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Raph Koster: Is immersion a core game virtue?
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TOPIC: Raph Koster: Is immersion a core game virtue?

Raph Koster: Is immersion a core game virtue? 1 month, 1 week ago #22527

  • Kazara
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He never fails to disappoint these days. Immersion=Player retention, which explains why theme park games die IMHO.

Snippet -

Then something changed. For me it started with text adventures and with early Ultimas. I could explore what felt like a real place. I could interact with it. I could affect it. And with that came the first times where I felt like I was visiting another world. It came when I first played Jordan Mechner’s Karateka and for the first time ever, felt I was playing a game that felt like a movie.

I remember how we took that D&D Red Box Basic set and built a consensus world with it that ended up outweighing the rules to such a degree that we would often do role playing sessions for hours on end without any dice or books, just weaving our shared story together. We were sharing a dream.

For me, those dreams reached fruition with mud and then MMORPGs. Now other people were there too! And as a game designer, I focused pretty strongly on immersion as a core game virtue.

I wasn’t alone. For others it came with the adrenaline of DOOM or the narrative of Half-Life, the world of Elder Scrolls or Wizardry or Fallout or whatever else.

Once upon a time, people actually dying on the field of play was an expected and normal part of sports. Whether it was a game of Aztec tlachtli or plain old rugby, it happened, and was considered an inevitable part of the sport.

Things that we once considered essential to games drift in and out of fashion. And I think immersion is one of those.

Immersion does not make a lot of sense in a mobile, interruptible world. It comes from spending hours at something. An the fact is that as games go mainstream, they are played in small bites far more often than they are played in long solo sessions. The market adapts — this reaches more people, so the budgets divert, the publishers’ attention diverts, the developers’ creative attention diverts.

Read the entire blog entry here.
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"Denial doesn't change reality."
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Re: Raph Koster: Is immersion a core game virtue? 1 month, 1 week ago #22533

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Somebody is justifying their forays into the quick-cash rip-off universe of mobile gaming. It takes time and money to develop an in-depth virtual world that you can "live in" and that is anathema to the slap-dash e-crack games he makes these days.

Immersion is dying because the people that make immersive games have gone over to the dark side.
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Re: Raph Koster: Is immersion a core game virtue? 1 month, 1 week ago #22535

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This guy has sold out.
"I dont care about "gamers interest", only mine."
- Spathotan. Oct 2, 2011
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Re: Raph Koster: Is immersion a core game virtue? 1 month, 1 week ago #22550

Looks like he's posted a follow-up, and tweeted @mmofringe in the process:


@mmofringe I expanded on that post: raphkoster.com/2012/01/14/faq…

(Source: https://twitter.com/#!/raphkoster/status/158621761502593024


If he's aware of the Fringe, then there's always the opportunity to bring him into the conversation.

I'd have more faith in his future gaming endeavours if his post-SWG output (Metapace, Deep Realms, etc.) had any more depth than "Click on an isometric grid until you can't click any more. Then piss your friends off until you can click again."
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Re: Raph Koster: Is immersion a core game virtue? 1 month, 1 week ago #22551

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I am sure Kefkah and Kaz are thrilled with the nod, but I do not expect any meaningful exchange with him.

He has shown some real insight into MMOs in the past, but his bread is buttered differently now, and it shows.

He is pitching like a huckster now. If he is reading this: it is a shame, Dude. We're not ALL for sale.
"I dont care about "gamers interest", only mine."
- Spathotan. Oct 2, 2011
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Re: Raph Koster: Is immersion a core game virtue? 1 month, 1 week ago #22552

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Alot Of talk from somebody that has 1 legit project to make claim to in the past decade. No offense to him, but I stopped paying attention to his theories and ideas ages ago. Show me something and stop talking about it. I feel bad for the sheep that still follow this guy waiting for him to deliver.
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Re: Raph Koster: Is immersion a core game virtue? 1 month, 1 week ago #22553

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I respect the good work the man has done in the past but in this case he is very very wrong .

cheers
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Re: Raph Koster: Is immersion a core game virtue? 1 month, 1 week ago #22555

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MMO_Doubter wrote:
I am sure Kefkah and Kaz are thrilled with the nod, but I do not expect any meaningful exchange with him.

He has shown some real insight into MMOs in the past, but his bread is buttered differently now, and it shows.

He is pitching like a huckster now. If he is reading this: it is a shame, Dude. We're not ALL for sale.


I would disagree, we are for sale, we want to pay for an MMO, we want to be sold a game that is worthy of our money and time and devotion. To put it a bit less severe, we're in the market for a sandbox MMO. We don't want to be treated like crack addicts or 3 year old sugar-fiends. I don't want to be offered cold white rice with weevils and be told that "prime rib" is out of style.

I'm a huge fan of Koster's earlier work, HUGE, and I know that inside of him that exists still, like the good part of Darth Vader. What he's not seeing is that he's part of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Immersive "worldy" games are not being made, in part, because HE IS NOT MAKING THEM!
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Re: Raph Koster: Is immersion a core game virtue? 1 month, 1 week ago #22556

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The reason that I worry about the overly-narrative approach that today dominates the AAA game landscape is that players are almost entirely on rails, and you as a player mostly make only a few choices to surmount a fleeting intermediate little minigame obstacle (a given fight, in the midst of the plot).

It provides one sort of immersion — the one akin to what you get when you read a great book or watch a good movie. But to me games are not about having a story told to you, they are about forging your own path. A linear CGI movie with occasional puzzles to solve is a valid genre that I even enjoy, but it doesn’t provide me any authorial agency as a player, and would often work better as just a book or movie.

I recognize that this is just me and my player type though.


Reading this bit, he seems to be the old Koster. This follow-up post contains some good things and makes me feel better, but still, when will he make the spiritual successor to UO or SWG? It costs money and studios only want to chase WoW or sling dope to e-crackheads, not innovate.

Going back to MMO_D for a second, Raph was a member back at RLMMO when it was still alive and he provided some great conversations and insights in the rise and demise of SWG. I would love to have a master, despite any current qualms we have with his industry or personal outlook on games, jump in on these conversations. He wouldn't even have to be Koster here: none of us are using our real names.
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Re: Raph Koster: Is immersion a core game virtue? 1 month, 1 week ago #22557

How can people think an article that says "I mourn this loss" is somehow advocating or justifying the destruction of immersion?

Seriously, someone explain it to me!
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