4 ms·

There's this bias where games that are extremely addicting but that appeal to intelligence (like say Factorio), the perceived most important trait in our societ

There's this bias where games that are extremely addicting but that appeal to intelligence (like say Factorio), the perceived most important trait in our society currently, are OK, whereas games that are addicting and appeal to other traits, like the ability to do the same thing over and over (any game with grinding), are morally wrong. Both types of appeal are manipulative in the same way, but one is cast as morally wrong because it doesn't appeal to what the elites in our society (such as you, dear HN reader) value. The rant about mobile games and capitalism is simply a reflection of this bias which is a particular view of society, but is not the only one and certainly not one shared by everyone. If you don't share that view it just seems like the person who wrote it is naive and doesn't have appreciation for personalities and perspectives other than his own. Which is fine, people are different, and engines are written by peculiar people, but if I were to write something similar in another direction people likely wouldn't take it as a joke. For instance: >Because the world today is not the world of yesterday. A clerical oligarchy runs the world and forces us to trust the science in order to keep the gears of this rotten society on track. As such, we're supposed to believe anything the clerics say, and just like they tell us to wear masks, they tell us that the biggest and best model for game engines today is ECS. It is a model of confused souls forced to architect their games in a particular way to escape the reality that they're just code monkeys gluing ugly code together instead of building a beautiful castle out of lego pieces like they want to believe. And this serves our ruling class, the clerics, as they infect and infest and ever larger portion of game development thought with their rotten ideology. Here at Godot HQ we have none of it, and just like we don't trust the science and we don't wear masks, we also don't use ECS. Now is this an appropriate joke for an engine's documentation? It's not too far off from the original, just with changed content to suit the changed direction of the joke.

ttt0 6y ago
> Factorio Never played this, but it seems to be designed just to be a fun game. From their pricing model, there doesn't seem to be any incentive for them to keep you addicted. Unlike some of the mobile games with microtransactions. Being addicted to video games, any kind, is overall a bad thing.
- the_af 6y ago
  Oh, I have no dog in this fight, but let me tell you Factorio is extremely addicting. As in, "I wonder where all those hours of my day went?". I had to stop playing because it was starting to get stressful. PS: it's a really cool game.
brokencode 6y ago
You can’t just change the words and intent of a joke and use that to argue against the original joke. Of course whether a joke is funny depends on the audience’s point of view.. that’s comedy 101. What the author was saying really isn’t very contentious if you stop and think about it. Mobile games are a time sink and are often used as a distraction from stressful thoughts. The same is true for other video games, but the author’s view on that isn’t mentioned. If you think that every humorous statement has to be so clean and pure that nobody takes offense, the I hope you like dad jokes, because that’s about all that’d be left.
- adnzzzzZ 6y ago
  Of course I can do that, given that the contention is not whether the joke is funny or not but if it's appropriate for its environment. If you don't think my joke is appropriate for the documentation of an engine, then you also shouldn't think the previous joke is appropriate either.
  - gitrog 6y ago
    And he's not arguing whether the joke is funny, he's saying the joke is relevant. The content of your joke isn't as relevant (which also makes it less funny). You used an anti-science sentiment and threw in ECS to try to make it more suitable, but it isn't analogous with the original statement at all. How exactly do you think a cynical take on something that occurs widely in the industry is equivalent to conspiracy theory level science denialism?
    - adnzzzzZ 6y ago
      First of all, Godot actually doesn't use ECS despite the majority of people in the industry saying it's amazing and all that. There was an article about it the other day https://godotengine.org/article/why-isnt-godot-ecs-based-game-engine https://godotengine.org/article/why-isnt-godot-ecs-based-gam.... So the ECS thing isn't entirely made up. >How exactly do you think a cynical take on something that occurs widely in the industry is equivalent to conspiracy theory level science denialism? I believe that believing we live in a capitalist oligarchy that does all the things the text says it does is mistaken and wrong, just like you believe that what I said is conspiracy theory level science denialism. From my perspective what I said makes perfect sense and it's a perfect analogy, just like for you what the text said also explains what's actually happening in reality. This divergence in views is political in nature, and just like from your perspective saying that mobile games are bad because of capitalism is relevant, for me saying that ECS is bad because of blind faith in science is relevant. Why is my perspective any less important than yours, other than for you not thinking it's relevant?
mathgladiator 6y ago
The bias is born from the pay to win. How many of these games simply put players against an exponential cost curve for marginal benefits? What this does is ruin the intent and legitimacy of the game.
- adnzzzzZ 6y ago
  In your biased elite opinion, of course. A vast majority of people have no problem with pay to win in the games they play.
  - mekkkkkk 6y ago
    You sure make a lot of absolute claims. How do you arrive at that conclusion?
matkoniecz 6y ago
For me difference is that Factorio is not containing any way to spend money in game or spend to avoid grinding. While typical mobile money has grinding solely to force you to pay. Note: in Factorio my typical strategy is to use mod that makes me start with construction robots, to skip any kind of drudgery at start. Modding API allowing it is deliberately open and explicitly created to allow this. In typical mobile game I would need to pay large amount of money for that.

ttt0 6y ago

> Factorio Never played this, but it seems to be designed just to be a fun game. From their pricing model, there doesn't seem to be any incentive for them to keep you addicted. Unlike some of the mobile games with microtransactions. Being addicted to video games, any kind, is overall a bad thing.

the_af 6y ago
Oh, I have no dog in this fight, but let me tell you Factorio is extremely addicting. As in, "I wonder where all those hours of my day went?". I had to stop playing because it was starting to get stressful. PS: it's a really cool game.

brokencode 6y ago

You can’t just change the words and intent of a joke and use that to argue against the original joke. Of course whether a joke is funny depends on the audience’s point of view.. that’s comedy 101. What the author was saying really isn’t very contentious if you stop and think about it. Mobile games are a time sink and are often used as a distraction from stressful thoughts. The same is true for other video games, but the author’s view on that isn’t mentioned. If you think that every humorous statement has to be so clean and pure that nobody takes offense, the I hope you like dad jokes, because that’s about all that’d be left.

adnzzzzZ 6y ago
Of course I can do that, given that the contention is not whether the joke is funny or not but if it's appropriate for its environment. If you don't think my joke is appropriate for the documentation of an engine, then you also shouldn't think the previous joke is appropriate either.
- gitrog 6y ago
  And he's not arguing whether the joke is funny, he's saying the joke is relevant. The content of your joke isn't as relevant (which also makes it less funny). You used an anti-science sentiment and threw in ECS to try to make it more suitable, but it isn't analogous with the original statement at all. How exactly do you think a cynical take on something that occurs widely in the industry is equivalent to conspiracy theory level science denialism?
  - adnzzzzZ 6y ago
    First of all, Godot actually doesn't use ECS despite the majority of people in the industry saying it's amazing and all that. There was an article about it the other day https://godotengine.org/article/why-isnt-godot-ecs-based-game-engine https://godotengine.org/article/why-isnt-godot-ecs-based-gam.... So the ECS thing isn't entirely made up. >How exactly do you think a cynical take on something that occurs widely in the industry is equivalent to conspiracy theory level science denialism? I believe that believing we live in a capitalist oligarchy that does all the things the text says it does is mistaken and wrong, just like you believe that what I said is conspiracy theory level science denialism. From my perspective what I said makes perfect sense and it's a perfect analogy, just like for you what the text said also explains what's actually happening in reality. This divergence in views is political in nature, and just like from your perspective saying that mobile games are bad because of capitalism is relevant, for me saying that ECS is bad because of blind faith in science is relevant. Why is my perspective any less important than yours, other than for you not thinking it's relevant?

mathgladiator 6y ago

The bias is born from the pay to win. How many of these games simply put players against an exponential cost curve for marginal benefits? What this does is ruin the intent and legitimacy of the game.

adnzzzzZ 6y ago
In your biased elite opinion, of course. A vast majority of people have no problem with pay to win in the games they play.
- mekkkkkk 6y ago
  You sure make a lot of absolute claims. How do you arrive at that conclusion?

matkoniecz 6y ago

For me difference is that Factorio is not containing any way to spend money in game or spend to avoid grinding. While typical mobile money has grinding solely to force you to pay. Note: in Factorio my typical strategy is to use mod that makes me start with construction robots, to skip any kind of drudgery at start. Modding API allowing it is deliberately open and explicitly created to allow this. In typical mobile game I would need to pay large amount of money for that.