Can I have a serious discussion about the concept of video games?

Video games used to be quick entertainment. Short in length, focusing on gameplay design and less on graphics.

Nowadays, video games have much increased in length (40hrs is now avg in AAA), less focused on raw gameplay but more on photorealism, and generally just the feel of escapism. The feel of _immersing_ yourself in this alternative reality by rendering photorealistic graphics, losing sense of time IRL. Spending hours upon hours sitting in front of your console/PC instead of a healthy relationship with the medium.

The more I think about modern video gaming, the more I want to just distance myself from this industry as a whole, where we are headed. Video games were never meant to be a simulated reality, just a piece of quick entertainment just like movies are. But now you see all the young people literally killing themselves by slaving their souls in front of the screen instead of battling real life.

There's a reason why video games are generally shamed upon. Not only have they become uncreative forms of art (unlike movies), but the target audience is generally depressed people who are too weak to face real life. The bullied ones, the weak ones, the ones that are financially struggling, the ones who can't make the right decisions for themselves. And instead of providing a solution for those people, modern videogames destroy them even further as a way of distracting them from what they should be dealing with.

I feel like video games are no longer what they should be, we either need to go back to pre PS3 era or destroy it altogether.

>we need to
No we don't. You're a faggot. Shut the fuck up and play some video games.

For some reason people want "photo realism" instead of fun video games with an art direction. It's like, why do you want video games to look like real life? Fucking go outside then you fat autists.

>Video games used to be quick entertainment. Short in length
Wrong. Unless you mean literally pong and galaga tier, then sure. But otherwise, wrong. There were already RPGs my the time of Nintendo, and I'm sure there were plenty of text adventures on PC.
>Nowadays, video games have much increased in length (40hrs is now avg in AAA),
Way beyond wrong.
I'm just gonna stop reading now.

>Video games used to be quick entertainment. Short in length, focusing on gameplay design and less on graphics.
That's because early game design was influenced by arcades that were meant to encourage you to spend money. This paradigm was transferred wholesale to consoles even without the need to put in more quarters. Devs wanted to do more though and the increase in tech allowed them to. So you get early dungeon crawlers and RPGs that aren't what you're describing here.

>Nowadays, video games have much increased in length (40hrs is now avg in AAA)
Not really. And even those that are are mostly padding because most games are open world.

>Video games were never meant to be a simulated reality
Flight simulators have been around since the beginning and there have been lots of other games that were trying to simulate reality as best they could on the Atari and such.

Graphics have also been a large part of video games since the beginning with devs always trying to better themselves on top of using phrases like blast processing and 64 bit that consumers didn't understand to sell their games as well as comparing with screenshots.

Pic related

Well it is true, for instance Witcher 3 is about 200 hours for full completion and most AAA titles are now Game as a service where you can easily invest 1000+ hours. Most games back in the days were

Lol boss baby

Stop playing AAA console titles, dummy.

>entertainment just like movies


What?

People have and do get sucked into the world of certain movies more than most games ever have up to this point.

fpbp

>Video games used to be quick entertainment
>There are people born after 2000 posting on this board
Fuck I'm starting to get too old for this place.

Ha boss baby

Games evolved and kept going in the directions they could. They got bigger, and better.

But you're only looking at AAA here. The budgets are huge, people expect high production values. Gaming has evolved but it's also easier than ever to make a game. If you look, you'll find these short and fun experiences. A lot of them are indie, Steam is full of stuff, some of them are from known publishers too.

Movies used to be 5-second clip of a train going inside a girl's cunt and books used to be a guy shitting on a stone...mediums evolve because we demand it.

Graphics always was the focus though? Companies have been trying to 1 up eachother since forever

Not with that image you can't.

>serious discussion
>Sup Forums

>People have and do get sucked into the world of certain movies

but you can't get sucked in for long because movies are 2-2.5 hours max. Plus it's non interactive, you can't truly feel like you're escaping into that reality (via a controller or VR headset)

i'm 25, i'm talking about games like Contra, Mario Kart, Golden Eye, hell even Mario 64. just pure, good gameplay, and no escapism bs.

>Video games used to be quick entertainment. Short in length, focusing on gameplay design and less on graphics.
You're already wrong. Video games used to be extremely short on content and designed to be replayed endlessly, either to wring out quarters at the arcade or justify the bloated prices on home consoles. This was a limitation of the hardware and business, not some kind of ludicrous ideal. To say that developers 30 years ago had no dreams or aspirations to create a longer and better constructed experience is insane. And you yourself possess the exact line of thinking as to why video games are not treated like art. Like Roger Ebert, who never thought video games advanced beyond Pac Man.

>Graphics always was the focus though?

t. not Nintendo

>Video games were never meant to be a simulated reality, just a piece of quick entertainment

This is like saying that modern animation needs to "go back to its roots" because cartoons first gained popularity as five-minute black and white shorts shown before films. Entertainment mediums grow and change, and over time transform into something those original creators probably couldn't have even imagined. And guess what? There are more video games out there being made than ever before, in every genre and gameplay style imaginable. You can find still plenty of games that are "short in length, focusing on gameplay design and less on graphics" if you go looking anywhere beyond big budget AAA titles.

You think immersion is something new?
Fuck off newfag.

Games were never "quick entertainment" until after 2000. Play virtually any game from the 90's and tell me again that it doesn't take long to beat them.

>Video games used to be quick entertainment
>Every old rpg was at least 40 hours in length

there's still a form of escapism, it's called entertainment. everyone needs their time off and hobbies

Sounds like you care about things that don't matter, champ. Maybe just fuck off, yeah?

You're ignoring all those RPGs that came out even before those games whose purpose was to immerse the player. And also simulators and games that were going for being realistic.

Immersion isn't a function of graphical quality and games have attempted to be immersive for far longer than you think.

>movies
>creative
Dude.... come on... are you shitting me?

OP is entirely right. Fuck movie"games" like TLOU and HL2. Fuck immersion fags for wanting to escape their shitty lives instead of fixing it. Fuck modern video game garbage.

I want to use this thread as an opportunity to ask a question I've had on my mind.

So imagine you're about to have sex with a girl okay? She slips off her long glove and reveals that instead of a hand she actually has a massive penis arm that is fully functional. You have PIV sex with this girl and then it's over and you go home.

Is this scenario gay because a penis was involved even though you didn't touch it or stimulate it and it wasn't even technically a genital?

>Consoles
CRPG were aways fairly long and immersive.

OP confirmed for being an underage who never really played old games.

>I don't know what immersion is
If a game can't make you forget you are playing a video game then it's objectively a shitty video game.

>Nowadays, video games have much increased in length (40hrs is now avg in AAA), less focused on raw gameplay but more on photorealism, and generally just the feel of escapism. The feel of _immersing_ yourself in this alternative reality by rendering photorealistic graphics, losing sense of time IRL. Spending hours upon hours sitting in front of your console/PC instead of a healthy relationship with the medium.

>The more I think about modern video gaming, the more I want to just distance myself from this industry as a whole, where we are headed. Video games were never meant to be a simulated reality, just a piece of quick entertainment just like movies are. But now you see all the young people literally killing themselves by slaving their souls in front of the screen instead of battling real life.


What the hell is Daggerfall, Dwarf Fortress, and all those simulator games that are decades old? You are a dumbass lol

That's a very specific fetish you got there, son.

>Video games used to be quick entertainment. Short in length
Yeah man, FF1, Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger. Short as fuck

Dwarf Fortress isn't actually that old. Its first version came out in 2006. But its adventure mode is inspired by roguelikes that were from the 80s and before.

>using the subject line

you have to be 18 to post here

Why would you want to forget you're playing a video game and why would they be designed that way?

That can't be answered because it's impossible for that to happen.
It's like asking if having sex with a dragon is bestiality.

>But now you see all the young people literally killing themselves by slaving their souls in front of the screen instead of battling real life.
>LITERALLY KILLING THEMSELVES

Go take your batshit political agenda somewhere else.

>Video games used to be quick entertainment. Short in length, focusing on gameplay design and less on graphics.
So what you're saying is, Candy Crush is an instant vidya classic, but Ninja Gaiden Black is ruining games as an industry?

K

Reality sucks, humanity was designed to SURVIVE and PROLIFERATE
We conquered survival, now our hyper advanced survival tool, the human mind, needs something to occupy it since survival is as simple as performing repetitive tasks eight hours a day to get money.

Some people pick real life "battles" to occupy themselves (politics), other use escapism.
Videogames are our escape, our stimulation, there is nothing wrong with it unless your entire view of the "meta of life" is to be a money grubbing kike like all other "realists" out there.

>AAA games
>average 40 hours
Average is like 10 ours, with one the biggest games this year (Wolfenstein) with around 2 hours.

This is some serious risky territory you're entering user.
>inb4 traps aren't gay

>old video games were never trying to be immersi-

That's like saying Virtual Chess or Monopoly is escapism. There's quite a spectrum there. With the other end being a game like Destiny where you do nothing creative but shoot enemies and appreciate the graphics.

>designed to be replayed endlessly

The fact that they are short to begin with, and meant to be replayed (not continuous) is what makes them less "escapism" bs IMO. Just like how you could replay a movie if you wanted.

I'm not exactly blaming length, more about the concept of what you're trying to accomplish with the medium. say RPGs, some can be fine as they make you think a lot, solving quests, etc, say paper mario. but then you have other ones who edge on just being pure escapism like Witcher 3.

it is gay. you can go man to man but as long as no penis touching is involved its all good.

it undeniably is to some degree. i agree it's not just graphics, like RPGs and making you feel like you're playing "as", but nowadays it's just walking simulators and appreciating the nice looking world with the goal of completely breaking the feel that you're no longer playing a video game, but that you're "in there".

i don't know, I just feel like there was a breaking point where modern AAA vidya (say TLOU and whatever movie game you have now) is just about pure graphics/escapism/immersion over gameplay and function. its just not changing for the best

Thanks for letting me know why my threads always die before getting any replies. :3

Because when games are engaging you forget about everything else, like a good book, a movie or a very interesting conversation.

Why would I want to talk to people.

I'd argue that's actually really bad. the sense of forgetting that real life exists and pure escapism. I mean it's nothing like a good book, where you have to use your imagination. Video games are based on physical stimulation (your monitor/VR headset throwing photons onto your retina) and stimulate your brain to a whole new level

There is a reason people say vote with your wallet, when star citizen comes (and if it's good) maybe we will see less console players buying every half ass game triple A developers are releasing.

>Generalizing this hard
You are just ignorant about the medium.

That's some whole other level of immersion. You should get immersed in a game just by playing it. If you get distracted by the fact it's a video game then you don't really want to play them.

fuck off.

What? I used to read a lot in highscool, mostly because I didn't have friends so recess was incredibly boring. I used to read to escape reality, it's literally the same. If I had a portable console back then it would've been the same shit.
You are talking about cerebral stimulation using your ass as a source it seems.

>It's a VIDEO games shouldn't focus on graphics episode
How enlightened

Not really.
What about games that fill the screen with button prompts every 3 seconds or remind you constantly to "fire in short bursts" or "get back to cover". Thats the dev destroying your immersion on purpose. Of course it varies from person to person, some may find that ok but dislike big HUDs or quest markers but it's all the same: Fourth wall breaking shit that works against the medium.

He's not even just complaining about graphics. He's complaining about games that try to be like real life or that try to immerse the player despite those types of games having existed since the very start.

When you watch a movie, don't you try to "suspend your disbelief" and pretend the plot and characters are real? If you don't, why do you watch movies? If you do, why are games different?

>plenty of text adventures on PC.
There were these things called MUDs. Text based MMOs you could play over Telnet that originated in the late 70s.

i'm complaining that games are trying way too hard on the escapism side. at least back in the days there wasnt ultra realistic animations/graphics to go with it

Only because they didn't have the tech to do it.

Good graphics are hard and most developers in the 80s were programmers with no artistic talent what so ever.

Programmers still lack artistic talent, they hire people to do the graphics just like they did back then.

Things change and things evolve this is true for any medium, drawings on the wall turn into short stories, into novels. It can be said for any sort of entertainment medium that it's just a temporary escape the viewer is chasing, t.v., movies and books. There have always been "the weak" and "the sad" people, all have had entertainment to escape to.
It seems video games just happen to not be your "escape" and you're confused, angered and by your call to action to "destroy" video games you also seem frightened.
The future is now old man.

>tfw you actually liked boss baby

I've never felt immersed in a video game. Every single moment I'm aware, at least subconsciously, that it's a video game and not real. I still enjoy games as my main hobby but I think VR and Immersion is a meme.

>mfw all those fat asses on suicide watch at the minimum self awareness of the life they waste.
I like good graphics on a game, but there's still something missing... Don't really know what. Maybe VR is just not for me.

What he is saying is that Itagaki wanted Ninja Gaiden on XBOX to be 2-3 hours with the budget of a 20 hour game to make the best game ever.

What is it with cats and boxes?

kys boomer

>I'm a proud casual: the thread
i bet you are a neogaf/resetera scum, fuck off

>200 hours for full completion

The people who do that were autists. They were already lost causes. Normies just blow through the story and pick up a chunk of sidequests they stumble upon along the way.

So, you are saying there should be a crash?

In that case, yes, i agree.

Touchy guy... Seems you need some help user. Care to share?

Bliss

>(you) don't need to.
Please don't attempt to do this ever again.

>Video games used to be quick entertainment.
t. I was born in 2001 and I don't know what I'm talking about

^o^

Warm... I guess. Also comfy as fuck. I remember doing it as a kid

I don't see an increase in length as an issue, though. You can generally choose when to quick, so you can limit yourself to the time of a movie or even less.
I also don't understand what you mean by "all the young people literally killing themselves. . ." Sure there are a few who shut themselves in, but it certainly isn't near everyone or even a majority. It does require some self-control, but if you lack that it isn't the video games fault.
Yes, video games offer a form of escapism, but so do every other form of entertainment. Literally every single one. You could make an argument that video games have less to offer, perhaps. Books and movies usually offer some moral or lesson. But if you chose the right games, you'll find the same thing.

TL;DR I disagree that video games are degenerating the youth due to their direction. They certainly aren't perfect, but offer the same things other forms of entertainment do.

No doubt people use this medium for escapism, many games are perfect in that sense such as open world games or those RPGs with lengthy story. But I believe those points that you mentioned OP are just the medium evolving.

Back then the videogame market was a fraction to what it is today. Now literally millions of people play games and I believe that one of the main reasons of this is in the aesthetics that games have evolved into. Back when graphics where shit, people had to actually experience playing the game to know how enjoyable it was. Now, just seeing the newest Red Dead tells me why has the industry has boomed.

Personally I don't see anything wrong with it, why not burn some 3 hours pretending you're a cowboy or some other shit. Its a form of escapism of daily work, but so are sports, recreational drugs or drinking. I fully agree when it's taken to the extreme but with or without videogames, depressed people will find a way to cope with their situation one way or another.

Going back to pre PS3? That will never happen, and its not a good or bad thing. I see a lot of potential in videogames artistically speaking and the medium must continue to evolve to reach that potential. Sure, there will be things that can't be classified as art but that applies to all mediums, music, movies and literature have all their crap, pure entertainment and artistic contents.

Just look for games that speak to you in a personal level, but don't rely on them to find happiness

>Not only have they become uncreative forms of art (unlike movies)

this show is mk ultra pedolific bullshit and the fact that you have pics of it saved sais alot about your state of mind