THE FUTURE OF GAMES

very tenuously, but has there ever been much written about video games and how they relate to concepts in Western philosophy: ideas of free will, self-determination, mind-body dualism, social contracts etc? i'd happily read something about that. or even play a "Good Place" type of game that does this

Cheers Nhex, will check this - it's a relatively new world to me, so some of my arguments/complaints might not really stand up to scrutiny. I'm just a bit underwhelmed by what's out there now that I've played through Control and Death Stranding - there isn't much that appeals to me. And yet with movies a lot of money can be poured into, for example, a Coen brothers film - it doesn't have to be Michael Bay all the way

xps maybe what i need is to be more involved in PC gaming perhaps? itch.io looks interesting but I'm not keen to sit at my work desk playing these

Highly recommend you look into the PC/interactive fiction/itch.io space for stuff pushing the envelope, though of course low-to-no-budget.

I echo this. Lots of IF about the relationship of the player-character to the player and what that means for free will, for example. Also stuff like Undertale has a philosophical bent, as well as being very cute.

I love Undertale. Especially love what happens once you complete it and start over. I will never properly complete all three routes though as the ultraviolent route is impossible

That Buried Treasure blog is great! Shame there isn't much on the PS4. Good to see a lot of these games appearing on Switch though.

i'm going to assume you're invoking Poe's Law there

nope, deadly serious, don't much care for novelties, just want more better versions of stuff i love

Yeah, you definitely need to move more to indie gaming, you will find *a lot* of what you want. I guess the question then is why none of these things end up being produced by bigger studios with more budget, as they're obviously popular in their own spheres, and some become huge. That's something I can't answer at all, I don't really get the whys and wherefores of the music industry, never mind the gaming industry.

xp

I think it comes down to AAA studios being incredibly risk-averse

which of course also applies to major film studios, etc.

There's kind of a contradiction at work, from my relatively limited experience. As the "better" games get top-notch writing, top-notch graphics, top notch scores and voice acting, they become closer and closer to actual movies, yet the gameplay itself doesn't seem to be evolving at the same pace. There's always just a relatively limited menu of things to do - jump, shoot, steer, etc. - and replicating quotidian acts (like brushing your teeth, say) seems more novelty or distraction than a particular advance. Then again, I'm not sure games need to reach some new level to be compelling. I don't really mind where there are right now, and even a relatively simple game like "Thumper" is still pretty strange, cool, challenging and engrossing to me.

If there were to be a big development, I think there's a lot to be done with time, for example. You see it on a relatively modest scale already, and maybe there is more than that out there, but I like the idea of time progressing within a game even when you're not playing it - NPCs dying/disappearing, plants growing, things being built, and so on. Just the idea that every time you return to the game, even if it is telling a story, or "on rails" or solving a puzzle or whatever, the game you're playing is fundamentally different every time you play it. Not in a random rogue-like sense but in an AI-directed generative-with-purpose sense. Like, I'm almost done the second "Ori." What if, in the week or so between plays, a new character has popped up somewhere, or a new roadblock has developed, or some other challenging element now needs to be addressed before I reach the end? That seems to be the sort of thing more powerful machines and chips could bring about. Again, assuming it doesn't exist already.

emil.y otm.

i get that there has to be a pool of experimental maverick developers out there making mind-bending little games for a relatively small audience.

but yes, there does seem to be a sense of risk aversion with the bigger developers. gamers are likely to blame too: Many were very quick to dismiss Death Stranding as a boring "walking simulator" and go back to COD or what have you.

As the "better" games get top-notch writing, top-notch graphics, top notch scores and voice acting, they become closer and closer to actual movies, yet the gameplay itself doesn't seem to be evolving at the same pace.

YES. This. It's great that these qualitative steps are being taken, and I'm not saying I want big-budget experimental games, but we should be at a stage where games are more than linear playable movies.

and replicating quotidian acts (like brushing your teeth, say) seems more novelty or distraction than a particular advance

100. These are novel, but they add nothing to the game. They certainly don't make it more realistic or enjoyable. There's a thing in RDR2 where you carry out chores around the campsite (literally moving bails of hay from one place to another) which is neither fun nor challenging. You get a bit of stat increase, but what's the point?

That said, I liked how you could go for a crap in Death Stranding and how they turned your waste into piss missiles.

If there were to be a big development, I think there's a lot to be done with time, for example. You see it on a relatively modest scale already, and maybe there is more than that out there, but I like the idea of time progressing within a game even when you're not playing it - NPCs dying/disappearing, plants growing, things being built, and so on. Just the idea that every time you return to the game, even if it is telling a story, or "on rails" or solving a puzzle or whatever, the game you're playing is fundamentally different every time you play it. Not in a random rogue-like sense but in an AI-directed generative-with-purpose sense. Like, I'm almost done the second "Ori." What if, in the week or so between plays, a new character has popped up somewhere, or a new roadblock has developed, or some other challenging element now needs to be addressed before I reach the end? That seems to be the sort of thing more powerful machines and chips could bring about. Again, assuming it doesn't exist already.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, February 1, 2021 2:26 PM (twenty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think Twitch & YouTube & other streaming platforms will have a more pronounced influence on video games in the short-term future

xpost It would also encourage "events" and large-scale real-time interaction, a la, I dunno, what they apparently do or have done in "Fortnite" and other games like that? I've blown a couple of minds relaying that "Red Dead Redemption 2" was apparently the highest grossing weekend entertainment release of all time, but of course, the average person doesn't know that as well as they know what, say, the number one movie in the world is. But if RDR2 is the starting point - that is to say, a massive release nonetheless and counterintuitively not quite as well known as the rest of consumed pop culture (music, movies, etc.) - imagine the incentives for a studio developing and fostering a huge, even bigger constantly changing game community. Like a blockbuster movie that just keeps ... blockbusting. Not that the game play would necessarily be any better, but tif the quality stayed high, like several seasons of an esteemed TV series, the world of that gameplay could be more interesting and immersive than ever before, especially as more and more people (potentially) are drawn to it as a monocultural event (which, covid and quarantines aside, are few and far between these days). And again, maybe something this exists already?

Of course, knowing the world we live in it would inevitably become an ungovernable dystopian cesspool like everything else.

xp its definitely already had a huge impact on what sorts of multiplayer games publishers are funding the past few years

xps to DL: gamers are risk averse too, because games cost money, and typically a lot more than a movie ticket/album/modest concert ticket. It's possible that the economics of game pass and the like could help foster innovation as it becomes possible to cheaply sample lots of different experiences.

I for sure would definitely try a lot more weird/niche games that way