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xpct 8 hours ago

I'll stick to games and movies, as I believe both have been moving in a similar direction, becoming more of an object to be consumed, rather than to be experienced. I've thought about this in two ways: it's either that (a) when fields are fresh, creators explore orthogonal concepts and fit to what performs best relatively quickly, or (b) the available idea space just isn't that large by itself, and novelty wears off after you watch some number of movies.

Both games and movies are predictable in the sense that we know what to expect, and they have been largely standardized. Games have common keybinding schemes, as well as user experience mechanics: how jumping feels, when we expect to autosave, what the UI/minimap symbols mean, etc. When it comes to movies, I find myself no longer turning away from the screen before gruesome scenes, because I expect in advance that they won't show it, depending on the mood of the movie. I also find that you can often predict which dialogue lines were meant as foreshadowing for a plot twist coming later. This standardization is intentional in the sense that people are more likely to consume something they are familiar with, and more likely to enjoy it if they can passively engage with it.

It's common nowadays to pay $20 for a game, play it for a few hours, and forget about it. Or, turn on a random Netflix show on the TV to pass time in the evening. Quite likely that a month later you won't reminisce about either of these experiences, but you probably didn't have high expectations either way. I think 'consuming' a travel trip is similar in the sense that it has very familiar tropes no matter where you go, but more implicitly resulting from market forces rather than intentional design from a creator.

mghackerlady 7 hours ago | parent [-]

For this reason, I'll always love indie games. Anyone who finds themselves bored with moder AAA gaming should really go play some of the 2000s and 2010s indie darlings. Here, I'll even give you a list of games I've been playing

The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, Bit. Trip, Cave Story, Crypt of the Necrodancer, Cuphead, Downwell, Fez, Hollow Knight, Limbo, Octodad: Dadliest Catch, Papers, Please, Proteus, Risk of Rain, Rogue Legacy, Shovel Knight, Spelunky, Stardew Valley, Super Meat Boy, Terraria, VA-11 Hall-A, VVVVVV

Can you tell I own a PS Vita?

bluefirebrand 7 hours ago | parent [-]

Honestly the indie darlings are only getting better.

I've been playing a survival crafting game lately called Abiotic Factor and it is blowing me away with how creative and fresh it is, even in the fairly crowded "survival craft" genre