Bioshock is too complex. Help!

[WhiskeyWolf]

To Anonymous, I can understand what you are saying about Elder Scrolls. However, the "open world" that those games provide I believe is different than the opening examples that John has brought up. I believe John was leaning towards games like GTA and Shenmue: Games that take place in current day. Would it add to the game at all if you found out you can turn on the kitchen sink? What about precisely inserting your ATM card into the ATM machine and typing the PIN to get your cash out and wait for the receipt?

I think those are the points he was trying to make. Oblivion/Elder Scrolls doesn't really fall into this category I feel because its giving you the option to live the life of a Medieval inhabitant with magic and quests. That is something you just can't do today in the 'real' world. Even with that said, I don't think it would be a good idea to have to stop every mile to let your horse rest, eat, and drink; or having to make a feature that gives you control of where to put your sword when you don't use it.

The fuck?

 

[Dire Roach]

Must be a fan of some really abstract games.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Anyone care to send him the link to Dwarf Fortress or NetHack? According to these criterions, games like that must suck big time.

Reading stuff like that isn't good for my paranoia, now I start to see everywhere plots of governments, backed by the fbi chineses, to turn people around the world into mindless drones little by little.

Civilization, The Sims... I mean my God, research Gunpowder or Monarchy? And what should I do? Do I go to the toilet or Woohoo? Don't even get me started on all the decisions you need to make in Starcraft. I mean, there are three whole races to choose from!

THESE DECISIONS ARE TOO HARD!

We simply can't afford to pander to the few when the mainstream is unsatisfied.

I missed that.

Now, as a rant against mini-games, I wholly agree. What he's saying though, makes absolutely no fucking sense. And the examples he uses are shocking (EG: Frustration if there was jumping in Doom).

 

[the_Consumer]

I'm just glad that we have people like Peter Molyneux to save us.

 

[DraQ]

I tried reading the article because I thought people here were just reacting and not really thinking about the issues since it triggered some dumbing-down reflex, but for fucks sake, what a bunch of muddled bullshit.

Wasn't the retarded way in which the author used the word "mechanics" an obvious enough hint?

 

[Zomg]

The problem with games is that you can't take the cash it takes to make one game and make two games for two different audiences with half the budget each. There's an agglomeration problem. That's it, every wasted word beyond that is whistling past the graveyard.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

That's the sort of designers I fear the most - lazy bastards that just need every excuse to make their lifes easier. I mean the game industry has enough problems, so the last thing this medium can afford now are lazy designers.

 

[mondblut]

Thank god for the indie games.

 

[MetalCraze]

Thinking of poor dumb bastards getting confused by teh inventory system brought a tear to my eye.

I laughed for two minutes here when I tried to imagine it as well.

Edit: The comments:

I'll say that I do agree some games try to push too much onto the player in the way of options. But personaly if I wanted an example of that I'd look to a game like Morrowind or Oblivion. Both are good games but figuring out what to do with yourself can be hard.

what? a fucking quest compass and a fast travel are not enough for you dumb bitch?

 

[DoppelG]

To be honest, you "could" interpret that in a different way, in the "figuring out what of all the things you do has any meaning to them", wich is indeed hard seeing that "almost nothing you do has any meaning to it".

 

[Mareus]

First I laughed myself to tears, but then I started crying when I realized what the games of tomorrow will look like.

But I guess it makes sense to the money grabbing developers. Just think about it. It's more feasible to make dumb games.
a) they are reducing the risk of being sued for making people think, because to most people just the thought of using their brain may cause serious cerebral injuries. We are talking about millions of dollars savings here.
b) since most people are retards they get very easily aroused, and everyone knows sex sells.
c) pleasing smarter gaming audience is just too much work. You need to make a good story, waste more resources on testing the game, you need to develop thousands of options and brain puzzles with thousands of very interesting quests,... and when you are done you will have millions of retards yelling the GAME WAS TOO HARD. So why bother when smart people are in minority? You can simply make the majority happy, and listen to few people nag how the game sucks.
d) if you are aiming to please the smarter gaming audience, you can bet they wont trust the developer's word how the game is incredible, which means they will first find an illegal copy to test the game, and only IF (that's a very big IF) they like the game you can expect some money in the purse, while majority wont even look at the game as soon as they see that "DANGER! THE GAME REQUIRES BRAINS!" sign.

The way I see it... WE ARE DOOMED!!

 

[Herbert West]

WHAT?!

This is horrifying.

 

[DraQ]

Next-gen controllers will only have a single button.
Next-next-gen ones will have none, as deciding when to press the button is too confusing and makes games too difficult and frustrating. New controllers will detect the warmth of player's hand so the game will play itself as long as you hold the controller.

 

[elander_]

This isn't exactly new. They already tried this path before and failed miserably. If i remember correctly there was a huge hype in the 80s about the interactive movie, which is essentially what this guy is defending. Switching from video clips to cg animated clips doesn't chance the core mechanics of this kind of game. Criticizing Bioshock for being too complex is nonsense because less than that and the mainstream will not buy it.

 

[WalterKinde]

I think i am glad that most devs and publishers are moving over to the console market, let them flood that market with the crap that this article suggests.
Leave the pc market to the smaller dev houses.

 

[MetalCraze]

console market is already flooded with crap. it's more like PC market gets flooded by dumb shit that came from consoles.

 

[galsiah]

Getting the Most from Game Design Articles

We like to imagine that our writers will invest countless hours of thought in their articles. We hope that they will consider the ideas over and over, thought-experiment after thought-experiment, just trying to understand every perspective. And every sphere of thought has its own set of die-hard writers that do just that.

But realistically, these devoted writers make up a small portion of any discipline's advocates. The majority of writers don't have the time or the interest to dedicate this energy. Most writers will only grasp the discipline's core concepts, and everything else is effectively ignored. We simply can't afford to pander to the few when the mainstream is unsatisfied.

When applied to game design concepts, this fact supports the consideration of only obvious ones. Any concept that is poorly understood by most writers is a waste of reader and writer time. It's well known that if writers aren't confident with a design concept, they simply won't use it. They demand a set of ideas that they understand. Inconsiderate readers will often demand that writers understand design concepts in order to justify their existence, but this robs the reader of his time and the sub-par writer of his delusion of competence.

 

[FluffyKitten]

Kill me please.

Or get me drunk. Here's a beer to the death of PC gaming

 

[JarlFrank]

PC gaming is dead. Long live the indies!

 

[Jason]

Who cares what this guy says. He's just been a programmer for console titles like Neopets: The Darkest Faerie and Conan so it's not like he's a spokesman for the future of PC gaming.

 

[VonVentrue]

WHAT?!

This is horrifying.

It's called cruel reality.

 

[Annonchinil]

Some parts of Bioshock felt really unnecessary, like when your enemies stopped dropping ammo and begin to drop rubber tubes that you needed to use to make ammo.

 

[Noceur]

Jesus fucking Christ.

And about Bioshock, you don't choose between guns, plasmids etc. You get it all, ala Oblivion. I suppose that's why the developers say Bioshock is an FPS, not an RPG.

 

[denizsi]

It's an intellectual post-apoc wasteland we're living in. Don't act like you just walked out of Vault Codex, laying your eyes on the outside world for the first time.

 

[Mister Takeda]

Does this just sound like another "say the contrary to sound interesting or compelling" bullshit article to anyone else? Like something a complete hack spews out when they can't think of anything else to write.

"Rape is bad? Nooo, rape is actually very good! Here's why.."

It's just the fact people can get away with saying this shit that is so disgusting. And it is a convenient cover for laziness and misappropriation on the part of developers. Game developers are the new Hollywood producers, decrying films that are anything but tit and gorefests.

"Over two hours long? Black and white? Subtitles?! Anathema!"