On Wed, 10 Apr 2013 16:35:56 -0400
Jeff Nowakowski <jeff@dilacero.org> wrote:

> On 04/10/2013 01:14 PM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> >
> > Well yea, Quantic Dream goes WAAAAAY off into the "interactive movie" realm.
> 
> Because that's what the game is. There's nothing wrong with it if you like it, and many people do.
> 

Look, don't twist my words around.

I didn't say there was anything wrong about Quantic Dream doing that. Heck, I didn't make any complaint about Quantic Dream at all. Yea, *I* don't like the directions they've been going, and I do think the industry as a whole focuses too much on story/etc, but I never said anything that amounts to "It's wrong that Quantic Dream does it", and that's because I *don't* feel that way about it.

> > Keep in mind, I'm using "interactive movie" largely for lack of a better term. "Videogame" definitely isn't the right word for them.
> 
> They're games,

For many (admittedly, not all) of them, I really don't believe "games"
is an accurate term (Don't misinterpret that into a statement of "Only
true 'games' are legitimate" because I never said such a thing.)
They have interactive sections, and they are entertainment, but being
interactive entertainment does not inherently imply "game".

Keep in mind, even sandbox titles, which are definitely not remotely "interactive movie" or cinematic at all (at least any of the ones I've seen), have long been debated as to whether or not they are "games". And note that nobody ever said that was a bad thing. It might be a bad thing if the industry focused too heavily on them, but that would be a completely different complaint.

> and they use the video medium. Video games. The rest
> of your post is mostly just a rant about what you personally like in
> video games/"interactive movies". You are of course entitled to an
> opinion, but the grumpy old man ranting gets old.

I do keep venturing into side-topics (so I like to critique media, so what?), but I get the impression that you're consistently trying to twist my main points around into some nastyness that I'm not actually saying, and make me out to be some "hates everything" grouch when I've very clearly *praised* certain things too, even certain "interactive movies" (for lack of a better term) right here in this very sub-thread.

And really, is it so damn horrible to have and voice a negative opinion
on something? Let's all pretend everything in the world is
objectively wonderful, because only optimism and complements should
ever be tolerated!

Sheesh.

On 04/10/2013 04:44 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>
> FWIW there's this Neal Stephenson novel "Diamond Age" taking place in
> the future. That book's vision is that all modern movies are "ractive"
> (short from "interactive") using networked real players and a loose
> script, whereas old movies are "passive"s and only watched by a few
> older people.

Personally I don't think passive movies will ever go away. Many times you just want to relax and view the story instead of being part of it. People have been pitching "interactive TV" for a very long time, but passive TV still dominates.

On Wed, 10 Apr 2013 17:33:51 -0400
Jeff Nowakowski <jeff@dilacero.org> wrote:

> On 04/10/2013 04:44 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> >
> > FWIW there's this Neal Stephenson novel "Diamond Age" taking place in the future. That book's vision is that all modern movies are "ractive" (short from "interactive") using networked real players and a loose script, whereas old movies are "passive"s and only watched by a few older people.
> 
> Personally I don't think passive movies will ever go away. Many times you just want to relax and view the story instead of being part of it. People have been pitching "interactive TV" for a very long time, but passive TV still dominates.

I'd tend to agree. I've always been huge on videogames (for
whatever definition of "videogame" ;) ), but after all the mental work
of code all day even I'm usually more inclined to just veg out with
something passive. Just don't want to have to "do" any more.

'Course, this suggests it may depend on occupation. A day of route manual labor, or anything tedious I'd probably be itching to do something involving thought (but maybe that's just me).

I have noticed that programming and videogames both scratch the same mental itch, at least for me. If I've been doing a lot of one, I'm less motivated to do the other.

On Wednesday, 10 April 2013 at 21:33:52 UTC, Jeff Nowakowski wrote:
> On 04/10/2013 04:44 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>
>> FWIW there's this Neal Stephenson novel "Diamond Age" taking place in
>> the future. That book's vision is that all modern movies are "ractive"
>> (short from "interactive") using networked real players and a loose
>> script, whereas old movies are "passive"s and only watched by a few
>> older people.
>
> Personally I don't think passive movies will ever go away. Many times you just want to relax and view the story instead of being part of it. People have been pitching "interactive TV" for a very long time, but passive TV still dominates.

I agree, 9 x out of 10 I watch a movie precisely because I want to shut my brain down and relax, interacting with a game may be entertaining at times but it is sometimes just too much work when you're very tired. Also we're talking about a specific genre of entertainment that not everyone will enjoy no matter how much effort is put into it or what your age may be.

--rt

On Wednesday, 10 April 2013 at 22:02:09 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>
> I have noticed that programming and videogames both scratch the same
> mental itch, at least for me. If I've been doing a lot of one, I'm less
> motivated to do the other.

I recently reached that exact same conclusion too, but in my case I don't think they both satisfy the exact same "itch". For example I tend to enjoy FPS games like counter-strike, and even when I'm tired from programming all day, if I drink a beer or two and I could play for a few hours no problem. I'll however tend to avoid RTS games even though I enjoy them after programming all day.

Passive movies are great for a complete shut down, almost like going to sleep, which I sometimes do when watching them.

--rt

On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 06:02:05PM -0400, Nick Sabalausky wrote: [...]
> I'd tend to agree. I've always been huge on videogames (for whatever definition of "videogame" ;) ), but after all the mental work of code all day even I'm usually more inclined to just veg out with something passive. Just don't want to have to "do" any more.
> 
> 'Course, this suggests it may depend on occupation. A day of route manual labor, or anything tedious I'd probably be itching to do something involving thought (but maybe that's just me).
> 
> I have noticed that programming and videogames both scratch the same mental itch, at least for me. If I've been doing a lot of one, I'm less motivated to do the other.

I wonder if this is why I enjoy retro games more -- they require less concentration and lots of fun can be had for not too much effort. I find that a lot of modern games seem to require a lot of concentration -- keeping track of a convoluted storyline, keeping track of one's 3D surroundings, being on one's toes to react quickly at surprise enemy attacks, etc.. After a full day's worth of coding, that's the last thing I want to be doing. Much better to relax with something that can be played in a more relaxed/casual way.

Maybe that's why casual games are such a big thing nowadays.

OTOH, though, I find that sometimes I wish to get away from the pain of having to deal with some really stupid code, and I'd escape for a few minutes with some very mentally-challenging games (like block-shuffling puzzles, which according to one analysis[1] are PSPACE-complete, that is, possibly harder than NP-complete problems!). I guess maybe it tickles the same mental itch as coding. :)

[1] http://www.antiquark.com/2004/12/complexity-of-sliding-block-puzzles.html


T

-- 
If creativity is stifled by rigid discipline, then it is not true creativity.

On 4/6/2013 3:10 AM, Paulo Pinto wrote:
> However there are cases where every byte and every ms matter, in those cases you
> are still better with C, C++ and Fortran.

This is not correct.

If you care about every byte, you can make D code just as performant.

And by caring about every byte, you'll need to become as familiar with how D generates code, and the cost of what various features entail, as you would be in C++.

On 4/7/2013 3:59 AM, Paulo Pinto wrote:
> The current compilers just don't have the amount of investment in more than 20
> years of code optimization like C++ has. You cannot expect to achieve that from
> one moment to the other.

This is incorrect, as dmd, gdc, and ldc all use the backends of C++ compilers, and the code generated is as good as that of the corresponding C++ compiler.

On 04/10/2013 05:22 PM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>
> For many (admittedly, not all) of them, I really don't believe "games"
> is an accurate term (Don't misinterpret that into a statement of "Only
> true 'games' are legitimate" because I never said such a thing.)

But that's essentially what you *are* saying by downplaying the gameplay that lies at the heart of the "interactive movies" you've used as examples. It's the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. Let's take a statement from your original post:

"Modern  AAA/big-budget titles are interactive movies, not videogames, because their focus is story, dialog and cinematics, not gameplay."

Which is untrue when it comes to games like BioShock or GTA. At the end of the day both games are mostly shooters along with other gameplay elements (like driving in GTA), and you will spend most of your time playing the game and not watching cinematics. I gave you a canonical example of what would be an interactive movie, and you tried to wave it away because it really was an interactive movie.

> It might be a bad thing if the industry focused too heavily on them,
> but that would be a completely different complaint.

Which has been the essence of your complaint, based on how games used to be and your particular tastes, sounding a lot like a grumpy old man who thinks the industry is suffering because they don't make them like they used to:

"Maybe I'm just projecting my own tastes into this, or maybe this is just because I don't have sales/profits/etc charts for the last 10-20 years to examine, but lately I'm finding it difficult to believe that "AAA" games aren't becoming (or already) a mere niche, much like high-performance sports cars. (Ie, big money, but small market.)

Part of this is because, as I see it, the "big/AAA games" *as they used to exist* up until around the early 2000's don't seem to be around much anymore."

> And really, is it so damn horrible to have and voice a negative opinion
> on something?

Not at all, but when the constant refrain is grumpy-old-man ranting, it is pretty horrible.

On 4/8/2013 2:30 AM, Manu wrote:
> ... so where's your dconf talk then? You can have one of my slots, I'm very
> interested to hear all about it! ;)

I'm not willing to give up any of your slots!