Awesome: '[PA Comic] Wednesday, May 2, 2012 - The Ultimatrix' by Henroid

Henroid

  7BitBrian likes this Post written by Henroid

about a year ago

"Truth,... this man speaks it."

Visit

I heard that in product competition, the competition is strong when each product has a quality the competitors can't provide. Thus the consumers have to make a harder choice, while none of the products are actually flawed.

I hope the purpose behind this comic isn't to suggest that all the games mentioned are shit because they aren't all providing those qualities in a single product. All-or-nothing mentality from video game players is kinda annoying. Not having a feature or design theory another game has doesn't make something bad.

TychoCelchuuu

Not really. I mean, it's true that not having a certain feature another game has doesn't automatically make a game bad, but it's also not true that every game is perfect and can't get better by incorporate things other games have. If you like lettuce, tomatoes, and pickles on your hamburger, but the only three hamburgers for sale are lettuce + tomatoes, lettuce + pickles, and pickles + tomatoes, there's an obvious fourth option which is the combination of everything you like, and this option is obviously better. There's nothing about competition or anything: every hamburger is flawed. And I think all the MMOs mentioned in the comic are flawed, and they're flawed in precisely the way Gabe says they are.

Henroid

There's pointing out that they contain flaws, and then there's saying they're bad games or not worth playing because of the flaws - and it's especially bad because it's being presented as "they don't contain each other's elements."

I went into this way more in the actual thread, to try and get the point across. I used a pretty extreme example of what would happen if you try to use all the latest features when making a game (Duke Nukem Forever), and how it could bring you into a looping, lengthy, and expensive development cycle. There's nothing wrong with using established norms or current trends or past design theories in video games, as long as they're well applied. I'm baffled at people's reactions to TOR whenever they directly compare it to WoW, because it always comes across from a perspective that WoW was enjoyable in the past, or still enjoyable, but a game sharing in that enjoyable aspect suddenly makes it bad? I don't get it.

And I just got caught up in the vortex again. >.<

TychoCelchuuu

The comic doesn't say they're bad games.

Carpy

It says they aren't fun to play which amounts to the same thing.

TychoCelchuuu

"Fun to play" in this context doesn't mean "good game," it means "the combat is engaging and action-packed, rather than just clicking on buttons and waiting for cooldown timers to finish."

I needed a name to post.

i think the comic was exaggerating things to make a joke

Tox

The comic said "Why can't I have a game with all the things I want?!"

It wasn't a critical statement about today's gaming market and the companies that make them. It was Gabe whining.

Henroid

Tox wrote: »

The comic said "Why can't I have a game with all the things I want?!"

It wasn't a critical statement about today's gaming market and the companies that make them. It was Gabe whining.

Last time Gabe wanted something from a video game we got BMXXX.