply define 'fun' as anything that's compelling or engaging at any level, then of course it's trivial that games ought to be fun. But this is a little bit like the move that guys like Sam Harris and Lawrence Krauss make when they say you can derive your morality from science; it turns out that what they mean by 'science' is any kind of secular reasoning whatsoever, so their conclusion becomes much less interesting than it originally seems.

 

Leaving that aside, my view is that just as we can understand the idea of a movie that's compelling without necessarily being 'entertaining,' we can understand the idea of a game that's compelling or engaging without necessarily being 'fun.' If we can't even say that, then the concept of 'fun' is entirely vacuous, as I argued above. But if we can say that a game can be engaging or powerful without being fun, then of course there's plenty of space for games that aren't fun.

 

I seriously doubt we're going to change each other's minds about this; I've made my view as clear as I can make it and I've said what I think needs to be said, so I'm just going to leave things there.

[Kaiser Arian XVII]

gr8 b8 m8

 

must be said in Cockney accent.

[Dermain]

Actually, this was the picture I grabbed the tweet from:

 

 

Both are entirely true.

 

Playing violent video games has a positive correlation with increasing violent thoughts/behaviors, but those thoughts/behaviors do not necessarily mean tht a violent crime is being committed. It is also worth noting that there are numerous mediums ranging from books, television/movies, and life situations that accomplish the same thing.

 

However, we'll never be able to show that there is a causal relationship between any of those (curse you ethics *shakes fist*). Unfortunately, this isn't going to stop a radio personality/star/politician etc. from claiming that there is, or on the other side claiming that since there is no causal evidence that the correlations are completely meaningless.

 

Of course, the other problem with a correlation is showing that outside factors are not influencing the results. If there appears to be a correlation between factor X and Y but it's actually caused by factor Z then X and Y may not then it would be more beneficial to see how factor Z is affecting it.

 

Lol, yet it's one of the reasons I hate DA 2. 

 

McIntosh goes far beyond Thompson to be honest.

 

 

And here is an example of him not knowing what he's talking about.

 

Here he's linking X (control) with Y (video games) and Z (patriarchy) when it's not that simple. Many things require control, and it isn't tied specifically to X, Y, or Z. Is control important to video game mechanics? Of course it is! It's important in the same way that control is related to being able to drive a car correctly.

 

So he is right, it is not a coincidence that control and video games are linked, but it's not because of the patriarchy...