combining three posts in one here:
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It's ABSURD, Paul. That's why I'm laughing and joking about it. I bothered to pick apart stuff like that dumb zen platitude about goals because that's seriously all they have to support their claims. Just big flashy words masquerading as a deep knowledge of the unexplainable. I know this because when I first started looking at the indie games community I used to THINK dumb shit like this. I'm making a joke about it because I've been there, and this way of thinking doesn't have anything supporting it at all.
But no, it wasn't about whether he meant DISCOVER or ESTABLISH or ACCOMPLISH or whatever. The WHOLE THING was absurd, down to the very concept. I don't LOSE a goal when I achieve it! Goals are only IDEAS, they're "things we plan to do". So holy shit, when I do something, I lose the plan to do it. THAT'S DEEP.
well at least here you're basically admitting that you are making fun of them and not seriously considering what they say. their claim isn't even very novel or new here: they're simply saying that when you achieve a goal, it's no longer a goal. it's a simple obvious thing, as you said.
but they aren't claiming that's some type of deep revelation, they're just saying that's important to understanding what games are, and the difference between games and what they want to do. that you'd make fun of them for saying a simple truism just because they used the wrong word to say it should show you that you're just looking for the first thing you can point at to use as an excuse to reject what they say as absurd.
also, you later mentioned that you are sure they hate bioshock; if you've actually read some of their writings you'd find that they have great admiration for a lot of bioshock, they even wrote a large review of it.
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there are a couple of other misconceptions in this thread too -- like the idea that their games are all about holding up. that applies to the graveyard, but not to any of their other games, like the path, endless forest, fatale, etc.
it's like, i don't mind people arguing against tale of tales, but that's not what any of you guys (except for cactus and adam atomic) are doing. the rest of the responses are largely defensive emotional reactions to something you're attached to. which is completely normal human behavior of course, when someone criticizes something you love (in this case games) there's an urge to hit back, to attack them. nonetheless sometimes tigsource acts better than this, and that's what used to make it appealing.
anyway, maybe you really do have to attack what games are if you want to change what they are, or maybe you don't, i don't know. but if you do, you're going to have to deal with the emotional reactions of people who love something blindly hitting back, there's probably no escape from that.
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as for my thoughts on the ideas presented, i don't really think that getting rid of goals is the best way for videogames to progress; it's a way, but i don't think it's the key to the kingdom.
and as adam implied games don't even really have to have goals anyway, there are plenty of things which are called games which aren't rule-and-goal based (playing games like "cowboys and indians" or "pretend" or "catch").
so i don't see the mere existence of goals as the big problem with games, as they do, just the *types* of goals that they commonly have. i'd like to see fewer games about shooting the opposing side or beating a boss and more about growing up, or breaking up marriages, or terraforming a planet, or starting a religion, or making a friend, and stuff like that. there are a lot of very interesting goals games could have besides the ones that they typically use, and i think it'd be a good idea to try to make games with interesting goals rather than getting rid of the idea of rules and goals completely.
i think the reason most games are the way they are is because it's very simple to code shooting or jumping or moving, but relatively harder to code more complex things. but computers are now powerful enough to handle complex simulations rather than simple ones, and it's a pity the power of computers in videogames is usually going towards modeling in detail how a head explodes rather than modeling a game's forest's ecosystem in detail, or modeling a game's town's economy in detail.