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And it is at this point I stopped listening to whatever he said and realized he was a douchebag. DO NOT TRY TO -MAKE- GAMES, IF YOU DO NOT -LIKE- GAMES. | |
This guy just sounds like a jerk. And yes, anything can be a game. Imagination is an amazing thing. Plus there are chalanging games like Braid that test your mind which can be fun. There are also games that allow for more mindlessness. Ofcourse you can make tests foryourself in those too. GTA you can just go be a crazy mass murderer, or you could test yourself to see if you can do that AND escape the eventual army of law enforcers. | |
I unfortunately cannot comment on whether or not The Path is a game, since it won't run on any of my computers due to it's ridiculous graphics card requirements. It won't even run on my wife's brand new Dell laptop. Bah! I hate PC games. | |
On a certain level I think he has a point, but then again this could just be a defence mechanism against the criticism of his game: Reviewer: "Awesome visuals but lacking in gameplay" His game got an amazing 80 on Metacritic, so why does he care? | |
On any level I think he's a douchebag trying to beat Cliffy B in being the most douchebag game developer ever. That's quite the task ahead of him, but being dumb throughout, I have no doubt that he will succeed with enough persistence. If you don't like or understand games; please don't develop games nor comment on them. | |
Seconded, no exceptions.
They hurt you because they love you. A really good pillow will not hurt you at all. It is also fairly cheap. A really good dominatrix is designed to hurt you. It is also very expensive (I am assuming.) In this equation, love is equivalent to "goodness." | |
Chess cannot be compared to Braid, or really any single-player game. Single-player chess against a computer opponent is a project of suffering. There has to be a challenge in most anything we do, otherwise it is completely uninteresting. The competitive multiplayer experience has the luxury of challenge built into it, whereas cooperative multiplayer and single-player games need to invent challenge through some in-system method. That there is a brain behind one and a set of algorithms and situations behind the other does not necessarily mean one is a game and the other is not; at the same time, it can make all the difference in the sort of enjoyability a game can convey. | |
Speaking from personal experience, most people who make games do not like games. Or at least, they loathe the games they work on. In some cases they won't even play their own game. It's not uncommon and it doesn't seem to effect the quality of games, but it is indeed very strange. Interestingly it is "outsider thinking" like this that is actually important for game design (which often never questions its own values). | |
Ah man. I love The Path, but this guy is fairly unlikable. | |
Wow pretentious? Lighten up buddy, you work in the gaming industry dont take yourself so seriously. | |
I thought thats why we play games...to overcome challenges. Many others have said it already, but I mean, come on...Why the hell are you making games if you don't even like them? | |
He'll admit that he doesn't "particularly like games." But when it comes to games like chess, there's a difference. I think that's worded wrong. He likes games, but mainly games like chess, or I guess an MP game. I get the point, maybe Braid isn't a game because there's no distinct "winner" - but maybe overcoming a challenge can be a 'game' too. | |
As regards this "particularly don't like games" bit, this is what he said in full:
He said it, but I think he might have done so a bit playfully, at least I hear that. My bad for making that unclear, but I think you can read it more than one way. | |
I'm not going to lie. That is a very off-putting analogy. | |
Braid is more of a game then the Path is. All the Path has going for it is a bit of atmosphere. Braid has beautiful visuals and music, atmosphere and some rather interesting puzzles. | |
It was pretty much intended to resemble logic as little as possible. | |
... *facepalm* This guy has his defintions of "games" all borked up. What the hell is with these pretensious "I'll take a dump and call it art" game dev's... | |
Reading to what this guy was saying, all I could hear in my head was, "Sounds like those people who think paint blown on a canvas by a jet turbine is art." He says he doesn't play games, and yet he plays chess, and has fun with it. Seriously, how many games that have been released for either PC or console relate in a significant degree to chess? And he rants about losing like it's a disease. Losing isn't the endall buddy, it's the point where you pick yourself up and learn from your mistakes, not sit and cry and never tackle the game again. If that was the rule the Red Sox would never have made it to the top. | |
I believe that it is possible to 'win' an exam, if you phrase it just right. | |
I think what he said was that there needed to be a point in losing and that someone has to win as well. | |
Ugh.... He's not being a snobby jerk here, he's something who isn't afraid of voicing his distain for the current situation, rationalizes why this is so, and (most importantly) does something about it. In terms of cultural impact, he and Aurea are much akin to Warhol, except people like the Tale of Tales Brillo Boxes. | |
It's an interesting train of thought, but not put very well - that's artists for you. It's also a matter of semantics. By this guy's reasoning Sudoku isn't a "game" because he defines a game as being different from a puzzle. By extension Monkey Island isn't a game, nor Braid, nor Tomb Raider, nor Solitaire... Yet Bomber Man would be a game, but this very formal definition. I don't think it's fair to say "if you don't like games, don't make games". He doesn't like a certain kind of game, and hence his game is different. If we only let lovers of existing games make new games, we'll just get more of the same. New ideas are good. | |
I wonder what he would say about Katamari Damacy. Hardly a game by his definition, yet it's one of the most crazy and inventive games in the last decade. | |
Wow...this guy is worse than Mr. Blow... These indie game developers have bigger egos than some millionaire companies out there... | |
Wow, Samyn is channeling WOPR there... Samyn: Would you like to play a game of Chess? User: No, I want to play Global Thermonuclear War. Samyn: That is not a game because everybody loses!
But the Weighted Companion Cube loves you and would never hurt you. | |
After skipping every comments that called him a douche (cause honestly, if you have to use personal attacks, you argument is pretty weak) I have to say that I kinda see what he is aiming for but I still have to disagree. Don't get me wrong, I liked The Path, the message I think it is trying to pass is very similar to what Bioshock tried to do, albeit a lot more subtly, but that's for another topic.
The important point is what I put in bold. You do an exam because you have to, you play Braid because you want to. It all goes back to Johan Huizinga definition of play:
Playing Braid being a voluntary activity, and following the other conditions of play according to this definition, Braid, like The Path, is a game. | |
This guy needs to get his thoughts in order. Also, if you dont like games, dont make them, because then gamers like us suffer. | |
The only way to win is not to play at all. :( | |
The comment really should be seen as him saying that you cannot feel achievement unless it feels like you have beaten something tangible, an game AI is just a piece of code, but a person thinks, feels, hungers, they have functions other than simply existing for the sake of the game. He also seems to be raising the question of what constitutes a game, a question very similar to what constitutes art, and I answer both in the same way. Everything. Edit:
I don't remember hearing about his game provoking physical or mental torture of people | |
Many philosophers agree that play is any action done with an absence of purpose, and a game is an act of play with rules and guidelines. Therefore, any computer program made for the purpose of play has to be a game, because rules and guidelines are the only way computer programs work. | |
Agreed. He really doesnt seem to understand that :P | |
Not true. | |
Probably. The guy hurt my brain with his schizogaming disorder rant. | |
A game is any semi-structured activity done mainly for entertainment. Braid is a game. Tale of Tales is a game. Michael is just hopping aboard the pretentious express. | |
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The Path Dev: Braid Is Not a Game
Michaël Samyn of Tale of Tales, the developer of The Path, an art game that some people said isn't a game, is taking that same observation and making it about his indie peers. Games like Braid and Everyday Shooter, he wonders, maybe aren't games at all.
Michaël Samyn hasn't finished games that many people like: Braid, Everyday Shooter, Knytt, Zeno Clash. It's not that he has a problem with supporting his fellow indie game developers, it's just that he gets to the point where he's stuck and has failed - the point, he eloquently puts it, at which "the game blocks itself off, closes up like an oyster refusing to give up its pearl."
He'll admit that he doesn't "particularly like games." But when it comes to games like chess, there's a difference. There, he might lose, but he still likes playing, and is happy to see someone (his human opponent) win. Not so with videogames. With games, he says "nobody really wins. And it feels more like the game is designed to make you lose. As if you deserve to be punished for something. When all you did was try to play a game."
Electronic games, Samyn ventures, are like tests. "They make it hard for you, on purpose. They're not meant to be easy," he writes. "It's a format that lends itself to quizzes as well as school exams." Quizzes are considered games, but exams aren't, though formally, they're pretty similar: you answer hard questions, but you do one for fun and the other because you have to.
Braid is, on some level, like an exam. "What makes Braid a game?" Samyn asks. "Its rules, goals and challenges? No. Because the same format can apply to something that is not a game (an exam, e.g.). On some level, Braid is serious. Like an exam."
After which point he admits that maybe it comes down to subjectivity, suggesting maybe we can call something a game simply because it's fun for someone out there. By that logic, counting ducks can be a game, an exam can be a game, and, Samyn admits, "maybe everything can be a game!"
That's kind of dodging the question he brought up initially, but the observation stands. Sometimes a videogame can get hard enough to the point where it feels like nobody wins. I know there were some points during my Braid playthrough when it felt more like an exercise in a logic textbook than a game. Anyway, some food for thought for you to chew on.
[Via Kieron Gillen's Twitter]
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