The Future of RPGs

[DosBuster]

In regards to Dialogue:

Honestly, there is such a thing as too much, the new Shadowrun games are an example of this. If you want to write a novel, write a novel, but the first priority should be giving the player key information.

 

[GrainWetski]

In regards to Dialogue:

Honestly, there is such a thing as too much, the new Shadowrun games are an example of this. If you want to write a novel, write a novel, but the first priority should be giving the player key information.

Press the action button, Snake!

 

[Rake]

In regards to Dialogue:

Honestly, there is such a thing as too much, the new Shadowrun games are an example of this. If you want to write a novel, write a novel, but the first priority should be giving the player key information.

I don't think there is such a thing as too much dialogue per ce. Quality of said dialogue and expectations influence player's reaction to dialogue. The new Shadowrun had a problem with pacing, too much unnecessary information in topics that weren't relevant or interesting enough breaking the flow of the game.
Meanwhile, in games like PST, KOTOR2, and hopefully TTON, reading IS THE GAME, and the time not spent reading text is just the break between the meat of the game. PST ratio to reading/doing something else was bigger than the one in SHK, and yet it felt right. As for KOTOR 2, if the time not spent reading was reduced by 80%, the game would be ten times better.
But if the meat of your game is combat, having walls upon walls of subpar text in a glorified dungeon crawler feels off. Same as having huge free roaming open worlds in a game focused around combat, resulting in huge areas filled with boring filler.
First the designer must decide what kind of experience he wants to create, and design accordingly.

 

[Telengard]

The Kickstarter concept is basically going around to the public and asking them to vote on the idea of a game. And what does that mean, in the end? It means tyranny of the masses.

And it's a beautiful thing. The tyranny of the masses made the Shadowrun series, WL2, PoE and TToN possible. Oh, and Grim Dawn too. Let the oppression continue!

Face it, your post is just the usual anti-crowdfunding drivel. Just because there are a few vocal shitheads on official boards who cry about how the game isn't what they personally want it to be, doesn't mean there's tyranny. And what's wrong with voting on features? Take a five-minute break from shitposting and go check the TToN ideas site: top voted ideas are all the good ones.

I'm not anti-Kickstarter, I'm just saying it's not the place to look for innovation. It won't happen there. You can get rpgs out of it - obviously. But the only place where innovation really happens is when devs aren't appealing to the masses for money, because in that direction lies playing it safe. Playing it safe is how you get the big bux, whether it's suits playing it safe to cater to investors, or devs playing it safe to cater to the masses so they don't get mass-downvoted before their game is even up for sale.

 

[oneself]

I'm not anti-Kickstarter, I'm just saying it's not the place to look for innovation. It won't happen there. You can get rpgs out of it - obviously. But the only place where innovation really happens is when devs aren't appealing to the masses for money, because in that direction lies playing it safe. Playing it safe is how you get the big bux, whether it's suits playing it safe to cater to investors, or devs playing it safe to cater to the masses so they don't get mass-downvoted before their game is even up for sale.

If only YOU can appreciate the innovation then no, you won't find it on kickstarter. You won't find any backing for it elsewhere either. You are way too ahead of your time if your product is actually good. You are an idiot if your product is actually bad and undesirable.

That said, Kickstarter as a platform can welcome small, more niche support so that projects that does not have mass appeal but still with an audience can fund. So innovation can definitely be found there.

 

[prodigydancer]

I'm not anti-Kickstarter, I'm just saying it's not the place to look for innovation.

AAA studios are normally supposed to be the source of innovation. They got big budgets and at least partially those budgets should be dedicated to R&D. The reasons why it almost never happens lately I posted earlier ITT: everyone's busy milking their established cash cow franchises and copypasting whatever is trendy at the moment (most recently "open world"). Talent and innovation aren't in high demand. This era probably won't last forever but for the foreseeable future we're stuck.

As for KS developers, they do innovate - as much as they can afford which usually isn't a lot. When you have an obligation to deliver a finished product you cannot spend all your money on trying new things which may or may prove feasible to implement in the end.

 

[Telengard]

I'm not anti-Kickstarter, I'm just saying it's not the place to look for innovation. It won't happen there. You can get rpgs out of it - obviously. But the only place where innovation really happens is when devs aren't appealing to the masses for money, because in that direction lies playing it safe. Playing it safe is how you get the big bux, whether it's suits playing it safe to cater to investors, or devs playing it safe to cater to the masses so they don't get mass-downvoted before their game is even up for sale.

If only YOU can appreciate the innovation then no, you won't find it on kickstarter. You won't find any backing for it elsewhere either. You are way too ahead of your time if your product is actually good. You are an idiot if your product is actually bad and undesirable.

That said, Kickstarter as a platform can welcome small, more niche support so that projects that does not have mass appeal but still with an audience can fund. So innovation can definitely be found there.

The one piece you're missing is the nature of the rpg audience. Trying to sell a new idea to the masses is a horrible way to get funding. (Showing them a finished product that has something neat and new has a chance, but even that is risky.) The rpg audience, in the main, desires the same old LOTR and Star Wars lookalikes, they get angry if there is any deviation in style from what has gone before (especially if you're going "We're going to make game like they used to" in order to get funding on Kickstarter), and they'll call a game good if the hairstyles match the pics, and bad if they don't (whether or not the gameplay is actually good). If you've got to sell your idea to them in order to get funding, then you better be selling the same-old same-old.

 

[StrongBelwas]

I'm not anti-Kickstarter, I'm just saying it's not the place to look for innovation.

AAA studios are normally supposed to be the source of innovation. They got big budgets and at least partially those budgets should be dedicated to R&D. The reasons why it almost never happens lately I posted earlier ITT: everyone's busy milking their established cash cow franchises and copypasting whatever is trendy at the moment (most recently "open world"). Talent and innovation aren't in high demand. This era probably won't last forever but for the foreseeable future we're stuck.

This isn't the early days anymore, any chance of mainstream studios being the leaders in innovation ever again went out the door the moment huge budgets became the norm. Big budgets means big risk, and they're going to do everything they can do to minimize that risk. Just look the lineup for 2016 Hollywood has to offer.

 

[Telengard]

I'm not anti-Kickstarter, I'm just saying it's not the place to look for innovation.

AAA studios are normally supposed to be the source of innovation. They got big budgets and at least partially those budgets should be dedicated to R&D. The reasons why it almost never happens lately I posted earlier ITT: everyone's busy milking their established cash cow franchises and copypasting whatever is trendy at the moment (most recently "open world"). Talent and innovation aren't in high demand. This era probably won't last forever but for the foreseeable future we're stuck.

As for KS developers, they do innovate - as much as they can afford which usually isn't a lot. When you have an obligation to deliver a finished product you cannot spend all your money on trying new things which may or may prove feasible to implement in the end.

This is the trick, caused by AAAs promising innovation, but that's always "innovation", just a marketing slogan. The AAAs are never and were never the source of innovation. They're the source of powerful graphics, which may look innovative if you don't know anything much about games, 'cause you're just a whipper-snapper. The source of innovation in all arts and entertainment lies with the indie and (at one time) small studios, where people are free to do whatever they want. However, the commons doesn't like that other aspect of indie and small studios, which is low production values and other low-budget issues. Then, traditionally, the middle studios would pick up on any good innovative ideas that came along, mix them with the quality production that a middle-size studio can afford, and thus those games are the ones where most people encounter innovation (since they don't buy indie and low budget). All that, while the big studios only pick up "new" ideas from the middle studios that are already proven and entrenched money-makers.

It's the normal cycle of the market.

 

[SionIV]

In regards to Dialogue:

Honestly, there is such a thing as too much, the new Shadowrun games are an example of this. If you want to write a novel, write a novel, but the first priority should be giving the player key information.

Go back to playing console games.

There is no such thing as too much dialogue when it comes to a good game. Planescape Torment had a massive amount of dialogues, and I still wish it had more after I completed it.

 

[Viata]

Too much dialogue is good. It's no wonder Visual Novel is the next step for any rpg developer.

 

[oneself]

The one piece you're missing is the nature of the rpg audience. Trying to sell a new idea to the masses is a horrible way to get funding.

You have to sell the product at the end. So either way, kickstarter or not, you are selling an idea to the masses. Whether it is a new idea or an old one is up to you.

The rpg audience, in the main, desires the same old LOTR and Star Wars lookalikes, they get angry if there is any deviation in style from what has gone before (especially if you're going "We're going to make game like they used to" in order to get funding on Kickstarter), and they'll call a game good if the hairstyles match the pics, and bad if they don't (whether or not the gameplay is actually good). If you've got to sell your idea to them in order to get funding, then you better be selling the same-old same-old.

Suppose you are true, then I do not think it is a problem of Kickstarter as a platform, but merely the audience themselves, or perhaps the genre itself.

That said, I don't think the RPG crowd is very much different from other crowds. They want new things but with familiarity.

 

[Maxwell's Demon]

They want new things but with familiarity.

RPG fans want to be sold on revolutionary, groundbreaking, and visionary products that also have an ancient tradition of usage that goes all the way back back to the wise masters of antiquity? So what you're saying is they want hucksters and frauds to steal their money.

 

[oneself]

They want new things but with familiarity.

RPG fans want to be sold on revolutionary, groundbreaking, and visionary products that also have an ancient tradition of usage that goes all the way back back to the wise masters of antiquity? So what you're saying is they want hucksters and frauds to steal their money.

I think they want a new take on an old system, and not suddenly turn it into a FPS with looting.

Groundbreaking, and visionary and revolutionary are terms spun by the marketing department.

 

[Lacrymas]

Every (serious) art creates something new in the context of the old. Kreia wouldn't be special if the Force has always been portrayed as a malevolent force, for example. Schoenberg's dodecaphony means nothing outside of the context of western music. Mondrian's squares or Picasso's paintings also mean nothing outside of their respective tradition. Joyce's Finnegan's Wake too etc. You can't appreciate and fully understand something artistic outside of some kind of context. You have to have something normalized so that that normality can be breached. So it's natural to try to build something on top of the old, i.e. bringing the old to a logical extreme. That logical extreme, naturally, won't mean anything outside of its context. Some kid with no RPG experience won't appreciate and won't understand UnderRail and AoD for example. My point is that you can't show and deliver something new without using the old and it's not realistic to expect such "newness" that is in-itself.

 

[belowmecoldhands]

(inspired by a discussion on Shoutbox)

We live in an era where games are only going to get bigger, the technology is constantly evolving and the amounts invested are just getting higher by the day.

So, how can RPGs evolve from this point? What needs to be done better and what needs to be focused on. What needs to be forgotten?

All that extra CPU isn't just going to polygons. It's going to make smarter enemies, more creative enemies. And that's a problem. I've read before that MMO makers have intentionally made scripts for enemies "dumb". This is to ensure the fights are doable and consistent and fun. Contrast this to PvP games, where players use many lowbrow tactics to defeat opponents, sometimes leading to a less than enjoyable fight. So what will game makers do if all of that extra AI isn't making the enemies harder to beat? They may choose to instead create an AI which pressures the players, but only just enough, not too much. The task isn't to make the most challenging AI, but how to make the AI meet the player's skill level perfectly to produce the best experience.

There'll be background incidental activity in the NPCs. This sort of activity won't impact gameplay anymore than it does today. For example, in most RPGs, NPCs are in stores 24/7. They don't go to bed or take a lunch break. Additionally, they can't be killed. This is for convenience, so they're always available. However, little things can be added to richen the evnironment. Maybe the storekeeper can say things which're not important to the game but pertain to the player and the world they live in. Maybe the storekeeper can become a sort of friend, maybe commenting about the player's recent exploits or telling them about the shenanigans of a local rogue. All of it could be dynamically created by the AI. GTA called their physics engine for NPCs Euphoria. Maybe future games will call their NPC-to-NPC or NPC-Player interaction engine something similar.

I think we'll see much more dynamic environments. Less scripted. But like in the first paragraph, how we balanced the challenge by meeting the player's skill level, AI's will run in the background, ensuring it's a fair and balanced world for the player, instead of a chaotic one. So we'll get some cake and we'll get to eat some of it too.

I also think we'l have more procedural content. This is because 3d worlds are increasingly large. It's becoming difficiult to manually create textures and models and sound for all of it. Thus, these things will be randomized and patterend to mimic the real thing. This will allow them to create larger worlds while still being able to finish it. In many wyas we already have htis today. If you create a character in an MMORPG, there's usually a "random" setting to give you a randomized appearance. No doubt, the developers use something similar to make NPCs. Procedural textures are also common for wood and other materials which're easy to pattern. Graphics hardware is increasingly implementing these processes to increase the speed. Procedural content can be very CPU demanding.

Other content is harder to computer generate, like stories or quests. But I think those wil leventually be procedural too. When AI starts making stories and characters appealing to us, that'll be when you know it's time.

 

[belowmecoldhands]

The Kickstarter concept is basically going around to the public and asking them to vote on the idea of a game. And what does that mean, in the end? It means tyranny of the masses.

And it's a beautiful thing. The tyranny of the masses made the Shadowrun series, WL2, PoE and TToN possible. Oh, and Grim Dawn too. Let the oppression continue!

Face it, your post is just the usual anti-crowdfunding drivel. Just because there are a few vocal shitheads on official boards who cry about how the game isn't what they personally want it to be, doesn't mean there's tyranny. And what's wrong with voting on features? Take a five-minute break from shitposting and go check the TToN ideas site: top voted ideas are all the good ones.

I'm not anti-Kickstarter, I'm just saying it's not the place to look for innovation. It won't happen there. You can get rpgs out of it - obviously. But the only place where innovation really happens is when devs aren't appealing to the masses for money, because in that direction lies playing it safe. Playing it safe is how you get the big bux, whether it's suits playing it safe to cater to investors, or devs playing it safe to cater to the masses so they don't get mass-downvoted before their game is even up for sale.

What you missing is kickstarter is smaller. It's reaching a smaller audience who specifically want those projects funded. So what's occuring is the big budget companies are appealing to the largest audiences and kickstarter-calibre teams and less capable teams than themselves are making games for smaller audiences. Everybody is being served. I think this has always been the case. It's just in the past many people wern't using computers for gaming, so there was nobody to be served.

Keep in mind the computer gaming industry started out much smaller than ti's now. And initially most of the consolle gamers were male teenagers (females are 50% now almost). The audience for these things has grown since then to reach far more people. This is why back then we saw so many niche games/software--it was a smaller audience, typically male and tech-friendly.

EDIT: What I'm telling you is Kickstarter is NOT big budget. Big budget companies don't need kickstarter becaues they can sell their games reliably to a mass audience. Kickstarter is for more risky projects. And there're even smaller teams than kickstarter teams. Many of the smaller ones are amateurs and don't even ask for money for what they do. The smallest teams are the most flexible and can entertain the most risky projects. The problem is they tend to be less talented. For whatever reason, the most talented usually end up in companies and companies usually chase after bigger and bigger $'s.

 

[Telengard]

The Kickstarter concept is basically going around to the public and asking them to vote on the idea of a game. And what does that mean, in the end? It means tyranny of the masses.

And it's a beautiful thing. The tyranny of the masses made the Shadowrun series, WL2, PoE and TToN possible. Oh, and Grim Dawn too. Let the oppression continue!

Face it, your post is just the usual anti-crowdfunding drivel. Just because there are a few vocal shitheads on official boards who cry about how the game isn't what they personally want it to be, doesn't mean there's tyranny. And what's wrong with voting on features? Take a five-minute break from shitposting and go check the TToN ideas site: top voted ideas are all the good ones.

I'm not anti-Kickstarter, I'm just saying it's not the place to look for innovation. It won't happen there. You can get rpgs out of it - obviously. But the only place where innovation really happens is when devs aren't appealing to the masses for money, because in that direction lies playing it safe. Playing it safe is how you get the big bux, whether it's suits playing it safe to cater to investors, or devs playing it safe to cater to the masses so they don't get mass-downvoted before their game is even up for sale.

What you missing is kickstarter is smaller. It's reaching a smaller audience who specifically want those projects funded. So what's occuring is the big budget companies are appealing to the largest audiences and kickstarter-calibre teams and less capable teams than themselves are making games for smaller audiences. Everybody is being served. I think this has always been the case. It's just in the past many people wern't using computers for gaming, so there was nobody to be served.

Keep in mind the computer gaming industry started out much smaller than ti's now. And initially most of the consolle gamers were male teenagers (females are 50% now almost). The audience for these things has grown since then to reach far more people. This is why back then we saw so many niche games/software--it was a smaller audience, typically male and tech-friendly.

EDIT: What I'm telling you is Kickstarter is NOT big budget. Big budget companies don't need kickstarter becaues they can sell their games reliably to a mass audience. Kickstarter is for more risky projects. And there're even smaller teams than kickstarter teams. Many of the smaller ones are amateurs and don't even ask for money for what they do. The smallest teams are the most flexible and can entertain the most risky projects. The problem is they tend to be less talented. For whatever reason, the most talented usually end up in companies and companies usually chase after bigger and bigger $'s.

Kickstarter does allow one to target smaller groups, but the kicker of it is, and has always been, the number of people who want something new and untested and will put their money where their mouth is is incredibly few. If you put the concept of a new idea in front of people, their gut reaction is . 'Cause people are shallow assholes. They say things like "Why can't you make the combat like Blackguards?" (from the Codex). Or "why can't you make the controls like COD?" from Red Orchestra. To sell something new, you've got to seriously edumicate the public on why they would want this new thing, when they so very much like the old thing. And edumicating people when you have a finished product with something new in it is a hard enough task as it is; it's a nightmarish mountainous task when alls you got is a concept that you throw up on a Kickstarter.

In a traditional sales format, your early buyers already like you, they have - hopefully - already seen your game in action and like it, and are thus wholly disposed to write good reviews before they even play. With Kickstarter, alls one has to do is piss off the largest group of backers, for any reason under the sun, and you're a goner before your project even goes up for sale. Any reason, be it for new ideas that they don't like, or the dev just being generally mouthy, or not talking enough on Facebook when people ask questions every single day (it's called engagement), or whatevs.

Let's say, for instance, you wanted to do a Baldur's Gate clone. There's two fan groups for Baldurs - the Biowarians and the Black Islers, and they're both gonna back you no matter what just because you said the words "baldurs" and "gate". Which group is bigger? So, when there's a dispute between them, who are you going to side with? The Black Islers and watch your project swirl down the toilet of bad reviews, or the Biowarians and watch your project become a dumbed down version of your original concept?

C&C bitches. That's the tyranny of the masses.

 

[Maxwell's Demon]

C&C bitches. That's the tyranny of the masses.

Someone probably needs to refine the Kickstarter formula at some point. Perhaps one can limit that tyranny of the masses somehow with checks and balances, as one does in a government. The US government isn't a strict democracy for that very reason.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

The future of RPGs in the positive potential sense is in two directions in my opinion. The first is the procedural direction, with emergent worlds and things of that nature. This is the harder direction, as we can see from the planned 30 year old development cycle of Dwarf Fortress. Obviously this sort of thing is not for everyone, but if DF ever gets done, it's adventure mode might very well be the greatest single player RPG ever. The reason for this being so hard and lengthy is because to make the procedural interesting, it has to be really deep. Shallow procedural stuff gets you games like Daggerfall and Mount & Blade, where you see everything they have to offer very quickly, and then it's all just boring repetition with random flavor. But if you have tons of in-depth systems interacting with each other in unscripted ways, the resulting emergence is pretty much always unique and interesting enough to disguise the absence of a script. After all, that is how real life works, and if you read the news headlines, surely there is no shortage of interesting absurdities emergently appearing out of the procedural chaos.

The other direction, which might be more attainable to people not looking to work on 30 year schedules, is to focus on gameplay. But by this, I mean something different than some other posters here. To some fans of older games, focusing on gameplay often means having a lot of stats, and having the game check those when you play it, to see if you succeed or fail. Not to me. I find this whole approach boring. If the game checks your stealth skill to see if you snuck past someone, or your conversation skill/intelligence stat to see if you convinced someone, that is not gameplay, that is the game playing itself for you. Instead, what future RPGs should shoot for is implementing deep gameplay systems where YOU the player engage in the system. Player skill based gameplay might not be for RPG purists, but it is the only way to produce interesting gameplay and not a digital choose-your-own-adventure novel.

Make an interesting player skill based combat system and let the player master it, if they want to be a fighter. Make a deep player skill based stealth system (ala Thief 1/2), and let the player master that if they want to be a thief. Combine the two on some level if being an assassin is your goal. Make a player skill based dialogue system and let the player master that if they want to be a diplomat. A system where your stats aren't checked, but where you have to obtain information, think, analyze who you are talking to, and make decisions about how to best manipulate them via conversation or intrigue. Not easy, I know, but that's the way. Make a player skill based hacking system, make a player skill based parkour system, make a player skill based economic/trading system, and so on. Combine all these into one game, and you not only have something extremely ambitious and hard to make, but also where the future of RPGs should be. Everything else is just mostly retreads of decades-old stuff.

 

[Infinitron]

The thing about "innovation" is that it ties into Trashos' "I want an RPG that's good at everything" lament.

When hardcore gamers talk about "innovation" that they'd like to see, what they mean is "I want the ultimate game that keeps all the breadth and depth of the classics of the past, and also adds even more mechanics".

When developers "innovate", what that often means is taking a particular mechanic or aspect of one of their past games, and focusing heavily on it, typically to the exclusion of other mechanics (and thus to the detriment of the game's overall breadth).

Like I said, that's what professional creatives seem to enjoy doing, what they find intellectually rewarding as designers. They want to explore concepts, not to engage in an eternal feature race with their previous works. (It happens to be commercially rewarding too, but I don't think that's the full story.)

 

[Volrath]

RPGs have no future.

 

[Viata]

RPGs have no future.

Nah, there are some futuristic setting here and there.

 

[Jarpie]

I wrote post on this last spring or so and my thought and thinking is that the tradition of making and playing crpgs is gone.

There was essentially 10-13 year gap between the last at least decent non-first person rpgs, even the old devs have been out of it for too long and they're not the same people anymore.

Pillars of Eternity is imo perfect example of this that new people working on it are not even able to handle the fights on hard difficulty in their own game as Sawyer afaik said. Crpgs takes imo very different type of writing than other types of games and IMO it takes time to learn by writing and playing other games so it's gonna take time to get up the par.

Also the best new "old school" rpgs have been by small studios like Styg/UnderRail, for example but as good as they are, especially compared to their budgets and team sizes but they're not gonna have enough resources to push the ambitions further or make huge enough game worlds to make enough epic games imo.

Sent from my Lenovo B8000-F using Tapatalk

 

[Higher Animal]

Umm.... no.

The game development industry is incredibly demanding and competitive. There is an infinite supply of teenage boys and young men whose dream job is to make video/computer games. This keeps the salaries low compared to software development jobs outside the gaming industry. Crunch time is legendary and the turnover rate is very high.

So you end up with a steady stream of people coming into the industry and a large percentage of them leaving within a few years. What you're left with are a core group of dedicated and passionate developers who make all the important decisions regarding a game's development. Mediocrity doesn't survive long in the industry. The shitty pay and often shittier working conditions weed out anyone who doesn't have both the passion and the talent.

Trust me, there is no shortage of talented developers with good ideas. Unfortunately many of them burn out and leave the industry before they acquire enough experience to be able to fully realize their talents and ideas.

The apparent lack of good ideas in modern gaming comes down to risk-averse management and rapidly inflating development budgets. THAT is the most significant change since the 90s, not the pool of talent -- if anything, there are more talented developers than ever before.

So do you want the super talented and dedicated pool of people already within the industry or do you want "risk-averse management" to make their lives easier?

You simply don't understand the major trends of the last ten years that have made video games a less attractive medium for attention. For one thing, the idea that there is an endless supply of talent willing to grind to the bone for video games is an archaic idea. In the 90's this was true because gaming was an incredibly pluralistic and global phenomenon. Globalized marketplaces provided plenty of attention and opportunity, while new technologies created challenging obstacles that game development talent could overcome through experimentation and creativity. Most importantly, video game companies and developers could fail without significant career or market ending backlash. Video games were so attractive, dynamic, and pluralistic in the 90's that a failed game company's talent would find new work and other investors wouldn't be so dismayed at the outcome that they wouldn't invest in new ventures.

More importantly, the culture that shaped video games for the first thirty years has been transplanted to social media. Most of what made video games attractive to young people (and young men) are no longer its best outlet. Competition, experimentation, utilization of technology, aesthetics, interactivity, and social bonding are now available on much more creative, open-ended platforms. Twitter and Snapchat have transformed these experiences by broadening them, and by offering more tangible rewards. In fact, video games are now popular because of their social media contributions as they form part of the media noise that allows the riffing and experimentation that social media is known for.

Finally, any new cultural form (artistic, political, economic) can be judged by how much female influence has effected it. As we know, video games are undergoing a cultural purging of dissenting voices to the matriarchy. They are systematically removing masculine dynamism from the form, piece by piece. This also happened to rap music and cinema. When wymmyn begin to control a form it become both superficial and subordinate to her (usually narrow) ego. Talented men will naturally leave non-dynamic, controlled systems for less hen-pecked pastures.

Currently, Microsoft is spending billions of dollars on worldwide cloud computing infrastructure developed and maintained by minimum wage 20x productivity third worlders so kids playing crackdown 2 can see the buildings they destroy collapse "according to the actual law of physics." We are entering the post-video games as relevant pop art phase, son.