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Is Realism Destroying Video Games?
zdburke writes "An interesting article at the NYTimes looks at two poles in video game development: the quest for the real (think flight simulators and things like a boxing game's "facial damage engine") vs. the quest for the unreal, "elaborate world with its own regulations and peculiarities". The included PlayStation screenshot of Britney Spears may alone tip the balance in favor of the fantasy folks. It also mentions that RIT has a master's program in video game development."
... to britney's face?
Life sucks.
l/p: nologin/nologin
Let's take a flight simulator for example. I play Flight Simulator 2000 as an escape from writing drivers all day and dealing with life. (I love to travel, so pretending to be on a cross-country trip really appeals to me.)
Anyway, I appreciate the realism of all of the necessary movements, adjustments, and number of steps involved to get the hulking 777 off the ground, and that's one of the game's strong points--the flight dynamics and actions required to achieve flight are incredibly accurate. However, I don't have the four or five real-time hours every night to devote to flying LGA-LAX. That's where the non-realism, the fantasy if you will, comes into play. With FS2000, I can set the simulation speed to 8x real-time, so my flight takes less than an hour. When I approach the airport, I turn the time back to normal. That way, I have got the best of both worlds--the realism of getting to taxi, takeoff and land a 777, and the fantasy that is being able to travel cross-country between getting home from work and making dinner, and that's what I think makes a most compelling argument for the enjoyment. In other words, getting a good mix of both, I think, is critical to the success of any game.
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
Technology allows you to create more _convincing_ worlds, not more _realistic_ worlds (though the certainly can do that if they want to). The goal isn't to design a system that can do a perfect simulation of our reality, the goal is to design a system that doesn't have "cracks at the seams" - little oddities that don't work the way they ought to and thus make the world less internally consistent.
vs.
Real Life
(links from NTK )
Because I know it's the only part of the article most people will care about...
They ARENT real, they clearly as fake, they are more fun ... because they are innovative and imaginative, with very good play mechanics.
Exactly! Video games are don't have to be realistic to be fun. How realistic is Tetris?
Normal games aren't realistic either. Would a complicated set of zoning rules and a system for tracking changing property values make Monopoly more fun? I don't think so.
Realism is fine for simulations and can make games more immersive, but gameplay is what counts. If realism gets in the way of gameplay, drop it.
t'nera semordnilap
The NYTimes article completely misses the point. Realism in games isn't supposed to mimic the CONTENT of the real world, but the PHYSICS of the real world. When you race around a corner at 100 miles an hour you feel a pull, it's not where in the world the corner is or if the corner exists, it's the accurate mimicry of the PULL. Realism takes place even if it's a 1st century BC game or if its a 31st century AD game. If it LOOKS real, then its realism, doesn't matter if there is technology in the CONTENT of the game. Also, with the nostalgia, it's not 'man that game was awesome', (even if it was a great game) its more of a "good ole days" sentiment. Granted the video game market is stagnating, but that doesn't mean the games are worse, there are simply more of them and that means more crappy games. This article completely misfires on what "realism" in games is.
Praseodymn
Sometimes, you can, you go to hell for the rest of your life! That's a true thing.
The spirit of violation is built into the video game; so is a demand for submission.
That should have been the caption for the Britney Spears screencap.
Come on... be honest!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
He's also very into creating virtual terrains and raytraced scenes using Macromedia Director - talented fellow, both artistically and in the programming sense.
Was that out loud?
Why? Is her severed head on a stick?
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Just saw this story on CNN that talks about the program...
Recently, the latest Day of Defeat version came out, and I took a look at it - even considered running a server for it. Everyone was raving about how realistic it was and how much more fun than CS it was. So I played it for a while, and found that indeed, it was realistic. Storming the beach, for example; spawn, walk two feet, headshot from sniper rifle, dead, spawn, walk two feet, headshot from sniper rifle, dead, etc..
Highly realistic, I'm sure. My history isn't as strong as it probably should be, but if you believe the beginning of Saving Private Ryan to be fairly indicative of events, it's reasonable to assume that the allies were cut down in their thousands before moving more than a few feet.
Is it fun to play? Er, let's see.. NO. Realism in a game is all well and good, but if it's done at the expense of the playability, what's the point? I play games to escape. To unwind after a hard days work. The last thing I want is to be frustrated that the game is too realistic. I'm sure there are DoD players out there who will tell me I'm a n00b who doesn't know how to play the game properly. Maybe so, but I'm not going to make the effort to improve at a game that appears to make no effort to be fun to play.
Having said that, I'm sure there are circumstances where realism is a good thing, but then it comes down to what sort of product you're dealing with: Is it a game? Or is it a simulator? There's a distinct difference there, and my expectations go right along with how the product is projected.
> I've yet to see an RPG in which characters need
... uh ... still working on the bowel module
> to, er, use the facilities, which would be even
> worse ('tho realistic!).
Well, while not an RPG, in Black & White, my ape has been crapping all over Eden.
There was some real bathroom fetishist working on that game. I can imagine:
Programmer #1: Okay, we need to finish the AI routine for the opposing deity
Programmer #2: Hang on-- I'm
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
The original Half-Life death match rocked.
A lot.
(still does for that matter)
Fractional of a second response times, dodging rockets, long jumping, flying off that cliff, launching a contact grenade at the exit that your opponet was trying to follow you out of. Doing a 180 turn in mid air and lining up an SOB in your sights and pulling the trigger before he even realizes what is happening to him, landing on the way down right outside the ledge of a doorway (what you thought I was going to fall down to the bottom of the cliff and die?) blasting two contact grenades in either direction down the hallway and running in there as you watch your kill count rise up.
Yanking out your shotgun and side stepping into the hallway to the main battle room, long jumping into the middle of the fray, *BAM**BAM**BAM* sweeping the room clear of all opponets, quickly leaping between bodies to gather your booty, fragging a late comer to the fray who realizes right before he dies that he shouldn't have taken that last left turn.
Remembering to breath.
Realizing you just got 7 frags in the last past 9 seconds.
Kick. Ass.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
I spend most of my gaming time playing classic games that are by no means realistic. But they are FUN . Those old Atari arcade games are a blast, and platformers like Sonic, etc. really rock my world. If I want realism, I'll go outside and look up at the marvelously rendered clouds in the sky. I play my games to have fun, period.
Mozilla's a nice operating system, but it needs a better browser.
They ARENT real, they [are] clearly as fake, they are more fun...
Are we still talking about Britney? If so, I agree, completely.
Half-assed realism where a strong effort was made to achieve realism only to be dumbed-down for mass-appeal is extremly repugnant and annoys the hell out of me. When you have something that strives to be true to life, only to be peppered with a number of regulation "goofy" or cartoon-ish elements you destroy the value of even caring about realism and working to acheive it.
You end up with a game that is neither likely to please the realism freaks or those who are looking for a little lighthearted fun.
Sure, it might sell, and to many people that is all that matters, but to others, it is just a waste of time.
Furthermore, I don't see any problem with realism itself. People often tell me, if you want realism, go outside. But that completely defeats the purpose of fantasy. Which is not always to introduce radically new worlds and situations - in essence an entire universe's worth of new rules - but to offer the chance for the player to entertain some of their personal fantasies, whatever they might be. A lot of people I've talked to seem convinced that if you aren't offering a Dungeons and Dragons or Toliken-type world then you are just wasting your time.
I'm sorry, but most of my fantasies don't involve Orcs, Hobbits or Elves but being able to take a different path in life, one that I can see in front of me every day, but would never get to experience. That is my kind of fantasy. And it is not intended as a replacement for real life, but to offer a window on life that someone would not otherwise have.
And I would like those precious glimpses onto alternate paths to be true to life as possible. To give me a feeling of what it would be like to follow them without actually having to.
I don't consider it mindless escapism, though there is certainly a strong element of escapism in every game imaginable, but rather the ability to become more well-rounded as a person, to experience life in new, and different ways that are far different from what I ever could. And give me a perspective on the world I would not have otherwise had.
Realism gives us the chance to be anyone, to go anywhere and to step into anyone's shoes. It's not about replacing your day to day life, but about giving you the chance to see how someone else's is. Those who oppose it most likely don't understand this very important fact, or perhaps have different tastes or, perhaps are just unwilling to attempt to go to the trouble to implement it in their works, and perhaps fear the day where it would be expected of them.
For it is far easier to write your own rules, and to create your own bounderies than to take your concept, your dreams and to mold them into the realities of our world.
Agreed. Sometimes this:can be just as terrifying as seeing a picture of a beautifully-rendered 3d monster.
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
Yes, I'll take the karma hit for a post that is off-topic from the original subject; I think there is a valid point to be made about where dark humor may not be completely appropriate, and I believe it strongly enough to not post as an AC as I first intended.
The majority of international opinion asserts that Israel's current actions seem to be reaching across the line from defense into some degree of unjust persecution, and without saying that the following comparison itself is accurate, a significant and growing minority of observers have compared the most recent Israeli actions to Nazi treatment of German Jews in the immediate pre-war period, with organized military killing of civilians in their homes (other than the organizations specifically responsible for the the suicide bombings, ie. who provide the explosives). A joke based on the bodies shown massacred in early WW2, 60 years ago, made while the events were taking place, would be considered today to have been in very bad taste -- and, more to the point of this discussion, decidely unfunny -- by anyone who has the advantage of knowing that it was, in fact, as bad as the worst rumors suggested. I do appreciate dark humor in many situations, but this is not one in which I believe the attempted joke helps anyone to cope, except for people who do have enough doubt about the justice here to be bothered by their conscience, and would prefer to laugh it off. US citizens support Israel's military through massive aid derived from their income tax; it's appropriate to have real concern when you're partially responsible for something as open to doubt as the actions going on now.
Compared to most people I know, I don't "pretend" to know which versions of events being reported are accurate--I certainly think there is potentially as much reason supporting Israel's actions as condemning them--but I do care enough to not make jokes like this at the expense of people being killed in what may turn out to be war crimes, as some have alleged, or about any terrorism (I haven't heard a single WTC joke yet). I would certainly not feel comfortable joking about the technically superb carnage in a scene of the hotel suicide bombing from late last month.
I think the joke was simply rash, not intentionally offensive (although I felt extremely uncomfortable about the 'joke' after reading the photo's caption--in fact it's the first time I've felt actually sickened by anything to do with the events going on in the mideast); I was satisfied with the "-1 Decidedly Unfunny" pseudo-mod someone left, but as long as others are going to post that such humor is always appropriate and can't be criticized, I must explain why I disagree. I understand some people honestly don't care; I respect their right to speech, but hope that some consideration is given to using that right thoughtfully. When I was younger, I had a friend who would have fun re-enacting the misfiring pistol execution scene from Schindler's List; I thought he was funny as hell and didn't understand why other people, who didn't have any personal involvement with those events, could be so upset by his joking. I do now; it's part of growing up to realize that your tacit acceptance of situations like this can often play a huge role in their perpetuation.