
Video Games Are Boring - mxfh
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2016-11-07-video-games-are-boring
======
arkitaip
This captures a lot of what I've been feeling lately. I can't stand most
games, they just make me anxious and I will quit playing them after a few
hours or even minutes. Too much stress and surface experiences has had me
looking in the other direction. Take, for example, GTA 5. I've probably spent
more hours riding cars and bikes in GTA5's beautiful countryside and outback
than playing actual missions. Just hours and hours of riding during rain or
sunshine, dawn or dusk, in the city or the most remote mountains. It's
beautiful and serene and made me realize that I don't really need dozens of
hours of frantic gameplay. But as amazing as those experiences are, they
aren't the core focus of GTA5 and that's a missed opportunity.

I am ready for video games with these beautiful moments - and please keep them
short! I don't want to spend hours and hours on a game anymore, at least not
traditional ones - but I have no idea where to find them.

~~~
emp_zealoth
Simple - don't buy AAA (apart from very few select titles) because 99% of
those is rehashed garbage and cliches

Buy gamess from small studios, made by a few people or even one guy, usually a
lot of them are in Steam Early Access (yes, it is risky, some of them get
abandoned or just never improve much)

For me this is like a reneissance in gaming. Have a look at Factorio,
Starbound, Rimworld, Banished, Pillars of Eternity, SotS:The Pit, ARK:Survival
Evolved, 7 Days to Die, Hearthlands. Some of those have multiplayer and are
something else completely to play with a few friends

A whole lot of people don't even know there is entire world besides CoD or
50th fucking Asassins Creed...

I also play Dota 2 on and off, since multiplayer interactions in it are so
intense and so unpredictable

~~~
marcus_holmes
I've been playing XCom2 a lot recently, and it occurred to me that I was
caring waaay too much about my soldiers. Then it occurred to me that actually
the part of the game I was enjoying most was looking after my soldiers.

I have a sniper that never hits anything, ever, and I've started having little
pep talk with her before each mission, trying to get her to buck her game up
and be a useful member of the team.

Shooting aliens in the head isn't the fun bit. Caring for my little gang of
incompetents and nursing them through each mission is the fun bit.

~~~
intended
If caring for your incompetents is fun, then dwarf fortress or the genre of
DF-lite will be for you.

~~~
marcus_holmes
love DF :)

------
COGlory
I mostly disagree with this article. There's very few nonviolent games I've
played that I enjoy. I guess you could say I'm the average consumer, but there
are certain trends in industries that are predominant, because that's what
people want. I think all media generally has its worth defined by how it is a
conduit of unrealistic experience.

For instance, the biggest blockbuster movies usually contain unrealistic
scenarios of violence and heroism. The biggest romance movies are usually
unrealistic. The most popular music is usually describing a hypothetical
situation that people feel drawn to.

I think that's responsible for the trends we've seen in graphics, 3d, virtual
reality. People willing to consume media are people that don't have or want
the opportunity to be extraordinary in their lives. The more realistic
graphics become, the more they feel that their experiences in media are real
experiences.

So my point is basically that games exist not just for the novelty of playing
a game, but also to let people live their fantasies, and some fantasies are
less realistic than others, and therefore will be better represented in games.
Anyone can have a relationship with another person. You don't need Lydia in
Skyrim for that, and likely if you try it in real life, it'll be much more
rewarding than in a video game. If you try gutting someone with a sword in
real life, you'll go to jail.

This whole portrayal of video games (and other media) as "art" will never take
off outside of technological hipster circles, for the same reason most people
don't spend hours in art museums ever day. They're not interested in media for
its own sake as artistic, they're interested in the proxy experiences that it
offers, that people can't get elsewhere.

~~~
eswat
> People willing to consume media are people that don't have or want the
> opportunity to be extraordinary in their lives.

That’s an interesting thought that I can’t disagree with.

Myself and many people in my circle, including clients, have had played games
in the past, probably to the point of unhealthy obsession when we were kids
and getting an education.

But all of us became less enchanted by the medium as we became more successful
(success in terms of increasing our financial wealth, control of time and
ability to experience or get what we desire in life). We just couldn’t justify
the time to play the games that were coming out, which we believed were not
sparking the same fire in us that games we played years ago had (possibly due
to rose-tinted glasses).

According to the article I guess I now seek games with more depth. Games that
can impart some useful knowledge and help me reframe things in life, like a
good book can. To use BioWare as an example, I believe their older RPGs like
Jade Empire did this well, that struck a balance of philosophy, problem
solving and interesting narrative. But this went away when they dove more into
RPGs that dived deeper into the power fantasies that most consumers want.

~~~
AnOscelot
I wonder how many of us went the opposite direction. Loved games when I was a
teen. Then college took up so much time that games fell to the wayside. And
then almost the entirety of my 20s and much of my 30s was spent either working
on projects I was passionate about, or with my friends and band, or on various
adventures. Games took a far back seat to all of that. Something to do on one
of those rare nights when nothing was planned.

And now, with the demands of family and sick loved ones, and with the added
money which can build the sort of system I could have only dreamed about in my
poor teens and college years, I'm home much more and games are suddenly
appealing again.

------
tomdell
One of the main problems with single-player video games is that a lot of
people work alone and don't want to spend their free time doing something that
feels kind of like work, but doesn't seem to offer much in return. They'd
rather spend their time socializing or doing something that will improve them
in an obvious way.

A personal anecdote - I loved single-player video games until I was 18, but I
stopped cold at that age. 5 years later, I tried to get back into it. I played
some games that I used to like. I don't feel the things I used to feel while
playing. Leveling up in Diablo just feels like accomplishing a chore - it
feels meaningless.

This author seems to think that video games, in general, are definitely for
everyone. I don't agree. Just like there are people who don't like reading or
listening to music who manage to live whole, well-rounded lives, there are
people who don't like playing video games.

~~~
shanusmagnus
This is exactly how it is for me too. When I was younger I would feel so
connected to the game world, and the wonders of exploring the game world were
real wonders to me. Discovering some new village in Ultima 6 made me feel like
a great adventurer. A finder of something. If it was important in the game
world then it was important.

These days it falls out just like you wrote: if I try to play a game, I mess
around for a bit and then think: I could spend this time doing something
creative. Making something, learning something. If I found some modern
equivalent of a hidden city in a game, I'd think: so what? Who fucking cares?
What does that get me?

I still can't figure out if this means there's something really wrong with me,
that I can't even enjoy meaningless pursuits; or maybe that my sense of
'meaning' is so restricted; or if it's the opposite, and my reticence to do
those things is a sign that I'm spending time the right way, or at least, that
I have the right objective function in how I evaluate my time?

Of course, I'm a miserable bastard. That's probably an important data point.
But I'm not sure how I could change even if I was sure that I should.

~~~
santaclaus
> Discovering some new village in Ultima 6 made me feel like a great
> adventurer.

I find that joy of discovery varies wildly game to game. I could _never_ get
into Bethesda RPGs, new or old. There is lots to discover in an Elder Scrolls
game, but none of it feels like it has much weight or import. When the Ultima
games really hit their stride (V through VII p2), discoveries had weight and
import. The Witcher games feel similar, to me, I spent way to much time
exploring every damn polygon in the world. I can't really pinpoint why these
games feel so different, but hey, I still find new games to trigger that same
sense of wonder.

~~~
enraged_camel
It's about depth. The world of Witcher 3 might as well be an actual world,
with its utterly insane level of detail _and_ scale. It has deep lore,
history, politics, drama, intrigue, friendship, love, loss, humor. Everything
is _believable_. No other game I've played over the past 15 years is like it.
Skyrim came kinda close but that was after a ton of modding and fixing.

------
dahart
This is partly a story about getting older & wiser, and partly a story about
consuming entertainment vs creating it. Games do get less fun as you grow
older, and it happens a little faster if you're in the industry and start to
see the big picture clearly. And consuming things is always less fun and
engaging that making things. It's the same difference between buying software
and writing your own.

This article resonates with me because I have nearly the same story. I used to
play a _lot_ of games, and I worked in console game development for a decade
on some reasonably big titles. The game design patterns are somewhat
derivative, I witnessed the echo chamber myself. But FWIW, it's very hard to
push the boundaries and end up with something people want to buy. The market
_likes_ familiar (derivative), with incremental changes.

These days, I have enough other things to do that games aren't a priority and
I can't get involved in most games. It even stresses me out to think about
trying to finish a game. Enough of my goals and the people in my life want my
time that adding a game to the list takes away from something else I care more
about.

~~~
Declanomous
Have you played Dwarf Fortress at all? I'd be interested to know your thoughts
on that.

~~~
dahart
No, I'm not sure I've ever heard of it, but I'll check it out. I played
thousands upon thousands of hours of Quake 3 back in the day. Possibly my
favorite game recently was FEZ. Journey, mentioned in the article, was
beautiful. These days I'm as much a sucker for online Boggle or Sudoku as any
console game.

~~~
MrZongle2
FYI, Dwarf Fortress is an ASCII-only roguelike, and the learning curve is as
steep as the graphics are primitive. But the emergent gameplay is amazing.

If the inconsistent UI or graphics give you pause, I'd suggest taking a look
at Rimworld, currently in Early Access on Steam (or available directly from
the developer's site). It has some of the deep qualities of DF but is a bit
more forgiving.

~~~
dahart
Thanks for the tip, I'll check out Rimworld too!

Primitive graphics are no barrier at all. I am a graphics programmer and
graphics lover through and through. But I can say with some confidence that
graphics only matter sometimes, and even then are only a part of what makes
any game good.

I saw a great talk at GDC many years ago that had a study of what makes good
games good and "realistic", and graphics was 7th or 8th on the list. The
number one item on the list was how well players understood their own identity
in the game, whether they felt like they fit in and knew what to do. Such an
interesting and important and IMO underrated piece of gaming psychology.

~~~
dvtv75
Rimworld has chewed up hundreds of hours of my time. I frequently play it for
10 hours at a stretch - when I finally got frustrated with that sadistic RNG,
I threw in a mod ("The Martian"). So many productive hours lost because I
can't stop managing the little sods...

------
0xcde4c3db
> She didn't like that there is a snake that can kill you. It's not that it is
> too hard, it's that she is deeply uninterested in being attacked in a game.

I think this hints at a big part of the problem. When we frame something as a
game, we tend to evoke the concepts of winning and losing. The most brutal and
obvious (lazy?) way of implementing that is to turn it into "kill or be
killed". And that brutal, obvious, violent metaphor underpins the vast
majority of the mainstream game industry. That's why something like Undertale
is seen as fresh and subversive. That's probably even a big part of why Tetris
sold so many Game Boys. But too many of us can't or won't see it. The author
is probably right: those of us who have been immersed in this culture for 20+
years are like fish who too easily forget that not everyone likes to get wet.

~~~
jplayer01
20 years of gaming here and honestly, the industry needs to get over its
fetishization of violence and it's reliance on it as a crutch.

Games can be so much more than mainstream gaming has allowed them to become.

~~~
qwertyuiop924
OTOH, until NLP is a thing, social mechanics will always feel lacking. That
doesn't mean we shouldn't try: there are plenty of interesting mechanics left
unexplored.

Besides, sometimes you just want to shoot sombody with an absurd weapon.

------
falcolas
It's worth calling out - the author is at least partially using this piece to
highlight the value of their own new game development studio. This colors a
lot of the piece in a very different light.

> At my studio we are making games with people who don't like video games
> because we want to break out of established paradigms.

There are a lot of games out there, more than enough to fill any niche you
could possibly want to fill. The trick is that they aren't all made by
Bethesda, Activision, or EA. If you really want to get your friends interested
in videogames, listen to their interests (something that the OP didn't seem to
do, for all that they're starting their own studio) and point them at games
that cater to their interests, not your own.

~~~
qwertyuiop924
Indeed: I wonder how many of those friends would have loved to play Fallen
London, or Papers Please.

------
shmerl
_> The most important thing is that they think video games lack depth. They
say things like, "Unlike books/films/podcasts, with video games I don't learn
anything or change as a person"._

Which is somewhat surprising, since as with any art form, there are games
which are masterpieces, and there is mass market junk. Why would people
specifically not like games "because they lack depth", but have no problem
reading books or watching films, while the vast majority of them are drowning
in the sea of mediocrity as well?

I suppose it comes from the general lack of perception about games as an art
form. While established art exists for many years, computer games are
relatively young art, and I suppose you can compare it to the negative view on
cinema by some in its early days.

 _> Skyrim has the depth, but not the taste._

I wouldn't agree here. While Skyrim draws many with its exploration element,
I'd say it lacks depth if you compare it to really good RPGs. It's not on par
with Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment, Knights of the Old Republic, Vampire:
The Masquerade - Bloodlines or the Witcher series. The story in later Bethesda
games is pretty generic and outright boring. I'd say the last good game in the
series was Morrowind.

Going back to the art point above, it's the result of mass market appeal.
Publishers don't want risky things which can become masterpieces. "Safe bet"
of mass market mediocrity is more comfortable for them. Luckily, crowdfunding
today helps with that to some degree.

~~~
dr_zoidberg
> I'd say the last good game in the series was Morrowind.

Which why people still play it, and there was even work in bringing Morrowing
to the Skyrim engine[0].

[0] [https://tesrenewal.com/skywind-faq](https://tesrenewal.com/skywind-faq)

~~~
shmerl
I'm more interested in OpenMW personally:
[https://openmw.org](https://openmw.org)

------
nitwit005
Those "white men" (I guess Asian gaming isn't a thing?) are apparently doing a
pretty good job appealing to women as some studies have suggested they're
roughly half of the game playing demographic:
[http://www.dailydot.com/parsec/adult-women-largest-gaming-
de...](http://www.dailydot.com/parsec/adult-women-largest-gaming-demographic/)

It may be correct that women want something different than men, but I don't
think its true in the way they imagine. A lot of women seem to have enjoyed
"The Sims", but many of them appear to have spent their time in-game torturing
their hapless sims.

~~~
overgard
Maybe I'm cynical, but I tend to be skeptical of art that's more about a cause
rather than about the art itself. I'll give an example: christian rock. I have
no problem with christianity, or with rock, or with rock that is about
christian themes or ideas. But I think we all know there's also a subgenre
called "christian rock", which is generally a tacky, pretentious and
overbearing imitation of the above things in the interest of furthering an
agenda or crassly pandering. The problem with "christian rock" is it tends to
be more about being "christian" than about being good rock music. You can have
good rock music that is christian, but "christian rock" is almost always
tacky.

You see something similar recently with "art games" that are trying so hard to
be "art" that they're pretentious and overbearing. The only good "art" games
are the ones that ended up being interesting works of art by exploring an
idea, not because they set out to be art games.

I hate to say this, but I kind of worry this could just be the same thing, but
instead it'll be "serious adult" games or "feminist games" or pick whatever
social movement you want here. But it won't really be about the game, it'll be
about the movements values.

~~~
gohrt
Your entire first paragraph reads just as well without the word "Christian".
One-word proof: Nickelback.

I'm not even Christian, and I found myself enjoying an evangelical Christian
rock CD as just good music, until I listened close enough to realize that I
didn't agree with many of the lyrics.

Your second paragraph is simply the No True Scotsman fallacy, or the "all gay
men are flamboyant" observational-bias fallacy. You are just saying that you
don't like things you don't like, and you don't notice the intention behind
things you like.

~~~
overgard
> Your entire first paragraph reads just as well without the word "Christian".
> One-word proof: Nickelback.

Well no, my point is that when a work is primarily created to service an
ulterior agenda (in my example, theology, but it could be any agenda), rather
than for its own sake, the result is generally kitsch. I don't even mean that
in a pejorative way, most entertainment is kitsch, and it's fine, people are
entertained. Many (not all) "art" games tend to end up being kitschy because
they're designed to signal and appeal to an elite in-group's values rather
than being a true expression of ideas of their own. I think a piece has more
artistic merit if it reflects ideas and truths the artist discovered for
themselves, drawing on influences, instead of ideas that are designed to
appeal to a certain set of people while signaling adherence to group values.

------
panglott
Different people like different kinds of games and gameplay experiences. But
most of the video games industry is oriented around violent, twitchy games and
RPGs.

I can sink hundreds of hours into Civilization, X-COM, or Minecraft—games of
strategy and games of world-building—but for me computer RPGs are almost
entirely inferior to tabletop RPGs, especially in the "open world" aspect.
Shooters especially bore me: fast reflexes on a control pad are not something
I particularly want to spend spend dozens or hundreds of hours developing.
Then you see the YouTube comments of the people who deride everyone else for
not sharing their commitment for some specific styles of twitchy games. Some
gamers have developed a weird and toxic little cult around their lifestyle
games.

I think board games have grown so much because they have been able to attract
people who are interested in different paradigms of play: cooperative games,
for example, because it seems like so many people hate player conflict.
Competition adds a whole layer of interest to most board games IMO, but the
most important thing is just for people to have fun.

~~~
cableshaft
Board games have really exploded with how they experiment with different
concepts and mechanics over the past fifteen years, and they've been rewarded
with greater and greater success.

Board game publishers actually encourage innovation from game designers (...to
a certain extent. They also like safer bets when available too), much more so
than video game publishers, and Kickstarter exists to fund the ideas that game
publishers don't go for.

Kickstarter exists for video games too, but board games are succeeding on
Kickstarter at a much higher rate than video games lately, in no small part
because video games are funding development, for a game that may take a lot
longer to develop and be impossible to complete with those funds. Even the
darling Shovel Knight burned through all of its Kickstarter money 5 months
before release and they all went broke just to get the game out the door. But
board games are usually funding production of a completed design that's
already priced out so they know how much it's going to cost them.

There are over a thousand new board games that came out this year at Essen
alone, only one of several major board game trade shows. That's tons of
opportunities for new mechanics and experiences. They're even getting deeper
in their storytelling capabilities, as evidenced by the games Pandemic Legacy,
Time Stories, and Above and Below.

Board games are still defining new genres even (most recently the Legacy genre
which is only 5 years old, and Deckbuilders which is only 8 years old), I
can't think of any new genres in video games since Grand Theft Auto 3 came out
and popularized sandbox games 15 years ago. That is, unless you count 'Free 2
Play, Pay 2 Win', which is a perversion of game design dictated by market
forces, not a true genre.

So I think part of the problem this designer is having is she's been too
myopically limiting herself to only video games as an interactive form to draw
inspiration from. Games exist in many forms. Board games in particular have a
huge wealth of mechanics and ideas that video games have mostly left
unexplored, and role playing/social games of late are no slouch either latel
(just saw one that focuses on language and how it is formed and dies in an
isolated community on Kickstarter, called Dialect).

Shovel Knight source: [http://www.polygon.com/2014/8/6/5974557/shovel-knight-
sales-...](http://www.polygon.com/2014/8/6/5974557/shovel-knight-sales-broke)

~~~
stcredzero
One of the game designers who did a workshop at The MADE videogame museum in
Oakland advocated board game design as an exercise in "pure" game mechanics
thinking.

------
qwertyuiop924
>We want games that aren't gritty, toxic pseudo-realistic pseudo-masculine
nonsense nor frustrating time wasters that leave you feeling dead inside. We
want games about how each of us could be in the future, how the world could be
in the future. We want games built on compassion and respect and fearlessness.
This is so much more interesting.

Great. That's fantastic. We always need more games, and more types of games.
Just about anything can be made into a game (for evidence, just look at
Phoenix Wright. Being a lawyer was never so much fun). And frankly, I'd love
to see different games from more perspectives.

But.

Sometimes I want what this article dubs, "gritty, toxic pseudo-realistic
pseudo-masculine nonsense," or "frustrating time wasters that leave you
feeling dead inside." I get home at night, and maybe it's just me, but I want
to raid dungeons and slay dragons. I want to storm the tower and save the
princess. I want to kill sentient mushrooms by jumping on their head. I want
to battle a handful of strangers, armed with a Rocket Launcher, improbably
large collection of other weapons, and my own wits and reflexes.

And sometimes, I want to fit together blocks falling from the sky in a
demented abstract russian nightmare.

In short, I want your experimental art games, but I also want the kinds of
games that we already have. And we already have a lot of good ones, so stop
insulting them, please.

...Anyways, if any of you are interested in game design, and also in the idea
of games as art, and that games can be more than just entertainment, can
appeal to more than just gamers, I would reccomend checking out Extra Credits
(they're on YouTube now). Plus, their channel also does a pretty cool history
show.

~~~
gohrt
Hey no one _dies_ in Super Mario Bros. The mushrooms get swished and bopped
off-screen.

~~~
qwertyuiop924
Yeah, and you never _die_ in SMB. Your hands just go up, and your character
bounces off screen.

/s

------
grosbisou
I stopped playing video games like 10 years ago for the same reason stated in
this article: I couldn't finish any new game I started.

But I recently started to play again after years of no touching one. I weirdly
enough I love it again. I can play solo games, enjoy them and finish them. I
can play online games and enjoy the competition.

I think a lot has to do with how people cannot focus anymore on anything more
than 10 minutes. I used to be like that. Checking phone notification, look at
reddit every 5 minutes, etc. I worked on it for a long time. Stop running
after the quick gratifications and enjoy the long term. And now I am back to
being a gamer :)

~~~
reddog
You make a good point. I know I can't remember the last time I finished a
recent big console game but my reason is that many of them take so damn long
to finish. According to [http://howlongtobeat.com/](http://howlongtobeat.com/)
many of these games take hundreds of hours to complete. For example in 2004
Half-Life 2 took 19 hours to complete while the recent Witcher 3 takes 165.
Skyrim takes 215 hours. I don't think there is anything that can hold my
attention for 215 hours.

~~~
AdrianB1
You don't have to count the hours, that's not the point. If you enjoy a game
you don't want to finish it fast, you want to take it slow and enjoy every
moment of it. I played a game for over 300 hours in more than a couple of
years because it was a pleasant activity, not to beat it: I finished the main
story at about 100 hours, there was nothing left to beat (open sandbox), but
it was fun.

------
jdietrich
I think we need to distinguish between video games as "multimedia
entertainment experiences" and video games as _play_.

Minecraft is essentially computerised Lego. There are few higher accolades I
could pay to any game, because Lego is a phenomenally deep plaything. The more
semantic meaning that the designer of a Lego set provides, the worse the play
experience becomes. A bag of plain bricks can become anything, but a dragon
molded as a single piece can only ever be a dragon. Likewise with Minecraft -
_Story Mode_ is a brief, dreary and hollow experience compared to _Survival_
or _Creative_.

Each football match or chess game tells a unique story. The players create a
spontaneous drama using the particular interplay of their skills and ideas.
Infinite variety emerges from a leather ball and two sets of goalposts. A box
of crayons and a piece of paper are in themselves meaningless, but create
boundless meaning in the hands of an imaginative person.

My gripe with most modern games is that they try too hard to tell a story.
Designers in the AAA and indie space are often preoccupied with emulating the
attributes of other media, rather than exploring the unique possibilities of
video games. Any modern gamer is familiar with the "movie with quick-time
events" trope, games that shoehorn meaningless interaction into linear
storytelling. A game can (and perhaps should) be a blank canvas rather than a
work of art.

If you can't find meaning in a boxing match, if you can't grow and learn
through playing Catan, if you take no joy from a lump of modelling clay, then
the problem lies with you. We have many media that are infinitely better
suited to depicting relatable characters and portraying the real world. The
unique strength of games is play; games are at their best when they emphasise
this core strength.

~~~
shmerl
_> My gripe with most modern games is that they try too hard to tell a story.
Designers in the AAA and indie space are often preoccupied with emulating the
attributes of other media, rather than exploring the unique possibilities of
video games. Any modern gamer is familiar with the "movie with quick-time
events" trope, games that shoehorn meaningless interaction into linear
storytelling._

The common problem is not with "trying to tell the story", the problem is
usually as you said with its linearity. Making a reactive story with
meaningful consequences to choices is hard and time consuming.

 _> A game can (and perhaps should) be a blank canvas rather than a work of
art._

It should be a work of art which allows player to participate in a meaningful
way. Compare it to a form of art where actor plays a role, but the play isn't
set in stone, and you are that actor.

Roleplaying however is just one type of gaming activity. There can be other
types of games, more focused on exploration for instance, puzzle solving or
simulation and etc. While quite different categories, they all can be
enjoyable computer games. Some tend to be more sport, than art.

------
60654
Nice polemic piece. Only goes to show that people don't know what huge variety
of game experiences there are out there.

And also, we need to move away from the idea that some games or genres are
objectively better or more interesting than others. It's all relative to the
audience - some people have a stronger reaction to some experiences than to
others, and will seek out different things.

Nick Yee has been doing excellent, data driven research on the interaction
between player preferences, game types, and personality types - there's some
intro material from his gdc talk on their web site:
[http://quanticfoundry.com/gdc/](http://quanticfoundry.com/gdc/)

------
psyc
I disagree strongly with the implication that there isn't already tremendous
variety in games.

~~~
cooper12
I think the author is saying that the mechanics of gaming are flawed though.
They're almost all centered around stuff like health and ammo, completing
objectives, taking damage and dying. That's what most games are. Sure you'll
find exceptions, but they're nowhere near the mainstream, and even gamers will
shun them for "not being games" like _Dear Esther_. Also, even the variety
that is there might not be what these people are looking for as shown by her
friends not liking _Journey_. The point of the article is that we need to step
out of what we consider games and try to think of a different audience who
wants a new kind of experience with attributes, such as depth or relatability.

~~~
jerf
"Sure you'll find exceptions, but they're nowhere near the mainstream,"

It's important to be clear whether one is describing gaming as a whole, or
"mainstream" gaming. Many criticisms of mainstream gaming don't apply to
"gaming" as a whole, which includes things like a visual novel community,
hidden object games, and the "walking simulators" that have almost no presence
in the mainstream but definitely _exist_. They have almost no discoverability,
being buried under games with advertising budgets an order of magnitude larger
than what those games will make in revenue (let alone profit), but they exist.

So when you say something like "we need to step out of what we consider games
and try to think of a different audience who wants a new kind of experience
with attributes, such as depth or relatability", it's easy for those who
already have to perceive that as a bit of an insult. "We" may not be as
encompassing as you or the original author think it is, and some people may
resent being categorized into that "we".

------
5ilv3r
My wife loves portal and portal 2 because you get to explore and not get shot
at without walking into it with early warning. For 90% of the game, you can
just drop the controller, come back the next day, and everything will be just
how you left it. No pressure.

~~~
notgood
Coincidentally that's the kind of games I usually dislike, life is dull by
itself; I need rush and adrenaline because that's the kind of thing my real
life is missing.

But I liked portal 2, I actually finished it all in one single session, but it
was because the story is thrilling, every puzzle different enough from the
previous and makes me think, not because I could drop the controller and
forget about it.

------
efvxcgci
TLDR: The author has a cousin who doesn't like video game violence and white
males ruin everything.

~~~
phpnode
That's a grossly unfair mischaracterisation of the piece, did you actually
read it?

~~~
jerf
Yes, and the self-loathing white male undercurrent runs throughout. The idea
that gaming is a solely white male affair is itself a very parochial view.
Calling it a _male_ affair is probably reasonable based on the statistics,
although that's still already a bit of an insult to some of the successful
developers who sell female-dominated genres, but it's not _white_ male; plenty
of non-white males play games, and they're already playing _different_ games
than the author does. As a single for instance, the word "sports" doesn't seem
to appear in that article at all. (Not that sport games are exclusive non-
white male; from what I see, they're popular with almost everybody, except
"gamers".) As another for instance, Japan has been making and playing video
games for as long as the West, and as far as I know, they are not white;
again, no trace of the immense and incredibly diverse Japanese industry
appears in the article.

You have to throw out a lot of evidence to come to the conclusion that video
gaming is even remotely the exclusive domain of "white males".

I'd submit that rather than building games based on your political conception
of what other people might want, you'd be far better off bringing in the non-
gamers into the design process directly. Or even just letting other groups of
people build the types of games they like instead of taking it upon yourself
to build the games that somebody else might like, which is already sort of,
shall I say, culturally imperialistic? They're doing it already, after all. I
know; I've played some of them, and enjoyed them, and they didn't need
permission, help, or angst from the "white males" to do it.

The problem may not be "the industry", so much as a game player who doesn't
realize that even within the context of gaming as a whole, they are less
widely-experienced than they think. If I were to try to entice my wife back
into gaming, who plays Mario Kart with the family and a mean Dr. Mario,
"Skyrim" would not even make my top 50 suggestions.

~~~
saint_fiasco
The author doesn't want more games for black males, or white women, or even
minority women. Though the author may not realize it, that kind of
demographics are a red herring.

What she really is looking for is games for what she feels is an under-served
demographic: The kind of person who lives in "a state of constant shock, of
constant stimulation" like her friends do. Her friends just happen to not be
white males, so she latched on to that.

~~~
guitarbill
> under-served demographic: The kind of person who lives in "a state of
> constant shock, of constant stimulation" like her friends do

Out of interest, what would such a game look like, to compete with such a
state? Farmville? Candy Crush?

~~~
saint_fiasco
I don't feel over-stimulated, so I can only guess that such people would
indeed prefer games like _Farmville_ and _Neko Atsume_.

But the author's friend, in addition to being overwhelmed with constant shock
and stimulation, is also a bit of a snob, so she won't play those low-brow
games. I don't know what high-brow relaxing games are like. Maybe _Papers,
Please_ and _Dear Esther_?

------
quickConclusion
Addiction.

My main gripe with video games is that they're addictive. Boring or not, they
push you to play another 5, 10, 60 minutes... before you know it, you ruined
your evening, and wasted your time and the next day at work...

Kudos to the artists, developers, psychologists who can build that. And
probably I am weak.

At the end of the day, they are very successful in making me addicted, that's
why i am staying away, that's why I am not a gamer.

~~~
angrydev
I don't think you're weak at all. They do build the games to be super
stimulating and addicting. They build reward models into the games that help
you form the habit of playing every day for a small reward. Then eventually
you're logging in every day to play for something you don't care at all about.

Once you realize that, you're free.

------
donatj
I feel like she just needs to find better less judgmental friends; they
certainly don't sound like people I would want to associate with. They
belittle her work, refuse to try things she enjoys and overall come off fairly
unpleasant. New friends, real friends, are in order.

~~~
t0mbstone
Different people like different stuff. It sounds like her friend would be a
lot happier playing The Sims.

------
edem
I've been playing games since Commodore 64. I've played through Amiga, early
PC, Playstation, etc games. The problem is that gaming became an industry and
the companies behind AAA games want you to spend as much time playing their
game as possible. The 100% fun of Chaos Engine which took 4 hours became 150
hours of boring side-questing (I look at you Skyrim). The somach-wrenching
action of Freespace 2 became endless leveling up, unlocking, achievement
gathering in Battlefield or World of Tanks. This problem you describe is quite
refreshing though but familiar if I think about it. I can only name a few
games from recent years which have deep narrative (SOMA, Talos Principle for
example) but most of them have some gameplay problems which you have to get
used to. For example SOMA is unnerving, Talos Principle is full of hard
puzzles. If you are not already a gamer you won't see what gaming can give
you. This is a Catch 22 which is really hard to bypass. What I would really
love to see is something like Dwarf Fortress which is __very__ deep but
combersome in a neat package which can entertain me for a few hours (or weeks
if I want). I also really like the direction Quantic Dream took with their
games which are interactive movies with optional exploration. What I
__REALLY__ miss though is well-written story and characters with real
personality with the protagonist (the player) marching through a monumental
and engaging storyline like we saw in Mass Effect. I really wish I could erase
my memories of playing Mass Effect, System Shock 2, Undying, Half-Life and
others so I can replay them and enjoy them again for the first time.

~~~
psyc
> What I would really love to see is something like Dwarf Fortress which is
> __very__ deep but combersome in a neat package

Some Swede actually did this, and made a couple Billion.

~~~
edem
Yep Minecraft was a good one but it lacks narrative. I do play Minecraft
anyway but I would like to put more emphasis on the simulation.

~~~
Vaskivo
Well, the minecraft I played had a chapter where a guy got overconfident and
continued building during the night. He ended up having a creeper blow up and
have a ton of skeletons invade his house. He had to escape, near death. It
took him a week to take his house back. In the endhe mourned his dead pet pig,
and erected a monument in his memory. :)

Just because it doesn't have a "set in stone" story, that doen's mean that
there isn't one. I've seen stories unfold in The Sims that would put to shame
most books and movies.

~~~
edem
Dwarf Fortress doesn't have a "set in stone" story either but there is a ton
of emergent behavior which makes stories so fun that there is a whole
community of players who are not playing the game but just reading the stories
(myself included).

------
jly
I don't play video games, but I also don't think they're boring. I was a big
gamer during my younger years - teens through university. Unfortunately this
means I know the kind of time they can demand and consume, as well as the
cost. Now in my 30s, I have a family, a home, and many other hobbies. I make a
conscious effort to stay away from video games because I just don't have that
much time I want to spend. I have fond memories of many games but I really
don't miss it all that much.

These days, my infrequent gaming time doubles as friend/family time with a
board game played around a table.

------
orloffm
Witcher and Bloodborne aren't boring. It's just that AAA gaming became
something made inside Anglo Saxon corporations, and everyone is fed up with
that lack of details and creativity. 20 years ago top-class games like Dungeon
Keeper could've been made in a garage.

~~~
talmand
>> 20 years ago top-class games like Dungeon Keeper could've been made in a
garage.

Entry to market for garage devs with a quality title is far easier today than
20 years ago.

------
TrevorJ
I agree with the general thesis of the article, but I don't buy the cop out
that things are the way they are because the creatives in the industry are
white men. That wouldn't be an acceptable thing to say about (insert any other
gender/race combination here) so I don't think it's an acceptable excuse or
reason here either. It's clear that the industry sorely needs some new
thinking and new creative ideas, but I believe those new ideas can come from
anyone, regardless of gender or race.

~~~
eridius
The fact that the video game industry is dominated by white men is a bad
thing. But you're saying that _pointing that out_ is bad, and that seems
completely backwards to me. If you don't acknowledge the current reality,
things will never get better.

~~~
hyperdunc
The culture of video games, particular the working environment, is largely
influenced by the people who created the industry: white and Asian men. This
isn't a problem because there is no discrimination against ideas coming from
other demographics.

Anyone who likes video games and wants to make it their career is free to do
so, but shouldn't expect to be able to strong-arm others into their way of
thinking.

------
amyjess
Honestly, the games I find the most engaging are simple 2D platformers and
beat-em-ups. Maybe fighting games too, though I'm only interested in the
single-player mode.

Playing around with some old games over the weekend and last weekend, I forgot
how addictive they were.

Yesterday, I told myself "I'll play a bit of _Super Mario Bros. 3_ and see how
far I can get on one life"... and before I knew it, I was in World 2.

The weekend before that, I played some _Golden Axe_ , and I got a huge chunk
of the way through the game before I had to turn it off to go do other things.

It's my personal opinion that 1985-1995 was the single best era for gaming, as
it was dominated by addictive fast-paced games that you could just pick up and
play. One of the things that turns me off about modern games is that the "just
pick up and play" mentality is gone... too many unskippable cutscenes, forced
tutorial levels, etc.

~~~
zimpenfish
> things that turns me off about modern games [...] too many unskippable
> cutscenes, forced tutorial levels, etc.

Perhaps in the AAA space but down in the more indie spaces, you don't get
those. My current set of favourite games (Rocket League, Binding of Isaac,
Risk Of Rain, Rogue Legacy, Delver) certainly don't have any of those.

~~~
amyjess
Well, now I have some names to Google...

Thanks!

------
ysavir
Skyrim might be a poor choice for people of those interests, but what about
games like the Sims? Is it true that the video game industry has not catered
to audiences like the author's friends, or has it actually catered to them all
along--but the the author didn't notice because she was too busy being
involved in her own demographic (which, to be fair, has more than enough
material to keep any person busy in such a way).

I really appreciated the tone and themes of growth she expressed in the
article. But she seems to currently have a state of mind of "if I can't think
of an example, it must not exist", and not one of "if I can't think of an
example, I must not have encountered one yet". In terms of understanding and
perspective, you can tell she came a long way; but she still has a ways to go,
too.

------
dougmwne
This does seem to be a real problem in the games industry, but I think there
are plenty of bright spots that speak to more than just adolescent boys.

I think the best example of all time is The Sims. I saw that game draw in non-
gamers like nothing I've ever seen before or since, and draw them in with a
passion and obsession only matched by hardcore gamers. That's all the evidence
you need to prove that there's big money in something that doesn't have a
"kill" button or a win state.

Another bright spot: the entire Wii platform. I agree that the problem is
probably due to a lack of diverse perspectives. The games industry disparages
these experiences as "casual." Ouch.

------
matwood
I only enjoy two types of games now. Sports games because they are mostly
boxed time and I find them fun, and mindlessly blow stuff up type games.
Diablo and GTA fall into this category.

I used to be into RPGs, but they just take too much time now. The things that
give them depth for one player, makes them impossible for me to play in short
30 minute chunks.

------
jarjoura
The most engrossing game I've played is _The Last of Us_ on the PlayStation.
Wow, it was literally the only time in my life that I stayed up into the early
hours to get as far I could. So much depth and nuance in every chapter to
build out a universe that definitely showed it took Naughty Dog years to
develop.

------
daemonk
I really miss gameplay driven games rather than presentation/story driven
games. I think both are great, but I really enjoy the technical intricacies of
street fighter or mega-man games.

~~~
falcolas
They're still out there. Ori and the Blind Forest, BlazBlue, Dark/Demons
Souls, Shadow Complex, Dust, and more indy games than I could shake a stick
at. One of the tricks is to avoid the internet while trying to solve the
games. It's amazing the difference a guide-free run makes.

~~~
roddux
I was waiting for somebody to mention Dark Souls! It has by far and away one
of the best combat systems I've ever played. Amazing game.

------
jprzybyl
From the Tao of Programming:

 _A master programmer passed a novice programmer one day. The master noted the
novice 's preoccupation with a hand-held computer game. "Excuse me," he said,
"may I examine it?"_

 _The novice bolted to attention and handed the device to the master. "I see
that the device claims to have three levels of play: Easy, Medium, and Hard,"
said the master. "Yet every such device has another level of play, where the
device seeks not to conquer the human, nor to be conquered by the human."_

 _" Pray, great master," implored the novice, "how does one find this
mysterious setting?"_

 _The master dropped the device to the ground and crushed it underfoot. And
suddenly the novice was enlightened._

I've played video games since before I could walk. Some games I connect with
and can't stop playing - Undertale and Papers Please come to mind. Most don't
anymore, not even an old favorite like Doom.

I feel like there's something to this article, but I think it's larger than "I
don't like Game of Thrones". There is room for games that really dig into
humanity, rather than being meaningless mechanics.

I mean, I like sports. But I like books, too.

~~~
shmerl
I didn't play Undertale yet, but soundtrack there sounds pretty good:
[https://tobyfox.bandcamp.com/track/bonetrousle](https://tobyfox.bandcamp.com/track/bonetrousle)

~~~
jprzybyl
It is indeed good! (I actually have the soundtrack on my phone.) But I suggest
playing the game and letting the soundtrack surprise you. It really is worth a
play.

~~~
shmerl
Yeah, I usually avoid listening to the soundtrack before playing some game,
but I've heard Bonetrousle somewhere, and couldn't resist buying the whole OST
on Bandcamp :)

The game sounds somewhat controversial with some liking it a lot, while others
quite disliking it. I might give it a try at one point.

~~~
jprzybyl
I really liked it! Then again, I played the games it was (obviously) inspired
by, and I liked those games too. I understand if people don't like it - it's
pretty personal, in the way that it's targeted _directly_ towards the niche
the creators love. Those things tend to be rather splitting, so it's
unsurprising, in retrospect.

It's kind of like bad shark movies - there is a group of people who love them,
and everyone else is fine not being in that group. It's not that either group
is better or worse, it's just a niche.

------
cooper12
By the way, I can't comment directly on the article's page, so if someone can
please let the author know that her Harry Giles link duplicates the link
before it. She likely meant to point it here:
[https://harrygiles.org/2016/04/24/shock-and-
care/](https://harrygiles.org/2016/04/24/shock-and-care/).

------
stcredzero
As someone who has been a consultant for a software development environment,
I've been inside a lot of companies, and I've been struck by how often they
all seem to make the same mistakes. My former company had acquired 2 different
implementations of the same language, and it was eerie how both former
companies made the same mistakes -- down to even making the same corresponding
in the same corresponding subsystems. I've also been observing video games
since Pong was new, as well as other forms of media, such as music, books, and
video/film. All forms of media seem to be following somewhat parallel paths.
All media industry publishing seems to tend to make the same mistakes
generally, and to tend to make the same mistakes in response to technological
changes in distribution, like those brought about by internet downloads,
streaming, and social media. (There are people who are thinking ahead and
using forethought to navigate these changes as well.)

There also seem to be parallel missteps in the invention of new forms of
media. It took generations for the industry to get a handle on all of new
tools, techniques, and vocabulary of cinema. It took generational change for
the field to give up old forms adapted from the theater. One generation's
daring and pioneering work would also become the next generation's
stultifying, overused tropes.

I find that many of the pretensions of art in games are well meaning but
misapplied things learned in film school. Higher budgets seem to result in
more production with less interactivity and less intelligence credited to the
players. There are leanings away from intellectually engaging interactivity
and towards sensation and addiction through variable schedule of reward. There
are also some of the same unjustified pretensions to "art" or intellectualism,
as well as a few justified ones.

As always, the way forward is partly through the self honesty and self
awareness required of art.

------
Vaskivo
This article is weird. It sort of addresses the solution to it's problem while
it's problem is also almost non-existant.

1 - not every medium is for everybody. Getting my friends to play videogames
(or getting my few gamer friends to play niche/weird game I recommend) is
something I already gave up. I don't dislike cinema, but most of the movies
the are made simply don't appeal to me. There's nothing wrong with cinema. I'm
just not that attracted to the medium.

2 - the author's friends' attitude to videogames. This shows lack of
knowledge, lack of humility and elitism. Just because they don't know any
games that "change you as a person" or cater to their "cultural preferences
and interests" that doesn't mean that there isn't. People should be humble
when judging other things. I don't like hip-hop. But I don't assume it is all
bad or that I will dislike it all. Sturgeon's law applies both ways, and to
everything.

3 - about the author's suggestions. I like the suggestions. I thought Skyrim
would be a bit too heavy to a new gamer (specially to one who was really on
the fence) but it worked! It showed the power transposing ourselves to a new
world and live within it. And that Lidya story.. It was the best outcome it
could happen. Sure, Kristina later abandoned the game. But the theme wasn't of
her liking. But it showed her a glimpse of what is possible.

4 - I dislike the demonization of the bulk of the medium. Sure, there are a
lot os FPSs and violence and twitch-reflex action games. We have Call of Duty
as we have Katy Perry and Transformers[0]. And these get a lot of imitators
and visibility and money because... there are a lot of people who like these
things ans are willing to play for them. And this is OK. Niche stuff, out of
the mainstream is always harder to find.

Finally 5 - The author is there and clearly knows videogames. If a friend
wants to try videogames you should, like the author said, ask what they like
or expect to see and direct them to a game like that. Skyrim is a good choice.
Papers please is also nice. Maybe a puzzle game. Or a walking simulator to
someone who just wants to experience a story in his own pace. And maybe you
could, I don't know, give them Call of Duty. They might enjoy it. And they
might even dislike everything. Because, as I said, not every medium is for
everybody. but The demonization os the mainstream simply shows a clear lack of
understanding of the market and an extremely "hipseristic" attitude.

[0] - I'm using these as an example of something low-brow, made for the
masses. This is only my opinion and you are free to enjoy them and regard them
in whatever way you want.

~~~
saint_fiasco
I think the author wants some validation and acknowledgement that a high-brow
exists. Some of her friends thought the entire videogame industry is low-brow
and the author says, quoting Tim Gunn, "this is a design failure and not a
customer issue".

~~~
emodendroket
Well, frankly, narratively video games rarely even rise to the level of genre
fiction (and the best ones stop somewhere around there) and I have a hard time
taking claims about highbrow art seriously from somebody who claims that
novels and cinema are now irrelevant because our lives are unpredictable.

------
kyriakos
some games have depth and a compelling enough story to keep you wanting for
more. e.g. for me that is the Mass Effect series. The graphics you could say
are not that great by 2016 standards but the amount of work that went into the
story and universe building for that game kept me occupied. I spent hours
probably reading the codex about different species and events in the Mass
Effect universe, it was similar to reading a fantasy/scifi book like Dune. It
wasn't the graphics, it wasn't the amazing gameplay, it was just a good
entertaining story and great universe building that made the game.

------
abrown28
This article hijacks the history so that in one browser I have to double click
the back button to get back to hacker news and in another browser I end up at
facebook. It's very irritating.

------
BuckRogers
Interesting article, but games for me since the 90s ended have been huge
letdowns. I started gaming in '86 on a Commodore and a bit before with an
Atari 2600. The 90s were the peak of creativity. The 80s a bit limited
technologically, though the arcades at their peak were a sight to behold. In
the last 16 years, I only found a handful of games that really got me
interested. Left 4 Dead and League of Legends (I did have TFT and tried DOTA
but didn't play long enough to get hooked).

But it seemed in the 90s, both PCs and consoles were putting out their best
stuff. I still look at the old Sega Genesis games and early 90s PC titles as
some of the best the industry ever put out.

As a result, I just bought a new PC and decided to not even bother with a high
end gaming machine. I'm using a Skull Canyon NUC, first time in 30 years I
wasn't concerned with meeting current specs in the latest AAA games. We're
going on two decades of rehashing 90s ideas and I'm done.

I will be buying a Nintendo Switch though. The social gaming aspect of Mario
Kart is still magic for me but there is no other entity out there with
Nintendo's polish, charm or fun. I think it's an open secret that 3rd party
publishers often run from Nintendo systems not due to API lock-in but because
they simply cannot compete with Nintendo 1st party titles.

Oh, and my username is actually a homage to the Buck Rogers Gold Box titles
from the early 90s. I never got into the D&D stuff but played the heck out of
the two Buck Rogers releases.

------
phs318u
This may not be a hugely valuable contribution to the discussion, nevertheless
...

A. Game value is in the eye of the beholder.

B. What takes my eye changes over long and short terms (as a function of spare
time available, economic circumstance, hardware at hand, effort/reward ratio,
but mostly the ever-intangible "what takes my fancy at this point in time" \-
a reflection of my personal psychology that also changes over time).

C. At best you can please some of the people some of the time.

I'll admit that I'm of an age where I lost the capacity to devote bunch-of-
hours-per-day to gaming just as MUDs were becoming really popular. I think as
a result I never really got into massively multi-player gaming. I've played
Diablo III - but single player.

My favourite games of all time include (in no particular order):

\- Moon Cresta (table-top)

\- The Hobbit (C64, cassette)

\- Nethack (VAX VMS)

\- Impossible Mission (C64)

\- Balance of Power (C64)

\- Bards Tale I (C64)

\- Dune (Amiga)

\- Elite (Amiga)

\- Nethack (PC)

\- Need for Speed: Most Wanted (original) (Mac, via Wine)

\- Diablo III (Mac)

\- Nethack (Mac)

\- Backgammon (iOS - at least 10K games played on this sucker! I had to delete
it!)

\- Nethack (iOS)

Lately, I've been really getting into Really Bad Chess (iOS). Was never a
chess player but it's is a clever wrinkle on this (for me) very boring (i.e.
too hard) game.

------
alva
At least it is clear who will be the final boss in whatever game he makes. The
most evil, oppressive, disgusting, disgraceful, exploiting, aggressive thing
there is...

Can you beat.. The White Western Male??

I am sick of all of this. There is gender parity in video gamers. There is
huge amount of diversity in video game titles for whoever wants them. Think
you have spotted a gap in the market? Great, make your billions, others will
follow very, very quickly.

"For years I've been bored of trying to prove to my colleagues that women are
human, that women aren't too unpredictable to study, that what women like is
not less worthy nor boring nor wrong nor hard to understand. That it's garbage
to say that women don't need deep, rich experiences."

The disdain for The White Male in this is ridiculous.

"For years I've been bored of trying to prove to my colleagues that women are
human"

Does anyone reading this believe that his colleagues believe women are not
human or worthy of respect?

This person is aiming straight for bullseye of a niche, vocal man hating
demographic in order to make money.

------
elcapitan
So - can the games industry be saved, or does it need to get "disrupted"?

From the outside it definitely looks like it has the same problem as the movie
industry, that is lots of money going into large conservative projects, where
change is perceived as pure risk and little upside.

To be honest the article itself put me off first with the "white male" stuff,
but I must admit that it sums up mostly what I feel about games today. While I
really admire the graphics (Battlefield 1 for example), the kind of dead end
gameplay makes me sad.

I'm wondering what the necessary environment would be to incubate change
there. It's still not the size of the movie industry (on a company level at
least), so there should be room for development.

On the other hand, from a technical perspective, with the tools we have today
(Unity etc.) there is a very solid foundation for quality independent
developments. So that's at least one positive outlook.

~~~
hood_syntax
As you hinted, independent studios are already taking the ball and rolling
with it. It doesn't need to be disrupted, although that would be welcome.
There is already a thriving community of consumers (less numerous but more
discretionary and willing to shell out money for quality) that actively seek
the newest developments in the gaming scene.

------
syphilis2
I believe it is an artistic mistake to target an audience in the way the
author is intending with her studio. She mentions, "women aren't too
unpredictable to study" and "what women like", as though what she learned from
the "white male" centric industry is how to pander to a market for profit.

------
forkLding
I'm a male individual and whats said here really resonates with me. I have
never been that interested with fighting/action games, Fallout has always been
my most favourite game and its less the combat but really the open-world
adventure that appeals.

------
exodust
For those who don't like typical games, you might enjoy theme park builders,
city builders or simulators. They have gaming elements, but are mainly about
designing and using your imagination and skill with the tools provided.

I'm currently enjoying Planet Coaster. If I had kids I would be granting them
more "screen time" if they played these applications rather than shooters. For
younger kids, titles such as Minecraft fall into this category too. Having
something to show after countless hours of playing is always better than not
having anything to show.

That said, who isn't guilty of sinking hundreds of hours into nothing more
than thrills and rank in some action/sport game.

------
emodendroket
> Linear novels and films are less relevant now for reflecting our realities.

Citation needed.

------
rokosbasilisk
No they are not. There is so much variety right now for so many audiences its
unbelievable. I would even say its the golden age of videogames, even kings
quest like games are making it big again.

------
vlunkr
I disagree with the notion that because life is hard video games should be
easy. I think lots of people vent frustrations through video games, and get a
sense of accomplishment when they do hard things. It's one hard thing in life
you can get really good at. And it doesn't mean the game has to attack you.
The game Fez comes to mind. Nothing in the game can harm you, but there are
tough puzzles.

------
abrown28
Unlike the usual at least this one ended with the author stating they were
going to work on the problem. These types of articles usually end by telling
me why I am wrong and what I should be doing.

------
soyiuz
Did anybody else find the font distracting? The little connecting thing
between "st" is too ostentatious, particularly when the site does not respect
other typographical conventions, like the difference between n- and m- dashes.
(See, for example, the parenthetical statement in the second sentence. It
should use the m- rather than the n- dash usually reserved for hyphenated
words.)

Edit: On second viewing, the issue with strange "st" font artifacts was fixed
when I enabled java-script.

~~~
bazzargh
I was going to reply, you don't seem to be seeing the font that's on the page.
The font they're using is a renamed copy of Baskerville eText, and it doesn't
have an 'st' ligature. It does have 'ff' and 'fi', you can see a sample here:
[http://myfonts.us/td-JZwQMI](http://myfonts.us/td-JZwQMI)

The css for the page enables ligatures however, and falls back to the
browser's own serif; so you were probably seeing the ligatures from your own
default font. I'm guessing Adobe Caslon Pro, because it's widely available and
has a very distinct loop ligature for 'st'.
[http://myfonts.us/td-C4VrUX](http://myfonts.us/td-C4VrUX)

------
trynumber9
Good luck. You'll create another game that the next blogger will ignore when
they write about video games being boring.

------
GnarfGnarf
Yes! The emperor has no clothes. I think video games are laymen's attempt at
capturing the magic of controlling a computer. Why waste your time with boring
games when you can write computer programs? I'd rather program than play
computer games. Programming is the ultimate game.

~~~
emodendroket
That's not what the article says at all.

------
chrisdbaldwin
Someone doesn't know about Killer Queen yet ;)

------
tnones
There is nothing to support the author's typical feminist schtick of using
diversity as a shorthand for blaming white men for the problems observed.
Video games already have a diverse, demographically blind audience, that's why
they're cheap mass entertainment. They're class and race-blind, and women do
play them.

Games can offer a free space to explore, play and excel, away from the
judgement of real life, often with a completely arbitrary character. For the
entire bottom half of society, that's very appealing, and it's not "pseudo-
masculine nonsense". Relationship mechanics are popular with men too, with
Mass Effect's crew of cameraderie and romance being a hugely popular AAA
example. So popular, the lack of a respectful ending pissed off its fanbase,
whose desire for meaning and depth then got spun into an accusation of
entitlement and obsession.

What we've seen the last 10 years is games have become more shallow, favoring
gambling systems and skinner boxes over mechanics and systems. Ironically,
it's mostly women playing these social and mobile games. In fact, it is
hilarious that she talks of "rich, deep experiences" but then holds up "Kim
Kardashian: Hollywood" as an example in the very next sentence, which is
literally a cash-grab celebrity reskin of an existing game.

She complains that "we've stopped listening to each other", that the
conversation is "evolving slowly" and that people don't think "women are
human", but she pulls the same dehumanizing routine by painting the entire
existing industry and its customers with the same tired old brush. Perhaps she
should consider "that what [men] like is not less worthy nor boring nor wrong
nor hard to understand". And if she wants "compassion and respect and
fearlessness", she could start by practicing what she preaches.

~~~
dahart
Does this article scare you? You sound very defensive. I'm sorry to inform you
that we do have a culture problem that is well documented, and you have
identified yourself as part of the problem.

> Video games already have a diverse, demographically blind audience

Do you have some data to support your assertion there? That would mean that
the same number of men and women play games. Because I've worked in games, and
the _publishers_ acknowledge that games are biased toward young white men. The
publishers have been trying to create games for girls, and the girls
frequently won't buy or play them because, according to their research, boys
won't play games oriented toward girls at all, and the feeling that girl
oriented games are less cool actually gets adopted by the girls. Meanwhile
games specifically and intentionally oriented toward boys outsell other types
and continue to be produced.

I've never seen a survey anywhere that showed equal or greater numbers of
women playing games, and most surveys are trying to boost the number of women
by including games that most young men don't play. This is simply not
"demographically blind".

[http://www.polygon.com/2016/4/29/11539102/gaming-
stats-2016-...](http://www.polygon.com/2016/4/29/11539102/gaming-
stats-2016-esa-essential-facts)

"60 percent of those who buy games most often are men, while the remaining 40
percent are women."

[http://www.theesa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/ESA-
Essenti...](http://www.theesa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/ESA-Essential-
Facts-2015.pdf)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_culture#Demographic...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_culture#Demographics)

"according to a 2011 study showing that 58% of gamers are male and 42%
female."

[http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/12/15/who-plays-video-
games-...](http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/12/15/who-plays-video-games-and-
identifies-as-a-gamer/)

"Young men in particular play games and identify as “gamers.” Fully 77% of men
ages 18 to 29 play video games (more than any other demographic group),
compared with 57% of young women – a 20-point difference."

~~~
tnones
You're only making my point further by assuming "diversity" must imply a 50/50
gender distribution in the players.

Diversity implies differences in class, age, origin, occupation, and so on,
and this is definitely the case in the consumer demographics. The fact that
some games appeal more to men and others more to women is unsurprising, and
irrelevant.

In fact, that you're seeing numbers such as 60/40 despite the game makers
themselves being far more male-dominated suggests those men are doing a pretty
decent job in appealing to people not like them.

~~~
dahart
> You're only making my point further by assuming "diversity" must imply a
> 50/50 gender distribution in the players. Diversity implies differences in
> class, age, origin, occupation, and so on

Sorry, but that's wrong. This is a common statistics mistake, let me try to
help you.

You're conflating diversity of selection with diversity of demographics. There
is one, and only one, way to demonstrate that something is "demographically
blind".

The definition of "demographically blind" is when the number of people in each
category playing games occurs in the same ratio as the number of people in
that category in the general population. For example, for games to be
demographically blind, there would need to be 3 men for every 2 women in the
general population. The fact that men and women occur close to 50/50 in the
population, and that men and women play games in a 3:2 ratio literally proves
that games are not demographically blind.

Again I ask for some data. Have you worked in games? I have. Have you talked
to publishers about cultural sexism? I have. Do you have any evidence for your
claim that games are demographically blind? I provided some. Logic doesn't
work, but feel free to prove me wrong with some data.

------
joesmo
In the last few years, since the Walking Dead series came out, my sister has
gotten into videogames for the first time really in her life and we play
together. This was not the case when we were kids. It is not the case for most
videogames. But games like that, games that are simple and playable by players
with virtually no controller skill, games with depth, story, and character
appeal to some non-gamers like my sister in ways that no game before has. They
appeal to me more than any other type of game and I've been gaming for
decades.

The biggest factor, I'd say, is how frustrating a game is and how easy it is
for someone who doesn't regularly play games to pick up. If a game requires a
lot of hand-eye coordination, a lot of repetition, a lot of dying, it will not
work. Period. I have no doubt you can do tons of studies to prove it. People
like my sister are not interested in trying to find the skeleton key inside
the blue ruby inside the giant book inside the treasure chest so that they can
open some door to get a battery to operate an elevator so they can continue
the game. The more nonsensical the gameplay, the less non gamers are
interested in it. This pretty much eliminates 95-99% of videogames as
frustrating garbage (and let's face it, for people without controller skills,
they are nothing more than that).

It's amazing to me to see how many games fit into that remaining 1-5% of games
and how fun they can be. I'm not interested in being frustrated anymore
either, so other than sports games, those are mostly the only games I play or
have played in the last few years. Some companies are realizing this and
making great games for a variety of people. Others are making the same old
garbage that even videogame veterans like me are frankly sick and tired of.
Then they wonder why people hate their videogames. Like with most things, the
answer is obvious.

------
venomsnake
I think that there X and Y chromosome games. With some subset of X liking Y
and vice versa.

For me - the greatest game ever is Serious Sam - give me a chaingun, enemies
and bullets and I am happy as a worm in an apple. Obviously Katrina would not
find the game interesting. She also would probably not enjoy a Thaddeus raid.
Or ripping spine fatality.

Testosterone loves adversarial, brutal, violent games. Estrogen - not so much.

One interesting correlation is that women that like real metal (not bon jovi)
and beer tend also to like the video games that serve mostly the male
audience.

So big part of the market is underserved. But I think that for that we must
put inclusiveness on hold - nobody in the publishing industry expect sizable
male audience for 50 shades, or sizable female for Brandon Sanderson.

------
andrewclunn
You know, I might not think the same way that other white men do, so kindly
take your sexist racism and shove it.

------
rasz_pl
TLDR: Women author knows dont like actual gameplay part of games, they like
narratives. She cant come up with narrative driven games therefore all 'Games
Are Boring'.

What about Telltale? Life is Strange?

------
fbreduc
i don't game anymore because

1> games are very buggy 2> i need super computers to play them

------
Pica_soO
There are no planescape torments anymore..

------
facepalm
The game industry urgently needs to find out how to satisfy the taste of art
historians who like feminist art. Maybe a first person shooter where you play
a vagina that shoots with tampons?

That said, while I love game, only very few games are really fun to me these
days. It seems only ever few year there is a game that captivates me.
Discovery is another problem: maybe there are more good games, and I just
don't hear about them.

------
nippples
People who hate games should really go find other stuff to write about. Their
articles are boring.

~~~
hobs
Are you kidding?

I love games, and I was expecting another article bashing video games in their
current state, and that isn't what was written here.

The entire POV for the article is from a traditional video gamer (you know,
people who like games) trying to understand her friends who are not appealed
to by what she considers traditional video games, and how understanding your
audience is key to unlocking the market.

What if you could get everyone who isnt interested in traditional games to
understand what they are all about, the entire Skyrim subplot in the article
is a person who loves video games trying to share her love.

I really hate to say this, but you clearly did not read the article.

~~~
hood_syntax
> I was expecting another article bashing video games in their current state,
> and that isn't what was written here

> We want games that aren't gritty, toxic pseudo-realistic pseudo-masculine
> nonsense nor frustrating time wasters that leave you feeling dead inside.

Right at the conclusion. And don't forget the necessary reference to games
being made for white males by white males. I don't think she hates games like
gp, otherwise she wouldn't have worked in the industry for so long, but
clearly she isn't seeing the forest for the cheap, easy to market and produce
rehash trees.

~~~
hobs
If you want to remove all the other context, like the life of making said
video games, and the thoughtfulness put everywhere else in the article, sure.

The context is clearly "Hey, I really like video games but people like me
clearly dont, why is that?"

>I've devoted my life-no exaggeration-to video games for 14 years, working on
titles such as Company of Heroes, a few Assassin's Creeds, and Child of Light.

~~~
hood_syntax
Why do you think I removed the context? I understand her points, and I know
there are a lot of video games like those she describes, but I disagree with
her conclusions. Any industry is going to have the braindead blockbusters that
get pumped out every 1-2 years, and gaming is no exception. I just believe
there is plenty beyond that, there are a lot of amazing games out today that
don't fit into that model. Papers Please, which she mentions in the article.
Anything by Amanita Design. Do you want me to go through my Steam library
after I get off work?

~~~
saint_fiasco
The author does sound like the type of person that would complain about
braindead blockbusters in cinema and literature too.

------
baldfat
single player games are boring.

EDIT:

I am a competitive person. I rather play against a human being and see how I
can improve then get stuck into a math/algorithm battle vs programmers.
Solitaire is fine for a bit but all single player games feel like solitaire
due to my desire to compete against others and myself.

~~~
jylam
Multiplayer games are also boring. I just bought Battlefield 1, because I read
there was a great solo campaign. I hope it will be fun, and I've no intention
to multiplay that. I'm 36, and I really did like war games before they were
that much multiplayer oriented. Call of Duty and Battlefield series had great
solo campaigns, jadis. Then for a decade, there was this multiplayer trend.
Being obliterated by teenagers, cursing your mom, being much greater than you.
That was no fun at all. When I buy a game (especially a ~70€ worth game), I
expect to have fun. I guess I'm not a great gamer, I can't spend 8 hours a day
playing, so I suck at multiplayer shooting games. But I _LOVE_ solo campaigns.
I can quit, then rejoin 2 hours later, I can become better, finish a hard
mission, and I'm happy with myself. I can't do this on multiplayer campaigns.
Those kids are way better than me, so much better than I can't get fun. Single
player games are great, also. I LOVED Metal Gear Solid V, even if it was not
finished. I loved it because I could play alone, replay if I failed a mission,
redo it better if I wanted to. I'm not a great player, but I still want to
have fun. So multplayer games are not for me, and that's a shame.

~~~
RGamma
BTW TotalBiscuit has absolutely slammed the Battlefield 1 (there's gotta be a
prize for worst video game titles) campaign:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkDysHo83lw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkDysHo83lw).

In short: Generic modern military shooter #123781 that completely misses the
point of idiosyncrasies of the one thing that somewhat sets it apart from the
rest of the bunch: The fact it is set in WW1. Look at Medal of Honor (well,
it's WW2 and therefore somewhat of a Nazi popper, but what do you expect) for
a decent WW shooter campaign; I actually don't recall any significant WW1
shooter at the moment...

And as someone who is decently competent in competitive shooters (~2000 hours
of Counter-Strike Source): Yeah, competition can be fierce even on "normal
servers", but if you can keep up you'll get rewarded for it with a mixture of
familiarity and challenging gameplay. And playing in "rough environments" has
battle-hardened me I suppose. Dieing 10 times to superior opponents in a row
barely moves me at all anymore, so if you don't get discouraged too quickly
you may well find your frustration will wane with time.

