United3dArtists Archive

A person has to do absolutely nothing to watch a movie. Not true with a video game.
I have never met a single person who "hated" video games. Maybe they don't enjoy playing them or don't have time for them.
The title says "hardcore" which means most of the time that person is locked into their game, it is their world. A person who would rather play a sport on a computer rather then outdoors in real life. That part is not cool to the average person.
I always loved video games and spent hours playing games not noticing that it was 4 in the morning. That was when I was single. Now I would rather play a sport outside then sit in a basement pretending.
But I still enjoy them.

fyi:
1) I played the very first "pong" game on an oscilloscope at a University in Northern New Jersey.
2) I played the game "Star Trek" on a mainframe computer dialed into a University in Missouri using a phone handset in rubber cups, no monitor in those days, all done with a printer.
3) Zork -text adventure
4) Atari - Tanks
5) Commodore 64 -LodeRunner, Defender of the Crown, Raid on Bungeling Bay..(it talks!),Wolfenstein
6) Intellivision - Pitfall
7) Amiga - Marble Madness
8) PC - tons of games early stuff ( $1000 graphics board), Wolfenstein
9) Game consoles, all of them
10) Faster PC but better graphics board ($250) Crysis Rome Total War etc.
11) Faster PC bla bla bla ( $200) notice the price is going down? (but the price of games keep going up)
Grand Theft Auto IV, Battlefields,
12) Ipads, Ipods, Nexus7, your watch, your phone...Pong

Nice reply Steinie, but isn't your spam radar pinging (ponging?) like mine is?
Time will tell I guess.

Never seen a spamm as wicked as this one.

I guess there is an industry stigma that cinema has nearly 100 years in development, that there is a tried and true method to success. Artist and directors have generations of the best to learn from, , and technology is not as demanding as it used to be.. So making a movie or a series can be an economically safe bet

Meanwhile games have mainly only been around the pasr 20 to 30 years. Even major studios are still experimenting, learning what works and what doesn't. Not every game can be a success, theoretically, and none is completely sure on what makes a good game.

So those who may invest in them see it as risky.. Though in reality the cinema and TV both are equally prone to the same failure... But I guess it's comforting to know what mostly everyone knows, what makes a good movie and what doesn't... But games are so varied and mysterious....

And it's hard to convince an investor that your formula to success with a game without the years of success and failures of cinema to back up the latter really didn't help.

Just my opinion.

Why are games called games? Or rather, the question is: Why are video-games still called games? If anyone comments on games being a waste of time or not worth pursuing as a career then they usually do so because they make an assumption surrounding that single word.

I rarely come across people who hate video-games, no matter their age or their level of understanding of current technologies but there are some people I have heard over the years who preach against video-games for reasons that range from excessive violence to it simply being a waste of time.
My father for example claims that he hates video-games. Thing is though, it's just just video-games for him but also board games, card games and a variety of sports all for the same reason. Perhaps that is a poor example then... He thoroughly enjoyed playing LEGO Lord of the Rings after all.

From having convinced both my parents at some point to sit down and play a (modern) video game when they were over at my place I have come to deduce that most older people (with no background in computer graphics) have trouble with:

1. 3D navigation. My mother especially.
2. Puzzle solving mechanics. My father especially.
3. Realizing and understanding the limitations of current computer hardware.

They also still need to get used to common narrative conveying mechanics in games, just like they had to with movies and books at some point. Since most young people nowadays, at least in the west, tend to grow up with video-games I don't think that people will stay unaccustomed to this new medium for long. It still needs to develop but many interactive media are already being used in a lot of schools as a means of education, just like films and books.
I recall that when I was younger it was unusual to even just watch a film or documentary in class, all of that has changed now. When I worked for IT at my local high-school they had a projector in nearly every class-room.
I think that once video-games have been assimilated into our society and become part of the learning experience, I have no doubt that the people who criticize or simply have no experience with video-games, will become a minority.

Not saying that is a bad thing however the term "game" will most likely no longer apply to a lot of these future applications. "Games" like the Stanley Parable, Heavy Rain, Dear Esther or even just your average flight simulator will probably break off from the gaming side of the medium towards being more like movies or documentaries.
Actually, I'd go as far as saying that a lot of (if not most) games nowadays in some way ruin their story and/or other artistic qualities with traditional game-play or vice versa.

Naturally a lot of traditional gamers probably prefer it that way. Those are slowly becoming a minority as well though and this results in a lot of mixed responses towards modern video-games. Especially ones that are clearly still "games".


My experience with video-games.
I was raised with very little movies, no video-games or even a computer. I only played outside or with Lego. My parents and I moved to Sweden when I was eleven. We got our first computer at my home in 2004 I think, though we rarely used it.
In 2006 I started doing some video editing. I didn't use the Internet.
In 2007 I think I learned the GIMP at school, not as a part of a class but rather on the library computer since I had nothing better to do between classes. I later took that program home with me.
In 2009 I got my first apartment and my own PC as well as a good Internet connection. By now I had started to use my PC regularly though I only had a Win 2000 computer. At this point I did play a free demo of Age Of Mythology as well as the free demo for Halo Combat Evolved. I bit late I know but I felt back then that paying for games was a waste of money...
That was how I started playing video-games. It was because I found games like Cube 2 (a building game similar to Minecraft) that I eventually got into modding games and as a result 3D modeling, that way I got more insight into what video-games could become with the proper understanding.

Now, five years later, I own over 200 games on Steam alone. I have worked on numerous mod and game projects and even started several of my own. I think all that gives me a decent perspective of the industry today.
I have taken a great interest in video-games but I would still be among the first to say that games today are quite flawed both in technology and from an artistic point of view.

I think all we can do now is hope that new emerging styles and more professional artistic projects aren't buried or ignored in favor of games produced by larger companies like Activision and EA who produce not in order to advance the medium but to make a steady supply of games that suit the average video-gamer today. That together with heaps of shovelware being produced by other larger developers tends to result in a lot of people who actually are gamers themselves not taking the medium very seriously.

As technology becomes more advanced, I think it is safe to say the future will be very different for games and how they are perceived by the people of this world.

...also, why did this just turn into a big wall of text?

Soon the spam links will appear in an edit of the original post. If you are not a spammer then post more and you'll find yourself welcome here.

But since there are already replies to help the spammer get found in searches I'll talk about games too.

I haven't played a lot of computer/video games and mostly not the new ones. Like 'em but I do other stuff or make CG pictures instead. So my opinion is not well informed. A "game" in the classic sense is something like checkers. You win or lose or achieve an objective based on your skill, luck, or both. So lots of computer/video "interactive entertainment" are games in the sense of something fun to do but not in the traditional sense. They are fun and that is what counts whatever you want to call them.

I don't like how nearly all the games now are stories. You can see that in the association of movies and games in these posts. They are fun, just not enough innovation in types of games. "The show must go on" so story games have limited variations and your character's actions may or may not even effect the story. The cost and effort of making the mini-movies that tell the story is a factor of course.

What you mean by winning, losing, or success is part of it. Defeat your opponent in checkers = win. Survive to see the end of a story game = success. Fly a mission, blow up bunker, land on aircraft carrier = simulation success. Make balls and ramps (Ball Magic) and have fun = success. Survive and gain what you want (fame, fortune, power ...) in WoW or D&D = success.

well twinkle... all prejudice is borne of either ignorance, insecurity or tradition.

Couple of thoughts

'People' hating on games is essentially two opposing straw-men arguments. Generally 'people' don't hate games or gamers but rather enjoy them, but are opposed to that distorted representation of what games are and can do (like create mass murderers or socially awkward weirdos who won't leave their mothers basement etc).

A lot of artists in general get professional stigma because of the audience-wide assumption that the output (fun/quick/cheap/easy/nothing of direct physical value at the end) must be the same as the input (the work done to make it), commission artists or cartoonists/comic book artists are subject to this like computer games. We *consume* art all the time, we're bombarded with it daily but it was an activity that most children did for leisure when they were young so there is that association of not growing up. This is of course, far from true, I remember my old Story dev/graphic dev lecturer telling a story about working for Lionhead studios as a beta tester. Come in monday morning at 7:00am, nominate one person to get lunch, nominate one person to get dinner, at 11:00pm get your sleeping bag out. Rinse and repeat until saturday night. Typically an individual does not hate games and probably enjoys playing them but is not able to visualise the hard work that must go into making these products and also cannot accept that someone can dedicate their professional life to a medium designed entirely for leisure, making such a big deal about the issues/advances and so on. To the man-in-the-street it is a few hours a week spent.

Computer games are grossing as high as films already, the new 'Tomb Raider' game was reported to have been deemed a failure if it did not shift less than 8 million units because the amount of money being poured into such productions means that's how many they must sell, it's serious business now.

But

This stigma is of course, helped by the serious misogyny, poor understanding of modern social issues...a subject it can heavily affect, terrible and flawed business practices and so forth going on in games right now. The Triple A portion of the industry has stagnated with the practices begun in the 90s while the indie development is largely unadvertised/so varied you can't keep track of it. It is also not helped by that loud minority of gamers who pander to stereotype and act like aggressive, sociopathic man-children ('lol u n00b' and so on), much like (but obviously with far fewer/less serious consequences) the image of religion is not helped by the views and actions of a few extremists.

The author of this topic is probably laughing at these responses. It's just a question to bring its advertising in this forum. It sucks!

First dealings with a "computer" was a ZX81, I spend hours programing a lunar lander that was a:
0X
Only to spend 3 times as long de bugging and it ultimately crashing never to be seen again
Then I had the Amstrad with the green monitor and loved the Dizzy games and Castle Master that was considered WOW! at the time as it was 3D
You can make Dizzy games with DizzyAge, really cool program

I think Doom was the first PC game I played on a P60 Intel 16meg ram and a 850meg harddrive, my i7 wouldn't even wake up on a morning with that spec lol

I had an 8086 IBM compatible (a PC) with 2 (count em, 2!) 5.25" floppies and turbo speed of 8 mega hertz. So a friend gave me some text adventure games. Amnesia, where you wake up in New York in a white tuxedo with amnesia. Leather Goddesses of Phobos where I kept looking for the rubber hose even though I already had it (thought it meant rubber stockings but it was a tube). Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where I could never find my way off of the Heart of Gold. That game came with paraphernalia (good thing there's spell checkers) like a plastic bag labeled "microscopic space fleet", pocket fluff, and anti-peril goggles (black paper glasses like 3D red blue ones but just paper). It would tell you to put on the glasses before giving your score so you wouldn't get upset.

(que: why are you guys talking abt 'spamming'? I don't understand what the connotation is)
(que 2: Steinie, you started this thread to talk abt ? ... just sharing your experience ? ...)
Why I ask is because I'm interested in the conversation/topic, but don't know what/how to reply with.

I'm neither a designer or gamer but since the original post has disappeared I guess my radar works.

Drag, the original post was from a "new member."
The usual method is they make a post and then later edit it and insert their spammy links.

Then a moderator comes along and brings out the ban-hammer and deletes them and their post.

Meanwhile we continue the conversation, since in this case the topic is something most of us know something or have an opinion about.

I answered a Spammer? I'm getting OLD!
Anyways I like the subject.

You are not alone.
Good spamm, good topic.

points and laughs

Cool. So...

It seems unlike most of you folks, I had no history with puters. I remembered one day (2005) I want to die an artist, the future is computers, and here I am. Been trying to figure out/catch up ever since. My real start actually into 'it' was using MS Paint. Wouldn't go past 500 pixels wide cuz I worked down to pixel size at any given moment (my first icon thingy here was the first ever pic I made using pixels). Heck, at the time a gigabyte was a big deal. Now working with animation stuff, I have 5 terabytes.

PS: Thank you very much spacekdet.

What happen? The conversation was goin' good,,, Was it sumtin I said?

Mmmm Spam. Spam n eggs. mmm
My intro to games was the Atari 2600. Loved that!

Been a while since I did any gaming... http://www.thegameconsole.com/coleco-telstar-arcade/"

That thing is still in the attic.

We also had some sort of Timex-Sinclair computer with a membrane keyboard. (Possibly this one)
Upgraded to some thing or other with a real floppy disc drive and a 'Montezuma's Revenge' game ( think Proto-'Pitfall')

We used to play a lot of cards and board games. I don't think kids do that anymore.

I just had a look at Blenders BGE in depth, and it can be capable.. I love playing games, but never have the time and focus to do it. I want to make games once atleast in my lifetime, but... still need to learn. I got hyped by some of the amazing games coming out from the E3 just now, and some of them are works of art.

I'm inspired to keep on getting into realtime graphics and eventually games as storytelling devices. But I think playing some games for some ideas might also be a good idea.