Warren Spector farts hot air out of his mouth

[Cybernetic pig]

The Youtube community misses you Vector, they all rely on your high order wisdom and douchebaggery to educate them in the art of game.

[YeomanTheCastle]

God damn it.

[Cybernetic pig]

Why the blasphemy? Look at the title you gave to the thread, and the contents of the OP. Warren Spector said something you didn't like, and you insulted him for it. A similar scenario just happened here with myself and the mysterious vector of game.

Yet another hypocrite here!

[YeomanTheCastle]

I insulted him? News to me.

Also:

God damn it.

As entertaining as it was last time, I don't think anyone wants to see you two start shit up again.

[Cybernetic pig]

Anyway, yes. Don't worry I intend to let no time be wasted today.

[VectorM]

Anyway, yes. Don't worry I intend to let no time be wasted today.

Like you said you were going to ignore me, but then kept going on?

Yet another hypocrite here!

Indeed.

It smacks of some sort of self-assumed superiority: "I know what makes a good game/painting/song/book, and that shit sure ain't it", and is always especially noticable when it clearly goes against the flow of mass opinion.

It becomes pretty laughable, when people start saying "X Y and Z isn't art, because it was motivated by PROFIT (OH NO)".

Then I point out to them, that things like "The Last Supper" were ordered by rich people and Salvador Dali was a money loving imp, after which I was once told that "Well, I don't mind disregarding the classics, if they don't conform to MY definition of art". These people will gladly butcher what little meaning the word "Art" has, in order to ride on their imaginary high horse.

[AEmer]

@DDL
The art discussion is boring and I have no patience for it. It's also nonsensical.

Art is by now a poluted term. People have too varied associations with it; even worse, far too many people feel like their associations are the correct once. They seize the word, take it to be their property, and exclaim that others use it incorrectly, or that only people who are somehow inferior would use it differently.

The truth is, when a term becomes fractured, noone can claim anything about it anymore. It doesn't have a set meaning. It's almost useless for communication, and it's even worse to discuss the correctness of various interpretation. I say just give up on it, and try to respect that it just means different stuff to different people because of reasons that can be entirely understandable.

Anyway.

The fact that you can make normative statements about value, quality and yes, whether something should exist does not mean you're simultaneously willing to compromise anybodys rights. I've been over this. Terms like allowable, legal, rights - these are all terms that involve enforcement of a normative statement.

A normative statement does not say anything about enforcement at all. It simply proclaims that which is desirable, and that which is undesirable. Escaping into the realm of saying, oh, it can exist, but the creators must be willing to deal with being punished, is pretty ludicrous - either the punishment is fair, which means that there _is_ a normative rule being violated - or it is unfair, which is the case if no normative rule is being violated.

Punishment - any fair punishment, anyway - will _always_ build on top of normative rules. There's no exception.

I don't really care how you turn it and twist it and try to make ccopying sound like an exceptional circumstance - the concept of normative rules is all encompassing here, and I'm confident I can argue that if I need to. You can't describe as much as one single desirable or undesirable property of games without resorting to such rules, nomatter how you wrap it up.

But _that's not a bad thing_. This is not elitism. This is not people trying to impose their way or the high way style art. This is simply the core of criticism. Try to guide things along lines such that you get at that which is desirable, and avoid that which is undesirable. Criticism, which by the way can't be all subjective. It wouldn't make sense that way. It relies on formal maxims which help determine what quality is, maxims which a lot of people share and which are often well formulated, maxims which can be said to be presumptions going ahead of the criticism itself.

And the natural concequence of this is that - yes - there are objects which are so bad, so much of a drain, and which give so little gain, that if you want to apply the usual maxims, then the object shouldn't even exist.

Now of course, whether you as an individual subscribe to the maxims which imply this will of course influence whether the statement is even relevant for you...but this is not a matter of 'I don't like it, therefore it sucks and shouldn't exist'. It's a matter of 'by certain common sense standards of quality, this object has so little quality so as to in fact ruin other objects that would have been worth more than this object can ever be'. It transcends subjective oppinion; it is something more.

[CrocMagnum]

This is an interesting discussion.

It’s amazing how most Warren Spector’s threads end up teeming with (good) ideas and debate. Now two things:


- Curiously enough we haven’t discussed the very reason Warren Spector made his keynote speech. The man is jobless. He’s clearly making a nudge at Publishers showing he’s available. Sadly I fear most Publishers won’t be interested. First because the man has so much experience (that is: because of his ‘age’) and then because of his speech about ‘every day games for normal people' (that is: not for a teenage audience). I don’t think many will follow him on this one too. but if Spector is serious about it and some Publisher has the will to follow him, I would be interested in their project. Just in the hope he would propose a refreshing concept or new gameplay mechanics. Well! Maybe I'm dreaming,

- Secondly I was really surprised when Warren Spector referred to video games as ART ! You know this subject was very topical a few years ago. I remember an 8 page article written by O. Boulon (editor-in-chief of canardpc, a French gaming magazine and a forum). His conclusion was that gaming wasn't an art. For him what defines a videogame is GAMEPLAY. Personally I don't have a definitive opinion (though over the years I lean towards the gameplay side).

[VectorM]

and then because of his speech about ‘every day games for normal people'

But I thought casual games were the way to go, since they make SOOOOOOO MUCH money, right?

[Cybernetic pig]

They are and they do

Just because Zynga games are free to play doesn't mean they all are, and even so they (Zynga) still make a shitload of money, and casual games are easy and less costly to make in most cases.

Doesn't mean non-casual games cannot be successful though.

[VectorM]

They are and they do

If they are the way to go and sooooo incredibly profitable, then why isn't veryone trying to make Zynga games?

[Cybernetic pig]

Obviously they are not ALL incredibly profitable, but if you make a casual game you don't have to invest nowhere near as much time or money as, say, Dark Souls. And chances of acceptable profits are higher, since many more people enjoy casual games than Hardcore.

As for why aren't all people making them, well there is still a huge market for shooters and RPGs and such, yet they make them more accessible, more casual than they used to be.
Dead Space 3 has microtransactions and universal ammo, Skyrim has simplified gameplay and level design etc etc.
Also the passion is still probably there for some, but in the end they believe they cannot risk it, surely.
Also, competition. If all devs made casual games they would no longer be so casual, as the developer/publisher with the most features and innovations would be the winner. As long as they are good innovations obviously.

But I kinda consider most modern games casual anyway.

[VectorM]

Obviously they are not ALL incredibly profitable, but if you make a casual game you don't have to invest nowhere near as much time or money as, say, Dark Souls. And chances of acceptable profits are higher, since many more people enjoy casual games than Hardcore.

DO you even know how much people have invested in those games and how much they ahd to KEEP spending after the game is out? You do realize that the online services of Zynga don't cos a penny, right? Especially with the numbers of people playing.

[Cybernetic pig]

DO you even know how much people have invested in those games and how much they ahd to KEEP spending after the game is out? You do realize that the online services of Zynga don't cos a penny, right? Especially with the numbers of people playing.

I've already said there are tons of casual games that are NOT free to play. And also Zynga are not ridiculously rich for nothing.

[VectorM]

As for why aren't all people making them, well there is still a huge market for shooters and RPGs and such, yet they make them more accessible, more casual than they used to be.

Has nothing to do with Zynga. That trend predates Zynga.

Dead Space 3 has microtransactions and universal ammo, Skyrim has simplified gameplay and level design etc etc.

It's a very well known fact, that those types of games are gettign more and more expensive to make. Yet at the same time, you say that making casual stuff is just so much more easy and cheap

What exactly is your point here? So far, casual games are very cheap and profitable, yet expensive. There is no point in making anything else, yet there is. The industry needs saving, yet you admit that there is a market mechanism that prevents everything from becoming "casual". You don't know what you are talking about.