[Second Wind] Game Devs Lying to You is A Good Thing, Actually

The video is great. A shame that it's getting downvoted.

In fiction there's the concept of suspension of disbelief. Wikipedia describes it better than I could, but to keep it short - when you're reading/watching/etc. a fictional story, you avoid applying your critical thinking and logic reasoning to certain story elements, in order to enjoy it.

I feel like a similar but not identical principle operates with game mechanics. I'll call it here suspension of scepticism. That suspension of scepticism makes you willing to trust that the information provided or implied by the game about itself is factual, accurate, and relevant.

For example, if it shows you a six-sided die, you treat it as a fair die, and you treat your odds of getting a 1 the same as getting a 6, a 5, or any other number. You won't save the game, throw the die a hundred times, and see if it's actually fair or not.

Those "design lies" use that suspension of scepticism to deliver a better experience. And it works - for the reason mentioned in the video, it makes playing more enjoyable.

However just like the suspension of disbelief can be broken, so does the suspension of scepticism. It's OK if the game designer is a liar, but he must be a good liar; if you lie too often or too obviously, the player will smell the lie from afar, and the suspension of scepticism is broken. And with it, the enjoyment of the game goes down the drain.

24

I watched 3 minutes and he advocates multiple absolutely game breaking terrible ideas.

"We don't want players to die" is cancer. "Silently changing difficulty" when people die is cancer.

Dying is a good thing. Players learning to get past difficult segments is a good thing. A game that doesn't respect that is broken.

8
- That's a mentality that was the norm back in 2010, and one of the reasons the og dark souls got called a "very hard game". It wasn't that hard of a game, it was just a game that let you die as many times as mistakes you made, and it's both objectively a better game for it, while also being hugely influential to the industry on this particular matter. To the point that it has been given the title and award of "ultimate game of all times". Deserved for reminding that games are supposed to be games, and failing is 100% supposed to be part of it.
  
  15
- Haven't watched the video, but it depends on the game. For some games, these are very valid choices.
  
  6
- Yes the people playing Mario Kart deserve to lose 100 times in a row until they git gud because every game needs to be frustrating or its not a real game
  
  6
- It's extremely common. You've probably played and loved dozens of games that do it without you knowing. Resident Evil 4 is the famous example, but to its detriment, I could see it working in the Resident Evil 2 remake as well.
  
  Have you ever gotten through an encounter by the skin of your teeth, with just barely enough ammo and health? It's probably because you had more health than the game told you, or that the last bullet in your magazine does more damage than the rest of them.
  
  6

In this thread:

19

Short version: feeling fair is more important than being fair.

13

Funny that this releases so soon after Frost's video about Nick's lies.

12

Holy crap Frost left? His stuff and yahtzee are the only reason I'm subbed to second wind at all. The rest of the content on the channel just seems like cringe click bait clutter like this and all the other God awful design delve videos.

After watching this video about what Frost is saying about Nick Calandra, it really makes sense why the Second Wind channel is the way it is.

EDIT: Holy Jesus. Giving this a second listen to make sure I didn't mishear anything. This Nick Calandra guy running Second Wind is a Grade-A twat. Fuck him and any thing he touches. Anyone supporting Second Wind needs to watch this.

4
- Second Wind made a response. Everyone else at Second Wind disagrees with Frost and is happy with Nick. Quote from Yahtzee:
  
  I wish him well and that he'd focus on his future rather than trying to stoke petty drama in ways that reflect badly on him more than anyone else.
  
  https://www.patreon.com/posts/statement-from-110167302
  
  2

I am sure this title is totally not rage bait and is signaling exactly the opinion it sounds like it does.

12

I never understood the hardcore gamer mentality. Not that I care if someone else enjoys grinding or developing their skills. Good for them if that's what they like. But it's not what I like. I don't play games to get gud. I play games to fantasize and relax. There's gotta be some challenge, but I'm fine with it adjusting to meet my (generally low) skill level.

11

I absolutely hate this, and it's a big part of why I don't play Assassin's Creed and most other mainstream action-adventure games unless I'm really interested in the story, despite loving the genre. The mainstream titles just seem absolutely terrified of the player losing that it removes any real feeling of danger. If I can't lose, what does it mean to win?

My favorite games don't seem to hold any punches:

Europa Universalis IV - yeah, sometimes you'll get back-to-back 99% siege ticks; sieges shouldn't use this mechanic, but at least they're fair
Ys - especially older titles like Ys 1&2 and Ys Origin - if I die fighting a boss, the boss doesn't get easier, I just have to "git gud"
Mount & Blade: Warband - at higher "difficulty" settings, the game is absolutely brutal

I guess I don't like the "flow" aspect the author is describing here, because it means the game isn't challenging enough. I largely play indie games these days, probably because they don't have as much of this BS.

If games had an option to disable this nonsense, I'd probably play more AAA games. But when everything feels like its holding my hand, I'll find something else to play.

9

You can lose. Some games are better about hiding their lies than others, but I can't think of one that actually makes failure impossible. My favorite lie, from a Twitter thread years ago, was a racing game from the PS1 where all the cars had different stats and such on the select screen, but under the hood, they all behaved exactly the same. Your indie games probably lie to you too; the author of this video works on Rainworld.

7
- I'd be interested in some kind of database where I could check if games lie to me. I feel like I'm good at detecting that, but maybe I'm just good at picking the more subtle games.
  
  And yeah, driving games are total BS. I played Horizon Chase Turbo with my kids, and the only reason I kept playing is because my kids liked watching. It definitely felt like there was a ton of BS in it because I could still win pretty much any race whether I got the optional upgrade or not. So I don't play many driving games anymore, because they all feel like they use a ton of rubber-banding.
  
  7
- I can't think of one that actually makes failure impossible.
  
  Cookie Clicker. If it qualifies as a game.
  
  2
First off, I think you're absolutely right about your right to disable "this nonsense". I support you in that.

But "this nonsense" is what makes games fun for me.

I'm not about struggling and finally overcoming.

I'm about having an adventure. It's the interactive version of a book, where I engage my brain a bit more and explore or solve puzzles, instead of the book just telling me the answers immediately. I enjoy gun fights in games, but I don't want to play them even twice. I want to win them and move on to more content. Losing a scenario doesn't make me feel even better when I win. It just drags me down.

I have enough things in my life that I've accomplished by struggle that I don't need it from games, too.

But again, if that's what does it for you, I think you should have it, too. There's no good reason you can't disable it, IMO. (Other than the devs just not providing the option.)

4
- And that's what difficulty settings are for. If you just want to explore the story, puzzles, and some action, set it to easy. Or maybe they could have a "dynamic" option, which adapts to your ability if easy is too easy.
  
  I want a consistent, challenging experience. Often "hard" is less fun than "normal" because it often pumps the HP of enemies, limits my resources, and allows the AI to cheat a little, which might be fun for a second playthrough, but not a first playthrough. I want a consistent experience as the devs designed it, and if that means I need to replay a segment a dozen times because I'm just not getting it, I'm fine with that, as long as I know it's fair. Perhaps after a few tries it should ask me if I want to switch it to easy, but it shouldn't automatically switch it.
  
  I want a consistent, fair difficulty, and I'm happy to disable a difficulty scaling option in the settings to get it (ideally it would be an option at the start though).
  
  5

Boy, this one really struck a nerve, huh? I didn't think he was saying anything that people didn't already know, but I guess he was.

4

This guy is the only person on the second wind team that produces such insufferably bad content. Death is bad? Crawl outta your own ass buddy.

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[Second Wind] Game Devs Lying to You is A Good Thing, Actually | Design Delve