Jargon watch: openworld

[icycalm]

So apparently Euroidiot is now using the term 'openworld' to describe GTA-like games (see here, for example), instead of the usual 'free-roaming' or 'sandbox'. I've never seen it used by anyone else, so I am assuming they coined it.

For the record, I still prefer 'free-roaming'.

[JoshF]

Openworld is pretentious and sandbox sounds derogatory (so use it for shitty free-roaming games).

[Jedah]

I don't think the subject of GTA labeling can be solved by choosing a word. They seem equally stupid or descriptive to me. Super Mario Sunshine is a free-roaming game, with levels as missions. I do believe that every label given to a game or genre, will eventually become something like RPGs are today.

[Molloy]

I quite like the term free-roaming. It sort of just a new buzz word for the Adventure genre though isn't it? GTA is just a action-adventure title really.

Different terms come in and out of fashion. I'm sure the game marketing departments will have another one in 6 months time.

[icycalm]

I don't think the subject of GTA labeling can be solved by choosing a word.

There's nothing to solve. We just need a word which we can use to quickly and easily refer to a range of games. Instead of saying, for example, "Dune 2-like" games, we say RTS games. Et cetera.

They seem equally stupid or descriptive to me.

Well, they have to be "descriptive". That's how we choose these terms. On the basis of how closely they describe that common aspect of the group of games which we want to describe. In this case, for example, "sandbox" is not a good term because it doesn't adequately describe the common aspect. I mean a box with sand in it? WTF does that have to do with GTA?

"Openworld" does a better job of describing these games, but why create a new word? This is English not German. You can just say "open world" games if you want.

That's why I think that 'free-roaming' is better. In these games you are certainly free... to roam.

Super Mario Sunshine is a free-roaming game, with levels as missions.

Certainly, that is correct. Super Mario Sunshine has a free-roaming aspect.

I do believe that every label given to a game or genre, will eventually become something like RPGs are today.

I don't see why. Role-playing games are a special case. All other genre labels have served us more or less fine to this day.

[icycalm]

I quite like the term free-roaming. It sort of just a new buzz word for the Adventure genre though isn't it?

No it's not. GTA III is a very different game than King's Quest.

GTA is just a action-adventure title really.

It is ALSO an action-adventure game. So you could more accurately describe it by saying that it is a "free-roaming action-adventure" game, in contrast, for example, to Devil May Cry, which is simply action-adventure.

Different terms come in and out of fashion. I'm sure the game marketing departments will have another one in 6 months time.

Not really. We've been using the term RTS for ages, for example. Terminology is very important if you are trying to do serious analysis. Changing your terms every six months is just stupid.

[icycalm]

A representative with Sierra Entertainment today confirmed that to be the case with the company's upcoming open-world action game Prototype.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6190361.ht ... op;title;2

So it's not just Euroidiot. At least these guys are using a dash.

The interesting thing is that both these articles I quoted are for Sierra's upcoming Prototype, so there's a chance the game's developers are using this new term to describe their game, which would explain why the journos have adopted it...

I need to find more examples.

[Molloy]

I haven't played a lot of DMC. I always thought it was more of a pure action sort of thing with the odd key for the door puzzle. Not a whole lot of exploring per se.

I'm just recalling a time when platformers first started to incorporate hub worlds and collecting tokens. Everybody defined them as platformer-adventures, to differentiate from the arcade platfomers that were more common in the past. Before everybody started talking about sandboxes and free roaming '-adventure' was the short hand for any kind of roaming and downtime. They never really needed to explain that they didn't mean point and click type adventure because that genre has died off to such an extent.

Free-roaming-action-adventure is a little bit longwinded to become common usage. I get what you mean that in the context of this site we should be more clear however. It always pisses me off when people confuse genres and call Run 'N Gun games Shmups and vice versa.

[Mr.Stevenson]

It was difficult to anticipate how Grand Theft Auto IV would turn out, given the way that the whole “open-world game” thing is being done to death across as many different games and settings as possible.
...
Rockstar went the other way, and managed to craft an amazingly impactful story and weave it into an open-world game in an incredibly meaningful way–all without losing the heart and soul of what makes Grand Theft Auto so popular in the first place.

http://www.giantbomb.com/2008/05/05/nik ... anti-hero/

One of the game journalist of Giant Bomb also has shifted to the term open-word game. The start of a new trend among game developers and game journalist indeed.

[Jedah]

There's nothing to solve. We just need a word which we can use to quickly and easily refer to a range of games. Instead of saying, for example, "Dune 2-like" games, we say RTS games. Et cetera.

As I said Super Mario Sunshine is a free roaming game in a village hub instead of a city, but its main feature is platforming, thus it is categorized as a platform game. GTA on the other hand, has more balance between free roaming, driving, shooting etc. That's why it is difficult to use such a general term as free roaming to describe it.

They seem equally stupid or descriptive to me.

Well, they have to be "descriptive". That's how we choose these terms. On the basis of how closely they describe that common aspect of the group of games which we want to describe. In this case, for example, "sandbox" is not a good term because it doesn't adequately describe the common aspect. I mean a box with sand in it? WTF does that have to do with GTA?

"Openworld" does a better job of describing these games, but why create a new word? This is English not German. You can just say "open world" games if you want.

That's why I think that 'free-roaming' is better. In these games you are certainly free... to roam.

What I meant was: They seem equally stupid(bad) or descriptive(good) to me for describing GTA games. Free roaming could do the job of course till we find something better. Its also little better than openworld (there's nothing open, its a huge but confined city) and sandbox (sounds like a cat's toilet).

[icycalm]

What I meant was: They seem equally descriptive (good) to me for describing GTA games.

But they are not. You said it yourself, in the same paragraph, no less:

sandbox (sounds like a cat's toilet)

What we mean by "descriptive" is descriptive of the thing you are trying to describe.

As I said Super Mario Sunshine is a free roaming game in a village hub instead of a city, but its main feature is platforming, thus it is categorized as a platform game. GTA on the other hand, has more balance between free roaming, driving, shooting etc. That's why it is difficult to use such a general term as free roaming to describe it.

I don't see the difficulty. The term describes one aspect of the game. Another term may describe another aspect of the game. Sometimes we may need to use three or more terms to properly describe most of a game's aspects. There's no difficulty in doing that, as long as your readers are aware of the meaning of each term. (And if you think that some of them may not be, you can always write a glossary for them.)

I haven't played a lot of DMC. I always thought it was more of a pure action sort of thing with the odd key for the door puzzle. Not a whole lot of exploring per se.

No, there's not a whole lot of exploring in DMC, but that's irrelevant because in adventure games there's not much exploring either. The reason we use the term 'action-adventure' is because of those key/door puzzles. So DMC is more pure action than something like Onimusha or Silent Hill, but still not 100% pure action.

Free-roaming-action-adventure is a little bit longwinded to become common usage.

None of the terms we use will ever become "common usage". We are talking about the specialist press here, not the New York Times. Check my review of No More Heroes, for example:

And I sit here and ask myself: how could these people be so terribly, terribly wrong? Videogames are not paintings; beauty here is not in the eye of the beholder -- games are more like cars or motorcycles: comparing them is usually more of a technical matter than anything else. In the case of No More Heroes, a 3D hack-and-slash free-roaming action title, without a doubt the games it should be measured by are Grand Theft Auto III and Ninja Gaiden -- the first for still being the best free-roaming action game we have, and the second for being by far the best 3D hack-and-slasher yet.

http://insomnia.ac/reviews/wii/nomoreheroes/

That's not one, not two, not three, but FOUR terms to describe a single game! And yet anyone who knows anything about games immediately understands what I am talking about, without the need for boring multiple-paragraph explanations of concepts everyone should already be familiar with.

To deliver any kind of in-depth criticism you need some sort of specialized terminology, otherwise each paragraph becomes three paragraphs and you end up writing a book. You and Jedah seem to have something against specialized terminology, but if you decide to sit down and review a hundred games in depth you will realize that we cannot communicate our thoughts efficiently without it.

It all comes back to Wittgenstein's theory of "family resemblances" which is vital for an understanding of how games work (both real-life and electronic ones). I plan to write about this soon.

[walrusdawg]

In this case, for example, "sandbox" is not a good term because it doesn't adequately describe the common aspect. I mean a box with sand in it? WTF does that have to do with GTA?

I'd say that "sandbox" is simply another aspect that could be stated alongside "free-roaming" or just be considered a specific aspect of the genre. As playing in a sandbox(an activity without any preset objectives) is pretty enjoyable at a certain point in one's life, there is good fun to be had doing shit in the GTA(and I'm going back to GTA 1) games while completely ignoring the progression of the game. It does not define the type of game but adequately describes one aspect of them.


But my big concern is the fact that I don't really understand the whole "free-roaming/open-world" description. Why were games like Zelda no Densetsu, Metroid, or Dengeki Big Bang not described as such when they were released? I think it might be because of the previously mentioned "sandbox" aspect.

Otherwise, "free-roaming" could be simply stated as "All of the game takes place on a single map that is accessible from the start of the game."(now that's not true in most every case, but initially blocking off then opening portions of the map is essential for giving the player a sense of progress.)

[icycalm]

The reason you are left with that big question in the second paragraph is because you are making a big mistake in the first one.

'Sandbox' and 'free-roaming' are two terms used to describe the same thing. These terms are not supposed to be taken literally. Just as by saying "sandbox games" no one expect games with sandboxes in them, when we say "free-roaming" games we are MOST CERTAINLY not talking about any and all games in which you are free to roam. Because if you take this term literally, then EVERY game is a free-roaming game, because in every game you are free to roam within the confines of the game world (and ALL game worlds are confined -- even in GTAIII-like games).

So forget about the literal meaning of the term. "Free-roaming game" means "GTAIII-like game" -- same as with "sandbox game". The only reason I prefer the first term is because it's more descriptive than the second one.

Once you understand this, your question re: Zelda, etc. vanishes.

[Bradford]

For what it's worth, it seems to me that 'sandbox' is the more descriptive of the terms. I think that walrusdawg makes an excellent argument.

'Free-roaming' ultimately ends up being a term which is meaningless, for precisely the reasons you stated; it applies to every game and no game. 'Sandbox,' on the other hand, provides a fairly precise metaphor for a central element of a game like GTA. That is, the game has been designed with the intent that players will roam (but not freely...) throughout the game world without a specific purpose and without advancing the plot, and that this will be enjoyable. That's basically the purpose of an large box filled with sand that children play in, isn't it? Especially when you give them some addtional tools like little plastic shovels or grenades.

As such, 'sandbox' can include GTA-like games, while excluding games where the majority of the world is accessable from the beginning but has no significant non plot-related activites (or at least wasn't designed with such activities in mind), like Zelda. 'Free-roaming' either includes all games, no games, or has a meaning entirely divorced from its dictionary meaning, in which case you could pick any nonsense word you like.

I hope I'm not missing your point. I just think that if there is already a word that has a useful meaning, why use a word that doesn't? I would understand if neither word's actual meaning had any utility, but that is not the case here.

[Bradford]

Just one more very quick point. If you really want to redefine 'free-roaming' to mean nothing more than 'GTA-like,' and you couldn't care less whether anyone in the press picked up the term, why not just say 'GTA-like'?

[icycalm]

For what it's worth, it seems to me that 'sandbox' is the more descriptive of the terms.

Oh, really? So where are the sandboxes then?

Yet another guy who has no idea what the word 'descriptive' means. The dictionary is your friend!

I think that walrusdawg makes an excellent argument.

Which argument is that supposed to be? The one I destroyed right above your post?

'Free-roaming' ultimately ends up being a term which is meaningless, for precisely the reasons you stated; it applies to every game and no game.

Yadda yadda bullshit.

Young man, you are going to have to start paying attention if you want to be able to keep posting in this forum. LOOKY HERE:

These terms are not supposed to be taken literally. So forget about the literal meaning of the term. "Free-roaming game" means "GTAIII-like game" -- same as with "sandbox game". The only reason I prefer the first term is because it's more descriptive than the second one.

Moving on...

'Sandbox,' on the other hand, provides a fairly precise metaphor for a central element of a game like GTA.

"fairly precise metaphor" lol

You can't make this shit up.

That is, the game has been designed with the intent that players will roam (but not freely...) throughout the game world without a specific purpose and without advancing the plot, and that this will be enjoyable. That's basically the purpose of an large box filled with sand that children play in, isn't it?

Nonsense. Complete nonsense. The only reason I am not banning you here and now is because you made me lol.

I hope I'm not missing your point.

You are elevating point-missing to an artform.

I just think that if there is already a word that has a useful meaning, why use a word that doesn't? I would understand if neither word's actual meaning had any utility, but that is not the case here.

Proof that you haven't understood a single word I posted in this thread.

Just one more very quick STUPID-AS-FUCK point. If you really want to redefine 'free-roaming' to mean nothing more than 'GTA-like,' and you couldn't care less whether anyone in the press picked up the term, why not just say 'GTA-like'?.

Great point! Let's start calling all 2D fighters "Street Fighter II-like" games! And all FPSes "Wolfenstein 3D-like" games! Et cetera et cetera.

Fucking moron.

[burnsro]

Gamasutra's open world article. Shows open world games by their definition.

1. Adventure (2600)
2. Landstalker
3. Pitfall II: Lost Caverns
4. Metroid
5. Cadash
6. Blaster Master, a.k.a. Meta Fight
7. Super Metroid
8. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
9. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
10. Crazy Taxi
11. Metroid Prime (the Super Metroid plan in 3D)
12. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
13. Dragon Quest III, a.k.a. Dragon Warrior III
14. Ufouria, a.k.a. Hebereke
15. Grand Theft Auto series
16. The Goonies II
17. A.P.B.
18. Todd's Adventures in Slime World
19. Air Fortress
20. Legacy of the Wizard, a.k.a. Dragon Slayer IV

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1 ... php?page=1

Besides the obviously out of place 11, 13, and 17 can't we just call these action/adventure games like we used to?

[Molloy]

That's a wonderful writeup on Landstalker. Bloody love that game.

[icycalm]

I guess I am going to have to write an article about the concept 'genre' too. No one seems to have a fucking clue what it means. (Calling all these games 'action-adventure' would be just as pointless as calling them 'openworld' or 'closedass' or whatever.)

[Bradford]

Icy, though your lack of respect for what I had to say is dripping from the surface of my computer screen, I appreciate the opportunity to respond. I came here to have my ideas challenged, and in that spirit, I have taken your advice:

Where "descriptive" means, of course, "serving to describe:"
"Describe . . . 2. To convey an idea or impression of; characterize . . . ." American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th Ed. 2000).

Also:
"Metaphor . . . 1. A figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate another, thus making an implicit comparison, . . . 2. One thing conceived as representing another; a symbol . . . ." Id.

1. I'm not unaware of your previous posts, I'm challenging your initial premise that the terms are not to be taken literally. It seems inefficient to dismiss the literal meaning of a term in favor of an invented meaning unless there is no other term whose literal meaning applies.

2. I identify the central element of GTA-like games as the following: a large amount of interactive space in which a player is intended to play without advancing any plot-related objectives. Intertwined with that element is a certain amount of freedom for the player to engage in a wide variety of activities in a random manner, without forethought or planning, but I admit I'm having trouble articulating it more precisely than that.

3. The concept of a sandbox (not the literal form of one), due to its association as a place where one plays without an objective, is evocative of each the ideas described in the previous paragraph.

4. "Free-roaming" evokes the concept of being able to travel at will and wherever one wants, but does not quite reach the central element: objectiveless play.

5. Therefore, "sandbox" is more descriptive than "free-roaming," by more thoroughly conveying the idea or impression of the central element of GTA-like games, which it does, not literally, but via an implicit comparison.

If you continue to reject "sandbox" because GTA is not a box filled with sand, then you are missing my point. If you reject it because I've misidentified the central element, or because I'm breaking the rules by using ordinary or literal meanings of the terms, then I'd be curious to know what you think the central element is, as well was why we're not allowed to analyze the literal meanings of the terms.

[icycalm]

Icy, though your lack of respect for what I had to say is dripping from the surface of my computer screen, I appreciate the opportunity to respond. I came here to have my ideas challenged, and in that spirit, I have taken your advice:

That's the spirit!

I apologize for my last sentence in that post. These last few months have been really hard for me, and it seems I am developing an ever-growing contempt for human beings in general -- from the modern crop of pseudo-philosophers (Deleuze, Lacan, Foucault, Derrida, et al.), all the way down to the retards who get an account in this forum and attempt to challenge my articles without even being able to express themselves in half-decent English.

In the end, all I am left with is a boundless contempt, something which I have to constantly keep fighting in order to be able to write anything.

Take your recent post, for example. I don't even know where to start. In fact at this moment I'd rather just go out for a walk, you know? So check back in a couple of days or so and hopefully I'll have mustered the patience to throw together a response.

PS. I do appreciate the other posts you have made in this forum. Particularly this one. It concerns a subject which I have already explored to some extent, but which I plan to explore even further in the near future.

[Bradford]

Hey, if I wanted to be treated like a genius I'd be on the IGN forum. In the meantime, please eviscerate my argument at your leisure. I'll be looking forward to it. Cheers.

[walrusdawg]

Oh, really? So where are the sandboxes then?

I really don't mean to be condescending, but you do know what a sandbox is, right? Some of the things you say make me wonder.

Great point! Let's start calling all 2D fighters "Street Fighter II-like" games! And all FPSes "Wolfenstein 3D-like" games! Et cetera et cetera.

It's not unprecedented. In video games you have both the near universally accepted "Roguelike" and the god awful stupid term "Metroidvania". Looking past games you have words like shrapnel, sadism, leotard, chauvinism, czar, Et cetera et cetera.

If you go around searching for terms like "sandbox, freeroam, and openworld", you see that much of the time people are using more than one of them at the same time, and that they're also often followed by "(like the GTA games)". Which of course makes all three terms completely useless.

[chamchamtrigger]

I prefer 'free roaming', but I don't really see 'sandbox' as too bad. It is a bit dumb in the fact that one would imagine sand, while free roaming eliminates that possibility fully, but then again, sandbox also shows us the limitations of how far we can travel....Then again (again?), this can end up sounding more like a complaint than anything else. If there was no other alternative to sandbox, then I could see it as justifiable with a bit of explanation, but considering that we DO have alternatives which eliminate any in depth explanation (free roaming), then we don't really need the term sandbox. The term free roaming is self explanatory. Anyone would know that some limitations would be put on us anyway when it comes to a video game (either by borders which 'sandbox' tries to explain, by looping', or some other design that I'm overlooking).

For some reason though, I always imagine live stock when I hear "free roaming" though.

[Jon R.]

Sandbox always has the connotation that the player is making his own entertainment with a toolset. The Sims games are sandboxes because i can use the options available to dick around with the behavior of the sims. It's nothing much on its own, just like a sandbox is kind of useless until someone steps in and starts using tools to do something with it -- a sandcastle, a track for toy cars, whatever. The only thing to do is shape it somehow.

Free-roaming fits GTA because contrary to the ramblings of people who are easily amused, there's fuckall to do in the games outside of what you're usually doing in the missions anyway: shooting something or driving something. The parameters are set (not to mention limited), and you're bound to work within them, shaping little to nothing.