What Kind of Input or Experience Should 'Proper' Gaming be Defined by?"

[Mando-Whirl-Wind]

Ok, so to help keep the Wii-u from continuing to be a back and forth wall of text arguements, I am starting this thread

 

So the basic idea of this thread, is what makes a console powerful? what makes it weak? what makes it overly gimicky? what makes a controller good or bad?

 

Essentaily this is the place to talk about the differences of consoles and controllers, and game features, console differences and gimics, and other various stuff, such as the current disscusion in the wii-u thread

 

So rules are keep it clean, dont be afraid to voice your opinion, and when you can provide references

 

 

Sorry the opening isnt as through as it could be, but ya this is a place to dicuss various game console stuff, generaly about what is good and bad, and sucessful and failed, and can also apply to games and controllers

 

if someone wants to make a more complete, in depth opening go ahead

[Indigo Rush]

I'm of the opinion that gaming is still a rather underdeveloped medium. It's definitely got a strong foundation with your traditional handheld controllers, with analog sticks, face buttons and d-pads... 

 

... but I also think that there is a very welcome time and place for touch screen gaming, motion controls, and even the whole Kinect  hands-free gaming theory. Not that every game needs to utilize these mechanics, but these options should be available to developers and gamers as they see fit. For me, I kind of fall into the retro/hardcore niche moreso than the casual motion niche, but I can't imagine tossing aside the novelty of swinging a remote as if it were a baseball bat simply because I prefer playing something that requires a d-pad.

 

Basically, the ideal system for me would have all of these options, or at least most of them. Traditional controls, first and foremost, the largely unexplored motion control niche (whether through a remote, a camera or both), and touch screen control. This is why I enjoy the concept behind the Wii U a lot. It has all of those options for you... and I know it hasn't taken full advantage of it yet (though the entire Wii back catalog is there, and by extension, everything from NES to N64). About the only thing it doesn't have is a camera like the Kinect or Move, but aside from that it's pretty diverse. 

 

But at any rate, for me, there isn't a "true" gaming platform. There's definitely the old-school traditional concept of holding a controller in your hands and pressing those buttons like no tomorrow. That's me right there. But I wouldn't dismiss someone who enjoys pointing and clicking at a screen anymore than the other gamer who prefers a mouse and keyboard.

 

The gaming industry is rather young compared to other forms of media. Human-computer interactive entertainment is constantly evolving, so there's no telling where we'll go next. Whether it's glasses-free 3D gimmicks, high fidelity haptic feedback, or virtual reality helmets, as long as it can provide an enjoyable new feature that enhances the gaming experience, it should always be welcome and experimented with. Even the Kinect.

 

But those are my 2 cents. 

[JAiRO]

The name of this thread is pretty awful, if you want others to come perhaps you should rename it.

 

I share Indigo's sentiments. Gaming is still a very young medium, but at the same time it's also got a very broad spectrum. Anything that is heavily interactive, in a digital form, and built for the sole purpose of entertainment is considered gaming. The term gaming is very "catch-all".

[Mando-Whirl-Wind]

The name of this thread is pretty awful, if you want others to come perhaps you should rename it.

 

I share Indigo's sentiments. Gaming is still a very young medium, but at the same time it's also got a very broad spectrum. Anything that is heavily interactive, in a digital form, and built for the sole purpose of entertainment is considered gaming. The term gaming is very "catch-all".

Give me a better name, and I will rename it, couldnt really think of anything else

[Indigo Rush]

"What Kind of Input or Experience Should 'Proper' Gaming be Defined by?"

 

or something along those lines.

[Mando-Whirl-Wind]

"What Kind of Input or Experience Should 'Proper' Gaming be Defined by?"

 

or something along those lines.

sounds good to me, although kinda wanted ti to be a bit more broad as to help draw those random conversations from the Wii-u thread, but it'll work for now

[Conando]

I see the point of the name, considering he's trying to pull the Nintendoomed out of the Wii U thread. Anyway, my very brief look at this is that a platform's power is only determined by the quality of its games (much like what has been said in the Final Bossman infact). Gimmicks (that includes everything from new control methods to sharing functions) and better hardware does nothing for a console unless it actually has games worth playing.

[Diogenes]

I think the idea that we need to define "proper" gaming is a mistake. Whether a game is controlled with buttons and sticks or waggling and touchscreens, whether a game focuses on the mechanics of its play or on providing a particular story/experience, whether a game is about jumping on evil turtles or shooting enemy soldiers, they're all (at least potentially) justified in existing. I don't see any benefit in taking an exclusionary stance and declaring some games to be "wrong" or "not really games" or "not proper games". I'd much rather encourage designers to try new things, to defy conventions and search for new experiences. I think the medium is plenty large enough to accommodate both time-tested traditional design and new, experimental ideas.

[Blacklightning]

Pretty much what Dio said, for the most part.

 

I think one of the biggest problems with new approaches, though, is that certain ideals have become so ingrained in most developers that they've effectively become comfort zones. Even when they do dabble in the fad of the moment it's usually in efforts to directly emulate the kinds of games we already play perfectly fine with tried and true methods - and as games like Kinect's Rise of Nightmares demonstrate, this is an almost certain recipie for disaster.

 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you're trying something new, you really have to explicitly build a game with it in mind. It's just not enough to leave it at "CoD with a Wiimote" or "FIFA with Kinect", especially if you're using it to cover functions that buttons already did - it needs to be something designed with the kind of finesse and sensitivity controllers like this are capable of, whilst making sure their well-proven drawbacks aren't going to be a problem. Ignoring that kind of example is what gave birth to what we call "waggle" in the first place.

 

And while I realise this is more of a personal preference, for fuck's sake I wish more people would make actual full games out of it. It's always annoying as hell when someone comes up with a new way to play games and the literal first thing developers do is make a goddamned minigame collection out of it.

[SuperStingray]

I think gaming input has reached its "uncanny valley;" closer to absolute realism than simply pushing buttons but not quite at fully immersive VR and its faults as an interface are more apparent because of it.  But I do think we're slowly climbing up to the good side.  The Kinect is weak as a game controller, but that doesn't mean its not an amazing piece of technology and a very necessary step forward.  And the Oculus and Omni look like the first step to a true, affordable VR gaming system.

[Diogenes]

On the subject of "input", I think it's worth mentioning Twitch Plays Pokemon, which turned a pretty standard single-player button-controlled JRPG into a sort of single-character MMO controlled by parsing the chat for commands. While it was hardly the most efficient way to play the game, I think you'd be hard pressed to come up with an argument against it being a proper game in spite of such a bizarre setup.

[Blacklightning]

You know it's funny you should mention that, I was just thinking to myself not too long ago how you would make a game like that built to take advantage of it and not necessarily bound to a stream. Something along the lines of the protagonist being a big ass mech or a capital ship in a space sim, where players can take control of the bridge, mounted weapons, docked fighters and internal affairs like repairs, life support, siege defence etc. separately... but almost never will there be enough roles for the amount of players in the game, so many will be constantly fighting over each other's controls ala Twitch Plays. You could even play it for laughs on the part of the crew, characterize them as a bunch of assholes that don't get along with each other and and have surpising success attributed mostly to luck ala Exterminatus Now.

 

Although even with a game not built specifically in mind for it I feel many could work just fine if a) there wasn't so much lag inherent to streams involved, and it supported controllers, or really anything better than having to manually type every individual command out on a keyboard.

 

...someone really needs to make the B for that emote case sensitive.

Edited March 3, 2014 by Blacklightning