Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   clarity flowers (clarity@xoxo.zone)'s status on Wednesday, 29-May-2024 09:38:43 JST clarity flowers

   I regularly see this sentiment that video games are unique from tabletop games because tabletop games have “rules” that we consent to follow, while video games have “laws” that are enforced programmatically.

   But I figure, if this were true, then why do we seem to have such a strong intuition for a concept of “cheating” in video games? Clearly these laws aren’t quite so concretely enforced as it seems.

   • Embed this notice
     clarity flowers (clarity@xoxo.zone)'s status on Wednesday, 29-May-2024 09:44:47 JST clarity flowers

     in reply to

     There are possible behaviors in multiplayer games that get you banned if you do them, you can look up the answers to puzzle games, skip levels by going out of bounds, enter cheat codes, use in-game terminals to spawn or delete entities, etc. Any of these might be considered “not following the rules”.

     Some rules are easier to break than others: fudging dice and breaking out hex editors can take skill, installing mods and adding houserules is pretty easy.

   • Embed this notice
     clarity flowers (clarity@xoxo.zone)'s status on Wednesday, 29-May-2024 09:49:52 JST clarity flowers

     in reply to

     • droqen

     The developer of a video game makes a lot of asks of the player: consider all the AAA action games with intense “cinematic moments” that are ruined if you just ignore the thumping soundtrack and sit around and realize that the implied urgency is an ask for suspended disbelief and not any mechanically enforced time pressure. It’s more implicit, sure, but does it have to be? iirc @droqen made a platformer that tells you to hold your breath irl while your character is underwater.

   • Embed this notice
     clarity flowers (clarity@xoxo.zone)'s status on Wednesday, 29-May-2024 12:23:10 JST clarity flowers

     in reply to

     • 🐛

     @apophis oof yeah, it absolutely is. you don’t need anticheat in lobby based games because communities are capable of self-moderation

   • Embed this notice
     🐛 (apophis@brain.worm.pink)'s status on Wednesday, 29-May-2024 12:23:12 JST 🐛

     in reply to
     @clarity this "laws" distinction now makes me realize that this whole awful trend of commercial games having kernel-level anticheat is also part of this larger ongoing trend towards filling every gap in our society with cops and appealing to the worst people's worst authoritarian instincts at every turn
   • Embed this notice
     clarity flowers (clarity@xoxo.zone)'s status on Monday, 03-Jun-2024 04:09:55 JST clarity flowers

     in reply to

     • droqen

     @droqen oh that's fascinating

   • Embed this notice
     droqen (droqen@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 03-Jun-2024 04:09:56 JST droqen

     in reply to

     @clarity Yes I made that game! Asphyx! It's hard to play now because of Flash. It actually has... and IDK how this interacts with your line of thinking... a part where if you are not "playing along" the design kind of notices and you get stuck. At the time I thought my little trap was very clever and was subsequently surprised to see how many engaged so well with the activity :)

   • Embed this notice
     clarity flowers (clarity@xoxo.zone)'s status on Monday, 03-Jun-2024 04:14:33 JST clarity flowers

     in reply to

     • droqen

     @droqen but maybe also not surprising! people tend to enjoy going along with what games ask of them