Do you feel sorry for non gamers?
- Thread starter PureAussieGamer
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"Maybe they are highly lauded because they believe its the only way people will actually care about books again."DioWallachia said:
Uh... lol?
Anyway, you're missing the point. Game writing just isn't good for the most part - even top sellers that we praise for their writing aren't particularly exceptional outside of the medium.
No, not everyone can be absorbed in the world of gaming, just like I don't like sports. I can have fun playing and sometimes in the right crowd I can even have some fun watching it, however I don't usually like it.
I am missing out on a lot of the good things about sport for not liking it though. I don't get to share the community and the entertainment they like, but hey, I like games. I already got my entertainment. I already got my community. Why would I care that there are people out there watching a guy run over the field while kicking a ball? Why would they care that I like playing Xenoblade?
I am missing out on a lot of the good things about sport for not liking it though. I don't get to share the community and the entertainment they like, but hey, I like games. I already got my entertainment. I already got my community. Why would I care that there are people out there watching a guy run over the field while kicking a ball? Why would they care that I like playing Xenoblade?
Let me put it this way. You know what are books best sellers right now? Twilight and Scientology books. The Scientology ones are bought by the ones that made the book to reach the best seller point and reach a more wide audience by tricking them. More or less i believe that using a critic opinion (even from ones that dont exist like this guy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Manning_%28fictitious_writer%29)its the same tactic.Woodsey said:
And if game writing isnt heard outside the medium its because, from a technical standpoint, they arent mainstream yet. Confusing? well here is a bastardized version of this article:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_266/7959-We-Are-Not-Mainstream
Tickets to see a movie are cheap and more accessible, playing a video game however requieres the console and the game, and each game (at least the so called AAA titles) cost at least 60$. Its obvious to see why no one knows about game writing when its this unreachable.
@Dio: so you're saying that because many people have terrible taste in books literature is a bad medium?
And yeah, woodsey is right about the quality of writing in games IMO - although there are many very well-written games out there, we haven't had a gaming Odyssey yet. This is because the medium is still very young and people are just figuring out what can be done with it.
And yeah, woodsey is right about the quality of writing in games IMO - although there are many very well-written games out there, we haven't had a gaming Odyssey yet. This is because the medium is still very young and people are just figuring out what can be done with it.
Most of the games here happens to be ones that dont have a very good story-gameplay integration and others are multiplayer heavy experiences (especially Minecraft who under my eyes feels like a MMORPG) Never played Neverwinter Nights or Dawn of War though.Scabadus said:I can certainly try:DioWallachia said:
Ocarina of Time
Various Grand Theft Autos - from Vice City, up to 4, back down to buying 3 on his iPhone a few months ago
A football (that's soccer if you're American) game on the PS1, loved by my family because one of the combo buttons was to full-on boot your opponent in the face
Crazy Taxi on our old PS2 (this one, now I think about it, he could play for hours)
House of the Dead III (again, our home copy, we don't go to arcades much. I did have the lightguns though!)
Halo 1 & 2 (both co-op playing through the full campaign, along with many hours of splitscreen/networked multipayer, no online)
Sim City 3000 (we managed to play this against each other: start at one date, you have until another date to make as much money as possible. It's really fun!)
Counter-Strike: Source (for about an hour, offline, VS me. I think he got one kill... we have rather different natural skill levels)
Command and Conquer: Generals - Zero Hour
Dawn Of War: Dark Crusade, replaced by Soulstorm when it was released
Guitar Hero (or at least that type of game)
Neverwinter Nights 1 (again playing co-operativly with me, he enjoyed it but we never completed it - I was home for the holidays - and he never played it solo when I left)
Minecraft
That's all I can remember... I'm sure there are more and the order may not be perfect, but the importent ones are in there and it's mostly chronological.
I could recommend him to play The Legacy of Kain and Bastion for very STRONG story driven game or Alien Soldier for Sega Genesis and Tyrian for the PC for intense arcade action.
The Legacy of Kain (PC,PS1,PS2) has the problem of being so strong in the writing that you are gonna need to start from the first game to understand what in the heck is going on and 2 games are on the Playstation 1 and 3 on the PS2. One of the reason that games today do the "Same but different approach of James Bond or Indiana Jones" is because of this, having the necessary hardware to appreciate an entire series is a pain in the ass and doesn't guarantee a success on the selling point.
Accessibility to games is completely irrelevant to my point. The best of the best writing in games rarely matches that of films and books (often not matching those which we'd simply consider just plain good).DioWallachia said:
I don't really get the confusion.
On the bright side, at least they weren't subjected to the new shit in ACR.TrilbyWill said:
Or maybe it already exist but because the hardware is no longer produced to sustain things that according to video game producers dont make a profit it was lost in time. I mean, i know that filmaking started around 1895 but 80% films from that point to say 1943 (the year Citizen Kane was made) were lost forever. Same for videogames except that even with all the things that were against the film industry you can still get The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari (1920 and technically belong to public domain) on a bloody DVD but good luck find a game and a console that works (not including emulation that its technically illegal)Kahunaburger said:
If it is not well know that a good game exist then its obvious that people will say that there arent any. If only commercials of COD and MW3 are available on the TV then obviously people will believe that games are about violence and nothing else.Woodsey said:
Its about perception and more on the fact that no one has the balls to actually do a research about it
Games are just a free time waster like TV. I don't think any amount of "pride" should be attributed to it.
Its certainly not productive and definitely not educational. Its per definition a waste of time. We play them to use up our free time and some people take it too far at that.
Most of the time they should feel sorry for us. I do envy people that do productive stuff on their spare time like manage the garden or work on the car or even workaholics who do what they get paid to do for fun.
Its certainly not productive and definitely not educational. Its per definition a waste of time. We play them to use up our free time and some people take it too far at that.
Most of the time they should feel sorry for us. I do envy people that do productive stuff on their spare time like manage the garden or work on the car or even workaholics who do what they get paid to do for fun.
The argument is my opinion, I'm not taking it from anyone else. The OP said he feels sorry for them because they're missing out on loads of great stories, I said I don't feel sorry for them because they're not missing out on that many great stories.DioWallachia said:
I don't feel bad for anyone who is not invested/interested in video games as much as I would feel bad for people who is not invested/interested in sports. To everyone, there is a form of entertainment that they enjoy and if they feel like others should hop on your personal bandwagon it should be because you believe that they would enjoy it as well.
If they don't, it's cool; just let them know that it will always be there waiting for them, if at some point in the future they feel a little curious and want to check it out.
If they don't, it's cool; just let them know that it will always be there waiting for them, if at some point in the future they feel a little curious and want to check it out.
Not saying that you did so but one can fall into the trap of "If i didnt heard about it then it doesnt exist"Woodsey said:
I am pretty much a believer that if the shitty story is the more is know about it in the wide world (Twilight, Transformers, The Legend of Rah and the Muggles, Mission Earth by L. Ron Hubbard, Noir by K.W. Jeter)
And the best story ever is the one that almost not a single soul could possibly have read/seen/played it (The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari)
Well world is fucked up like that.
Games having the greatest stories ever told? Hardly. Also, telling them how you have a relationship with a video game character doesn't speak too well of you.
Video games are fun and all, but there are other hobbies out there that people enjoy too. Its like feeling bad for people who don't follow sports.
Video games are fun and all, but there are other hobbies out there that people enjoy too. Its like feeling bad for people who don't follow sports.
I think calling it a relationship makes you sound like a love-pillow sniffing weirdo.PureAussieGamer said:
The only people who I feel sorry for are the ones who dont try gaming because it isn't aimed at them. I have trouble making female friends because we have nothing to talk about, but I'm sure those same people feel sorry for me for being a terrible woman and not loving shoes or whatever.
But I think feeling sorry for people who dont game just leads to elitism, and we don't need any more of that.
Pretty sure I see what you did there.DioWallachia said:
I don't think early gaming is sitting on an Odyssey that we somehow haven't heard of. (That said, I'm not even convinced that literary fiction has an Odyssey.) There are excellent writing and/or stories in games -- I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream, Shade, Planescape:Torment, stuff by Tim Schafer, and so on. But in terms of writing, these tend to be on par with good books or short stories, not classics to outlast civilizations.DioWallachia said:
I'm sorry, what? Why would you "feel sorry" for people not interested in an entertainment medium? We aren't even at the point where video games would provide deep and profound experiences and even then it all comes down to preferences. Just because you enjoy something doesn't mean everybody else has to as well.
Then we will be dead by the time that happens even with the Internet at large, dont you said? Or maybe those classics outlasted civilizations because it was the only thing around to read and making good stories makes blood come out of people's nose, so its not surpricing that they were good because people didnt know any better.Kahunaburger said:
I was just listing a bunch of games i had recently played. I didnt put much thought into what games have the best story. First it was late at night and second thats not what the thread is about.Anoni Mus said:
I only feel sorry for them if they feel they shouldn't play games out of some societal stigma.
For example, one of my acquaintances asked for advice with buying a game for her boyfriend, and I had to ask things such as what genres he likes and what platforms he has, and I had to explain how games made for platforms don't work on others. That was fine, but what really got me was when she reached a point of giving up when she couldn't answer certain questions and burst out with "I don't know, I'm a girl!". She must've forgotten that every other girl in our group plays video games, and I was so focused on trying to argue with that mindset that I forgot too, and couldn't make them all facepalm at her until a few days later.
For example, one of my acquaintances asked for advice with buying a game for her boyfriend, and I had to ask things such as what genres he likes and what platforms he has, and I had to explain how games made for platforms don't work on others. That was fine, but what really got me was when she reached a point of giving up when she couldn't answer certain questions and burst out with "I don't know, I'm a girl!". She must've forgotten that every other girl in our group plays video games, and I was so focused on trying to argue with that mindset that I forgot too, and couldn't make them all facepalm at her until a few days later.