GAMING IRL

Robbie's article got me thinking about gaming IRL - which is to say, the overlap between our persistent real-lives, and the pursuit of gaming as a past-time. As I've said before, I think gaming demands a lot more infrastructure - in terms of technology, mental resources, and time - than the other widely consumed media, and as such, it naturally has a particularly intrusive relationship with our everyday lives. Recently I had an insight about my gaming hobby-turned-habit and did something I haven't done in a surprisingly long time: I stopped gaming for a few days, and my return to gaming since then has been vibrant, positive, and newly enriched.

In the spring of 2013, a few friends convinced me to try the free-to-play MOBA game League of Legends. Unlike me, they'd played Dota back when it was still a mod in Warcraft 3, a game unplayable for me, given my daily commitment to World of Warcraft at the time (Blizzard is watching you; Blizzard loves you). I remember vividly my first encounter with MOBA following the tutorial. I subscribed to Riot's LOL channel, and unlocked a free cosmetic skin for this stupid minotaur character called Alistar. My first game was on Twisted Treeline, an atypical 3v3 map, and my first impression was total confusion. Where is my guy? Where did my cursor go? What does that guy do? Why can't I move? Am I dead? Oh, I'm dead. However I knew there was a structure underneath this chaos and I wanted to understand it, turn it to my advantage somehow. I started grinding out late nights and brewing up obscure strategies with friends. I curated a collection of characters - you only have access to the ones you purchase either with Monopoly money or credit card - and devoted long hours to researching the current strategic trends in between my university classes. I was happy to put up money for a game that was free-to-play in the first place. In a sense, I owed it to them - and there were so many cool and powerful characters to get to know. Eventually I joined Ranked matchmaking, the League among Leagues, and spent months oscillating up slightly and then down slightly at a just-below-mediocre skill level (I think I was Silver IV). Regardless of my failure to significantly progress, I played fervently whenever it was possible.

I think it was around October of that year that I hit a stagnant point with my interest in League. Riot loves to release overpriced, overpowered characters in order to push sales, only to neuter that character as soon as the next flavour of the month arrives. Most changes to the game seemed arbitrary, motivated more by Riot's fiscal dependence on their only product than on creating a Good Game. Across the various forums I trawled, I saw constant reference to Valve's Dota 2 which had recently entered open beta. Everything I heard about Dota 2 - the free access to the full character arsenal; the darker, mature visuals; the powerful abilities and impactful gameplay - made me feel like a kid with a Sony Discman walking past the apple store. I had found the master race. It was blatantly obvious which was the better product; and it was merely my investment in this pile of CDs (read: purchased League characters) which discouraged me from making the transition. I downloaded the also-free Dota 2, and within a month I had uninstalled League of Legends entirely. It became clear to me very, very quickly that, compared against League, Dota 2 had a deep design and respect for its players that had put me off of the former. 

In Dota 2, I could talk to my teammates on microphone in-game. I could customize my characters' appearance. I could play all the characters without buying them, and watch replays of my own games to observe my mistakes. Everything that i struggled to actualize in League of Legends, I was able to do in Dota 2. But what I found out later was that both games were preventing me from actualizing much more important things in my life.

See the big red dot on Feb 8/15? That's me not getting the message 12 times in a row.

 According to Dotabuff Plus, a third-party personal stats tracker for Dota 2, I played Dota nearly every day between December 18th 2013 to August 2nd 2015.  That added up to about 1800 hours over 20 months, averaging 3 hours a day for over a year and a half. These statistics include the rare 2- or 3-day interruption of a broken keyboard or internet failure, and a few 2-3 week vacations in 2014. Throughout this time I continued to "attend" university classes, "maintain" a relationship with my significant other, and work in kitchens. My attachment to these competitive battle arena games led my fourth year of university to be my worst by far - I got a 51 in a 400-level class out of sympathy, and the final required course for my program is still ungraded as I could never work up the nerve to submit my final project. MOBA games compelled me to become markedly more anxious and irritable in my relationship with my girlfriend and my family; whether winning or losing, I would leave every match or string of matches with that intense, twitchy anime thing on my brow. It was not a good time and I was oblivious to that.

You see, I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with playing any sort of game (except maybe clicker games but... those aren't even games, dude). In fact I think it's fully possible to game every day in a healthy manner. Games are awesome virtual realities which allow us to explore patterns and possibilities at no risk to our real lives and identities. While I was engaged with Dota 2 and similar games, I became, for a time, more studious, constructive, and diligent than I am with most other activities in my life. I very closely analyzed replays of my own gameplay to correct my mistakes. I'd schedule my life around daily practice in order to improve; if I got home too sleepy, I'd set an alarm a few hours before work so I could get some training in at my peak alertness in the early morning. I would get friends together at the internet cafe and captain our drafts in a way that maximized everyone's strengths. But that impressive discipline faded with the summertime and my relationship with the game slid into habit. Eventually it just became something I thought I was supposed to do, rather than something I really wanted. I stopped improving because I stopped working so hard at it; yet I continued in wanting to improve and so was continually frustrated and disappointed.

For most of the second year of my time in Dota 2 I was playing on my girlfriend's gaming laptop she had gotten for free. This obviously lead to some conflicts between my desire (need?) to play and her own use of her computer, so I started my first-ever PC build. I scouted out good deals and assembled the machine one piece at a time -- all motivated by the desire to play Dota 2 on my own time, and my own terms. In July of this year I completed my rig, complete with headset, wired mouse, mechanical keyboard... but when I returned to playing Dota 2, something had changed. The basic frustration which filled me in the course of a game was much easier for me to see, for some reason. Something had to give, eventually. I think investing in the gaming rig pushed my addiction to its breaking point. It was probably the largest sacrifice I'd made to facilitate my access to Dota 2 and maybe with that, I finally realized it was something that just... wasn't all that worth it to me. 

I quit playing Dota 2 for three weeks this month. That sounds pathetic. But it's been liberating. My life's improved in every field since letting go of my attachment to this one, admittedly amazing, game. I've finally been exploring the dingier corners of my Steam library and really enjoying myself. Some friends got me into Heroes of the Storm, Blizzard's much-simpler and much-sweeter reclamation of the free-to-play battle arena genre. It is similar to Dota 2, but it's overall much less serious. I don't get that anime thingy on my head playing it with my friends anymore. If Dota 2 was a pack of smokes a day, then Heroes of the Storm is the gum-chewing habit I've replaced it with: perhaps not entirely healthy, and certainly not free of the habit, but a whole helluva lot healthier than before.

This goes way beyond gaming for fun. Evil Geniuses take home the Aegis trophy at TI5.

The main rift between Dota 2 and HotS or even LoL, is that Dota 2 is not, first and foremost, an actual game. I mean, it looks and quacks like a game. It would be ridiculous to say it isn't a game at all. But it's been built and maintained to be a fair, and competitive, activity. Indeed Dota is designed as a sport more than anything. And HotS is a game. Doing Dota properly is more similar to working a job, a career, than unwinding with some chaotic fun; or at least that's what it was for me. 

One of my friends who still plays Dota occasionally invited my to come play a few days ago. I cleared my mind and thought for a second, and you know what? I did want to play. We queued up and expected the worst... but everything went fine. We laughed at the trolls together, we set up insane ganks together. We were playing as friends, for fun, with no delusions about high achievement or selfish comparison. We had an adventure together that left me feeling happy once I, uh, re-entered my flesh body. And that's exactly what gaming IRL should be.

A DEFINITION OF INSANITY. AN INTERVIEW WITH THE CREATORS OF DARKEST DUNGEON

Once upon a time, a young man heeded a call to work beyond the Arctic Circle. A diamond mine there was; in need of the talents of a Level 17 Medic, such as our hero. He took stock of his provisions twice over, for this land was known to be a trying one. Winter still gripped the tundra, and her cruel fingers reached up through rock and ice to wither the very spirit of the young adventurer. Perhaps a worse fate than the stilling chill of death would be the insanity which snaps ever at the heels of the isolated. The trucks needed help to to remain running, you see... It was 45 below and our man was working from the vehicle all night. He plugged in his computer with jumper cables direct from the battery. This battery he knew was his lifeline. If the battery failed - all was lost. Every few hours, this man, grimly stalwart, would beat the ice from the windows, or pour hot coffee on the jumper cables to keep them from freezing. He sought the cold LCD hearth of his gaming rig as his only company, and was prepared to brave the very worst to do so. But this man was as tenacious as a 4-week, 12-hour night shift demanded.

Time was a precious gift, and though faced with adversity, he had time in abundance. And so, our man dodged insanity in reality, by hunting it down in the DARKEST DUNGEON. Alone in the frozen wasteland the company of the insane Heroes of the Darkest Dungeon were his only solace. The anger he felt after retreating  a quest or loosing a prized Vestal was the only thing keeping him warm those 4 weeks. But he kept vigilant, constantly pushing and pulling equally, slowly growing as mad as virtual adventurers he controlled. “This game is good”…he muttered to himself, as his laptop monitor flickered from the cold. He slapped it  in protest and the screen righted itself….”really good.”

The man thought. “What about this game  keeps me coming back for more!? … I must know!!” He resolved to himself alone. “I’ll talk to Chris Bourassa, he’ll know more. He practically lives in the dungeons. Who better to ask than a master?”

What games are the staff at Red Hook playing lately? Did you all know each other prior to starting up the company?

We knew each other in different capacities – I knew Brooks and Tyler, Tyler knew Keir, etc.  Taking the startup plunge is a risk-filled endeavor, so It was important that we work with people we knew and trusted.  As for what we're playing, I don't think any of us have much time right now to play anything!  Looking forward to shipping Darkest Dungeon, so I can go back and see what I've missed!

Who's that narrator? He has this abrupt, short way of speaking that just fits perfectly. How important was it to get the right voice and how long did you need to search for? 

 His name is Wayne June – he's a professional audiobook narrator.  We reached out to him because we were fans of his stuff, and felt like he'd be a perfect fit.  He came on board right away, so we didn't even consider an alternative!

The writing is exceptionally well done. The words are so rich and apt; you've managed to flesh out an entire world with very little dialogue. Who is this writer, and what has been

Narration writing is handled by myself (Chris) and Tyler.  Character barks have been written predominantly by contractors, but I edit their work to make sure it fits with the tone of the game.  It's great fun to work on the cinematics and boss stories.  Our game is very lore-light, so it's interesting to walk the line of explaining enough to ground the play experience, but not so much that we lose the 'twilight-zone' vagueries that are so important to the tone.

When you released the game early access was that motivated by the richly developed aesthetics of the game. Or was the art style and audio your starting point? The game doesn't look early access.

 I knew very early on the kind of style the game needed, and I'm glad it seems to be working for people.  Our philosophy heading into early access was to bring something solid, playable, reasonably polished, lacking more in content than usability.  Along with the art style, this approach helped us to stand out in a time where the Early Access model was being decried as 'dead'.

There's a constant tone of urgency throughout the game. Every battle is a grind. How did you manage to achieve this and what design challenges ended up being most tenacious for you?

 Everything about the game is meant to be a trade-off.  There are no clear paths to victory, and nothing is ever entirely without cost.  In some ways we mirrored the experience of starting a studio:  making decisions with imperfect information in a high risk environment.  We have no shortages of design challenges, but also no shortage of ideas of features we'd like to implement.  The trick is picking only what you have time to do, and focusing your efforts in service of the game's core.

There's no difficulty settings. How does the Red Hook staff feel about difficulty settings in games?

We aren't planning on adding global difficulty settings – you can scale the difficulty of the experience yourself by choosing your missions and managing your light level in the dungeon.  We have always felt that the game should be a singular experience, and that being able to beat it on an easier setting erodes the accomplishment of beating it at its intended difficulty level.

You chose to release 'Darkest Dungeon' as an early Access release. After a few bad experiences i promised myself i would never participate again, then YOUR game came along. What has been your experience from a developers perspective on choosing Early Access? add to aesthetic question.

 Early Access has enabled us to generate some revenue, and position us to make the best game we can.  We wanted to have a strong value proposition for players – essentially offer an early access game that was 'worth it'.  With a small team however, it is extremely taxing to try and keep on top of all the social media & community management.

How has Red Hook been taking advice/criticisms from the forums? What major problems have you solved with help from the early Access community? 

 Certainly!  By bringing a very playable game to Early Access, it has allowed the feedback to focus around balancing, tuning, and quality of life features that are important to our players, rather than big crashes and obstructive bugs.  Things like roster and trinket sorting, quest tracking on the provision screen came from the community.  In addition, the ongoing balancing work is informed by players' responses.

Whats the competition like as an indie developer?

 It's less about competition and more about collaboration!  We've been helped by a number of great indie developers – Klei, Brace Youself, Slick.  There's a great spirit of support and cooperation in the Vancouver Indie community, and we're grateful to be a part of it.  Even exhibiting at PAX last year in the Indie MegaBooth, we found other developers to be open, honest and willing to share their experiences candidly.  It's a wonderful thing.  Perhaps because our price points are so much lower that bigger games, we aren't under the same pressure to compete.  For the cost of a AAA release, you could get anywhere from 3-6 really solid indie experiences...

The game has become a lot harder since the last patch somehow!? I'm having difficulty getting back into the game, some major tweaks to the combat have been made. Any pointers?

 We were getting consistent feedback that the game was too easy, especially in later levels.  Once players learned how the game worked, it wasn't providing enough of a challenge.  Now, the pendulum may have swung too far with our last update – we added Protection to many monsters, introduced a corpse mechanic, and generally nerfed heroes' crit % down.  This back and forth is important, however.  If we know we've gone too far, then we know the sweet spot is somewhere in the middle.  Incremental changes don't provide the same bookending.  As far as tips go, I'd say quit doing dark runs for a while, until you develop a reliable response to the new mechanics :)

When will the final version be ready? Or when do you EXPECT to have the games final release?

 We are aiming for the end of October to ship the game.  In the event that becomes unrealistic, we're certainly committed to this calendar year, come hell or high water.

When the day did come to say goodbye to the great white north the man did daydream of the best trinkets to use and thoughtfully regretted the confidence in which he had venturing into the Warrens and how it cost him his most beloved Hero. The challenges only fueling his desire to conquer the Darkest Dungeon. But alas, he would have to wait until the game's final release. Maybe have a drink at the bar until then, or a brief stint in the sanitarium or perhaps a vigorous prayer session at the church. Regardless, the man's anticipation grew with each day, and until its complete release he would never be satisfied.

'Darkest Dungeon' is available on 'Steam Early Access' for $19.99. Or through there website here. If you haven't played it then what the hell are you doing here!? It's a great challenge and made with the love and determination of a small few developers. Evade Gismo would like to thank Chris Bourassa for  donating your time to our fledgling Blog and congratulations on a wonderful, almost finished game. It was worth the risk; truly. 

TREASURE HUNT! WHO'S WITH ME?

Forrest Fenns Treasure chest before he hid it in 2010. $25K for the chest alone!

Of course X never, ever marks the spot and most hunting takes place in the library if my Indiand Jones quotes serve me well. But golly-geewiz!  This is an enticing adventure! I'm a sucker for a good mystery and this one is of the highest caliber. Believe it or not an interesting and accomplished old man hid a treasure chest in the Rocky Mountains somewhere and wrote an ambiguous poem which, if interpreted 'correctly' should lead the hunter to the cache. He posted it on his blog and printed it in his memoir. So its public domain and has many people around North America dedicating themselves to X. Just reading the banter between treasure enthusiasts and theories to where the stash may be is immensely entertaining. It's hard not to become engrossed in the mystery or at least be mildly tickled by the intrigue. Have a read its a great story at the very least.

Oh and one last thought. Why hasn't anyone made a treasure hunting game? I mean we've all found  'booty' of at the very least 'loot' in many games, but i have yet to see an actual dedicated treasure hunting game. Where you have to research, decipher maps and brave the wilderness. I guess Tomb Raider was close but i'm thinking something less about killing people. Just an idea.

http://dalneitzel.com/

CONFESSIONS OF A TERRIBLE GAMER

Guest post by Rob Fernuk...definitely not Tristan Mowat!


I have to be completely honest - I am a terrible gamer. So why would this fledgeling gaming blog let me write an article for them? Because I suspect there are lot of you, like me, out there.

I grew up a child of the 80s. My first console was a Nintendo, but I also played Atari games at a friend’s house. A neighbour who must have been into computers let us play some of the earliest computer games in his bungalow. I remember him as an Asian man with an impressive beer belly who wore stained wife-beaters and always looked like he just woke up. He paid me to mow his lawn once a week, after which I experienced Pong and Space Invaders while they were still pretty new. Asteroids and Tetris might have been in the mix too, but my memories are fuzzy on the details now - which games were on which gear and when, I no longer know.

But Mario, he was my dude. I had a birthday party at a roller-skating rink and the theme was all Mario Bros. The air-brushed supermarket cake had a rubber model of Mario shooting a fireball from his hand. I probably still have that stashed away in a box of childhood trinkets somewhere. I knew that game inside and out. I remember finally successfully performing the trick where you jump on the turtle shell on the stairs up to a castle end-zone so many times that the game starts giving you extra lives for each jump. I jumped until the timer ran out, the life counter passed 99 and became just symbols. The week following I refused to turn off the Nintendo until all those lives were eventually used up, though my parents were bothered that the red light was always lit and complained that I would “ruin the machine”. Those were the days.

Did every kid know this trick?

When I was 13 or 14 my parents bought our first family PC and I got into Adventure games during the heyday of Full Motion Video. Myst, 7th Guest, Gabriel Knight, Tex Murphy, Phantasmagoria… As a young teen I was able to disappear into completely new worlds and walk around in them, even if it was just a CG rendered slide show. Sierra, Broderbund, Cyan, Trilobyte; all names that held magic to me for they were the builders of these worlds. I knew the names of Jane Jensen and Roberta Williams, female pioneers of digital storytelling.

I played these games. I completed these games. Usually there were no walkthroughs to be had until Prima Publishing started putting out books you could buy - and I did. Perhaps that was the beginning of becoming a terrible gamer.

Gabriel Knight - Sins of the Fathers

There were early signs that I was really not that talented at playing games. I couldn’t get through a few levels of Rebel Assault without exploding on the canyon walls over and over again. I did eventually see the level where you perform fly-bys on Star Destroyers while shooting at them, but I never could pass it. Rumour had it that in later levels you could fly across Hoth and shoot at ATAT Walkers, but I never saw that for myself.

Secret revealed!

Eventually I got into MMOs with a friend, and finally the other shoe dropped.

For me, it started with WoW, but eventually I got into Guild Wars 2, SWTOR, and The Secret World, and I dipped my toes into others like Wildstar, Elder Scrolls Online, FFXIV, and Tera. I loved them. They were everything I wanted to play in a game. New worlds. Flexible playing styles. Huge open maps. Seemingly unlimited potential… Until a random player from an opposing faction came along and gutted me like a fish. Well then. Clearly I was on the wrong server. Live and learn. But it was more than that - I struggled in these games mightily, and not in a way that excited me. I always felt behind the level curve, under-powered and over-matched. In some cases I could barely proceed without my friend practically carrying my useless carcass through to the end of a story instance. It was just a frustrating experience for everyone.

Part of my problem is that I hate to grind. As an adult (shudder) I now have a professional job. One that I am dedicated to. I pay rent and taxes. I work to live - as much as I am loathe to admit it. Who has time to GRIND??? Well apparently lots of people do, but not me. If I’m playing a game and progressing through its quest chains and geography, I have some expectation that my level will increase in sufficient time to reach the next area with appropriate power to kill the next tier of enemy. This is rarely the case. Game designers seem hell bent on keeping players behind the curve so they have to do extra killing or crafting or other menial tasks just to boost their level to reach the next area. If you don’t you’ll get your ass kicked. I got my ass kicked a lot.

Can we talk horror games? I love horror. It’s quite possibly my favourite genre in film and literature. For me, the best parts about the horror genre are atmosphere and world building. I love a decrepit, derelict building like none other. I love the sounds of horror, the look of horror, and as we get ever nearer my favourite season of Autumn, I love the smells of horror. Turns out what I don’t like are jump scares, and that seems to be what the horror genre in games has in spades. I simply can’t do it. For example I want to love Five Nights at Freddy’s. I love the idea of it, certainly. I love the look of it and the design of the creepy animatronic robots. I love the lore - which I’m happy to watch endless YouTube videos about (shout out to The Game Theorists’ excellent series which you can find on their channel, here: https://www.youtube.com/user/MatthewPatrick13). But I don’t think I’ve played more than two hours of the first game so far, because I just can’t deal with the jump-scares. Even when they are earned, they feel cheap. But worse is that they work on me. Yes, I jumped, you nearly gave me a heart attack by blasting loud sound and having something leap towards the screen.  Good job, you win, I’m out.
 

BOO...again.

As I grow older my fingers will never be coordinated or dexterous enough to win at a MOBA, or score enough kills in a competitive shooter. A million teabaggings will forever be performed over my digital corpse by children who have fucked my mother.  Sorry mom.

Do you know what? I’m okay with that. I’m okay with all of this. Gaming may be slowly getting too hard for me, or perhaps I never really had the chops to begin with.  Perhaps reading Prima strategy guides spoiled my patience to slowly work through a game, or life has taken my time and will to do so. But the one thing you cannot take away from me is my love of games. If you’ve gotten anything out of reading my recollections above, I hope you noticed that my fondness for games is still ever present. My trigger timing will slow. My aim will get worse. And I’ll still always hate to grind. But I’m still a gamer, dammit, and I have some more games I need to play.

By Rob Fernuk

DERAILING THE HYPE TRAIN

IGN First Look has been periodically posting delicious gameplay nuggets of the hotly anticipated No Man’s Sky, and while many have been wary to embrace the excitement for a procedurally generated, galaxy-scale open world exploration game (by the makers of cute little stuntman series Joe Danger), these gameplay trailers remove most doubts. At one point during the demo, the playtester lands his ship on a planet’s surface, but falls a few feet as he gets out. He turns around to see the ship has awkwardly landed directly on top of a small structure. Laughing awkwardly, game director Sean Murray says “That’s never happened before.”

Unexpected possibilities? Hype confirmed.

The hype cycle. I built my house on that nice-looking mountain to the left.

Due to their addictive nature and the growing magnitude and reach of the industry, video game releases are characterized by massive fan-hype, even more-so than in film. Gamers always look forward with great excitement to the next big thing. In some cases, gamers can be as responsible for a given hype wagon as the developers are guilty of embellishing the product. And publishers fuel that excitement with unfulfilled promises -- Aliens: Colonial Marines is a recent example. Touted features turn out to be pedantic, flawed, or simply absent. I think people have been disappointed by hype enough times that they must always question the implications of the so-called “gameplay trailer”, which more often than not are simply cinematic sequences shot to look as if they were taking place from the player’s point of view. We've essentially been trained to activate our 'bullshit detector' and question any hint of excitement for a very real possibility of betrayal. Due to the immersion and interactivity; videogames are experienced using a whole gamut of devices, the hype-cycle is fundamentally different from other forms of media. Reading a preview chapter of the next book in a series could never really be called hype, because it tends to be a literal, direct sample of the upcoming product. Movie trailers are cherry-picked, concentrated doses of the film to convey the attitude, actors, and themes to look forward to in the upcoming film. They can exaggerate or downplay parts of the full-length feature and even downright spoil the plot - but as a general rule a trailer shows us what we will eventually see.

Game-hype seems to be completely different. In this modern age of early access, public beta, season passes, and DLC, game trailers usually depict something only vaguely related to what ultimately ships. But gamers are beginning to catch on. A prime example, as most of us know, was the reveal trailer of Watchdogs all those years ago at E3. More disappointing than the graphical comparisons were the minute details that made the game seemingly next-gen. Ducking behind a car door and opening it to let out the innocent bystander caught in a crossfire was a fantastic idea. There was even an audible "get out, stay low"  heard by the games 'protagonist.' Car tires popped and other civilians would help each other out of wrecked cars asking "are you ok? are you hurt...talk to me!?" When the game was released our expectations were erased completely. A new lesson began permeating, finally, into our conscious minds. 'Don't get excited for anything anymore...become an adult, get cynical about anything promised by any entertainment company. This is the way of things, I understand what it is to be an adult now." This was the beginning of Evadegismos ban on all pre-sale activities and the epitaph of our personal hype train.

A lie could also be disguised as a lush cinematic, the worst offender being the first Dead Island game. The trailer is in itself, such a work of art, so emotionally compelling, so inspired, that the run-of-the-mill zombie slaughterfest that ensued in the game itself seemed much, much worse by contrast. I think when games marketing takes its cues from other media, namely film, it tends to flop. What you are hyping when you’re selling a movie is drama and spectacle and quips and climactic moments. I don’t think these aesthetics are at the forefront of most gameplay experience. Of course narrative is important in any form of storytelling but game trailers should focus on the user interface, the gameplay mechanics, customization options, and character designs. Story-driven games should be held up more fully by the product itself than by all the window-dressings that are fluffed up on top to make it sale-able.

What's the image matter if the taste is the same !?

Anyway, so far in its pre-existent… existence, No Man’s Sky has graduated from hype for the idea, to hype for the real, hands-on gameplay. While this holds promise, it has raised my expectations high enough that I stand to be enormously disappointed. I want this game to push the boundaries of what games can be. I want  it to redefine the concept of a shared, open world. If nothing else, this particular thread of hype has shown me what it is that I went in new and exciting video games. Perhaps hype can be used as a metric of gamer values.

Elsewhere on Evadegismos current hype list sits The Division, in the conceptual vein of Last of Us but with a greater emphasis on tactics than resource management. Early gameplay demos look a little too polished, with their sexy-sparse interface and incredible environment details, like intractable car doors, poppable car tires (yet again), and dynamic weather patterns. But one thing that Division’s hype campaign shares with No Man’s Sky is a certain emphasis on the development process. As first world culture gradually gravitates towards a preferences for artisanal, handcrafted quality in food, clothing, and decor, we become connoisseurs not only of fine products, but of production processes. We like to brag about where things come from and how they’re made, and this sensitivity seems to have reached the gaming industry as well. Sean Murray describes his perception of gameplay footage -- he sees the procedurally generated terrain for what it really is: a sprawling math equation. Meanwhile the second chunk of the Division trailer boasts the power of their custom-designed Snowdrop engine, and the loose corporate structure of the production company.

Games nowadays are made by people. Sometimes just a handful of exceptionally talented ones; they’re crafted. Maybe this new emphasis on design could prevent future hype trains from crashing so gruesomely. Despite a history of disappointment there is a faint hope always purring away in our imaginations. We all want to buy a train ticket heading for paradise with all of our friends on board, hopefully we get there in one piece.