The "I Didn't Comment in Another Thread" Thread

[payn]

Maybe the issue is that sometimes when a person says "With all due respect" the actual amount of respect that is due is zero.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

There is a small, but burgeoning academic field that is addressing these issues. But no one here wants to read or discuss that. ¯\(ツ)/¯

And the threads and communities that attempt that kind of language are aggressively gatekeepy, which doesn't help with adoption rate.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

And the threads and communities that attempt that kind of language are aggressively gatekeepy, which doesn't help with adoption rate.

I would argue that those threads and communities ... aren't attempting that kind of language, but are aping it. In my experience, they are uniformly and consistently opposed to actual academic work on the subject, and prefer their own pseudo-intellectual bullsh verbiage.

ETA- Completely agree that it is gatekeeper-y and offputting.

 

[overgeeked]

It would be cool to talk about design without having to start by articulating a philosophy of design each time. One wonders if forums for other kinds of games have spaces where that's possible.

Video games are more developed in that sense so you can find more places to discuss video game design where the vocabulary is already largely established. You still get disagreements and arguments, of course, but there's less argument about definitions.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Video games are more developed in that sense so you can find more places to discuss video game design where the vocabulary is already largely established. You still get disagreements and arguments, of course, but there's less argument about definitions.

I believe that's because there's a lot more money in videogames, so understanding the "how" and "why" of them working matters a lot more to people, and they are incentivized to understand it, as opposed to argue about it.

 

[trappedslider]

so i looked at the new update and have decided that it is 5.5 edition

 

[FrogReaver]

Video games are more developed in that sense so you can find more places to discuss video game design where the vocabulary is already largely established. You still get disagreements and arguments, of course, but there's less argument about definitions.

How does that establishment of terms happen?

 

[overgeeked]

I believe that's because there's a lot more money in videogames, so understanding the "how" and "why" of them working matters a lot more to people, and they are incentivized to understand it, as opposed to argue about it.

That and there's far more technical skill involved there than in RPGs. Here anyone with the ability to write vaguely coherent sentences can be a game designer (which is honestly great), there you need years of technical training (whether formal or informal) to have something to actually show for your efforts.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

That and there's far more technical skill involved there than in RPGs. Here anyone with the ability to write vaguely coherent sentences can be a game designer (which is honestly great), there you need years of technical training (whether formal or informal) to have something to actually show for your efforts.

Agreed as well. The fact that a lot of issues in gaming are also technical issues (problems to be solved) helps with that. People can talk about why doors are a difficult problem in videogames and try to solve those issues, without getting into flame wars about how door sizes support different agendas of play.

 

[Evaniel]

Because there isn't an interest in descriptive discussion, but instead in elevating certain styles of play over other styles, it's hard to get to the point of generally-accepted neutral language.

There is a small, but burgeoning academic field that is addressing these issues. But no one here wants to read or discuss that. ¯\(ツ)/

As an academic, I've been able to dip my toes in that field a tiny bit through publishing and networking (it's very, very small). My experience thus far has been so, so much more enjoyable than engaging folks on message boards but also much narrower and slower. It's a microcosm in a lot of ways: the depth of thought required for meaningful work (and the ineffable turnaround time for peer review) all but guarantees that the conversations we'd really like to have in academia don't happen until far later than we'd like.