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The desire that's built in is the online tower building. But I don't do it for that. I do it for the thrill of seeing how efficiently I can make my pieces. The

by unalone 17y ago

The desire that's built in is the online tower building. But I don't do it for that. I do it for the thrill of seeing how efficiently I can make my pieces. The graphics are beautiful. The soundtrack is incredible. The humor is perfectly executed. The feel of the controls I hope to one day equal. The physics engine's to die for. I don't know you, barrkel, so hopefully you don't take it personally when I say: You'd value that package at two dollars? Pathetic. This is what I hate about the gaming community. You said you got six hours of play out of it, and don't think that was worth $20? I pay $10 for a CD with 40-60 minutes of music on it. I pay $15 for a 3-hour movie. This masterpiece of a puzzle game you value at two dollars. Unbelievable. It's worth mentioning that I can't stand most first-person shooters. The Orange Box ones (Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2, Portal) are the only ones I've played and liked. The level of workmanship on the average FPS saddens me. They strike me as gimmicky and cheap. I can't comment on how long it takes to beat World of Goo, because I haven't beat it yet. I'm on the second world out of, what, six?, and I've played it for a few hours. I spent an hour alone trying to hit the challenge records on each level. But the game isn't just about beating levels. It's about the joy of putting things together, seeing what works and what doesn't. All that was released by a team of two people. Far Cry was made by a team of five hundred people, and it's nowhere near as sleek as World of Goo. I think 2D Boy puts Crytek to shame. They're entrepreneurs and artists and I wish them the best of luck—and it really pisses me off when the tasteless slobs that call themselves the gaming community decide to shit all over a good thing.

bendotc 17y ago
If the idea you're raging against is that there is no 6 hour experience worth $20, I'm totally behind you. But you take it a step further and accuse barrkel of being a "tasteless slob" for not valuing World of Goo more than $2, and that's just ridiculous. It's precisely as ridiculous as if I called you a "tasteless slob" for what you were saying about all non-Orange-Box FPSes, 'cause there are a bunch of real gems out there. What's my point? My point is that there's a question of taste. We can of course still talk about craftsmanship and aesthetics in games, but to criticise someone simply for saying they like games with high replay value and this isn't it, that's ridiculous. You said you don't like FPSes that aren't from The Orange Box, which shows to me that there are some damn fine games that you don't value, but it would be silly of me to criticize you for not wanting to pay market price for them.
- unalone 17y ago
  I made a point to tell barrkel that I hadn't met him and that I wasn't intending my remarks personally. I don't feel comfortable judging somebody by what they write online. The friends I'm most in touch with from my hometown are gamers. By some standards I'm a gamer, though I'd disagree with the classification. So obviously I don't mean "everybody that plays games" when I refer to the "gaming community". That said: I stand by what I said to begin with. Does replay value matter in a game? Of course. Is a game without replay value worthless? Certainly not. If a game takes me six hours to beat and I willingly play through all six hours, I've spent as much time playing it as I'd spend on a two-hour movie if I'd watched it three times. So there's the first thing that I find offense in: The suggestion that something worth "only" six hours of time hasn't given me enough value. In the "gaming community" as I define it, having a game take up dozens of hours of your life isn't an offense. I've always disagreed with that. I remember having a conversation with a friend over Final Fantasy VII, which I played for an hour and then put away. "It takes a few hours to get good," was his mindset. I find that casual disregard for time appalling. The second thing I found offensive was the suggestion that World of Goo was worth only two dollars. Two dollars? I pay more than that for a fucking cheese steak! For five dollars I will pay a man to sizzle some meat for me and put it in a plastic bag. For two dollars I will pay a fast food chain for a plastic cup to pour syrup into. When two people spend $10,000 of their own money and countless months developing a gem of a puzzle game that takes a quarter of a day to beat—and it's taking me much longer than that, personally—I think it's worth more than 20 minutes' worth of minimum wage. Craft and finesse has become so devalued. I blame it on gamers, though "gamers" here is a category that includes a whole bunch of non-gamers, including a whole branch of programmers that I occasionally criticize here as well. It's this attitude that other people's work is meaningless, the attitude of FAIL and meh., where having twenty hours of gameplay is expected but making any of those twenty hours magical and beautiful is utterly disregarded. It's not every gamer, it's a specific sort of gamer, but it's a prevalent sort of gamer. The kind that argues that Bioshock is as valuable a contribution to society as the works of Joyce or the movies of Hitchcock. And it bugs me not just because it's obnoxious and tasteless, but because on the flip side we have a lot of tasteful people who argue that video games are not art, can never be art, and I disagree with them as well. I love video games. But it's hard to argue with those tasteful game-haters when the average gamer works to hard to convince others of his crippling tastelessness.
barrkel 17y ago
Yes, two dollars, when compared with the value I get out of a decent FPS. It's funny you mention the orange box; Portal is another puzzle game, and similarly not particularly replayable after solving it, which similarly takes about 6 hours. And as for Half-Life 2, Ep 1 and 2, these are some of my least favourite FPSes because they are obsessively linear and don't reward creative approaches. For these reasons, they are more like a movie, and don't have particularly good replay value (IMHO). Far Cry, on the other hand, was a masterpiece of playability, leaps and bounds ahead of any Half Life game, again IMHO. The freedom to tackle each situation resulted in large rewards to creativity. Far Cry 2 took it even further; rather than just having to tactically plan one's approach to action bubbles, one needed to plan an entire navigation across the map, avoiding guard posts, road patrols, etc. I've never played a more immersive game than Far Cry 2, a game that took me to another world, save perhaps Outcast or Thief.
- alex_c 17y ago
  Yes, two dollars, when compared with the value I get out of a decent FPS. The key word in that sentence is "decent", and I don't think it's the word you wanted. Games like Far Cry, TF2, etc., are outliers, they're not "a decent FPS". I doubt you'd be willing to pay full price for a "decent" FPS, if you value World of Goo at $2. It's interesting how skewed the perception of value can become due to AAA titles with huge budgets. Yes, in some ways these games ARE underpriced, and forcing a race to the bottom. You get silly situations like people paying $40 for L4D and playing it for hundreds of hours, while still complaining about the lack of content. The only conceivable scenario under which L4D is bad value is if you compare it to, say, TF2 - which is receiving ridiculous amounts of free content upgrades, in my opinion. If you set your "baseline" for value to something like TF2 or Starcraft, then work downwards from there for all other games, then where does that leave the rest of the industry? If you use that baseline, is WoW worth the $15 a month that millions of people happily pay? Or, if you work the other way - if WoW IS worth $15 a month, which many people obviously agree - then doesn't that bring Far Cry closer to hundreds of dollars of "value"? I'm not talking about what specific games you or I enjoy - I'm trying to play along with extracting some abstract "value", regardless of genre. My only conclusion is that you can't really do that - bad games are vastly overpriced, good games are vastly underpriced, and the only ones that get the pricing right are MMOs. In my opinion, $20 for World of Goo is about right, assuming you enjoy that kind of game. It's short, but intensely enjoyable. I'd rather have 6 hours of excellent, memorable gameplay than dozens of hours of mediocre gameplay.
ErrantX 17y ago
I played the game when it first came out too; and I agree with Barrkel somewhat. I think calling it a masterpiece of a puzzle game is a bit too much; it was hard in places, true, and amusing to play - but not actually particularly challenging (that's a good thing). I wouldn't value it at $2 - maybe 4 or 5. Lets compare some FPS games though (a difficult comparison really). Firstly L4D; you should give it a shot because it is hard to fault the execution of the game. On hardest difficulty and with some good mates you can literally spend a couple of hours fighting through one level :D HL2? Worth it for the beautiful set pieces (even if it is very linear). Assassins Creed was also a fun game and quite comparable to WoG. It's essentially a puzzle game at it's core; and the obsession I personally had to perfect each "kill" was easily worth the $40 I paid for it. Ultimately though we have to compare COD4. The single player is exquisite and is approximately 6 hours of game play. They weighting of the game is excellent and the "levels" are varied. And to top it off the story is excellent. Easily worth the money I paid for it. Im not saying WoG is valueless but I get the impression your setting a lot of stock by the fact these are indie game developers; meaning the risk was much higher and they did it for the love of the game etc. Which is fair enough; but lets compare WoG to the other free "indie" games you see kicking around the internet. Compared to them it is a wonderful masterpiece and achievement. But a value of $20? COD4 at $40 sounds like a bargain by comparison :)

by unalone 17y ago

bendotc 17y ago

If the idea you're raging against is that there is no 6 hour experience worth $20, I'm totally behind you. But you take it a step further and accuse barrkel of being a "tasteless slob" for not valuing World of Goo more than $2, and that's just ridiculous. It's precisely as ridiculous as if I called you a "tasteless slob" for what you were saying about all non-Orange-Box FPSes, 'cause there are a bunch of real gems out there. What's my point? My point is that there's a question of taste. We can of course still talk about craftsmanship and aesthetics in games, but to criticise someone simply for saying they like games with high replay value and this isn't it, that's ridiculous. You said you don't like FPSes that aren't from The Orange Box, which shows to me that there are some damn fine games that you don't value, but it would be silly of me to criticize you for not wanting to pay market price for them.

unalone 17y ago
I made a point to tell barrkel that I hadn't met him and that I wasn't intending my remarks personally. I don't feel comfortable judging somebody by what they write online. The friends I'm most in touch with from my hometown are gamers. By some standards I'm a gamer, though I'd disagree with the classification. So obviously I don't mean "everybody that plays games" when I refer to the "gaming community". That said: I stand by what I said to begin with. Does replay value matter in a game? Of course. Is a game without replay value worthless? Certainly not. If a game takes me six hours to beat and I willingly play through all six hours, I've spent as much time playing it as I'd spend on a two-hour movie if I'd watched it three times. So there's the first thing that I find offense in: The suggestion that something worth "only" six hours of time hasn't given me enough value. In the "gaming community" as I define it, having a game take up dozens of hours of your life isn't an offense. I've always disagreed with that. I remember having a conversation with a friend over Final Fantasy VII, which I played for an hour and then put away. "It takes a few hours to get good," was his mindset. I find that casual disregard for time appalling. The second thing I found offensive was the suggestion that World of Goo was worth only two dollars. Two dollars? I pay more than that for a fucking cheese steak! For five dollars I will pay a man to sizzle some meat for me and put it in a plastic bag. For two dollars I will pay a fast food chain for a plastic cup to pour syrup into. When two people spend $10,000 of their own money and countless months developing a gem of a puzzle game that takes a quarter of a day to beat—and it's taking me much longer than that, personally—I think it's worth more than 20 minutes' worth of minimum wage. Craft and finesse has become so devalued. I blame it on gamers, though "gamers" here is a category that includes a whole bunch of non-gamers, including a whole branch of programmers that I occasionally criticize here as well. It's this attitude that other people's work is meaningless, the attitude of FAIL and meh., where having twenty hours of gameplay is expected but making any of those twenty hours magical and beautiful is utterly disregarded. It's not every gamer, it's a specific sort of gamer, but it's a prevalent sort of gamer. The kind that argues that Bioshock is as valuable a contribution to society as the works of Joyce or the movies of Hitchcock. And it bugs me not just because it's obnoxious and tasteless, but because on the flip side we have a lot of tasteful people who argue that video games are not art, can never be art, and I disagree with them as well. I love video games. But it's hard to argue with those tasteful game-haters when the average gamer works to hard to convince others of his crippling tastelessness.

barrkel 17y ago

Yes, two dollars, when compared with the value I get out of a decent FPS. It's funny you mention the orange box; Portal is another puzzle game, and similarly not particularly replayable after solving it, which similarly takes about 6 hours. And as for Half-Life 2, Ep 1 and 2, these are some of my least favourite FPSes because they are obsessively linear and don't reward creative approaches. For these reasons, they are more like a movie, and don't have particularly good replay value (IMHO). Far Cry, on the other hand, was a masterpiece of playability, leaps and bounds ahead of any Half Life game, again IMHO. The freedom to tackle each situation resulted in large rewards to creativity. Far Cry 2 took it even further; rather than just having to tactically plan one's approach to action bubbles, one needed to plan an entire navigation across the map, avoiding guard posts, road patrols, etc. I've never played a more immersive game than Far Cry 2, a game that took me to another world, save perhaps Outcast or Thief.

alex_c 17y ago
Yes, two dollars, when compared with the value I get out of a decent FPS. The key word in that sentence is "decent", and I don't think it's the word you wanted. Games like Far Cry, TF2, etc., are outliers, they're not "a decent FPS". I doubt you'd be willing to pay full price for a "decent" FPS, if you value World of Goo at $2. It's interesting how skewed the perception of value can become due to AAA titles with huge budgets. Yes, in some ways these games ARE underpriced, and forcing a race to the bottom. You get silly situations like people paying $40 for L4D and playing it for hundreds of hours, while still complaining about the lack of content. The only conceivable scenario under which L4D is bad value is if you compare it to, say, TF2 - which is receiving ridiculous amounts of free content upgrades, in my opinion. If you set your "baseline" for value to something like TF2 or Starcraft, then work downwards from there for all other games, then where does that leave the rest of the industry? If you use that baseline, is WoW worth the $15 a month that millions of people happily pay? Or, if you work the other way - if WoW IS worth $15 a month, which many people obviously agree - then doesn't that bring Far Cry closer to hundreds of dollars of "value"? I'm not talking about what specific games you or I enjoy - I'm trying to play along with extracting some abstract "value", regardless of genre. My only conclusion is that you can't really do that - bad games are vastly overpriced, good games are vastly underpriced, and the only ones that get the pricing right are MMOs. In my opinion, $20 for World of Goo is about right, assuming you enjoy that kind of game. It's short, but intensely enjoyable. I'd rather have 6 hours of excellent, memorable gameplay than dozens of hours of mediocre gameplay.

ErrantX 17y ago

I played the game when it first came out too; and I agree with Barrkel somewhat. I think calling it a masterpiece of a puzzle game is a bit too much; it was hard in places, true, and amusing to play - but not actually particularly challenging (that's a good thing). I wouldn't value it at $2 - maybe 4 or 5. Lets compare some FPS games though (a difficult comparison really). Firstly L4D; you should give it a shot because it is hard to fault the execution of the game. On hardest difficulty and with some good mates you can literally spend a couple of hours fighting through one level :D HL2? Worth it for the beautiful set pieces (even if it is very linear). Assassins Creed was also a fun game and quite comparable to WoG. It's essentially a puzzle game at it's core; and the obsession I personally had to perfect each "kill" was easily worth the $40 I paid for it. Ultimately though we have to compare COD4. The single player is exquisite and is approximately 6 hours of game play. They weighting of the game is excellent and the "levels" are varied. And to top it off the story is excellent. Easily worth the money I paid for it. Im not saying WoG is valueless but I get the impression your setting a lot of stock by the fact these are indie game developers; meaning the risk was much higher and they did it for the love of the game etc. Which is fair enough; but lets compare WoG to the other free "indie" games you see kicking around the internet. Compared to them it is a wonderful masterpiece and achievement. But a value of $20? COD4 at $40 sounds like a bargain by comparison :)