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Will Video Games Become Better Than Life...

David perry explains at TED.

  • BIGTOE
  • posted by BIGTOE
  • Date 10/12/2008 10:38:10 PM
  • Views: 3818
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15 Comments

Current View: 15 / Show all Comments

Darkslide : LVL 26: VP 3.5: said:

Darkslide

4 votes NegativePositive

42 days 4 hours ago...

The short film was amazing, it really made me think.
Im looking forward to the future of gaming and I hope that we wont get lost in the virtual reality.

Tada : LVL 41: VP 4.9: said:

Tada

28 votes NegativePositive

42 days 2 hours ago...

Honestly video games these days are really just trash, few of them have even tapped on the potential of what an interactive story is. Most games these days are either simple gameplay with some lame excuse or they are "story driven" by a script which makes even Uwe Boll appear as a good writer and has rather mediocre gameplay.

Games are suppose to put you in control over another person, not just watch a movie by pressing the right buttons.

Sure video games, as they exists today, are a new medium of story telling, they are not even 10 years old if you think about it. You can`t really say that a games like Metal Gear Solid 4 is the same kind of game as Pong. Developers and writers haven`t had a lot of time to play around with what games really a capable of and playing around usually lead to financial disasters.

The problems which video games face are almost identical as the ones that comic books faced. At first they were only for children, no one took them seriously and didn`t aim very high. But when people like Alan Moore, Niel Gaiman and Eisner came along and created works of pure magic and genius, thanks to those guys people started to take comics much more seriously. Still most of what we see produced today in the comic industry is really not anything better than trash, same is true with video games. Unrefined methods and inexperienced creators simply result in imperfect games.

Now I`m not saying that games aren`t fun or entertaining, but as soon as people start taking the game as a serious medium for story telling they could probably become the next great art.

anoniem : LVL 26: VP 3.5: said:

anoniem

Hidden (Show Comment) -14 votes

42 days ago...

what a stupid fucking question..

Vizreel : LVL 41: VP 4.9: said:

Vizreel

2 votes NegativePositive

41 days 23 hours ago...

@Tada

You`re right, finding a good comic book is as hard as finding a good game out of all the thousands of possibilities. When I start playing a new game I immediately compare it with my childhood experience and I find something missing. I can`t say for sure if it`s because of me growing up or it`s the game`s fault but each game I play nowadays just seems mediocre.

With the industry getting bigger and bigger it leaves a huge whole for second-rate developers to seep in and cash in on unexperienced gamers. It`s been almost 4 years and there hasn`t yet been a story to top Legacy Of Kain, yet all I hear is how excellent and clever the storylines to games like The Force Unleashed, MGS4, Halo, etc are. It`s ridiculous, it`s like hearing a virgin argue how masturbating is way better than sex. Down with mediocrity.

exploder : LVL 48: VP 5: said:

exploder

3 votes NegativePositive

41 days 22 hours ago...

^ @ Tada: I agree that most video games these days are trashy. But I think junk food would be a better metaphore. And yet this is an evolution, where it isn`t possible to have the platforms available for anything really truly better, without developing something along the way. Just what that something is depends on many factors: history, business environment, and established markets, strong amongst them.

What I see as most strongly affecting the industry is the investment structure. Notice that we even call it "the industry", but mostly fail to remember that first and foremost, that`s what it is. It is a setup where a company seeks millions of dollars in investments to develope a salable product. And those investors are usually most concerned with issues like proven salability of product, guaranteeing strong investment returns. They are seldom interested in changing the world with art, which more often than not has been a high risk niche corner of the industry, marked by many obvious failures.

And this is an industry. So it does what makes money. We get junk food.

From my limited perspective (FPS centric), I look at Valve as one of the better examples of a company that is becoming more free from the investment driven constraints with regards to their creative freedom. They seem to be doing so well financially that they are free to innovate into relatively unconventional territory, like Portal, and still make money hand over fist. They don`t have investors to appease when they decide to do it, and they have the vision to actually move into some new and worthwhile territory. HL2 was pretty unusual too in many respects, with its Orwellian / dystopian themes, and a pretty good ballance of story vs. action.

I hope companies like Valve manage to prove new business models, and free us from the safe bet junk food cycle we are largely trapped in. I have a strong sense that gamers are more than ready, we are tired of chips and pop and bubblegum. Where`s the meat?

Tajumera : LVL 36: VP 4.4: said:

Tajumera

0 votes NegativePositive

41 days 21 hours ago...

^^ I was gonna mention Legacy of Kain, best game storyline ever! Weird demons and time paradoxes... yum! If only they finished the series...

A lot of games may be mediocre, but as far as popular entertainment goes, they are actually okay. I mean, look at the state of movies and TV. I like the MGS storyline, it has its weird parts, but I`d take it over Lost or the DaVinci Code or Kill Bill anytime.

Tada : LVL 41: VP 4.9: said:

Tada

4 votes NegativePositive

41 days 19 hours ago...

Vizreel: The games you played when you were a kid did not excite you because they were better. They excited you because you were less mature than you are now. What makes the older games feel better is mainly nostalgia which only hinders personal growth.

So far I have played no game which really challenged me on a mental level beyond simple puzzles. Not a single one has ever made me rethink my view on something beyond the game I was playing. That is what a good story should do. Same is true with most comics. However I have read stories like one from Alan Moore`s Swamp Thing and it strikes me like a hammer to the face. At one point in the story the Swamp Thing realized he could save the world and save humanity from it`s own destruction:

**Start**

I could do it.

I could restore Africa`s crumbling top side from which rich jungles sprang. And why stop there? Why not rebuild the forest of the Amazon, less green now than an average suburbia, shrinking by the day.

I could drop grapes in the hungry mouths of all the children. Turn the Gobi and Sahara into green and rippling meadows. Give the widow roses and the old men strawberries.

For am I not a god?

I could touch all this world with wilderness as I have touched Gotham(he made this whole city into a rain forest in one issue). I could transform this planet into a sphere of perfumes, colors and full bellies.

I could save mankind.

I could do anything

Anything.

**Cutting here to jump forward a bit after he has thought about it. He realizes what this would lead to and does nothing.**

This is then what it means to be a god?

To know and never do? To watch the world wind by and in it`s windings find content? If I should feed the world. Heal all the wounds Man`s smoldering industries have made.

What would he do?

Would he renounce the wealth his sawmills bring? Step gently on the flowers instead and pluck each apple with respect for this abundant world in all it`s providence.

No.

He would pump more poisons. Build more mines. Safe in the knowledge that I stood on hand to mend to biosphere. Endlessly covering the scars he could now endlessly inflict.

*End*

Now think about the fact that this is from a story about "a man sized vegetable walking around"(Moore`s own words) told in one of the least respected medium available which was mainly read by overgrown kids. Until we see this kind of writing and thinking in video games, no game story can be called good in my mind. Right now we use a crude "press buttons, view cut scene.". That is like small lab rats that presses a little button and get some reward. Games are not cinema and we should stop using one dimensional cinematic storytelling. Work more towards what makes a game great, make them truly interactive and give their story depth.

assassinscv : LVL 32: VP 4.1: said:

assassinscv

3 votes NegativePositive

41 days 12 hours ago...

The guy in the short film must have meant Thai Life Insurance when he said that an insurance commercial could make him cry.

tokentiki : LVL 47: VP 5: said:

tokentiki

Hidden (Show Comment) -12 votes

41 days ago...

If games are this important to your life maybe you should GET A FUCKING JOB!!!!

Agent87 : LVL 25: VP 3.4: said:

Agent87

-7 votes NegativePositive

40 days 22 hours ago...

I`m pretty sure exploder`s e-girlfriend agrees with him 100 percent! How`s the camsex?

Tada : LVL 41: VP 4.9: said:

Tada

11 votes NegativePositive

40 days 18 hours ago...

tokentiki: How much do you work man? Like 16 hours a day or something? I mean if you have no time to even play a video game or find a hobby, you should go join the union or something.

Jombie : LVL 14: VP 2.3: said:

Jombie

5 votes NegativePositive

40 days 12 hours ago...

Well, I don`t feel the same way as that guy in the movie. I don`t think I could kill a person. Sure we all joke, saying "kill," but if it came down to it, if you had a gun and were just walking down the street, could you kill a person? Could you aim that gun at them, hear them scream, see the anguish in their eyes as they see you point the gun at them, and fire upon them as they run for their life? I really don`t think anyone could, unless they were just plain heartless. Even if a video game character could do all those things, (the victim, I mean) and I killed them in the game, I wouldn`t all of a sudden say "Hey, that was easy! I`m going to go kill a real person!" No, because they are just some data on a piece of software, inside a plastic disc in a very expensive box. If the virtual police came after me, I could either kill them, or run away and wait for my wanted meter to go down, or just reset the game or something. In real life, if the police came, I would not be able to do anything except run, or just take the arrest.

pwningnubs : LVL 29: VP 3.8: said:

pwningnubs

7 votes NegativePositive

40 days 11 hours ago...

I`m sorry but Star Wars KotOR is the best story line in a video game, and I think Bioware puts out games with good story lines. Also I think the guy in the short video is a douche bag.

TheTamster : LVL 36: VP 4.4: said:

TheTamster

2 votes NegativePositive

40 days 10 hours ago...

games just now are where movies where in the eighties and have returned the last couple of years,

yes their mostly shit and the reason for this is, PROFIT, most movie`s released over the last say 5 years have been made for kids, even the 18`s, they tone them down so much that it lowers the whole standard, they stop "pushing the envolope" and keep everything safe, becasue profit is more important than anything else on the planet (LITERALY)

Games are sharing a similar fate, true theres always the odd good game, but with companies like EA and Ubisoft buying up all the developers and effectively running them into the ground things will unfortunatley get a little worse before they get better!

and with advertising pretty much being the voice of god nowadays people will keep buying them, and even convince themselves its not a big steaming pile of shit (see: Halo 3)

Cahu : LVL 37: VP 4.5: said:

Cahu

2 votes NegativePositive

40 days 10 hours ago...

As a game addict myself...that short movie was...scary and true

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