Living Artificially
Today I was playing a video game and thought to myself, "wow, someone actually made this for me to play". Conceptually it is not hard to grasp, but it is still simply amazing to me what people are capable of doing.
Not only is the animation process very slow, and time consuming, but that doesn't even consider; the sound, music, voice acting, (and in this demanding age of video games) good graphics and cinematic camera movements.
Not only must the story be compelling but it has to have an appealing aesthetic, character empathy evoked within the gamer, and it must feel good to play. There should be a certain weight to the feeling of when you press the buttons on your controller to how it responds on screen. Video games are a feat of true teamwork.
They bring together several mediums of creativity into one joint effort. For people who are serious about playing video games, a lot is expected.
For example, when a story is too linear, meaning the playable character in the game can only choose one option to progress the story forward, it starts to feel like lazy developing if the story isn't amazing. Today's average gamer does not like to have his/her hand held by developers; it's rather the opposite.
"Challenge us, make us think, give us a puzzle and we'll solve it!"
These are the types of things that I would say to devs if I was able to speak straight to one. In this article (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-we-love-the-games-that-enrage-us-most/)
John Pavlus speaks on a why having fun is that much more fun when its challenging.
We feel like we've earned it when the game is hard or frustrating.
The bar is set so high for developers, that more of them should be listening more closely to their audiences. As a regular player of a series of war games called "Battlefield", I have seen first hand what is like when developers actually listen, and more importantly, don't listen to their audience.
These devs take their fans' opinions to heart, and make changes based on that, while most other game devs fall flat when it comes to listening. It can be incredibly frustrating on both ends as we as fans and gamers want the best, but we complain when hundreds, if not thousands of people came together to create this work of art which is a video game.
We know within an hour of us playing if it was worth us buying the game or not based on our opinions and what we like. Instantly judged and liked, or cast aside - this is the unfortunate reality that is gaming today. There are flops in video games just like there are flops in the film industry.
Not only is the animation process very slow, and time consuming, but that doesn't even consider; the sound, music, voice acting, (and in this demanding age of video games) good graphics and cinematic camera movements.
Not only must the story be compelling but it has to have an appealing aesthetic, character empathy evoked within the gamer, and it must feel good to play. There should be a certain weight to the feeling of when you press the buttons on your controller to how it responds on screen. Video games are a feat of true teamwork.
They bring together several mediums of creativity into one joint effort. For people who are serious about playing video games, a lot is expected.
For example, when a story is too linear, meaning the playable character in the game can only choose one option to progress the story forward, it starts to feel like lazy developing if the story isn't amazing. Today's average gamer does not like to have his/her hand held by developers; it's rather the opposite.
"Challenge us, make us think, give us a puzzle and we'll solve it!"
These are the types of things that I would say to devs if I was able to speak straight to one. In this article (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-we-love-the-games-that-enrage-us-most/)
John Pavlus speaks on a why having fun is that much more fun when its challenging.
We feel like we've earned it when the game is hard or frustrating.
The bar is set so high for developers, that more of them should be listening more closely to their audiences. As a regular player of a series of war games called "Battlefield", I have seen first hand what is like when developers actually listen, and more importantly, don't listen to their audience.
These devs take their fans' opinions to heart, and make changes based on that, while most other game devs fall flat when it comes to listening. It can be incredibly frustrating on both ends as we as fans and gamers want the best, but we complain when hundreds, if not thousands of people came together to create this work of art which is a video game.
We know within an hour of us playing if it was worth us buying the game or not based on our opinions and what we like. Instantly judged and liked, or cast aside - this is the unfortunate reality that is gaming today. There are flops in video games just like there are flops in the film industry.
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