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I have mixed feelings about this. Younger me learned a lot of problem solving skills and most importantly spent a lot of time learning how to read by playing R

I have mixed feelings about this. Younger me learned a lot of problem solving skills and most importantly spent a lot of time learning how to read by playing RPGs and games that required lots of reading. My reading skills would not have been as advanced if i wasn't playing text heavy games that had a lot of plot like Square Enix games and the CRPGs of the time. Modern games though are clearly designed to get you as addicted as possible and to play as long as possible to an extent that made the old school 90s RPGs grinds look tame and mild. (the grinds in those games basically existing to make sure you had to play long enough to not be able to return it to the store or beat it via rental) Modern UX of games is designed so that you dont have to really read or understand the game mechanics even to be able to play and get into that feedback loop. To the point where when a game comes along like Dark Souls that asks you to learn the game systems to beat it, gamers go gah gah over "how hard" it is.

bserge 5y ago
I haven't played a good game in nearly a decade. I used to play them for the story, then it all became too grindy, trainers became moneymakers (yeah I used cheats, sue me, I played for fun), everything needs a fking Internet connection and anticheat software that does god knows what. Kinda sad.
- darknavi 5y ago
  There are still plenty of non-garbage games if you wade out further than AAA. My friend group played Valheim a few months ago and it was spectacular (for the weekend anyways). It's a great game to lose your self in the environments and doesn't have any IAP rubbish.
  - katbyte 5y ago
    Even some AAA games have amazing story, but few and far between and a good number of the ones i'd point someone at are exclusive to ps4/ps5
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    I really don’t understand what people see in this game. It’s not bad, sure, but it’s almost a walking simulator. Getting resources feels pretty grindy, and the abilities and leveling system feel lackluster to me.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - d3nj4l 5y ago
      It's fun to hang out in with a few friends. Solo play is like watching paint dry, playing with friends has that almost emergent feeling as all of you go off doing god knows what and end up making a mess of each other's work.
- thatguy0900 5y ago
  It's pretty easy to find free cheat engine tables for any single player game for free. Paid cheats are really multi-player things, where you really shouldn't be cheating anyway
- SonicScrub 5y ago
  I highly recommend you dive into the indie and small-medium sized publisher world. There are a lot of games out there made by passionate individuals who are succeeding at creating enjoyable experiences. There are great stories, beautiful art, and interesting gameplay. You just have to dive a little deeper to find it.
- hkt 5y ago
  I can strongly recommend mining old 90s titles. Homeworld remains the best RTS I've ever played by miles and that's from 1997 or so.
  - bserge 5y ago
    Oh yeah, I have food memories of it. Nexus the Jupiter Incident was also great.
- tapoxi 5y ago
  There's plenty of exceptional story-based games out there. Personally I loved The Last of Us Part II last year, which has none of the issues you mentioned above. I'm currently playing Disco Elysium, which I also highly recommend.
- aidenn0 5y ago
  I haven't played recent games, but are they really more grindy than e.g. EverQuest or the NES Square/Enix games?
  - Jensson 5y ago
    If you want to unlock everything without spending real money, then yes they are often by far more grindy. Companies realized that putting huge grinds which you can pay to skip is by far the best way to make money from games so today this is in most games. This is the modern slot machine equivalent.
  - Rapzid 5y ago
    Most high-budget, high-profile games coming out these days are not grindy at out. I'm sure you can find grindy games within certain genre niches, but there are good not-very-grindy games in just about every genre right now AFAIK. Unless the genre is grindy, micro-payment games in which case... Consider not playing them.
  - cbozeman 5y ago
    The "problem" with EverQuest wasn't the game, it was the people. It's just like real life. You aren't supposed to be the hero. You aren't supposed to have all the best everything and a million platinum. You're just another cog moving through the world, easily replaceable. That's how it was designed. The problem is that, strangely, in a game, people can't accept that, so they'll spend 18 hours a day playing, but for some reason won't spend 18 hours a day working, even when spending 18 hours a day working at something clearly - undeniably - yields better results than playing a game.
    - aidenn0 5y ago
      Ultima Online had more of that feeling than EverQuest (I played both). EQ was quite clearly a game in which you could make steady progress in power with proper grinding (and every 5 levels sucked thanks to a coding error).
- throwaddzuzxd 5y ago
  > I haven't played a good game in nearly a decade. I used to play them for the story, then it all became too grindy That's on you. There are tons of amazing new video games with a good plot and a great gameplay. I'm not a huge gamer myself but the last one I did that checks those boxes was Horizon Zero Dawn.
eunos 5y ago
It's limited to the online game because the check is on server side rather than client (console/phone) side since it utilizes national ID data you provide when registering.
- techdragon 5y ago
  Do you have a source for that? From the article it sounds like the expectation is that all games should be implementing mechanisms to limit this. But that could just be poor reporting by Reuters ( not unsurprising for a breaking foreign government regulation change like this )
  - ulfw 5y ago
    What about the Alibaba South China Morning Post then? https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/3146918/china-limits-gaming-time-under-18s-one-hour-day-fridays-saturdays https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/3146918/china-limit...
    - techdragon 5y ago
      I see phrasing like > The notice also states that companies must strictly implement the real-name registration and login system in their games and not provide access to video games for those who are unregistered. But nothing clarifying if they have drawn any distinction between online games that require a persistent connection to servers to function and “offline” games that are stand alone single player experiences with no online connectivity required.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    The ban is on providing video game services to minors outside some hours : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28357167 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28357167
  - mjn 5y ago
    The Xinhua article on it (which I think is fairly authoritative) is clearer that it applies only to online games: http://www.news.cn/english/2021-08/30/c_1310157673.htm http://www.news.cn/english/2021-08/30/c_1310157673.htm Specifically, > Online game providers can only offer one-hour services to minors from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, as well as on official holidays, according to the document made public on Monday. > [...] > The official said that parents and minors can decide on by themselves how long the children will play other games that are conducive to minors' growth, except online games.
clifdweller 5y ago
yeah this is mostly for the genshin impact/gacha games that are super popular and are made purely to suck money or time for grinding. I doubt they will put to much effort into policing drm free games running locally.
- merrywhether 5y ago
  In a parallel world they just attack this problem directly and outlaw lootbox/gacha gambling entirely for all ages. It’s obvious that such design is meant to prey on intrinsic feedback loops in the human brain, so why not just go straight to the source. People will still find ways to gamble, but at least elsewhere it’s generally explicitly labeled as such.
  - hoseja 5y ago
    Going even straighter to the source is patching the CVEs in human brain.
ezconnect 5y ago
When you were a kid you had a lot of extra time and video games fill that voids.
- pojzon 5y ago
  As that kid I now regret not spending that time on something productive like reading interesting books or having a unique hobby (carving/skating/guitar etc) Now I dont have time for anything and reflecting at that void space - it was filled with garbage - like running pokemon yellow 7 times in a row.
swman 5y ago
I think it really depends. I have way too many personal anecdotes of people I knew from back in the day (middle/high school) who gamed like 8 hours a day. Most of those people were _addicted_, and a handful went on to drop out of college and aren't really doing that great today. They still play 8+ hours a day.. I remember I'd ask them if they wanted to study, or if they want to go hiking or do something IRL, but they'd always refuse and prefer to play some MMO and get high level loot there. Personally, the people I used to play some MMOs with were huge into merchanting and controlling the in-game economies, and I think there's a different complexity involved in running spreadsheets and following trends vs following what an addon tells you to press next. These guys were much older than me, and they taught me a lot about basic economics. Most games are designed to have people keep playing an endless grind, but purely focusing on in-game money and controlling the economy was not something the games would have designed by default. I think by default, most young people would benefit (esp mental health wise) by having their video game usage cut down. As I grow older, it is insane how cigarettes or gambling aren't the only addictive things. Kids are exposed to it from a young age by trading their time for something meaningless. And I'd argue that people like you and me who feel they learned problem solving or how economies work (through gaming as kids) are quite rare.
- jliptzin 5y ago
  If someone is putting off other important things in their life to play video games then that's definitely a problem. However, if people want to set aside 100% of their free time to play video games, I don't think that's any worse than other things people do with their time that we (as a society) hold in high regard such as becoming a chess grandmaster, practicing violin 12 hours / day, watching football games nonstop, etc. None of these things are actually "productive," the sole purpose is to spend time having fun.
  - meristohm 5y ago
    South Korea has built a collective sense of value around Starcraft, but it feels too far removed from meatspace where we will likely occupy for a long time yet. Music seems more valuable, along with the ability to tell a good story. Sometimes they overlap. I’ve been enjoying Fire Draw Near, a podcast by Ian Lynch about the folk-music tradition of Ireland. “Work, Rest, Play, Die” by The Subhumans has melodic roots in an old tune, and he makes similar connections with “One” by Metallica. A value-test I use is: “how useful/feasible is this activity if I don’t have a computer or similar technology that is predicated on significant infrastructure?” Telling stories, playing physical games, making music (with our bodies, at least; humming, whistling, drumming, singing); these are elegant, as in = depth / complexity (per James Portnoy of Extra Credits, RE games).
jimbilly22 5y ago
mixed feelings because it's under 18, and therefore you dont feel that freedom of self is as important? Would you feel differently if this was for adults?
- namelessoracle 5y ago
  I think it's important to realize that children dont have the cognitive ability to resist certain things. Gambling skinner boxes are those things. I would be completely oky with my kid binging on the latest Mario or Mario Kart. I would love to see them playing an RPG. I dont want them playing Fortnite and other skinner box style games. They have teams designed to addict kids. This probably sounds silly but i would be ok with a kid being "addicted" to something because its fun and enjoyable. But being addicted because a team of scientists designed it be maximally dopamine inducing doesnt seem ok to me. Maybe there is no difference at the end of the day. But it feels like the kind of games that Nintendo puts out and the kind of games that EA puts out are VERY different.
  - prpl 5y ago
    Our biggest problem with Fortnite is that it’s where the friends are so it’s a way, probably the primary way, for them to socialize - especially as some friends are on different continents. I wish this wasn’t the case, but fighting a network effect is hard as a parent.
  - Thaxll 5y ago
    Kids don't play EA games, however Fortnite, CoD warzone, Roblox ...
    - vmladenov 5y ago
      Apex Legends is EA
cvdub 5y ago
There's no denying that Dark Souls is hard. It's also fair. It's 100% your fault every time you die, and you know what you did wrong.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- auiya 5y ago
  There's PLENTY of jank in Dark Souls, don't kid yourself.
- fullstop 5y ago
  I wouldn't say 100% your fault. I'm going to blame the camera for a few of my deaths!
  - bfors 5y ago
    For the centipede demon fight the camera IS the boss
whatch 5y ago
> Modern UX of games is designed so that you dont have to really read or understand the game mechanics even to be able to play and get into that feedback loop. I wish this were true for me and GTA V. My friend and I really tried to do something in GTA V Online together this weekend with little to no success. I felt really stupid by not being able to play any mission together
bjt2n3904 5y ago
Goodness. If this was the US, I would be losing my mind over such legislation. We must not convince the law makers that video games can be beneficial. That puts the wrong emphasis on the conversation. The emphasis must be, you have no jurisdiction when it comes to raising children. Your laws are invalid. Even if video games are detrimental, you do not decide what is the best interest for a child, the parents do.
- sulam 5y ago
  Speaking as a parent of two kids, I mostly agree, but also think that some amount of law-making in the interest of children is appropriate and fair. Drawing the line is the interesting part.
  - bjt2n3904 5y ago
    Precisely. But the statement, "the government has no business making parenting decisions" needs no qualification. It is an axiomatic statement, and it should not be a controversial statement. Like you say, what is considered a parenting decision? Reasonable people can have a discussion about this. But I'm shocked how many people seem to think A) the government actually should make parenting decisions, and B) that things like banning child abuse is an example of the government making a parenting decision. Neither of these things are reasonable, and so the discussion about what qualifies as a parenting decision will also be unreasonable.
- Scarblac 5y ago
  I disagree. Children deserve a lot of protection, and anybody can become a parent. A lot of people are far too bad at parenting to leave the decisions to them completely. Some intervention is needed.
  - crysin 5y ago
    (USA centric view) You cannot legislate parents into being good parents. You cannot pass laws that protect children from bad parenting as best case result you may get the state to intervene and put the child in a foster system where there's a 50% chance that they end up in an even worse place.
fridif 5y ago
You shouldn't have mixed feelings. This is an attack on human free will. UK lets children drink.
- riffraff 5y ago
  In UK you can't buy alcohol if you're below 18. You can drink alcohol in a public place if you're 16 and there is an accompanying adult buying it for you. It's not quite a "free for all", but anyway, I doubt it relates to the issue at hand. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_drinking_age#Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_drinking_age#Europe
  - nybble41 5y ago
    Those rules are for public drinking. There doesn't seem to be any age restriction for private alcohol consumption in the UK, or for that matter most of Europe.
    - adventured 5y ago
      The US similarly allows private underage consumption of alcohol - with more restrictions than in most parts of Europe - with parental consent and oversight. This varies from state to state in how it works and the limits, of course. Most states draw a strong legal distinction between underage drinking parties vs moderate underage consumption outside of a party context.
    - riffraff 5y ago
      sure but if you're a kid you can't concretely drink in private if you can't buy alcohol. Other countries don't have rules or don't enforce it, but the UK certainly does. Source: I was an italian teen used to buy wine for my grandpa, but I could not get a beer at the supermarket in the UK.
deleted 5y ago
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gentleman11 5y ago
You have to differentiate real games from casino games. Many popular games have a substantial casino element and are basically skinners boxes and need to be controlled like casino games. I saw job postings a little while ago for mobile games that require experience making slot machines There are a lot of games that fall into grey areas, possibly accidentally, and those are harder to deal with. Loot boxes and mmos are so obviously gambling that I don’t even know what to say
victor106 5y ago
The feelings you (I have the same feelings about his as you do) have about this are at an individual level. State mandating how much time someone should spend doing a particular activity is a totally different topic. Even though I agree with the overall intention of this rule/law I vehemently oppose a state imposing such restrictions.
- beaunative 5y ago
  Technically, the state doesn't place restrictions on the kids, which is legally impossible, they place restrictions on the digital entertainment business where they are required to allow entry for kid for no longer than said duration.
  - jrochkind1 5y ago
    > Technically, the state doesn't place restrictions on the kids, which is legally impossible, What makes that legally impossible in China? (edit or do you just mean hard to enforce? I thought you meant something different by "legally impossible", I may have misunderstood).
    - ummwhat 5y ago
      The hills are high and the emperor is far away.
    - beaunative 5y ago
      Kids can't be criminally punished/sued, not for things like these. Kids can be sued for damages to others which ultimately their parents/guardians would be required to pay which doesn't exist in this case. This is similar to how age restriction for alcohol is enforced in the US, interestingly, age restriction on alcohol consumption wasn't enforced in China, though made into law.
      - jrochkind1 5y ago
        thanks!
aidenn0 5y ago
I think a big part of why I can quickly scan information on a page is from playing way too much Final Fantasy as a kid. To grind you need to do lots of combat, so I slowly dialed the "Response Rate" (i.e. speed at which text appears) until I could read all of the post-combat messages at the maximum setting.
jvanderbot 5y ago
My reading skills were nurtured by books. My history interest was nurtured by video games. My tech interest was nurtured by finagling with goddamn interrupt priorities and boot disks to get games to run.
meristohm 5y ago
As much as I’ve moved on from solo games (Atari 2600 & Commodore 64 & Nintendo scarified the seed, then it grew roots into Lemmings on my 386, Heroes of Might and Magic 3, Command & Conquer, Diablo 2, Morrowind, World of Warcraft [after 2005 it was mostly a solo experience] and Hearthstone, for examples), I can think of better activities in hindsight. Games were largely an escape for me, as were books, but at least with many books there’s more exposure to what it means to be human. Brainstem wrapped in the hydrostatic comfort of a videogame meant I could avoid observing my emotions and deciding what to do. I’m still learning to take responsibility for my own actions. I’m not alone in this relationship with games, nor am I necessarily representative in my experiences. I’m sharing as a caution to others for whom videogames are all-consuming. Healthier alternatives that scratch the itch for me are co-op games that aren’t great solo (I only play with close friends now, as a way to keep in touch and work together), tabletop RPGs like Mouse Guard, and physically exploring outside, as I’m thoroughly an Explorer on Bartle’s chart[0]. Also reading/listening to stories, playing music (another form of story that isn’t so far removed from our physical existence as videogames are), playing physical games/sports, drawing/painting (but not in Skyrim, etc :), and gardening, etc. I won’t bar my child from videogames, because they can backfire. Instead I’ll try to model healthy use of the pass-time as a brief mental gear-switch. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_taxonomy_of_player_types https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_taxonomy_of_player_type...
- jrochkind1 5y ago
  > at least with many books there’s more exposure to what it means to be human. Games could do this as well as books. (And certainly not every book does it much). Occasionally games do. Mostly not.
  - account42 5y ago
    There are also many books that don't.
overgard 5y ago
I'm sure there are a lot of culture differences, but as a westerner I have no mixed feelings on this -- I think it's just insane. This is what parents are supposed to be in charge of doing.
- pojzon 5y ago
  Too many modern parents are not up to being a parent unfortunately. It’s a hard work to maintain work/life balance while at the same time be a model for your children. It takes A LOT of discipline and we all know how much discipline most ppl have..
  - account42 5y ago
    > Too many modern parents are not up to being a parent unfortunately. > > It’s a hard work to maintain work/life balance while at the same time be a model for your children. The problem here is not the parent, its the work demanding 40+ hours per week and a society that means both parents have to work.
namelessoracle 5y ago
Thinking about this a different way. We have seen the games that come out that exist to get you to play as long as possible look like. What will the games that exist to be so awesome that if you get to play only an hour a day that want you to come back again look like? Will they make sure that hour is highly enjoyable and engaging instead of grindy? Is that a more sustainable model for game devs? At least its a change from the current skinner boxes.... Maybe it will just be stronger skinner boxes. "Tune in next week for the exciting conclusion!" or "Get X Bonus if you log in tommorow!" is probably what will happen....
- andrey_utkin 5y ago
  For me the prime example of good, challenging, but non-addictive game is GCompris, a collection of kids activities. Open source as well.
- poetaster 5y ago
  Sadky, all the 8 year olds in my sons cohort will just say 'bah'. But they have touch builds so time to look at the src. Thanks!
MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
Videogames are addicting as all hell and create NEETs. End of story. Parents who are lazy and just want their kids to stop bothering them just give them to their kids without realizing it can destroy their early socialization skills. I love videogames, but jesus I'd limit my kids use of it to either playing socially or with family. If it's alone, it had better be for short amounts of time. Videogames should be social events. Not solitary escapes that cause people to become schizoids.
- bigwavedave 5y ago
  > Parents who are lazy and just want their kids to stop bothering them just give them to their kids without realizing it can destroy their early socialization skills. These hypothetical children have spent all day socializing at school- if that gets "destroyed" by a few hours of being left to their own devices, better stop them from reading and playing with Legos alone in their rooms too. Claiming video games ruin social skills because playing them is an activity performed alone is utter nonsense.
  - JohnWhigham 5y ago
    Kids need socializing with other kids beyond the 9-3 school days.
  - MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
    School is the most garbage area to foster socializing children. Not only is it in a controlled environment, but it has nothing to do with learning how to engage with people on a personal level outside of work.
lordnacho 5y ago
I've mentioned this view a few times: computers are the modern double-edged sword. On one hand you can learn pretty much anything academic just by sitting in front of one. Quantum physics, history of Rome, food chemistry, and so on. Use it right, and you can really have access to a huge amount of knowledge that I never could as a child. On the other hand, it is the biggest addiction danger in the house. It's legal for you to invite corporations into your home to try to persuade you to sit and grind away at some game, forever. You can waste your whole life in the comfort of your own Skinner box. All your opportunities to go and socialize with real people, out in society, you can just skip. What to exercise? Meh. Want a nice meal with family? Meh. Want to look at nature? LOL no. Anecdote: A friend of mine was playing very heavily for some time, maybe a couple of times a week. He goes into a café, sits down next to another fellow, who'd been there far longer: "oh hey man, I've been here for two days. My boss will get pissed off if I don't show up to work tomorrow. But Everquest..." My buddy comes in two nights later, guy is in the same seat playing EverQuest. "Shit man, I got fired. He called me and told me. Anyway I gotta level up." At that point my friend got quite scared of the power of this stuff. Me as well, nearly 20 years later. To cap it off, the dude's job was to be the attendant at another computer café. Yes. He could have just sat his ass at work and gotten paid for it, but somehow he'd lost his job by sitting at a different café and not finding the motivation to stop.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
  Personal anecdote. For a couple of years, I was deeply addicted to early version of Final Fantasy 11. Thing was hard, punishing and effectively required dedicated player base. I have some great memories, but there was a moment, when I started calling in sick to camp a monster. Fortunately, I eventually managed to stop on my own, but I still get occasional pangs ( but thankfully today's FFXI is a shell of itself for a variety of reasons ). I was lucky. I am certain there are people way more obsessive than me.
- MandieD 5y ago
  I remember an acquaintance calling it “EverCrack” 20 years ago…
jimbob45 5y ago
>Modern games though are clearly designed to get you as addicted as possible and to play as long as possible to an extent that made the old school 90s RPGs grinds look tame and mild I try to tell my extended family this but I can tell that they choose not to listen. Games are no longer what they were growing up and you have to make sure your kid isn't playing a glorified slot machine. I plan to build a machine and only install certain games on there for the kids to avoid this very trap. Parents today just don't understand how pernicious these companies have become. They used to include a hot girl in each game to keep you interested and prevent you from feeling bored. Sure it was lazy but that's all it was, lazy. Now, you have games like Genshin Impact that have weaponized sexuality to the point where people are pumping hundreds of dollars to see more sexuality in the game. Hearthstone's card packs function identically to Skinner boxes. League of Legends teases you with the prospect of going pro in gaming despite players have a higher chance to make it to the NFL than make it going pro in LoL.
- cbozeman 5y ago
  League of Legends suffers from a problem no one's figured out how to fix yet, or that would require so much effort, anyone capable of figuring it out would rather work for a FAANG, which is: How do you separate people who want to excel from people who just want to have "fun"? You can't mix people with a hardcore attitude with people with a casual attitude. It'll result in disaster every single time, without fail, in any endeavor, ever. It never works, no matter what, and no one is going to be able to make it work. You have to separate them. What's worse, the ban system for League of Legends favors shitty people over the people who actually want to do well. Someone can intentionally troll, die 29 times in a game, have 0 kills, 0 assists, and nothing happens. When the other four players try to win, but get frustrated at this single shitbag, and then say something, they get banned... instead of the obviously troller catching an instant permanent ban to teach them a lesson.
  - junar 5y ago
    Okay, so let me present you with my view of the game. It's going to be very different from yours, and it's fine if you disagree. In fact, in the first few years I played, I would have had a hard time agreeing as well. But I'd appreciate if you hear me out. 1) On average, ranked players play at a skill level consistent with their rating. In other words, even if they have the skills to play better but don't, their rating should reflect this--on average. 2) For each individual game, there can be some variance in individual performance. Sometimes matchups are lopsided, and sometimes mistakes are made. Sometimes you're on the team that benefits, and sometimes you're not. 3) Trends are more useful than individual games. "Did I do better in the last game than the previous one?" is not always a useful question, so I'd rather ask "Did I do better in the last 10 games than the previous 10?" This follows from 1) and 2). 4) Morale affects the game, and my actions can affect morale. It's really easy and tempting to call out gameplay mistakes, but I think that only serves to hurt morale. If I still wanted to win the game, making my team feel bad hurts my chances. If I prefer to surrender, there are better ways to convince people. So yeah, the reason I wrote this is because I've definitely had my share of upsetting losses, but I found that shifting my mindset helped me deal with it better.
deleted 5y ago
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ericmay 5y ago
> I have mixed feelings about this. I don't. If this were to be proposed in America I would view it as extreme government over-reach.
- adventured 5y ago
  > If this were to be proposed in America I would view it as extreme government over-reach. It is an extreme government overreach, whether in the US or China. It's an abuse of human rights. China is about one step away from treading into classic Mao Communist cultural attack mode. The interesting thing about pursuing so much control, is that more control requires ever more control, it's a negative spiral. More oppression requires ever greater oppression to keep the system from rupturing. Anyone championing this as borderline acceptable, those people have little terrifying monsters inside, little psycho dictators, yearning to violently oppress and control people. Societies are always filled with these little monsters running around trying to violently control people, they always have to be pushed back against. In China's case, Xi is pursuing a new cultural revolution, as he sees fit to implement. One thing after another is being taken out, targeted. They took out all traces of freedom of speech, years ago. They isolated the people with the great firewall, to restrict foreign influence, control domestic influences, and keep the people contained. They installed aggressive censors at all tech and media companies. They eliminated all independent news and media. They've further cracked down on all religion, religious expression, religious worship. They banished nearly all foreign reporting from the country. They banished all joke apps. They banished all gay culture. They're culturally cleansing the Muslim Uyghur regions. They implemented the social credit scoring system. They've entirely taken over Hong Kong and are proceding with wiping out its formerly independent culture. They've installed direct party control over all major private corporations, tech or otherwise. They've neutered all of their most prominent business persons, one after another. They've purged, vanished numerous prominent celebrities. They're in the process of banning all negative discussions of anything economic/financial. They're initiating an effort to prevent any consequential companies from publicly listing stock overseas, looking to increase economic control and reduce foreign influence. They're wiping out private education (classic cultural revolution move on education). They're about to flip to a digital currency, to further increase the ease and application of economic controls over individuals. This is the short list of what they've done since Xi took power, and they're only just getting warmed up. It's a science fiction nightmare, set to become real. This gaming restriction is just one little drop in the ocean of what they're doing broadly, it's all moving in concert.
iszomer 5y ago
Sure but there wasn't a monetary incentive path like we have today with the Internet and livestreaming. I still remember picking up my first copy of DOOM and playing with friends on a 28.8Kbps dialup modem. This comic sort of represents those childhood sentiments experienced today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgDG_IEDc9A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgDG_IEDc9A
refulgentis 5y ago
Square Enix games and CRPGs induced advanced reading skills? It's been a few years since I played one, but in my humble opinion, we'd probably find it has a 5th or 6th grade reading level. Replacement-level activities will likely have the same impact on someone 10 years d or above.
pdimitar 5y ago
> To the point where when a game comes along like Dark Souls that asks you to learn the game systems to beat it, gamers go gah gah over "how hard" it is. Please, PLEASE, please let's not derail this thread to "Dark Souls players are the REAL skilled players and the rest of you all are crybabies" or something? I get PTSD reading any DS player's "opinion" these days. DS doesn't require skill. DS is brutal and semi-random on purpose so you sink the maximum amount of time to beat it. Not much skill is required there. You have to invest the time to learn the moves and their patterns. After that happens beating the boss in question just requires you to be in non-vegetative state. -- On topic: I too am with mixed feelings over this news but if this is going to stop the hyper-predatory mobile game companies from almost literally turning young people into zombies then I support the decision. I worry what happens when inevitably they start saying "but CS:GO, Quake Champions and Deep Rock Galactic are addictive as well and we will prohibit them too!" but... we can't have it all at the same time, I suppose. :| Really can't find a good balanced solution out of this jam. Can you?
dfxm12 5y ago
Not knowing much about the great firewall, but taking in context from the article, it seems like they'd only really be able to limit "modern" games, which are always connected. If you can somehow get your hands on an SNES and FF6 cart, or (more likely) figure out how to get an emulator and ROM to your computer, no one will be the wiser. So, if anything, this will be a boon to older console games.
- kwere 5y ago
  that are almost non existent in red China
auiya 5y ago
> Modern games though are clearly designed to get you as addicted as possible and to play as long as possible to an extent that made the old school 90s RPGs grinds look tame and mild. You do realize the term "quarter muncher" isn't a modern one right? We had plenty of those types meth-level-addiction games back in the early days of gaming too.
OOPMan 5y ago
Modern games is a bit of a blanket statement. There are tons of modern games (arguably the majority when you consider the size of the market) that are not skinner boxes. If all you're looking at is AAA games and mobile crap, then sure. But there's more to games than that stuff.
ecf 5y ago
> Modern games though are clearly designed to get you as addicted as possible and to play as long as possible… The de-facto example of this nowadays is World of a Warcraft. For those unaware, WoW charges you $15 per month play, as well as $60 every two years for the latest expansion. This has resulted in a company that designs every last detail to be completed at the pace they determine to be correct, with a “story cliffhanger” at the end of each patch. An applicable quote from one of the largest WoW content creators goes along the lines of “WoW used to be a game that made you want to waste your time. Now it’s a game that simply waste your time.”
quacker 5y ago
I guess I'm curious: What are you expecting minors who currently enjoy video games to do instead in their free time? If they pick up reading and decide they like those endless fantasy series, is that better than playing a video game for the same amount of time? Why? If they decide to watch TV or movies instead of video games, is that better? Why? Should they spend that all that free time studying and doing homework instead? Why?
danudey 5y ago
My 6yo son really, really wanted to play Breath of the Wild. He loves Zelda, my wife loves Zelda, my best friend's girlfriend is over the moon with Zelda, etc. I always played Link in Mario Kart, to the point where, when he was 2 or 3, he was in Best Buy with my wife and saw a Breath of the Wild Switch case and said "is daddy!" Of course, after a few requests a year and a bit ago, my wife had to give him an ultimatum: "I'm not going to come over here every time there's words. If you want to play this game, you have to read it yourself." Apparently, it worked; he's about to go into Grade 2 but already has incredibly strong reading skills, including about a grade 2.5 reading level in French (we're English-speakers but he's in French immersion). I didn't like how much Switch he was playing last year when the pandemic started and schools closed, but he wouldn't have learned to read nearly as fast if it weren't for Breath of the Wild. He seems to be well ahead of his classmates, and he's only getting stronger (and more independent as a result) as time goes by. We're pretty particular about what games he plays, but the ones he's interested in typically have a substantial amount of reading involved (compared to, say, Doom when I was a teenager). I'm excited that he'll be able to (if not willing to) play my old favorites; Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, and Secret of Mana, to name a few. I guess we'll see if he's interested.
- Dig1t 5y ago
  That's so funny this exact thing happened to me at the same age, and with Zelda as well. I was 6 years old when Ocarina of Time came out and had this exact experience of my parents getting fed up with reading the text to me and being forced to read it myself. I definitely think it helped me become a strong reader early in life. Good for you, I think this is a good idea.
- mlindner 5y ago
  Identical thing happened between me and my younger brother. He'd use me to read game text to him for a while until I got fed up with it. I had learned to read from the game text myself. (The game was an old space RPG-like game called Escape Velocity.)
- BobJackienine 5y ago
  Every modern gamer knows that this is an exception nowadays most kids just want to play a looter shooter point click rinse repeat for a thousand hours
Aeolun 5y ago
Hmm, my problem with Dark Souls like games is mostly that it becomes easy when you understand the mechanics, but immediately also starts to be annoying because now your biggest enemy is timing issues and enemies just materializing behind you.
barnesto 5y ago
All good points, but the main issue here is the government, in this case the CCP, dictating game play. It's the parent's responsibility to dictate when and how their children play games not the government. If the government wants to go after game developers because their games are addictive that's one thing. Dictating to the players is a level of control free citizens should never experience. Although, in this case, citizens of China are hardly free in the first place.
- javierluraschi 5y ago
  Where is the line compared to government enforcing parents to not leaving their kids alone in a car or home, or sending their kids to school? How do we measure what level of control we have/deserve on our kids? I'm not disagreeing, just arguing that there are cases where one could argue that the government is overstepping on how we parent our kids.
  - Diesel555 5y ago
    These arguments have already happened. You are arguing about paternalism. These debates are common in policy classes, specifically about libertarianism. Clearly, people that believe in the freedom of choice would hate this. However to your questions: > parents to not leaving their kids alone in a car Infringes on the freedom of the child to live or not endure conditions beyond what a normal person should endure > sending their kids to school The other questions start getting more into removing the freedom of the parents to choose at the expense of the best interest of the individual being affected (in the government's point of view). There is a lot of academic material with well defined terms about these subjects. Americans will err towards individual freedoms rather than the government directing more than will European countries (and obviously communist countries; yes you can find specific examples to contradict this statement, it's a generality, an average of all policies). But Americans are trending towards more paternalistic policies over the last fifty years (Standard disclaimer: To those who will derive an intent out of this statement, it is not supporting or not supporting it, simply an observation).
- lurgburg 5y ago
  OTOH an individual parent has to expend a lot more effort to create controls than a government. An individual parent can't mandate technology companies install controls that automatically regulate their child's play; they have to manually monitor+manage it at some cost of time+effort to themselves. A wonkish trick would be for the government to mandate controls with sensible defaults but allow parents to tune them I guess?
bamboozled 5y ago
“I have mixed feelings about this.” You have mixed feelings a about what? This is an absolutely insane government overreach and unacceptable. Micromanaging what people can do with their time like this is 1984. I grew up, sometimes skipping school and playing games all day, I still passed school, I have a good job in software and a healthy happy life. I’d prefer the following question is asked, why do these kids require “spiritual opium”? Maybe living in a polluted authoritarian genocidal hell hole makes people want to escape reality ?
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jacobsimon 5y ago
Someone needs to build a game that’s hidden inside of a normal looking webpage or app and then distribute to Chinese teens
ksec 5y ago
This. Old Games had lots of work from History, Mythology, Science and all sort other details in it. I mean even old Diablo I and II had a whole story book that came with it. Was it Lord of the Rings quality? No. But it is so much better than not reading a story book. All the history lessons from games like Civilisation, Sim City helping you imagining a whole new world. RPG had lots of story telling. Heck even MMORPG like World of Warcraft, you have to learn team building before any shit could get done. I often thought it as the ultimate leadership testing. Motivating people without any usual tools like promotion or salary rise. Modern Mobile Games are bad. VERY bad. I would even argue it is worst than Social Media for kids. Some of them are designed to cause rage so your kids would rage spend to win. There is a reason why Nintendo thought it was wrong to do Mobile Games. It is simply not the type of games they want to be in. I could go on, I have been ranting about Mobile Games for more than half a decade. Wishing Apple would do something about it. But 80% of all App Store Revenue coming from Games were too lucrative for them.
MichaelMoser123 5y ago
unrelated question: what are your suggestiong for text based RPG games (browser based) for this day and age?
denvaar 5y ago
Playing RuneScape is how I learned to type using home row.
muzani 5y ago
I'd say there's 4 kinds of games: 1. Sports. You practice, get good, compete. 2. Effort is rewarded. "Effort" is a very vague thing. It could be not dying/luck (roguelikes, Hearthstone), it could be clicking a button 1000 times. It could be problems (Factorio) or wiki games (DF, Stardew Valley). The reward is sometimes satisfaction (Factorio/chess), sometimes a movie-like denouement (FF), sometimes a thing of beauty (Civ, DF) 3. Socialization, e.g. Roblox, Minecraft, Among Us. Solve a problem together. 4. Actions lead to consequences, e.g. D&D, Reigns, AI Dungeon, The Sims. The last one is the "purest" form of gaming, in that it's a medium that only games can do well. But it's also the hardest to do and difficult to make money off. I'd hope that this kind of restrictions will lead to China making more Type 4 games. Hopefully games that can lead to a satisfactory conclusion within 2-3 hours like the average movie.
- account42 5y ago
  Your category (2) is extremely vague and all-encompassing. I'd split off at least two distinct categories: 5. Games that are about providing a certain experience: walking simulators, horror games, casual adventure games, story focused games. Here there, effort is often not really a focus at all and while you could say that you are "rewarded" for simply playing the game that is stretching it and could be applied to any game that is enjoyable in some way. 6. Puzzle games - here the challenge itself is the reward but unlike (1) the challenge is problem solving and not competition. Of course like any genre system real games will not fit neatly in one of these categories but have aspects from multiple of them. > The last one is the "purest" form of gaming, in that it's a medium that only games can do well. Yeah no. While the interactive medium is a great tool for showing consequences, it is not required. Meanwhile many things in the other categories also benefit greatly from it. > Hopefully games that can lead to a satisfactory conclusion within 2-3 hours like the average movie. I wouldn't really want to hold the "average movie" as something games should strive for. I'm all for cutting down on grind, 2-3 hours is a really short time to learn complex mechanics or get immersed in the world and characters.
  - muzani 5y ago
    Maybe I could rephrase it a bit. I don't mean all games should try to be short, but right now there are almost none. Few game designers aspire to make a game that's done in 2 hours and worth $8. Chess is a bloody complex game and you can play a round to full satisfaction in 15 minutes. You have your complexity, but it's enough to enjoy yourself 3 hours/week. Most movies will immerse you in the world and the characters well within the first 15 minutes. Today, you have something like Fallout 4 where it takes an hour from customizing your character's face to leaving the vault. I think Adam Cadre's games are a great example: http://adamcadre.ac/if.html http://adamcadre.ac/if.html What separated the Interactive Fiction from Adventure genre was that IF was more on interacting with the player's actions. You could achieve a goal and unlock endings, or just explore. You could get a full story well within a couple hours because the games are designed to avoid you from getting stuck. Adventure games were plagued with resource management and metagaming; once you remove the unnecessary grind of puzzle solving, you get a denser game.
avereveard 5y ago
Dark soul is only hard because you have to memorize all the cheap shots ( https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TrialAndErrorGameplay https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TrialAndErrorGam... ) level designers placed there
machiaweliczny 5y ago
If I haven't played Runescape my life for sure would be different now. Most likely worse. Had lots of fun, learned english, enjoying the grind, market economics,and got inspired to learn to program similar games. IMO sandbox games should be even encouraged.
stjohnswarts 5y ago
I don't. This isn't about just video games. It's about the CCP controlling everything down to the most minute aspect of everyone's life in China. At some point the people will revolt and it won't be pretty with a nation of 1.4 billion in civil war. I don't see how anyone in the west could think this is a good thing. I can understand this from parents, not from a government.
seanicus 5y ago
Such a good point. As a burgeoning dramatist (lol) Square's SNES RPG work did so much for me. Massive, sprawling stories made very engaging by interaction. Point of fact, a Chrono Trigger fanfic was one of the first stories I wrote. On the other hand, my numerous hours spend playing WWE Attitude and Goldeneye probably wasn't exactly expanding my horizons. I'm a new parent so I'm not sure how I'm going to navigate this myself but I assume the above will guide my own rule-making.
pankajdoharey 5y ago
I would say china is well placed to be producing excellemnt content for the world. Like the japanese have done for decades with their videogames and animation. China has some excellent video game content largely consumed within china. These kids are the future Game Designers, Programmers, Architects of this Industry. Its a tragedy and would have economic impact in future.

bserge 5y ago

I haven't played a good game in nearly a decade. I used to play them for the story, then it all became too grindy, trainers became moneymakers (yeah I used cheats, sue me, I played for fun), everything needs a fking Internet connection and anticheat software that does god knows what. Kinda sad.

darknavi 5y ago
There are still plenty of non-garbage games if you wade out further than AAA. My friend group played Valheim a few months ago and it was spectacular (for the weekend anyways). It's a great game to lose your self in the environments and doesn't have any IAP rubbish.
- katbyte 5y ago
  Even some AAA games have amazing story, but few and far between and a good number of the ones i'd point someone at are exclusive to ps4/ps5
- Aeolun 5y ago
  I really don’t understand what people see in this game. It’s not bad, sure, but it’s almost a walking simulator. Getting resources feels pretty grindy, and the abilities and leveling system feel lackluster to me.
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  - d3nj4l 5y ago
    It's fun to hang out in with a few friends. Solo play is like watching paint dry, playing with friends has that almost emergent feeling as all of you go off doing god knows what and end up making a mess of each other's work.
thatguy0900 5y ago
It's pretty easy to find free cheat engine tables for any single player game for free. Paid cheats are really multi-player things, where you really shouldn't be cheating anyway
SonicScrub 5y ago
I highly recommend you dive into the indie and small-medium sized publisher world. There are a lot of games out there made by passionate individuals who are succeeding at creating enjoyable experiences. There are great stories, beautiful art, and interesting gameplay. You just have to dive a little deeper to find it.
hkt 5y ago
I can strongly recommend mining old 90s titles. Homeworld remains the best RTS I've ever played by miles and that's from 1997 or so.
- bserge 5y ago
  Oh yeah, I have food memories of it. Nexus the Jupiter Incident was also great.
tapoxi 5y ago
There's plenty of exceptional story-based games out there. Personally I loved The Last of Us Part II last year, which has none of the issues you mentioned above. I'm currently playing Disco Elysium, which I also highly recommend.
aidenn0 5y ago
I haven't played recent games, but are they really more grindy than e.g. EverQuest or the NES Square/Enix games?
- Jensson 5y ago
  If you want to unlock everything without spending real money, then yes they are often by far more grindy. Companies realized that putting huge grinds which you can pay to skip is by far the best way to make money from games so today this is in most games. This is the modern slot machine equivalent.
- Rapzid 5y ago
  Most high-budget, high-profile games coming out these days are not grindy at out. I'm sure you can find grindy games within certain genre niches, but there are good not-very-grindy games in just about every genre right now AFAIK. Unless the genre is grindy, micro-payment games in which case... Consider not playing them.
- cbozeman 5y ago
  The "problem" with EverQuest wasn't the game, it was the people. It's just like real life. You aren't supposed to be the hero. You aren't supposed to have all the best everything and a million platinum. You're just another cog moving through the world, easily replaceable. That's how it was designed. The problem is that, strangely, in a game, people can't accept that, so they'll spend 18 hours a day playing, but for some reason won't spend 18 hours a day working, even when spending 18 hours a day working at something clearly - undeniably - yields better results than playing a game.
  - aidenn0 5y ago
    Ultima Online had more of that feeling than EverQuest (I played both). EQ was quite clearly a game in which you could make steady progress in power with proper grinding (and every 5 levels sucked thanks to a coding error).
throwaddzuzxd 5y ago
> I haven't played a good game in nearly a decade. I used to play them for the story, then it all became too grindy That's on you. There are tons of amazing new video games with a good plot and a great gameplay. I'm not a huge gamer myself but the last one I did that checks those boxes was Horizon Zero Dawn.

eunos 5y ago

It's limited to the online game because the check is on server side rather than client (console/phone) side since it utilizes national ID data you provide when registering.

techdragon 5y ago
Do you have a source for that? From the article it sounds like the expectation is that all games should be implementing mechanisms to limit this. But that could just be poor reporting by Reuters ( not unsurprising for a breaking foreign government regulation change like this )
- ulfw 5y ago
  What about the Alibaba South China Morning Post then? https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/3146918/china-limits-gaming-time-under-18s-one-hour-day-fridays-saturdays https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/3146918/china-limit...
  - techdragon 5y ago
    I see phrasing like > The notice also states that companies must strictly implement the real-name registration and login system in their games and not provide access to video games for those who are unregistered. But nothing clarifying if they have drawn any distinction between online games that require a persistent connection to servers to function and “offline” games that are stand alone single player experiences with no online connectivity required.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  The ban is on providing video game services to minors outside some hours : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28357167 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28357167
- mjn 5y ago
  The Xinhua article on it (which I think is fairly authoritative) is clearer that it applies only to online games: http://www.news.cn/english/2021-08/30/c_1310157673.htm http://www.news.cn/english/2021-08/30/c_1310157673.htm Specifically, > Online game providers can only offer one-hour services to minors from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, as well as on official holidays, according to the document made public on Monday. > [...] > The official said that parents and minors can decide on by themselves how long the children will play other games that are conducive to minors' growth, except online games.

clifdweller 5y ago

yeah this is mostly for the genshin impact/gacha games that are super popular and are made purely to suck money or time for grinding. I doubt they will put to much effort into policing drm free games running locally.

merrywhether 5y ago
In a parallel world they just attack this problem directly and outlaw lootbox/gacha gambling entirely for all ages. It’s obvious that such design is meant to prey on intrinsic feedback loops in the human brain, so why not just go straight to the source. People will still find ways to gamble, but at least elsewhere it’s generally explicitly labeled as such.
- hoseja 5y ago
  Going even straighter to the source is patching the CVEs in human brain.

ezconnect 5y ago

When you were a kid you had a lot of extra time and video games fill that voids.

pojzon 5y ago
As that kid I now regret not spending that time on something productive like reading interesting books or having a unique hobby (carving/skating/guitar etc) Now I dont have time for anything and reflecting at that void space - it was filled with garbage - like running pokemon yellow 7 times in a row.

swman 5y ago

I think it really depends. I have way too many personal anecdotes of people I knew from back in the day (middle/high school) who gamed like 8 hours a day. Most of those people were _addicted_, and a handful went on to drop out of college and aren't really doing that great today. They still play 8+ hours a day.. I remember I'd ask them if they wanted to study, or if they want to go hiking or do something IRL, but they'd always refuse and prefer to play some MMO and get high level loot there. Personally, the people I used to play some MMOs with were huge into merchanting and controlling the in-game economies, and I think there's a different complexity involved in running spreadsheets and following trends vs following what an addon tells you to press next. These guys were much older than me, and they taught me a lot about basic economics. Most games are designed to have people keep playing an endless grind, but purely focusing on in-game money and controlling the economy was not something the games would have designed by default. I think by default, most young people would benefit (esp mental health wise) by having their video game usage cut down. As I grow older, it is insane how cigarettes or gambling aren't the only addictive things. Kids are exposed to it from a young age by trading their time for something meaningless. And I'd argue that people like you and me who feel they learned problem solving or how economies work (through gaming as kids) are quite rare.

jliptzin 5y ago
If someone is putting off other important things in their life to play video games then that's definitely a problem. However, if people want to set aside 100% of their free time to play video games, I don't think that's any worse than other things people do with their time that we (as a society) hold in high regard such as becoming a chess grandmaster, practicing violin 12 hours / day, watching football games nonstop, etc. None of these things are actually "productive," the sole purpose is to spend time having fun.
- meristohm 5y ago
  South Korea has built a collective sense of value around Starcraft, but it feels too far removed from meatspace where we will likely occupy for a long time yet. Music seems more valuable, along with the ability to tell a good story. Sometimes they overlap. I’ve been enjoying Fire Draw Near, a podcast by Ian Lynch about the folk-music tradition of Ireland. “Work, Rest, Play, Die” by The Subhumans has melodic roots in an old tune, and he makes similar connections with “One” by Metallica. A value-test I use is: “how useful/feasible is this activity if I don’t have a computer or similar technology that is predicated on significant infrastructure?” Telling stories, playing physical games, making music (with our bodies, at least; humming, whistling, drumming, singing); these are elegant, as in = depth / complexity (per James Portnoy of Extra Credits, RE games).

jimbilly22 5y ago

mixed feelings because it's under 18, and therefore you dont feel that freedom of self is as important? Would you feel differently if this was for adults?

namelessoracle 5y ago
I think it's important to realize that children dont have the cognitive ability to resist certain things. Gambling skinner boxes are those things. I would be completely oky with my kid binging on the latest Mario or Mario Kart. I would love to see them playing an RPG. I dont want them playing Fortnite and other skinner box style games. They have teams designed to addict kids. This probably sounds silly but i would be ok with a kid being "addicted" to something because its fun and enjoyable. But being addicted because a team of scientists designed it be maximally dopamine inducing doesnt seem ok to me. Maybe there is no difference at the end of the day. But it feels like the kind of games that Nintendo puts out and the kind of games that EA puts out are VERY different.
- prpl 5y ago
  Our biggest problem with Fortnite is that it’s where the friends are so it’s a way, probably the primary way, for them to socialize - especially as some friends are on different continents. I wish this wasn’t the case, but fighting a network effect is hard as a parent.
- Thaxll 5y ago
  Kids don't play EA games, however Fortnite, CoD warzone, Roblox ...
  - vmladenov 5y ago
    Apex Legends is EA

cvdub 5y ago

There's no denying that Dark Souls is hard. It's also fair. It's 100% your fault every time you die, and you know what you did wrong.

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auiya 5y ago
There's PLENTY of jank in Dark Souls, don't kid yourself.
fullstop 5y ago
I wouldn't say 100% your fault. I'm going to blame the camera for a few of my deaths!
- bfors 5y ago
  For the centipede demon fight the camera IS the boss

whatch 5y ago

> Modern UX of games is designed so that you dont have to really read or understand the game mechanics even to be able to play and get into that feedback loop. I wish this were true for me and GTA V. My friend and I really tried to do something in GTA V Online together this weekend with little to no success. I felt really stupid by not being able to play any mission together

bjt2n3904 5y ago

Goodness. If this was the US, I would be losing my mind over such legislation. We must not convince the law makers that video games can be beneficial. That puts the wrong emphasis on the conversation. The emphasis must be, you have no jurisdiction when it comes to raising children. Your laws are invalid. Even if video games are detrimental, you do not decide what is the best interest for a child, the parents do.

sulam 5y ago
Speaking as a parent of two kids, I mostly agree, but also think that some amount of law-making in the interest of children is appropriate and fair. Drawing the line is the interesting part.
- bjt2n3904 5y ago
  Precisely. But the statement, "the government has no business making parenting decisions" needs no qualification. It is an axiomatic statement, and it should not be a controversial statement. Like you say, what is considered a parenting decision? Reasonable people can have a discussion about this. But I'm shocked how many people seem to think A) the government actually should make parenting decisions, and B) that things like banning child abuse is an example of the government making a parenting decision. Neither of these things are reasonable, and so the discussion about what qualifies as a parenting decision will also be unreasonable.
Scarblac 5y ago
I disagree. Children deserve a lot of protection, and anybody can become a parent. A lot of people are far too bad at parenting to leave the decisions to them completely. Some intervention is needed.
- crysin 5y ago
  (USA centric view) You cannot legislate parents into being good parents. You cannot pass laws that protect children from bad parenting as best case result you may get the state to intervene and put the child in a foster system where there's a 50% chance that they end up in an even worse place.

fridif 5y ago

You shouldn't have mixed feelings. This is an attack on human free will. UK lets children drink.

riffraff 5y ago
In UK you can't buy alcohol if you're below 18. You can drink alcohol in a public place if you're 16 and there is an accompanying adult buying it for you. It's not quite a "free for all", but anyway, I doubt it relates to the issue at hand. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_drinking_age#Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_drinking_age#Europe
- nybble41 5y ago
  Those rules are for public drinking. There doesn't seem to be any age restriction for private alcohol consumption in the UK, or for that matter most of Europe.
  - adventured 5y ago
    The US similarly allows private underage consumption of alcohol - with more restrictions than in most parts of Europe - with parental consent and oversight. This varies from state to state in how it works and the limits, of course. Most states draw a strong legal distinction between underage drinking parties vs moderate underage consumption outside of a party context.
  - riffraff 5y ago
    sure but if you're a kid you can't concretely drink in private if you can't buy alcohol. Other countries don't have rules or don't enforce it, but the UK certainly does. Source: I was an italian teen used to buy wine for my grandpa, but I could not get a beer at the supermarket in the UK.

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gentleman11 5y ago

You have to differentiate real games from casino games. Many popular games have a substantial casino element and are basically skinners boxes and need to be controlled like casino games. I saw job postings a little while ago for mobile games that require experience making slot machines There are a lot of games that fall into grey areas, possibly accidentally, and those are harder to deal with. Loot boxes and mmos are so obviously gambling that I don’t even know what to say

victor106 5y ago

The feelings you (I have the same feelings about his as you do) have about this are at an individual level. State mandating how much time someone should spend doing a particular activity is a totally different topic. Even though I agree with the overall intention of this rule/law I vehemently oppose a state imposing such restrictions.

beaunative 5y ago
Technically, the state doesn't place restrictions on the kids, which is legally impossible, they place restrictions on the digital entertainment business where they are required to allow entry for kid for no longer than said duration.
- jrochkind1 5y ago
  > Technically, the state doesn't place restrictions on the kids, which is legally impossible, What makes that legally impossible in China? (edit or do you just mean hard to enforce? I thought you meant something different by "legally impossible", I may have misunderstood).
  - ummwhat 5y ago
    The hills are high and the emperor is far away.
  - beaunative 5y ago
    Kids can't be criminally punished/sued, not for things like these. Kids can be sued for damages to others which ultimately their parents/guardians would be required to pay which doesn't exist in this case. This is similar to how age restriction for alcohol is enforced in the US, interestingly, age restriction on alcohol consumption wasn't enforced in China, though made into law.
    - jrochkind1 5y ago
      thanks!

aidenn0 5y ago

I think a big part of why I can quickly scan information on a page is from playing way too much Final Fantasy as a kid. To grind you need to do lots of combat, so I slowly dialed the "Response Rate" (i.e. speed at which text appears) until I could read all of the post-combat messages at the maximum setting.

jvanderbot 5y ago

My reading skills were nurtured by books. My history interest was nurtured by video games. My tech interest was nurtured by finagling with goddamn interrupt priorities and boot disks to get games to run.

meristohm 5y ago

As much as I’ve moved on from solo games (Atari 2600 & Commodore 64 & Nintendo scarified the seed, then it grew roots into Lemmings on my 386, Heroes of Might and Magic 3, Command & Conquer, Diablo 2, Morrowind, World of Warcraft [after 2005 it was mostly a solo experience] and Hearthstone, for examples), I can think of better activities in hindsight. Games were largely an escape for me, as were books, but at least with many books there’s more exposure to what it means to be human. Brainstem wrapped in the hydrostatic comfort of a videogame meant I could avoid observing my emotions and deciding what to do. I’m still learning to take responsibility for my own actions. I’m not alone in this relationship with games, nor am I necessarily representative in my experiences. I’m sharing as a caution to others for whom videogames are all-consuming. Healthier alternatives that scratch the itch for me are co-op games that aren’t great solo (I only play with close friends now, as a way to keep in touch and work together), tabletop RPGs like Mouse Guard, and physically exploring outside, as I’m thoroughly an Explorer on Bartle’s chart[0]. Also reading/listening to stories, playing music (another form of story that isn’t so far removed from our physical existence as videogames are), playing physical games/sports, drawing/painting (but not in Skyrim, etc :), and gardening, etc. I won’t bar my child from videogames, because they can backfire. Instead I’ll try to model healthy use of the pass-time as a brief mental gear-switch. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_taxonomy_of_player_types https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_taxonomy_of_player_type...

jrochkind1 5y ago
> at least with many books there’s more exposure to what it means to be human. Games could do this as well as books. (And certainly not every book does it much). Occasionally games do. Mostly not.
- account42 5y ago
  There are also many books that don't.

overgard 5y ago

I'm sure there are a lot of culture differences, but as a westerner I have no mixed feelings on this -- I think it's just insane. This is what parents are supposed to be in charge of doing.

pojzon 5y ago
Too many modern parents are not up to being a parent unfortunately. It’s a hard work to maintain work/life balance while at the same time be a model for your children. It takes A LOT of discipline and we all know how much discipline most ppl have..
- account42 5y ago
  > Too many modern parents are not up to being a parent unfortunately. > > It’s a hard work to maintain work/life balance while at the same time be a model for your children. The problem here is not the parent, its the work demanding 40+ hours per week and a society that means both parents have to work.

namelessoracle 5y ago

Thinking about this a different way. We have seen the games that come out that exist to get you to play as long as possible look like. What will the games that exist to be so awesome that if you get to play only an hour a day that want you to come back again look like? Will they make sure that hour is highly enjoyable and engaging instead of grindy? Is that a more sustainable model for game devs? At least its a change from the current skinner boxes.... Maybe it will just be stronger skinner boxes. "Tune in next week for the exciting conclusion!" or "Get X Bonus if you log in tommorow!" is probably what will happen....

andrey_utkin 5y ago
For me the prime example of good, challenging, but non-addictive game is GCompris, a collection of kids activities. Open source as well.
poetaster 5y ago
Sadky, all the 8 year olds in my sons cohort will just say 'bah'. But they have touch builds so time to look at the src. Thanks!

MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago

Videogames are addicting as all hell and create NEETs. End of story. Parents who are lazy and just want their kids to stop bothering them just give them to their kids without realizing it can destroy their early socialization skills. I love videogames, but jesus I'd limit my kids use of it to either playing socially or with family. If it's alone, it had better be for short amounts of time. Videogames should be social events. Not solitary escapes that cause people to become schizoids.

bigwavedave 5y ago
> Parents who are lazy and just want their kids to stop bothering them just give them to their kids without realizing it can destroy their early socialization skills. These hypothetical children have spent all day socializing at school- if that gets "destroyed" by a few hours of being left to their own devices, better stop them from reading and playing with Legos alone in their rooms too. Claiming video games ruin social skills because playing them is an activity performed alone is utter nonsense.
- JohnWhigham 5y ago
  Kids need socializing with other kids beyond the 9-3 school days.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
  School is the most garbage area to foster socializing children. Not only is it in a controlled environment, but it has nothing to do with learning how to engage with people on a personal level outside of work.

lordnacho 5y ago

I've mentioned this view a few times: computers are the modern double-edged sword. On one hand you can learn pretty much anything academic just by sitting in front of one. Quantum physics, history of Rome, food chemistry, and so on. Use it right, and you can really have access to a huge amount of knowledge that I never could as a child. On the other hand, it is the biggest addiction danger in the house. It's legal for you to invite corporations into your home to try to persuade you to sit and grind away at some game, forever. You can waste your whole life in the comfort of your own Skinner box. All your opportunities to go and socialize with real people, out in society, you can just skip. What to exercise? Meh. Want a nice meal with family? Meh. Want to look at nature? LOL no. Anecdote: A friend of mine was playing very heavily for some time, maybe a couple of times a week. He goes into a café, sits down next to another fellow, who'd been there far longer: "oh hey man, I've been here for two days. My boss will get pissed off if I don't show up to work tomorrow. But Everquest..." My buddy comes in two nights later, guy is in the same seat playing EverQuest. "Shit man, I got fired. He called me and told me. Anyway I gotta level up." At that point my friend got quite scared of the power of this stuff. Me as well, nearly 20 years later. To cap it off, the dude's job was to be the attendant at another computer café. Yes. He could have just sat his ass at work and gotten paid for it, but somehow he'd lost his job by sitting at a different café and not finding the motivation to stop.

A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
Personal anecdote. For a couple of years, I was deeply addicted to early version of Final Fantasy 11. Thing was hard, punishing and effectively required dedicated player base. I have some great memories, but there was a moment, when I started calling in sick to camp a monster. Fortunately, I eventually managed to stop on my own, but I still get occasional pangs ( but thankfully today's FFXI is a shell of itself for a variety of reasons ). I was lucky. I am certain there are people way more obsessive than me.
MandieD 5y ago
I remember an acquaintance calling it “EverCrack” 20 years ago…

jimbob45 5y ago

>Modern games though are clearly designed to get you as addicted as possible and to play as long as possible to an extent that made the old school 90s RPGs grinds look tame and mild I try to tell my extended family this but I can tell that they choose not to listen. Games are no longer what they were growing up and you have to make sure your kid isn't playing a glorified slot machine. I plan to build a machine and only install certain games on there for the kids to avoid this very trap. Parents today just don't understand how pernicious these companies have become. They used to include a hot girl in each game to keep you interested and prevent you from feeling bored. Sure it was lazy but that's all it was, lazy. Now, you have games like Genshin Impact that have weaponized sexuality to the point where people are pumping hundreds of dollars to see more sexuality in the game. Hearthstone's card packs function identically to Skinner boxes. League of Legends teases you with the prospect of going pro in gaming despite players have a higher chance to make it to the NFL than make it going pro in LoL.

cbozeman 5y ago
League of Legends suffers from a problem no one's figured out how to fix yet, or that would require so much effort, anyone capable of figuring it out would rather work for a FAANG, which is: How do you separate people who want to excel from people who just want to have "fun"? You can't mix people with a hardcore attitude with people with a casual attitude. It'll result in disaster every single time, without fail, in any endeavor, ever. It never works, no matter what, and no one is going to be able to make it work. You have to separate them. What's worse, the ban system for League of Legends favors shitty people over the people who actually want to do well. Someone can intentionally troll, die 29 times in a game, have 0 kills, 0 assists, and nothing happens. When the other four players try to win, but get frustrated at this single shitbag, and then say something, they get banned... instead of the obviously troller catching an instant permanent ban to teach them a lesson.
- junar 5y ago
  Okay, so let me present you with my view of the game. It's going to be very different from yours, and it's fine if you disagree. In fact, in the first few years I played, I would have had a hard time agreeing as well. But I'd appreciate if you hear me out. 1) On average, ranked players play at a skill level consistent with their rating. In other words, even if they have the skills to play better but don't, their rating should reflect this--on average. 2) For each individual game, there can be some variance in individual performance. Sometimes matchups are lopsided, and sometimes mistakes are made. Sometimes you're on the team that benefits, and sometimes you're not. 3) Trends are more useful than individual games. "Did I do better in the last game than the previous one?" is not always a useful question, so I'd rather ask "Did I do better in the last 10 games than the previous 10?" This follows from 1) and 2). 4) Morale affects the game, and my actions can affect morale. It's really easy and tempting to call out gameplay mistakes, but I think that only serves to hurt morale. If I still wanted to win the game, making my team feel bad hurts my chances. If I prefer to surrender, there are better ways to convince people. So yeah, the reason I wrote this is because I've definitely had my share of upsetting losses, but I found that shifting my mindset helped me deal with it better.

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ericmay 5y ago

> I have mixed feelings about this. I don't. If this were to be proposed in America I would view it as extreme government over-reach.

adventured 5y ago
> If this were to be proposed in America I would view it as extreme government over-reach. It is an extreme government overreach, whether in the US or China. It's an abuse of human rights. China is about one step away from treading into classic Mao Communist cultural attack mode. The interesting thing about pursuing so much control, is that more control requires ever more control, it's a negative spiral. More oppression requires ever greater oppression to keep the system from rupturing. Anyone championing this as borderline acceptable, those people have little terrifying monsters inside, little psycho dictators, yearning to violently oppress and control people. Societies are always filled with these little monsters running around trying to violently control people, they always have to be pushed back against. In China's case, Xi is pursuing a new cultural revolution, as he sees fit to implement. One thing after another is being taken out, targeted. They took out all traces of freedom of speech, years ago. They isolated the people with the great firewall, to restrict foreign influence, control domestic influences, and keep the people contained. They installed aggressive censors at all tech and media companies. They eliminated all independent news and media. They've further cracked down on all religion, religious expression, religious worship. They banished nearly all foreign reporting from the country. They banished all joke apps. They banished all gay culture. They're culturally cleansing the Muslim Uyghur regions. They implemented the social credit scoring system. They've entirely taken over Hong Kong and are proceding with wiping out its formerly independent culture. They've installed direct party control over all major private corporations, tech or otherwise. They've neutered all of their most prominent business persons, one after another. They've purged, vanished numerous prominent celebrities. They're in the process of banning all negative discussions of anything economic/financial. They're initiating an effort to prevent any consequential companies from publicly listing stock overseas, looking to increase economic control and reduce foreign influence. They're wiping out private education (classic cultural revolution move on education). They're about to flip to a digital currency, to further increase the ease and application of economic controls over individuals. This is the short list of what they've done since Xi took power, and they're only just getting warmed up. It's a science fiction nightmare, set to become real. This gaming restriction is just one little drop in the ocean of what they're doing broadly, it's all moving in concert.

iszomer 5y ago

Sure but there wasn't a monetary incentive path like we have today with the Internet and livestreaming. I still remember picking up my first copy of DOOM and playing with friends on a 28.8Kbps dialup modem. This comic sort of represents those childhood sentiments experienced today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgDG_IEDc9A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgDG_IEDc9A

refulgentis 5y ago

Square Enix games and CRPGs induced advanced reading skills? It's been a few years since I played one, but in my humble opinion, we'd probably find it has a 5th or 6th grade reading level. Replacement-level activities will likely have the same impact on someone 10 years d or above.

pdimitar 5y ago

> To the point where when a game comes along like Dark Souls that asks you to learn the game systems to beat it, gamers go gah gah over "how hard" it is. Please, PLEASE, please let's not derail this thread to "Dark Souls players are the REAL skilled players and the rest of you all are crybabies" or something? I get PTSD reading any DS player's "opinion" these days. DS doesn't require skill. DS is brutal and semi-random on purpose so you sink the maximum amount of time to beat it. Not much skill is required there. You have to invest the time to learn the moves and their patterns. After that happens beating the boss in question just requires you to be in non-vegetative state. -- On topic: I too am with mixed feelings over this news but if this is going to stop the hyper-predatory mobile game companies from almost literally turning young people into zombies then I support the decision. I worry what happens when inevitably they start saying "but CS:GO, Quake Champions and Deep Rock Galactic are addictive as well and we will prohibit them too!" but... we can't have it all at the same time, I suppose. :| Really can't find a good balanced solution out of this jam. Can you?

dfxm12 5y ago

Not knowing much about the great firewall, but taking in context from the article, it seems like they'd only really be able to limit "modern" games, which are always connected. If you can somehow get your hands on an SNES and FF6 cart, or (more likely) figure out how to get an emulator and ROM to your computer, no one will be the wiser. So, if anything, this will be a boon to older console games.

kwere 5y ago
that are almost non existent in red China

auiya 5y ago

> Modern games though are clearly designed to get you as addicted as possible and to play as long as possible to an extent that made the old school 90s RPGs grinds look tame and mild. You do realize the term "quarter muncher" isn't a modern one right? We had plenty of those types meth-level-addiction games back in the early days of gaming too.

OOPMan 5y ago

Modern games is a bit of a blanket statement. There are tons of modern games (arguably the majority when you consider the size of the market) that are not skinner boxes. If all you're looking at is AAA games and mobile crap, then sure. But there's more to games than that stuff.

ecf 5y ago

> Modern games though are clearly designed to get you as addicted as possible and to play as long as possible… The de-facto example of this nowadays is World of a Warcraft. For those unaware, WoW charges you $15 per month play, as well as $60 every two years for the latest expansion. This has resulted in a company that designs every last detail to be completed at the pace they determine to be correct, with a “story cliffhanger” at the end of each patch. An applicable quote from one of the largest WoW content creators goes along the lines of “WoW used to be a game that made you want to waste your time. Now it’s a game that simply waste your time.”

quacker 5y ago

I guess I'm curious: What are you expecting minors who currently enjoy video games to do instead in their free time? If they pick up reading and decide they like those endless fantasy series, is that better than playing a video game for the same amount of time? Why? If they decide to watch TV or movies instead of video games, is that better? Why? Should they spend that all that free time studying and doing homework instead? Why?

danudey 5y ago

My 6yo son really, really wanted to play Breath of the Wild. He loves Zelda, my wife loves Zelda, my best friend's girlfriend is over the moon with Zelda, etc. I always played Link in Mario Kart, to the point where, when he was 2 or 3, he was in Best Buy with my wife and saw a Breath of the Wild Switch case and said "is daddy!" Of course, after a few requests a year and a bit ago, my wife had to give him an ultimatum: "I'm not going to come over here every time there's words. If you want to play this game, you have to read it yourself." Apparently, it worked; he's about to go into Grade 2 but already has incredibly strong reading skills, including about a grade 2.5 reading level in French (we're English-speakers but he's in French immersion). I didn't like how much Switch he was playing last year when the pandemic started and schools closed, but he wouldn't have learned to read nearly as fast if it weren't for Breath of the Wild. He seems to be well ahead of his classmates, and he's only getting stronger (and more independent as a result) as time goes by. We're pretty particular about what games he plays, but the ones he's interested in typically have a substantial amount of reading involved (compared to, say, Doom when I was a teenager). I'm excited that he'll be able to (if not willing to) play my old favorites; Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, and Secret of Mana, to name a few. I guess we'll see if he's interested.

Dig1t 5y ago
That's so funny this exact thing happened to me at the same age, and with Zelda as well. I was 6 years old when Ocarina of Time came out and had this exact experience of my parents getting fed up with reading the text to me and being forced to read it myself. I definitely think it helped me become a strong reader early in life. Good for you, I think this is a good idea.
mlindner 5y ago
Identical thing happened between me and my younger brother. He'd use me to read game text to him for a while until I got fed up with it. I had learned to read from the game text myself. (The game was an old space RPG-like game called Escape Velocity.)
BobJackienine 5y ago
Every modern gamer knows that this is an exception nowadays most kids just want to play a looter shooter point click rinse repeat for a thousand hours

Aeolun 5y ago

Hmm, my problem with Dark Souls like games is mostly that it becomes easy when you understand the mechanics, but immediately also starts to be annoying because now your biggest enemy is timing issues and enemies just materializing behind you.

barnesto 5y ago

All good points, but the main issue here is the government, in this case the CCP, dictating game play. It's the parent's responsibility to dictate when and how their children play games not the government. If the government wants to go after game developers because their games are addictive that's one thing. Dictating to the players is a level of control free citizens should never experience. Although, in this case, citizens of China are hardly free in the first place.

javierluraschi 5y ago
Where is the line compared to government enforcing parents to not leaving their kids alone in a car or home, or sending their kids to school? How do we measure what level of control we have/deserve on our kids? I'm not disagreeing, just arguing that there are cases where one could argue that the government is overstepping on how we parent our kids.
- Diesel555 5y ago
  These arguments have already happened. You are arguing about paternalism. These debates are common in policy classes, specifically about libertarianism. Clearly, people that believe in the freedom of choice would hate this. However to your questions: > parents to not leaving their kids alone in a car Infringes on the freedom of the child to live or not endure conditions beyond what a normal person should endure > sending their kids to school The other questions start getting more into removing the freedom of the parents to choose at the expense of the best interest of the individual being affected (in the government's point of view). There is a lot of academic material with well defined terms about these subjects. Americans will err towards individual freedoms rather than the government directing more than will European countries (and obviously communist countries; yes you can find specific examples to contradict this statement, it's a generality, an average of all policies). But Americans are trending towards more paternalistic policies over the last fifty years (Standard disclaimer: To those who will derive an intent out of this statement, it is not supporting or not supporting it, simply an observation).
lurgburg 5y ago
OTOH an individual parent has to expend a lot more effort to create controls than a government. An individual parent can't mandate technology companies install controls that automatically regulate their child's play; they have to manually monitor+manage it at some cost of time+effort to themselves. A wonkish trick would be for the government to mandate controls with sensible defaults but allow parents to tune them I guess?

bamboozled 5y ago

“I have mixed feelings about this.” You have mixed feelings a about what? This is an absolutely insane government overreach and unacceptable. Micromanaging what people can do with their time like this is 1984. I grew up, sometimes skipping school and playing games all day, I still passed school, I have a good job in software and a healthy happy life. I’d prefer the following question is asked, why do these kids require “spiritual opium”? Maybe living in a polluted authoritarian genocidal hell hole makes people want to escape reality ?

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jacobsimon 5y ago

Someone needs to build a game that’s hidden inside of a normal looking webpage or app and then distribute to Chinese teens

ksec 5y ago

This. Old Games had lots of work from History, Mythology, Science and all sort other details in it. I mean even old Diablo I and II had a whole story book that came with it. Was it Lord of the Rings quality? No. But it is so much better than not reading a story book. All the history lessons from games like Civilisation, Sim City helping you imagining a whole new world. RPG had lots of story telling. Heck even MMORPG like World of Warcraft, you have to learn team building before any shit could get done. I often thought it as the ultimate leadership testing. Motivating people without any usual tools like promotion or salary rise. Modern Mobile Games are bad. VERY bad. I would even argue it is worst than Social Media for kids. Some of them are designed to cause rage so your kids would rage spend to win. There is a reason why Nintendo thought it was wrong to do Mobile Games. It is simply not the type of games they want to be in. I could go on, I have been ranting about Mobile Games for more than half a decade. Wishing Apple would do something about it. But 80% of all App Store Revenue coming from Games were too lucrative for them.

MichaelMoser123 5y ago

unrelated question: what are your suggestiong for text based RPG games (browser based) for this day and age?

denvaar 5y ago

Playing RuneScape is how I learned to type using home row.

muzani 5y ago

I'd say there's 4 kinds of games: 1. Sports. You practice, get good, compete. 2. Effort is rewarded. "Effort" is a very vague thing. It could be not dying/luck (roguelikes, Hearthstone), it could be clicking a button 1000 times. It could be problems (Factorio) or wiki games (DF, Stardew Valley). The reward is sometimes satisfaction (Factorio/chess), sometimes a movie-like denouement (FF), sometimes a thing of beauty (Civ, DF) 3. Socialization, e.g. Roblox, Minecraft, Among Us. Solve a problem together. 4. Actions lead to consequences, e.g. D&D, Reigns, AI Dungeon, The Sims. The last one is the "purest" form of gaming, in that it's a medium that only games can do well. But it's also the hardest to do and difficult to make money off. I'd hope that this kind of restrictions will lead to China making more Type 4 games. Hopefully games that can lead to a satisfactory conclusion within 2-3 hours like the average movie.

account42 5y ago
Your category (2) is extremely vague and all-encompassing. I'd split off at least two distinct categories: 5. Games that are about providing a certain experience: walking simulators, horror games, casual adventure games, story focused games. Here there, effort is often not really a focus at all and while you could say that you are "rewarded" for simply playing the game that is stretching it and could be applied to any game that is enjoyable in some way. 6. Puzzle games - here the challenge itself is the reward but unlike (1) the challenge is problem solving and not competition. Of course like any genre system real games will not fit neatly in one of these categories but have aspects from multiple of them. > The last one is the "purest" form of gaming, in that it's a medium that only games can do well. Yeah no. While the interactive medium is a great tool for showing consequences, it is not required. Meanwhile many things in the other categories also benefit greatly from it. > Hopefully games that can lead to a satisfactory conclusion within 2-3 hours like the average movie. I wouldn't really want to hold the "average movie" as something games should strive for. I'm all for cutting down on grind, 2-3 hours is a really short time to learn complex mechanics or get immersed in the world and characters.
- muzani 5y ago
  Maybe I could rephrase it a bit. I don't mean all games should try to be short, but right now there are almost none. Few game designers aspire to make a game that's done in 2 hours and worth $8. Chess is a bloody complex game and you can play a round to full satisfaction in 15 minutes. You have your complexity, but it's enough to enjoy yourself 3 hours/week. Most movies will immerse you in the world and the characters well within the first 15 minutes. Today, you have something like Fallout 4 where it takes an hour from customizing your character's face to leaving the vault. I think Adam Cadre's games are a great example: http://adamcadre.ac/if.html http://adamcadre.ac/if.html What separated the Interactive Fiction from Adventure genre was that IF was more on interacting with the player's actions. You could achieve a goal and unlock endings, or just explore. You could get a full story well within a couple hours because the games are designed to avoid you from getting stuck. Adventure games were plagued with resource management and metagaming; once you remove the unnecessary grind of puzzle solving, you get a denser game.

avereveard 5y ago

Dark soul is only hard because you have to memorize all the cheap shots ( https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TrialAndErrorGameplay https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TrialAndErrorGam... ) level designers placed there

machiaweliczny 5y ago

If I haven't played Runescape my life for sure would be different now. Most likely worse. Had lots of fun, learned english, enjoying the grind, market economics,and got inspired to learn to program similar games. IMO sandbox games should be even encouraged.

stjohnswarts 5y ago

I don't. This isn't about just video games. It's about the CCP controlling everything down to the most minute aspect of everyone's life in China. At some point the people will revolt and it won't be pretty with a nation of 1.4 billion in civil war. I don't see how anyone in the west could think this is a good thing. I can understand this from parents, not from a government.

seanicus 5y ago

Such a good point. As a burgeoning dramatist (lol) Square's SNES RPG work did so much for me. Massive, sprawling stories made very engaging by interaction. Point of fact, a Chrono Trigger fanfic was one of the first stories I wrote. On the other hand, my numerous hours spend playing WWE Attitude and Goldeneye probably wasn't exactly expanding my horizons. I'm a new parent so I'm not sure how I'm going to navigate this myself but I assume the above will guide my own rule-making.

pankajdoharey 5y ago

I would say china is well placed to be producing excellemnt content for the world. Like the japanese have done for decades with their videogames and animation. China has some excellent video game content largely consumed within china. These kids are the future Game Designers, Programmers, Architects of this Industry. Its a tragedy and would have economic impact in future.