That’s Gamera you fool!
Zoe Quin is not a 400 foot flying turtle.
Says who? A bunch of chauvinistic rubber suits who don’t want anyone to invade their precious hobby of being 400 foot kaiju?
nm
And now “actually it’s about ethics” has become a punch line.
I think GamerGate is done. Hopefully the harassment will wind down as people get bored and move on to some other anti-social behavior.
I’d like to think so too, and it may be so that less horrible creeps will quit, now that the pretended justifications have been debunked repeatedly.
I’m pessimistic about the greater horrible creeps, though. They’ve seen that making threats to women in the games industry and gaming journalism can lead to national news. So far, none of the trolls, as far as I know, anyway, have been so much as identified, let alone charged with a crime. Slate has an article about how making threats online carries a light penalty, thus has a low priority with law enforcement.
…this is just a random comment picked off a “pro-gamergate” board just a couple of minutes ago:
I think we are over the worst of it, but I don’t think gamergate is going away. This isn’t just a group of trolls. This is a group that believes in 9/11 style conspiracy nonsense that are being led by a small group of trolls. The current conspiracy-du-jour is that video game reviews need to be objective: and the definition of objective is “not including social commentary.” Many actually believe that gaming review scores that are lowered based on “social commentary” unfairly lower the metascore of a game: and this hurts the game developer and this is bad. The thinking is so warped that they can’t fathom that giving a game a favourable review so that the game developer doesn’t loose money is very bad journalism and precisely the thing they are allegedly fighting against.
Truthers are still around. And sadly I don’t think we have seen the last of gamergate.
Probably not the place for this discussion, but…
Name a good game that isn’t fun.
There are MMOs and other grindfests that trap players in elaborate Skinner boxes. Whether they’re having fun is debatable.
Horror games are fun. People love to be scared and pay big bucks for it, whether it’s horror movies or amusement park rides which are essentially safe death simulators. Anything to shake people out of their mundane lives. I’d say Amnesia is a fun game.
There are bad games that people finish just because they want to see the story. This is especially prevalent in JRPGs because their mechanics tend to be boring and clunky. The worst of them are basically interactive movies, barely constituting a game at all. Though some people like turn based battles, bless their souls. There’s not much point in even buying a “game” like The Walking Dead, just watch a Let’s Play.
I think one of the worst things to happen to games was the focus on story. Now games are anchored down with cutscenes, rambling dialogue, and level design tethered to narrative elements. A whole new generation is obsessed with proving to the wider culture their nerdy hobby is “art.” We’ve long ago crossed the point where people actually dislike a game because of the story or the ending. Fuck that noise. A video game story should be a scaffold to hang the setting on. Video games are* terrible* at telling stories.
Still around? Sure. Have any actual influence on anything important? not so much.
I mean, I know Truthers exist, but I never encounter them. I bet Sarkesian and Quinn would love to say the same thing about #Gamergate.
Except the games that are good at telling stories. I wouldn’t have played Spec Ops: The Line if it wasn’t for doing something new with the story. Arkham Asylum had some very effective storytelling with the Scarecrow parts. Red Dead Redemption was pretty powerful in places, ludonarrative dissonance notwithstanding. I haven’t played the Telltale Walking Dead games but I’ve heard that they are very good because they’re also games, forcing you to make decisions and then living with them in a way that watching somebody make those decisions for you wouldn’t get across. I doubt it’s because designers are trying to prove anything to anyone - they’re just exploring the opportunities an interactive medium affords them. Games are art, and the discussion about what constitutes art is pointless as it often devolves into “I like art, I don’t like this, therefore it isn’t art”.
Story is like mechanics - some games have good ones, some games have bad ones. Just because there are some games with bad stories doesn’t take away from the fact that there are still games that I wager you will find fun, the same way that the focus on modern military shooters in past years hasn’t stopped me being able to find games that I find fun.
Spec Ops: The Line.
Or, if you want to call that “fun” despite several of the missions making me feel physically ill, then name me a good movie that isn’t fun by the same criteria. Because I think you’re missing the thrust of the argument because of your definition of fun.
The primary engagement of horror games, just like with horror films, is very explicitly not fun. Oh, you’ll enjoy it, but it won’t be because it’s “fun”. The fun comes afterwards - the catharsis in knowing you were engaged in a fantasy. But the experience is not “fun” during the experience. It’s not trying to engage you on “fun”.
Are you shitting me? To reach to my favorite example yet again, if Spec Ops were a movie, it wouldn’t be nearly as engaging or powerful. Sure, it’d still be a nice engagement of PTSD and the dehumanization of war in our fantasies, but Spec Ops gives us something more: agency. The point and message involved hit us that much harder because we did this, and it makes the part where the protagonist (and by relation, we, the player) loses agency all the more powerful. We’re not watching an actor, we are the actor. Our decisions in the game matter. It doesn’t hurt that the final scene is an indictment of the genre in its entirety, basically saying “you’re a terrible person for enjoying this”. A movie couldn’t pull that off anywhere near as well. They could do it, it just wouldn’t hit anywhere near as hard as the sucker punch that it is as a game.
Games have incredible power as a storytelling medium precisely because of player agency. Spec Ops, The Walking Dead, Half Life… These could all be decent movies. But they make for better games. But putting the player in the driver’s seat, even if it’s not all in his hands, makes the player far more invested in the story, and offers far more opportunities to display a vibrant, living world (for an example of this even in a very linear game, think of Bioshock - a movie couldn’t spend as much time characterizing Rapture, but as a game it gives us the freedom to spend as much time as we want delving into the atmosphere and history of the world around us). The fact that some people bitch about a game’s story doesn’t mean “Games shouldn’t tell stories”, it means “Writing stories for games is hard and we really need to get better at it”. Because when you examine some of the games built around their story and their world, you can name not just some of the greatest games of the 21st century, but some of the greatest storytelling experiences of the 21st century. The Walking Dead. Spec Ops. Bioshock. Bioshock Infinite. Papers, Please (seriously - the gameplay in this game sucks, but the environment and the story makes literally sorting paperwork in a shed incredibly engaging). Half Life. Half Life 2. Portal. Portal 2. Bastion. Cave Story. Psychonauts. I could probably keep going, but I think I’ve made the point.
I had fun playing Spec Ops. That’s not to discredit its greater goal but, if it wasn’t at least a competent and mildly entertaining cover shooter, then no one would have gotten deep enough in to start realizing that there was anything more to it.
See, I didn’t get nearly that much from it. I thought it was a great dark satire of the genre and the story (while obviously not original) was well told but I never felt personally conflicted about my actions as a player. Because, as a player, you had no agency. Your options were “play this story as written” or “play another game”. It was essentially a corridor shooter with a story on top – you never have any options (aside from some minor inconsequential Path A or Path B stuff) besides to keep moving forward and doing what they want you to do. When there is literally no way to progress the game except to launch white phosphorus, I’m not going to feel guilty about shooting white phosphorus at the imaginary video game people. Our decisions didn’t matter because we, as players, never had decisions to make.
I think games can tell a good story or tell it in unique ways but I think I’m less enthralled by the concept than you. Portal was a fun game with a single memorable character and a lot of easily quoted lines but it wasn’t a great story. Half Life 2 may have had a good story somewhere in there but the game pacing itself was so horrible that I quit when I hit the second “drive a vehicle for ten minutes” sequence. Certainly the story wasn’t enough to make me slog through that mess. Walking Dead was a Choose Your Own Adventure book – Do you save the kitten or the puppy? You saved the kitten but now Puppy Man is mad at you though it won’t matter in five minutes anyway.
Train, by Brenda Romero. Most people find it intensely uncomfortable to play.
It’s not out yet, but based on the early builds I’ve played, That Dragon, Cancer will probably qualify.
“Fun” and “interesting” are not synonymous. There are lots of interesting and engaging artistic experiences that aren’t fun. Guardians of the Galaxy is fun. Grave of the Fireflies isn’t. But Grave of the Fireflies is still an interesting movie to watch.
There’s this sense that games have to include fun bits to entice players into playing them. But that’s like saying people won’t walk through an art museum unless you scatter Reese’s Pieces on the floor. Not everyone needs that kind of breadcrumbing to pull them along through an artistic experience. Some people will do “not fun but interesting” things for their own sake.
It’s interesting that Spec Ops: The Line has come up. I’ve seen what Cory Davis is working on next and it definitely doesn’t rely on “mildly entertaining” shooter mechanics to trick you into playing it. It offers the player a difficult experience on its own terms. That sort of thing isn’t to everyone’s taste – a lot of people just want to be mildly entertained. But there’s no reason that games have to limit themselves to serving only that audience.
Maybe, but some people seem to restrict “fun” to saying “Whoopee!” while twirling streamers. Equating it to “entertaining” seems reasonable to me. Despite Budget Player Cadet’s protests, I had fun playing through the dark abandoned tunnels of Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl because it was spooky and nerve-wracking. I wasn’t dancing a jig or laughing but if someone wants to tell me that I wasn’t having fun, I’m just going to roll my eyes at them.
I thought about starting a thread on the topic in the Games forum (since it seems better suited for this particular discussion) but figured it’d get mired into semantic arguments over the definition of “fun” anyway.
Interesting example. Portal had a storytelling experience that remains for me the apotheosis of how games can tell stories. Spoiler ahead, fools:
Near the end of the game, on the last test run, I was on the conveyor belt going toward the flames. “Fun game,” I thought, “and I see why people say it’s too short.” I watched the flames approaching as I was about to burn up, when I saw a little area off to the side. I idly portaled over to that area, knowing I’d toodle around there a bit before going back into the flames
–and GladOS started speaking to me about how I’d left the conveyor belt, and what was I doing, get back on the belt!
For a brief instant, I identified fully with the character: I’d taken an unexpected action and jumped the rails (of the game, or of GladOS’s plan), and suddenly new vistas opened up before me, and I was elated with the possibilities.
Yeah, the story overall is nothing new, a funny take on “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream,” maybe. But in terms of storytelling, that moment was one that could only exist in a game. It was awesome.
That’s cool (as in I like your experience) and I’ll definitely agree that games offer some experiences not found in other media. And I’m sure there’s opportunities to do some cool stuff.
The initial “fun” debate came from some dope saying that we needed to judge games not by how fun they are but by how socially aware or healing or edifying they are. That “fun” can’t be a primary concern when considering games.
I’m sorry but that’s just slop. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with “fun” being someone’s primary consideration. I can find interest in some depressing, emotion-filled film or show or whatever but I certainly don’t make that stuff my primary diet. Maybe some other people do but most of my recreational time I spend on things that are entertaining to me.
But then I find entertainment at the art museum as well, with or without breadcrumbs. Not every art piece is a visual dirge or tortured portrayal of the human soul.
Hmm…that’s not what I took from that poster (I think it was Hamster King). Instead, I thought they were saying that fun wasn’t the only criterion, that games, like other art forms, can also succeed if they’re doing something besides being fun.
It’s very much a modernist stance. I’m not much of an art aficionado, but I understand there was a big move in visual and performing arts in the 20th century to create deliberately unbeautiful art, art that succeeded in ways other than being pleasing. I think that’s analogous to the idea that games can succeed in ways other than being fun.
It might not be my cuppa–as I said, I’m really unlikely ever to play Depression Quest–but I have no problem at all if someone else appreciates an unbeautiful piece of performance art, or a game that’s deliberately not fun. If it works for them, I won’t gainsay them, won’t say that the art/game is objectively bad.
But no one is arguing that games should never be fun. People are saying that fun shouldn’t be the ONLY consideration when judging the worth of a game. There are other ways for games to be interesting, and insisting that every game experience MUST have an element of fun is (as I said above) a really narrow aesthetic. It discourages designers from exploring other ways to play.
Making space for games to be socially aware, or healing, or edifying, or even disturbing doesn’t mean that all games MUST attempt these things. *Transformers *and 12 Years a Slave can both exist in the same universe.