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I really wish i kept a bookmark for an article over at filfre.net, because in it a game dev, from back around the C64 era i believe, lamented how whenever there

I really wish i kept a bookmark for an article over at filfre.net, because in it a game dev, from back around the C64 era i believe, lamented how whenever there was a big step up in hardware performance, game developers had a bad habit of getting stuck trying to show how far they could push the hardware while ignoring game mechanics and similar. Effectively whenever some new piece of hardware hit the market, the quality of games would be rolled back by a number of years as companies released what may well be glorified tech demos. And as of late i wonder if the pace of GPU development have lead to perhaps the most prolonged period of such tech demos.

musage 9y ago
Sadistic power fantasies and a general glorification sterile, alienated bullshit always went hand in hand with gaming, in a way, I can't recall a time where crappy but expensive games, with the best bit about them being the box art and the lies printed on the back, wasn't the vast majority of things that were made. But still, it's really gone places even with such lowly beginnings, and better and better tech is required to dress up the more and more rotten guts. If J.R.R Tolkien could see "Shadows of Mordor", he'd stab his eyes out I'd guess. It's not just tech infecting otherwise innocent minds and distracting them from solid iterations or free imagining of new things with shiny bling. I remember when it was at least "the Mario series of games" and other such lighthearted notions, and not "franchises" that have "supporters" (the phrases "community" for two or more people doing any specific thing without ever talking to each other, and "supporting X" are the blight of gaming). There's greed at the heart of some of it, and with it other pathologies greed goes great with. I mean, just consider all the people who hunt for "achievements" and even form groups to minimize the sheer boredom of it, but they don't step back and realize it's just a number in a database. And of course, there's more wrong with being "mad" about them doing it, than with them doing it. People have to be trained to be foolish, this takes years and decades, they don't drop out of the womb this dumb. Yes, I KNOW there's a lot of great stuff, too, and lot of tears and sweat put into it. Some people give their best to produce sublime experiences very few people even get to see, less appreciate, and nobody pays them enough for so that they can do it full time. Others create things they like and then others like them, too.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago
Perhaps that is what has allowed the indie scene to thrive as well as it has? I'm ok with that. Honestly I'm not sure why gamedevs seem to care so much about this kind of thing (marketers on the other hand...). Minecraft was worth $2B and intentionally looked like it was rendered in mode 13h.
mstade 9y ago
On the one hand I agree with you, but in the other there’s Horizon Zero Dawn, Battlefield 1, Tomb Raider, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, NHL 17 and 18, Journey, the Little Big Planet series, Cities: Skylines, GTA V... I dunno, I think gaming is starting to come out of that prolonged oooh-look-shiny-effects kind of era and into a pretty creative space.
- Maken 9y ago
  Cities: Skylines is a good example of artistic direction over raw graphic power. It looks nice because its Nordic design architecture and stylish GUI, despite running in a relatively old version of Unity without many bells and whistles.

musage 9y ago

Sadistic power fantasies and a general glorification sterile, alienated bullshit always went hand in hand with gaming, in a way, I can't recall a time where crappy but expensive games, with the best bit about them being the box art and the lies printed on the back, wasn't the vast majority of things that were made. But still, it's really gone places even with such lowly beginnings, and better and better tech is required to dress up the more and more rotten guts. If J.R.R Tolkien could see "Shadows of Mordor", he'd stab his eyes out I'd guess. It's not just tech infecting otherwise innocent minds and distracting them from solid iterations or free imagining of new things with shiny bling. I remember when it was at least "the Mario series of games" and other such lighthearted notions, and not "franchises" that have "supporters" (the phrases "community" for two or more people doing any specific thing without ever talking to each other, and "supporting X" are the blight of gaming). There's greed at the heart of some of it, and with it other pathologies greed goes great with. I mean, just consider all the people who hunt for "achievements" and even form groups to minimize the sheer boredom of it, but they don't step back and realize it's just a number in a database. And of course, there's more wrong with being "mad" about them doing it, than with them doing it. People have to be trained to be foolish, this takes years and decades, they don't drop out of the womb this dumb. Yes, I KNOW there's a lot of great stuff, too, and lot of tears and sweat put into it. Some people give their best to produce sublime experiences very few people even get to see, less appreciate, and nobody pays them enough for so that they can do it full time. Others create things they like and then others like them, too.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago

Perhaps that is what has allowed the indie scene to thrive as well as it has? I'm ok with that. Honestly I'm not sure why gamedevs seem to care so much about this kind of thing (marketers on the other hand...). Minecraft was worth $2B and intentionally looked like it was rendered in mode 13h.

mstade 9y ago

On the one hand I agree with you, but in the other there’s Horizon Zero Dawn, Battlefield 1, Tomb Raider, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, NHL 17 and 18, Journey, the Little Big Planet series, Cities: Skylines, GTA V... I dunno, I think gaming is starting to come out of that prolonged oooh-look-shiny-effects kind of era and into a pretty creative space.

Maken 9y ago
Cities: Skylines is a good example of artistic direction over raw graphic power. It looks nice because its Nordic design architecture and stylish GUI, despite running in a relatively old version of Unity without many bells and whistles.