Theory

[icycalm]

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4 ... ative_.php

But gameplay is a unique quality of video games

So video games are the only game in town if you want gameplay

Gamasutra lol. The idiocy of the site's name perfectly captures the idiocy of its content.

[icycalm]

Any action in the game that is occurs by way of interaction between the player and the game, we call gameplay.

What are the others?

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4 ... mment41793

[El Chaos]

lol. I guess you can't ask much more of a designer for Pixar's Cars game sequel.

[Worm]

the idea of getting a player to cry is not some kind of mystical holy grail; it's done the same way that movies ... have been doing it all these years.

Isn't this a correct conclusion, at least? That when people cry over a game, it's because the game contained a movie or book and was affecting them in the "movie way" or the "book way?"

icycalm, you said as much yourself:

it is only the movie and novel way of using sound, images and text that can move you to tears, not the game way.

If a game does in fact end up moving you to tears, that just means it's using sound, images and text in the movie and novel way, which just means that it's a bad game.

Of course, Mr. Shirinian cannot bear to come to the real conclusion, which is in that last quoted sentence.

[icycalm]

Isn't this a correct conclusion, at least?

No. Because, surprise surprise, if you inject in a videogame "emotional" narrative in order to make the player cry, he is less likely to cry than if he was just experiencing this narrative in the form of a movie or a novel. The most likely response will in fact be boredom and/or disgust -- at least if the player is emotionally mature -- i.e. not a child or a retard.

This is one reason why his assertion is wrong. The other reason is that THERE DOES INDEED EXIST A WAY TO MAKE A PLAYER CRY -- it is however such a drastic way that, as I will be explaining in one of my last essays, to even contemplate it is madness.

So yeah. Ara Shirinian should go back to monkeycoding and leave the theorizing to the theorists. These problems are impossible to solve without a deep understanding of psychology -- and no one who writes about games has this other than me.