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I think we need to distinguish between video games as "multimedia entertainment experiences" and video games as play. Minecraft is essentially computerised Leg

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 10y ago
> 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.

shmerl 10y ago

> 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.