Should Games take themselves seriously?

[Omniponent]

Edit: Hi, so I said this below as well but I'm not going to be pooling from this thread any longer. Feel free to discuss at your leisure, but I've realized that my thesis was a little weak so I'm just going to jump ship. Thanks for responding. I'll be back with a better, more clear idea later.

-M

 

[Squilookle]

Yeah well- Red Dead Redemption II, anybody? I mean, they intentionally make summoning your horse with a whistle more frustrating and prone to failure than the previous game just to chase what they feel is more realistic? Horse balls can shrink because... it's realistic? A random woodland creature can bowl you over accidentally and kill you because... conceivably that could happen once in a thousand years?

Yeah I dunno- I think you're right. Walking simulators and interactive movies like Alan Wake seem to have long forgotten they are games, and are all the worse for it. It used to be standard for flight simulators to have the ability to speed up time on long flights, jump straight to the next waypoint, or outright start the mission close to where the action was to go down. These days they seem to think forcing you to make the whole flight from base to the mission area and back home again (which sure, can be rewarding) is the ONLY way to make you play. Games don't have wacky cheats like Big Head mode anymore that increase replayability. Graphics now have to be ultra-realistic and not stylised, to the point that having a less than 'ultra-gritty' story would have narrative dissonance with the art style (so they think).

Though are you saying characters aren't taking their world seriously just because they're enjoying themselves and making pop culture references? I think there's more to it than that.

 

[Omniponent]

Yeah well- Red Dead Redemption II, anybody? I mean, they intentionally make summoning your horse with a whistle more frustrating and prone to failure than the previous game just to chase what they feel is more realistic? Horse balls can shrink because... it's realistic? A random woodland creature can bowl you over accidentally and kill you because... conceivably that could happen once in a thousand years?

Yeah I dunno- I think you're right. Walking simulators and interactive movies like Alan Wake seem to have long forgotten they are games, and are all the worse for it. It used to be standard for flight simulators to have the ability to speed up time on long flights, jump straight to the next waypoint, or outright start the mission close to where the action was to go down. These days they seem to think forcing you to make the whole flight from base to the mission area and back home again (which sure, can be rewarding) is the ONLY way to make you play. Games don't have wacky cheats like Big Head mode anymore that increase replayability. Graphics now have to be ultra-realistic and not stylised, to the point that having a less than 'ultra-gritty' story would have narrative dissonance with the art style (so they think).

Though are you saying characters aren't taking their world seriously just because they're enjoying themselves and making pop culture references? I think there's more to it than that.

I wasn't actually referring to mechanics. RDRII has serious game pacing issues because it insists on having overly long animations and complex movement. My initial question was actually about story and the behaviour of characters, not the gameplay. I actually find it quite frustrating when a game has a non-standard menu or overly complex way of leveling up in an RPG for the sake of world-building.

I actually love Alan Wake, but I do think it's a niche game. American Nightmare was terrible and I couldn't get through Quantum Break.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

The best thing about gaming is that there is nearly something for everyone.

 

[Lufia Erim]

The best thing about gaming is that there is nearly something for everyone.

This. Sure it's easy to cherry pick whatever you want. But if you search you'll find all kinds of different games in all kind of different genres.

Western AAA market is kind of Creatively bankrupt though.

 

[Hawki]

So, this is kind of all over the place, but anyway:

Should Games take themselves seriously?

There's plenty of room for the serious and the silly across all media. It doesn't have to be one or the other.

Personally, I think that a lot of games these days are losing sight of the fact that a game doesn't have to be realistic in order to be immersive.

Don't really see such a trend. There's trends in gameplay, sure, but not really trends in storytelling outside perhaps more focus on multiplayer-only title where story/lore is found outside the game itself.

Take the difference between Doom (2016) and Borderlands. Totally different games I realize, but despite Doom's minimal story and focus on gameplay, the story feels real and urgent(argent hur hur) because the characters, namely Samuel Hayden, take what's happening very seriously.

Borderlands on the other hand does the opposite, being full of pop-culture references and jokes about "leveling up" etc.

So, I haven't played Borderlands, but of what I've seen/read, it does seem to be the case that Borderlands is very tongue in cheek and whatnot.

On the other hand, I disagree that Doom 2016 takes itself seriously. It doesn't help that the story is terrible as a whole, but the lore is thrown together in a haphazard way. The Doom Slayer doesn't care about what's going on, and there's the unspoken expectation that the player won't care either bar "yeah, there's some lore here that we threw together, read it or something." If you want an example of a Doom game that does take itself seriously, look at Doom 3.

To my knowledge nobody cares about the world or characters in Borderlands, they play it for the gameplay, while there are many people who are at least somewhat invested in the world of Doom in addition to the game.

For Borderlands, world no, characters yes - Borderlands is clearly a character driven game as far as plot goes. As for Doom, I've barely seen anyone invested in any aspect of its story.

I mean, there's potential in Doom 2016 for story. I've written more for Doom 2016 than I have D3 for instance, yet that's still dealing with the crumbs Id Software provided. But what's provided is done so terribly that I've barely seen anyone give a shit.

I think Starcraft and Brood War feel a lot more serious than Starcraft II. And I think there are plenty of other examples of this.

For argument's sake, let's take that as being true - I'm not sure what that means. SC2, even if it's less serious than SC1, is still taking itself seriously. There isn't some Borderlands/Doom divide here.

I mean, I agree with you that if the setting is taken seriously in-universe, it will usually be taken seriously out of universe, but you can easily get invested in elements of setting even if the setting isn't serious for instance. Or, the setting can be jovial but still be taken seriously. Overwatch is light-hearted for instance, but its setting is taken seriously in as much that it's self-consistent, and that's reflected in stuff like wikis and ff.net, where you don't need to look hard for stories set in the Omnic Crisis for instance.

 

[Here Comes Tomorrow]

Depends on the game.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Depends on the game.

And the player. This came up in another thread, but at least for me I have no sense of immersion playing a game. So regardless how seriously the game takes itself, I can never take it serious.

 

[sXeth]

I'd say its more about cohesive tone then which particular tone they take.

If your game is mostly jokes and whacky hijinx, then yeah, you're not gonna pull people into to be invested, or if you try its going to be a massive weird tonal shift. Cases like expecting people to respect the serious deep storyline of GTA 5 or Far Cry 3 come to mind.

The "meta" approach where the game starts trying to comment on the game being a game tends to just be kind of flat. Most don't do it in a clever or unique way, whether they're trying to be funny (Borderlands, Shadow Warrior, etc) or serious (Spec Ops, Destiny Forsaken). It is that classic paradox where there's the thin line between being satirical, and just being a copy of what you're satirizing with an air of pretentious.

 

[Trunkage]

Should ALL games take themselves seriously? Nope.

Should SOME game take themselves seriously? If it works to enhance their themes yes. Spec Ops needed to be serious. Just Cause doesn't not

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Yes. Always. All of them. No exceptions.

 

[Hawki]

Spec Ops needed to be serious. Just Cause doesn't not

Just Cause doesn't not have to be serious.

So...it has to be serious? 0_0

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

I consider seriousness to be more of a gradient than a yes/no thing. I mean some games do demand a little gravity depending on what they're about but only enough to keep investment in the stakes and thus reinforce a desire to defeat the gameplay challenges.

 

[Dalisclock]

Yes.

No.

Maybe.

Depends on the game and the tone and what the devs are trying to accomplish. Saints Row can get away with being totally balls to the wall crazy because that's what Saints Row is known for(which is an interesting case because it started off fairly serious and went silly over 4 games). This War of Mine is uber serious because that's the entire point of it, to show how shitty life in a warzone is for the people who live there.

And then you have occasional wierd in-betweens like Metal Gear, which jumps back and forth between campy(most of the villians, Shagohod thrashing like an angry toddler) and poignant(Anything related to the Boss) all the time, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, like when nobody questions the whole "I've got your clone brothers arm and now I'm possessed by him" thing or when you fight a lady in a very tight latex suit who tries to hug/hump you to death and then get her tragic, PTSD backstory thrown in your face.

Really, the important thing is for devs to figure out what they're going for and stick to it. It's when you try to do both without any understanding of what you're doing or what you're trying to achieve when you tend to faceplant.

 

[Saelune]

Should all games anything? No. I mean, serious games should take themselves seriously, non-serious games shouldn't.

Walking simulators and interactive movies like Alan Wake seem to have long forgotten they are games, and are all the worse for it..

I liked Alan Wake, and it felt very much a game to me, certainly less of a 'walking simulator' and more of a 'sprint from light to light and keeping good track of ammo simulator'.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

The best thing about gaming is that there is nearly something for everyone.

This. Sure it's easy to cherry pick whatever you want. But if you search you'll find all kinds of different games in all kind of different genres.

Western AAA market is kind of Creatively bankrupt though.

Often times when the AAA market does get creative it ends up in either failure (Motion Controls)

Or becomes so popular but its hated by the "pure, hardcore gamer" (The Modern Military Shooter, Battle Royale, MOBAs)

 

[CaitSeith]

Should Games take themselves seriously?

That's a generalization. Should books take themselves seriously? Should songs take themselves seriously? Should anime take itself seriously? It's too broad for any anwser other than "it depends". You already cutted out games like Mario Party and puzzle games from the discussion; but that doesn't mean they can't have a story (ex. Catherine).

Finally, games with story aren't the only ones who attempt to be taken seriously. Competitive games do so too. Their aim isn't to make a story to be taken seriously; but to make the competitiveness feel real, and the competition to be taken seriously by the players.

In conclusion, it depends on the kind and level of seriousness the game aims for.

I think that a lot of games these days are losing sight of the fact that a game doesn't have to be realistic in order to be immersive.

Uh? Aren't we talking about seriousness? What does immersiveness have to do with it? Being immersive can be used to make the game sillier too. I remember seeing a tech demo of a VR game about a silly alien making shopping on a space station's grocery store.

tl;dr: for a meaningful discussion about seriousness, it's better to focus on a genre, theme or topic.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Surely the more interesting question is should 'gamers' take themselves seriously?

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

There are very few games trying to be funny that I actually ended up finding funny. Undertale is one of them, the Portal games, parts of Psychonauts and... I find it hard to think of any others. Humour in games has a tendency to fall very, very flat for me. Borderlands 2 is probably the best example for that. It tried so hard, but after a few hours there wasn't a single character in it that I didn't have a violent hatred towards.

I think many people don't appreciate how hard humour is to get right. If you don't know what you're doing, just don't. If you try to roll your eyes at yourself, you'll just end up making players roll their eyes at you.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Yes. Always. All of them. No exceptions.

all of them? No exceptions? Even asset flips and prank/meme games?