I don’t want to make a strawman
You seem quite compelled nevertheless! Sheesh. You wrote quite a lot of nonsense after being repeatedly warned that I’m not interested.
You can scroll up and read your own comments
Sure can! As can anyone else. It makes your ludicrous sensationalist gaslighting totally transparent
My own personal experience is corporate propoganda?
I don’t know you. Wouldn’t be that surprising. You think they make propaganda just for laughs? It’s worth considering the dangers inherent to your process, friend.
These are genuine questions
Lmao
Gen Ai is the same
It’s not lol. It’s amazing how many people will argue for AI by listing the merits of actual creative tools, then just try to package AI in there as well.
I believe the massive VC bait marketing push is to blame for this. It’s been fun in real life learning who is and isn’t hooked into the corporate propaganda IV.
I’m not perverting any argument
You continue to pervert in fact, by saying random things and talking to me as if I said them. Like I said, don’t care, go nuts.
There’s a balance for sure, again tho I would caution against “knowing” things about your work beforehand. I consider that to be a trap. Skyboxes in particular you can do amazing stylish things very quickly by blowing up unexpected textures and adding a few grounding elements, but we don’t need to drill too deeply into any particular element. Doors don’t open for you if you never try the handle
Yeah similar to above my friend, you are simply incorrectly framing the issue rather than exploring reality as it is.
You are merely saying the words “you will either use GenAI or your project will fail, there is NO WAY to economically address any of the problems that crop up during game dev without using it”. This betrays fundamental misunderstanding of what creativity is
It is also ahistorical. What you and seemingly all proponents of the technology seem to forget is the meteoric success of the industry and indie games in particular prior to the AI nonsense.
Finally, I am not even slightly interested in addressing your ridiculous perversions of my previous points. Anyone can easily understand what I’m saying and it’s very telling that you feel the need to misrepresent me so extremely. You may continue arguing with yourself if you wish, I trust that any reader worth reaching will easily be able to distinguish between my words and the strawmen you are compelled to present
I’m very glad that people found ways to make games that got beyond telling stories with colored rectangles
You and I both are limited in what we are capable of appreciating. The limiting factor is our taste. My hope for everyone is that we always continue to see the value in developing our taste, because the art we engage with affects who we become
Artists need to make a stable hundred and twenty thousand euros a year to be viable?
But my apologies, my framing of this idea was underdeveloped. You as a listener are not supporting every artist you listen to via like patreon or something.
Essentially, from the perspective of the band itself, you just need to reach a critical mass of fans that will buy your albums, come to your shows, want to pick up a t shirt, etc. And that number is much lower than you would think. Not for becoming a millionaire with a mansion mind you, but to make your project self sustaining
that can result in a very different scope of game.
That’s exactly the point. Sometimes you shouldn’t even try to do certain things. The 15 minutes you spend shimming your AI assets into the game are ironically stealing your time from the 15 minutes of thoughtful consideration that would have resulted in a manageable project. Again my friend; your first thought for the project is not the point when you have finished the important thinking for your project.
Anyway we can keep going back and forth about your narrative framing of the technology all day, but you say you don’t really care, so why try to justify anything beyond that? If the devs don’t care about the phenomena I’m describing, and neither do their players, then of course it’s a match made in heaven. Please feel free to enjoy your pastimes without any concern for these conversations. People who think like me will occasionally meet you with scrutiny (we obviously think you should care very deeply about the art you choose to fill your life with) but I suspect in time our groups will naturally just see less and less of each other
A beautiful post, thank you. There’s a lot in here that I could further clarify my positions on but I don’t disagree with you.
My hope is that enough people will emphatically reject it in order to keep things alive. A band doesn’t need ten million listeners to thrive, even 1,000 people who buy your albums and come to your shows can keep you moving. It may be that we become a counterculture of a bunch of artists who support each other.
But I do also have confidence that human ingenuity will always be more powerful than the slop that literally anyone can churn out on their phone in two seconds. So the scene may change but I think there will always be a somewhat large market for when people want more than just inoffensive elevator music
Eh, the small team argument doesn’t really carry any water I think. Some of the most beloved indie games of all time have simple, geometric graphics. Thomas Was Alone even managed to tell a tear jerking story between characters who were monotone squares and rectangles.
Using AI to totally gloss over some of your most basic creative questions, such as “what are my capabilities?” And “What can I do given those limitations?” Isn’t going to lead you to a better product. If something is truly that unimportant it can be arranged trivially or cut. Even choosing to cut something is an inherently creative decision; another layer of the process which is lost if you train yourself to reach for AI to implement something that suits your first whim.
The asset store angle is also not really comparable. You’re still collaborating with another artist. We could ride this train all the way down to you didn’t personally mine the silicone for the computer you personally designed if we felt like it. It’s disingenuous and ignores the material differences between these technologies.
In summary, I basically think that you are narratively framing this as something that empowers the little guys, but I disagree that it is actually doing so in practice. It’s a product that’s only on our minds because of a massive concerted effort on the behalf of mega corporations whose explicit goals are to rob and disenfranchise us
I find this outlook to be pretty sad. The idea of chunks of your art “not mattering” and just being there as filler.
One of the joys of creating artwork is that during the process of creation you are actively figuring out what is important. Perhaps you start out creating a simple texture just to have something on the walls, and in the process you realize there’s an equally simple yet creative way for you to tell a little story with that wall. Something most players will never notice but a year from release gets thrown in “small details you missed” compilations.
It may be that the idea you came up with for that wall goes on to influence the main story, and spur on a totally different and more interesting game than you initially imagined.
A lot of non-artists have this concept of art, where it forms completely in your head in a single burst, and then you just have endure the tedious labor of constructing it. I think that’s why people are so easily persuaded by the ‘promise’ of AI. They think it’s just making the boring parts easy. But in reality it’s making the creative parts boring
Well, you can hardly call it “uncontroversial” if “so many people” so strongly disagree with your absolutist characterization of an entire medium of art, right? It seems to me to be quite divisive in fact
But I’m intrigued by this, you consider not only games but also shows and movies to be childish indulgences? I think a more reasonable assessment would be that they have the capacity to be such. But what people want to communicate to you is that through these mediums, they’ve experienced powerful artistic catharsis that has improved their lives, and yes, even connected them with and strengthened their relationships with others.
Sure, a child may have all the time in the world to rot their mind in Fortnite. But there is an artistry to experiencing a craft, just the same as there is an artistry to crafting it. Investing in your capacity to be critical of cinematography, as opposed to simply letting the film flash before your eyes. Eventually you learn to tell the difference between reality tv and great works like Twin Peaks.
If you think these differences are simply not present in the medium of gaming then it’s no surprise you touch the nerve of people who have invested in the craft.
In summary, it’s inconsistent with the lived experience of countless millions of others for you to propose that “appreciating a painting” is a valuable use of an adult’s time, but “appreciating interactive art” never can be, and should be discarded as childish.
And as an aside, whether someone only plays games with no other pursuits to the point where their life falls apart is not really relevant to the discussion. Yes, of course that is a terrible and childish way to ruin your life. It would be equally terrible if you stayed up all binging Netflix and lost your job as a result. Once again the issue here is your perspective broadly, and how you are trying to justify it. Not the medium itself.
As a final aside, I’m (obviously) a gamer myself, as well as a multi-instrumentalist. I find creating music and playing games to be similarly enriching. The high level discussions I have with participants between the two mediums are equally thought provoking. It is a great blessing as well that games are so thoroughly intertwined with music, giving me a lot of carryover between the two pursuits.
This is however, essentially the limit of what I can manage to sustain dedication to as an adult. I would also love to get into painting, and read two novels a week, and watch all of history’s greatest films, and train for a marathon, and sail around the world, and so on. I have confronted the fact that, having only one life, I will only ever dabble in most of those things, if I am lucky enough experience them at all. But I would never think to myself that the things I have chosen to invest in primarily are inherently superior to the things that bring other people fulfillment. Entertaining thoughts like that would make me feel very childish
Yeah that’s part of what makes games specifically so valuable. It asks a lot of you. You have to meet it where it’s at. You have to muster the energy to be able to appreciate it even when life drags you down. Otherwise you can’t progress.
I obviously don’t know you, and reading books and investing time in your family is obviously great. But to anyone generally, I would say be careful and make sure you advocate for your time and energy. It’s very common for people to fall into a loop of passivity. The audiobook is on in the car but their mind is elsewhere. They endlessly scroll algorithmic slop on their phone without it ever actionably enriching them. They turn on a show at the end of the day just to tune out.
If your life is already full of the experiences that make it worth living, great! Again, I don’t know you. But irl, what I see most often when people complain about not having time for deep passions is that their job drains them, then their responsibilities drain them, then they lay, crushed, letting images on the screen flash by them as the days turn into months. Then somehow years go by and they’re left without the memory of ever living them.
In the midst of this, many people adopt the belief that they’ve simply aged out of participating in deep passions, and the way life slips through their fingers is just the way life is. This is a difficult belief to weed out once it has taken root. Ironically Outer Wilds specifically is a great way to confront this mindset lol
The real issue here is actually just your opinion of games. You consider games to be “sit around dick around” time wasters.
If that’s all it is to you then yeah you’ll naturally find yourself moving on as basically anything else will be more fulfilling.
Games to me are a form of art which have the power to change lives. A medium I’ve been continuing to develop an appreciation for my entire life, alongside other pursuits such as music. As life gets hectic into adulthood I’ve found that games are far more meaningful to me now than ever before.
And I’m not sitting around looking for time to kill. I make time to play because of how restorative and life affirming it is. Games like Citizen Sleeper, Spiritfarer, Outer Wilds, To The Moon, Slay the Princess, Hollow Knight, Eastward, Arctic Eggs. Some experiences stay with you forever, expand the depth of your empathy, and steer your heart towards kindness.
I don’t know what’s gonna happen to you if you try to crank out endless rounds of Call of Duty to the point where it interferes with you taking your dog to the vet. But I’m 100% certain all working adults would benefit from engaging with meaningful art regularly. Be it games, books, film, etc. Whatever strikes you.
Well over 300 hours in BotW here, loved it. It feels a lot more “grounded” in comparison to totk, which feels a lot more “sandboxy” at times. Both great games, just different vibes
I would also say, there were a TON of times in TotK where they riff on previous things from BotW. A lot of the enjoyment I got was the subversion of expectations. In the lead up to the game we all thought they just copy/pasted the map to save time but they actually did a TON of work to it, and it’s very interesting and nostalgic to retread over places that have changed so much.
I would guess your best bet is playing them in order, altho it’s probably fine either way
I’m not sure why you’re so resistant to it but I’ll just move on.
Oh, sorry yeah I can clear that up.
The reason I don’t feel like dancing for you is because you’re dishonest, aggressively self righteous, and obviously just want to fight about something meaningless for no reason.
Spend the extra forty bucks for something official if you don’t trust used, and don’t start dumb semantic arguments with people if you’re gonna want their help after. Not that I think you really do, mind. Just pointing out how ridiculous that whole pretense is.
Anyway, yeah. Probably is best if you moved along
But ultimately none of this is that high stakes
Been saying that for four comments now lol
Yes consoles are often the more economical choice
This right here is the main idea, yeah, even when looking at the used market for PC components. Glad we found our way back, and even ended up in complete agreement at the end
As for the help you requested sifting through listings, used and refurbished are different things, you should know. Refurbished direct from Sony is $400, looks like gamestop will do it for $370. This sets a hard cap on used prices, so you’ll notice all the used listings (that actually sell) are below that.
You should also know they have websites for you to track what actually sells, and not just the listings that are left standing for a while because the price is mediocre. Worth checking that out so you know where to watch, and have a good chance of getting a good price when it appears. Best of luck to you
And “well below” $300 is not $285-$330
You’re equivocating. In that instance I am responding directly to your claim that it’s far fetched to find a used one around the $300 point.
You’ll notice when you quoted me you also excluded the word “dips”. It’s dishonest for you frame my position as misrepresentative of the market by presenting my numbers without the couching I presented them with.
And why do you want to quibble over $50 when it doesn’t affect the discussion at all? Let’s just work with the higher prices, or even the brand new prices for that matter
Same, yeah I mean once you’re established the actual cost of games on steam is ludicrously small depending on your habits. I’m pretty much locked-in to pc gaming simply for the love of indie titles that more often than not do not get published to consoles. Lots of those games are just straight up free
We also have to consider the value the computer itself serves beyond just gaming. If you’re gonna get a $500 ps5 and you’re already going for an $800-$1200 computer, well hey. You could really get the best of both worlds without affecting the budget. Probably could even save money
But I think there’s also a big group that isn’t in that situation. I know plenty of people who rock like a chromebook and the cheapest xbox. Or people who only play like NBA 2k or something. Or people who play 1-2 big titles a year when they get caught in the hype train, and can enjoy them at 4k60fps for the much lower upfront cost
Yeah plenty of people develop these feelings about laser focussed games. Sekiro is a good example. Not gonna be your game if you don’t like parrying. Lots of comments online from such people who write the game off as “spam parry to win” as tho there’s no depth to it.
Huge parry fan on the other hand? Probably your favorite game, and you’re bewildered by those comments because you feel like you could write a novel about how interesting the system is and how rewarding it is to master all the way into your seventh charmless NG+ run.
I think at the end of the day, when the gameplay is simply not catered to our preferences we’re not really going to appreciate what makes it so great at what it is
Virtual Ricochet Projectile :p
It’s the game’s in-game (Crossworlds) terminology for the charged shot that bounces around, yeah. They cover it in the tutorial but the main cast basically ‘nerd emoji’s’ Sergey and they simply refer to it as “balls” for the rest of the game lol
timing-&-angling annoyances
But yeah, like I said, you just don’t like the central mechanic. It’s valid. This is the main point of contention for the minority of people who don’t click with the game, as is evidenced by filtering for negative reviews on steam
But imagine if you didn’t find it to be an annoyance, and instead found it to be inherently satisfying? One of my favorite parts about Crosscode is how unafraid they are to present you with puzzles that are not only difficult to solve in the typical sense, but also difficult to perform once you know what to do. It’s a rare treat, most games instead lean hard only into one direction (purely cerebral puzzling or purely focussed on action)
It’s a game that just gives and gives, and to the contrary of your experience, I found the constant innovation of the puzzles throughout the game is what brought it from A to S tier. I finished the final dungeon wishing there was more game to play. Imagine my delight when the DLC dropped and added another 20 hours of timing & angling goodness. Replayed the game 3 times over the years.
And yeah, frankly we should compare it to Zelda, the most celebrated and beloved puzzle adventure series of all time developed and supported for 40 years by one of the largest and most influential video game companies of all time. No joke, I think this is actually exactly where Crosscode stacks up. It’s up there for me with my favorite Zelda titles
Not a sequel, just their next game! Combat and UI look similar so far. They’re doing dev streams on their discord
I thought crosscode had the best puzzles haha. The way they built it out with the elemental system, the enemies that required puzzle mechanics you had learned, the tight timing where you had to send a ball flying and then race it to various objectives, the myriad of subtle environmental puzzles in the overworld. Could go on and on, but yeah the VRP is the game’s central mechanic so if you simply don’t enjoy lining up your shots then I imagine the game would be pretty rough lol
Aside from the dozens of direct shameless hollow knight clones, more “legitimate” artistic efforts are unmistakably if not explicitly influenced by it in a massive way. I think Nine Sols is probably the apotheosis of this. Will of the Wisps was famously accused of completely copying HK, much to the ire of the devs lol.
It’s also quite complicated because HK and the souls genre share so much DNA. And Dark Souls itself owes much of what makes it great to metroidvanias. So with these three things in mind (soulslikes, metroidvanias, and HK itself) which are all so interconnected, my argument is basically contingent upon whether or not HK is a particularly strong inflection point in gaming as a whole.
I think it clearly is, and I think it’s because it effectively culminated everything about the genre that we’ve come to love while also contributing new things to it. It was made with absolute reverence for the style, with the devs saying more than anything they wanted to create a world where players could get truly and completely lost. The fact that the art and music are impeccable seals the deal for most people
I would argue Animal Well is another such inflection point in gaming, and also probably the best example of a modern metroidvania that strongly diverges from HK
Nah it’s totally different this time around.
For starters Leth acknowledged Nintendo’s tweet about it by retweeting it, and setting his profile background to the new key art (which was provided by TC themselves)
TC also provided four new screenshots of the game to Nintendo as part of a press kit.
The xbox situation was literally never acknowledged by them at all, except for when Leth ultimately posted that it wasn’t happening lol. Apparently just based on estimates that TC had communicated with them privately, and only ever “confirmed” by a single social media person at Microsoft
This isn’t some random Nintendo direct, but rather THE big event for their big console. And also officially and immediately supported by TC this time around. This is 100% an intentional press rollout
On the flipside, I’m a huge metroidvania fan and Hollow Knight is clearly one of the best to ever do it in my opinion. It also totally transformed the landscape of metroidvanias, with subsequent games imitating it left and right.
The fact that silksong has remained more or less the #1 wishlisted game on steam since it was announced speaks to the broader cultural impact of the game. Hollow knight really elevated metroidvanias as a genre
The silksong community is one of my favorite of all time for years now. Every couple of weeks a new “theme” of insane shitposting evolves. Most fun and creative silly posting I’ve ever seen.
One common post is “_____ every day until silksong comes out”. People are doing fanart challenges, one guy posts a video of himself petting a cat every day which is very popular. The cat had to get a surgery at one point and needed a cone but was fine.
It’s not just noise. It brings people a lot of joy. There’s been several posts over the years from people basically grieving the potential loss/change of the community once the game actually drops. I’ll miss it, too
After all this time friend, you still have me confused with someone that cares about your interpretation of events?