Survey for my IF dissertation

[craftian]

Oh, boy, I was just going to keep working, and then you mentioned:

I was under the impression that most games nowadays aspired to a degree of sometimes ridiculous complexity. I was unable to get into Deus Ex 3, for instance, because I couldn’t figure out what on earth it expected me to do (and yes, I know it’s supposed to be a sort of “you can do what you like”. It really didn’t work for me). Conversely, I’m adoring Bioshock Infinite…

DE3, for me, was revolutionary. It felt like a really good cyberpunk novel, with so much connection to real life and where science is going that it was eerily realistic. You have to literally step into the shoes of the character, and it certainly doesn’t hold your hand. There’s also a lot of different ways to play it. You’re given the powers to play like a terminator robot, and then given incentive to never use those powers, and instead find the more difficult, but non-violent way around enemies. It is beyond brilliant, IMO.

Anyway, back on topic: I’m not surprised at all about the age group of 30+ being the most common. I grew up in the 80’s, where the two choices for gaming were: Atari, with block-like graphics and stick figures, but cool game mechanics, and IF, which offered a great story, and arguably the best graphics available – imagination. Since I read a lot as a kid, I enjoyed playing IF more than Atari, and have more vivid memories of my time with IF, and I’ve never lost my connection with that. Nowadays, kids are used to great graphics, story, and mechanics in AAA games, and IF seems archaic. But, in actuality, it is no less archaic then reading a novel, although the controls have to be learned.

[sunkin]

let’s call it: “what most people play these days”

you know: the blockbuster military training simulator, like CoD; the casual gangsta free killing spree, like GTA; the casual multiplayer RPGs, like WoW (where you enter, chitchat for awhile with your pals, the geek elf and the boobalicious dwarf, and then kill some big yawning dragon-like boss); and a quick play of Candy ™ Crush Saga ™ while you take a dump

sure enough, nowadays there’s plenty of indie options for weird IF-playing geekos like us too… but we’re peanuts…

PC gaming has a large selection of ‘thinking’ type games leading the market. Just look at http://store.steampowered.com/stats/.

You’re probably basing your comments off console gaming (with a side of super casual mobile). Consoles in their current state would never work with IF games. Mobile I believe is the future of IF gaming. Though you’d need a special game that can entertain you more than candy crush or angry birds with the time limits of a bathroom break. This is why people have magazine racks by the toilet not book shelves.

Where IF really has the opportunity for growth is as an alternative for books. Don’t misread that as a replacement for books. I play all my IF games on my phone or tablet before bed. This time was almost exclusively book reading time in the past. Now I find I’m spending less time reading a book and more time reading/playing IF.

[craftian]

PC gaming has a large selection of ‘thinking’ type games leading the market. Just look at store.steampowered.com/stats/.

Absolutely. DE3 is one example of a game with philosophical implications at every turn. Dragon Commander, (which has sort of crappy RTS gameplay) has an excellent narrative between missions, with real world issues at play, told in a humorous, exaggerated way. The narrative is actually better than the game. The Batman games offer a great script and dig into the Batman mythos with his choice to never kill an enemy, which comes to a head in Arkham City, beautifully. Dishonored also looks at the morality of someone with great power – sort of like a ring of Gyges idea. The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us offer a movie quality script. The Banner Saga has a brilliant narrative. The Stanley Parable is pure existentialism. Even the Shadow Warrior remake has more shades than its demon slashing exterior. I had the idea that most modern games were just violent and mindless, too, until I started playing them.

[cvaneseltine]

@namekuseijin

let’s call it: “what most people play these days”

you know: the blockbuster military training simulator, like CoD; the casual gangsta free killing spree, like GTA; the casual multiplayer RPGs, like WoW (where you enter, chitchat for awhile with your pals, the geek elf and the boobalicious dwarf, and then kill some big yawning dragon-like boss); and a quick play of Candy ™ Crush Saga ™ while you take a dump

It sounds like you’re passing judgement on the players, rather than the games themselves.

However… here are the top 25 sellers on the current Amazon bestseller list for video games (removing consoles, hardware, DLC, etc.)

1. Bravely Default
2. Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII
   * 3. Grand Theft Auto V
3. The Last of Us
   * 5. Call of Duty: Ghosts
4. Minecraft
   * 7. Titanfall
5. Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag
6. Pokemon X
   * 10. Borderlands 2
7. Final Fantasy X
8. The LEGO Movie Video Game
9. Madden NFL 25
10. NBA 2K14
11. Just Dance 2014
12. New Super Mario Bros. Wii
13. Thief
14. Rocksmith 2014
15. Disney Infinity Starter Pack
16. Pokemon Y
17. The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
18. Fable Anniversary
    * 23. Battlefield 4
19. FIFA 14
    * 25. Path of Exile

I’ve marked the ones that actually fit your description (and Grand Theft Auto V is pushing it, in light of the story complexity.) The market is dramatically more diverse than you’re suggesting.

[Peter_Piers1 (Peter Piers)]

Craftian, I’ll enjoy the discussion, but I’ll PM you so as not to clutter this thread up.

[namekuseijin]

a fine listing you got there… of weekly sales?

check out total sales (or downloads of adware) and be prepared for the shocking truth: most people play lousy games

yeah, GTA has quite good a story. It doesn’t mean much as its 20+ millions of players are just in for a fun casual gangsta romp

and no, these are not usually the types of games I play either

[sedm0784 (Rich Cheng)]

I had trouble answering some of the questions in: “How important would the following features be in a new Interactive Fiction game?”

“Ability to save your game/checkpoints” is a bit too imprecise for me to answer: Are you referring to permadeath? A requirement to complete the game in a single setting? Multiple manual save games? Automatic saving? I have different answers for each and my answers also depend on the content of the game.

I answered 1 for “Shortcuts for the text commands”, but if the question is intended to include abbreviations I would have answered 5.