Search the Community

Watch the video above from PBS Game/Show, because it's the jumping off point for our discussion. It also sums up my thoughts on the topic better than I could down here, but I still want to talk about it. Done? OK, it's interesting to look at what the value of game length is for developers and publishers. Most people don't finish most games. It takes time and money to make games. People want to buy long games, and often the length of that game, or the content in it, is a data point that goes into the decision about whether or not they buy that game. So are developers stuck creating content at great cost just to tick off that check box even though everyone knows that most people won't see or play that content near the end of the game? It's a depressing thought, a sort of gaming ouroboros of wasted time for both the developer and player, but that serves to entice someone to make a purchase. Any free time you spend playing games is time you're not spending doing anything else, and it's hard to give the time to finish one game when you know that time could have been spent reading three books, or watching an entire season of a great show. If you want one story, and to be satisfied by it, games are incredibly inefficient. ARE DEVELOPERS STUCK CREATING CONTENT AT GREAT COST JUST TO TICK OFF THAT CHECK BOX? People like to say that games are getting shorter, and this is a bad thing, but the data doesn't support that view of the industry. A shorter game can be made for less money which leads to lower prices which means more people buy it ... and so on. But it's also tricky to assume you know what other people want out of their games. Maybe they want to buy one or two games a year that will last nearly forever. In that situation, long games are the best. But the fact remains that most people don't finish most games. It's hard to argue with that reality. There's no one solution, nor should there be. Some people love short games, and some devs make short games. The same can be said for long games. There's enough to go around. Related : http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2014/10/when-it-comes-video-games-how-long-too-long

Are there technical reasons for the heavy use of brown, grey, etc. in a lot of modern games? I remember seeing a few articles stating techincal limitations, but I cant seem to find them now.

I have checked everything. I even googled this issue and it has not helped. I go to play Minecraft and it lags. BAD. I get around 10-20 FPS Sometimes 30 on a good day. It occasionally drops to 5 FPS. I have updated java, tried older versions, brought the settings to as low as they go and it somewhat helped but still lags. I have done what I could from my google searches and that did not help. Is my computer that crappy? It wouldn't make sense considering I can run Need for Speed undercover on max settings and a few other games on Medium or High. I have no idea what to do anymore.

My laptop specs: CPU: Intel core i7-4700MQ @2.4 ghz RAM: 8.00 Gb GPU: Geforce GT 740m and Intel HD Graphics 4600 Resolution: 1366x768 60Hz OS: Windows 8.1 My graphics card seems to work perfectly fine on some games but there are horrible fps drops in other games. The problem is that in some games, mainly MMORPG, the GPU will be working at full or near full usage at a good fps according to the game but suddenly every few seconds, the GPU usage (tracked by gpuz) will drop to 40%-50% and the fps will therefore drop to 10-20 fps which is terrible. This is indeed worse in places where there are many players. This has happened on the following games: Neverwinter, Guild Wars 2, Tera, League of Legends and Watch Dogs. It does not happen with the following: Far Cry 3, Skyrim, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, Divinity: Original Sin, Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, Hitman: Absolution and others (I'm trying to show recent games to show that this is not a graphic requirements thing.). In the games that it does happen, the graphics settings don't matter. For example, in Guild Wars 2, when I play with High settings I will have 50-60 fps but it will drop to 10-20 fps randomly every few seconds (when the gpu usage drops) and then return back to higher fps. The same exact thing will happen if the game is played at low settings (I have the max fps locked at 60). When there are more people on the map the effect will be worse. In world vs world, with dozens of players on the same map, the gpu usage will drop low almost all the time and the fps will be around 10 while if few players are on a map, the drops will be at around 20 fps. I should also note that playing the game with the integrated graphics card plays perfectly fine at low-medium settings with 50+ fps and shows no fps drops so I'm sure it is the GT 740m's problem. It should also be noted that this happens from the start of a game session, so it is probably not an overheating problem. So far I have used CCleaner to clean the cache and registry, I have used AVG to look for viruses and Spybot: Search and Destroy for malware but nothing threatening was found. I have rolled back to older drivers, and I also defragged my PC. The GPU usage drops still take place. Any help?

This is a general discussion thread for osu! players! -https://osu.ppy.sh/u/3616490

i watch this dude on twitch and heres his specs *GeForce GTX770 OC *Intel Core i7-5820k *16GB DDR4 2400hz Ram he plays dayz and will literally get around 25 fps in towns and stuff. that pc is godly so is the low fps because of dayz or his pc?????

Eight things developers can do to make games less shitty for women", not that a lot of this pertain to action games and probably make more sense if you're thinking about first and third-person shooters, the Arkham games, and stuff like that: Avoid the Smurfette principle (don't have just one female character in an ensemble cast, let alone one whose personality is more or less "girl" or "woman.") "Lingerie is not armor" (Dress female characters as something other than sex objects.) Have female characters of various body types Don't over-emphasize female characters' rear ends, not any more than you would the average male character's. Include more female characters of color. Animate female characters to move the way normal women, soldiers or athletes would move. Record female character voiceover so that pain sounds painful, not orgasmic Include female enemies, but don't sexualize those enemies For the last three years, Anita Sarkeesian has been talking about how women are treated in games and has slammed the widespread sexism she sees in the portrayal of female game characters. She's done this through a series of online videos for her non-profit, Feminist Frequency, and in lectures at conferences and even at some game studios. Her supporters cheer the idea that her influence may transform the medium; her critics fear that. They both infer a lot from her analysis of games, but at her NYU talk she left no ambiguity. She spelled out what she wants to see done, what she thinks game developers should think about doing differently. Her list was brand new. "You get to be my guinea pigs," she said as she took to the podium in front of a couple hundred developers, game design students and gamers, "to see how this all works." Near the start of her talk, she apologized for being sick and said it was the first time she'd been ill in two years. She fought back a bad cough throughout an hour-long presentation but frequently elicited applause or laughter as she spoke. This was a friendly and game-savvy crowd "Motion capture and animations for female characters often have them looking like they're walking down a runway at a fashion show," she said. "It's as if the person directing the mo-cap session told the model to walk in the most seductive or sexy way possible rather than just asking her to walk the way a soldier or intergalactic bounty hunter or any ordinary woman going about her business might walk." Even sitting could be a gender issue, she showed. She ran clips of how male and female characters sit in Destiny, a game that imbues its heroes of either gender with the same capabilities. When the guy sits, he just sits, feet and butt on the ground, knees up. When the female character sits, she lays on the side of her legs. "This is supposed to be a hardened space warrior and yet she is still sitting around like she's Ariel from The Little Mermaid," Sarkeesian said. "I mean, what the hell?" The animation arguments were interesting but also demonstrated Sarkeesian's emphasis on the critique of what players see, more than what they do. She has certainly been critical of the interactivity that leads players to rescuing damsels in distress, but if, say, developers changed many of the Eight Things she requested in her talk, it wouldn't make games play differently, if at all. That might explain why her criticisms of gaming occupy a different spot than other people's criticisms about, say, free-to-play game design, game length, or downloadable content. Those latter arguments clearly and directly pertain to whether a game would be more or less fun or engaging for any player, which for many gamers is the paramount gaming concern. Arguments about the depiction of women, however, will find a sympathetic ear among those who, like Sarkeesian, believe that less sexualized and more diverse presentations of women will make games more approachable—more fun—for more people. They won't move people who might linger on the likely fact that changing how characters sit in Destiny or walk in Arkham City probably won't make those games play any better. Sarkeesian talked about how a more expansive range of female characters can open games up to new stories and experiences, but she doesn't flat-out say that it'd make an okay game more fun. That's not really her point. So it's easy to see how two people might sit through the same Sarkeesian presentation and think "This completely matters" and "This doesn't matter at all." Talk of gameplay brought Sarkeesian to her final point. She said she'd spoken with "well-meaning" game developers about how to handle female enemies. Many games use violence as their main means of interaction, she noted, and some developers were uneasy about if or how to put female enemies in harm's way. "Simply putting women in the line of fire is not in and of itself a problem," she said. "Everything depends on framing, right? So, with that in mind here are two things to keep in mind when designing female characters. One: avoid violence in which women are framed as weak or helpless. When we critique violence against women, we're often talking about violence in which women are being attacked or victimized specifically because they are women, which then reinforces or perpetuates a perception that women as victims and men as noble, brooding heroes... "Two, avoid violence against female characters in which there is a sexualized element." She praised BioShock Infinite's presentation of a Columbia police force whose male and female cops wear similar uniforms. "The ideal here," she said, "is to design combatants who just happen to be women." Of all of Sarkeesian's requests, I could see this being viewed as the most well-intentioned but creatively stifling one—Why not sometimes have a sexy female enemy? Why not sometimes let a character of any type be helpless or play up their gender?—and yet it also seemed to be the one where she was trying hardest to find ways through it and where she felt like there were the worst potential negative impacts. "Don't make the enemies or villains hyper-sexualized," she said, How do you balance creators' freedom with the need or desire to open a game up to a broader audience? How do you assess which portrayals of women in games attract or repel male or female gamers? How do we truly determine the impact of the characters we see or control on how we relate to those characters or view the world? Sarkeesian didn't lay out those questions, but those are the ones implicit in her critique. Those are the ones that supporters and critics of her views on women in games are likely to debate for a long time to come. Little of this is bound to be easy, and each of her eight requests are likely to stir debate about what gamers want, what developers can or should do, and what makes for better video games that more people will enjoy playing. Source : http://kotaku.com/how-anita-sarkeesian-wants-video-games-to-change-1688231729 OP : also stop men violence

You might be terrible at video games. You might be amazing. And if you're a guy who's good at games, does that make you cool? That's what one Japanese website wanted to find out. According to Buzz Plus, the following question was posed to two hundred women in Japan: "Do you think men who are good at video games are cool?" As with any poll, this data doesn't speak to the opinions of all Japanese women and is only indicative of those who replied. Also, the poll doesn't appear to take into account same sex couples. So! Take this data for what it is: a poll. Here are the results: 1. "I don't think they're cool." (59 percent) 2. "I think they're cool." (33.5 percent) 3. "It's rather creepy." (7.5 percent) So yes, the majority of those polled didn't think being good at games was cool, with the more extreme opinions going as far as calling it a "waste of time" or "an illness." But opinions and perceptions varied. For example, one woman replied, "Until college it seems cool, but once you're in your late twenties, it becomes a bit much." But that doesn't necessarily mean all those who don't think it's cool are against gaming per se. Said one woman, "I'm pretty good at video games, so it's not cool for me, but normal," while another added, "It's cool if you're a little good at video games." I dunno, I think it's cool when people are good at almost anything. It's interesting to see someone dedicate time and energy to master something. Maybe that's just me. But take heart. Buzz Plus noted that for some of the 33.5 percent who think gaming skills are cool, they might fall in love with a guy for that reason Source : http://kotaku.com/being-good-at-video-games-isnt-cool-says-japanese-poll-1687411488

I can't play games anymore. Every game that I play freezes and then stops working . About a week ago I was at my parents and my rig worked just fine there , but when I came back home every game stops working. What could be the problem? I have a GTX 660

This should be pretty interesting topic to discuss, post an accurate or atleast an assumption of the amount of money that you spend on games this year of how much you spend on Video games this year.. Quote me if you want a poll added to it(or other suggestions), but i like to see your individual replies Post away..

Simple enough. Do you know of any games that would be good for someone who likes The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess? That is a friend of mine's favorite game, and I'm trying to find something similar... for PC though. Thanks in advance.

Hey guys so im planning on building a gaming rig trying to keep it under/to a thousand bucks. sadly i have no idea which parts would be compatible or able to co-operate well :blink: could you guys pls help me? all i was really sure of was that i would put a gtx 970 in there. :lol:

Game on..UK Gfinity last week announced that in 2015 it will host 30 offline events between March and September culminating in the Gfinity Championship 2015 , The event will be placed in an warena that could fit 500 people in it.. Gfinity is a league organiser for multiplayer games such as CSGO and Starcraft II on a Worldwide level, in the upcoming London event there will be over $500k in prize money available throughout the season The new eSports Arena will be the first ever in the UK and provide competitions on a regular basis. There’s only two other major global providers of eSports: MLG in the US and ESL in Germany.. the company says it hasn't decided whether to build a new facility or retrofit an existing one just yet. Once it's completed, it'll play host to 30 tournaments between March and September next year, covering competitive games such as Halo and Call of Duty before its end of season "Gfinity Championship Final." Pretty cool news, Please do leave your thoughts on this down beloooooooooeee... Bonus: Link: http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/uk-esports-firm-gfinity-prepares-to-ipo-will-build-uk-s-first-esports-arena/0142154

NCIX: http://bit.ly/1HozaXT Amazon: http://geni.us/3J1A Far Cry 4 comes on the heels of a terrible PC port from Ubisoft in Assassin's Creed Unity... Can we expect the same issues from Far Cry 4?

Post your Favorite boss fights & leave a comment & also post how long it took for you to beat it/them down beloowww... For me its was kerrigan what's your? post away...

Long-term study finds zero link between violence in video games and real life The first long-term study has been completed on the link between the consumption of violent media and real-life violent acts, and has found... there is none. In fact, the only possible trend that cropped up over the last century was that an increased consumption of violent video games correlated to a decrease in youth violence. SOURCE source of source.. (5 NOV 2014) (edit: i dont even play games anymore )

Ok so although i have a pc i still would really like to get an original xbox, for the awesome games that i grew up with as a kid. With that said i can not seem to find a way to get it to work on a monitor. So my question is there a way to do this or not, if so please explain how. Thanks!

I was going to party up with some of my steam friends on CoD Black Ops 2 pc but it says unable to join. I did research on what this meant and how to fix it and it came up on Nat type. I can't fix it. Need help. Thanks, Matthew

I'm going off to college next year and I'm having trouble choosing what course to take. I got into all of my programs and I'm stuck between the choice of a 3 year game development course and or a 3 year computer networking course. I'm just not sure what the jobs are like for either and would actually like coming out of college with a job, but I also want to enjoy what I do. I would love if someone could explain their college experience and what it was like finding and doing their jobs.

Post the weirdest and most obscure retail games you have (pc and console). can we not forget the set of games burger king released with their meals on the xbox

the verge has reviewed the android based vr head set "GAMEFACE" at GDC 2014 heres the link http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2014/3/21/5534592/gameface

Hello everyone, My issue is that I am trying to change my default save location to my HDD along with my games but nothing I find seems to work, all my saves end up in C:/users/User/My Documents 1. Can you change the default save location of video games? If so then how? 2. If not then is it ok to leave it to SSD? ( The SSD in question is an 840 EVO 120GB with 50GBs free space) [system info] HDD: Seagate 2TB 7200rpm SSD: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit RAM: 10GB CPU: AMD FX 6350 6-core Vishera GPU: Nvidia 750 Ti EVGA 2GB SC ( overclocked +130 GPU clock, +500 Mem clock) Motherbored: HP Angelica 2 Gigabyte Bios version 8 Any help / advice is wonderful, Thank you.

Simple Thread , Post your rating on the last PC/console game that you played . "You can rate mobile game apps as well." Prefered format: Title/Name: Battlefield 4 Rating : 8.5 / 10 Your review/rant of the game B) scale is from 1-10 or anyway that you feel comfortable. ninja hates console joystcks

"60 fps is really responsive and really cool. I enjoy playing games in 60 fps," Jan told me. "But one thing that really changes is the aesthetic of the game in 60 fps. We're going for this filmic look, so one thing that we knew immediately was films run at 24 fps. We're gonna run at 30 because 24 fps does not feel good to play. So there's one concession in terms of making it aesthetically pleasing, because it just has to feel good to play. Kotaku Article http://kotaku.com/a-developers-defense-of-30-frames-per-second-1580194683

In case you aren't familiar with Mount Rushmore So the idea is who are the 4 most important founders and greatest contributors to what video games are today. If you were gonna make one about NBA basketball, you have names like Bill Russell, Oscar Robertson, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan. I didn't know too much about Oscar until recent years, look him up for a good piece of sports history. Now back to video games and the industry. In chronological order from when they contributed, so if their faces where on a mountain of granite from left to right they would be like this. Nolan Bushnell - Founder Of Atari and Chuck E Cheese, turned down a 1/3 stake on the ground floor of Apple Computers before it boomed. :blink: Shigeru Miyamoto - The ambassador of Nintendo himself responsible for taking video games out of arcades and into our living rooms. John Carmack - The godfather of FPSs. An Innovator of 3D technology in PC games during the 90s. Gabe Newell - Creator of Valve, Half-Life and Steam. PC jesus delivering us from console evil into the future. Does someone like Hideo Kojima or Will Wright deserve to boot any of these guys? Miyamoto is a lock like Michael Jordan.