Any scrutiny of a person's likes and dislikes includes an obligatory scrutiny of their person.
Indeed.
If someone claims to enjoy a game that at its core is mindless tedium, I will not tell them that they do not like it. I will ask them why they like it. I already know that the true answer to this question is that the game is a very effective Skinner box, feeding them pellets at regular intervals. Despite this, I want to see if they know that.
If they don't know that, then they are just someone who is caught in a psychological trap without realizing it. They're almost a victim of their own psychology and the video game makers who take advantage of it. In this case, I try to enlighten them.
If they do understand it, then the further question is why are they doing what they know is a waste of time and a psychological trap? Do they have no value for their own extremely limited amount of time on this world that they would squander it on such an activity? Do they value increasing the amount of dopamine, seratonin, or whatever other chemical, into their brains higher than they value other things that could result from their efforts?
I know for certain that many people will enjoy many of these Skinner box games, and others. That does not mean I should recommend that they play them. In fact, that is precisely why I must recommend that they should not spend their money or time on them.
It is not fair to judge someone based upon their taste. If they prefer the color green to the color purple, that is entirely in the subjective realm. But you should judge someone based upon their actions. Thus, to judge someone based upon how they choose to spend their time, is perfectly acceptable. If given free choice, they elect to invest time and/or money into a mindless cycle of tedium for artificial reward, that is a negative trait indeed.
Playing these sorts of games is really no different than doing drugs, just on a different order of magnitude. For almost no effort drugs make you feel really good, and have harmful side-effects. For almost no effort grinding games make you feel pretty good, and have slightly harmful side effects. Also, like drugs, the harm scales with quantity. In moderation, of either you will turn out just fine. That still doesn't mean that doing either in moderation should be encouraged, or is a good idea. Abstinence of both is best.
My question to you is this - why are the games you play that much better? You are gaining little-to-no appreciable and useful skills for the same biological pay off.
EDIT: There are ways to make your point, which I agree has some validity, without making sweeping character assumptions about people.
EDIT 2: Based on your statement almost any and all liesure activities are akin to taking drugs.
EDIT 3: Why is abstinence of both best? Your life priorities and another's life priorities may be completely different.
My question to you is this - why are the games you play that much better? You are gaining little-to-no appreciable and useful skills for the same biological pay off.
The games we play are not completely mindless at their core.
Let's use Street Fighter and Diablo as examples.
In Diablo, all you really do is repeatedly click on monsters until you eventually win. There are decisions to make, but they are all obvious. An obvious decision is effectively no decision at all. Even if you fail to make obvious decisions, it will only delay your inevitable victory. There is no thought involved in this game. I can mathematically demonstrate that there really isn't any game at all.
Street Fighter isn't exactly the most intellectual and high brow game in the world. Though, unlike Diablo, I can not mathematically demonstrate that it is a waste of time. Winning is not inevitable. You can play the game forever, and still be terrible at it. Even memorizing all the special moves and combos is not enough to be good at this game, so it's not just a game of knowledge. In order to improve at Street Fighter you must improve yourself. It requires manual dexterity, quick reflexes, and quick thinking. While the specific skills involved may not be directly applicable to anything practical, i.e: being able to do a hadouken isn't going to get you a job, it will result in a general increase in your ability that is generally useful.
Think of it this way. You're a Burning Wheel character playing wow. What skills and stats will increase as a result of passing/failing WoW tests? None, because you can't fail a WoW test. The only skill you might be able to argue for is WoW-wise. Now you're a burning wheel character playing Street Fighter. You are going to get a bunch of skill points in "fighting game", which are pretty useless. You're also going to get points in perception and agility.
Playing some kinds of games can serve as mental, or even physical, exercise, which is an arguably worthwhile expenditure of time and effort. Other games are demonstrably mindless wastes of time. If you unknowingly choose the latter, that tells me that you simply do not know. If you knowingly choose the latter, that say something about your character as a human being.
What skills and stats are you increasing, really? Also, by setting goals within even mindless games, one can challenge themselves to figure out an optimal way to reach that goal, thus creating a mental challenge. Some of these games are also tools for socializing and relaxing (both have measurable benefits). What games are you playing? What skills do they give you? How are they more than slightly different and subjectively more challenging than these? If your games are so superior, please demonstrate how they are.
Broadly speaking, video games test your reflexes, information processing abilities, and puzzle-solving skills. Different games test these to different extents.
Even WoW tests them to a degree (in before Scott says it doesn't).
WoW is great at testing patience. It's excellent training if you are going to be stamping license plates or something. Compare that to a game like Codex of Alchemical Engineering, which is practically equivalent to an algorithms course.
Scott, have you ever enjoyed doing something that other people think is pointless and they can even make reasonable arguments as to why it is pointless, but you - for reasons all your own - continued to like it?
Scott, have you ever enjoyed doing something that other people think is pointless and they can even make reasonable arguments as to why it is pointless, but you - for reasons all your own - continued to like it?
I have done pointless things in the past, but I stopped immediately upon realizing what I was doing.
Used to play MUDs, stopped. Used to watch TV, stopped. Used to reload Google Reader and Digg constantly, stopped.
Also, it's not a matter of what people think is pointless, or have reasonable arguments as to why they are pointless. We are going a step beyond here. This is mathematical proof of pointlessness. Unlike movies or books, games boil down to math. The math of rock paper scissors is 1/3 chance of winning, all strategies are equal. Checkers is also an example of a solved game, we know it is a stalemate with optimal play. Sudoku is just a puzzle, that is also solved.
To figure out whether a game is solved, there's an easy question you can use as a test. "Is it possible to write a computer program that will make perfectly optimal decisions in this game?" If the answer is yes, the game is already solved, and is not something I can recommend that anyone play. The exception of course would be small children using something like CandyLand to learn colors or some such.
I think much of the disagreement is caused by the fact that we take a mathematical approach to video and board games, while other people approach them as they would a subjective piece of artwork, like a sculpture or painting. You can't really argue that reading any particular book is worthwhile. That is truly subjective, and depends on a great many things. But then again, books aren't math. A game, at its core, is math. That math can be evaluated objectively separated from any subjective story, plot graphics, or otherwise that might be draped upon it.
A game has other aspects than just math. You may not appreciate, enjoy, or feel that they are worthwhile, but others may disagree. As you, yourself, admit - your personal approach to games is based on math. That is not the only apprach to any given games and different genres of games have different elements to offer. For instance, a lot of the FF games are just grinding nonsense, but the artwork and story is so entrancing that some that don't mind grind find thos other aspects worthwhile. Also, games like WoW not only allow for socialization, but I know people that have met and become real life friends through playing those games. I have also seen people use WoW as a tool for role playing. These are all valid, worthwhile pursuits.
As for your "pointless" activities, you list things you think are pointless. What about activities that others think are pointless, but you enjoy?
Personally, I think most of the puzzle games you play are pointless. After playing through one or two, you are just changing the widgets around and repeating the exercise you have already achieved.
A game has other aspects than just math. You may not appreciate, enjoy, or feel that they are worthwhile, but others may disagree. As you, yourself, admit - your personal approach to games is based on math. That is not the only apprach to any given games and different genres of games have different elements to offer. For instance, a lot of the FF games are just grinding nonsense, but the artwork and story is so entrancing that some that don't mind grind find thos other aspects worthwhile. Also, games like WoW not only allow for socialization, but I know people that have met and become real life friends through playing those games. I have also seen people use WoW as a tool for role playing. These are all valid, worthwhile pursuits.
We have discussed this numerous times already in the past, but I'll repeat it once more.
Let's say you have a crap really bad game, but amazing story and graphics and music. That actually makes for an even worse game than if the story, music, and graphics had been bad. It's because you really want to enjoy these good things, but must suffer for it so horribly through a bad and painful game. The overall experience is such suffering, it's not worth it. If the story were bad, there would be less suffering, as you could just ignore the whole thing.
Imagine going to see the Lord of the Rings in the theatre, but every five minutes they ask you a really terrible trivia question. If you get it wrong, they make you rewatch the previous five minutes, and then ask you another question again. In a case like that, it doesn't matter how amazing Lord of the Rings is because the bad game ruins it. Thus is the same with Final Fantasy being ruined by random encounters. They would be better off just making a movie, and you would be better off just watching a movie. It's even worse when you consider that a Final Fantasy game can take tens of hours to complete, whereas you can watch all three LotR extended editions in about 10 hoursish (estimate).
As for WoW allowing for socialization, yes it is true. People have made friends in WoW. The thing is, WoW is not necessary for that! All of the socialization of WoW is via chat rooms or 3rd party chat services like Skype of Ventrilo. You could just use Skype, Ventrilo, IRC, or even Facebook and get the same socialization for free. If the reason you play WoW is socialization, that's pointless as you are spending money every month for something that is free via other means. Those tangential aspects of it, or other games, that may be worthwhile are only actually a good idea if they can not be had via other, less expensive, and less time consuming means. In summary, if you are playing WoW for the chat room, stop playing WoW and get a free chat room.
As for puzzle games, many of them are pointless. The point of a puzzle game is not to find the solution to any particular instance of the puzzle. The point is to find the algorithm by which you can solve any instance of the puzzle. Once you have discovered such an algorithm, the puzzle is completely solved, and it becomes pointless. If you have not discovered the algorithm, you continue solving instances of the puzzle as a means to seek it out. Development of such algorithms is pretty much what computer science is all about. Execution of known algorithms is what tedious manual labor is all about. Understanding that is central to our approach to gaming.
If you are talking about puzzle games like Tetris or Magical Drop, as opposed to pure puzzles, those games are not actually about solving puzzles. Those games are about reaction times, pattern recognition, timing, manual dexterity, etc. It's all just as worthwhile as Street Fighter is. It is no surprise that Super Puzzle Fighter exists, and that such games appeal to fighting game fans.
These are all based on your own personal objectives and likes/dislikes and your personal definitions of value. Again you admit that this is YOUR approach to gaming, not everyone's approach. This is a subjective issue and you treat as if it is not and use your views to bias you against the people that play the games, not just against the games themselves.
These are all based on your own personal objectives and likes/dislikes and your personal definitions of value. Until you can admit that this is a subjective issue, then I can only assume that you are unreasonable in the extremes
How is it subjective? Are you saying that it is not objectively better to just watch Lord of the Rings straight through than to have it constantly interrupted?
One might argue that maybe someone enjoys those interruptions. Perhaps this would be a valid argument if the interruptions were in the form of Looney Tunes. However, they are not. The interruptions are in the form of games. Games which are tedious, mindless, and devoid of merit. It's the same as if the interruption forced you to stamp license plates before the movie continued.
And you might then ask what if someone enjoys the tedium and monotony of stamping license plates? I would then ask indeed, what kind of person enjoys stamping license plates? What kind of person will gladly spend many hours stamping many license plates in exchange for naught but a few pretty pictures? What kind of person?
Since when is this about LotR and commercials? If the story is good, the art is good and some one doesn't mind or even likes what is commonly called grind, then how is that the same? You equate it to commercials, but others might not. Moreover, their likink or disliking it doesn't equate to them being idiots, just them having different tastes.
You equate it to commercials, but others might not. Moreover, their likink or disliking it doesn't equate to them being idiots, just them having different tastes.
It does if you can mathematically demonstrate that watching commercials is mentally identical to stamping license plates. If you like grind, then you also like stamping license plates. What does that say about you?
You keep pretending that games are not entirely subjective. They are at their core a largely objective mathematical construct. You have not demonstrated to the contrary, and continue to ignore it.
First of all, how is Dota/HoN in any way a mindless game of grind? One game lasts 45-60 minutes and you really only spend the first 20 minutes in a lane (if you choose, you can always leave sooner). The leveling and gold just happens, you dont really grind it. As for the last hitting, I really don't understand what the complaint is about. Rym makes it sound like some kind of glitch people abuse like wavedashing in Smash or something. You only get credit for a creep kill if you land the final blow, thus it is advantageous to time your last hit, as just auto attacking a creep will statistically give you less chance of dealing the final blow. This is in no way a glitchy aspect and isn't even something purposely implemented, it is just something common sense to do. This is not at all mindless clicking, because if you ever get good at at, you are constantly battling your opponent for that last hit. It is a competition of timing, in that you have to time your final attack to deal the last blow before your opponent. It is a competition of reflex in that you have to react to any sudden decreases of the creep's health and react to feint attacks by your opponent. It is a competition of skill in that you have to be able to predict attacks from your opponent and actually be able to pull off the maneuvers that you want to do (there are many advance techniques such as feigning attacks, animation cancels, baiting, creep pulling, orb walking, etc). You have to do all this while dealing with your opponent in attacking and defending. Less experienced players can not do this as well and see it as a cheap and pointless mechanic. When you learn more about the game, the early laning phase will be much more exciting and interesting. I equate it to any 1 v 1 sport such as tennis and ping pong. You are constantly trading blows and trying to outplay the other. You can also tell how good your opponent is within seconds after the laning phase starts.
Also, Rym, do not speak about the history of dota as if you know anything about it. Dota has been constantly involving over its lifetime. It is in no way outdated and is a very popular mod currently played worldwide. Large tournaments are held and broadcasted live side by side with starcraft tournaments. In fact, when I was in Vietnam last summer I was there to witness the finals where the Vietnam team faced off against the Japanese. Dota has been carefully tweaked and molded into the competitive viable game that it is now, and there is no reason for HoN to change anything. The popularity has only been increasing. HoN serves to bring the next generation of Dota through improved graphics, platform, network, and interface while keeping the essence of it unchanged.
And Scott, everything you have said points out that Dota/HoN is not a mindless game. You have referred to it as a Rocks/Paper/Scissors game when this in no way applies. There may be heroes that have an advantage to other heroes but this in no way gives you an auto win. This is a 5v5 game and there are no optimal hero picks or items you can get that guarantees or even gives you that high of a win chance against another team of similar skill. Like Go, there is no way to make an AI that can play anywhere near the level of even an intermediate level player. Even if the ai had perfect timing in last hitting, there are so many things the other player can do to still come out on top in creep kills. This games tests you reflexes, ability to process information and act on them, execution of maneuvers, wit, and pretty much in some degree everything that all other games do.
You guys have only scratched the surface of this game and only see that there are a large amount of things you have to know before you can play competently. You see some of the superficial mechanics of the game and immediately give a negative reaction because you do not fully understand it, you do not have the affinity for this type of skill, and you see it as another barrier that prevents you from playing competently. Thus, you label this game as inferior because your experience with it so far have been bad due to your inability to play this game enjoyably.
Your experience with this game is similar to mine with NS. After that podcast about NS a long time ago, I decided to give it a try. My experience was very bad. I had no idea what I was doing, I kept dieing, the community was shit to me, and I did not want to read and learn all the things I needed to know that would have allowed me to play competently. I decided that it wasn't worth my time and went back to other games, but i did see how the game could be good. I respect and understand your decision that HoN would not be worth your time as it would require too much learning to start having fun, but stop speaking as if you know everything about every game that you play for a little bit and then present your inaccurate views as the golden standard and belittle everyone else who does not agree. All the complaints you guys have made is what makes this game great and rewarding. If you guys could pick it up and play as well as everyone else who have been playing for years, this game would not be as popular in the competitive scene as it is now.
I remember the podcast where Scott first mentioned this game and how he made an incredible come back after being behind in a 2v2. That feeling and experience is what this game would be like once you pass the initial learning curve, but to a much, much greater extent. My greatest video game experiences come from this game when I pull off miraculous victories after what I thought was certain loss, from somehow getting a quintuple kill during a heated 5v5 team skirmish, from barely escaping with 2 health after killing 2 heroes. This game is in no way pointless and mindless, but it takes a lot of playing and learning to be able to enjoy. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to get into this game without a group of friends with you, or without someone showing you how to play.
Zenocided, if you still need a beta key, give me your email and i'll send you one.
It is true that NS does have a learning curve. But in NS you don't have to walk around doing mindless clicking for 20 minutes before the actual game starts. You do have to hump the armory, but they're getting rid of that.
It is true that NS does have a learning curve. But in NS you don't have to walk around doing mindless clicking for 20 minutes before the actual game starts. You do have to hump the armory, but they're getting rid of that.
I still dont know why you insist on calling it mindless clicking when I have clearly explained why it isnt. Just because you are not a fan of RTS style microing does not make it mindless. : /
I still dont know why you insist on calling it mindless clicking when I have clearly explained why it isnt. Just because you are not a fan of RTS style microing does not make it mindless. : /
What's mindful about it? You just click on any guy with a low healthbar. It's basically whack-a-mole.
What's mindful about it? You just click on any guy with a low healthbar. It's basically whack-a-mole.
He already went over it earlier, didn't you read? I'd like to see you play mindlessly and not get your ass beaten. You guys have already admitted that there is a high learning curve to this game, yet you keep saying that it's mindless. Isn't that a big fat contradiction right there?
You guys have already admitted that there is a high learning curve to this game, yet you keep saying that it's mindless. Isn't that a big fat contradiction right there?
No, because it isn't about learning a skill, it's about acquiring knowledge. Do you understand the difference?
No, because it isn't about learning a skill, it's about acquiring knowledge. Do you understand the difference?
Yes, but what makes the learning curve so great ISN'T about acquiring the knowledge to succeed, but how you APPLY that knowledge in the heat of battle, while considering your opponents' and your allies' maneuvers.
I just think that you guys are making grand judgments about a game that you have an incredibly superficial understanding of. I hope this isn't a precedent.
I've said this 3 times already but i'll quote myself again since it was lost in a wall of text.
"You only get credit for a creep kill if you land the final blow, thus it is advantageous to time your last hit, as just auto attacking a creep will statistically give you less chance of dealing the final blow. This is in no way a glitchy aspect and isn't even something purposely implemented, it is just something common sense to do. This is not at all mindless clicking, because if you ever get good at at, you are constantly battling your opponent for that last hit. It is a competition of timing, in that you have to time your final attack to deal the last blow before your opponent. It is a competition of reflex in that you have to react to any sudden decreases of the creep's health and react to feint attacks by your opponent. It is a competition of skill in that you have to be able to predict attacks from your opponent and actually be able to pull off the maneuvers that you want to do (there are many advance techniques such as feigning attacks, animation cancels, baiting, creep pulling, orb walking, etc). You have to do all this while dealing with your opponent in attacking and defending."
And there is a lot of things to know, but knowing everything is only about 10% of the learning curve. You could get every aspect of the game memorized, even common strategies and tricks memorized, and you will still get your ass kicked for a long time. This is what keeps the game fresh, there's a gigantic skill cap. I've been playing since dota was created and consider myself pretty good, but the really good tourney players make me cry.
If you submit that those techniques can be compared to snaking, then your earlier statements about the game being completely mindless are null and void.
Plus, those are all techniques that are inherently part of the game. Snaking is a technique that takes advantage of a loophole in a mechanic, and was not meant to be included in the gameplay.
If you submit that those techniques can be compared to snaking, then your earlier statements about the game being completely mindless are null and void.
Plus, those are all techniques that are inherently part of the game. Snaking is a technique that takes advantage of a loophole in a mechanic, and was not meant to be included in the gameplay.
First off, Rym is the one who said that it's a bug or some such, I know it isn't. Also, I know that snaking was most likely not intentional in Mario Kart DS, and that last-hitting was intentional in HoN.
Just because it is an intentional part of the game, and is difficult, does not mean it is not mindless or stupid. It's got the same problem snaking has, and whether or not it was included intentionally doesn't really matter. Actually, it may be worse that it was intentional, because what good game designer would included a snaking-like mechanic intentionally?
It's all about what skill is being tested. In Mario Kart DS, the game is good when the skill they are testing is good driving. That meaning your ability to stay on the road, avoid obstacles, take the shortest path, etc. Snaking, however, makes it so that your driving skill doesn't matter anymore. Instead, what matters is your button-mashing ability. How fast can you push the buttons to snake more times? Driving off road? Doesn't matter so much if you can snake it.
This is the same thing. You would hope in DotA/HoN that the skill being tested is your strategic decision making. When to attack, when to defend, what attacks to use in which order on which targets. But before you can play that game, you have to play this whack-a-mole game of who can click the fastest and with the best timing. This is my fundamental problem with RTS. They call it real time strategy, but clicking quickly matters a lot more than strategy.
Imagine if there was a game of basketball. Before the game of basketball started, the teams had to play poker, and whoever won at poker got a 20 point head-start in the basketball game. That's basically what's going on here.
Because the HoN developers and community are hardcore DotA fans, they've created a game which clones DotA almost identically. Instead, what they should have done, is boiled the game down. Take the things that make DotA a good game, and amplify them, while removing the things that make DotA a bad game.
If I were in charge of HoN here is what I would do.
If the game is mainly about real-time control of a single unit, RTS controls are incredibly clumsy. I would use Robotron controls. One analog stick for walking, one for shooting. Buttons use your abilities.
Second, I would add a lot more things to the creeps. There really isn't that much you can do with them. I would definitely put a lot more interesting things into the tower defense aspect of the game. Let people build towers. Maybe make more different creep types. Let people choose which kinds of creeps are going where. Summoning creeps. Lots more creep and tower-related abilities.
Also, the fact that there are three pre-defined lanes is sort of limiting and bland. Let people make their own lanes, like desktop tower defense. Much more interesting. There used to be tower defense games where the lane is pre-defined, and you just put the towers on the side of it, but the ones with an open field are much more fun and more popular. Make the whole map one big forest. Then the beginning of the game, instead of being a grind to level up, will be about carving a path through the woods. That would be pretty great.
What it comes down to is this. If it's a game of strategy, why is there all this mouse-timing and accurate and rapid clicking BS? The mouse clicking that goes on in this kind of game is way more insane than even an old school fps. It seriously detracts from any possible strategic or tactical elements that may be present if my great strategy fails because I have to click ultra-precisely and rapidly. I think the Robotron-style controls alone could do wonders for this kind of game, as it would eliminate nearly all this fiddly nonsense.
Imagine a game of chess where it mattered how quickly you were able to move your pieces, and whether or not you were able to put the pieces directly in the center of the destination square. I think that's a pretty good analogy. The game is testing skills, which may be difficult, but are tangential to the things in the game that are fun and actually matter.
You are trying to make Dota into a completely different game. While the things you describe might also make for a fun an interesting game, it would not be dota anymore and would have no reason to be connected to it. HoN was made because people wanted dota, not because they though dota should be changed.
Analog controls would not work at all. How will you move and aim your spells? Many spells require you to click on the ground, some require you to click far away from your character or at precise places on your minimap. For this, a mouse would be the fastest.
You also keep talking about how HoN takes everything that makes the game great as well as the things that make the game bad and puts it back in. Without playing this game enough, you have no idea what any of the good and bad aspects are. The last hitting mechanic is definitely a good thing. League of Legends does not have last hitting nor many of the other more difficult mechanics and is generally declared as a less competitive and rewarding game. Taking this last hit competition out would make it a whack a mole.
Also, no where have I or anyone said that Dota/HoN is primarily a strategic decision making game. While it does test this aspect with all the things you mentioned, it also tests your ability to "click quickly." In fact, there is an advantage being a small and quick hero just because it is harder to click them to target spells. You treat the beginning lane phase as a separate part of the game that you have to do well in order to play the actual game, when it is not. There is no set lane time you have to go through, there are strategies where you can start ganking other heroes as early as level 3. Laning is as part of the game as everything else. The reliance on quick click skills is in no way a negative aspect, it is part of what makes the game fun and matters just as much as the strategic thinking aspect. It seems that you are just not good or not willing to improve this skill demanded by the game so it does not seem fun to you. What you want is a TBS, not a RTS and you should not fault the game for not being to your tastes for these kinds of games.
When HoN is released, it will have a very powerful engine that people can use to make their own games, perhaps someone will use it to make a game more to your liking then. As for you chess analogy, lets say that you and your opponent played chess enough to learn all the optimum moves for each situation (not too farfetched for intermediate Dota/HoN players). Now the games starts to get boring, as every move you make you know what your opponent will do as both you and he knows what the optimum move is. Now if you throw in other skills such as quickness and accuracy in placing your pieces then the game is now much more rewarding. Just because you know the optimum move no longer means you will actually be able to perform them and the longevity of the game will greatly increases.
Dota/HoN was created to include both strategic thinking skills as well as mouse clicking and it tests these very well.
Earlier in this discussion, you said that you could mathematically "prove" which games were a waste of time. However, when you're comparing games of skill based on which skill is being tested, how are you going to make that judgement with only mathematics?
Why is aiming a "good" skill, and micromanagement a "bad" skill?
I agree that RTS games generally lack strategy, but how is micromanagement bad in and of itself? Why is, say, Quake 3 a better game than Starcraft? I would argue that Starcraft has more strategy and tactics than Quake 3, for one thing.
Without playing this game enough, you have no idea what any of the good and bad aspects are.
That statement feels kinda weird for me. Aren't you basically saying that I'm not allowed to say that comics drawing style is bad after couple of pages, because I haven't read all/most of the comic, or that I'm not allowed to say that writers text is boring before I've read most of the book.
I have never understood why judging things based on first impressions is so bad, it just makes us see what might be worth using time in and what doesn't. If I got bored during the first chapter of book I'm reading it doesn't make me read forward to see if it might get better.
Earlier in this discussion, you said that you could mathematically "prove" which games were a waste of time. However, when you're comparing games of skill based on which skill is being tested, how are you going to make that judgement with only mathematics?
You're conflating two separate things. I'm not arguing that this game is solved, because it isn't, so none of that stuff is relevant here, which is why I haven't brought it up. Being solved is just one thing that can make a game bad. There are other things as well, bad controls are a good example.
Why is aiming a "good" skill, and micromanagement a "bad" skill?
It's not that one skill is good or another is bad. It's that there are two tastes that don't taste great together. When you think about a really big and complex game, you can usually break it down into separate games and evaluate them individually. For example, in Half-Life 2, the part with the antlions is a first-person platforming game, avoiding stepping on the sand. The part where you have to setup the turrets is a defense game, similar to L4D survival. The early levels are a run-and-gun fps. They're really all separate games that are stuck together, but they go together nicely, like a soup or salad. The snaking in Mario Kart DS puts two games together that do not mix well. The racing game does not mix well with the hand-blistering snaking game. Mario Party goes well with hand blistering. Which brings me to...
You are trying to make Dota into a completely different game. While the things you describe might also make for a fun an interesting game, it would not be dota anymore and would have no reason to be connected to it. HoN was made because people wanted dota, not because they though dota should be changed.
Exactly, it wouldn't be DoTA anymore, because DotA sucks. DoTA consists of many separate games, some of which do not go well together. It has the tower defense game, the grinding NPCs in the jungle game, the resource management/item game, the last-hitting game, lots of separate games. The thing is, only some of these games are good. The good part of the game is the maneuvering of your hero, and deciding which special attacks to use when, on whom. Deciding when to push, and when to defend, and working with your team. The other aspects of the game kind of suck. Thus, if I were to remake the game, I would throw out all those shitty parts, and keep only the good parts.
Think of Dungeons and Dragons compared to Burning Wheel. D&D; consists of many separate games. There's the money-counting game, the dungeon crawling exploring game, the role-playing, the monster fighting, and more. Burning Wheel looks at D&D; and says, you know what. The role playing is really the fun part here. Also, nobody bothers to actually count all their money in D&D;, that part actually sucks. Let's take the good, and throw out the bad. The result is not D&D; anymore. It's a million times better.
This is why it took me quite a few plays to figure out this game, and why it is really so disappointing. There is some good stuff at the core of this game, but there is a bunch of bullshit that just gets in the way.
Just to give one more example, think about Watchmen, the comic. You know it has those prose sections at the end of each issue. Of course, they are amazing, and I have read them. However, every time I get to them, my brain sort of doesn't want to read them. Why? Because changing modes kind of sucks. I can read a novel just fine, and read a comic just fine, but prose in the middle of a comic does not generally make for goodness. I know many other people who are avid readers and also have this problem.
And this is the problem with DotA/HoN. The last-hitting, the creep blocking, all that BS just gets in the way of the actual strategy parts.
If you really wanted to keep it the exact same game, but remove this problem, there would be an easy way to do it. Put a button in the interface for every stupid fiddly thing. For example, there would be an auto optimal last-hit button. It would make your hero automatically attack only creeps with health so low, that they will die in one hit from you, and it will also attack your own creeps. Make another button for creep block. You click the button, then click some creeps, and your guy automatically block them and slows them down. You could also make an orb-walk button, a feign-attack button, etc. Now instead of all that stuff being fiddly bullshit mouse-clicking tricks, they simply become strategic decisions.
A good example of something similar in another game is the bunny hop. In the early Quake games it was an unintentional bug, but it was an unintentional good thing. What did they do in later Quakes? They made it easier to do. Warsow takes it a step further, and makes it even easier. Instead of having to concentrate on the timing of clicking a button, you can concentrate on the core problem in the game, which is what weapon to use, where to go, who to attack, how to attack, aiming, etc.
One last example, from computer science land. Let's say you want to make a desktop widget that shows the weather. Mostly you're going to want to be concentrating on what the widget looks like, and the processing of weather data. But remember, this is a computer. There's a lot of other stuff going on. Are you going to get the weather data via HTTP? If so, you're going to need to implement the HTTP protocol. And you'll need to implement a TCP/IP stack, and it's turtles all the way down to the kernel. This is why frameworks like Ruby on Rails are so popular. They allow programmers to concentrate on the problem they are solving, and not have to deal with BS that has nothing to do with their particular program.
These games seem to have a good part, but that good part is covered in a mound of bullshit that isn't worth cutting through. Remove the bad parts and polish the good parts all shiny-like, and you might have a winner.
Comments
If someone claims to enjoy a game that at its core is mindless tedium, I will not tell them that they do not like it. I will ask them why they like it. I already know that the true answer to this question is that the game is a very effective Skinner box, feeding them pellets at regular intervals. Despite this, I want to see if they know that.
If they don't know that, then they are just someone who is caught in a psychological trap without realizing it. They're almost a victim of their own psychology and the video game makers who take advantage of it. In this case, I try to enlighten them.
If they do understand it, then the further question is why are they doing what they know is a waste of time and a psychological trap? Do they have no value for their own extremely limited amount of time on this world that they would squander it on such an activity? Do they value increasing the amount of dopamine, seratonin, or whatever other chemical, into their brains higher than they value other things that could result from their efforts?
I know for certain that many people will enjoy many of these Skinner box games, and others. That does not mean I should recommend that they play them. In fact, that is precisely why I must recommend that they should not spend their money or time on them.
It is not fair to judge someone based upon their taste. If they prefer the color green to the color purple, that is entirely in the subjective realm. But you should judge someone based upon their actions. Thus, to judge someone based upon how they choose to spend their time, is perfectly acceptable. If given free choice, they elect to invest time and/or money into a mindless cycle of tedium for artificial reward, that is a negative trait indeed.
Playing these sorts of games is really no different than doing drugs, just on a different order of magnitude. For almost no effort drugs make you feel really good, and have harmful side-effects. For almost no effort grinding games make you feel pretty good, and have slightly harmful side effects. Also, like drugs, the harm scales with quantity. In moderation, of either you will turn out just fine. That still doesn't mean that doing either in moderation should be encouraged, or is a good idea. Abstinence of both is best.
EDIT: There are ways to make your point, which I agree has some validity, without making sweeping character assumptions about people.
EDIT 2: Based on your statement almost any and all liesure activities are akin to taking drugs.
EDIT 3: Why is abstinence of both best? Your life priorities and another's life priorities may be completely different.
Let's use Street Fighter and Diablo as examples.
In Diablo, all you really do is repeatedly click on monsters until you eventually win. There are decisions to make, but they are all obvious. An obvious decision is effectively no decision at all. Even if you fail to make obvious decisions, it will only delay your inevitable victory. There is no thought involved in this game. I can mathematically demonstrate that there really isn't any game at all.
Street Fighter isn't exactly the most intellectual and high brow game in the world. Though, unlike Diablo, I can not mathematically demonstrate that it is a waste of time. Winning is not inevitable. You can play the game forever, and still be terrible at it. Even memorizing all the special moves and combos is not enough to be good at this game, so it's not just a game of knowledge. In order to improve at Street Fighter you must improve yourself. It requires manual dexterity, quick reflexes, and quick thinking. While the specific skills involved may not be directly applicable to anything practical, i.e: being able to do a hadouken isn't going to get you a job, it will result in a general increase in your ability that is generally useful.
Think of it this way. You're a Burning Wheel character playing wow. What skills and stats will increase as a result of passing/failing WoW tests? None, because you can't fail a WoW test. The only skill you might be able to argue for is WoW-wise. Now you're a burning wheel character playing Street Fighter. You are going to get a bunch of skill points in "fighting game", which are pretty useless. You're also going to get points in perception and agility.
Playing some kinds of games can serve as mental, or even physical, exercise, which is an arguably worthwhile expenditure of time and effort. Other games are demonstrably mindless wastes of time. If you unknowingly choose the latter, that tells me that you simply do not know. If you knowingly choose the latter, that say something about your character as a human being.
What games are you playing? What skills do they give you? How are they more than slightly different and subjectively more challenging than these? If your games are so superior, please demonstrate how they are.
Used to play MUDs, stopped.
Used to watch TV, stopped.
Used to reload Google Reader and Digg constantly, stopped.
Also, it's not a matter of what people think is pointless, or have reasonable arguments as to why they are pointless. We are going a step beyond here. This is mathematical proof of pointlessness. Unlike movies or books, games boil down to math. The math of rock paper scissors is 1/3 chance of winning, all strategies are equal. Checkers is also an example of a solved game, we know it is a stalemate with optimal play. Sudoku is just a puzzle, that is also solved.
To figure out whether a game is solved, there's an easy question you can use as a test. "Is it possible to write a computer program that will make perfectly optimal decisions in this game?" If the answer is yes, the game is already solved, and is not something I can recommend that anyone play. The exception of course would be small children using something like CandyLand to learn colors or some such.
I think much of the disagreement is caused by the fact that we take a mathematical approach to video and board games, while other people approach them as they would a subjective piece of artwork, like a sculpture or painting. You can't really argue that reading any particular book is worthwhile. That is truly subjective, and depends on a great many things. But then again, books aren't math. A game, at its core, is math. That math can be evaluated objectively separated from any subjective story, plot graphics, or otherwise that might be draped upon it.
As for your "pointless" activities, you list things you think are pointless. What about activities that others think are pointless, but you enjoy?
Personally, I think most of the puzzle games you play are pointless. After playing through one or two, you are just changing the widgets around and repeating the exercise you have already achieved.
Let's say you have a crap really bad game, but amazing story and graphics and music. That actually makes for an even worse game than if the story, music, and graphics had been bad. It's because you really want to enjoy these good things, but must suffer for it so horribly through a bad and painful game. The overall experience is such suffering, it's not worth it. If the story were bad, there would be less suffering, as you could just ignore the whole thing.
Imagine going to see the Lord of the Rings in the theatre, but every five minutes they ask you a really terrible trivia question. If you get it wrong, they make you rewatch the previous five minutes, and then ask you another question again. In a case like that, it doesn't matter how amazing Lord of the Rings is because the bad game ruins it. Thus is the same with Final Fantasy being ruined by random encounters. They would be better off just making a movie, and you would be better off just watching a movie. It's even worse when you consider that a Final Fantasy game can take tens of hours to complete, whereas you can watch all three LotR extended editions in about 10 hoursish (estimate).
As for WoW allowing for socialization, yes it is true. People have made friends in WoW. The thing is, WoW is not necessary for that! All of the socialization of WoW is via chat rooms or 3rd party chat services like Skype of Ventrilo. You could just use Skype, Ventrilo, IRC, or even Facebook and get the same socialization for free. If the reason you play WoW is socialization, that's pointless as you are spending money every month for something that is free via other means. Those tangential aspects of it, or other games, that may be worthwhile are only actually a good idea if they can not be had via other, less expensive, and less time consuming means. In summary, if you are playing WoW for the chat room, stop playing WoW and get a free chat room.
As for puzzle games, many of them are pointless. The point of a puzzle game is not to find the solution to any particular instance of the puzzle. The point is to find the algorithm by which you can solve any instance of the puzzle. Once you have discovered such an algorithm, the puzzle is completely solved, and it becomes pointless. If you have not discovered the algorithm, you continue solving instances of the puzzle as a means to seek it out. Development of such algorithms is pretty much what computer science is all about. Execution of known algorithms is what tedious manual labor is all about. Understanding that is central to our approach to gaming.
If you are talking about puzzle games like Tetris or Magical Drop, as opposed to pure puzzles, those games are not actually about solving puzzles. Those games are about reaction times, pattern recognition, timing, manual dexterity, etc. It's all just as worthwhile as Street Fighter is. It is no surprise that Super Puzzle Fighter exists, and that such games appeal to fighting game fans.
One might argue that maybe someone enjoys those interruptions. Perhaps this would be a valid argument if the interruptions were in the form of Looney Tunes. However, they are not. The interruptions are in the form of games. Games which are tedious, mindless, and devoid of merit. It's the same as if the interruption forced you to stamp license plates before the movie continued.
And you might then ask what if someone enjoys the tedium and monotony of stamping license plates? I would then ask indeed, what kind of person enjoys stamping license plates? What kind of person will gladly spend many hours stamping many license plates in exchange for naught but a few pretty pictures? What kind of person?
If the story is good, the art is good and some one doesn't mind or even likes what is commonly called grind, then how is that the same?
You equate it to commercials, but others might not. Moreover, their likink or disliking it doesn't equate to them being idiots, just them having different tastes.
You keep pretending that games are not entirely subjective. They are at their core a largely objective mathematical construct. You have not demonstrated to the contrary, and continue to ignore it.
Also, Rym, do not speak about the history of dota as if you know anything about it. Dota has been constantly involving over its lifetime. It is in no way outdated and is a very popular mod currently played worldwide. Large tournaments are held and broadcasted live side by side with starcraft tournaments. In fact, when I was in Vietnam last summer I was there to witness the finals where the Vietnam team faced off against the Japanese. Dota has been carefully tweaked and molded into the competitive viable game that it is now, and there is no reason for HoN to change anything. The popularity has only been increasing. HoN serves to bring the next generation of Dota through improved graphics, platform, network, and interface while keeping the essence of it unchanged.
And Scott, everything you have said points out that Dota/HoN is not a mindless game. You have referred to it as a Rocks/Paper/Scissors game when this in no way applies. There may be heroes that have an advantage to other heroes but this in no way gives you an auto win. This is a 5v5 game and there are no optimal hero picks or items you can get that guarantees or even gives you that high of a win chance against another team of similar skill. Like Go, there is no way to make an AI that can play anywhere near the level of even an intermediate level player. Even if the ai had perfect timing in last hitting, there are so many things the other player can do to still come out on top in creep kills. This games tests you reflexes, ability to process information and act on them, execution of maneuvers, wit, and pretty much in some degree everything that all other games do.
You guys have only scratched the surface of this game and only see that there are a large amount of things you have to know before you can play competently. You see some of the superficial mechanics of the game and immediately give a negative reaction because you do not fully understand it, you do not have the affinity for this type of skill, and you see it as another barrier that prevents you from playing competently. Thus, you label this game as inferior because your experience with it so far have been bad due to your inability to play this game enjoyably.
Your experience with this game is similar to mine with NS. After that podcast about NS a long time ago, I decided to give it a try. My experience was very bad. I had no idea what I was doing, I kept dieing, the community was shit to me, and I did not want to read and learn all the things I needed to know that would have allowed me to play competently. I decided that it wasn't worth my time and went back to other games, but i did see how the game could be good. I respect and understand your decision that HoN would not be worth your time as it would require too much learning to start having fun, but stop speaking as if you know everything about every game that you play for a little bit and then present your inaccurate views as the golden standard and belittle everyone else who does not agree. All the complaints you guys have made is what makes this game great and rewarding. If you guys could pick it up and play as well as everyone else who have been playing for years, this game would not be as popular in the competitive scene as it is now.
I remember the podcast where Scott first mentioned this game and how he made an incredible come back after being behind in a 2v2. That feeling and experience is what this game would be like once you pass the initial learning curve, but to a much, much greater extent. My greatest video game experiences come from this game when I pull off miraculous victories after what I thought was certain loss, from somehow getting a quintuple kill during a heated 5v5 team skirmish, from barely escaping with 2 health after killing 2 heroes. This game is in no way pointless and mindless, but it takes a lot of playing and learning to be able to enjoy. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to get into this game without a group of friends with you, or without someone showing you how to play.
Zenocided, if you still need a beta key, give me your email and i'll send you one.
I just think that you guys are making grand judgments about a game that you have an incredibly superficial understanding of. I hope this isn't a precedent.
"You only get credit for a creep kill if you land the final blow, thus it is advantageous to time your last hit, as just auto attacking a creep will statistically give you less chance of dealing the final blow. This is in no way a glitchy aspect and isn't even something purposely implemented, it is just something common sense to do. This is not at all mindless clicking, because if you ever get good at at, you are constantly battling your opponent for that last hit. It is a competition of timing, in that you have to time your final attack to deal the last blow before your opponent. It is a competition of reflex in that you have to react to any sudden decreases of the creep's health and react to feint attacks by your opponent. It is a competition of skill in that you have to be able to predict attacks from your opponent and actually be able to pull off the maneuvers that you want to do (there are many advance techniques such as feigning attacks, animation cancels, baiting, creep pulling, orb walking, etc). You have to do all this while dealing with your opponent in attacking and defending."
And there is a lot of things to know, but knowing everything is only about 10% of the learning curve. You could get every aspect of the game memorized, even common strategies and tricks memorized, and you will still get your ass kicked for a long time. This is what keeps the game fresh, there's a gigantic skill cap. I've been playing since dota was created and consider myself pretty good, but the really good tourney players make me cry.
Plus, those are all techniques that are inherently part of the game. Snaking is a technique that takes advantage of a loophole in a mechanic, and was not meant to be included in the gameplay.
Just because it is an intentional part of the game, and is difficult, does not mean it is not mindless or stupid. It's got the same problem snaking has, and whether or not it was included intentionally doesn't really matter. Actually, it may be worse that it was intentional, because what good game designer would included a snaking-like mechanic intentionally?
It's all about what skill is being tested. In Mario Kart DS, the game is good when the skill they are testing is good driving. That meaning your ability to stay on the road, avoid obstacles, take the shortest path, etc. Snaking, however, makes it so that your driving skill doesn't matter anymore. Instead, what matters is your button-mashing ability. How fast can you push the buttons to snake more times? Driving off road? Doesn't matter so much if you can snake it.
This is the same thing. You would hope in DotA/HoN that the skill being tested is your strategic decision making. When to attack, when to defend, what attacks to use in which order on which targets. But before you can play that game, you have to play this whack-a-mole game of who can click the fastest and with the best timing. This is my fundamental problem with RTS. They call it real time strategy, but clicking quickly matters a lot more than strategy.
Imagine if there was a game of basketball. Before the game of basketball started, the teams had to play poker, and whoever won at poker got a 20 point head-start in the basketball game. That's basically what's going on here.
Because the HoN developers and community are hardcore DotA fans, they've created a game which clones DotA almost identically. Instead, what they should have done, is boiled the game down. Take the things that make DotA a good game, and amplify them, while removing the things that make DotA a bad game.
If I were in charge of HoN here is what I would do.
If the game is mainly about real-time control of a single unit, RTS controls are incredibly clumsy. I would use Robotron controls. One analog stick for walking, one for shooting. Buttons use your abilities.
Second, I would add a lot more things to the creeps. There really isn't that much you can do with them. I would definitely put a lot more interesting things into the tower defense aspect of the game. Let people build towers. Maybe make more different creep types. Let people choose which kinds of creeps are going where. Summoning creeps. Lots more creep and tower-related abilities.
Also, the fact that there are three pre-defined lanes is sort of limiting and bland. Let people make their own lanes, like desktop tower defense. Much more interesting. There used to be tower defense games where the lane is pre-defined, and you just put the towers on the side of it, but the ones with an open field are much more fun and more popular. Make the whole map one big forest. Then the beginning of the game, instead of being a grind to level up, will be about carving a path through the woods. That would be pretty great.
What it comes down to is this. If it's a game of strategy, why is there all this mouse-timing and accurate and rapid clicking BS? The mouse clicking that goes on in this kind of game is way more insane than even an old school fps. It seriously detracts from any possible strategic or tactical elements that may be present if my great strategy fails because I have to click ultra-precisely and rapidly. I think the Robotron-style controls alone could do wonders for this kind of game, as it would eliminate nearly all this fiddly nonsense.
Imagine a game of chess where it mattered how quickly you were able to move your pieces, and whether or not you were able to put the pieces directly in the center of the destination square. I think that's a pretty good analogy. The game is testing skills, which may be difficult, but are tangential to the things in the game that are fun and actually matter.
Analog controls would not work at all. How will you move and aim your spells? Many spells require you to click on the ground, some require you to click far away from your character or at precise places on your minimap. For this, a mouse would be the fastest.
You also keep talking about how HoN takes everything that makes the game great as well as the things that make the game bad and puts it back in. Without playing this game enough, you have no idea what any of the good and bad aspects are. The last hitting mechanic is definitely a good thing. League of Legends does not have last hitting nor many of the other more difficult mechanics and is generally declared as a less competitive and rewarding game. Taking this last hit competition out would make it a whack a mole.
Also, no where have I or anyone said that Dota/HoN is primarily a strategic decision making game. While it does test this aspect with all the things you mentioned, it also tests your ability to "click quickly." In fact, there is an advantage being a small and quick hero just because it is harder to click them to target spells. You treat the beginning lane phase as a separate part of the game that you have to do well in order to play the actual game, when it is not. There is no set lane time you have to go through, there are strategies where you can start ganking other heroes as early as level 3. Laning is as part of the game as everything else. The reliance on quick click skills is in no way a negative aspect, it is part of what makes the game fun and matters just as much as the strategic thinking aspect. It seems that you are just not good or not willing to improve this skill demanded by the game so it does not seem fun to you. What you want is a TBS, not a RTS and you should not fault the game for not being to your tastes for these kinds of games.
When HoN is released, it will have a very powerful engine that people can use to make their own games, perhaps someone will use it to make a game more to your liking then. As for you chess analogy, lets say that you and your opponent played chess enough to learn all the optimum moves for each situation (not too farfetched for intermediate Dota/HoN players). Now the games starts to get boring, as every move you make you know what your opponent will do as both you and he knows what the optimum move is. Now if you throw in other skills such as quickness and accuracy in placing your pieces then the game is now much more rewarding. Just because you know the optimum move no longer means you will actually be able to perform them and the longevity of the game will greatly increases.
Dota/HoN was created to include both strategic thinking skills as well as mouse clicking and it tests these very well.
Why is aiming a "good" skill, and micromanagement a "bad" skill?
I agree that RTS games generally lack strategy, but how is micromanagement bad in and of itself? Why is, say, Quake 3 a better game than Starcraft? I would argue that Starcraft has more strategy and tactics than Quake 3, for one thing.
I have never understood why judging things based on first impressions is so bad, it just makes us see what might be worth using time in and what doesn't. If I got bored during the first chapter of book I'm reading it doesn't make me read forward to see if it might get better.
Think of Dungeons and Dragons compared to Burning Wheel. D&D; consists of many separate games. There's the money-counting game, the dungeon crawling exploring game, the role-playing, the monster fighting, and more. Burning Wheel looks at D&D; and says, you know what. The role playing is really the fun part here. Also, nobody bothers to actually count all their money in D&D;, that part actually sucks. Let's take the good, and throw out the bad. The result is not D&D; anymore. It's a million times better.
This is why it took me quite a few plays to figure out this game, and why it is really so disappointing. There is some good stuff at the core of this game, but there is a bunch of bullshit that just gets in the way.
Just to give one more example, think about Watchmen, the comic. You know it has those prose sections at the end of each issue. Of course, they are amazing, and I have read them. However, every time I get to them, my brain sort of doesn't want to read them. Why? Because changing modes kind of sucks. I can read a novel just fine, and read a comic just fine, but prose in the middle of a comic does not generally make for goodness. I know many other people who are avid readers and also have this problem.
And this is the problem with DotA/HoN. The last-hitting, the creep blocking, all that BS just gets in the way of the actual strategy parts.
If you really wanted to keep it the exact same game, but remove this problem, there would be an easy way to do it. Put a button in the interface for every stupid fiddly thing. For example, there would be an auto optimal last-hit button. It would make your hero automatically attack only creeps with health so low, that they will die in one hit from you, and it will also attack your own creeps. Make another button for creep block. You click the button, then click some creeps, and your guy automatically block them and slows them down. You could also make an orb-walk button, a feign-attack button, etc. Now instead of all that stuff being fiddly bullshit mouse-clicking tricks, they simply become strategic decisions.
A good example of something similar in another game is the bunny hop. In the early Quake games it was an unintentional bug, but it was an unintentional good thing. What did they do in later Quakes? They made it easier to do. Warsow takes it a step further, and makes it even easier. Instead of having to concentrate on the timing of clicking a button, you can concentrate on the core problem in the game, which is what weapon to use, where to go, who to attack, how to attack, aiming, etc.
One last example, from computer science land. Let's say you want to make a desktop widget that shows the weather. Mostly you're going to want to be concentrating on what the widget looks like, and the processing of weather data. But remember, this is a computer. There's a lot of other stuff going on. Are you going to get the weather data via HTTP? If so, you're going to need to implement the HTTP protocol. And you'll need to implement a TCP/IP stack, and it's turtles all the way down to the kernel. This is why frameworks like Ruby on Rails are so popular. They allow programmers to concentrate on the problem they are solving, and not have to deal with BS that has nothing to do with their particular program.
These games seem to have a good part, but that good part is covered in a mound of bullshit that isn't worth cutting through. Remove the bad parts and polish the good parts all shiny-like, and you might have a winner.