Naaaaaah (Gaming)

by General Battuta, Friday, June 19, 2015, 18:49 (3448 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Kerbal Space Program is a better game than Destiny.

How is that comparable? They are doing two completely different things. And if you had 200 million dollars to make a AAA version Kerbal space program, it would blow the pants off it!

I don't think you could make Kerbal Space Program with 200 million dollars. You couldn't take basic risks required to make KSP if you had that much investment.

I agree that they're (mostly) doing different things, but in a way that's important. KSP engages you because you feel like you're learning new skills and coming to understand the way the universe works. Destiny engages you with a tight psychological loop based on the possibility of rewards. When you're done with a session of KSP, you have new skills and stories to tell your friends. When you're done with Destiny (raids and crucible, which do involve overcoming challenge, excepted) you mostly have new loot — although of course I think you're on the same page as me on this.

KSP does share one thing with Destiny: it wants to create a sense of wonder, exploration, hope, and awe. KSP is certainly way more successful at that! And what you do in KSP, on a moment-by-moment basis, feels like it's part of that story of exploration in a way Destiny usually doesn't.

Destiny has better marketing and a better psychological design for keeping players playing. But Destiny wants to have something KSP already has: the ability for a player to say 'look at that amazing place, how can I get there?', set a goal, work at it, and walk away not just with a great story but with the sense that they've contributed something to an ongoing work.

Part of that is the basic fact that creating new content for Destiny is way, way more expensive than for KSP.