4 ms·

The hell is he talking about? Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 are way past the golden age of gaming. They have nothing worthwhile to contribute here. It's reminis

The hell is he talking about? Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 are way past the golden age of gaming. They have nothing worthwhile to contribute here. It's reminiscent of mobile game designers from the 2010's, and how they were making "engaging" games. Lots of presentations about making engaging experiences that immerse players into the lore of the game world. Actually, just mediocre manipulation tactics pushing people into skinner boxes. It's all bullshit, and indie game devs would do well to stay naive and simply try to make fun games. If anything, a much better example of this stuff is in Disco Elysium.

sbierwagen 4y ago
I'm not sure what you're responding to? The phrase "golden age" does not occur anywhere in the submission. This is a summary of a presentation by CD Projekt employee talking about the two games he's worked on, so naturally it's focused on those two games.
- prohobo 4y ago
  The golden age was when most modern game design principles and techniques were established, between 1993-2005 (roughly). My criticism is that this presentation by CD Projekt is not helpful but harmful to indie developers. It's clear in the presentation that their mindset is similar to the mobile game era of manipulation and control of the player. Ostensibly in this case to "make them want to continue". Engagement is skinner box jargon used by companies like Zynga and has nothing to do with making a good game. Because the presentation promotes this mindset and because it's about two games that mostly were made possible by golden age game design, and not their own innovations, I don't believe they have anything meaningful to contribute on this topic. The quest design in Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk is neither innovative, nor very fun. It may be effective in the manipulative sense, but that doesn't contribute to the artistry of making games fun.

sbierwagen 4y ago

I'm not sure what you're responding to? The phrase "golden age" does not occur anywhere in the submission. This is a summary of a presentation by CD Projekt employee talking about the two games he's worked on, so naturally it's focused on those two games.

prohobo 4y ago
The golden age was when most modern game design principles and techniques were established, between 1993-2005 (roughly). My criticism is that this presentation by CD Projekt is not helpful but harmful to indie developers. It's clear in the presentation that their mindset is similar to the mobile game era of manipulation and control of the player. Ostensibly in this case to "make them want to continue". Engagement is skinner box jargon used by companies like Zynga and has nothing to do with making a good game. Because the presentation promotes this mindset and because it's about two games that mostly were made possible by golden age game design, and not their own innovations, I don't believe they have anything meaningful to contribute on this topic. The quest design in Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk is neither innovative, nor very fun. It may be effective in the manipulative sense, but that doesn't contribute to the artistry of making games fun.