[QUOTE="skrat_01"][QUOTE="Renegade_Fury"]
Disagree, again because gameplay is what constitutes a video game. All that interaction is derived from it, because without it, there is no game. Just because some people are more forgiving and prefer different elements of a game more, I don't think belittles the genre's foundation. There are complimentary elements to get the total package, but to be called "good" then you need to have that central element first in formost. Preference doesn't eliminate the core of the genre, and when it comes to video games, that's gameplay. Games like Limbo and Shadow Collosus I call pretentious because they try to heighten the importance of those complimentary elements above the genre's central element.
Renegade_Fury
All interaction isn't derived from gameplay, that's false. All interaction is derived from the code running in the background, the engine and the lines of script that actually make actions and reactions happen. At the end of the day all gameplay code and rules masquerading as visual action. Without the technology there is no game. Without the stone there is no sculpture, without the camera there is no film. Video games however aren't about lines of code operating to rules; they're not automated board or physical games. They're more than that. Literature, plays, film, photography, painting, sculpture, architecture and so on have all had different origins and been build upon different foundations. As forms they've evolved and changed. Low and behold as with the four elements they're always going to exist; this doesn't mean they're going to be focused on. You're wrong. There are more than enough games that concentrate on areas other than mechanics; from text based adventures, to the rail shooters like Rez, and they're extremely wide and varied; just like games that do. What games are and can be is absolutely huge, like any creative medium and on that evidence alone outright proves games are more then what you constitute as a game. All you're proving is what you value. Which is the same as what you try and define as pretentious. You're wrong again, all you're showing is what you value, apparently threatened by the fact that there are low and behold, games doing things different to other games out there. All games aren't any one thing, games do things differently, as the huge span of music genres are to music, classical painting to modernist, classical sculpture to Dadist creation and the Avant Garde film producers of early film, to Michael Bay's next massive CGI blockbuster. You're going to have to get over that. That's the fact, the truths in the games themselves. You can yell and raise your nose as much as you like - all you're doing is ironically enough, acting pretentious. Funny that.Funny, so you're just going to preach from atop your pillar, calling me wrong and having to get over it, huh? Wouldn't you call that acting pretentious?
Of course, I'm proving what I value, because that's what I believe: gameplay is what defines games. There are different genres within the media like all others, but there like each, there is one element that defines it and separates it. All that interaction is derived from gameplay, because it's what gives the player control. Take the gameplay and what do you have? Nothing. You're really trying to get so philosphical that you're resorting to the stone and sculputre? Really, you want to play that game? No need to go into the world of Joesph Campbell, when all this thread is asking if we think games like Limbo, Dear Esther are pretentious. Please, for us as players, it starts with the gameplay, and when it's given a backseat for emotional cues, I don't hesitate at all to call that being pretentious.
Oh you are wrong in the sweeping statements you're making in terms of defining the elements of a game, without anything actually substantial to back it up or argue otherwise.I'm not saying you're wrong for having an opinion, liking or disliking, however you're wrong in throwing around your opinion as fact. What I'm stating is the common academic and development discourse which has become the standard that games are looked at by; Jesse Schell's pretty fantastic Book of Lenses, and naturally a whole lot of other texts that are out there.
Which isn't pretentious. It's reasoned. I'm not the one deriding actual games for being 'games' because they don't fit with what I I like or dislike in a game.
You are.
Which is why you're wrong, even if you want to clutch that perspective.
And naturally here's the big problem here, you haven't even bothered trying to define what gameplayis as part of your point. You're trying to make a distinction about something that's a product of actual the actual elements of a game itself.
Because gameplay itselfis something that's ill defined, as gameplay can constitute for absolutely anything, which creates a sense of 'play'.
Which is funny, as you're essentially arguing along the same line ludologists did in the late 90s, in terms of this discussion; what defines games.
An argument these days which is outright regarded aswrong, because of the utter neglection and ill definition of the components thatmake up a game.
Welcome to the land of games academia and development.
Which well, doesn't help your point in the slightest, your argument has already conclusively been proven wrong to begin with.
Low and behold, which is why I'm point at that one distinctive word when I say you're, wrong.
Again, what you value isn't what's factual, what is 'valued' is something entirely subjective to the players themselves.
What we can make distinctions about is what games are, and unfortunately for you the broad pallet of games out there proves your own point wrong.
You judge the medium for what it is, not from what you want it to be.
Which again, is why you're fundamentally incorrect.
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Okay so all the wrongs and language aside, you can hate what you call 'pretentious' games and act like silly or reasoned, but at the end of the day it doesn't really matter. Games are continuing to change and do their own thing, and that's not inhibiting you from enjoying what you enjoy.
Games can be and are any damn thing, and they're continuing to evolve and change, far exceeding what they were defined as thirty years ago. That's media, that's art, which is why strict definitions that even neglected the various forms that gamesalready are are wrong.
Does that mean you're wrong for valuing what you constitute as gameplay,play forms, or more specifically what I see asthe element of mechanical interaction above anything else?
Hell no, that's perfectly valid.
However it would be a boring and dull medium if everything was the same wouldn't it? Thankfully as we know, it crtainly isn't and forever wont be.
Go go videoooooo gaaaames.
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