5 ms·
> We're capable of creating endless numbers of worlds and species, but we can't think of new things to do with them. > What's sad is despite all our ingenuity,
by Wintamute 10y ago
> We're capable of creating endless numbers of worlds and species, but we can't think of new things to do with them.
> What's sad is despite all our ingenuity, so many of our mechanics reinforce ideas and behaviors we know to be harmful.
Reality Check: You are a lifeform that feeds on the transition of matter from low entropy to high entropy states. We very literally consume worlds. We should try and do that in a way that doesn't undermine our own survival chances, and, as long as that doesn't interfer with the previous point in a way that minimises harm to other lifeforms that we consider useful or beautiful. No amount of virtue signalling and related posturing is going to change that fundamental reality.
It's very typical of Kuchera and Polygon to produce such badly thought-through moralising on videogames, but considering how closely the theme of the game runs to a fundamental physical truth of the human condition I find the criticism rather crass.
- SolarNet 10y agoNot just humans, all life. Life is taking the chaos of the universe and imposing order on it. Holding that sort of structure causes entropy; the chaos of the universe causes entropy. The universe is going to fill up with entropy no matter what. It might as well be ordered, so that something can experience it, rather than chaotic, with nothing to experience it.
- jljljl 10y ago>>> You are a lifeform that feeds on the transition of matter from low entropy to high entropy states This is a video game. You could be anything, do anything. Introduce mechanics that do not require the consumption of worlds. Lots of games have mechanics that don't require stripmining planets. I read the tweets more as disappointment that we can't do something different in our creation. Just because the real world is built on consumption doesn't mean all art has to be.
- ubercore 10y agoIf it's art, perhaps that's exactly the point the artist is trying to make. I think I tend to agree with critics of the article, because rather than explore that point, they use it as a chance to generate pageviews by an incredibly shallow moralizing of something that could be considered art. Any transgressive or satirical piece of art could have this exact same critique leveled at it, but generally they don't because critics in other media have a more nuanced understand of the relationship between art and the artists intentions.
- emblem21 10y agoShould all cameras be forced to create Dadaist interpretations of what they capture instead of a best-attempt at the actual image?
- marxidad 10y agoThe camera's mechanics aren't as restrictive of what or how you can take pictures as NMS is of what you can do with its simulated universe.
- pbhjpbhj 10y agoIf the games not based on consumption how will they monetise it post-sale though!?! /ignorant-cynicism
- Wintamute 10y ago> Just because the real world is built on consumption doesn't mean all art has to be. Correct. But because the real world is built on consumption, criticising creative expression for exploring that is at best invalid. What's going on with Polygon is that they're making this invalid criticism to further their political narratives.
- KurtMueller 10y agoWhat are their political narratives?
- Wintamute 10y agoWhichever shallow ideologies and narratives happen to be trendy. The sort that frequently spring forth from the rich vein of cultural authoritarianism that runs though most journalism these days.
- jljljl 10y agoYou are accusing a blog of having shallow and trendy ideologies, but you can't even describe them?
- Wintamute 10y agoI chose not to in this case, leaving it as a sort of exercise for the reader. If the cultural authoritarian nature of certain types of modern media, of which Polygon is but one example doesn't immediately ring some bells for you then I'm not sure we have a lot of common ground. And me listing out a set of what I believe to be negative ideologies and narratives might quickly get off topic and acrimonious. Was I wrong?
- throwanem 10y agoWhile I agree with you in general on the subject of Polygon's political bent, I don't think the criticism is invalid because of it. The crux of the issue is this: > There is no way to create on these worlds You needn't look at anyone's politics, pro or con, to wonder: in a world where the second best selling game of all time is Minecraft, how much sense is there in a galaxy-sized sandbox where you can't build anything?
- terrywilcox 10y agoWhen Reed Richards prevents Galactus from consuming Earth, he's really screwing up the natural order of things. The jerk.
- Vaskivo 10y agoRichards, in fact, is interfering with the natural course of the universe. Galactus is a force of nature. He must exist for the universe to continue. Richards intentions were selfish, but completely understandable and relatable.
- jdbernard 10y agoBut Humans and their actions are also a part of the natural course of the universe, so Richards was just acting according to the natural drive for survival of himself and his species.
- marxidad 10y agoThe difference between NMS and a game like Minecraft is, that although the latter also has the same resource-consuming and animal-killing type of exploration and exploitation, it also allows for sustainable practices like planting trees and breeding animals, and doing other things that increase utility and lowers in-game entropy. Even Spore has this. There's nothing wrong with expressing a wish for a game to go beyond some perceived harsh reality of invasive consumption with just minimizing harm. Reality and the human condition is more than just that.
- CaptSpify 10y agoI'd argue Minecraft even encourages sustainability. I remember creating farms, because it was easier/safer than exploring and stripping.
- etendue 10y agoThe sustainability practices that you mention are needed when the demand on resources exceeds the ability of the resources to otherwise replenish: a conservation problem. It sounds like in NMS it would be sustainable for a single explorer to attempt to strip mine the planet and nuke the whales since the influence a single player could exert is insignificant on a planetary scale.
- agentultra 10y agoAnd if you've walked around one of these simulated planets it's unreal insignificant you are! In fact I find my brain tends to do the common human ego-centric thing and compartmentalizes the entire planet to only that which I've experienced. Yet if I just land on a planet and tape the joystick to move my avatar forward... well I could go walk away and come back in six months to a year and see if I made it back to my starting position... and even if I recorded it to watch it at my leisure, my FOV will only cover a small fraction of the total surface area. It's a gross exaggeration to suggest a single, lone character could "strip mine" an entire planet by themselves. You need to gather enough radioactive isotopes to power your magical space plane and keep you alive and a few other elements to manufacture upgrades and that's about it. It's not like you're managing a global conglomerate with trillions of dollars of capital invested in machinery to extract every last mineral from the surface. update I think it says more about the people who interpret the mechanics this way than any statement Hello Games could be making by utilizing these mechanics.
- rsync 10y ago"Reality Check: You are a lifeform that feeds on the transition of matter from low entropy to high entropy states. We very literally consume worlds. We should try and do that in a way that doesn't undermine our own survival chances, and, as long as that doesn't interfer with the previous point in a way that minimises harm to other lifeforms that we consider useful or beautiful. No amount of virtue signalling and related posturing is going to change that fundamental reality." Joseph Campbell said it most succinctly: "(All) life lives on life".[1] [1] http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/801710-life-lives-on-life-this-is-the-sense-of-the http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/801710-life-lives-on-life-th...
- arprocter 10y agoContrarian clickbait 101: 'x is popular this week - let's write a piece "why x is bad"'