> Try to find insightful reflection of humanity and truth in a Marvel movie... God help you. It's as boring as, well, watching someone else play a video game.

It’s so true. The only time I watch one of these movies is when I’m stressed and exhausted and want something so dumb I’ll fall asleep in 20 minutes.

When it comes to these “worlds” that are generated, there’s no there there. I’ve tried various of these and after three minutes I close the browser. Walking around my neighborhood is a million times more interesting. Whereas the creator-constrained and -designed experiences (GTA comes to mind) actually deliver something engaging.

> And the thing is, it's not the technology itself, which could be used to produce meaningful art.

Exactly. I am not de-facto against the use of AI in art. But artful use of the medium is sparse at the moment.

That’s what led me back to books. Character, plot, ideas, coherence. I also love great prose.

You occasionally see thoughtful movies. Many of them are unsurprisingly based on books. The horror genre has become this weird eddy of creativity too with interesting characters and plots and some surprisingly good acting. Of course you’ve historically had innovation in that genre, often ignored because it’s horror and thus low brow by definition.

My take on horror being creative is that it’s like old school punk, pulp novels, zines, underground music. The key there is that these are genres and styles that give you permission to suck, and therefore permission to try stuff.

If it must be high art or it must gross nine figures, you can’t suck. So you can’t innovate.

And then look into all the good movies in Cannes every year. Or subgenres even in us such as horror. Very far away from slop...

>Try to find insightful reflection of humanity and truth in a Marvel movie...

I can name several, as well as something profound to be discovered in the execution of the MCU as a whole, but perhaps more salient is why so many people feel the need to tear down the straw man version of Marvel that they have in their minds.

...Oh, fine, I'll give you one:

  "What is grief, if not love persevering?"

Those are just five separate things. Putting arrows between them in the order that an immersion-seeker might rank them doesn’t mean that it’s actually one thing that became each of the five things, it just means your ability to appreciate those things is limited to “how much can this technology immerse me (or someone else whose money I want)”. This is annoying and artless and leads to claims of “no appreciation for the thing”.

This is the trend of available technology, not a ranking of any particular entry. A great radio show will not automatically make a great movie, for instance.

As an example, while Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is available in at least 6 different forms of media, the movie is by far the worst.

Because radio is not the ancestor of video games. Even if you wanted to make the case, it will be painting -> photography -> silent movies... not radio. You can't bunch two different disciplines as related to each other like this even if both of them are art forms.

We still have podcasts but you think radio led to video games?

Except that movies don’t replace video games. They’re entirely different mediums.

“Plot based media” you actually heard someone say this? Like it was a bad thing?

GenZ is culturally destitute. It’s shocking and sad. Every time I think no I must just be old and I don’t know, I go and dig and… very little. There’s just not much there except brain rot and blather and music that’s absolutely derivative of previous music at best. At worst it’s musical brainrot, like “phonk” inspired stuff.

I fear GenA will largely be in the same boat.

It’s scrolling and algorithms. People blast weapons companies and stuff like Palantir or Flock or whatever here, and for rational reasons, but infinite scroll plus engagement algorithms has done more harm to humanity at scale than any of those.

there was a TV commercial in the 1970s that suggested this would happen in the future. Knowing Seth MacFarlane, that's where he got the idea.

The gameplay _becomes_ the ad. If you have a full sash of potions in every slot, they spell "C","O","K","E". The monster-bashing sounds sound like onomatopoetic "Apple!" "Goog!". The armor colors are the same as the NFL teams nearest your locale!

It will be a nightmare! haha

Every ad since the dawn of time was designed to influence your purchasing decisions

Dont be silly, it will be on the companies hardware. We're pushed to a rent to "use" model in so many things now.

Subtle product placements tailored specifically for you will be injected into movies and TV

In what sense, the commenter .. or the reality of Ads?

It also sounds like Ready Player One, where the real world is so shit, everyone spends all their time in VR, using rented equipment, making nearly everyone a slave to the corporations.

The people building AI must be deeply unhappy, and won't be satisfied until they impose their misery on everyone.

Ultra nerdy point: in the matrix it’s revealed that humans did in fact choose to join it. And the meta point was that most of them still would choose it over reality [1] every day.

[1] reality is also somewhat in question in the films universe

    simulation becomes real enough

Riding a real horse isn't just about the horse ride, right? It's about the trip to the horse farm. The small but real danger. If you're doing it on some sort of multi-day trip, it's about the memories you make with others, the romantic time spent with your partner at night, or if you're single maybe the hope of meeting a romantic partner. For some maybe it's even about doing things like cleaning the stables, which isn't intrinsically fun, but probably adds to the feeling of bonding with the horses.

(I've never ridden a horse. I'm surely wrong about some of those things)

There's also the "abundance issue" with simulations. Have you ever looked at your unplayed games on Steam, or a folder full of ROMs, and just had a hard time choosing or enjoying anything, because (a) there's so much there, nothing feels special and (b) even when you're enjoying one game, part of you is thinking that perhaps the next game is even better?

If things truly progress to Matrix-style simulation, I guess a lot of that is "solvable" by "just" manipulating/injecting memories. But I think that's how far a simulation would need to go in order to supplant real life experiences entirely.

Or, there's the even darker route, also explored by much scifi -- reality gets so shitty that nobody can really even aspire to an actual horse ride anyway, so simulations are all anybody has. A lot of people already live some kind of version of this anyway due to lack of funds.

Sorry for no coherent point. Just rambling!

People do it in all forms of “cinematic world building” including amusement parks, vacations, games books movies etc.

Reality is very much blurry

Yes, but the other three options are AI failing naturally, AI being stopped, or people being unable to participate in the economy without UBI and starving.

Right now we're fully on track for one of several dystopias.

There’s no end to games with near or actually 0 story/narrative.

Untrue. Insta stories were pervasive.

All the kids were on Vine back then, weren't they?

Maybe you need a mirror. People are literally watching AI generated soap operas that have gone viral. Perhaps it's your lack of understanding that frustrates you

I for one would love to be able to experience Godzilla Minus Zero interactively. I get that it's different from movies. I remember seeing Avatar in 3-D and realizing that James Cameron was directing the audience's attention to a particular part of a scene by the way the 3-D focused, and it was a little off-putting at times. That's a small thing compared to what will be possible in a few years, but still -- being immersed in Avatar will be an amazing experience. I'd also love to see a version of Avatar written by '80s James Cameron -- he was a much better writer back then -- or maybe other, more skillful writers had greater influence on him? In any case, it's inarguable that Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, and Terminator 2 are all better written than the Avatar films.

I agree. Game design is what makes a good game, not the programming. And I'm actually excited about game designers and artists being able to take their independent ideas and prototype games in a day/week/month/year/whatever.

+1 on fighting games, an interesting trend in that genre right now is that many of the latest titles (realistically everything other than SF6) are having trouble with player retention, while AI-assisted netcode updates for old titles like SF4 and Tekken 6 seem like more compelling products

Or, the lower barrier to entry crowds out the committed indie devs willing to invest years of their life honing their unique artistic vision for a game that might end up being a hit on Steam (among many other failures). The perceived odds of getting some recognition or even a moderately profitable hit go from "slim but possible" to "hopeless".

Because now their competition outnumbers them 1000 to 1, the competition isn't devs or artists but anyone with a phone, who can be from any part of the world who may not even speak the same language. Many to most of these solo "devs" aren't interested in games at all, and just hoping to rack up sales, ads, hype a crypto shitcoin launch or whatever. These slop games all have flashy attention grabbing visuals, slick product pages, five minute promo videos, with the games boasting 500+ hours of gameplay... of which 99% are recycled borderline unplayable trash.

The indie market for lemons stifles indie devs who struggle to find any audience, with modest dividends going to the most deceptive, scammiest solo sellers churning out 10+ titles per day (mostly 1:1 copycats of GTA/AAA games, psuedo-porn games, gambling games, meme/news cycle one-off games, etc). Middlemen like Steam print more money than ever as purchase volume increases while the indie gaming market becomes closer to the mobile games industry today.

The vast majority of the force multiplier value from AI is captured by the handful of AAA conglomerates who follow the tech monopoly strategy of maintaining market share by constant acquisitions and collectively control the most valuable IP while constantly reducing headcount thanks to models like Genie.

But who knows. It just seems like wishful thinking whenever I hear talk about how AI will empower the little guy to take on Goliaths considering the huge amounts of capital driving AI research and products are coming from those very same giants.

I don’t really agree for movies, basically my entire top 50 is pre-2010, many of my favorites much older.

100%

Needle in a haystack isn't a game. It's a way to stimulate your brain for 30 seconds at best. It's not a game.