A way Destiny excites me

by General Vagueness , The Vault of Sass, Saturday, March 16, 2013, 18:31 (4088 days ago) @ Kermit

As I said, we have the ability to adjust brightness and contrast, which are the visual equivalent to adjusting audio levels.

No, it's not the visual equivalent.

Well, what would be then? Seriously, I'm curious what you think would be equivalent.

All the stuff you mention is fun, but we have a agree that some elements of game X have to remain static if we're still going to call it game X.

I'd argue that completely muting the sound is a more drastic change than anything you can do with a couple of volume sliders, and we've been able to do that since console gaming has existed.

I don't see why reasonable people or developers can't disagree about what should or shouldn't go into the static column. I don't happen to think it is like lighting, but more like painting over what the artist painted. The logic seems to be that because interactivity is the distinguishing characteristic of games, then interactivity is therefore a characteristic that every element of a game must have, else ceases to be a game. That seems a bizarre principle to me. Taken to its logical extreme, the game ceases to be anything that we react to, and becomes only another creative tool. There's something to be said for that, but if that's what you're after, why not become a developer yourself?

Maybe because that's a different process and experience from playing a game. You have a point though, if you go further and change out textures like Leisandir mentioned, you're getting closer to development territory... but then you should know a lot of developers got their start messing with and modifying games, and I don't see why it can't be a mix of a more passive gaming experience and what you might call fully active development, or even something between the two.