Sulphur on 20/2/2011 at 19:08

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Eh? Thief and Bioshock had different goals as games. And Thief, last time I checked, had a functional inventory. Bioshock's problem wasn't so much its lack of inventory, it was what that limitation forced on the player - everything except for Eve, health, and ammo had to be used immediately. And

Bioshock was all about goals - so much so that its narrative was structured as a pointed critique on the willingness of players to take everything given to them at face value. Thief didn't have such lofty goals to aim for - it was great (granted, not perfect) fiction and that was all, so it was far more enjoyable than the self-defeating meta-commentary that Bioshock turned out to be.


Papy, sorry I've taken so long to reply, but I've acquired some amount of distaste for conversations that extend into textwalls and nested quotes. Can't be helped here, I guess, so my reply's below.



Okay, hang on. Firstly, you've got to understand that you and I as seven-year olds and other kids as seven-year olds is not a general sample. Using our personal experiences as examples doesn't work as general categorisation - you can't tell me that all seven-year olds everywhere are going to play Oblivion and San Andreas and get it right. You also can't tell me that if not all, the majority of seven-year olds can, because we don't have data for it either way.

Furthermore, that's not the point.

Your original point was that the differences between SS2 and Bioshock was the target audience. I'm saying that Bioshock aimed for a slightly younger audience than SS2, but you're saying that isn't the case. My point is, if it's not age, the only other thing they could have used to determine the audience was intelligence levels. What else could you use as a basis to select a demographic?



It is exaggerated. But the point you're making is that a 15-year old is ready for everything intellectually. I disagree wholeheartedly, because I wasn't ready for calculus at 15. I have no problems saying I had no interest in it and was also probably not intelligent enough for it back then.

Again, the mistake we're making here is drawing on our personal experiences. You can't generalise you and me as every child out there; there's an average intellectual level for children at each age, and I'm saying that that average increases over time with age. I haven't looked around for stats, but as ZB said, current research says that the brain doesn't reach maturity until well after adolescence. And if that's still a matter of research today, then there's no conclusive opinion to be drawn yet, which means that you and I might never agree on this point.



It certainly tried to be more intelligent than SS2's by virtue of the commentary on various things, and it's certainly deeper in some places than SS2's because SS2 at face value has little actual social or political context that it attempts critique of - unlike, say, 1984. It's another thing that Bioshock falls flat on its face and these things have been done before and done better in literature, but the fact is it tried to, whereas SS2 didn't, and just about 99.9% of the rest of the games industry doesn't either.



Er, what? I don't see the difference between 'games' and 'computer games' here.

The reason I mentioned the story is because you said that consolitis is about games following the general trend. Well, Bioshock bucked the trend in terms of story, and so did Heavy Rain, and they're both consolised up the wazoo.

If we're considering story as part of the 'decor' (a view I don't agree with as games need stories these days if the medium's to get anywhere), then all that's left is gameplay. So let's assume that's true. If I agree that consolitis is just games following the 'general trend', the trend would have to have started somewhere. It would need an origination point, if you will. The reason for that origination point is what underpins this entire discussion - declaring that consolitis is 'following a general trend' answers nothing. We're discussing how and why the trend started to begin with.



I read 1984 when I was in school. It influenced me, too, but in a way I couldn't define at that age. Are you really saying that you understood 1984's complete socio-political context when you were 13-14? I understood the broad outlines of the book back then, but not the entire message. I'd find it very, very hard to believe if you say you did.

Adolescents always need something to strive or champion for, even if they don't quite understand exactly what they're championing.



That's probably got something to do with the fact that as you age, your mind becomes set in its ways, and less able to adapt to the new and unfamiliar. As a child, you're more open to almost everything because you haven't quite grasped the limitations of your world yet.

Papy on 20/2/2011 at 23:14

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The same is true for Deus Ex. That game was full of flaws, everywhere, but no one paid attention because the gameplay was difficult enough to hold their attention.



No, my own personal sample is not statistically valid, but I don't care (this message is not a thesis) and it doesn't change the fact that all my experience with children showed me they are far more intelligent than I naturally think they are. They are particularly far more intelligent than what their own parents believe. In fact, I think most children learn to play dumb either to please (manipulate) their parents or to serve as an excuse for their actions. Of course I have no data to show you, and I believe almost all data on that subject are worthless, but even if not all 7 years old could play a game like Oblivion, I don't believe for a second that a (normal) 13 years old would be too dumb to play something like SS2. Again, SS2 is not a complex game.

Did I mean that a 15 years old is ready for everything? Absolutely not. They're not ready for politics, social science, they're not ready to have a position of authority or anything else requiring an understanding of human nature and human emotions. You asked me if I understood 1984 when I was a kid, I'd say that I understood all the political ideas ans social implications. I had enough knowledge of history to understand it, or at least to be interested in it. Out of curiosity, what did you missed when you read it? Personally, the only thing which I didn't really get what was the point of the love affair. But again, SS2 didn't need a good understanding of human emotions (anyway, less than BioShock).

As for the current research on human development, do not confuse abilities with internal structure. Although we do see changes in the brain well after adolescence, those changes seems to be more about efficiency than new abilities. For example, we become better at multitasking after 18-19 years old (It seems to be true for girls in particular). Is it the result of training or really because of a change in the brain structure? We do not know. Anyway, from a pure ability point of view, as far as I'm aware, the "conclusive" opinion (for now) is there is no new level of reasoning abilities after 15 years old (that's an average, obviously).



Personal taste, or rather personal need. People don't play video games for the same reasons. For some it's because they want to relax, for others it's because they want to feel good about themselves, or to have a tool for their imagination, etc... I believe the demographic of consoles and computer are different in big part because of the general environment. Playing comfortably lay down on a sofa, 15 feet away from a 50" TV (meaning a much smaller part of your field of view compared to a 22" monitor seen 18 inches away), in a room where you are not necessarily alone, is generally a very different experience than playing on a computer. A console environment is great when you want to relax without thinking too much, it's not so great for something competitive or difficult and requiring all your attention. So people will more or less choose their gaming system based on their own need.



"Computer games" are a limited subset of "games". I guess I should have said console games and computer games.



The origin is simply what the majority of the current gaming population desire.



I agree, but what does it change from an emotional point of view if they understand it fully or not? Anyway I'd say most adults still don't get much about politics or society, and yet they don't hesitate to champion for "their" ideas.



What? A kid can learn how to use a computer a lot faster than an adult because "he hasn't quite grasped the limitation of his world yet"?

d'Spair on 21/2/2011 at 12:28

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First, I think it was 'hyped' as the spiritual successor at the very early stages of development. Approximately 1% of the audience was looking forward to BioShock as the 'successor' to System Shock 2, and I guess all of them were from TTLG. I don't remember any late marketing materials, nor promotion assets explicitly stating that BioShock was the spiritual successor to System Shock 2. Moreover, the fact that the game is a spiritual successor doesn't mean the game is going to be the same. In terms of the story layout and some gameplay progression it is close to System Shock 2, but it is not System Shock 3. If you'd been waiting for BioShock to become System Shock 3, that was your problem, not Levine's. Nobody promised that.

Second, BioShock is pretty fine with choices and consequences as a shooter game. You can still freely choose different weapons and plasmids, you can use your environment to stage interesting emergent gameplay situations, you can hack turrets and you can even try to sneak sometimes successfully. For a shooter, it's pretty much a game about options. It's not an RPG mechanically. Thief is not an RPG too, and that's exactly why I bring it up in this conversation - Thief has zero RPG mechanics, it has very limited inventory, it's - oh my God! - a dumbed down and mass-friendly Looking Glass game in terms of gameplay mechanics after Underworlds, System Shock and Terra Nova. And yet it was awesome. Had Thief had complicated inventory and character development system, it would've actually become a worse game than it is.

Third, Thief's inventory isn't that more complicated than BioShock's inventory. The only thing you can do in Thief is to grab and stack different objects and then cycle through them. That's pretty much exactly what you can do in BioShock. You cannot seriously compare Thief's inventory to System Shock 2's.

Papy on 28/2/2011 at 01:44

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Ego is the worst enemy of an intelligent discussion. Sometimes, putting people on the defensive is necessary. (Oh, and I'm not a nice guy.)



Some data "proved" that white people were more intelligent than black people. Do you agree? Or do you rather agree with those data that "proved" there was no significant differences?

One of the biggest problem of science, is that even if we try to be objective, we always end up building tools to measure what we expect to find. And if we don't get the result we expect, we often try to "repair" those tools. Because of that, we never really get "raw" data. This is particularly true for psychology and something as fuzzy as the concept of intelligence.

My opinion on whether the average 15 years old can play something like SS2 is based on my own personal experience with kids (BTW, I'm obviously not taking myself as an example, since I first play SS2 when I was about 30). I saw very young kids, much younger than 15, play games as complex as SS2 the same way an adult would. And those kids were not some kind of geniuses, they were just average kids. Also, I never saw a 15 years old kid who was not able to play Oblivion or a similar game. That's enough for me to think my opinion is right and that your opinion is wrong (yes, opinions are generally either right or wrong). Of course I'm not completely sure I'm right and I can change my mind. That's why it's only an opinion and, as strange as it may seem, that's why I'm having this discussion. So I'd like to know, did you personally saw a lot of 15 years old kids who tried to play Oblivion (which I think is about the same level of complexity as SS2) but could not grasp what the game was about or how to play it?

You said that some of your friends found Descent too complicated for them. First, Descent is about the most difficult game you can find. We are not birds and we are used to consider our movements on a surface only. It takes a lot of time to learn to visualize movements in space. Descent is even more difficult than a flight sim because although a plane can go up and down, the notion of up and down is still present and we can use it as a reference. That's not the case with Descent. A lot of time I was disoriented when I played Descent, and that's after a long history of playing with flight sim. From my point of view, you can't really compare SS2 with Descent.

Second, was their age the cause of their inability to learn to play Descent, or was it rather a lack of experience with video games? I'll take my mother as an example. Two years ago, I showed her Portal. She love puzzle games so I thought she would like that game. But although she plays with a lot of games (mostly what you would probably call "casual" games), she had a lot of difficulty understanding the first person perspective and had no mouse/keyboard coordination. She was moving the mouse, then she was pressing the key to move only after she was done moving the mouse. She couldn't do both at the same time. And even when going slowly, she had difficulties understanding the environment. A lot of times she was disoriented. She tried for about 30 minutes, then she gave up. Will you say my mother is a retard? My point is you are confusing experience and practice with abilities. I believe a 15 years old who never played a first person perspective game before will not be able to play SS2. The same way a 58 years old who never played a first person perspective also won't be able to play it. I believe experience is the key, not age. If my mother spent a few days to learn to coordinate her movements, as well as getting used to the first person perspective, I'm sure she could have play Portal. The same way I believe any (normal) 15 years old could play SS2.

BTW : (http://xkcd.com/385/) http://xkcd.com/385/. (Do you understand why I put this link?)



I am? Where? I believe experience and practice, not age, can make us better at doing things. I believe that once a kid reach about 15 years old, age plays no significant (positive) part in whether he does something well or not. Only experience and practice do (OK, there's also this hormone thing, but that's another subject). So I believe the relevent question here is : how much time does it take to be able to understand video games like SS2? Do you really think it takes years of training before someone can play SS2? The way I understand it, you're saying that SS2 is a complex game and that age make someone more able to understand it. But what I don't get is what is so difficult to understand in a game like SS2? What part of the game do you think a 15 years old couldn't understand?

Anyway, maybe it's because I'm 41 and I'm now seeing what it means to become older, but there is no doubt that I'm begining to lose my ability to learn new things. My reflexes are also not as good as they used to be. So if you want to blame someone for games being dumbed down, why don't you blame "old" people like me?



So you think a puplisher go out and find people and randomly ask them to pass an IQ test and then slaps the label "target audience' on their foreheads if they have the correct score?

What I'm saying is the most important factor in designing a video game (from a publisher point of view) is what people wants. And how do they find that? Simple, they look at what was successful and mostly copy it. Why do you think Deus Ex Human Revolution has regenerative health? Do you really think that it has anything to do with age or intelligence? Or could it be that it's because other games which had regenerative health were successful.



I had a Colecovision, an Odyssey 2, a NES (technically not mine), a Saturn, a Nintendo DS and I now have a 360. OK, I bought the 360 only for Dance central (although I wish I could find Virtua Fighter 5), but my point is I'm not against consoles. I love to say that I'm an elistist PC bastard, but it's more as a joke than something serious. I have a lot of fun when I play with a Nintendo Wii and I think anyone who says he's a "real" gamer because he plays only "hardcore" game is a complete moron.

Do I think console games are more "casual" than PC games? Actually I think PC gamers were having more choices than console gamers. Historically, PC had about everything, from the simplest game which was almost a joke to the most complex flight sim or wargame. Console games, on the other hand, didn't had (and still do not have) those extremes.

Of course, the real problem is that "casual" and "hardcore" are more loaded words than objective categories. People use them more to feel good about themselves (and indirectly insult the ones who don't play the same games) than anything else. Anyway, it's a black and white point of view that I find far too simplistic. How I would categorize BioShock? I'd say it doesn't fit into any category. It has some hardcore elements, but it's also an unchallenging game (at least when played with vita-chambers) which makes it closer to a pastime. I'd say BioShock is wathever the player wants it to be.

Having said all that, and whether you find it to be a "ridiculous claim" or not, I still maintain that playing laid down on a sofa, 15 feet away from a TV is not the most efficient way to play a competitive game.



When I was a kid I was wondering why so many people believed in a god. It made absolutely no sense to me. My conclusion was that either I was an idiot unable to understand the logic behind it, or it wasall those other people were idiots. Of course, I now know a bit better why people do believe in a god and I realized that intelligence and emotions were not necessarily linked. I'd say that I was intelligent, but I lacked wisdom.

"Ergo", if you think taste is a direct function of intelligence, you are not as wise as you think you are.

ZylonBane on 28/2/2011 at 06:16

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I have absolutely no idea what this non sequitur fortune cookie rambling is supposed to mean.