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[Paul Eres]

but there is no precise 'intended audience' -- the intended audience is anyone who likes the game. i don't think intended audiences can be broken up into genres like that. for instance, with space shooters, there are people who prefer danmaku-style frentic shooters, people who prefer upgrade-shooters, people who prefer traditional slower space shooters like galaga and galaxian, and so on. so i don't think there's a 'space shooter audience' that if a space shooter doesn't satisfy it's a bad game, because there are niches even within space shooter. and in any case even within that genre i doubt you could find a single game that 51% of space shooter fans like.

and there are actually *tons* of discussion threads on the games you mention, and often the discussions can get very interesting.

[Lurk]

i think games without at least some level of provocation or controversy are boring.

Where's the controversy in the games I listed(and mind you, I left out a huge chunk of gaming history out of it because I can't remember all the titles).

but there is no precise 'intended audience' -- the intended audience is anyone who likes the game.

So let me get this straight. I make a game, out of the 1000 persons who play it and give feedback, only one says the game is good. All the rest is saying "horribly boring, slow pace, redundant enemies" and I think "one person liked it, becoming the game's intended audience, hence 100% of the intended audience enjoyed my game, so the game is a success".

for instance, with space shooters, there are people who prefer danmaku-style frentic shooters, people who prefer upgrade-shooters, people who prefer traditional slower space shooters like galaga and galaxian, and so on.

You can break it down to the micro level if you want, your argument still makes no sense. Every game still contains common enough ingredients we refer to as 'gameplay' and 'graphics' and 'sounds'. If the game is considered to be failing in these by the people who went through the effort of buying it, it makes it bad game. There is such a thing as bad art(poor technique, bad composition, bad subject). I know it's all very modern to turn it around in the spectator's face and say "it's your fault you did not enjoy my piece", but in reality, it's the artist's failure. You can argue this all you want, it's just a definitive fact. A badly executed thing is a badly executing thing, regardless of how many people you can bring up saying it's a masterpiece.

[deadeye]

yes, seriously: i'd be all for more rape games. it'd at least be a change from all the murder games

Keeping in mind other little Erisisms I've seen in the past that don't quite jibe with each other, I'll just focus on this one for now.  You make a call for non-violent games in one thread, saying how they disturb you and the people who play them disturb you, etc. etc.  Then you turn around, and with a straight face, say "rape games would be a nice change of pace." 

Rape is one of the most violent acts any person can perpetrate on another.  Why would more games about one be better than fewer games about the other?

So there are four possibilities here:

• You don't believe one of those statements, and are lying to make a point
• You do believe both of those statements, which is a disparity indicating logically flawed thinking
• You change your mind all the time, indicating that your personal moral values aren't well defined and you just vent whatever passing thoughts you have out loud to see if they sound okay
• You are being contrary for the sake of being contrary, playing the perpetual Devil's Advocate and simply arguing with anyone who steps up to the plate

Personally, I think it may be a mix of all four (and I have a feeling that it's mostly the last one).  Any of them, alone or in combination, would be enough reason for me to just skip over anything you say from here on out without fear that I'd be missing anything relevant... which is what I think I'm going to do.

And the upside is it'll make reading TIGS a hell of a lot easier

No offense, I'm sure you're a nice guy and all, but... damn.  Every other post on this board is you arguing or debating or waxing your own philosophy to a high-gloss shine.

[Paul Eres]

@lurk - you seem to just be repeating a variant of what you said earlier, so since i don't have any new arguments and anything i said would be repeating what i said earlier, i can't really respond. but yes, i do think that if 1000 people play a game, and 1 person likes it, it's a success. that doesn't mean it can't be improved so that more people wouldn't be put off by it, just that it makes a game a success if even one person gets value out of a game.

@deadeye - i wasn't actually calling for more non-violent games, that may be a misreading of that thread. i think making violent games and enjoying them is fine. it's also disturbing to me. there's no contradiction there: something can be both fine and disturbing. to use an example i gave in that thread, watching someone give birth is disturbing to me. but that doesn't mean people shouldn't give birth. similarly, many people get queasy when they watch medical surgery. that doesn't mean that people shouldn't have surgery. i'm all for people making violent games if those are the types of games they like. they're just not the types i like.

also, i think it's a mistake to say i have a philosophy. i do not, and reject philosophy; as i've said earlier i feel philosophy is a waste of time. of course perhaps you're using the word 'philosophy' to mean 'complex or precise thinking', but that isn't philosophy.

[Shade Jackrabbit]

And what is philosophy?

[John Nesky]

A can of worms.

[JoeHonkie]

A miserable little pile of secrets.  But enough talk.

Have at you!

[Lurk]

you seem to just be repeating a variant of what you said earlier, so since i don't have any new arguments and anything i said would be repeating what i said earlier, i can't really respond. but yes, i do think that if 1000 people play a game, and 1 person likes it, it's a success. that doesn't mean it can't be improved so that more people wouldn't be put off by it, just that it makes a game a success if even one person gets value out of a game.

I'm repeating a variant of what I said earlier because you keep avoiding the point, once you're confronted with something you say that is patently wrong, for example

i think games without at least some level of provocation or controversy are boring.

yes, seriously: i'd be all for more rape games. it'd at least be a change from all the murder games (like 90% of them) and no worse morally by comparison.

i think it's fine if you don't personally want to expend extra effort to enjoy a game, but what isn't fine is attributing that you didn't like the game to the game itself rather than to your own incompatibility with it

And so on. Instead of acknowledging the fact that you might be wrong somewhere in your reasoning, due to an overly enthusiastic attitude towards debate, you try to steer it in other directions, for example

i don't think it's a good idea to rely on majority reaction to judge boredom: if we did, some of the greatest classics in the world would be considered boring. war and peace would be boring if we took averages; averaging it out doesn't quite work.

I'm talking about video games and you bring in war and peace, that might be a clever debating tactic, but it tends to throw subjects off-track. For example, this thread was about Sig commenting back on his game, and people were annoyed at what he wrote(he was expecting it, mind you)and commented back, and you started with

"a large piece of social life is an advice network where maintenence of social ideals is connected to people's sense of power and worth -the more you know people are following the same rules and habits as you, the less you have to worry about roving barbarians and the bigger audience is there for your cultural exploits. people understand the basic economics of enforcign conformity on an unconscious level and act as watchdogs or advice-givers, politely or insultingly, gently or coercively"

it reminded me of this thread

which was kind of condescending, and pretty sure to draw fire. Which it did, sending the topic into 'how society cannot really judge what is good or bad, so it's better to let things go and see how it turns out, as long as no one is directly hurt(I assumed you meant physically, because you did'nt seem too bothered about how it could hurt feelings)'. Which prodded the already riled up Sigvatr to suggest making a game about kids being raped at a MacDonalds, an idea that got your 'Go for it!'. A few posts down, and you say 'whatever he wants of course. and likewise i should do whatever i want, which includes pointing out how barbaric/instinctual this thread is' which for me was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back- there's so much condescension I can take in a day. So I tried at first to see if you were really serious about those rape comments, because you could've been sarcastic, it's hard to tell sometimes in written words. But no, really serious, and by the way Sigvatr, I hope you make your horrible rape game, since Paul has offered to host it on his page and defend it. It spiraled afterward into how a game cannot be boring, it's the player's fault for not giving it a fair chance, and that there is no real measure of success, how a game that is liked by one, but disliked by the rest is successful, how games without controversy are boring to you. So in the end, you concede we are unable to go further in the discussion, because I'm just repeating a variant of what I said earlier(actually, I purposefully stuck to that point, to see how much nonsense you could dish out-I'm pretty sure it's kind of the same reason why you argue most of the time ).

 

[Paul Eres]

@shade: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy

philosophy is much what it says there: the academic study of particular universal problems in metaphysics, epistemology, and so on. it's systematic and rigorous, and concerned with classic problems such as the problem of universals. what i do isn't philosophy, it's just expressing my thoughts on various things.

@lurk: i'm not trying to avoid anything, if there's anything you feel i missed let me know and i'll try to address it. and of course i acknowledge that i "might be wrong" -- of course i'm wrong, i never claim that anything i say is right. i don't think it's possible for people to be right when it comes to broad statements or abstractions in general. as i said to shade, i'm just expressing my thoughts on various topics. i'm not trying to argue that what i say is true, i'm just trying to explain why i believe it.

i don't think i'm enthusiastic toward debate though; i don't care about convincing anyone. i don't expend much effort in trying to argue that i'm right. i am enthusiastic about expressing what i'm thinking though, yes. i find translating thoughts into words fun, it helps get them out of my system.

also, one correction: i never offered to host the game, just to write about it, if i found the game interesting (which i offer to every indie game). i don't host games of other people on my site in general, because it costs money to pay for bandwidth. besides, he seemed to have no problem hosting muslim massacre.

[Bennett]

of course perhaps you're using the word 'philosophy' to mean 'complex or precise thinking', but that isn't philosophy.

It's exactly what I mean when I use the word 'philosophy'. I reckon most people think of 'a philosophy' as something different - an internally consistent and reasoned set of beliefs. You're guilty of both, I'd say. Believing that we should reject philosophy is, ironically, a philosophy.

[Paul Eres]

@ bennett

but then there are borderline issues there: complex in comparison to what? precise in comparison to what? i don't think my thoughts are particularly precise and complex in comparison to, say, karl popper's. so in comparison to him, i'm not doing philosophy even when i talk about determinism

[Bennett]

That is an uncharacteristically weak riposte. Just admit you have a philosophy, and that you got there by philosophical reasoning. You might be bad at it compared to Karl Popper, but Batman fights crime even though he is much worse at it than Superman.

You can do it Paul! You can admit you have a philosophy!

[Paul Eres]

@ bennett -- didn't catch the edit, sorry. i don't think most things i think or believe are internally consistent or reasoned. i also don't think we should entirely reject philosophy. i think it's a waste of time for me, but other people get value out of it. i used to, now i don't anymore. so i don't think people should ignore it or anything, just that i don't concern myself with it, particularly because most of the problems it addresses are exactly those problems that the mind can't solve

so if you're saying philosophy is a reasoned, internally consistent system, i don't have one of those either. but when i use the word philosophy i mean specifically: metaphysics/ontology and epistemology (ethics and politics too, but i don't think they're primary to philosophy since they are often treated on their own)

[PGGB]

@shade: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy

philosophy is much what it says there: the academic study of particular universal problems in metaphysics, epistemology, and so on. it's systematic and rigorous, and concerned with classic problems such as the problem of universals. what i do isn't philosophy, it's just expressing my thoughts on various things.

To quote your very source: "Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, truth, beauty, law, justice, validity, mind, and language."

It's not as clear a field as you make it. It is probably the most overlapping field there is. Quantum mechanic interpretations are totally philosophy eventhough they are not metaphysics.

[Bennett]

it's a mistake to say i have a philosophy. i do not, and reject philosophy; as i've said earlier i feel philosophy is a waste of time.

i also don't think we should entirely reject philosophy. i think it's a waste of time for me, but other people get value out of it.

Are we playing some sort of shell game, or do you reject philosophy? Because if you do, that's a philosophy. I think you're having a bad day with the radical honesty thing, but that's ok, we all have bad days.

so if you're saying philosophy is a reasoned, internally consistent system, i don't have one of those either. but when i use the word philosophy i mean specifically: metaphysics/ontology and epistemology (ethics and politics too, but i don't think they're primary to philosophy since they are often treated on their own)

You have expounded at length on your theories of ethics, ontology and epistemology. Not years ago either, but recently. Please don't make me go and dig up all the links from the philosophical threads on the forums, and your blog.