Why Do We Love Fallout 4's Awful World? | Game/Show | PBS Digital Studios
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- Опубликовано: 25 янв 2016
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Why are we naturally drawn to horrible, ugly game worlds? Well, it turns out there are plenty of philosophical theories that help to explain the phenomenon. In this week’s episode, Jamin breaks down our love affair with despair.
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FURTHER READING:
Excitation Transfer Theory
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excitat...
The Paradox of Painful Art
philpapers.org/rec/SMUTPO
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ASSET LINKS:
1:14 The Rhetoric and The Poetics of Aristotle
www.ebay.com/itm/The-Rhetoric-...
1:35 Dolf Zillmann, assistant professor 1969-72
50.asc.upenn.edu/drupal/conten...
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MUSIC:
""Oh Damn!"" by CJVSO
/ cj. .
""Digital Sonar"" by Brink
""Mindphuck"" by Known To Be Lethal
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""After Hours""
""Lakes"" by Chooga
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""Beautiful Days"" by Extan
/ beaut. .
""Spectrum Subdiffusion Mix"" by Foniqz
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""Good Way Song"" by Electronic Rescue
""Alice y Bob"" by Javier Rubio and Parsec
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""Sleet"" by Kubbi
/ kubbi-sleet
""Toaster"" by Kubbi
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""Patriotic Songs of America"" by New York Military Band and the American Quartet
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""Lets Go Back To The Rock"" by Outsider
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""Run"" by Outsider
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""Fame"" by Statue of Diveo
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""Freedom Weekends"" by Statue of Diveo
www.jamendo.com/en/artist/352...
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Hosted by Jamin Warren (@jaminwar)
See more on games and culture on his site: www.killscreendaily.com
Made by Kornhaber Brown (www.kornhaberbrown.com)
I get the feeling that part of the appealing of a post-apocalyptic world comes from an ancestral part of our brains that makes us feel good when we are able to just survive. It's a rewarding mechanism that tells us: "Great job! You are fulfilling your life objective!".
In the present world we never really get to experience what our predecessors had to overcome day by day, with the risk of not seeing the next sunrise. And deep down inside of us, we are probably so "genetically" accustomed to that feeling that we do everything we can in order to try and relive it again and again. As a matter of fact I would argue this is the same reason that extreme sports exist as well.
Videogames are just one of the safest way to reproduce what surviving would feel like thousands of years ago, especially in drastic and immersive situations such as those created around post-apocalyptic scenarios.
+TheDiG3 In addition: same thing could also apply to horror games/movies.
+TheDiG3 Wow thanks. You gave me a new look on games, I usually don't like people since they don't have anything new to add to my thoughts but you just did so I like you! Thanks again, that was rare, I love rare!
I do honestly prefer the pleasant universes like Dreamland and the Mushroom kingdom. While playing Mario Kart 8 I keep thinking how much fun it would be to play an open world mmorpg in the mushroom kingdom, but they'd probably never even touch an idea like that.
that would be awesome! I've never thought of that. now I want open worlds for all the Mario kart tracks.
+MagicTurtle643 Mario MMO has to have Geno in it or nothing at all.
+Chaosdirge RIght!? That would be amazing. I miss that guy.
This damn game has eaten so much of my time.
I spend so much time just exploring that I lose track of time.
+MagnuMagnus I haven't reached that part yet, because I still have sooooo many quests to do. Can't wait to have finished most of them and just wander around like I always do in Skyrim.
yes fallout 4 is different from new vegas in that i have never felt the need to use fast travel in fallout 4 but halfway though nv i had to give up and use fast travel for the rest of the game.
For me specifically, the largest appeal to Fallout 4's world was the fact that it's in Boston, where I live. It is so goddamn cool seeing post-apocalyptic landmarks that I've tangibly visited tens of times; I now can't walk through Boston Common without pointing out where I think Swan's lurking, nor can I walk down the destroyed freedom trail without recounting my own actual experience traversing it. Honestly, it's a very surreal experience.
That's how I felt about fallout 3 since i live in the dc area now I can't walk across the mall or use the metro without expecting an ambush by super mutants or ghouls. Also fallout 3 and house of cards are the only things I've seen get the dc metro right(look up the ceiling is an arc made out of square indented cement blocks not a smooth cement ceiling)
+Fred Hagen-Gates also I like seeing the real world landmarks of areas I know: rockopolis (same place as Rockville Maryland) andale (Anandale) Arlington Cemetery, Museum of science (air and space museum) bunker hill, freedom trail and my personal favorite diamond city (Red Sox nation!)
Omg, that has to be so cool. When went to Vegas in 2012, all I could see was Fallout New Vegas.
More on Bioshock would be cool. Or Half Life.
I agree
Bioshock invites pretentious pricks, though.
But Half-Life's good.
I think that you're correct on some levels, but I feel that it's more complex than just what you've stated. I think that it's also about becoming a beacon of hope in a desolate period, a sort of "hero" or "leader" complex. One can have all of the perks (and some of the responsibilities) of being a leader or hero without any of the real life ramifications that come along with such power. Being set in a post-apocalyptic world also is like having a fresh canvas to paint on, you pretty much get to do whatever you want and with it being a "fantasy world" means no repercussions in real life. Another would be overcoming adversity, suffering may be apart of that although not only, it's being able to climb to the summit of a mountain (so to speak) or traversing an a desert that everyone says is uncrossable. It's being able to do something that others deem "impossible" without taking any of the risks in real life. There are other factors behind it, I feel, as well but it'd make my post too lengthy and I feel that I've gotten to my point enough with just these example. Like I stated earlier, I think that it's a bit more complicated than just catharsis, although it does play an important part.
funnily enough i dont really like exploring some areas because everything has an unpleasantness to it yet i end up searching for those moments of beauty
I feel like the best parts of desolate, depressing and destroyed locales (you know, the classic 3 D's of post apocalyptic settings), are the stories you experience by simply observing the environment around you.
Games like Left 4 Dead left clues as to how survivors spent their final days in the zombie apocalypse, usually by graffiti on walls that ended up looking like a flame war on Reddit. Hearing Ellie react to relics of the world before the cordycep outbreak was some of the most touching and poignant writing in the game, and in the Fallout series, finding stories that ended before you ever arrived is engaging, yet bittersweet.
Without giving away any spoilers, it could be as simple as finding two skeletons next to each, propped in a fashion that tells a short story about they died or killed one another, or finding a computer terminal with a person's diary. As a player, we are seeing these story arcs at their end without ever being able to effect their outcome, similar to how we cannot effect how the world around us was changed and shifted without our involvement or input. And that's why I like these types of games; their secondary story telling through set pieces.
"No one wants to end up in a nuclear post apocalypse"
Incorrect, good sir!
I just started playing Submerged last night. It's clear the city you're moving through has faced an awful tragedy that did something terrible to its inhabitants, and your PC herself has faced real tragedy she needs to overcome. I think that's the real pleasure of it. You're coming in on the tail end of heartbreak, and I, at least, want to help them to overcome it.
As you explore post-apocalyptic wastelands like in Fallout or Submerged, you can't overlook the characters themselves. In Fallout, you're supposed to care because you're a parent trying to save your son. In Submerged, you're a young girl trying to save her brother. These are situations that play on the innate human desire to care and help. In one sense we're players, but in another we're bystanders coming into this world and trying to make it better. That connectedness is a big part of the meaning of tragedy in games.
You changed something with the lighting, compared to previous episodes. Looks nice.
I enjoy awful places to explore as much as the next guy or gal, but what really draws me to post-apocalyptic settings are the creativity behind the world. Take Metro 2033/Last Light, I LOVE exploring each station seeing how each one is unique. seeing how in this alternate reality people go about rebuilding the world and how they wind up developing city-states inside each individual metro station. Though I like Fallout a lot, there's something cool about seeing post-apocalyptic creativity, about seeing a shotgun in Metro Last Light that was clearly constructed out of a bike handle. Bell included. (from what I remember they actually had an engineer design functional weapons out of everyday items.)
+IDidSawABear It's almost like the Cold War never ended, it just crossed over to video games. -jj
PBS Game/Show Basically :)
Being one of the Fallout 4 enthusiasts, as well as a huge fan of the series, I can shed light on the love and beauty of the Fallout series. In large, video games settings are fictional lands of far away places we will never visit. Fallout dives into an alternate fiction (set in the future) of a world we are very familiar with. We can see and explore our post apocalyptic backyard while still sitting on a couch, slurping down a 42 ounce Coke. As much as I love Fallout 4; Fallout: New Vegas was my backyard. I am a SoCal native who has off-roaded all over the Southern California desert. To play a video game and say to myself, "Hey, I have been here!" (for me, I have been to Las Vegas, Needles, Red Rock Canyon) is surreal. One of the main mechanics of Fallout is the thrill of exploration. Now this this series, I can be a digital tourist. To be in a shoot-out in the same Red Rock Canyon I drove through a couple years before is an experience unlike any other in a video game.
Yoshis wooly world tells a better story of loss and recovery than fall out 4 without sacrificing a colorful landscape
I once heard that during the zombie craze. People enjoy apocalyptic settings because in an apocalyptic world, everything is gone, including almost every modern live annoyances is gone. No more school/work, no more taxes/debt, no more trivial news/issues, etc. In a way, it forces humanity a restart or back to basics way to life where there is you vs dangers.
Heck, we've been too comfortable and safe too long that people would make artificial dangers from the thrill seeking rush to sheer ignorance. Simulations from movies and games exercises our primal roots from our current mundane life just like taking a walk from a long car ride.
Subnautica gives me that nice sunny beach simulator thing. It's ugly and tense sometimes. but mostly, it's nice.
I wish there were more games that involved reconstruction. A game set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where you could, bit by bit, rebuild what was lost really appeals to me. I remember when I would play Minecraft and move through the ruins, dungeons, and mineshafts, clearing out monsters, lighting everything up, and rebuilding as much as possible.
It's really satisfying to see stuff destroyed, but even more satisfying to see them rebuilt by one's own hands.
I think it's better to have games in scary settings because it lets you imagine what if this happened to me.
There is an enticing aesthetic in the ruin of the supposedly pure. Beautiful houses falling apart, the intended utopia of Rapture destroyed by splicers, the creepy child in various horror movies. The juxtaposition of filth and wonder creates awe. I guess, in a sense, this calls on visions of heaven and hell coexisting.
Besides your points, I find that there can be a general beautiful aesthetic to something that has been destroyed. It can be beneath the immediate layer, as you describe in the video, but it can also be the case in a more direct way. Destruction is change, and when an entire world like the one in Fallout (or BioShock) undergoes change like that, something new and very unique arises from it. And so there is a lot (given the scope of the game) of unique sights that might grant you some kind of aesthetic appreciation along with peaking your curiousity. Imagine going through a Fallout game without destroyed environments, things, and people. It would feel a little more dull, wouldn't it?
It's just sense exploration that makes me interested in game world and it's lore. By seeing the ruins of previous civilization, we can assume story behind it like:
- how evil is Vaul-Tec,
- how people lives the world of pre-war before and after bombs drop,
- how world of pre-war is like perfect but it's only a mirage because you can see dirty secret and corruption behind it.
That what makes me love going to explore Fallout world to know what secret behind every corners.
The fear of a post apocalyptic world feels kind of retro in my opinion, like it belongs mostly in the 50s and 60s (you mentioned the wife, the kids, the help, the house with white picket fences as things that are at stake in the game). I think that there are issues that are way scarier and stressful because they are more contemporary such as government overreach, losing ones freedom and identity or artificial intelligence gone bad to name few. Those themes don't require a generic dystopian aesthetic necessarily but if the narrative is good, they could really strike a chord.
Part of it could be that in a post-apocalyptic world, there aren't laws that prevent you from doing the things we like to do in these games. I can break into houses, loot anything, shoot anything, all with little to no consequences. In a world that closely resembles our world, we feel the implicit expectations to follow the rules, and we know when we're breaking them. We can't loot our neighbors without knowing that we'll likely be caught, arrested and jailed for a long time.
As a contrast, that's why GTA games casts us in the role of the criminal, since what we do in those games is just that. We happily fill that role and are set free to do whatever actions we want without any guilt.
I believe that it has more to do with the idea of exploring a world we can't possibly experience. The reason you won't normally find an open world game like fallout set in an idyllic setting is because of our drive to explore and see new things. While we can explore a beach in our everyday life, we can't explore a post apocalyptic world like this one.
The thing is that if you have a game take place in a nice place, there's no conflict. You can have conflict in a nice place, but in many cases conflict involves mass destruction or just the general wearing down of society. Half-Life is a good example of this. The Resonance Cascade at the beginning makes the environments you explore broken and lonely, but it's very important to the story and gameplay. Before that event, there is no weapons or combat at all. So I like games that have depressing settings, and this is why I think so many games do.
I think Fallout as a setting appeals to our fantasy of being infinitely durable and able to transcend even the most incredible challenges, both as individuals and humanity as a whole.
While horrible and dystopian, the world of Fallout presents a fiction where various aspects of humanity (good and bad) have survived the apocalypse and that humanity will always continue to grow despite the setbacks (you can even talk to the President about it in Fallout 2).
Fallout 4 also takes this an extra level in that it allows a person who was, in the utopian world of sci-fi 1950s style decadence, a regular soldier or housewife (with an unused law degree) has the special characteristics required to become a hero (or villain) who people look up to, respect, take orders from, come to you when there's a settlement that needs help etc.
In a way it's kind of the reverse of how Aristole felt it was important for everyday people to witness a proper Greek Tragedy regularly. Rather than being presented with a narrative where a "good" person is brought to ruin through a world outside of their control, we're presented with one with a "regular" person can rise to greatness as the rest of the world struggles to get by.
It feeds into the idea that we have so much more potential than what we show the world, because in our cushy world with it's safety, it's clean water and it's building codes there's rarely a need a for a hero who can repel raiders or build fortifications - but if things were to change we would be up to the challenge. We're not cowards, we've just never been tested - and we like to think that if we were we would pass (as the Mighty Mighty Bostons might put it)
I can think of one game set on a nice sunny beach that I wish they'd make another sequel to...
Oh boy, here are the Preston Garvey jokes.
General! Another settlement wants to go bowling!
I guess games are kind of like dreams. Like why we have nightmares is so we can learn to deal with similar problems in real life.
Probably would not like it as much if it hurt when your character got injured, if you could smell the smell, feel the stab of the stim needle, feel the cold wind or the roasting heat of the ruthless sun.
I'm certain a big part of why we go back to that world, is because we are shielded by the monitor from most of the awful things from that world.
Love the video, I say I would appreciate Fallout 4 for that reason. Seeing all the dilapidated remains of famous landmarks honestly makes me appreciate it even more.
For me it's never been catharsis or anything of the such, but my weird view on things in general. I've always had this idea that there can be beauty in desolation. When I lived in Pennsylvania I routinely visited and explored places like Centralia, Pennhurst, and the Philadelphia State Hospital. All three are abandoned and usually viewed as very eerie to visit. But I never saw it that way. Centerlia's slowly returning to a wild natural environment with the trees and plants taking buildings back over. Pennhurst and Philly State still hold evidence of the darker days of medical and psychiatric care; a reminder that things may have been uninformed and somewhat barbaric in the past but we have moved on from that. We are progressing as a society, albeit sometimes a bit slowly. My love for the Fallout and Wasteland series mirrors this. I want to believe that no matter how awful things get mankind will spring back from it. Sure, we may have psychotic raider bands like you see in Fallout, but we'll also have civilized socities like Diamond City pop up too.
I love this topic, also why we are so interested in the apocalypse in general, while at the same time being so addicted to technology and social media. I would love to hear your thoughts on that. (Fallout, The Walking Dead, Preppers, Plague, Inc., etc.) Do we secretly acknowledge that the planet would be better off without us?
+Lorien Green I just saw your comment on the new video and came to check it out. I really expected to see multiple comments dissecting this thought because I love it.
I am not entirely sure that I link the addiction to social media and technology with the almost definite thought that the planet would be better off without us, as I attribute that more to media brainwashing and social conformity but... I do believe that the world would be better off without us and whilst reading this comment I could help but picture the Giraffe scene from The Last of Us. It was such a beautiful scene that showed the resilience of life and the earth as a whole.
I actually love both the post apocalyptic setting of Fallout as well as the beautiful medieval aspects of the Dragon age games with it's more natural scenery and architecture. There is something about the absence of human interference and control over the environment.
OH! I had hoped you be talking about the lack of choice and the 2 dimensional characters with the title!
I believe the appeal to games like Fallout 4 ties in pretty thickly to the previous topic of game goals. A dangerous setting immediately presents the player with a built in conflict of 'survive' all the rest of the story with the other characters and the players son is just layers of cream on top.
Games with more pleasant settings are going to be intrisincly different. They'll trend to be building, sim, or sandbox games of some kind. See Grow Home for an example.
But many people, when they pick up a game, are looking to be challenged. And starting the player of in, or moving them quickly to, an unpleasant location scenario is one of the simplest ways to do it.
After all, not every player can empathise with 'grow the garden' but it is in our survival nature to fight when faced with the threat of death, so that threat is the prime go to for both goals and setting designs.
Quite frankly i believe it's mostly about technical limitation. If they were to give us beautiful futuristic coruscent-like planet to explore i would gladly go for these. Or even society like the one in the "1984" book would be interesting to discover and to fight.
But it's much harder to fill these kind world with content as you need to make so many interesting characters (w/ habits and stuff) and not only target to kill, you just cannot pull your gun every 5 seconds in these kind of background. So you need to find different ways to interact with your surrounding and make the game fun to play.
The exploration in fallout is huge drag but i think it could work with many different kind of setup. we just need a huge world to explore and interesting locations to discover.
I'm given to understand that this Fallout is also playing up the power fantasy of games (Errant Signal video "Fallout 4 and Role Playing). An environment that makes you feel constantly threatened can certainly make the player feel more powerful for having survived it.
We, as gamers, have an inherent want to explore desolate environments and be put in bleak situations.
As William Knoblauch put it in his essay in 'The State of Play: Creators and Critics on Video Game Culture': "Like films and books, video games are cultural texts. They say something about the society in which they are made."
Nowadays we consider nuclear apocalypse as nothing more than fiction since the vast majority of gamers nowadays have never experienced the real threat of a nuclear war, as did the generations before us. It makes a good science fiction plot for any good game and game developers will mine this potential.
More than nuclear apocalypse, we now have a disturbing fascination for zombies, hence the relatively larger number of video games dealing with undead outbreaks or the likes.
With our inclination to visit awful worlds, there is the potential today to reinvent post-apocalyptic genre to be more instructive or educational. like Burntime or Wasteland, to remind this generation of gamers of real threats.
I personally like the easy-going tone of games like the "Harvest Moon" series.
I do like a game's scenery to genuinely look nice and pleasant. I'm fine with monsters and villains running around the lush landscape doing terrible things, but it is more enjoyable playing in a pretty forest, green meadow, or lovely beach setting than in some post-apocalyptic wasteland...or even just desert, winter, or rocky terrain. I'm fine with dark themes, but I want the game scenery itself to be light and cheerful and pleasant to look at.
Fallout 4 is kinda like finding an injured puppy with a nasty case of mange. It looks terrible, and hits all of the right triggers within you to strike revulsion, but at the same time you know you just HAVE to take care of it. As you take care of this puppy, you grow to love and care more for it. Regardless of how it looks and what effects it's dealing with, you're charging with fixing this little beast, and that makes you all the more affectionate for doing so.
Excellent video, I agree with the idea that 'catharsis' is a key selling point as to why people play these types of games. When you really think about it, Dark Souls and Bloodborne perfectly use the concept of 'catharsis' to its most extreme degree. They are very successful titles and yet they are some of the most difficult games to exist in gaming history. Not only that, they also have very dark and gruesome worlds for their settings that help heighten the feelings of dread and despair for player to overcome in time (that is... if they are prepared for the challenge and suffering).
I guess that makes sense. I tend to like them because it seems more interesting than normal life, but then, I always come back to how much an apocalypse would suck. So, uh, yeah.
another possibility is that it reminds us of how nice the real world is. after all no matter how ugly our world may seem, It's no were near as bad as the fallout setting.
There are a couple of reasons why I keep coming back to Fallout 3 - 4... 1. As a child of the late 70s/early 80s, I definitely experience some catharsis from my Cold War anxiety, and maybe, more importantly, 2. Fallout 3/NV/4 allows me to experience UrbExing abandoned buildings without having to face my own physical limitations, the danger of squatters or asbestos and the threat of legal prosecution.
I thought he was just going to talk about the fact that the game takes place in Boston.
Did anyone else look away from the blast when the bombs fell?
I was totally expecting some sort of blindness effect to happen if you didn't...
Didn't see the scene in its entirety until my second run.
they should have penalized you if you watched
Well, I understand why they didn't, it'd be needlessly punitive, but then you can go and get yourself a molerat disease with no hope of curing if you decide to do the "right" thing.
How the hell do you get the textures in your Fallout 4 to look so crisp and high res but mine are so low on my PC version?
Why is the opening so distinctly 80's? Doesn't that kind of clash?
am I the only one noticing the lack of background music?
Many/most videogames operate on violence. Your ability to kill is how you act on your environment, so a world with a lot of opposition is rife with opportunities to act. Scary worlds full of enemies allow that mechanic to be used.
While I think catharsis is definitely part of the equation I think their is more to it than just that. It's more desire to experience the negative emotion or sensation. Now I'm not sure I want to go as far as saying enjoyment of the negative stimuli but people seem to be draw (in real world settings to negative experiences).
Pain is a great example, people will go out of their way to cause themselves physical discomfort. While you may assume I am referring to self-harm that's not really what I am talking about, or entirely. There are sexual fetishes surrounding pain. Now this could just be a conflation of enjoyment with suffering but I think it's more than that.
Think of the poetry of people writing about depression. Many write about the comfort they find in it. Furthermore, think about how bipolar disorder is misdiagnosed. This is often by depressed people over stating the euthymia they experienced and it comes off as mania. I think, at least subconsciously, humans understand that in order to appreciate positive experiences they must have references and those are negative experiences. I think we can obtain this, due to empathy, from stories (fictional or real doesn't matter). This could be why people stop and look at accidents and other terrible events. To make their lives feel better comparatively. That'd also be why success stories and underdogs are so compelling, even if we find ourselves in a bad situation there is a chance it can improve.
Adressing the like for post-apocalyptic settings, o HIGHLY reccomend Ahoy's Nuclear Fruit. This has easily become my favorite video game video. He points out how video games are incredibly influence by the cold war. Please find the time for this amazing video
This was a really nice episode, clear and thoughtful. I'm just not sure, however, that FALLOUT is a "painful" or tragic game/world. First, the so-called tragedy of the opening scene has a minuscule half-life (pardon the pun), quickly taken over by side quests, monster fighting, and companion pleasing. There is no sadness, no focus on loss -- even in the main story, which ostensibly is that of a person who just saw a spouse shot, a child kidnapped, and a world obliterated. In this way, I think of FALLOUT's (and most apocalypse games') tragic backstories as purely formal and functional in nature, just as most of endgame goals are also purely structural -- MacGuffins that motivate the story or activity, but ultimately have no more impact or purpose than to provide that let's-get-playing pretext.
So why is FALLOUT's world is so interesting? Not because it's a tragedy, but a parody. Like the beautiful BIOSHOCK worlds, it takes bits and pieces of our own world and turns them askew -- providing a ludicrous re-framing of all that seems normal to us now. We can go through this world as see things we recognize, but mutated in a way that makes out normal lives seem distant and unfamiliar.
An android who thinks he's a hard-boiled detective; a 18th-century ship manned by robots; teddy bears and mannequins posed in disgusting ways; a world of the future that seems stuck in the 1940s past; a series of faux families structures or houses covered in paint-by-numbers art; library books that are still overdue. All these discoveries -- moments of ludicrous misrecognition -- allow us to re-imagine our own world, our own hangups, our own too-familiar lives and histories.
Simply put, I like FALLOUT not because it's sad (it never it), but because it funny -- and it makes our world funnier in the process.
Conflict breeds narrative, with that in mind an open world game needs to present a story which the player builds around their character, to that end the wastelands of the fallout series presents an environment which is it's own conflict and therefore aids in the creation of player created narrative. Had the environments of fallout 4 not been so hostile and unpredictable, I think it would have ruined the potential for player immersion.
Part of the appeal of Fallout and other games with bleak settings has to do with the idea of having an avatar. Part of the acceptance of dire circumstances in the fact that agency places out outside the game. We love exploring the wastes as the vault dweller because we are removed because he is out avatar in the game. We have a opportunity to exit the game with no consequences.
"We" as in "We, the PC Mustard race"?
Awful, but fantastic. Ordinary person thrust into an extreme circumstance. This is the way I like it, so as to escape reality while simultaneously preparing myself for it.
Love your videos! Always thought provoking content. :)
I think some people just like a challenge, things that are difficult tend to be more fun than easy things, and the world of fallout certainly wants to kill you.
Glowing Sea = Most beautiful place ever.
Nice and sunny in itself is boring. by presenting a sense of danger we also present a sense of challenge.
The more normal something feels, the less threatening it feels, the less challenging we feel the more we seek other things.
there is no safe challenge, whether your playing poker, or your playing risk, or your taking real risks.
there is little difference between loss and danger.
In essence loss is a type of danger, and give us an outlet to safely try to overcome or avoid that loss.
I think you just switched up the definition of catharsis there my friend.
This was quite an interesting video in my opinion. I love post-apocalyptic games and media in general. I really like things like the Metro series, which I think is a darker game and book than the fallout series in general. It's just that Fallout has more style and never felt completely unpleasant to me. Yeah, I would never want to live in the Fallout universe, but there's something that feels fun about the universe to me in general. Then again, I guess there's a difference to how much bleakness and unpleasantness one wants to experience in a game or any book or movie. For example, I watched an anime called Texhnolyze, which was one of the darkest, bleakest things I've watched. It's easy to see why many wouldn't see the appeal in watching that show. It's much easier to see why there's an appeal in Fallout, since there is still a sense of hope, style, and some fun as well. With Texhnolyze, there's very little in terms of hope or fun. It's pretty much only pain and suffering, and that's what drives people away from it.
I like my fallouts and my dragons dogmas, and my farcry's not because of setting but because of mechanics, and exploration.
I feel like the appeal to live in a world different than ourselves' is the main factor. Not only different physically, but also socially, where the social structure and mentality of people are different but still reasonable in its own settings. Fallout delivers a different world as such that is believable and detailed enough for such fantasy. It does not necessarily have to be a desolated one.
Any AAA epic RPG that doesn't take place in medieval times or in space is a great game in my book.
+AyyElMao
lol ya FFXIII comes to mind.
+Mark Donald you obviously haven't play a single Fallout game.
@@Brotelho Actually, the first and two games of fallout were actually RPGs
I actually quite enjoy the juxtaposition of beautiful, pleasant locations worth horrific events quite a bit more than post-apocalyptic (or similarly dour settings). Think Farcry 3 or Skyrim. Beauty filled with danger somehow triggers that same enjoyment, in my experience, that a truly great thriller film does. It's safety subverted, and like a child serial killer, it confuses and excites that animal instinct that drives us to fight or flee.
Shoulda done a video on why fallout 4 is disappointing as a fallout game but good as a game in general.
Another great one Jamin! BTW--Saw the movie "The Road." Very troubling. I pray this never happens. :-|
This was a terrible example
I don't know if I'm messed up but I actualy would like to live in a world like Fallout's even if I would end up dead quicly I think it would be worth it to try to survive on my own in a f*cked up place... I think that it has more meaning than having peace right of the bat, but then again maybe I'm f*cked up...
I think VR might change the type of environment we want to be in. I think VR has a chance to change how and why we play games. At PAX East last year I had the opportunity to try a "game" called Guided Meditation. In this game you go to a beautiful environment and are lead through a guided meditation. This game changed my mind on VR completely. Before playing it I was every "eh" on the subject of VR but after I was 100% on board and couldn't wait to get it.
The environments were beautiful and my mind tricked me into believing the sun was shinning on me. This wouldn't be nearly as impressive in traditional gaming. I wouldn't have given this any kind of credit had I not experienced it for myself. It was a wonderful environment and the VR made me want to be in it.
My point is this: Once the worlds we play games in become more real, maybe we will want to be in more pleasant places.
+Tiara Elizabeth Great point Tiara! Thanks for making my job a little bit easier -jj
+Tiara Elizabeth $3,000+ for a VR headset + required PC hardware would change my mind on VR, until I realize that it's a gimmick not intended for any kind of serious / prolonged game play, and I go back to my usual ways.
I'm mixed I love happy times games but Fallout is also one of my favorite series
Thought this was, assuming from the title, about why a crappy world (as in badly designed and lowly interactive and subpar compared to competitors) - can still score and sell well with many gamers not really caring about the flaws.
Oopsie on me.
Video makes a faulty assumption that if applied to food, would decide that McDonalds serves better food that some world-class, 5-start restaurant in Manhattan/London/Tokyo/Etc.
What's with the contrast and saturation this video? I like it, but definitely feels like a change.
I wouldn't say I "Enjoy" the post apocalypse, but the realism in it. A world torn by violence is more like are own then we like to think, our strife may not be physical, but more social and mental, especially in our modern world, very few people have perfect lives, and so the the hyperbolic nature of the anguish and suffering of say Fallout, The Walking Dead, Destiny where the worlds issues are very real and in front of you, allows for the viewers/ players not only to feel more connected and understanding, but to allow us understand character motivation and world building then they are in say in the nice world were nothing bad ever happens.
do one on the game design of homeworld, and deserts of kharak
I really do value and did learn from the points made here, but Fallout 4 feels more like an exception to the rules you're mentioning. As dark and desolate as you could call it, everything feels more comical and lighthearted than in titles in similar settings. I don't particularly feel any catharsis or darkness when I play Fallout 4 apart from the typical frustration when game related challenges come up. I do get those feelings for movies and games that take their setting more seriously, however. With this game it all feels too over the top and mostly comical and even kind of whimsical. Mix that with the bugs and for the most part I never find myself taking the game seriously enough to have any sense of catharsis in it, save for when the violence ramps up but even then it just gets to feeling a bit slapstick. I love the game and take playing it seriously, just never took the setting seriously enough to identify with what's being said of this topic.
I just love the gun system. Easily my favourite way to do weapons in a videogame.
Maybe except the receiver BS, but otherwise I like having guns that can be changed about so extensively. I like changing the looks of stuff for fun, without much consequence, but 4 is just that bit more fun to me than any other game
Also I hate rarity loot systems. Like cyberpunk did sadly
I think it's simpler than a human desire to push past pain. I think it's that we pay attention to life or death situations and people tend to take care of their families. Emotional investment, is a simple idea. We can feel empathy for others than ourselves. we don't need export our sense of self into a fictional being. We get to like the character of what they stand for, we feel bad for the character when tragedy strikes, and a personal obligation to see that everything turned out okay. Relief.
In tragedy it's usually that the "everything is okay" ending is that a terrible character, a recurring threat has died.
I never project myself onto the characters i play as and I never watch TV shows with mary sue protagonists. they are insanely boring. I will however watch a show about a mother trying to save her son who has to join forces with a robotic underground railroad even though they might have dubious morals themselves.
There are people I like that I grow attached to. I want to see Elizabeth Crowe ( my PC) succeed and get her son back./ I want to see her carve out a thriving village for intitute survivors. I want to see her resist becoming a monster in a world that nearly demands it. (just started a pacifist run).
There is no "pushing past misery" there is instead a feeling of achievement overcoming struggle. That's what a game is, overcoming a struggle.
I know what is painful in games. It is the ET game on the bookshelf behind you. I just had to push through the video without focusing too much on that horrible game.
Nice I got mentioned! But I am also glad to see another interesing video without the push of an ideological narrative. And since talking about that, that striving for catharsis is actually why the feminist on other such oppression narratives are bad for gaming, since they rob the games which deal with those negative aspects of the human condition exactly of the opportunity to find ways to overcome them on a personal level. If one removes the all the things that social justice warriors feel is treating society, the gamers cannot grow by having an experience with those things. And that is why games as an art form need to have the things that some might consider distasteful.
Where are all the comedy games? :(
+KIDD9876 No smiling allowed! We're playing games right now. -jj
+KIDD9876 Have you played Stick of Truth? it is amazing. It's hilarious. It feels like South Park. And it's probably the only JRPG style game I've ever liked.
+KIDD9876 Undertale's pretty funny, I thought GTA V was pretty funny, ... but yeah I'd like to see more.
+KIDD9876 Stick of Truth, Borderlands, Saints Row 4 (I've only played 4) are all very hilarious.
The location and setting is actually the reason why I don't play the Fallout games. I do, however, love the Elder Scrolls games. The wasteland of Fallout is very stressful and uncomfortable for me, I don't generally enjoy playing games set in a post apocalyptic future. The fantasy land of Elder Scrolls is so peaceful and welcoming to me with all of it's friendly colors and magical places.
One of the reasons I haven't bought Fallout 4 yet is because of the fact it's set in a post-apocalyptic setting... It's color palette is improved over 3 and New Vegas, so it doesn't seem quite so drab. But it's still a lot of GRAYS and BROWNS. I'm just so tired of that in video games. I want to escape into fantastical worlds, not depressive environments; which is probably why I prefer Elder Scrolls to Fallout.
Derp.
+Crispy Bacon Congratulations! You were first to comment, but didn't shout "OMG FIRST!"
A post-apocalyptic world with no real effective authoritative structures, such as governments, is liberating and conducive to player agency. One of the most attractive aspects of open world games is that you can do what you want, or go where you want. We have little agency in our own lives so it makes sense that we seek it in our video games. Another thing post-apocalyptic games have is a constant threat of danger (though no actual real world consequences) and that is exhilarating.
Also I'm not sure the art style is so ugly or unpleasant to look at. It's a far cry from, say, a Francis Bacon painting, and it certainly has its beautiful moments. I'd say post-apocalyptic decay is almost a kind of chic. Just as the freedom open world games offer may be a reaction to the lack of agency we feel within our own lives, the decay and return to nature might be a reaction to the over-produced, mechanized world we live in today.
Pirated, installed, played for 4 hours, got bored, uninstalled.
"Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization."
Agent Smith
We actually don't. I have a mutual friend who hates post-apocalyptic games because he 'doesn't like thinking about the end of the world' and doesn't like running around in shitty areas.
wasn't dead or alive 5 set on a nice sunny beach? Yeah that's why they bought it, the nice sunny beach gameplay :)
I love Fallout 4's awful world because blowing shit up, taking sides, and meeting interesting characters is far more interesting than sitting on my couch. Or I could just join the military. Eh, too lazy.
i tend to disagree
there are few things in this world that wouldnt look better covered in leaves and moss, i think a overgrown office building is worth seeing even without the monsters lurking within
i'd totally play a fallout without any npc's in it if it was beautiful enough
overgrowth is art
and i like post apocalyptic shit because my real life is too safe and uneventful
sure; i could play a game where brutal things happen at modern day where-ever, but the setting wouldn't fit.
though even fallout doesn't provide me with the immersion, i crave to rummage through drawers in a desperate fit to find anything that doubles as a weapon while a deathclaw tries to fit through the doorframe
not because i am a masochist, but because i am so deprived from that basic feeling of danger in my day to day
i am sick of being given everything on a silver platter so i get a controlled enviroment where to experience it
After New Vegas I am having a real hard time getting into F4. It just seems so flat comparatively.
Agreed. The complete butchering of the text, the bugs, Todd Howard's Lies, The complete mplete removal of perks, Fallout 3 also forgot about the "Tell Me About" (I think it was called).
So I just got linked to this channel through the Shoddycast. Is this channel actually affiliated with PBS? It uses the logo and definitely seems like something they'd do, but I've only ever known the tv channel myself.
What are your thoughts on Witness? You recommended it earlier and now its finally out...but it's a heft 40dollars...
People like the idea of survival and a clean slate world. Whoever you were before the fall is not relevant. You are here and you make your own mark on the world, be it good or bad. There's not rule of law that you know. There's the wild west and that appeals to a lot of people's instinct of escaping their mundane lives. Of course it's a game after all. These things usually don't factor in a lot of real world things that would happen to you like needing food and water to stay alive, resting, getting sick, actual healing and other things that are horrible. But as a game, it's fun
Sitting on a beach doesn't sound like an exciting game mechanic. What I enjoy about games is the conflict--in the broader sense, not strictly violence--and problem solving. Those things are not as prevalent or engaging when everything is ...happy.
wait you answered like two comments at the end of the video and one of them was just a simple question D:
+waterwindow Say something cool and we'll answer you :) -jj