about "gameplay"

[Samor]

insomnia.ac | Commentary | The stupidest word in videogames

The link here contains an article describing what's wrong with the word "gameplay". I think the guy's right.
I also think it's more proof on how bad game "journalism" actually is (I'm more and more against the way game journalism generally works, because of several reasons).

[refraction]

yeh i agree, "gameplay" is a bit of an ambiguous word, those who use it for small things they dont like are idiots. for me using "gameplay" means the entire feel of the game, not niggly bits. If i am going to use the word ill say "the gameplay is good, but there are just small things like x and x which bring it down", that would be a moderate use of the word, but i agree lots of journalism/users seems to use the term very loosely.

[galson]

What of the word 'playability' then? It used to be used (talk about stupid use of words...) quite often in the past as well.

[refraction]

Originally Posted by Hyuga

What of the word 'playability' then? It used to be used (talk about stupid use of words...) quite often in the past as well.

"playability" to me is how easy it is to pick up and start playing, basically the ease of use. some games which have complicated or unresponsive controls or stupid camera angles have a low "playability" factor

[Samor]

"readability" is also a word anyway.

My criticism of game journalism goes a bit further, though.
Game journalists seem to be a very proud bunch. They seem to have a strong will to be recognised as "true journalists" and will go to great lengths to write their little "insightful poems" about videogames that are really nonsense instead.
Case in point - take TDU for PS2. No game review I read yet mentioned that the game lacks automatic transmission. They didn't take a good look and realise that it's really a PSP game in disguise either. Instead they like to write a whole story around how it's "Oblivion with cars" and how the PS2 game is pretty good considering the weaker hardware (but forget it could've been a lot better had it not had a shared release with the PSP) .... this tells really well how many reviews are written - there's the urge for the game reviewer to show off his writing skills, rather than actually reviewing a game. Due to this, there's also much more bias in their reviews, probably because otherwise they can't write their fancy stories. So on for example Eurogamer you can see reviewers trying an alternate reviewing style (and quite incomprehensible, but he's getting PRAISE for it) or holding up their little "trademarks" like one reviewer hating Tails from the Sonic games (and conveniently taking that into account when judging an actual game).

[refraction]

Originally Posted by Samor

"readability" is also a word anyway.

My criticism of game journalism goes a bit further, though.
Game journalists seem to be a very proud bunch. They seem to have a strong will to be recognised as "true journalists" and will go to great lengths to write their little "insightful poems" about videogames that are really nonsense instead.
Case in point - take TDU for PS2. No game review I read yet mentioned that the game lacks automatic transmission. They didn't take a good look and realise that it's really a PSP game in disguise either. Instead they like to write a whole story around how it's "Oblivion with cars" and how the PS2 game is pretty good considering the weaker hardware (but forget it could've been a lot better had it not had a shared release with the PSP) .... this tells really well how many reviews are written - there's the urge for the game reviewer to show off his writing skills, rather than actually reviewing a game. Due to this, there's also much more bias in their reviews, probably because otherwise they can't write their fancy stories. So on for example Eurogamer you can see reviewers trying an alternate reviewing style (and quite incomprehensible, but he's getting PRAISE for it) or holding up their little "trademarks" like one reviewer hating Tails from the Sonic games (and conveniently taking that into account when judging an actual game).

You mean how journalists have "head up own arse syndrome"? cos ive noticed that, not limited to games as such, but people dont seem to do their research or use their brain. For example there is a review somewhere for my old Arctic Freezer 64 Pro, one of the cons they gave it was "fan points down in case, bad for airflow" strangely he had the same board as me, all it needed was for you to turn the heatsink around! not exactly an impossible thing to do, but really just common sense.

[galson]

I really despise the journalists who cut and incorporate game walkthroughs/guides and claim them to be their own work. GameFAQs knows too many such examples... Many journalists also are ignorant, writing a review for a game they've never even seen nor played.

[Samor]

Yep... it's also somewhat strange when a reviewer reviews a game from a genre he doesn't know to much about/doesn't have much interest in. Those are usually fun to read for their poor judgement.

It just seems that game journalists are much worse than most other ones. I don't know how developers think about it, but I don't think game journalism should (want to) be a large part of the games industry as it claims it is nowadays.

[Holic]

Originally Posted by Samor

insomnia.ac | Commentary | The stupidest word in videogames
.

Interesting read,
the guy has a point.
I've never thought of it that way before.

But I think the word 'gameplay' has been so ingrained in our
common minds that, we just accept 'gameplay' as 'gameplay'.

for the most part, the majority of poeple who read the reviews,
couldn't careless about the technical bits of the game,
like say what engine was used etc, they just care about whether the game has good graphics/gameplay.

Its like writing a computer review, you don't write a review that has all the
computer science why its a fast processor, you just say its fast and give benchmarks.

So therefore the common people who knows nothing about the computer science will just say, "yeah its fast, I can see that from the benchmark"

Same with game reviews, if the game looks fun, magazine will say,"good gameplay"
Game looks good= "good graphics".

So what I'm trying to get across, the peopel who write reviews are just
trying to break it all up into small manageable chunks, for normal folk like me to understand,

And 'gameplay' seems to be the buzzword to use, so that folk can understand it and not get confused.

__________________________________________________
I'm not going against what the guy says,
I'm just trying to view it on the other side of the fence.
It only fair.
I didn't write a big thing on why he was right because he done that himself already.

[Samor]

Originally Posted by xxxHolic

So what I'm trying to get across, the peopel who write reviews are just
trying to break it all up into small manageable chunks, for normal folk like me to understand,

actually, more often than not I see game reviewers writing confusing essays (of which one could actually doubt the quality as well) that really aren't about the game at all.

But really, "gameplay" is kind of a stupid word when you think of it. I don't think we have an equivalent in Dutch either (we just use "gameplay" as well).
Gameplay, literally, is how the game plays, right? So, that means the game plays well. When you think of that, it doesn't say much.
But, word-invention is fun, and so I'll say that MGS4 is most likely to have good graphicsdisplay and musiclisten.

Oh, and my car has great cardrive. I just wanted to say that.

[Player-X]

I think the word "game mechanics" would be more accurate than gameplay, after all game play is the satisfaction you get from playing it, after all gameplay would mean the satisfaction from playing the game.

For example I think .HACK//GU is a good series, the story more than makes up for the average game mechanics so if you say the gameplay sucks while the story is good you would say that while the story is good overall the game sucks which I would disagree with.

[Holic]

so you're saying that you enjoy the series,
because the gameplays well?

see where I'm going with this?
the word itself is so vague that one can interpret it in a number of ways.

[Cid Highwind]

To me personally Gameplay summarizes the entire flow of the game with a big focus on how the action takes place, and what kind of input is required from the gamer. Which also extends to the controls and cameras because those factors have an influence on how the game plays.

However, usually whenever a word becomes too fashionable it starts getting a new meaning. Leading me to the following thing:

In the end, sloppy use of words promotes sloppy thinking, and before you know it you are sprouting nonsense like "The most important part of a game is the gameplay". If this sentence doesn't sound dumb to you it's because you've been brainwashed from seeing it in print a billion times. For perspective, this is just as pointless as saying "The most important part of a movie is the moviewatch".

He's ranting on... He has a point how people blatantly say gameplay this gameplay that. But he has to accept that gameplay has become a common word now that summarizes a lot of things. You can't turn it back. That's also why the "moviewatch" argument is just bull imo. Because where "moviewatch" doesn't have a meaning, gameplay does. The fact gameplay is overused and used in a wrong way has nothing to do with that point.

And that's also why I fully agree with the final point made by him and that game designer friend he quoted. I really like more in-depth reviews that talk about the game mechanics and how exactly the fighting system works, and what doesn't really work well in the game. "Gameplay" is too shallow indeed. That's also why I mostly take a lot of reviews with a grain of salt, and why I feel forced to look up every single review on the internet because even 5 of them is not enough to get a good opinion about it.

Also, I believe the same thing about gameplay can be said about graphics:

(rant about graphics coming up)

Cause what does graphics mean? It has an entirely different meaning to a lot of people. Most aren't even able to say more than "It has great graphics" and that's it. What kind of information does that give? A game can be a technical marvel with all the new texturing effects being used, lots of parallax mapping and such, while at the same time the textures look bland and the environments have no personality or look like they've been ripped straight out of another generic shooter.

Or does that mean we've got nicely detailed models and realistic effects? And where do physics even fit in?

What about art style? A game can lack technical features, but that doesn't mean the art style and overall atmosphere of the levels has to be bad? After all, artstyle is what a game will ultimately be remembered for. One might say the game looked good "back in the days" and how resource intense it was. But it's style that makes a game memorable, just have Okami (style) or Shenmue (almost picture perfect) as examples.

"This game has great graphics", that's something I don't buy anymore. At least break it up in texturing art, technical aspects, modeling, and last but not least: Performance.

[Samor]

I guess, take that game I got not so long ago, Gurumin. Does it push tons of poly's? Does it have awesome textures? nope, and nope. Yet, it does have a really nice and fitting art style. So, are those good graphics or not?


Although you're right that the word "gameplay" became a common word, when you think of it literally it is quite a silly word.
That, and the meaning does seem a little vague sometimes.

[Cid Highwind]

Yup, it completely depends how authors use the word. And that's where the problem lies, all this pseudo intellectual bullcrap talk about games at times makes you wanna barf. In the end it's just another game, no need to get emo about it.

Gurumin, it has a nice art and fitting art style indeed. It's also easy to run on any pc, so for "graphics" I'd give it a 7.5 or something Who needs quadruple shaded mapped bumps anyway in cartoony games?

[Samor]

it does have the option for blur effects though (actually, it has the complete look and feel of a PS2 game... not so strange it saw a PSP port, I guess)

[Condor San]

who ever wrote that article is some what a noob.

He need to explain thoroughly on how to use the term "gameplay" instead whining about it.

I'll toss yall a good example on a pro gamer that give "gameplay" a good review.

Spider-Man 3 - Review

ps. that GT review forget to add in the air chain combo that i invented =]

[runawayprisoner]

Actually, he didn't instruct others on how to use the word because... it is not exactly a word with a precise meaning. And for having such a fate, it might as well go the way of other words that are in the same category... such as "ongoing" or "offputting."
A word with precise meaning will allow the writer to use it in more than one way, and as another type of part of speech, not necessarily the one that it was born with. You can even use "game" as a verb... and "gaming" as an adjective (Example: The gaming industry). But guess what? You cannot use "gameplaying" as an adjective... and "gameplay" cannot serve as a verb, right? Another example would be "upset." You can use the word as a verb... and as an adjective. However, you cannot "gameplay" anything, neither can you have any "gameplay" thing, which is also the case with "offputting" and "ongoing" since you cannot "ongo" or "offput" anything... and you can't possibly have any "offputting" or "ongoing."
Bottom line: "gameplay" is not an actual word, it is just a poor creation of the mind, which was trying to find an alternative to expressions such as "gaming experience." It might have worked if it wasn't so overused... and overabused.

P/S: ^= Introduction + Body/Content + Ending, another thing about the beautiful language art that some game reviewers neglected, maybe because they didn't have much time to polish their pieces?

P/S 2: If you're going to ask me why my quotes are always "word." instead of "word"., it's... quite simple: that's the correct way to use the quotation marks, as detailed in the book "Elements of Style". I also found the thing about "Ongoing" and "Offputting" in the same book.

[SisterCheeba]

Originally Posted by runawayprisoner

If you're going to ask me why my quotes are always "word." instead of "word"., it's... quite simple: that's the correct way to use the quotation marks, as detailed in the book "Elements of Style".

Actually it's just one correct way of doing it, the other way's just as valid. Your method's the common U.S style, international english only has punctuation within the quotes if it relates to the quote itself, and not the sentence. Pedantic fact of the day there

[runawayprisoner]

Yeah, that only applies to International English, though. Besides, I am not sure if some styles in International English are valid even... since different people from different countries use it, and a number of them are actually not that fluent in English. What I want to say is... you have a language that is greatly influenced by as many languages in the world as possible, instead of one that is original, with strict rules that everyone has to follow. It could be a good thing to try to expand the language sometimes, although, you can not neglect the fact that because we have International English, and because anybody can use it however they want, we have this issue about which we are debating: words invented out of nowhere with no precise meanings.

P/S: I am actually not that that fluent in English myself, since I am not one who grown up using this language. Actually, I have only (and actually) been using it for 2 years of my entire life. I did learn about it, but I didn't actually use it as a casual means of communication until 2 years ago. However, I abide by the rules and laws of the U.S. (American English) style, just for the fact that it's clearer when I do that. What I meant to say was... well... would you rather see me write "I don't agree with how some reviewers use the word gameplay" or "i no agree for the gameplay word usage for some reviewers" to you? Which way seems clearer?