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[s0]

AAA designers make games for people who want to have fun without ever thinking too hard about morality or life

this exact attitude is why people hate ToT

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

"To compile is to kill.  To see one's mistakes is an essential part of artistic creation. I don't want some compiler to suggest corrections. All it cares about is the machine anyway. As an artist, I care about the people using the machine."

This doesn't even make sense!

it makes sense if you consider context

michael isn't a programmer, so he doesn't know how compilers work. his mistaken impression of a compiler is that it's also a debugger: that it fixes your programming errors for you, without telling you. he feels that the "mistakes" that something has can make it more artistic, and that artificially fixing those mistakes would be a bad thing, just as if a machine grammar and spelling editor automatically corrected the grammar and spelling of dickens or hemingway. but most compilers don't really work like that, and he doesn't know that because (i suspect) he hasn't used very many of them

that's how i interpret it anyway

[unsilentwill]

this exact attitude is why people hate ToT

I tried not to exaggerate too much, but how is it not true? What produced game puts emotional response or moral depth over entertainment?

[ink.inc]

michael isn't a programmer, so he doesn't know how compilers work. his mistaken impression of a compiler is that it's also a debugger: that it fixes your programming errors for you, without telling you.

dum

[Manuel Magalhães]

I don't mind about "notgames" existing, I just think that like they critique AAA games I can also have the right to counter-argument, and even if they didn't critique I don't see any harm about expressing our opinion on "nogames". Imagine if because someone like something we couldn't criticize it?
Of course they will never be a definite answer for it, since it's inside of the philosophy of art camp, but it's healthy to argument.

[unsilentwill]

Completely agree. But there's a big difference between honest understanding criticism and hateful mockery. Be kind.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

AAA designers make games for people who want to have fun without ever thinking too hard about morality or life

this exact attitude is why people hate ToT

this also isn't unique to videogames; despite ToT's praises of movies, for instance, movies have the same problem

for instance, "when android's dream of electric sheep" was adapted into the hit movie, blade runner, which most of you probably have seen since you're nerds

while the film was in production, the author expressed dismay that a major element of the novel was left out: that the main theme of the book was the gradual loss of humanity / empathy in the main character decker: because he was hunting and killing robots, he was also losing his empathy and humanity, and becoming more like the robots he was hunting.

when he expressed these concerns to the director of blade runner, the director basically said: "that's just an intellectual point. the audience doesn't like thinking about things like that, they like action."

the movie turned out pretty good anyway, but still very different from the novel, because a lot of the so-called intellectual parts were left out, because sensory stimulation is valued more than reflection in AAA movies, just like in AAA games

i'm not saying it's a *bad* thing that it is this way, however. i'm just saying that it is the case, that most people are not interested in thinking too hard about abstract issues (either rightly or wrongly)

but i also think ToT is wrong in saying that the problem is as big as it is; it is a problem, but higher thought still sneaks through into games now and then. but that's exactly what it has to do: sneak in -- a game can't advertise itself as a philosophical game and hope to be taken seriously by the gamer press. and that's what catherine did, it basically snuck in the things i quoted in that article about it to a mainstream audience, and succeeded

tale of tales' approach is that games shouldn't have to sneak in that stuff, they should just be open about it. i don't think that time is ripe yet, i think games (as well as movies) will always have to sneak in thought-provoking stuff into generic stuff if they want a large audience, just as you always have to make healthy food taste good if you want people to eat it

[noah!]

Games are rule systems by definition. Nothing else. Even the graphics and sound are part of the rules (to simplify, positioning an enemy sprite and playing a sound is just the difference between writing to one RAM address and writing to another), even if they don't directly affect the game's possibility space, and computer programs by definition run based on rules. There's no such thing as a game without rules; ToT is still making videogames, even if they'd love to segregate themselves into their own special category of Games But Not Games.

So I'm wearing pants. Right now. My legs went through the two holes at the bottom, and my waist fits snugly inside the hole in the top. The zipper even is located near the front side of my body, and the belt goes through all the little loops!

Yes, if you really want to go there, sure, let's agree that writing a freakin' sprite to the screen is based on a rule system. But where do you stop from there? Assembly code is a rule system. Electricity is a rule system. We (organic life!) are a rule system. The textile workers followed a rule system when they made my pants!

I don't know. I really don't want to drag this whole argument into the realm of semantics, but I'm afraid your position isn't really helping the cause. Yes, there are rule systems all around us, many of which we take for granted. Do those matter? Yes, if you want to be a pedant. However, they're talking about the big kahuna here, the one that gets up all in your face and says "EXTEND EVERY 1,000,000 POINTS." Not the one that determines whether a blit to the screen is successful.

Yes, it would be refreshing for games to embrace a player's agency, rather than their ability to follow directions.

If you're referring to true roleplaying (I think Gilbert calls this "attitude," usually written in all caps or bolded), that's the opposite direction of where these guys are heading with their games. Though "agency" and "following directions" aren't mutually exclusive.

Maybe I was incorrect. Pardon me if it sounds belittling, but I really can't parse what they write. To me, the notgame movement seems like just a giant Rorschach blot that is interpreted in different ways to different people.

[s0]

this exact attitude is why people hate ToT

I tried not to exaggerate too much, but how is it not true? What produced game puts emotional response or moral depth over entertainment?

that wasn't the point. just because games don't contain these things doesn't mean people who play them don't think about them. these discussions would be more fruitful if we could refrain from ad hominems.

[DavidCaruso]

this exact attitude is why people hate ToT

I tried not to exaggerate too much, but how is it not true? What produced game puts emotional response or moral depth over entertainment?

Emotional responses in """produced""" videogames? How about all of these emotional responses except grief, sadness, and love? (And only grief and sadness count anyway, since love can't be reproduced from the viewer's perspective in any artwork or any virtual world (unless the player doesn't know the world and the objects inside it are virtual, but that's opening a much bigger can of worms, and one which I haven't fully thought through yet.))

And "emotional response" or "moral depth" is useless unless it contributes to the entertainment. In Schindler's List or Citizen Kane or whatever other movies people (try to) cite as proof that "art doesn't have to be fun or entertaining or enjoyable," that's what those things are being used for.

Also no one is telling anyone or has ever told anyone to stop doing what they like doing. This isn't about them making games the way they want to, it's about how their games are received and reacted to. I'll elaborate in a bit and maybe make a big post about the interview too, but until then note that a lot of this has already been covered earlier in this thread.

Yes, if you really want to go there, sure, let's agree that writing a freakin' sprite to the screen is based on a rule system. But where do you stop from there? Assembly code is a rule system. Electricity is a rule system. We (organic life!) are a rule system. The textile workers followed a rule system when they made my pants!

I don't know. I really don't want to drag this whole argument into the realm of semantics, but I'm afraid your position isn't really helping the cause. Yes, there are rule systems all around us, many of which we take for granted. Do those matter? Yes, if you want to be a pedant. However, they're talking about the big kahuna here, the one that gets up all in your face and says "EXTEND EVERY 1,000,000 POINTS." Not the one that determines whether a blit to the screen is successful.

Well, you can't really stop, if you want to go this route. If you just mean that ToT is trying to make the rules less "abstract" (i.e. correspond more to reality, be more consistent, etc.) or something then I don't know if I can agree with that either. I mean, plenty of games have been trying to do this for ages beforehand.

[unsilentwill]

@Eres
It's weird to say that though, people still read classic novels for their depth, they don't have to be tricked.

Also that point is brought up a few times in the article, where it's more artistically genuine to put shooting in a game about objectivism rather than to put objectivism in a game about shooting. I haven't played Catherine (it looks like cutscenes and block puzzles with some anime relationships snuck in, but again I haven't played it), so it's hard for me to see how block stacking is connected into being in a relationship, but maybe they did succeed.

@Sinclair
I never meant to say that all people who play AAA games are dumb, though maybe they did. But targeting an immature audience is no secret of producers.

@Caruso
I guess to me depth and entertainment are at odds, fun is the absence of thought, but that's a really artsy opinion. Thrill, victory, and power seems the be the majority of emotions in produced gameplay.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

that wasn't the point. just because games don't contain these things doesn't mean people who play them don't think about them.

some do, some don't. there certainly do exist people who don't like to think about some things: you can see it in "art game" threads where people troll the threads in an attempt to prevent thought about them, or people who tend to use words like pretentious or pseudo-intellectual in an attempt to bully out thought

but it also definitely is true that even some highly thoughtful people prefer to get their thought-provoking material from books etc., not from games that they're playing for entertainment and relaxation. and that's traditionally what games are: simple entertainment free of the concerns of morality and cosmology, and some people would prefer that games are largely kept that way

nonetheless i feel that the level of reflection in art tends to correspond with the level of reflection in the general population. it'd be terrible if every game were reflective and none were pure escapism/relaxation, but it'd also be terrible if none were reflective, both types should exist. interactive entertainment has been pretty good so far for the escapism/relaxation need but pretty poor so far for the reflection/contemplation need, so a new form of interactive entertainment (maybe called games, maybe not) would fulfill that gap, if it could find its audience (which it won't for some time, since most people don't *expect* games to be that way)

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

@Eres
It's weird to say that though, people still read classic novels for their depth, they don't have to be tricked.

Also that point is brought up a few times in the article, where it's more artistically genuine to put shooting in a game about objectivism rather than to put objectivism in a game about shooting. I haven't played Catherine (it looks like cutscenes and block puzzles with some anime relationships snuck in, but again I haven't played it), so it's hard for me to see how block stacking is connected into being in a relationship, but maybe they did succeed.

actually very few do. the number of people who even read books for pleasure is something like 13%. and of those, the vast majority read "genre fiction" -- thrillers, sci fi, fantasy, romance. very very few people, perhaps 1-2%, read classic novels (like dostoevsky) for pleasure. it's true that it's still higher than people who play contemplative games, but that's mainly because there's no real tradition of contemplated games yet, so those people aren't looking for them here.

but i'm saying that *even if* there were games as artistically sophisticated as dostoevsky novels, and which do for interactivity what he did for novels, it wouldn't be played by more than perhaps 1-2% of gamers

and catherine succeeded both critically (high score on metascore) and commercially (more sales than any of atlus's previous US releases). as for whether it'd succeed personally for you, you'd have to play it

also, bioshock isn't really a good example of a game about objectivism, since it was made by ex- and anti-objectivists. there do exist indie games made by objectivists about objectivism, however -- sword of jade (made in the ohrrpgce), perfect service (made in game maker), and "atlus shrugged: the game" (made in rpgmaker) come to mind

[unsilentwill]

Right. I agreed with ToT that is was just a shooter with some objectivish thoughts built around otherwise ignorant gameplay.

And by success I meant in showing meaning through puzzles, not commercial or critical. Having a game designed starting from an idea rather than starting from a mechanic. It's interesting.

[s0]

@Sinclair
I never meant to say that all people who play AAA games are dumb, though maybe they did. But targeting an immature audience is no secret of producers.

yeah but there's more to games than themes and narratives. in fact i'm going to go out on a limb and say games were never meant to tell stories and the "cinematic" videogames we have now are basically a mutant strain in the dna of gaming (there's nothing wrong with that btw).

the point is games can be enjoyed for their mechanics even if their themes are immature. in many games (board and card games esp.) the theme is just a way to make complex, abstract mechanics more tangible and give them some context, and it just so happens that immature themes often make for enjoyable mechanics.

i bet there are plenty of university professors who play sports in their spare time.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

@unsilentwill - yeah i wasn't disagreeing with you there, i was just saying they were wrong by saying that games that are "about" objectivism rather than shooting + objectivism don't exist. they do exist, they're just obscure indie games. and there are probably plenty more of them that i don't know about

but i also don't think things like bioshock are bad (where it's a typical game where some ideas tried to sneak in) -- "the matrix" is similar. i don't personally enjoy the matrix movies, but i know people who are fans, and in some people those movies *did* inspire thought, even though the thoughts they inspired seem weird to me (just look at any philosophy forum and you'll find people who were introduced to philosophy by the matrix movies -- shudder)

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

And by success I meant in showing meaning through puzzles, not commercial or critical. Having a game designed starting from an idea rather than starting from a mechanic. It's interesting.

i think this is important, yeah -- the so-called gameplay should at least make references to the so-called aesthetics and vice versa

catherine does this in various places: for instance relationships are seen as ever climbing up towards the goal (the soul mate / marriage state), just as in the game you are climbing huge walls of blocks towards the goal at the top

and different "chapters" of the story introduce things related to the game elements introduced in those "chapters" -- for instance, when your girlfriend treats you icily in the story, the block puzzles in that chapter involve ice blocks. when you feel that you should be punished for cheating, the block puzzles in that chapter introduce spikes and other torture devices of punishment

also the bosses of each sequence of block puzzles are related to the chapter as well: when your girlfriend reveals to you that she thinks she is pregnant, the boss for that level is a hideous giant baby screaming dada at you and trying to kill you; when your girlfriend reveals she wants to marry you the boss for that level is a giant skeleton in a wedding dress

[DavidCaruso]

@Caruso
I guess to me depth and entertainment are at odds, fun is the absence of thought, but that's a really artsy opinion. Thrill, victory, and power seems the be the majority of emotions in produced gameplay.

I think it's kind of weird and maybe even insulting to say fun is the absence of thought. The more I'm thinking about a game or a movie, the more absorbed I am in what's happening, and the more fun I'm having. In movies, directors make you think by having interesting and dynamic characters, or creating suspense for upcoming events, or even just making the plot complex and multilayered. In games, designers make you think by throwing obstacles at you that you need to focus your faculties on to the fullest extent possible to overcome, because that's the path which interactivity opens up and lets you do best. They seem like two completely different approaches, but they both serve to accomplish the same end (which is why I don't see having more games with "contemplative" skins/themes as very necessary or a huge step forward, though people can make them if they want to, maybe we'll end up with a few that are also good games as well.) I think all of the "art" and "games need to mature" stuff is just rooted in people trying to think of games in the same way they think of movies (which results in games that try to be movies, aka usually bad games.)

Also Catherine is a good game but the real meat of it was in the puzzle platforming, not the dating sim/adventure portions. It's like ActRaiser in that it has a really cool main game with a cute novelty strapped on (except unlike ActRaiser the cute novelty isn't as slow and boring.)

[XRA]

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6539/passionate_frustration_tale_of_.php?print=1
ToT sure have matured a lot, their best interview so far, very refreshing perspective

that's a great interview, thanks for linking it!

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

yeah i think people tend to underestimate catherine's block puzzle portion; it's very sophisticated, i'd say it's on the level of spacechem in terms of the quality of the puzzles, in that both games force you to be creative: there are many different techniques and paths to overcome the obstacles, not just a single solution to each puzzle. catherine's block puzzles aren't like sudoku puzzles at all

i also agree that fun and thought should not conflict; things can be both entertaining and interesting, or even entertaining *because* they are interesting. but there are different meanings of fun so this is a bit too vague to speak of -- there's "fun" in the sense of mindless repetitive actions and sensory stimulation, as in WoW leveling, or watching a ball bounce around in peggle, and that type of fun is antithetical to thought, but there's also "fun" in the sense of learning new abilities, exploring new areas, discovering new techniques, overcoming difficult challenges, and that fun isn't antithetical to thought

sid meier's alpha centauri is an example of a strategy game that is both highly fun and thought-provoking, at the same time