Veganism in gamedesign

Still feels like you haven't properly read my opening post yet...

And I highly recommend watching the talk I linked in post #98 before continuing to participate in such discussions anywhere, that goes for all parties involved.

 

I can't recall many or any occurrences where it was done right. Usually it is very ridiculous, breaks fourth wall and is distracting.

The issue here is that when somebody pushes "real world problems" into game media, they usually have an agenda, and want to convert player to specific viewpoints. This is instantly noticeable and results in cringeworthy storywriting.

I want events to happen because plot called for them, and not because author felt strongly about something and used the game medium to proselytize their viewpoint. I would also want a fictional world to go BEYOND what is available to reality.

Real world problems is something you're aware of at all times and can see beyond your window. So resorting to them can be quite lazy approach.

Also, I would prefer a player to make their own conclusions, without creator acting like a recruiting agent.

 

I agree, but still I think there is room for much better storytelling. I would like to see a game (or a movie for that matter) that depicts a dystopian future that is not simply reduced to an essentially nihilistic battle for survival, but where the protagonist fights for something they believe in that goes beyond basic conceptions of morality (such as 'got to save my friend') and onto something that goes further (such as, got to save my ideals/way of life in a way that doesn't make my ethical framework fall apart).

There are bits and pieces of this sort of thing in games, but usually they all sort of converge into a basic revenge/survival story. I suppose this is something that everyone can relate to - but the idea that games should appeal to everyone at the same time is just a race to the lowest common denominator of human nature. That's not what the purpose of art is - classic works of music and writing are not like that. And it's no wonder that a lot of people consider games to be a worthless expenditure of time, since by and large they are just the same in character as mainstream pop music. That would be allright if there were a not-insignificant number of exceptions.

Agree with all of that. But stories can go far into the world of imagination while still conveying very strong and relevant messages - cartoons and fables are good at that sort of thing. And yes, writing a good story is not so much about the message itself but how it is told. I wouldn't say that the plot structure holds the final say in determining the content of a story, it's just a vehicle for telling it in a way that people enjoy.

I agree with that. I think that the player should have agency to determine what actions to take. But if the game is not to be superficial, the consequences and effects of those actions cannot simply be arbitrary, they must operate according to a concept of the world that the developer holds.

 

@Billy4184 I started writing this before you responded. Anyway, here goes a wall of text:

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I gave it a bit of thought, and it goes like this:

When a game tries to "insert real world issue", I see it as a warning sign which indicates that the game may be trash.

Basically, real world problems are quite banal and often do not offer much food for thought. What's more there's rarely anything new to say on the issue. And, of course it also throws you out of the fictional world.

As a result, inserting "real world" issue into a game is rather pointless (I prefer to have something to think about), and could be an attempt to ride a trend by making a game about a hot topic, or simply proselytizing. "Riding a trend to cash out on hot topic" can be a morally dubious move, because the game is a commercial product, and if a topic is an actual problem you're profiting from it. (Imagine, I don't know, if somebody tried to make a game based on school shooting scenario, and used real location/people from one of the scenarios). Trying to "proselytize" is also morally dubious, because basically you're making people pay to listen to you. It kinda creates mental image of door-to-door preacher knocking on your door to "talk about God", and then sending a surprise bill afterwards for the time they spent talking with you.

It also may indicate poor ability of story writer. Because out of all the tropes and ideas that existed during thousands of years of history of literature, the dude couldn't think of anything better than what is outside of the window.

What CAN work is inserting elements as is, without making a big deal out of them (letting players make their own decision), or using them as satire.

For example, both GTA and Saints Row mock modern world, and they mock everybody. It works. Because they don't take sides, don't try to push moral messages, but still take real world references (well, because they're set in a parody of a real world). Saints row, despite its nature manages to create some touching or even terrifying moments. Which is admirable.

Spoiler

As for "present issue as is" the right approach, in my opinion, is to let the player draw own conclusion.

For example, let's say you have a game set in american South, when slavery was a thing, or, I don't know around Auschwitz. The worst thing you can possibly do in this scenario is trying to preach like "slavery is wrong", or "nazi were evil". This coudl result in, I don't know, a scene where player witnesses slaver auction in USA, with ominous "dark" music playing, and every thing indicating "this is wrong", and also an option for player to play a hero and interfere.

This would be trash.

You know what would work better, in my opinion? If you don't put any obvious messages, play the scene as "everyday occurence", don't let the player interfere and play a hero, and not make a big deal out of the scene at all. This could actually result in bigger impact and player experiencing an equivalent of fridge horror.

Basically... my issue with "real world problems" is that they usually result in games trying to push some incredibly obvious message "A is wrong, B is the right way", and once the message is recognized, the game world falls apart.
Also, it reminds me of one steam review where the player complained that when he(she?) didn't agree with game's premize, the game called him an idiot. That's just poor taste.

THe medium offers opportunity to witness something that you can't normally experience, and to think of topics that didn't become current yet. So, trying to concentrate on real world issues instead kinda devalues the result.

At least that's the way I see it.

 

I'm not really fan of that, and it would require a very unusual cause or moral code to get me interested. With standard "good vs evil" morality, it has a chance of devolving into "goody two shoes" protagonist.

This kind of approach would require a very skilled writer to pull it off and some unusual moral code.

 

@neginfinity well I think there are a few things that could be done to help make games more meaningful without being proselytizing or propaganderish.

For one thing, I think that there is almost always no reason to use specific real-world events in games, especially recent ones. Good art only needs to be self-consistent and have conceptual integrity to be useful. Focusing on a specific and controversial event seems like a bad way to frame a story or a game since not only are the negative aspects of it are just too personal for those involved, but also it's too polarised to be a good starting point for any exploration of ideas. But that doesn't mean you cannot create an analogy that's quite sophisticated.

Also I think that art that has no message should be judged quite harshly when it deals with something controversial. For example there seems to me absolutely no reason why a game should put a player in the shoes of a school shooter, since there is nothing useful to be gained by anyone from experiencing the acting out of those behaviours. But what about an unarmed student trying to escape? What about being the teacher (armed or otherwise) who has to shepherd students to safety? That starts to get into the territory of something that might, in certain circumstances, be worth considering and perhaps experiencing in a game context. It would be highly controversial, but perhaps also meaningful.

Essentially though, I think games would do best when they take a real-world issue, abstract it, dramatise it, and explore the integrity of a particular point of view on the issue (or a small part of it) through the actions of the player and the consequences.

 

Alright.

Few things to ponder:

What is the message of Dark Souls? Shadowrun: Dragonfall? Planescape: Torment? How about Super Marior Brothers for NES?

I think it is quite unfair to try to reduce the medium to just one message.

 

Never played any of them

But note I'm definitely NOT saying all (or even most) games need to be anything other than simple entertainment, of course not. I'm simply talking about the best way I can think of for a game to tackle a controversial issue in a meaningful way, without simply being 'politically correct'. And I think the best way to do that is to construct a logical and truthful conceptual mechanism of the issue that the player can explore through actions and resulting consequences (rather than simply railroading them into a series of self-indulgent events).

 

It's "Get back on your feet and keep trying, no matter how often you fail!". Dark Souls is a game that wants you to succeed and conveys its message via gameplay. There are quite a few people on youtube talking about how it helped them through dark times. E.g.:

 

While dark souls gameplay can indeed make player arrive at this conclusion, I'm not sure if that's the actual message.

For example, how many endings have you seen? In first one or in the third one.

Is there even a message?

 

Dark Souls lore is way too obscure for me, so I have nothing to offer besides arguing semantics on whether or not "successfully conveying a message" is the same as "making players arrive at a conclusion". If the makers of the games wanted me to take home something different than this universal and positive message from playing Dark Souls, then after having played 2 1/2 of the games in the series I still didn't "get it" and they failed.

 

Dark Souls is about persistence and futility. All of the endings I remember played on Hindu concepts of death and rebirth and breaking the continual cycle of death and rebirth. Same with Bloodborne. Almost every ending had three choices -- continue the cycle, remove yourself from the cycle, and the secret (usually the hardest to get) ending is destroying the cycle altogether. So the games have a western aesthetic but the underlying philosophy is eastern.


Games don't need to avoid trying to deliver a message -- they need to avoid delivering their message unskillfully or delivering a stupid message. For this to happen, humility has to be there first. The writer/director needs to recognize whether or not they have any skill/talent in making arguments, telling stories, being a leader, etc. If they know that they regularly get in drawn-out, fruitless arguments at dinner parties and have never effected positive change in any person or any kind of organization, they probably shouldn't make their game their newest pulpit. When you deliver a game to people, you are becoming a leader. You are guiding people on some kind of journey. So it's best to stick to what you know, and not delve into what you think you know, and of course understand the line between what you know and what you think you know. You know?

 

About "outrage" culture... take your own advice (whoever is griping about it) and relax. It's just a phase. Every society has phases. If you are above it all, quietly go your own way. No use crying at the crybabies.

Specifically, I think it is a demographic phase. Like a fad. The more population density increases, the weirder people start behaving. It's normal, because our brains are still hardwired from the 200k+ years of living in very small tribes to expect a certain amount of personal attention and value placed on our being. But in a big city, you're just another face and why should anybody give a damn about you? So you dye your hair pink or some other eye catchy thing and you try to develop opinions about things to get attention brought on yourself. You can't help it. You're an animal, no different than the "dumb" ones we devour.

If overuse of superlatives and excessive bawling just drives you insane and you have to be part of a solution to the ill's of society, take matters into your own hands. Stop making babies. Stop encouraging others to make babies. When you see a baby, give whoever made it a really intense stink eye. Scoff at the baby. Keep it up for a few thousand years, and maybe we'll get back to a reasonable amount of people and then everybody can feel important and stop acting out.

 

"This too shall pass", but "The weird behavior stems from population density!".

Conclusion: The phase will pass when either nature or humanity will find a way to decimate populace, decreasing density.

 

Right.

So start scoffing at babies.

 

Can we start putting breaks in our paragraphs and use not run-on sentences ladies and gents? I find these posts difficult to sort through (read)...

 

So who is it then in your example? The writers of Batman: The Animated Series are the "SJW's" in this situation? Or is it some other group who you think wrote to the writers of Batman? And I did write a completely "emotionless" and "trying hard not to trick you" post right after that one, but it seems like you ignored it completely.

Like I said, "SJW" is an insult, not an actual group. It's like if I said I'm not actually talking to you right now, just to all assholes in general, and it's not my fault if you consider yourself an asshole. I do agree with the Batman writers that a Batman children's cartoon should not have nudity in it, so, given that seems your main attribute for an SJW in your example, sounds like you'd lump me in with them.

 

I played that game and thought it was kind of boring because the flying around on the dragon burning stuff was kind of tedious... what exactly did the "SJW's" have to do with this game? I don't remember seeing any "real world problems" in there... if I recall, the main characters were a skeleton, a talking lizard, an elf, and a dragon wearing a jetpack?

 

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-to-stay-sane-in-era-non-stop-outrage/

 

I don't remember the name of the place, but somewhere in the middle east there is the remains of what is the oldest known instance of humans living in a "civilized" manner. Meaning they built dwellings and lived in this one place -- not nomadic hunter/gathering.

These primitive dwellings were made of mud/dry grass and had a single hole on the top which was the entrance/exit and also the only way for smoke to escape. They burned open fires inside to stay warm, and all of the skeletons present show signs of extensive lung disease. The idiots were just sitting inside of smoke filled rooms and literally killed themselves from it. In that same book it talked about cultures who chose to live in swamps and had to travel ten miles or more daily to gather food. Reason they chose to live in swamps? Religion. Some moron came up with a bright idea and everybody followed.

Reason I call them idiots is because every animal I have ever seen has the sense to get out of smoke. But our ancestors didn't. Well, I'm sure most of them did but some psychopath know-it-all said otherwise and so everybody ignored their good instincts and just sat there and poisoned themselves.

What's the point? Makes me think of how much time people spend sitting around looking at news articles that outrage them, raising their blood pressure, keeping them on edge constantly. Get out of the smoke you idiots!

 

I've got mixed feelings, as does almost everyone, even the author of that article as you get to the end. On the one hand, yes, it is important to realize outrage sells and take a break from the internet and not give yourself a heart attack. On the flip side, it's important to not try to puff out your chest as "the least offended guy in the room" and brag about how little you care about anyone else, because that's how we got actual literal Nazis marching in the street with actual literal torches, somehow convinced that they were really there just to advocate being super chill and not caring about anything.

 

Yes, that is why when people come to a discussion like this and make casual, dismissive remarks that read only as tired reiterations of the same old crap Russian trolls spread on cesspools like 4chan or whatever those dens of evil are called, we call them out in a constructive way rather than ignoring or falling into the same attitude they have -- outrage, cynicism, righteousness, etc.

 

On the one hand, I agree, on the other hand, what you just said will certainly sound outraged, cynical, righteous and non-constructive to everyone who thinks 4chan are the good guys.

 

Yes, but for those who've read enough of my previous post, they'll know I speak for myself and am not a parrot of "the left."

You can't help everybody. Most of human history is stories of mass deaths due to idiocy. You do as much as you can, but before things get too bad, you get away. I learned this from my dog. He's a master of escaping situations he doesn't want to be a part of. A true survivor.

 

Alright, I think to evade a threadlock it's time to guide the discussion back to gamedev:

There is/was a chat program that experimented with semi-anonymous AI-moderated discussions. Iirc everyone got assigned animal names as nicknames, people made no assumptions about who they talked to, and when content or frequency of messages indicated "escalation", I think the AI-moderator just removed people from the discussion. I can neither remember details, nor the name of the thing. Does this ring a bell for anyone?

Do you think this kind of tech is the doorway to a dystopian world of parallel echochambers, or have they figured out something that could be used to curb toxicity in games like LOL, DOTA, CS:GO, COD, etc.?

 

Will they know you speak for yourself? That's putting an awful lot of faith in a species that you fault with widespread incurable idiocy. I've never met anyone who actually describes THEMSELVES as "a parrot of the left", not even among literal parrots, and I know several ornithologists and pirate enthusiasts. But I've certainly seen tons of people written off as parrots of the left for expressing any opinion that someone on the right might not agree with.

 

I just do my best.

 

its not political correctness or the lack there of that seems to be destroying AAA industries right now, or at least, my view of the crap they produce, its a general laziness with the developers on the publishers who do annoying little things like day 1 paid for downloadable content, purposely leaving out features to make you pay more for them later, and randomly generated "missions" that all end up being go to location X, kill everything that spawns and returns (yeah, im looking at you skyrim and fallout).. most games as of late have simply become S*** with or without politics

 

I always like when someone calls the best-selling games sh*t. Yeah, I know, they are bad games, because you don't like them, but others somehow can't see your point.

Not to mention, Skyrim is 7 years old! It's not 'lately'.

 

Best selling is more often than not a synonym for best marketed. Neither say anything about the quality of a work.

It's a quote from Tolkien normally used to shut down "the ring is the A-bomb" or "everyone is gay" theories, but I think it works just as well here. If you can make a setting that draws noticeable parallels to modern day issues, then chances are there are poor in-universe answers. This is typically quite different than trying to make a world out of an issue.

Like most things I seem to be understanding about game design, working from solutions and answers lead to terrible ideas that most people simply do not agree with. Working from conflicts and problems leads to far better results, even ones that the designers wouldn't want to accept.

 

That is silly. To put it mildly. You're seriously think that they would be able to sell that many copies if people actually hate the game, because it is sh*t, but they're marketing it?
Really?

They would allow to skin it multiple times (Special Edition, VR, etc), people would buy it over and over despite the fact that it is 7 years old?

I think you have some problems with the reality. Quality of a game means people like it. Quality of a game means people find it fun.
Given the fact that Skyrim is still played by masses after 7 years and people still develop mods for it. People buy VR sets for this game. People still make conversation about its game play.

And this all despite the fact that it is a story-heavy game.

(disclaimer: I'm not saying that it is a perfect game, because it's not, I'm saying, it's not sh*t, because people - me too - find it fun and find hundreds of hours of entertainment in it)

 

It depends entirely on who the audience for your game is and as it so happens this is something I have been deeply thinking about it also partly depends on your genre. Let's face it, the reality is the majority of gamers are not 'vegans' not only that there are unavoidable aspects of life especially in survival games and so on where yes, you would have no choice but to go fishing immediately in order to get a supply of food. Hell, even Minecraft does this, right at the beginning you're going to have to either fish or hunt in order to survive, you can technically go ahead and get apples from a tree but that barely gives you enough to fill up your food bar unless you gather up a lot.

Sometimes it can work a bit, the Sims for example lets your character be a vegetarian but that's because it's the sims as others have said though if you mirror real life too closely the game is going to suck so even the sims has it's own little quirks about that and makes sure to make the game fun.

What your describing is something that has been infesting the games industry lately and that is how games developers try to use their games to propagandise and use their games as an extension of their own ideologies. Now in general principle I actually don't have much against this as long as they're honest about it, but when it starts leaking into every genre and the games developer is pandering to their ideology in every single game they make then it just gets tedious and annoying.

I've deliberately avoided this topic on this forum because I like using it and I'm not keen on getting banned as it's so easily done depending on where you talk about this stuff, people don't like being told the blunt truth. I know the OP is being honest about their intentions but there are other developers who aren't, Subnautica for example apparently fired a developer simply for refusing to abide by what is often termed feminist or 'Social Justice Warrior' politics.

He made a poll where he asked people would they prefer people focused on making a female character or working on the core game? Naturally people voted for the core game to be worked on but this and other statements were categorised as 'hateful' by the developers and he was fired.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...-developer-fired-over-many-hateful-statements

Now again, I want to stress, I know that's not what the OP is intending, but this is the kind of slippery slope you go down when it comes to ideological pandering and it's something that all games developers here need to be very wary of if they plan on entering this industry seriously and the professionals need to watch out for it too.

All I can say is generally, it's not a good idea, if your target audience is that small and doesn't even play games then you're just going to end up alienating other players who might have tried your game if you weren't doing weird things with the gameplay and player choices. I've seen this attitude from games developers far too many times where they think they know better like for instance back in the day the Star Wars Galaxy developers thought they could capitalise on the World of Warcraft frenzy when they already had a loyal playerbase and were trying to pander to a group that just weren't interested in their idea.

Vegans don't play games, they go to Starbucks and write left wing blogs about how horrible Capitalism and men are. No offence meant to any vegans who are actually decent people of course but that's the impression most people have of them.

 

IT goes like this.

You make the most amazing sandwich in existence, and tell about it to one person. How many sales do you get? One.

Then you make junk food that only one person in 1000 finds enjoyable. You tell about it to 1 billion people.
How many sales can you get?
One million.

It isn't different from the way scammers/spammers work: if you tell huge number of people about your product, a small percentage can fall for it. And the idea is to make sure the small percentage corresponds to a large number.

 

People who "hate" the game are irrelevant. The only number that matters is the number of people who like it.

And yes, it's entirely possible that the product people are aware of is not the superior or best value offering in it's field.

That said, I certainly agree with you that I wouldn't call a popular and long-lived game "bad" just because it doesn't fit with my own tastes or preferences, or even just because it's success came from effective marketing. Obviously it's good enough to satisfy a lot of people, even if something better also happens to exist.

 

Irrespective of the rest of your post, I just want to point out that this is laughable nonsense. Making these kinds of sweeping generalizations is like flipping off your brain. Either you haven't been out in the real world much yet, or you're deliberately ignoring the kind of diversity of thought within people of a same ideological bent that exists in reality.

Think, man. Don't just make up stuff.

 

The sad thing is though it just isn't a generalisation, I of course like to make room for exceptions, because there always are but it's like how feminists who whine about video games are almost exclusively middle/upper class spoiled rich kids who don't actually play them.

I have yet seen a single one of these people who have confounded my expectations, the trend is undeniable.

 

People don't get fired for not conforming to "SJW" philosophies. They get fired for subverting their company in petty attempts to make anti-SJW points.

Employee could have expressed their concerns internally if they were so bothered by company direction, but you don't do childish nonsense like this that makes the company look unprofessional.

This statement only demonstrates your lack of experience or observation, or both. You opened up your entrance into this thread with a statement of caution and why you usually avoid such conversations. That's probably a good idea, because the only way to keep conversations like this from descending into mindless arguments is to avoid careless vocabulary -- like confounding anecdotal experience with trends.

If you want to talk about trends, first learn how to science.

 

You keep accusing me of making sweeping generalisations but ironically all you've done to counter my arguments is make assertions you've no proof of yourself. Also, having an opinion on something is not 'subverting a company' as far as I'm concerned the guy who got fired from Subnautica was voicing his opinion. If any company actually thinks that a games developer doing that on their own personal twitter account is really going to affect their company that badly then they deserve to go out of business.

I suppose I should be grateful though, the more the games industry decides to pander to this type of thing the easier it will be for me to make money as a competitor but it's depressing if I want to play games that are actually good.

 

--> Which means you didn't create sh*t. You created food, which has a narrow market due to general taste. Nothing is wrong with it.
If you created food and after buying it, every (or almost every) people bring it back and smash it into your face, you know, you created sh*t.

Apparently I'm the only one, who thinks that 'sh*t' means very bad game without the fun part, what cannot be enjoyed by the players.

---
It is very dangerous as game developer to think about games like this. You won't make 'superior' or 'best value in its field' games. If it is your aim, you're misfiring. Big time. You should concentrate on the fun. If people enjoy your game, if people find it fun, then you succeed. If not, you created sh*t. And this is true across the board no matter if you're an AAA studio or a One Man Army.

 

Right. So one day when you are the big boss return here and see if you still agree with your old self about... well, anything.

 

So Transformers and Twilight are pinnacles of cinema? Look, give up on the autistic quest to find some objective metric for quality. It doesn't exist.

Let's take Avatar. These days no one talks about the movie itself, but instead they talk about the hype that was around it. The movie was nothing but spectacle, and the marketing escalated it into an event that you had to see in imax to do it justice. The same sort of push was done with Titanic, and I doubt anyone has watched it in a decade. Marketing turned these two into the Hollywood equivalent of watching the sun be engulfed by the moon. What then does that tell you about the quality of a solar? People wouldn't go out to watch a S***ty solar eclipse, would they? FYI, it was cloudy and I did. 2/10

 

As usual, no actual response, noticed you didn't even bother touching on my other post which shows how sincere you are about having a real argument.

 

It wasn't me, who was trying to find objective metric for quality. It was @burntbyhellfire who categorically said that these games are simply sh*t.
But the objective quality-meter for us, for creators is given: if your audience enjoys your work, you did good, if not, you have failed. It's simple. This is what I'm saying.
And it's nothing to do with my personal taste, personally I don't like Transformers, nor Twilight, especially not Harry Potters or the Avatar. I find them too much recycling old tropes. But, these aren't S***. These were made for a specific audience, and they liked it. So there is nothing wrong with them. They aren't "sh*t". Especially not from the creators point of view. And we are creators here.


Oh and about marketing. You guys are talking about marketing as some magic wand, which can sell you sh*t, and you will be happy to consume it.
This is simply not true. If you don't like something, there is no marketing in the universe as of today which can sell you that stuff.
Marketing, especially the mass marketing is to find those people who is interested and try to make the stuff you're selling shine to them.
We talked about this above: with strong marketing, you can sell a million sandwich on a billion people market, even if it isn't tasteful for most people.
But that million people is the target of the marketing. To find them and sell them the sandwich they like. No more no less.

 

There comes a time every day when I have to quit procrastinating and do my work. I don't have anything to tell you that you can't learn for yourself from some traveling and exposure. You'll do yourself a big favor by learning what the scientific method is and how to use it.

 

It absolutely is a generalization. I was just talking last week to someone who just hired me about politics. He mentioned that he's socially liberal but a fiscal conservative, and that in his job he deals with a great deal of military folks, folks who are hardline conservatives--but then new science-type hires from academia come in with progressive ideals, and they all have to work together. And they do it.

In the real world it's not this type of person hidden in a corner, and that type of person over in another corner, and they never deal with each other. In the real world people's ideals can be pretty divorced from things they actually work on or entertain themselves with.

Just head over to resetera if you want to see lots of people who are very liberal but also enjoy games a bunch, with a fair amount playing Japanese games with very anti-liberal values (example, Persona 5 is regularly called homophobic there but also regularly praised).

So no, someone being a vegan doesn't mean they hate capitalism or men. It means they don't eat meat (or any animal based products for vegans specifically I think). There's no way to know what they think about these other things.

 

Yepp, I think you touched the important piece here. People having views or having some characteristics have nothing to do with the kind of things they enjoy. (This is why it is wrong to pressure companies to put everything and everyone in one game all the time)
I am a liberal-democrat, mostly pacifist (although realist, I know wars and conflicts happen and always will), but at the same time I'm a CoD (pre-modern warfare) veteran. Is CoD anything to do with my pacifism? Not at all I enjoyed to kill pixel-soldiers on the screen (preferably with one head-shot with the Kar98 ). And I think everybody just like that. Some people more separate from their real life views when it comes to entertainment, some people less, but I think we never will know their personal taste in terms of entertainment knowing their real life values.
We know the statistics, but not the person.

 

The most hilarious part of your nonsense is that you linked an article that you didn't even read, and then made up a bunch of stuff WITH THE LINK STILL RIGHT THERE. People don't even need to use Google to see you're just making random stuff up for your "blunt truth telling", they just need to click the link you posted. To give you credit, it seems like half the people who replied to you didn't click the link either, but I clicked it, and you got almost every possible fact wrong that it was possible to get wrong in that story.

 

Most people have no idea what makes something good or bad. Most people only judge something as bad if it's outright broken, incomprehensible, or triggering to them. They only know what's good if they've stayed on the roller coaster the whole time. They have no idea what constitutes good directing, or design, or writing, or editing, or ... any of it. They only watch things because people seem to be talking about it because they keep seeing things about it.

If people couldn't be peddled S***, there would never have been snake oil salesmen. There wouldn't be an almost regular release of a brand new "cure" for balding every two to three years, going back centuries. There wouldn't be unending chains of TV commercials for drugs that disclaim how they can kill you, make you want to kill yourself, or make you want to kill others.

 

So since you're apparently the only one who knows, what game IS good? Apparently all the best-selling and award-winning ones are all S***, so, since you know and we don't, what's an example of a good game?

 

You're wrong again.

Snake oil, or any of the scammer products, aren't about the product. It's about selling hope. People are trying to buy hope, wealth, health, anything. It isn't about the product being sh*t or not.
The only reason we view these 'products' sh*t because they don't give people the effect they're looking for.

You know, there is this saying in my native language: "Everyone is stupid, only you're (imagine yourself) a helicopter".
So you think people are stupid, but not you. You know how it works, you know what's good and what's not. People don't.
They're brainless bots, they buy anything you throw at them.

I guess you're already a billionaire, since you know what people want and you can serve them good. Please, teach us, I'm really curious, what consists 'good' and 'not sh*t' in your opinion and why?
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This is just elitist BS. Again, when it comes to entertainment, only one thing is important: entertain your audience. If you achieve that, you did good, if not, you failed.
Everything else, including directing, design, writing and editing are secondary.
Unless you think that in entertainment the 'artistic' features are more important than the entertainment itself.