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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   27728 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024

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Those failure states exist to create the illusion of agency. No game advertises itself by telling you the princess can already be considered rescued, because that's the artistic intent, but hey you can come push buttons if you want to see it.

Just because the princess gets rescued in the end doesn't mean that the story is the same. In the case of a video game, instead of "the princess was rescued," it would be "you rescued the princess." The fact that you, the player, actually put forth effort to cause the princess to be rescued is a huge leap. Video games are at their core more immersive than movies. 3D and now 4D movies try to make it so that you're literally feeling the things that the main character feels. Video games are simply the next evolution to that. Now, instead of watching James Bond shoot that bad guy, you are James Bond, and you are shooting that bad guy.

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The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

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A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

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