Jason Moyer on 19/5/2017 at 21:42
"Rick Lane of PC Gamer noted that while earlier games The Elder Scrolls series were not immersive sims, the change from a class-based to a class-less, skill-based system in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006) transitioned the series to an immersive sim.[1]"
That's also from wikipedia and is funny to me because a.) if he actually said that, it's factually incorrect (Oblivion was still class-based) and b.) I'd consider Oblivion the first TES game that started incorporating im-sim elements but that's not really related to that dude's reasoning in any way.
Also: "The origin comes from both System Shock games which use it as part of the first door codes seen in the game" Yeah, that's not really it. It's a reference to LGS using that as their security door code (which was a reference to the book, but that's kind irrelevant here).
Starker on 19/5/2017 at 21:47
Quote Posted by Sulphur
Hah, Wikipedia (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immersive_sim) states: 'The term "immersive sim" may also be used to describe the game design philosophy behind the immersive sim genre, which uses interacting, reactive and consistent game systems to create emergent gameplay and a sense of player agency.'
Of course. The reason these games share so many similarities is because of shared game design philosophy, but it is those similarities that form the conventions for a genre. And each new game in the genre adds to the conventions or modifies them, sometimes drastically. Living genres are always in flux.
Also, genre conventions can be about more than tone -- they can be about mechanics, they can be about style, they can be about the subject matter, they can be about the form... Just think of the still life genre or epics, for example.
Weasel on 19/5/2017 at 21:48
Quote Posted by Sulphur
That's the point. Genre conventions are tonal - you have horror, which talks about a certain kind of experience, or you have adventure, or you have hack 'n slash, or you have a shooter. 'Immersive sim' doesn't really talk about the tone the game's trying to evoke, it talks about the production ethos and what that's meant to generate. I don't know if you're following on from the same base I'm using, which is Spector's Deus Ex post-mortem. We've since taken the term and run with it, but I don't think it was ever meant to be used as a genre descriptor.
Also, the 451 code: nah. Didn't henke just post about Mafia 3 having it?
"Genre" rarely means "tone" when used in the context of games. It is used for things like horror, but otherwise "Game genre" is usually used to refer to gameplay mechanisms and/or player POV: First-person shooter, third-person shooter, side-scroller, platform game, real-time strategy, turn-based strategy, etc. It's not always the best system for classifying games, but we're kind of stuck with it. I think "immersive sim" is an example of a more nuanced classification that can be more useful than those other terms, at least among people who agree (roughly) on a definition for it.
Those terms were more useful in earlier days of video games, when games were almost purely about game play mechanisms.
Starker on 19/5/2017 at 22:29
As video games have matured as an art form, their genres have also become more diverse. Certainly game mechanics are one of the most visible features due to the nature of the medium, but for example 'spectacle fighter' is as much about style as it is about mechanics, enough to distinguish them from regular beat-em-ups.
Pyrian on 20/5/2017 at 03:19
RPG mechanics kind of migrated into almost everything.
Sulphur on 20/5/2017 at 04:34
All right, folks. Fair enough. I think we can all safely agree that video games classification, at this point, is a mess.
Starker, Weasel: I agree that for games this has now become more complicated and mechanics were included (metroidvanias et al.) as time went on. Genre essentially means 'style' if you look at the etymology and general usage of the term, and you can use mechanics to define a game's style, but this doesn't work all the time. My initial point was that an immersive sim can be a horror game or a stealth game or an action game - it has to be something else along with being an immersive sim - and that doesn't sound right for classification unless it works as a genre superset or (ugh) meta-genre.
And yeah, the conversation over 'What is an RPG?' is about as involved and predates 'What is an immersive sim?' by a fair margin. Hell, I think we've had a few threads on that topic as well years ago in GenGaming.
Weasel on 20/5/2017 at 05:15
I think the theme / tone of any game should be a separate classification from the mechanics, rather than trying to blend the two into one thing that you label "genre."
Compare to other art forms, for example books:
A book can be fiction or non-fiction. It can be one story or a collection. It can have illustrations or not. It can be a play /screenplay or not. With all these types of classifications, I haven't even mentioned theme or genre. A historical fiction mystery play doesn't need a unique all-encompassing word to describe what type of book it is, you can just list all of those separate classifications.
In other words, a "stealth immersive sim" game can be called just that, essentially defining it in two different dimensions at once.
Starker on 20/5/2017 at 06:46
Genre does not work very well as a classification system. A genre is more like a fuzzy label that describes a set of conventions than a neat little box that defines what a game is. And, like Weasel said, there are multiple ways to define a set of conventions.
And as for whether 'RPG' is a meaningful descriptor, why wouldn't it be? Just because it's not precisely defined does not make it meaningless. To borrow from Wittgenstein, a concept with blurred borders is still a concept. For example, is it meaningless to point to a general are and say, "Stand roughly there"?
In fact, at the risk of sounding pretentious, it might be helpful to think along the lines of Wittgenstein's family resemblances in this case.
Sulphur on 20/5/2017 at 06:50
I don't think I said 'RPG' was a meaningless descriptor. The context is it's up for debate as to where the boundaries begin and end. If you've got nebulous qualities to something, by definition there's always going to be differences of opinion as to what fits the description and what doesn't.
As for genre convention: I think it's time we figured out a proper taxonomy instead of the kludge we currently have of lumping everything together, but that's just me.
Thirith on 20/5/2017 at 10:36
"Proper taxonomy" kinda seems to presuppose that there is such a thing as the Platonic Ideal of an <insert genre here>, though, and that's just not the case. We're looking at a bunch of games after the fact and trying to find a label that allows us to compartmentalise those games. That's fine, but the edges are always going to be fuzzy, because the games come before the genre, and all too often the argument seems to start from the position that there is such a thing as THE immersive sim, when actually these definitions are descriptive and not prescriptive, and the things being described aren't going to correlate 100%. I fully agree with Starker in this respect that 'family' resemblance is a more helpful way of looking at these things - and also to accept that some of the criteria we posit here are personal preference, not absolutes, because again, genres are not inherent, they're a categorisation we impose after the fact. Discussing whether something that's third person can or cannot be an immersive sim is nerd masturbation, because there *is* no correct answer.
