Graphics/physics are SO impressive these days.
Those are really exciting.
It is a pity that otherwise many games suck, especially those by so called triple-A developers.
That’s what makes me look at gaming pessimistically. The “enshittification” as Cory Doctorow calls it.
That is an amazing tool! The toys dragging stuff through two shades of beach sand was worth a repeat watch. It’s like every moist grain was modeled.
But I don’t totally agree about games @Aginor. Games like Skald will always have appeal. And gamers like us who appreciate a well-written game over a boardroom-refined one will always be able to find a developer who wants to make a mark with something different. So long as players love to play what creators love to make, all is well.
Those are exactly the games I want to play. The expensive AAA games all have great graphics but suck, and many many small games (some with retro graphics, some with just outdated tech, some both) are SO much better in many other regards. Except in scope, they are often small games.
When the large business side takes over, art and storytelling usually loses.
…but yes, I might be overly pessimistic. There are some good games out there.
As soon as they spend big money on the appearance, it becomes an imperative to appeal to a broad base of gamers to ensure sufficient sales.
It is common sense that it is very difficult to make anything appeal to a wide range of people.
To try preventing “alienating” casual gamers, they will dumb gameplay down to be less cerebral and more reflex-based so that the largest audience, the teens-to-college crowd, is comfortable with it.
What you get is the most beautiful games playing with no more depth than an Atari 2600 cartridge and the most innovative, thought-provoking ones making do with 1% of that budget if they’re lucky.
I’m not including Japanese games as they are just out there to me and I’m not sure how their appeal or anything works. I got Death Stranding free on Epic Store (as I never would have bought it) and played it for maybe 2-3 hours. Then I quit because it was just so odd. Not the story or appearance. The actors were good, it was all high production value. I just couldn’t come to grips with the idea of a “walking simulator” where you’re concerned with balancing stuff on your back. On top of that, for a game set in the US it felt very foreign and surreal.
I’d rather watch a film/TV series of Death Stranding than play it.
I also got GTA5 for free there, and likewise tried playing that. Same deal…2-3 hours and I quit. While in some ways it reminded me of Just Cause, a series I’ve played and love, it just didn’t click with me. Part of it is I dislike playing as a criminal. Part of it is I dislike stories like Breaking Bad, or Scarface, or Ozark, or any of those that revolve around crime. I don’t even like CSI, or NCIS, or any of those cop or legal dramas.
I’ve started playing Red Dead Redemption 2 and I hope it’s not just Wild West GTA. It’s working a bit better for me so far, but I’m only 2 hours in. I really want to like it as if it’s a Wild West Fallout or Just Cause, but I’m not sure.
Wow. I Googled it (actually Duck-Duck-goed it < needs a shorter name) and found the link below. I’m not smart enough to come up with a new word for it - but now I have one!
Uses FB as an example. When FB came out I told my wife, in short, 'this [social media thing] is going to be a mess…etc, etc". That was 2010-ish. She, being a woman, rolled her eyes.
Our HOA (a mess engineered by, well, those who make a living on people suing each other) had a meeting a few years ago. I motioned for the complete and total destruction of the FB page (guess why?). Every. Single. Man. was with me. The women? They nodded in agreement but, politely, told me I was ‘full of it’. Telling.
The last Fallout I played was 2, so can’t answer the last question. If you play through about the first 2 chapters you have access to most of the game mechanics. You can go hunt, finish, trade, etc. Sure you’re leaving the store behind (which you are an outlaw, make no mistake about it), but with the fairly open world you can ignore that if you want. Which is what I have done, and why I haven’t even gotten close to finishing it.
I usually don’t read the FT, but that is a great article, by the man himself, summing up a lot of good points.
Doctorow’s blog (pluralistic.net) is full of other examples. A few months back he had an article about the enshittification of cars, for example.
But be careful, for some people if they see/hear that you are reading that blog or linking it means that you are a communist.
Yeah, I picked up on that towards the end; I lived through some of it. People should listen to contrarian points though. But that’s hard and seems to go against human nature.
People should listen to contrarian points, if only to understand why they disagree with them, and should also avoid labelling things inaccurately and pejoratively… but yes - hard and against human nature!
Yes, I have never understood the “refuse to listen to things you don’t believe” mentality.
It’s almost like they are afraid their opinion will be swayed and they’re not going to allow themselves to be in that position.
I’m speaking in particular of when some blowhard is trying to tell you why YOU are wrong, and starts listing a bunch of “facts”, which are actually their opinions (or the opinions of others they merely parrot back because they like them even if they have nothing to support it).
When you start pointing out their mistakes, they will first tell you those are lies, then they will try to label you as a way to discredit what you’re saying, and then walk away because you didn’t buy what they were selling all the while using that label like it’s an insult, regardless of whether it is or not–but it’s obvious THEY think it is.
Beside the fact that this is moving way more off-topic that necessary, you say “in particular” and then proceed to lay down the most generic thing possible that- honestly- makes you look like (not saying you are) a Conspiracy theorist that can’t convince other people.
This type of topic is good for a pub, not this specific thread. Feel free to write to whoever you think is interested in this specific discussion via DMs, thanks.
I am totally confused.
It must be a language barrier thing because what I am typing and what you seem to be reading are two totally different things.
In fact, the person arguing with me was the conspiracy theorist. You know, where Soros the Jewish Nazi is the only rich person out there with evil intentions paying people to protest and all that because I guess no one could possibly be in support of whatever it was without getting money for it?
When I pointed out Soros was a young teenager during that time who was 14 when Germany lost the war, they got angry, insisting he was a Nazi collaborator. It devolved from there until they walked away calling me a “liberal” (in fact shouting it a few times like it was a 4 letter word) for not buying that narrative when I’m the most centrist person I know.
So great job on calling me the person who attacked me.