Against "immersion" (Destiny)

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Thursday, April 03, 2014, 21:05 (3885 days ago) @ electricpirate

It sounds a little like you are mixing the concept of a formal logical system with that of a simulation. Chess is a logical system. Halo is a logical system containing a physics simulation. All games are logical systems, very few games are simulations.

All video games are simulations. Every single one. You are not correct when you say a simulation has to resemble or be similar to reality. I could create a simulation where none of the laws of physics applied, and make my own. Chess is not a simulation because you are playing with actual pieces. Video games are simulations because the only thing real about them is electrons, photons, and phosphors, yet we see vast worlds, aliens, cities, or even just falling blocks that disappear when you line them up.

Incidently, your post here, totally undercuts your argument about why multiplayer games are bad. Managed to get you to prove yourself wrong again. I'll take it.

Explain.

If it's a simulation of a gun, then it's terrible. A gun in halo is basically just a fancy pointer, it's no different than marking a dude in battlefield, but we don't call that gun. Even if you say "But it doesn't have to be real" it's a terrible simulation, since all possible places where it's simulated are replaced by pieces of game logic. It's an object, which changes the state of a thing that it's over when you press a button. However, it's shaped like a gun, and it sounds like a gun, so we call it a gun, the definition of a symbol.

You are taking the concept way to literally. It's a good simulation of a gun in the world of Halo. You're not comparing it to a real gun, you're comparing it to how it fits into the scope of the game. That is how you judge the 'quality' of the game's simulation.

Here's a good test, "Is this thing trying to accurately represent some element of this beyond the visuals, and is that representation the overriding goal." In the case of a gun in Halo, no. The over-riding goal is to have a thing that works well within Halo's other systems. On the other hand, Halo's physics are designed to actually simulate how physics work, so they are a simulation.

You don't have to simulate reality, I don't know why you keep thinking that 'simulation' is synonymous with 'close to reality'.

The fact that you and he both fail to grasp that all games are simulation, and that simulations can simulate unreal things, means you both have a flawed conception of the nature of video games. He speaks at conferences with authority, therefore he is a hack.