Insert Credit Flavored Questions that are too stupid for the Dirtbag

@“KingTubb”#p88286 Jelly and dill

@“Gaagaagiins”#p88248 thank you so much! but you misspelled my username!!!

@“connrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr”#p88296

My sincerest apologies! We will send you some complimentary lower case r stickers through the mail within 6-8 weeks.


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What is the literary fiction vs genre fiction distinction for video games?

It's obviously a pretty dubious distinction in writing that has been discredited over and over (e.g. plenty of pulpy fantasy, detective, sci-fi and romance novels have extraordinary literary value, lots of literary fiction takes its structure from certain genres, etc), but I think it's hard to deny the existence of these two somewhat different types of writing.

For video games, if we were just analyzing them purely based on their plots, the vast majority of games would be pretty safely in the genre fiction camp. What other ways could you analyze games to get a split similar to the literary/genre split?

@“saddleblasters”#p88400 Hoping this question is selected in the next round of Questions Too Stupid for the Dirtbag That Get Asked on the Podcast Anyway

The only way I've ever been able to consistently distinguish between ideas of "genre" and "literature" have less to do with qualities which are inherent to this or that work and more to do with the intention behind its creation: genre fiction is borne out of commercial interest, and wants to reproduce traits from other commercially successful writing (literary or otherwise) for which there is a known market. All the games which meet that description vastly outnumber games which don't, and of course many that do are "literary" in their own way.

Perhaps meaningful to draw the termite art/white elephant art distinction here too. Hmm.

I think the question is interesting in light of the way indie game development has allowed developers to break free of big publisher commercial interests and go back to riffing on or all but remaking older games, [Metal Gear](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ppYv7SPT_4), [Link's Awakening](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec_SfnPOBo8), [Symphony](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodstained%3A_Ritual_of_the_Night) [of the](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castlevania:_Aria_of_Sorrow) [Night](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timespinner), [Super Metroid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metroidvania), [etc.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qzk3tgiz5yE)

Video games as well as any other medium are, according to corporate interests, material to be mined and repackaged to appeal to existing customers, who once liked EarthBound, and new customers, who have been told over and over again that EarthBound is one of the greatest games of all time. What determines whether [a fan sequel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0Fxz0VclBA) or [genre game made in its image](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undertale) acts as meaningful commentary on or evolution of its mechanics instead of a fetish object? How similar or different from the original does such a new game need to be?

I don't know||, but Bloodstained is a load of CRAP||

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@“saddleblasters”#p88400 What is the literary fiction vs genre fiction distinction for video games?

Dragons.

End of explanation


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@“captain”#p88435

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@“captain”#p88441 Wish I could put it on just about every post in the ding danged forum!


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@“captain”#p88435 intention behind its creation

no, it's the qualities of the work not the intention. Good genre writing in particular is often part and parcel with commercial pressures: look at everything that came out of the pulp crimes magazines of the early-mid 20th century or serials of the 19th

but to answer the larger question: outside of a very very small number of edge cases + small indies (_Disco Elysium_ is the only example of a substantially-sized game that's both successful commercially and in the public consciousness while also being actually good by any sort of rigorous standard) most games are total junk. I'm sorry, they suck ass which is the main issue: a poverty of good games genre or otherwise

I'd guess these are the problems:

  • - the market is full of children and adult children
  • - the process of making games is tech and resource intensive (vs needing a pen and paper to write, a musical instrument to make music, brushes and pigment to paint) and requires to creative participation of nerds who are good at computers
  • - nerds who are good at computers are not generally interested in actual literature (no offense but popular culture is a nightmare thanks to you freaks finally getting what you want)
  • - middle class and bourgeois people have the resources and socioeconomic cushion to get good at computers vs some good old fashioned scumbags and weirdos who can write/paint/make music at a higher rate and doing the old termite art thing
  • - the production process of making games at mainstream scale seems to me to have become resource-intensive to the point that exceeds the old hollywood/bollywood/HK studio industrial setup which let people like Samuel Fuller or Phil Karlson make cool genre films. I guess the VG equivalent would have been the PS1-PS2 era when all kinds of cool stuff found a budget
  • That said, I think maybe hopefully we're getting to a point w indie development that's on par with that PS1-PS2 era inasmuch as there are indie developers who can make and publish good games regardless of "genre" - just in the past few years we've had _DE_, _Pathologic 2_, _O​ጶ​Îș​o​ς​piel_, and lately I'm tripping over things like Hob's Barrow and the case of the golden idol, we've seen papers please, obra dinn, Robert Yang's games, on and on

    So I guess maybe we do have a literary fiction of games, but the genre part is tough bc the "genre" fiction is the mainstream blob trash that's either totally abject marvel cinematic universe corporate junk or TLoU and nu GoW dumb guy self-importance/pity + the usual nerd shit with a big budget

    The only think at that scale I can think of with any kind of energy or actual idea is CDPR. I guess maybe it speaks to my thinking that everyone decided Cyberpunk 2077 was bad and had knives out for it. They got a genre work and decided it was too problematic to live

    sorry maybe too long and crabby appleton a post

    the good genre fiction = PS1/PS2/CD rom era PC/Mac + misc oddball of your choice (Quintet RPGS)
    the bad genre fiction = everything else, especially lately

    literary fiction = indie games especially from the last 5 years or so (not the braid/gone home/firewatch indie that's NPR middle brow fiction)

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    @“yeso”#p88444 no, it’s the qualities of the work not the intention.

    I'm not explaining myself very well: a genre work as well as a literary work can feature tropes or qualities imposed on it by commercial demand or genre convention. I meant to draw a disinction between when an author puts elves in their fantasy story "because fantasy stories have elves, that's _how they are_" and takes a more detached attitude toward them vs "because Dungeons and Dragons, which I think is very cool, has elves" and they're all precious about the elves.

    I haven't played Cyberpunk and hope it's cool but the Witcher games have followed an increasingly "genre" trajectory, conforming with each successive release to established forms (and have each in turn become more popular of course)

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    @“captain”#p88447 the Witcher games have interestingly followed an increasingly “genre” trajectory

    TW3 is nowhere close to being "literary" but I think the writing is aimed at, and imo reaches, like a Star Trek TNG or DS9 level. Which is good for the genre, and good in the way that TNG is better than more aspirational junk like most "good" tv writing such as breaking bad

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    @“captain”#p88435 Hoping this question is selected in the next round of Questions Too Stupid for the Dirtbag That Get Asked on the Podcast Anyway

    It won’t, not stupid enough

    Pitch a Switch 2 hardware revision that is guaranteed to flop Wii-U style.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon’s_law

    Sturgeon's law (or Sturgeon's revelation) is an adage stating "ninety-percent of everything is crap". It was coined by Theodore Sturgeon, an American science fiction author and critic, and was inspired by his observation that, while science fiction was often derided for its low quality by critics, most work in other fields was low quality too and so science fiction was thus no different.

    @“BluntForceMama”#p88533 introducing the Switcheru

    @“BluntForceMama”#p88533 Nintendo Swatch

    @“BluntForceMama”#p88533 Make it dual screen like a DS and add rear touch. Just to stop people from emulating the switch comfortably. And also new cartridge standard so no backwards compatibility unlesss you had the games digitally in which case you'd have to pay a ransome to be able to play them in your s2itch

    and it should be big. like two steam decks stapled together.

    Who or what is the Kirkland signature (as in Costco's brand) of video games?

    @“穎”#p88774 Ubisoft.