Ah, yes, that is the developper who made that comparison between testing games and having unprotected sex…
Seems he is again wrong in his views.
Why bother about the press?
Streamers might have an extremelly large viewership and provides so much larger exposure.
I looked at the new releases and noticed that The Walking Dead Season 2 episode 2 was out.
After playing the first season, I have no illusion about the quality of this game series. But benefit of the doubt, I decided to watch a lets play video on YT.
I found this player
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tilvxc1LPrM
He attracted over 4 millions of viewers. The Walking Dead is the perfect product for that kind of streamers, these products are devoid of any gameplay and let the streamer fully able to play his one person show.
Games including turn based sequences "UGOIGO" are easy of access so they lend ground for the same exhibition by actors.
This developper should not focus on the press but find an actor to broadcast his game. And more than anything, design his games to meet the demands by those actors.
This is becoming increasingly common. My own daughters kinda shocked me when they repeatedly watch "let's play" videos… they'd rather watch someone else have fun and comment on their experience than play it themselves.
That's not 100% the case - my daughters are gamers, too. But it seems like the newer generation of gamers are increasingly passive. It's "the thing." I don't get it. I feel like there's something key that I'm just not figuring out.
What is missed is that players make money off playing. This changes the deal. Players are no more passive today than they were yesterday. Games are more and more designed for players who make money off playing video games.
And those players make money by getting people to watch them. Therefore, games must be designed with a passive viewership in mind.
See the thread in the other section on Ryse.
I think you nailed it. All those gaming manuals that players used to love reading helped in two important ways. They provided a lot of additional story background and lore that couldn't be included within the game due to memory restrictions. Secondly, the manuals helped the player imagine the world free of the constraints of limited graphical visuals of the time.
Story and gameplay were everything and still should be. And clever prodding of the player's own imagination helped fill in the blanks. It was a great time to be gamer with that era of gaming - warts and all.
Manuals, as they used to be, wont get to be seen for ages, for two main reasons that I wont tell here.
Putting story and gameplay on the same line is deceiving.
Time ago, games were not about story. They were about gameplay. Story helped the creative process and was an enhancing feature for gamers.
The current situation results from players who kept pushing to see games no longer as an object of gameplay but as a medium to deliver a story.
Story was a massive sledgehammer to destroy gaming.
This stuff might even have started when developpers start to put more and more resources in story.
A game does not need a story to be good. It needs a good gameplay.