Notgames Forum

Hey man, I was going to post on your forum, but apparently you're too much of a sissy to let me post, so I'll just write you an email instead.

I have been on somewhat of an internet crusade against what I call 'storygames', that is, this type of interactive fiction that can be likened to choose-your-own-adventure books, except with a load of pretentiousness and disgustingly bad storytelling on top.

I just wanted to tell you that: while I appreciate the fact that you're actively distinguishing this trash from actual games, I think you're a tremendously huge faggot, and I believe fully that people who think like you have been DESTROYING actual gaming for decades.

The MO you promote has infected the mainstream industry so much, to the point where there is hardly a single decent example of great game design that I could even show you.

I play games like Quake and Starcraft because they emphasize what gaming is supposed to be about: gameplay.

Nobody plays those games because they like 'the atmosphere of the game world' or 'being enthralled by mystical storytelling'. They play those games because they genuinely enjoy the challenge of actually having to learn how the game's mechanics work. They enjoy having to devise clever strategies to give themselves an advantage over their opposition. They enjoy the challenge of actually having to practice to succeed.

They are not simply content by pressing some buttons and getting some text shown to them. They will not pay you to act like you're a good writer, so you can then simply waste a few hours of their time with your pretentious, horrible garbage.

You basically make my point yourself, right here in your keynote: "When you come to video-games late, like we did, when you missed Mario, skipped Zelda and can’t distinguish too well between childhood memories of Hide & Seek and Pac-Man, video-games seem like an exciting new medium for artistic creation! In video-games you can make living worlds to explore, you can breathe life into artificial characters, you can set up conditions for situations without knowing how they will play out, you can create a visceral form of visual poetry that makes the separation between the art and the spectator very small."

You aren't gamers. You never were, and you never will be. I'm not saying your interactive fiction doesn't have a place, because it very much does, and the divide will be very apparent in the near future (think virtual reality).

So, I both applaud you, for recognizing the fact that what you enjoy isn't games, and I spit on you, because your mindset has fucking gutted the industry that I grew up on of its fundamentals, in such a way that it's literally impossible to repair and there's nothing people in your camp could ever do to apologize for it. Ancient gamers who traveled around their countries, competing in games like Chess and Go, would be rolling in their goddamn graves if they could see what trite filth 'gaming' has become.

-sym

You basically make my point yourself, right here in your keynote: "When you come to video-games late, like we did, when you missed Mario, skipped Zelda and can’t distinguish too well between childhood memories of Hide & Seek and Pac-Man, video-games seem like an exciting new medium for artistic creation! In video-games you can make living worlds to explore, you can breathe life into artificial characters, you can set up conditions for situations without knowing how they will play out, you can create a visceral form of visual poetry that makes the separation between the art and the spectator very small."

Hey man, I was going to post on your forum, but apparently you're too much of a sissy to let me post, so I'll just write you an email instead.