Game industry (Warning: language)

Just something to laugh about.

<img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JMJFP7UnNLo/Uaec7TJ5ttI/AAAAAAAACbc/MqcAgECzXT4/s1600/video+games_1c535b_4611358.png" border="0" />

Hahaha, a good start to my day!

Nice post ;)

It's a good point and it's something I've thought about possibly doing for my games, allowing the player to skip parts if they want to, as it seems to make sense. What if a player is simply not able to get past a certain area? Why not let the player skip it and continue enjoying the rest of the game? Perhaps that would reduce the problem of people quitting a game partway through so often.

Of course, part of gaming is about the challenge. Where's the challenge if they can just skip ahead? That makes the challenges voluntary. Well, truthfully, the challenges are voluntary anyway - the player doesn't have to play the game at all.

Then there's an increasing segment of gamers who don't want to play for challenge. Some play for other reasons, such as to relax, or play for the story. Why deny them the game if that's how they want to play it?

One of the great things about games is people can play them how they want to. Want to take time exploring? Want to speed run and see how fast you can complete the game? Want to use a tool and advance the game frame by frame to find out the utterly fastest way through a game possible, even if no human could manage it? People do that too.

Also, what if the player wants to replay a part of a game, but doesn't have a save there? Then they could just skip ahead to it. That could solve the problem of having to replay an entire game just to see what would happen if you played a specific sequence differently. In games with multiple endings and such, it's unreasonable to ask the player to replay the whole game to see the different content.

How to do design it though could be a bit tricky. In one of the new Mario games the it gives the option for the game to start playing itself to get past the level, but you don't get a 'real' star for 'beating' the level that way. Autoplaying could be difficult to implement in some games, though, so a simpler 'skip to the next level' feature would be easier.

There are other methods to make it easier to progress of course, like giving the player a power up or reducing the difficulty dynamically rather than skipping a section outright as well. I think I'm probably going to implement multiple methods of dynamic difficulty reduction as well as possibly let the player outright skip sections too. Probably not in loot pursuit, but perhaps for another game.

The strength of the videogame artform is how much more engaging it is for the brain, because instead of simply observing others, you are the one that is making the decisions and dealing with the lasting consequences. If your actions or choices have little impact on the game, then it will be less interesting/engaging/immersive.

However, many people that are use to spending a lot of time watching rubbish TV (which literally uses next to no brain activity) or have the desire to remain weak, will probably enjoy games that require very little effort and would probably prefer if they were invincible and can simply walk through the game if possible (in which case it would be a bad game and you'd be better off just watching a movie). So while people want terrible game breaking things like cheats, it's not what they need (or is good for you) they don't realise how much satisfaction can be gained from using skill and effort.

Nicely said, alspal and Arima. The real reason I shared this is because, jokes aside, there really are so much to ponder over about this new existence of an industry "video games". Lots of people still don't understand the point to it (just like how some of us don't understand television, making it even XD), and since it is a new phenomena, anyone can say anything to define / deteriorate what this video game industry really means.

People have debated for a long time whether video game is an art or a toy. Even in my year (grew up in the early 90s) there are still some peers who cannot perceive video games as anything beyond toys. They can't even believe how video games can have epic storytelling that rival Hollywood movies. The quality standards are simply so different between video games and the rest of the art forms. That difference which makes video games stand apart is the barrier that prevent most people acknowledging this new creation as a proper art form.

All that being said, I'm happy to see the national art galleries that I've visited in Australia now also have video game exhibitions. Granted, the set up is less properly "artful" than paintings, with actual game console controls and all and making the whole thing like an arcade, but the point is there. It probably only feels less special because that's what's happening now, rather than in history.