What's surprising (to me) is how much it feels, in the context of game design, not like a potential source of fun, like a physics engine or something, but more like an (annoying) person who is not fun to play with.
Tabletop RPGs are games! Collab storytelling is a structured activity. These are stylized rituals we invent to turn the raw power of other people into "fun". GenAI is def. less interesting than people.
huh
Thanks! Yes I'm reasonably familiar with this literature.
My essay 'After Orthogonality,' the culmination of 4 years of work on virtue-ethics, rationality, AI, decision-theory, and praxis is out on The Gradient
I swear this is a real site and we had no idea it existed. www2.kek.jp/qup/en/
We added an actual shop to our coin flip esport capitalism simulator. Team jerseys, t-shirts, and more. Shop til you drop! But also, consume responsibly. q-up-shop.fourthwall.com
The NYU Game Center's hiring! A senior, tenure-track professor post for an experienced game designer, artist or industry pro with a notable body of creative work. Experience finishing games and mentoring/teaching more important than any kind of academic credential!
gamecenter.nyu.edu/were-hiring-...
I’ve got good news for you.
That’s one of the new designs and my personal favorite. Pleasure doing e-commerce with you!
<whimsical reminiscing soundtrack plays>
In memorandum of my 4 beautiful years curaring @nyugamecenter.bsky.social's annual No Quarter exhibition I've pulled together an archive of each of the 4 cohorts & the 16 weird & wonderful works they brought into the world
www.goodafternoon.uk/four-quarters
We updated the Universal Paperclips merch store and added some hot new items. How do I buy ad space on moltbook? universal-paperclips-shop.fourthwall.com
let me know if it happens again, thanks!
I think you might have just discovered an important new skip
How is this possible?
This looks amazing, thank you!
Two lifelong goals achieved
this player's guide to going infinite on the medic is pure madness and i love it docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Yes, music is especially math-y
if you are talking about your eudaemonia essay, I thought it was fantastic, but as a side note I can't find it now, did you take it down?
Also, be honest, are short games that much better than long ones, on average? For me, this issue you are noticing applies to all video games, not just long ones, and not just AAA ones.
Second, intuitively, the incentives would work the other way - short games you can consume like movies would make for better products.
1 may have some weird economic effects, eg. winner-take-all dynamics in multiplayer games, the scourge of f2p. But to suggest that this property of games is due to, or in response to, or incentivized by, economic incentives seems wrong. First, it predates games as products (Tennis, Chess)...
As you can see, Theory 1 is positive and optimistic, Theory 2 is disparaging and pessimistic. I'm more confident about 1 than I am about 2, but I think it's a mistake to ignore the possibility of 2, it should be on the table and we should be ruthlessly honest about it.
2. Video games are struggling, for a variety of reasons. There's no robust critical/theoretical practice around them. The audiences are fractured, defensive, conservative. The economics are weird. Video games haven't evolved as much as we might have hoped. Overall, they're just doing worse than film
Great question. I have some theories.
1. Games are less like novels/movies/paintings than we think. They are more like hobbies, musical instruments, habits, trips. Video games shoehorn something like Tennis or Skateboarding into a "work-shaped" box we feel we should be able to evaluate but can't
john cage match
