How come no one but the people of the Codex

[IncendiaryDevice]

Video games are more like pop music in terms of subjectivity though. Yes, you can identify what makes a game great, but no matter how good your argument, if a person doesn't subjectively care, they've no reason to care. It just so happens that people who've played a lot of a certain type of game in a certain kind of way, 'enthusiasts' rather than mindless hours spent, tend to develop a refined set of tastes. But nobody has come up with a convincing reason why those tastes matter, or why someone who doesn't have them should have them.

The rock and stone of the universe doesn't care about computer games. And unlike music or classical art, there's no religious connection or value either - nobody makes computer games to capture beauty or the divine. Nor is there any aspect of a computer game that has any worth to any great secular humanist project. Nietszche's ubermensch wouldn't stoop to giving a shit about our hobby. Computer games aren't poetry either - they aren't made to capture emotion or value in a way that we all feel but can't directly express.

So comparisons to sculpture, painting, great music and literature are utterly misplaced. A better comparison would be baseball, rugby, chess...all perfectly respectable hobbies whose supporters are not in the least bit ashamed of their lack of objective merit. A debate about whether tennis is better or worse than basketball is rightly confined to drunken pub talk, where you might shit-talk at each other for fun, but nobody takes such an argument seriously.

None of which means that you ought to back down from your views on whether a game is good or bad, or what refined tastes players should cultivate. Subjectivity is what motivates - nobody gets passionate about objective observations. Just don't expect to ever prove yourself right.

Incorrect philosophical clap-trap. Every point you make is horseshit. The only other arena of life where people talk like this is indeed the art world, the modern art world, and they do it there because photography destroyed the bread and butter of their industry, that of portrait painting. As I said before, if the only means you have to explain why Skyrim is a good game is some deranged philosophy that doesn't even have the courtesy to actually discuss the game in hand then you've already lost the debate and are just reiterating a philosophy of defeat.

Its also telling that the only sentence which actually relates to the conversation is this one:

It just so happens that people who've played a lot of a certain type of game in a certain kind of way, 'enthusiasts' rather than mindless hours spent, tend to develop a refined set of tastes.

Where you agree to the notion that Skyrim is "mindless" and that "enthusiasts" have developed a refined set of standards, though why you say enthusiasts with ' ' marks is something only a psychologist could answer...

 

[Davaris]

The only other arena of life where people talk like this is indeed the art world, the modern art world, and they do it there because photography destroyed the bread and butter of their industry, that of portrait painting.

Golden observation!

Modern Art explained in one sentence.

 

[Sigourn]

As I said before, if the only means you have to explain why Skyrim is a good game is some deranged philosophy that doesn't even have the courtesy to actually discuss the game in hand then you've already lost the debate and are just reiterating a philosophy of defeat.

Is it really that hard to understand that fun has nothing to do with how well made a videogame is?

Skyrim doesn't excel in worldbuilding, it doesn't excel in graphics, it doesn't excel in quest design or faction progression, it doesn't excel in equipment progression or exploration, and so on and so on.

And yet, to a lot of people (including me), the game is a lot of fun. Because, again, "being well made" doesn't mean a game will be fun.

 

[Delterius]

Skyrim doesn't excel in worldbuilding, it doesn't excel in graphics, it doesn't excel in quest design or faction progression, it doesn't excel in equipment progression or exploration, and so on and so on.

Is it good at anything.

 

[Sigourn]

Is it good at anything.

At being a lot of fun, in my opinion. More fun than any other "well made game" I've played, with the possible exception of the most fun moments of Dark Souls.

This is what my good friend IncendiaryDevice doesn't seem to get. You can have the most masterfully crafted videogame, and that won't stop it from being boring, because "well made" doesn't, and will never, equal "fun".

 

[HeatEXTEND]

stop it im dieing over here

 

[Delterius]

At being a lot of fun, in my opinion.

What do you like doing in Skyrim.

 

[Sigourn]

What do you like doing in Skyrim.

I like seeing everything and going wherever I want to go, and doing (within the limitations of the game) whatever I want to do. Not many open world RPGs out there to compare it to. The best ones, like Gothic, are sadly small compared to Skyrim.

 

[Delterius]

I like seeing everything and going wherever I want to go, and doing (within the limitations of the game) whatever I want to do.

So does Skyrim excel at exploration?

 

[HeatEXTEND]

Is it really that hard to understand that fun has nothing to do with how well made a videogame is?

what the flying fuck does that have to do with anything ? do you even think one second about what you are posting ? is this what the inside of your head looks like ?

you're starting to make a good case for people liking skyrim being actually retadred

 

[Sigourn]

So does Skyrim excel at exploration?

Define "exploration" first. The game isn't like Gothic, since you will most likely never find anything of real value in the different caves and places you visit. There isn't "exploration" in the dungeon crawling sense either: since dungeons are a linear affair, you aren't really finding anything. But all those issues don't stop it, for me, from being fun, especially with mods that correct most of Skyrim's issues.

 

[Sigourn]

I ignored HeatEXTEND because honestly I think he may be retarded.

That said, I will put my thoughts about Skyrim and cRPGs in one single sentence that anyone with a modicum of brain should be able to understand and AGREE with: you can argue all you want why you find something fun, but you can't make a point as to why everyone should find that something fun. Fun is not related to anything but the fact of having fun. Pretending that if someone tells you why they find something fun will make you have fun with it is ridiculous and all out retarded.

It is the EXACT equivalent of asking a gay person why does he like men, and expecting to become a homosexual as a result. And we know that doesn't happen. This is why "explain to me why you find it fun!" is stupid, especially because having fun is not something you can narrow down to basic math.

EDIT: And there goes IncendiaryDevice too.

 

[GuiltyofBeingTrite]

Video games had the luxury of being niche twenty years ago - "large" developers could focus on a very specific market that was into a very specific thing. Now the large developers need to be broadly appealing to be profitable. Fallout 3 was the first time a lot of people could play a game with killing, collecting loot, AND choosing where you want to go - so to them it was groundbreaking - to us it was a mainstream adaptation of something we saw 20 years ago.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

I ignored HeatEXTEND because honestly I think he may be retarded.

Being retarded doesn't bother me, 'cause you know, I'm fun

Spoiler

somehow getting ignored for the first time feels like I passed some kind of initiation rite, am I allowed to make it with the women now ?

 

[Lacrymas]

What Sigourn is saying is that he has zero standards and will love the fuck out of whatever abortion currently occupies his time, despite it being shit (even by his own admission). You really can't argue with that. Some people just can't be saved and that's ok. The actually good games don't devalue because of that. It's an interesting window into the mind of the average AAA consumer.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

So comparisons to sculpture, painting, great music and literature are utterly misplaced. A better comparison would be baseball, rugby, chess...all perfectly respectable hobbies

That is not a persuasive analogy at all, Azrael. Video games are medium and as such of course have the capability to express human thought and emotion - through text, music, visuals, whathaveyou. That up to this day this has rarely (particularly succesfully) been achieved has something to do with the historical context of video games rather than being an inherent flaw of the medium itself. Video games much more closely resemble movies - in the way they combine different possible forms of expression to communicate with the recipient - than they resemble sports.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

What Sigourn is saying is that he has zero standards and will love the fuck out of whatever abortion currently occupies his time, despite it being shit (even by his own admission). You really can't argue with that. Some people just can't be saved and that's ok. The actually good games don't devalue because of that. It's an interesting window into the mind of the average AAA consumer.

TL;DR:

 

[Alkarl]

So does Skyrim excel at exploration?

Define "exploration" first. The game isn't like Gothic, since you will most likely never find anything of real value in the different caves and places you visit. There isn't "exploration" in the dungeon crawling sense either: since dungeons are a linear affair, you aren't really finding anything. But all those issues don't stop it, for me, from being fun, especially with mods that correct most of Skyrim's issues.

So Skyrim is fun?

Yeah, I like to explore.

So Skyrim excels at exploration?

Blah blah blah, it's fun.

Sigourn, please.

 

[Delterius]

Define "exploration" first.

Does Skyrim excel at providing interesting things to see and interesting places to go?

 

[Sigourn]

Does Skyrim excel at providing interesting things to see and interesting places to go?

For the most part, not really. Part of what makes Skyrim so fun to me is that I feel in a real world, thanks to the nice looking (modded) graphics. That way, even the most boring mountain is beautiful to look at, and that stops it from being boring.

 

[buru5]

What Sigourn is saying is that he has zero standards and will love the fuck out of whatever abortion currently occupies his time, despite it being shit (even by his own admission). You really can't argue with that. Some people just can't be saved and that's ok. The actually good games don't devalue because of that. It's an interesting window into the mind of the average AAA consumer.

You may want to consider taking this test: https://psychology-tools.com/autism-spectrum-quotient/

I think it would really help you and a few other people in this thread who can't deal with the fact that opinions aren't objective facts.

 

[Sigourn]

I think it would really help you and a few other people in this thread who can't deal with the fact that opinions aren't objective facts.

What's really sad is that these people are arguing about fucking videogames. They think they are being but in reality they are just

 

[Lacrymas]

You may want to consider taking this test: https://psychology-tools.com/autism-spectrum-quotient/

I think it would really help you and a few other people in this thread who can't deal with the fact that opinions aren't objective facts.

Turns out I'm not autistic, which is good to know. What you don't know and can't seem to get is that opinions can be strongly justified or not at all, i.e. not all opinions are right/equally right/equally good. I recommend reading a book that is not fiction. There is nothing more to add to this conversation.

 

[Sigourn]

What you don't know and can't seem to get is that opinions can be strongly justified or not at all

What you don't seem to get as that you don't need to justify something as subjective as "fun". You either find it fun, or you don't. Moreover, it's impossible to justify why someone else should find a certain game more fun than another, because it is entirely subjective.

You can justify why New Vegas is a better RPG than Fallout 4. You can't justify why New Vegas is an objectively more fun game than Fallout 4.

 

[Delterius]

For the most part, not really.

Wouldn't you prefer a game that is good at the things you like in Skyrim?