No, nobody has noticed.

There haven't been a million threads about this on this forum, the OB forum, and the MW forum before that.

In fact, this idea is so novel I tihnk I need to sit down and take a breather...

Because coding is improvisation. It's a compilation of coding which actually runs the game. Makes your character move. That's not an art, that's animation, and there's already plenty of it for it to be considered art.

I should have been more specific. I mean the actual people who create the tools, not the product of people who follow the directions to produce a result that already exists.

^

Yes, that may actually be art. But when you think about it, a little thing like that takes maybe 4-8 months to do. Someone who storyboards the entire game, creates the concept art from it, and draws it out INTO the game is much more artistic.

Maybe it's an opinion, or maybe I've got it mixed up, but that's how I stand on things. :l

I don't know if I agree, but I also don't know if I disagree. Games are unique in the way they're collaborative art, not just in people, but of various artistic disciplines. In broader strokes, music is it's own artistic discipline, as are the visual representations of on-screen actions in a game. But when you combine the two, the synthesis yields something greater than the sum of the previous two, then throw on the interactive aspect which gives gaming it's trademark legitimacy as it's own artistic entity... In such a situation, it's hard to really say which is individually the greatest contribution to the ends.

short answer

Catering for the people with short attention spans , IE the majority of console players and a large part of pc players who only want instant gratification ( i call them the WOW generation ), instead of depth , input and brainpower ( short in supply these days)

I've noticed. Games have become more accessible/casual to increase sales. Games have become shallower, easier (hand-holding features), and worse technically (console ports).

Companies like EA have gone too far. A veteran gamer like me can hardly enjoy any AAA game unmodded. I mostly buy indie games these days.

Wow, this thread started out interesting, until.... I glanced at a post that describes the ME3 ending.

Thanks a lot....Real class act there, Rodney.

I then just skipped to the last post. And yes there are several games games that have taken a dump. DA2 is THE perfect example. How can you promote a game, by saying that "It will reflect your actions from the previous game" and then resurrect characters that were CLEARLY decapitated in DAO. I mean really.

That is a great way improve a relationship with the fan community. Then, when the lead writer was asked about it, in the Bioware forums, he replied, " If we bring someone back, it's because we wanted to." Yea, screw you people. We got your money.

That was all Bioware, not EA. Although I am in no way defending that chamber pot either.

It's both the fault of the industry and the fault of the gamers. The industry realizes that today's gamers want instant gratification and they are catering to them. It's the gamers fault for accepting that premise and buying their products and the fault of those same "Instant Gratification" gamers who don't want to take the time to actually learn what RPG's are and how fun they can be to play.

I personally have already made my decision that Skyrim will be my last TES Pre-Order. I will also be very cautious about buying another TES game.

Until changes are made at Bethesda, starting at the top, I just might not buy another TES game.

That is for Mass Effect games, right?

There is a whole emergent gameplay topic. I fully claim authorial control over some games I play.

Now, Leonardo did Last Supper for a Duke. It is still art. Michaelangelo did David under a contract. It is still art. So I want an open world game, I pay 69$, I want that art to be open world.

An architect creates a building, a functional structure, but the artistic touch is in his realm. It can turned out ugly or beautiful. Doesn't matter.

Photoshop is where most art is created these days. There is an artistic touch in its superior design, as a program. Its design is art but Photoshop is not art, it is a tool.

In a game's case, the game and the art it contains are one AND the same. And we share part authorship in games, at least ideally. The division of authorship won't hurt movies' artistic license. If director must seen as the one author, then as a gamer I want to be the director and game will still be art in the end. Therefore, every game copy will become a different masterpiece in the hand of the real author, the gamer.

So the question is not if games are art or not, the question is who is the author.

PS. What I am saying is, if you are concerned about sharing your authorship, don't make roleplaying games. (or if you do, don't break your illusion. )

To be fair, many of us bought Skyrim on the quote that it had "more content than any elder scrolls game to date," and expected a much deeper game when we got it.

If you want a real RPG, real good RPG feeling and fun, you get some fellows, books and a confortable place to chat and play. Video-games were never that good for role-play, but i like them anyway. The RPG aspect of morrowind is very much alike Skyrim, cause you are free to create and play your character how you like. Other games have better chain of choices and consequences, like Dragon Age, Mass Effect, etc. Every game has its limitations, and i dont think skyrim is more limited than morrowind.

I disagree with you that anything is different about RPGs "nowadays", and thinking that "NOWADAYS everything is about money" is too naive, dont you think??

I haven't liked an EA game since Mirror's Edge. You should check that game out if you've never heard of it.

Absolutely not. Ever since the early 1990's, every major company in a capitalist economy has been gravitating toward its bottom line, this includes the gaming industry too.

2002: "I played Daggerfall, and Morrowind is so shallow compared to Daggerfall. Where's my depth of gameplay?"

2006: "I played Morrowind, and Oblivion is so shallow compared to Morrowind. Stop catering to casuals Bethesda!"

2011: "I played Oblivion, and Skyrim is so shallow compared to Oblivion. What is wrong with the world?"

I can't wait for the next game in the series, so that everyone can strap on their rose-colored goggles, hop in their way-back machines, and pretend that everything was better back in their day.

This is really a question for another thread (feel free to comment on the article thread). I think you would like Grant Tavinor's The Art of Videogames (philosophy). A big part of the book is about authorship. I wrote a review http://j-u-i-c-e.hubpages.com/_esforum/hub/The-Art-of-Videogames-Book-Review.

[OT]
A reader or viewer also helps to create his or her experience of a book or movie through his attention, imagination, etc. A lot of what we experience in a work of art (even in a movie) is based on unconscious associations and elaborations. I don't think that grants them authorial rights over the work, though it gives them part authorial rights over their experience. Emergent gameplay is still circumscribed by the rules and objects included by the developer. The player isn't free to experience an object that doesn't already exist in the game, or a scenario that isn't described by the rules, though the developers may not be aware of every possibility themselves. Again: OT.
[/OT]

One of my all-time favorite games.

I agree.. the idea of fast-paced parkour while running from dudes with guns is horrible. If they shoot you once or twice, you basically die.

On top of that, in some scenes where you combat other dudes, it's almost like a quicktime event, just without the buttons.

Not a very good game. I have to agree. :L

And Dead Space. These two highly innovative games from EA, it is a miracle.

@TheMagician, I will check that book. Thanks. [OT]Also you should check Minecraft and revise your "The player isn't free to experience an object that doesn't already exist in the game". "or a scenario that isn't described by the rules"... You see, rules can combine and create new rules: that's the emergent part. If scenarios, developers can't see are possible in the game, then mission is accomplished already! [/OT]

That answers all these threads around the world.

Even though I started my Elder Scrolls experience with Morrowind, and it remains my favorite game to date, I'm going to say that Hand Holding isn't always a bad thing. It comes down to how many layers of depth you want the player to experience on their own, and how much frustration you think they're willing to deal with.

Dark Souls, and Armored Core for example, are insidious games, that tell you the controls, and nothing else. Leaving the player directionless and often confused. It fosters a feeling of great "Accomplishment" when you do scale the difficulty "Wall" (As opposed to a curve) and see the light finally, but like it or not, that's bad game design.

In more Elder-Scrollsy context. Morrowinds journal is an obtuse wreck that is barely useable after all the patches, and worthless before. You're given vague directions and occasionally even erroneous directions that lead you on a twelve hour minesweep looking for a cavern consisted of a nearly incomprehensible jumble of letters.

Then, Skyrim and Oblivion come along, and floating quest markers make for lazy writers, and Compass Icons highlight every area of interest in the game, resulting in no actual "Discovery" for yourself.

So where's the happy middle? I'll tell you. Quest Arrows/markers stay, but all preemptive dungeon locators need to go. If a person tells you actual directions to a location, or you physical discover it yourself, then they can become marked, but not before.

That's just one easy example, there's a lot more that I could use, but I'll save that for some other stupid rant.

You're kidding me right? The only way you CAN explore something is to find it first.

If you blew through all the main quests, relying on your compass, you would find maybe 20+ areas in the game involved with those quests. Now.. that being said.. what about the rest of the world?

It doesn't hold your hand ALL the time, they basically give you a whole 1/8th of the map, and then tell you to explore the rest.

I can testify that hand-holding in game's part is less prevalent in Skyrim. Although hand-holding in the game world itself, particularly "a door that needs a magic spell and there is a spell book or staff just next to it" Wat???

They used dramatic storytelling elements to build their drama out of?!?!? Heavens no! Tell me it isn't so!

Modern games cost much more to produce than older games, which means they need to make more money than their predecessors, which means they need to appeal to a wider audience.