Uh oh, you hit one of my sore spots. Be prepared for fanboy ranting...



"I believe that a childish game is something like colorful cute cuddly characters like Pokemon and even games like Mario and Zelda."

You know, because every game should feature bloody horrors and dark twisted anti-heroes. It's the American way!

How dare game designers create a character like Link that can appeal to all ages! Eidos, Naughty Dog, and Sega has it right : take your family friendly character, darken his skin, give him a gun or ultra-violent finishers, make his voice gruff, and possibly add some facial hair, BLAMMO! Adults will love it!

Chess would still be chess if the pieces were purple and blue. It would be the same damn game if the pieces were butterflies. The point is, this is an industry of entertainment. Some people have fun by wandering dark corridors with a shotgun. Some people have fun by exploring a cartoonlike world. This is not childish, this is entertainment.

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Original post by vr_man Text is an inefficient way to transfer a large amount of information. My post is very long. A person could write a whole book about an idea that they have for a game. That same information could be transfered in a 10 min video.

Just because you're unfamiliar with the term "brevity" and can't express your ideas well in writing does not mean writing itself is inefficient.

I'd like to see a well-written book that could be translated with no information loss into a 10 minute video.

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2. An X- rated point and click FMV game. The game could begin with you picking one of three bodies that you can use in the game. You would have the choice of picking a white male, a black male, or an Asian male. The idea would be to give people the choice of choosing a body that represents who they are. After you have picked your body you will walk around inside your apartment and interact with objects. You could play games on your computer, listen to music, read a book, or you could insert a demo version of the language software into your computer and spend some time learning a new language. You could also watch one of the many X- rated movies that you have on the hard drive of your computer. If you felt like leaving your apartment you could walk over to your friends apartment and play a game of chess, or you could go to a massage parlor and get a massage from a beautiful Japanese woman. It would give you a chance to practice the Japanese that you were learning from the language software in your apartment earlier. You could also decide to go to your local bar and get a woman to come home with you. Perhaps the woman might not speak English very well and you could increase your odds of bringing her home if you are able to communicate with her in her native language. The idea of the game would be to give people multiple things that they can do within the game.

This is one of his "great ideas." So you want the industry to advance until you can play "games" like this?* Dude, get a life.

*and not only that, the industry is "stupid and childish" because it isn't moving in this direction. WTF?

Please try and keep this thread civil people.

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Original post by vr_man Text is an inefficient way to transfer a large amount of information. My post is very long. A person could write a whole book about an idea that they have for a game. That same information could be transfered in a 10 min video.

Text is a very inefficient way of transfering visual information. However, a key part of many storylines is non-visual information, such as a character's thoughts and feelings, which are harder to fully capture on film. Good actors who are capable of believably portraying their feelings help, but there is only so much they can do.

With regards to game development though, you're right; a playable prototype tells you far more about a game than a bunch of words on paper or screen.

Still, I think you're barking up the wrong tree with FMV. FMV games are always going to be the worst of both the game and movie worlds, rendering them undesirable to the vast majority of fans of either. That's why they failed the first time around, and that's why they will almost certainly fail again. I suspect (correct me if I'm wrong) that the real problem has nothing to do with the emotional content in games, but simply that you (and quite possibly many other people) have trouble relating to the fantastic/sci-fi settings that dominate the games industry, and would prefer something more contemporary and grounded in reality.

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Original post by JBourrie Chess would still be chess if the pieces were purple and blue. It would be the same damn game if the pieces were butterflies.

Hm. Would it?

It may sound immature (I'm sure it does), but when I play games I consider "boring" (chess is not much fun to me), I tend to create personas for inanimate objects.

Let's assume we're playing a chess video game. If, every time a piece is captured, I'm forced (lack of control is important here, because, for me, watching videos increases boredom exponentially if it's something I've seen before -- and sometimes even if I haven't seen it before) to watch a gory video of a WH40k:DoW-styled video of a hill-rush and said piece being mauled and ripped to shreds, the coolness will eventually wear off. When it does, I'll either turn off the game and do something less boring, or give the characters 'pseudo'-identities ('pseudo' because, due to a rather short memory/attention-span, I'll probably forget their names in a few turns anyway). After that, I'll start giving the characters personalities, and do my best to keep the ones I like alive.

When identities like this are created by the game designers and the players feel genuinely attached, I'd say that the game reaches a new level of maturity.

I hate to say this here, but I will. Even though, for a couple of hours it was rather entertaining, this was my number 1 qualm with DOOM³; the characters are hardly developed, and I really didn't care about anyone because, 90% of the time, said character was about to be eaten or shot. Why should I care, if every character in the game (from what I played) is just going to meet a gruesome omglolwtfwasthatawesomekthxbai ending?

I should point out here that I found the game to be immature, and to take itself far too seriously to be entertaining. But maybe there's something I missed in the last half/quarter/third of the game that I didn't play.

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Original post by vr_man What is your definition of fun? Everyone has their own beliefs about what is fun and what is not. A game that is fun to me may be boring or stupid to you. I believe that a larger variety of games should be available to the public so that everyone can play games that they think are fun.

A large variety of games, made available to the public so that everyone can play games that they think are fun.

I think you've forgotten about "the internet". It's a rather large repository for all types of games, quite a lot of them free or cheap. Yahoo! Games, in fact, tries to cater to all-types of gamers from all age-ranges, and many of the games seem quite good (I prefer faster-paced multiplayer games, and don't visit Yahoo! Games much).

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Original post by vr_man I am a twenty-four year old male that does not enjoy playing most videogames because I believe that they are stupid and childish.

You
should
play
more
games.

I've got to say, I wouldn't consider these games childish -- but I wouldn't stop, say, my 8 year old nephew from playing them. Toys 'R' Us might, but if I've got it and he wants to play it, I'm going to take turns with him. If he has a question about something, I'm there to answer it, and if I can't, Google has a Moderate search filter. ([smile]).

Also, I'm curious about your opinion on games that may have mature content, but are presented in a lighter atmosphere(see: Warcraft 3, Prince of Persia: TSoT, or the Zelda games*). Do you consider these games "immature", as well?

And on what you said about GTA games -- do you really want a realistic gang war? Go play Mafia -- that's what it's all about, right? (I never got around to playing it, was too busy playing GTA). I don't. I think, in real life, gang wars are rather a ludicrous concept. GTA games make light of that (in a rather sordid way, albeit), and, most importantly, make them fun to play. I like playing GTA:VC. It's fun to be able to run around, blow things up, get chased by the police, shoot some of them, get caught by the police, save, and still be able to come back later to an equally entertaining experience. The entertainment in GTA games come from the sheer simplicity on the surface (you're able to pick up and play anytime, accomplishing things but never advancing the story), combined flawlessly with the depth of the stories (which is why my brother fell in love with GTA 3 and VC). If you want, you can do nothing and still get something done. It's a genius gameplay mechanic.

* Zelda games all follow a theme of "becoming a man by doing something great", which is arguably a difficult concept to explain to children who don't already understand it.

Hmmm....interesting thread.

When I first read the title and part of the original post, one type of game came to mind....Japanese dating sims. Yes, many of them are X-rated, but not all. There are still a handful that come out each year that have very strong stories with complex emotions. There have been quite a few in the past few years that have garnered quite some cult followings just from story and emotional depth. If you're really into FMV games, this may be an avenue for you to explore, warrant that learning japanese may be required. However, that is the only gaming market in the world that I can think of right now that still churns out enough games of that style in one month to warrant the need to an actual magazine dedicated to it. (Note again: Yes, most of them are X-rated flakes)

So, I think instead of sitting around and complaining about what the industry should be doing, why not go out and see what other parts of the industry are doing. Gaming isn't limited to the US. Other markets have other demographics that may very well match yours much better than the current one you're in.

It's not like it'd be all that difficult to make an X-rated FMV game.

Step 1: Write a script with branching dialogue. E.G., Girl asks you if you cry at movies. Depending on response, she

A. sleeps with you -- porno scene
B. laughs at you
C. recommends you to her japanese nympho friend

etc. etc. Include whatever you want in your FMV game in your script.

2. So, once your script is written, find some "actors." Ie, get yourself a stable of ho's and a black stud, a white stud, and an asian stud.

3. Then, film every possible branch of your script, with each of the three studs. If you like, you can film for IMAX.

4. Find a programmer who will work on an X-rated FMV game. If he can program a chess minigame and japanese language tutorial software, that's a plus. Have him program the game--presenting the clips depending on the choices the player makes.

5. Add bom-chika-bom-chika music, maybe put in a pretty GUI.

6. Ship game. Make millions. Await legions of adoring masses, hailing you as the savior of the industry.

You said you're pretty well off, so why not just do it? Since pRon is ~50% of internet business anyway, it's not like you don't have a market. Good Luck.

Oh yeah, and if the protagonist gets rejected too many times, you can make him go back to his apartment and sob into his pillow "All adults care about in life is the mating game!"

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO


Not another interactive movie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Stick me in a catacomb with only Superman 64, Catwoman and Megaman battle chip challange, just don't release another interactive movie!!!!!!!!


Interactive movies are the worst type of programs (not games, programs). Yes, worse then movies. Yes, worse then spyware. No, they are not worse then the program in my school's computher lab that allows the theacer to take controll of the student's computhers. There are some limits.


Interactive movies are not fan. That's why no one makes them anymore.

"When I think about videogames I think about virtual reality and a new way of life. It may all sound crazy to you, but I am who I am."

That's just stupid, your opinion isn't the same as everyone elses, that's why it's YOUR opinion.

Also, like a few posters said, if you want the realism or something, either watch a movie of it, or go experience it yourself. A war GAME is a GAME because it wants the player to get immersed in it, without scaring them off from the topic, while also pushing historical content and letting them have fun. If you want a mature adult to experience war as it really is, the only "fun" way to do it would be to give them a gun, and send them into some war-torn country.

We'll see what realism is then, won't we, when we ship you off to iraq to die...

I don't know about anyone else, but I would much rather experience war (fun war) through a game such as Call of Duty 2 (which is pretty realistic, yet very fun, and sometimes difficult) than going to iraq with say, a 25% of ending my life.