Games have been keeping track of player morality in games more and more frequently. Fallout's karma system and Mass Effect's "Paragon/Renegade" system are two well-known examples. However there are many games, such as those in the Elder Scrolls series, where player morality is not tracked. What are the benefits of tracking player morality in games, and what are the drawbacks? Are players guided to do good or bad things because they want to achieve a moral standing, or because they have a planned personality for their player?
I would definitely say some of us have a planned personality for a character! In skyrim I have one "bad character" and one "good character." I can't complete all aspects of the game while sticking to one moral code of a character and it would feel inconsistent to do many good things in a row then suddenly kill someone for a daedric prince out of the nowhere. It is my own drive to stick to one value set and not because the game will track it like when I played Fable. Nerd problems... – Slaidey10 years ago
For the potential writer of this topic, I would also look at how as videogames are increasingly integrated into our lives, morality measures should be included in our conception of virtual "play." – 12jm910 years ago
@Slaidey: I completey agree with you. I don't feel that tracking morality is as effective as the player's drive to create a character with a real personality. – LiamCollins10 years ago
Have you played Metro 2033? There's a morality system in that game that doesn't present itself in an obvious way until the end. The player isn't even aware that they're /making/ moral choices or not until then. I think that's an effective way to run things. Players should be allowed to build their own characters based on what they want to do, not based on what colour they want their lightning to be. – Snowskeeper10 years ago
A discussion on the increased production of so called "walking simulators" like Dear Esther or Proteus.
While they are certainly videogames in the most basic sense of the word they lack much of what we have come to expect in terms of traditional gameplay. Simultaneously they are being released in more high profile forms with the upcoming Everybody's Gone to the Rapture set for release on the PS4.
I'm less interested in the debate on whether or not they are video game (I believe they clearly are) but rather the responses among the gaming community towards them. In my experience there are many who prefer to deride them rather than accept them as videogames, as if they threaten them somehow. Why is this?
I think something worth looking into is where these games come from. Mostly indie, a lot of people against them have fears about the market being flooded with games that are easier to make and may not be up to the same standard as the rest. – DullahanLi10 years ago
I don't think they are video-games; I just don't think that's a bad thing. It's difficult for me to think of Gone Home, for example, as something that you "play." You don't "play" a book or a movie. Gone Home is a very, very effective game at what it does; it just doesn't do what most video-games do. I think it would be a mistake to completely ignore this position in favour of focusing on the, unfortunately, large number of people who feel threatened by the genre. It might be better to split this topic into two separate articles, though. "Are 'Walking Simulators' games?" and "Why the Hell is the games industry so threatened by narrative-driven exploratory things? Like, seriously, guys, this was an indie game; nobody's taking away Call of Duty or Battlefield or whatever it is you think this sort of thing endangers. God."* *Working title – Snowskeeper10 years ago
"I don't think they are video-games"
"Gone Home is a very, very effective game at what it does"
I r gud riter – Snowskeeper10 years ago
With the next batch of consoles becoming foregrounded in the gaming market, it would nice to see the old RPGs of the past given a nod towards. Titles such as Legend of Dragoon, Final Fantasy Tactics, Chrono Cross, and Lunar: Silver Star Harmony. All the titles that people may have never had the chance to see or grow up with, but should absolutely be made aware of them. There are tons of videos dedicated to this topic and they could serve as good guides for anyone interested but finding their memory to be foggy.
Forgive me for being a nostalgic creep, but Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, Chrono Trigger, Phantasy Star, Chrono Trigger, Chrono Trigger... Did I forget anything? – Austin10 years ago
Don't forget to include Suikoden! Or at least Suikoden II. – PhoenixS10 years ago
EtherOne is a recently released indie game which addresses themes of dementia and mental degradation through a sci-fi lens. It utilizes unusual sound cues, a emotive art style, and an intentionally counter-intuitive inventory system to create open worlds with overlapping puzzles. What effect does all of this have on the player? How do all of the artistic and gameplay choices contribute to the thematic whole? And, of course, what does this all mean in terms of the narrative and theme?
Many complain that "choose your own adventure games" like "Heavy Rain", "Mass Effect", and TellTale's "The Walking Dead" are superficial and give the player little to no control over the game's unfolding events. The player is given the illusion of choice, but the web of decisions will eventually lead all gamers to the same point.
Does the gamer really have free will in these games or is it all a ploy? Or perhaps more interestingly, does it even matter? If these games are about uncovering our deepest fears, and eliciting our innermost psyche, then should it really matter that all these decisions lead to one unified place for all players? Are these games more about the players, rather than the story?
Does the gamer have all that choice in other games where everything leads to a single ending with no variation in te story? Compare Arkham Asylum to Heavy Rain for example; yes the player has to complete missions in each, but AA has no variation to the storyline or side missions, if you play the game again, it'll be exactly the same. But with Heavy Rain there are about 20 different combinations of endings depending on the PLAYERS CHOICE. this is less so in Telltales games where everything comes to a head in pretty much the same fashion, but there are still choices the player is given on important narrative matters (eg killing/not killing a character) and if the player waits too long then they have no choice and the game chooses an option for them. – Jamie10 years ago
If you haven't checked it out yet I highly recommend giving "Life is Strange" a look. I've found that most TellTale games are really just window dressing and what you choose to do in them doesn't really matter. It was pretty obvious in "The Wolf Among Us" and while I actually enjoyed that game immensely I did feel a little bit cheated. "Life is Strange" is not finished yet but I'm already very invested and I'm hoping that the choices have a very large impact on the story itself. – Insinto10 years ago
Discuss what gaming might look like ten years down the line, based on how gaming has changed in the last ten years (ie. consoles, genres, pc, gameplay, etc.).
Ten years is... uhh, wow. That's a lengthy period of time. It's easy to overlook the Wii's contribution to games due to hindsight, but if you remember, motion controls were huge and innovative. Even before that, even if we laugh at it now, the switch to polygon-based graphics was deemed "artistic" and "high-quality". Word to the wise: games can remain pretty stagnant (2009-2014) and then have a huge burst of change (motion controls, media integration). An article that gives me a slow and steady timeline, I will personally have deleted. Okay, not really, but you get the point. It wouldn't be realistic to think of changes that way. – Austin10 years ago
Austin, you are a very intense person! I agree with you, whoever writes this would do well to stay away from a timeline, as it is very difficult to predict exactly how things will pan out. Instead of trying to make a fixed timeline, it might be nice to paint a theoretical picture of how we might refine some of the already existing prototypes. I'm thinking of things like the oculus rift. It is important to consider how many technologies converge to make new products. – dannyjs10 years ago
Looking at the future of virtual reality seems like the most obvious direction. Look at the possible ramifications of this. – Joseph Manduke IV10 years ago
I honestly don't see this as a viable topic. "Video Games" in general is a huge arc, with numerous updates and changes pending and, as Austin already stated, moving in bursts more than steady changes. Perhaps this would be more manageable if broken down to, say, a specific genre, or a look at Nintendo's new system, or something of that sort. This is just a little broad to really be helpful as-is, though. – Christopher Vance10 years ago
Describe common aesthetic or thematical trends in indie gaming and analyze what, if any, differences exist between them and studio titles, and why.
The most major trend I've noticed in indie gaming nowadays (based on what I've seen for handhelds or on the Steam store) is a desire to return to NES-style graphics and gameplay. Storyline and character development are often taking a backseat to this, while major studio games seem to be taking the opposite direction and focusing a lot more on character and evolving realistic graphics. I'm not sure what the reason for the return to the NES style is but I can guess it stems from nostalgia which indie designers are capitalizing on greatly. – Grace10 years ago
I have observed (from an albeit small sample of games) that indie gaming titles allow the creators to be more flexible and have more control over their game. Titles like "Ori and the Blind Forest" are able to explore unique art styles, and games like "Magicka" allow a familiar dungeon-crawler experience with a hilarious humour twist. I think there are certain expectations that gamers have developed for the major studios but not for indie developers. – yuany410 years ago
ESPN showcases MOBA competitions, and twitch is by far a leader in internet traffic. Will this level of popularity be sustained, grow to incredible new heights, or fall from grace?
