It may be that I'm getting old, it may be that the Internet is a self-referential place that reinforces common knowledge and assumptions about how things work, but there is an increasingly long list of misconceptions, preconceptions and just plain lies that I hear over and over again, particularly about videogames.
I propose a list of those, and some discussion about whether or not I am right in finding that these are not true.
- Games are shorter now. I mean, shorter than what? Than when? I remember when games were one hour long, we'd pay full retail price and say "thank you, sir" when we were done. Monkey Island is two hours long, Sonic games were what? One hour? Go find some speedruns online and then tell me that five hours of single player campaign is not value for money.
- Long is good. Most players don't finish their games. Shorter games like Portal or Limbo prove that short games are a good thing, particularly if you have a big stack of unplayed or unfinished games, a wife, a dog, a job or something to do with your time other than grind the middle bits of yet another JRPG.
- Games are easier now. Yeah... no. Lucasarts games had no death. Lots of brawlers were very easy to finish on the allocated lives. And, let's not forget, games came with cheats on them. You could give yourself infinite lives and the like in most things you owned. I mean, sure, there were very hard games out there, too, but for every Megaman we have a Demon's Souls these days, or at least a difficulty mode that is really, really hard on an otherwise manageable game. Sure, games were harder to play because there was no room for tutorials and, frankly, they were just poorly designed on average, but harder by design? Not quite.
- Hard is good. I've always wondered where this comes from. I mean, it's not obvious, and there doesn't seem to be a reason for it. Surely just hard enough is better than really hard. And surely fun is better than hard. And surely not all games are a competition. And surely we have more experiences to provide than frustration and repetition through something as full of potential as videogames. Right?
- Console games are "dumbed down" when compared to PC games. And its corolaries "multiplatform versions of former PC exclusives suck" and "PC ports of console games suck". In reality, Steam and the standardization of the 360 controller (against Microsoft's best efforts. I mean, no default wireless support? Really?) have turned PCs into a decent living room gaming box and consoles these days provide deep, rich, clever experiences. Sure, PCs can cope with tons of tiny text in ways consoles can't, and they have keyboards with tons of buttons, not to mention the best pointing device out there, so they can host some games consoles can't pull off, but most gaming experiences port over beautifully, and not all games that only PCs can execute are intrinsically better games than their console counterparts.
- Keyboard and mouse beats controllers for FPSs. No they don't. They add an element of hardware to performance, while controllers are standardized. All they do is speed up the gameplay on a more or less level playing field. People saying this often argue that a mouse and keyboard setup will beat a player with a controller most of the time, at least without any aim assist. That may be true, but it's a moot point. That matchup rarely happens, and assuming all players are using either one or the other, what to use is down to preferring the faster, more twitchy pace of the mouse or the slower, more risk-reward pace of the controller. I do prefer controllers, myself, and I even play PC FPSs with them when I can (I'm always disappointed when controller support is not present on a PC game, and sometimes I buy the console version solely because of this).
So, can you think of more commonly accepted stuff you hear online that is just not true? Do you disagree with any of mine? Do you agree with any of mine?
Pet peeves and false assumptions about videogames.
I'm not sure I would call any of those misconceptions.
On hard.... Hard is good because of Challenge... i hate it when people complain about hard games not being fun... because fun is not about winning. Hard games, actual hard games, require you to allocate more focus or thought into your game which is cool and challenging.
Keyboard and mouse on FPS... well i'm pretty sure the main argument is not that about PC vs xbox match up, its that the mouse has a MUCH higher input threshold than the controller, which basically raises the skill cap quite significantly.
"People with opinions that differ from mine are wrong."
There, I just summed up your entire post for you.
You're so right. CoD certainly does not have a shorter campaign than Perfect Dark.
Yeah, having a game last me 50 hours sucks, especially when it costs $60.
Tons, like "if a series is staying the same, then it's getting worse" or...no, that's the big one.
Games ARE easier now. 20 years ago it was completely normal not to even finish a game. It wasn't even expected. That's why "beating a game" or "mastering a game" was considered an achievement.
There are lots of reasons as to why this is, but the biggest reason is that the expectation of what videogames ARE has changed in the past few decades, following the trends that make the most money. Games, nowadays, are trying to deliver a "cinematic experience" akin to movies. THis means that games need to have things like setpieces and pacing. It also means that players expect to see the game through to the end even if they aren't very good at it.
Games years ago were based on challenge and rulesets that provided challenge. There was, afterall, no whizbang effects to keep you interested and no promise of elaborate cutscenes for finishing. If you weren't entertained minute by minute, you wouldn't play the game.
The complete proof that games are easier now than they were is in hte fact that games were are re-released now usually contain EXTENSIVE "updates" to make the games easier. From blocks being added into Super Mario revisions to keep you from falling into pits, to frequent save spots in games like BIonic Commando.
Games like Zelda now feature enough health springing out of a defeated enemy to complete fill up Links life bar from zero to full. Many games don't even HAVE health bars, instead requiring you to just sit and wait to recharge your health. Some people consider this "innovation" but in reality it simply eliminates many of the gameplay systems that would be considered more cerebral. For instance, no having to find/buy health pickups means no longer having to manage an inventory or a game economy. These simulation-like management features were very common back in the day and a holdover from the industries beginnings in the world of RPGs and Strategy Games.
These Submarine and Flight Simulators, Sports Team Management games, and Role Playing games that the industry was built on are why the PC garnered a reputation for being a much smarter platform than it's console alternatives.
By the way, how old are you?
@RudeJohn said:
" @medacris said:Wait, what?" "All gamers are morbidly obese college dropouts. Or 12." Certainly some, but not all.I agree. There are many types of sub-humans. You've only mentioned two. :-) "
....
Eh, not really. For example, Fire Emblem has remained awesome, even when its genre went from ripping off Fire Emblem to ripping off Final Fantasy Tactics. If a game's good, then it's good; that's that.
Considering that I'm essentially several hundred years in the future, at least compared to Earth...
Also, centuries old literature is still good, and film buffs still get a boner watching Orson Welles not have sex with a mediocre singer, so...
I challenge you to go find me a 6 hour PSX game.
" @NoelVeiga: I going to be nice and say i disagree with you, but I think I'm going to have to be honest and just say your wrong. Games ARE easier now. 20 years ago it was completely normal not to even finish a game. It wasn't even expected. That's why "beating a game" or "mastering a game" was considered an achievement. There are lots of reasons as to why this is, but the biggest reason is that the expectation of what videogames ARE has changed in the past few decades, following the trends that make the most money. Games, nowadays, are trying to deliver a "cinematic experience" akin to movies. THis means that games need to have things like setpieces and pacing. It also means that players expect to see the game through to the end even if they aren't very good at it. Games years ago were based on challenge and rulesets that provided challenge. There was, afterall, no whizbang effects to keep you interested and no promise of elaborate cutscenes for finishing. If you weren't entertained minute by minute, you wouldn't play the game. The complete proof that games are easier now than they were is in hte fact that games were are re-released now usually contain EXTENSIVE "updates" to make the games easier. From blocks being added into Super Mario revisions to keep you from falling into pits, to frequent save spots in games like BIonic Commando. Games like Zelda now feature enough health springing out of a defeated enemy to complete fill up Links life bar from zero to full. Many games don't even HAVE health bars, instead requiring you to just sit and wait to recharge your health. Some people consider this "innovation" but in reality it simply eliminates many of the gameplay systems that would be considered more cerebral. For instance, no having to find/buy health pickups means no longer having to manage an inventory or a game economy. These simulation-like management features were very common back in the day and a holdover from the industries beginnings in the world of RPGs and Strategy Games. These Submarine and Flight Simulators, Sports Team Management games, and Role Playing games that the industry was built on are why the PC garnered a reputation for being a much smarter platform than it's console alternatives. By the way, how old are you? "
I can't help but laugh, games are not easier now. The only difference is 20 years ago you were probably a little kid. Fun fact: things seem easier in adulthood. Let's hop off this nostalgia train shall we?
Hi, I think you're looking for this thread :)
I'd say that literature has evolved quite a bit, since science fiction is only a few hundred years old, and novels are about 500. However, that doesn't really affect the argument in any way. Again, I'd say that if a series of games remains the same, then shouldn't the quality of that series somewhat depend on the quality of the first game that they're all copying? It's kinda hard (IE mathematically impossible) to deteriorate and remain exactly the same at the same time.
Old games were significantly harder because they were generally designed to be played over and over using split second reflexes and trial and error (especially the ones designed to take your coins).
The way games are designed to be played has changed, and that has made them generally easier, regardless of genre.
Hmm, an interesting spin on the argument, but I don't think it says anything about the overall quality of the game. After all, it seems by that logic, I'm right, since an old game will be just as good then as it was now.
But can't a game be fun on its own? For example, I love the shit out of Bahamut Lagoon, but this doesn't really depend on my opinions of other games; the game's just good on its own. True, scores are relative and shit, but I find it hard to accept that something can decrease in value because it's staying exactly the same. Shouldn't it stay around the same score as it was before? After all, people living in caves back then probably knew that caves kinda sucked, since there really wasn't any heating, privacy, or security to it.
I can't help but laugh, games are not easier now. The only difference is 20 years ago you were probably a little kid. Fun fact: things seem easier in adulthood. Let's hop off this nostalgia train shall we? "
I disagree with this wholeheartedly. When I do go back to play games I thought were difficult when I was younger, most of these are still very difficult. If this is just nostalgia, then these games should be much easier now that I'm older, right? Another thing is that when looking at some of the longer lasting gaming franchises I've played, the games tend to get progressively more difficult the further back in time I go. This occurs even if I start with a newer game in the series, then go backward. Now I don't know what sort of games you play, but the ones I play show a rather distinct pattern in this respect.
As for people knowing that caves sucked, no, they probably didn't. Far into the future, even the most luxurious of today's apartments and houses will probably seem horrible, and yet to us, they are amazing. Just as having no heating or security wasn't a big problem for the cavemen, yet is almost unthinkable to us, having no hot robot maids, indistinguishable from real women and ready and able to do whatever we require (preparing delicious food in a matter of seconds, giving us the most amazing massages et cetera), is not a big problem for us, but will probably be almost unthinkable to people in the far-flung future (presuming that's what they'll have in the far-flung future). I mean, maybe the cavemen fantasized about doors and central heating and shit, just as we fantasize about hot robot women, but that's the most it could've possibly been to them -- a silly daydream.
Ignoring the irrelevant second paragraph (I'm still of the opinion that cavemen dreamed of a day when tigers didn't invade their homes or some shit)...
First, let's stop talking about homes and shit. I feel like it'd kinda screw up the argument. Second, yes, I'm comparing them to other games, but once the score is set, shouldn't it be set for future games that remain the same? After all, if Mega Man X2 is the same as Mega Man X (I love a game that comes programmed with variables in it), then shouldn't Mega Man X2 hover around the same score as Mega Man X? Granted, opinions are subjective, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't treat them in objective ways. To me, it just seems off to say that a game is bad because it's exactly the same as a game you'll admit to loving.
" @JazGalaxy said:Again I have to ask the question, how old are you?I can't help but laugh, games are not easier now. The only difference is 20 years ago you were probably a little kid. Fun fact: things seem easier in adulthood. Let's hop off this nostalgia train shall we? "" @NoelVeiga: I going to be nice and say i disagree with you, but I think I'm going to have to be honest and just say your wrong. Games ARE easier now. 20 years ago it was completely normal not to even finish a game. It wasn't even expected. That's why "beating a game" or "mastering a game" was considered an achievement. There are lots of reasons as to why this is, but the biggest reason is that the expectation of what videogames ARE has changed in the past few decades, following the trends that make the most money. Games, nowadays, are trying to deliver a "cinematic experience" akin to movies. THis means that games need to have things like setpieces and pacing. It also means that players expect to see the game through to the end even if they aren't very good at it. Games years ago were based on challenge and rulesets that provided challenge. There was, afterall, no whizbang effects to keep you interested and no promise of elaborate cutscenes for finishing. If you weren't entertained minute by minute, you wouldn't play the game. The complete proof that games are easier now than they were is in hte fact that games were are re-released now usually contain EXTENSIVE "updates" to make the games easier. From blocks being added into Super Mario revisions to keep you from falling into pits, to frequent save spots in games like BIonic Commando. Games like Zelda now feature enough health springing out of a defeated enemy to complete fill up Links life bar from zero to full. Many games don't even HAVE health bars, instead requiring you to just sit and wait to recharge your health. Some people consider this "innovation" but in reality it simply eliminates many of the gameplay systems that would be considered more cerebral. For instance, no having to find/buy health pickups means no longer having to manage an inventory or a game economy. These simulation-like management features were very common back in the day and a holdover from the industries beginnings in the world of RPGs and Strategy Games. These Submarine and Flight Simulators, Sports Team Management games, and Role Playing games that the industry was built on are why the PC garnered a reputation for being a much smarter platform than it's console alternatives. By the way, how old are you? "
To even question that games are easier now than they were in the past seems like you must be young. Or mentally challenged. One or the other.
It certainly has nothing to do with nostalgia.
I think you're somehow equating the fact that older games are more difficult to the idea that older games are superior. Trust me, you can believe one without the other. It's like saying Louisina food is spicier than midwestern food. It's no value judgement, it's just a qualitative truism.
I love this thread :) Anyways a lot of people in this thread have good examples and opinions. Like "Games are easier now" one can go both ways. On one side games are easier because now you can make better game designs and make the game more crisp. On the other hand, it may seem like it's getting easier because we all get better at games, and the experience in the games we beat make newer games seem easier.
And another thing if the games is awesome, then it doesn't matter how long it is. Not every game should be long(or short). If limbo would have been another 3 or 4 hours longer, I think a lot a people would have said it dragged on too long...
" I love this thread :) Anyways a lot of people in this thread have good examples and opinions. Like "Games are easier now" one can go both ways. On one side games are easier because now you can make better game designs and make the game more crisp. On the other hand, it may seem like it's getting easier because we all get better at games, and the experience in the games we beat make newer games seem easier. And another thing if the games is awesome, then it doesn't matter how long it is. Not every game should be long(or short). If limbo would have been another 3 or 4 hours long, I think a lot a people would have said it dragged on too long... "well, again, I disagree with what you're saying.
I don't even think that this a thing that has multiple sides. As I've mentioned before and can do all night long, games are just emperically easier than they used to be. In New Super Mario Brothers, Mario has 3 hits to die instead of 2. In Zelda Link has quarter hearts instead of half hearts. In Hard Corps Rising, the characters take damage instead of having one hit kills. Almost every game on the shelf allows you to save after every level and usually many times in between. Heck, Nintendo has an option to play the game for you if you can't pass an obstacle. FPS games now let you just stand still in order to recover health instead of having to manage it. Final Fantasy allows you to spec your characters however you like and almost every single one of them is capable of both offensive and defensive capabilities.
These aren't "better game design" options, they were decisions that were made to keep gamers from losing because the focus of games has changed from challenge to "experience".
Games don't evolve, but trends in game design do. It's simply counter productive for gamers to lose when a developer is trying to sell a "cinematic experience". It kills the pacing, it kills the tension, it kills the atmosphere, it makes the gamer pay attention to all the stuff they're not supposed to be paying attention to. It's like the ride breaking down in the middle of space mountain.
I disagree with everything you just said, especially the mouse/Keyboard part.
But then again, I'm from a different era of gamers, to each his own I guess......
If that was the impression ha gave in the post, sure, but by starting off with the line "there is an increasingly long list of misconceptions, preconceptions and just plain lies" he is saying that "the things I am about to list are all wrong", however, many of those things are, in fact, opinions. It is not a misconception that a long game is a good game, that is simply an opinion. It is not a lie that hard is good in games, that's an opinion. Some of those things may fall into those categories, such as one could have a conversation about whether or not games are shorter or longer than they used to be. As one could argue that games in the past were longer, however, they were artificially long due to difficulty. However, saying that Sonic games were only an hour long? Maybe after you've played through the game however many times it takes you to do a speed run, but just picking it up for the first time? No." @Fontan said:
" @Badhands said:Or maybe he was just sharing his opinion and giving reasons for why he held it. You know, discussion? "" @FateOfNever said:Indeed. "" "People with opinions that differ from mine are wrong." There, I just summed up your entire post for you. "This "
While later in his post he actually half encourages people to discuss the topics, the problem is is that he started off by saying "these things are false". If he didn't believe that those with opinions different than his were wrong, then he should have started off by saying something along the lines of "I would like to discuss the merits of the following beliefs about video games", which also would have required him to retitle the thread. But no, the very first impression he gives is that "this is what I believe and to believe otherwise is to be wrong." Because even if he DOES believe that those things false, to state that any other opinion would be a lie is to say that you do not accept that people can have different opinions about these matters.
These aren't really misconceptions or false assumptions, these are issues of personal preference that you simply disagree with." - Long is good. Most players don't finish their games. Shorter games like Portal or Limbo prove that short games are a good thing, particularly if you have a big stack of unplayed or unfinished games, a wife, a dog, a job or something to do with your time other than grind the middle bits of yet another JRPG.
- Hard is good. I've always wondered where this comes from. I mean, it's not obvious, and there doesn't seem to be a reason for it. Surely just hard enough is better than really hard. And surely fun is better than hard. And surely not all games are a competition. And surely we have more experiences to provide than frustration and repetition through something as full of potential as videogames. Right?
- Keyboard and mouse beats controllers for FPSs. No they don't. They add an element of hardware to performance, while controllers are standardized. All they do is speed up the gameplay on a more or less level playing field. People saying this often argue that a mouse and keyboard setup will beat a player with a controller most of the time, at least without any aim assist. That may be true, but it's a moot point. That matchup rarely happens, and assuming all players are using either one or the other, what to use is down to preferring the faster, more twitchy pace of the mouse or the slower, more risk-reward pace of the controller. I do prefer controllers, myself, and I even play PC FPSs with them when I can (I'm always disappointed when controller support is not present on a PC game, and sometimes I buy the console version solely because of this).
" @CaptainCody said:" @JazGalaxy said:Again I have to ask the question, how old are you? To even question that games are easier now than they were in the past seems like you must be young. Or mentally challenged. One or the other. It certainly has nothing to do with nostalgia. I think you're somehow equating the fact that older games are more difficult to the idea that older games are superior. Trust me, you can believe one without the other. It's like saying Louisina food is spicier than midwestern food. It's no value judgement, it's just a qualitative truism. "I can't help but laugh, games are not easier now. The only difference is 20 years ago you were probably a little kid. Fun fact: things seem easier in adulthood. Let's hop off this nostalgia train shall we? "" @NoelVeiga: I going to be nice and say i disagree with you, but I think I'm going to have to be honest and just say your wrong. Games ARE easier now. 20 years ago it was completely normal not to even finish a game. It wasn't even expected. That's why "beating a game" or "mastering a game" was considered an achievement. There are lots of reasons as to why this is, but the biggest reason is that the expectation of what videogames ARE has changed in the past few decades, following the trends that make the most money. Games, nowadays, are trying to deliver a "cinematic experience" akin to movies. THis means that games need to have things like setpieces and pacing. It also means that players expect to see the game through to the end even if they aren't very good at it. Games years ago were based on challenge and rulesets that provided challenge. There was, afterall, no whizbang effects to keep you interested and no promise of elaborate cutscenes for finishing. If you weren't entertained minute by minute, you wouldn't play the game. The complete proof that games are easier now than they were is in hte fact that games were are re-released now usually contain EXTENSIVE "updates" to make the games easier. From blocks being added into Super Mario revisions to keep you from falling into pits, to frequent save spots in games like BIonic Commando. Games like Zelda now feature enough health springing out of a defeated enemy to complete fill up Links life bar from zero to full. Many games don't even HAVE health bars, instead requiring you to just sit and wait to recharge your health. Some people consider this "innovation" but in reality it simply eliminates many of the gameplay systems that would be considered more cerebral. For instance, no having to find/buy health pickups means no longer having to manage an inventory or a game economy. These simulation-like management features were very common back in the day and a holdover from the industries beginnings in the world of RPGs and Strategy Games. These Submarine and Flight Simulators, Sports Team Management games, and Role Playing games that the industry was built on are why the PC garnered a reputation for being a much smarter platform than it's console alternatives. By the way, how old are you? "
Maybe you're just bad at videogames? Also, yes, It has A LOT to do with nostalgia. Don't be that nearsighted, and if you're going to debate arcade cabinets being difficult when their sole purpose is to get as much money as possible from you, you're a grand idiot. Lastly, stop trying to scapegoat my point.
Hey, nice discussion going here. I like it. Thanks for being assertive but respectful and disagreeing politely, guys.
OK, I can't answer to everything everybody said, so let me just quickly address the common things people are saying.
"These things are just opinions you have".
Well, sure, but then that's true of everything you think is true or false. I mean, whether or not women and men should be equal is a matter of opinion, but that doesn't mean both opinions are equally right. I was going for opinions that the Internet assumes as known facts that are indisputable but aren't really based on fact.
"Games WERE harder, WTF are you talking about"
Ok, that's the one that got to most people, so let me clarify what I'm saying here.
Games were certainly harder to *play* more often than not, but they weren't designed to be harder to provide a higher level of challenge. Yes, we were kids and that made Buster's Hidden Treasure and Aladdin feel much harder than they really are (I bring them up because I played both recently on a nostalgic binge and... yeah, those games aren't difficult at all), and not every game was Contra or Megaman, but that's not the core of my argument here.
What I'm saying is that there was never a concerted effort to make games challenge the player with unparalleled difficulty and there isn't an effort to make games stupidly easy. In fact, people with nostalgic views about this that think games were harder and more willingly challenging before have gone out and made games that are ridiculously hard like Super Meat Boy or Demon's Souls... and then proceeded to not put in all the coping mechanisms of old games, like cheats and easy early stages.
A misconception is that all old games were harder, which is just not true. A misconception is that all games were harder on purpose, which is not true, many were just poorly designed or trying to hide a shamefully low amount of content. A misconception is that modern games are easier, which is not true, they are just more accessible, which is a different thing. A misconception is that modern hard games are channelling old games, which is not true, they are producing difficulty in different ways with different coping mechanisms and paths to improve, most of the time (Megaman 9 and 10 are exceptions to this, of course).
On this, there is one thing I want to address directly:
@JazGalaxy said:
Those are all in fact game design decisions driven by how each successive game has changed. New SMB is actually a very hard game, with more going on and more opportunities to make a mistake than in World, let alone the first SMB, for instance. There can be multiple players onscreen, Koopas sometimes stop to dance and throw off your timing, you can now triple jump and backflip and do all sorts of new things that are required to make it past the stages. In many games, the added complexity ends up requiring more room for any one of them to go wrong and players still being able to make it to the end of the stage.well, again, I disagree with what you're saying. I don't even think that this a thing that has multiple sides. As I've mentioned before and can do all night long, games are just emperically easier than they used to be. In New Super Mario Brothers, Mario has 3 hits to die instead of 2. In Zelda Link has quarter hearts instead of half hearts. In Hard Corps Rising, the characters take damage instead of having one hit kills. Almost every game on the shelf allows you to save after every level and usually many times in between. Heck, Nintendo has an option to play the game for you if you can't pass an obstacle. FPS games now let you just stand still in order to recover health instead of having to manage it. Final Fantasy allows you to spec your characters however you like and almost every single one of them is capable of both offensive and defensive capabilities. These aren't "better game design" options, they were decisions that were made to keep gamers from losing because the focus of games has changed from challenge to "experience".
It's different with rebounding health in FPSs. Health management was a bad design choice. It didn't let designers know how hard the encounters they were designing were going to be, because they never could know if the player was going into the fight with 100 health or 10, so they couldn't design the challenge to fit the situation. Is this fight going to be harder or easier than the next? Who knows, it depends on how much health they have! All they could do to control this is drop a bunch of medikits before a hard section to make sure you went in at full health, but that kills the suspense, because we all know that when you get tons of health something big is going to happen. Rebounding shields let designers control the pace of a game and design better situations more accurately. FPSs are not easier. I'm replaying Doom now and with modern FPS controls on a 360 that game is actually surprisingly easy. You can dodge enemy bullets. I mean, literally walk around them. You don't need to reload, so it's easy to just keep shooting at people with no tactics in mind. I'm playing on the second hardest level there and let me tell you, I'm dying less than on Halo on veteran. And I have save slots whenever I want, so I can do my own checkpoints whenever I want.
@JazGalaxy said:
Games don't evolve, but trends in game design do. It's simply counter productive for gamers to lose when a developer is trying to sell a "cinematic experience". It kills the pacing, it kills the tension, it kills the atmosphere, it makes the gamer pay attention to all the stuff they're not supposed to be paying attention to. It's like the ride breaking down in the middle of space mountain. "That was also true back then. Games that were trying to sell a cinematic experience usually managed failure differently. In adventure games you often couldn't die, just get stuck. PC games would let you save at any point just by tapping a "quicksave" key, so in things like Half Life when you died you could reappear wherever you wanted and retry right away to keep the game going. The techniques designers that want an immersive experience that isn't too challenging use have changed sometimes, but that doesn't mean games have gotten easier as a general trend or that there weren't coping mechanisms provided for gamers in older design patterns.
" "People with opinions that differ from mine are wrong." There, I just summed up your entire post for you. "this is obviously the worst post
Not to go too far off the rails of this thread or anything, but for me I think the worst thing about these false assumptions is the people I've seen make them rather than the assumptions themselves. I work in academia (psychology) and it's quite frankly pretty insane the ridiculous generalizations I hear about games from people who are otherwise just uncompromisingly brilliant researchers. Statements like "oh all video games are about killing" or "Grand Theft Auto lets you rape people" are absurd, but I guess it's not too shocking to hear it from people like my grandma. But to hear it from people that that have PhDs in psychology, have won several awards, are pioneers in their respective fields, and seem almost impossibly knowledgeable about basically every other subject is....a bit discouraging, to say the least. I guess it just goes to show how out of touch people can be if they didn't actually grow up around games, no matter how brilliant they might otherwise seem. I suppose it's like that with anything, and it all goes back to that old "I guess we just need to wait for people who grew up with games to be in charge for them to really get a fair shake" thing, but at least that reality isn't too far off now.
For what it's worth, I'm already seeing this with a lot of the younger researchers, so hopefully we'll see less and less of these misconceptions everywhere as time goes on.
Deeebaaaateeeeeees.
I read everything, and all I could think is ''Why are they doing this when they could be playing said games?''
" Not to go too far off the rails of this thread or anything, but for me I think the worst thing about these false assumptions is the people I've seen make them rather than the assumptions themselves. I work in academia (psychology) and it's quite frankly pretty insane the ridiculous generalizations I hear about games from people who are otherwise just uncompromisingly brilliant researchers. Statements like "oh all video games are about killing" or "Grand Theft Auto lets you rape people" are absurd, but I guess it's not too shocking to hear it from people like my grandma. But to hear it from people that that have PhDs in psychology, have won several awards, are pioneers in their respective fields, and seem almost impossibly knowledgeable about basically every other subject is....a bit discouraging, to say the least. I guess it just goes to show how out of touch people can be if they didn't actually grow up around games, no matter how brilliant they might otherwise seem. I suppose it's like that with anything, and it all goes back to that old "I guess we just need to wait for people who grew up with games to be in charge for them to really get a fair shake" thing, but at least that reality isn't too far off now. For what it's worth, I'm already seeing this with a lot of the younger researchers, so hopefully we'll see less and less of these misconceptions everywhere as time goes on. "Great point, great new perspective.
There's a bunch of new researchers (some of them way older than you may assume) that are actually starting to dip their toes into the field in the areas that are really interesting about videogames, but too much of the research money is still coming towards "does videogame violence harm children" stuff and ending up in researchers that don't understand the field they are studying. It does seem a waste (especially when it's done with taxpayer money) when the edgy new people are looking at using game design concept to make people follow basic rules, help them get better at stuff or just make better games and, in turn, improve the quality of an art form and culture in general.
" film buffs still get a boner watching Orson Welles not have sex with a mediocre singer, so... "Orson Welles at his worst is better than experiencing a video game at its best.
Great way to insult the film industry, William Randolph Hearst.
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