Something I'll never forget is the story about Dishonored being play-tested. The testers played a level in a house where the objective was upstairs, but when trying to go to the stairs, a guard tells them they're not allowed up. So the play-testers complained they were stuck and didn't know what to do. It didn't occur to them that they could look for another way up, like going outside and climbing up the house through a window. This led to Dishonored's hint system and objective markers. And you can't blame them for being confused when most games they've played up to that point were all super limiting and rigid structured.
Interesting story and I hardly think the testers are a fault. When games have a certain set of expectations and the rules are set for this experience it’s no wonder why “thinking outside the box” or disobeying the npc’s orders doesn’t instantly come to mind because no other game does that so why would you think to do it?
Did you know, in Farcry 4 if you sit on the chair for more than 5 minutes in the opening section, you actually inherit the entire land/map and win the game?
This was unironically more enjoyable then playing the game itself watching your character commit war crimes for no rational reason. Jason and Rook seem like reasonable people in comparison to the psycho Ajay js.
You also should not discount the fact that immersive sims are very hard games to make. Designing a game in such a way that makes emergent gameplay possible yet does not break the game completely is a challenging task and modern AAA game studios are hardly competent enough/willing to take that risk. But as other commenters have pointed out, the tide is slowly turning, so maybe we should remain optimistic
aand everything keeps getting so much easier, I can model, rig, animate quickly, use AI for voicing, generate templates for levels, textures, game mechanics, of course they must all be subsequently tweaked and kept in line with the art direction but all niches will get so much new content, including this one.
The reason they're not popular is because people overcomplicate things when they advertise them. Stop calling them IMMERSIVE SIMS. Dishonored is a stealth game. Deus Ex is an RPG. Thief is a stealth game. Prey is an RPG. System Shock 1 is an Adventure game. System Shock 2 is an RPG. Stop calling them immersive sims and stop advertising them as some hardcore game genre. Just tell the people they they're just good games with intelligent design that let's you play them how you want. The reason they will never be successful is because nobody knows how to market them.
I would say that they are not unpopular. Most immersive sims don't advertise themselves as such. Baldur's Gate 3/ Divinity Original Sin 1 & 2 are RPGS. Metal Gear Solid X an action game Hitman is a stealth game Legend of Zelda BOTW & Tears of the Kingdom are adventure games I don't think a game that advertises itself as an immersive sim is doing itself any favors, but I also don't think that the general population of gamers look upon immersive sim design unfavorably (like this video posits). In my personal experience most gamers like when a game lets them solve challenges in unique ways.
No, the video is right. "Popular" implies appeal to a wider segment of the populace. The wider populace is genuinely too dumb to get an immersive sim, or too uninterested to ever enjoy the choice and consequence. Go out and meet some real people, you'll see firsthand. Immersive sims are built for engineers and creative thinkers, not the average person.
@@nERVEcenter117 It's also partly the game's fault for not having a proper tutorial or segments that showcases different path/mechanics other than just having a text pop up.
I would argue that Red Dead 2 actually CAN work as an immersive sim, but only in free play with player made objectives and never in its actually designed missions. Like, in a story mission there's only one way to rob a train, the way that the writers and developers planned out as a set piece. But if you're just doing free-play, and you decide you want to pull off a train robbery, you have many options to work with. Do you want to ride alongside the train and jump on from horse back and go guns blazing? Do you want to wait at the train station and board like a normal person, then when the train is half way through hold everyone up by gun point and rob them individually? Do you want to derail the train entirely by setting up explosives on the track or leaving a explosive oil carriage in the path of the train, then run in and loot the train in the midst of all that confusion? Do you want to actually HIJACK the train and drive it well past its destination into a secluded, lawless area, rob everyone, then set the train rolling again at full speed with no one at the helm? You can absolutely do every single one of those and more, there's tons of interworking systems in the game world for you to play with and manipulate and its one of the best parts of the game. It's just a shame that in the story missions, the part of the game with the most emotional stake with the player, they abandon all that for the sake of memorable and flashy spectacle and set pieces.
Red Dead 2s inability to fully commit to being a cowboy ImSim is frankly what ruined that game for me. The building blocks are there but Rockstar was afraid to alienate players and the illusion of depth is far more important to their bottom line than actual mechanical depth which is understandable given how much money they threw at it but don't spend seven years animating horse testicles if you can't get the basics right.
Facts, I was sad that they went away from the yellow stylistic look for Mankind divided. Human Revolution deserves at least a port for 4k 60fps, but embracer cancelled the new Deus Ex game that was in development.
I think a lot of people have been too hard on Deus ex since the sequel invisible war because it came to console and was a little simplified. Human revolution is one of my favorite games, mankind divided is good too and while better looking there’s still something about human revolution and I agree the yellow layer on the environment added something to the game,
I just want to emphasize your point that the majority of the gaming market isn’t ‘gamers’ it’s your coworker who plays maybe one triple-A game ever 2 months.
I had no idea Human Revolution didn't sell well. On release it was so hyped. Everyone was talking about it. The trailer got insane amounts of views. That's just, wow. I'm surprised.
It did sell well. Human revolution and mankind divided have sold 12 million units combined. He was also wrong about dishonored which was the 24th best selling game in 2012 and also made it to number 1 on steam.
I think there is something you may have overlooked. Immersive sims, like Deus Ex and System Shock 2, are first person role-playing games of a sort. The ethos of the games that descend from these two titles share the same psychology of the table top RPGs that inspired those original games - to give space and the means to explore a self-directed fantasy of play limited mostly by your imagination, or the limits thereof that butt up against the constraints of the immersive sim's broad design. Deus Ex and System Shock 2, being ostensibly products of the 1990s and the renaissance of D&D and PC RPGs, are also products of a culture that was more readily exposed to these complicated kind of games, both on machines and in pen and paper form. The problem with modern Immersive Sims then, is that they really do have trouble explaining and marketing their appeal to prospective players, because the best part about them is figuring cool shit out for yourself. How do you explain the appeal of these systems elegantly, without giving the best parts away? How do you create a tutoring environment in the game to make it nurturing to this style of thinking? I don't think any of these games, save for maybe Prey, with the breaking of the glass, ever figured this out/ It was often said in a PC magazine I read when I was younger, by its then longest running editor, if they were only allowed one game for the rest of their lives, it would have been Deus Ex. If it's the only thing you're allowed to play, it's nearly everything you'd want it to be. The problems with these games is not that these games are hard or even obtuse, it's that "you had to have been there man" kind of attitude they invoke in the players who were lucky enough to have experienced them at the right time, so thank you AndyPants. Please continue to evangelise the fuck out of these games.
I would argue the point that immersive sims have to be FPP is too rigid, as stealth action game like MGSV can be considered full Immersive sims despite mostly TPP.
Yeah, the main issue seem to be that a lot of imsims don't actually bother explaining that there are multiple ways of accomplishing something, nor do they tutorialize the methods enough. I think they need to be treated more like puzzle games, teaching the player everything they can do and then presenting them with multiple options, while also making it clear that multiple options exist.
@@boxfigs1710 Deus Ex and System Shock 2 both have tutorial areas where you can learn about game mechanics, tho most modern games seem to not have this. Tho oddly enough, the VR training / tutorial in Cyberpunk 2077 reminded me of those old tutorial areas.
@@azaph_gaming It's not really about the mechanical tutorial, it's more about figuring out a way to get the player to shift how they're thinking about the game. Getting people to ask "could I do this?" or "what would happen if I did this?" and making them not immediately dismiss it as unlikely to work or not worth the effort.
When something gets big enough, the allure of mass market appeal becomes the main motivation. This is also because of the budget needed to make a great production. But people forget, great things don't require billions of dollars, it requires good ideas, motivated developers who don't nickel and dime the gamers and a few hundred thousand gamers (out of hundreds of millions in the world) to pay attention. My name is Ahmet, and welcome to my TedTalk :)
Far Cry 2 and Crysis 1 are still my favorite versions of their respective series (both derived from Far Cry 1) because of their experimental approach to immersion through gameplay. Every action from pulling out a map, driving land and sea vehicles, finding weapons caches for very limited ammo reserves etc. had an effect that reinforced immersion by putting the tools the player used in their in-game hands. Simply putting the player in a large environment with objectives that could be solved any number of ways, with deceptively observant and tenacious AI, can make the player feel like they are a man behind enemy lines in a hostile environment where combat is spontaneous and unpredictable. This reactive and unfair approach to combat is paradoxically liberating because it is a reversal of linear gameplay formula. Rather than players reacting to movement and gameplay but acting on initiating combat, the player has full agency to plan and approach gameplay at their own pace, but the combat can quickly get out of their control, forcing them to improvise in ways that are purely unscripted. I have seen groups of enemies use signal flares to call reinforcements, hide from sniper fire, flank your position, spread out in perfect silence at night to erupt in gunfire and charge into the area where they think you are. Even counter your sniper position in the open by hopping in vehicles and quickly close in. The only thing greater than their intelligence was their sheer tenacity, and every gunfight overrunning your position felt visceral no matter how hardcore or casual the scenario or the player's abilities. All of those aspects combined made for unique experiences that the latter games in the series improved on, but also made a bit too casual that some of the immersive sim elements were lost for convenience. They were tedious games, but I always go back to them because they made the simplest of objectives a challenge that could be solved differently again and again.
Do you remember Elder Scrolls Morrowind? One of the best ever because: no objectives markers on map or in your face, you get to know what you need to do by reading(!) the journal. Locations needed to be discovered and found out where they are on the map and a lot of other things! We need that back!!
Best Elder Scrolls ever! Elder Scrolls VI will probably be so dumbed down it'll make Skyrim seem complicated, "Press E to walk to the location, kill the target, retrieve the package, and return here for your reward". *presses E*
90% of "small" (by "modern standards") Vvardenfell would not be naturally explored by the players if quest markers were in. So it felt huge - unlike Skyrim and Oblivion which feel small despite having a bigger map. Morrowind was a real fantasy journey full of unique locations and secrets finding which gave you legit boasting rights among your friends. You wouldn't have that today - and not only because of YT spoiling it.
I feel like the new hitman games should be mentioned. Super successful (I think) and most missions end up being "this is your target somewhere in this map. Have fun"
I disagree that the reason for these games not selling as much as others has anything to do with nuances of the gameplay. That's not a point of sale thing, maybe it can be a cause for a refund at most but I doubt they got an insane amount of refunds because of it. Things get sold by the marketing they get and how well that was handled, also by the impression you can get from the game in video format and by a short description. System Shock, Deus Ex and Thief all suffered from bad graphics and lack of marketing and user awareness. Same for Pray as I remember it was not given the attention from the publisher it needed, and the naming caused a controversy. I'm fairly convinced part of the problem when marketing these games is calling them "immersive sims" in the first place. Its a pretty dumb term that doesn't actually mean a whole lot unless you understand the legacy of the genre, and if you do then you're not the average consumer. They shouldn't be marketed as just normal shooter games either, because that might set the wring expectation, but whatever the right way to do it is, I don't think we've found it yet.
I think you are ignoring the marketing power of word of mouth and popularity. Think about games like the recent release of Helldivers, Elden Ring, and Breath of the Wild. Those three games have each been marketed everywhere not just through corporate marketing, but memery, youtube discussion, and friends talking about them. This increases the chances of people buying them because their friends are saying "you've got to try this game". Word of mouth is a very powerful marketing which Immersive sims can't really tap into because they design isn't as conducive to the average player.
I think you nailed it. When I first heard the term "immersive sim" my brain was confused. I had to do some pretty extensive research to truly "get it." It led me to try Prey as my first "ImSim" and to be honest I didn't get too far. I got stuck in a room with two Typhon bastards who keep lighting me on fire. I thought I had my moment when I realized "oh dang I can use the turrets!" but after killing one, the remaining enemy destroyed my turrets. So I'm back to square one. I put it down for the time being. One day I'll get back to it
I remember in games before objective markers, you found out where to go and what to do by exploring the world and talking to NPCs. This wasn't so bad back when limitations confined the whole world to a small enough size that you could traverse it in less than half an hour. Games can be made with such large worlds now that it would take an extraordinary amount of creativity to guide the player through the game without gating off areas in ways that are annoying or remove the player from the immersive experience. In other words, I suspect the AAA companies don't see any profit in it. Instead, we're stuck with interactive movies that have sidequests and collectibles.
I let a friend play Deus Ex and he literarly got lost in a corridor because there was no quest marker and since he didnt listen to any of the dialogue. Its tragic how most modern games train players to not think or try what they can get away with.
Like someone who likes both immersive sims and linier games - linier games often give you better experience. They are scripted after all so they can give you the right amount of challenge, and cinematics and "random" events. And its probably would cost a lot more to make additional 5 different ways to make a train robbery as good. For me - the most immersive thing about Prey were the side quests - I did them all. But they all were great and had additional animations or voice lines or whatever. Yes, finding that person with the laser gun outside of the station while I just explore was fun, but if I got the gun with that side mission I did later - - it would have been better - coz there would have been a story attached to it.
I think immersive sims suffer the same fate as action rpgs. They suffer from their own success. The feeling of immersion/progression is so good that everybody and their mother implemented elements of immersion/progression to every game that exists. Thus giving a part of the feeling and reducing the market need for the original genre. Another example is mobas scratching the same itch as rts while having way way way lower point of entry.
@@Yarooooooooooooo12indeed, and that is why they are beloved games the world over instead of being stuck as nerdy cult classics. That said, as douchey as the niche cult classic nerdy crowd can be (case in point, this video), the marketplace can and should have them both mainstream and niche games, as variety is the spice of videogames and media/art in general
@@Yarooooooooooooo12 another example would be Minecraft, specially the pre-alpha/alpha/beta versions. In fact, it could be said Minecraft has cured the itch for nonlinear immersive games for many, so they don't attempt other nonlinear immersive games as much. True, the game has added more content and become more objective/task/feature based since official release (after all, Notch sold out to M$), while the pre-release versions were way more immersive in their deceptive simplicity and lack of tasks/objectives/features/etc. [In fact, the ultrasimplicity of early Minecraft coupled with its accesibility and childish presentation arguably made it the most beloved immersive nonlinear game.] But, while I love the pre-release versions since forever and don't touch the official release, I do play many other games that aren't nearly as self-directed/non-linear/immersive. So like you say, the normie games implementing some immersive features has kept the ultraimmersive nerdy games in a beloved culty but niche category (and heck, Dishonored and Deus Ex do have a sizable fanbase, just don't expect Zelda/Skyrim numbers).
The objective marker thing is interesting to me, since I think it’s why I’ve noticed two camps when it comes to New Vegas. People who think it’s really short because they blitz through the main quest, and people who explore the map and talk to all the NPCs.
I love immersive sims. I always use the most straightforward solution. It doesn’t at all diminish my enjoyment. I played Prey almost like a cod campaign. Loved that! Your listed reasons don’t make sense imo. Immersive sims is one of my favorite genres. But I almost never interact heavily with the sandbox.
2:28 just commenting on where I am in the video. I think this question is part of the problem. “Why didn’t they sell well?” The goal post for success is all over the place. Immersive sims aren’t for everyone and that’s what makes them special but because everything needs to appeal to everyone and break sales records, great games are listed as failing to meet expectations.
Very interesting vid. I love to hear immersive sims mentioned. Growing up games always had the sense of magic for me, and immersive sims recapture that for me better then most things.
I wouldn't say Immersive Sim games don't require an objective marker. I think the idea should be that, here's the destination, have at it. I think the marketing needs to be better. Call them a stealth game (Deus Ex games are pretty much played as such) or an RPG, etc. Maybe devs need to implement some smart gameplay design that tells players to think outside the box.
I have played all of the modern immersive sims that you listed, and i wasn't until I played Prey that i realized I had been playing all those games wrong. I loved all the games because they were great, but I had been trying to get from point a to point b as fast as i can. The same exact lightblub moment happened to me in prey. Finding out you can use the glue gun to make platforms made me immediately love the game. After playing prey, i went back to dishonored and deus ex with a whole new perspective. I started to try to find all the different routes you can take to achieve your goal. This really expanded the replay value of the game
I'mma be honest: Deus Ex Mankind Divided has been one of the buggiest games I've played, with very clunky systems and ugly graphics backing it up. The game was a crashfest, and when it had the pleasure of not crashing, it loved having graphical glitches. When the glitches weren't happening, I was dealing with the controls, painfully slow weapon swap, awkward attachment system with "just know it lol" mechanics like which attachment goes in which gun, among other things. I don't feel like the game encouraged me to experiment because my rewards were almost always money or something I could sell for money, and the game's fucking horrid platforming where Jensen reaches terminal velocity after falling half a meter made me not want to jump unless I absolutely had to. Don't even get me started on the pointlessly high amount of lootable containers or energy still limiting takedowns, because of course you're too tired to punch someone but can fire a grenade launcher forever. Some things were genuinely interesting, like hiding behind a box and moving it around, or blocking doorways with heavy objects, but those things didn't make up for the amount of time I wasted to shoddy design, bugs and the mediocre story beat of "robot racism bad". The first game wasn't the most stellar thing in the world and was as clunky as MD, but at the very least I cared to see what would happen next because it asked interesting questions... and I don't think "what if teh robot racism happen?" is a thought-provoking question. The only upside to the story is that Adam is still a genuinely interesting character with learned views and drops some really dope gems of wisdom on other characters.
I think this just proves there are bad games, not games lacking in immersion. There are linear story games with plenty of immersive options like the Simpsons Hit n Run and Timesplitters. There are also open world games with plenty of non hand holding like Elder Scrolls, Witcher, and Dark Souls. But there are only a handful of games that rely solely on objective markers and forced cutscenes.
Another 2 reasons of unpopularity of immersive sims is that those games can be quite a nightmare to develop as they are very demanding when it comes to making a good level design and properly polish features which for modern gaming popularity is key. And immersive sims usually don't have the best mechanics which makes singular features like shooting, platforming or stealth feel quite janky comparing to specialized games and make them less desirable while they have more mechanics. My own issue with immersive sims is that balancing can be quite an issue. For example with Dishonored once with artifact powers game became like a cake walk to complete even on highest difficulty which's boring and not well balanced. And what make first Deus Ex so great is how limiting it comes on upgrates (one installed you can only upgrate and they can't be reversed, same with skills) and how even with upgrates you can die or unable to find/complete some objectives if you're not careful. Plus deus ex is quite punishing if you try to complete own path by not using required upgrates/skills and not properly thinking on situation. And these moments are important for immersive sims as you not only require to think even even if you're high level and it makes it feel less boring and mechanics not an easily exploitable when playing. Edit: spelling and some thoughts.
The real reason those games didn't sell well is that they were simply poorly marketed. Looking at the names and box art of games such as GTA, Skyrim, and Red Dead, it's immediately obvious what they are about: The common fantasies of being a criminal, a cowboy, or a viking. But nobody has any clue what a game called "Dishonored" or "Deus Ex" would be about, and the box art doesn't really make us much wiser.
This reminds me of Richard Garriot explaining that he and Origin Systems spent 3 years building a virtual ecosystem for Ultima Online whereby herbivores eat plants, carnivores eat herbivores, monsters eat or just kill carnivores, and humans hunt monsters, and they tweaked it to perfection to create a balanced system. Then they launched the game and in the first month the player base had managed to murder every single thing with legs to the point that vegetation was now blooming out of control.
The reason they aren't popular is the tutorial. If the tutorial made it clear, multiple paths are possible. Gamer might understand what is being asked of them. But you were part right about working class gamers. We have jobs and responsibilities. We don't have the hours to burn on games. So yeah, I might click the easy function to enjoy the game but to also complete it. I played Deus Ex. And found it enjoyable and unpredictable. I killed an agent in the game because I always fool around and aim my gun at NPCs. Usually, the gun won't fire, or it does, but the NPC is invulnerable. This time, I killed the NPC. I was shocked I moved on. Later, the boss asked if I knew anything about the dead agent. I responded no from the choice tree. He grunted, said if you hear anything. I played Deus Ex in college and finished it. Then later I played Dishonored I was having a blast but now I was working. Two months later I was no closer to finishing it. I took a break to play Tomb Raider and beat it in 3 weeks. Finishing a game is very satisfying. Recently I bought a digital bundle of Prey,Dishonored and Dishonored 2 plus all the decades for 30 dollars. I will try these games again hopefully finishing them.
11:00 kinda nailed it, as a medical student Prey was too much. It requires the use of several mechanics and by each time I came back I'd already forgotten what x, y, or z did. Doesn't mean it's a bad game, just didn't have 2/3 hours to devote to it per week.
Sometimes I play games like RDR (both games are awesome) and sometimes I paly immersive sims like Thief, Deus Ex and Prey. Depends on what I feel like playing. I'm a huge fan of CRPGs and when they have multiple ways of solving one problem I like to think of them as text-based immersive sims.
Honestly, with Baldur's Gate 3's success (not specifically an Immersive Sim but shares a lot of elements) it looks like these types of games have a potential for the mainstream audience. Also, with Elden Ring, we've seen that difficulty can work in mainstream as well.
Deus Ex Mankind Divided captured me entirely. I was hooked. I haven’t been that in love with a game in so long, it was a wonderful experience to play it all the way through.
Interesting take. I sued to love these kinds of games and I've noticed I can't get into them at all any more - I think my brain is too tired being an adult and yes i CRAVE a linear story with as littel devation allowed as possible to funnel me through to the end. battle-cutscene-battle repeat credits :)
Hmmm, idk dude. One of my favourite games is TLOU, and i remember playing Prey after that (i got late into TLOU) and absolutely LOVING it. I don't think it's a matter of "Triple A games are easy and mindless so that they can be successful" cause when you look at Elden Ring (no markers at all, and not that easy either) then it isn't about markers and difficulty anymore. What's dragging the genre back is, imo, the players very creativity, and willingness to interact with the world in ways few other games let you. I guess immersive sims can be as good as the player "allows" them to be, and that's the problem.
After playing so many games that 'say NO', deny the player access or opportunity which is obvious, then the rails begin to show. After fighting with the rails enough, we just don't bother for the most part. So much is cut-scene driven with scripted events that sometimes I'd rather just watch the movie instead of pushing the narrative through the mud slowly.
These are my exact thoughts on this video; he describes the average gamer as some Neanderthal with zero critical thinking skills: “All this is simply too complicated for the average person”, as he describes the most basic ways to complete a mission objective. I think all of this is situated upon a strange superiority complex, which stems for their need to validate their choice in video game by lording it above everyone else; “No! You’re just not smart enough to understand the game!”, when it’s really just a choice of opinion and nothing more.
Also some imsims are extremely easy. The default options that Dishonored gives you make 90% of the game extremely easy unless you're aiming for a no-kill or no-alarm run, let alone if you start using the extra tools it gives you.
if i was still in school, i would agree with this video 100% but im a grown man and time is no longer on my side, having objective markers it's more like a commodity now honestly And another thing, these games are not popular because, You simply cannot market them anymore properly, and some of them are simply not appealing anymore because nobody has patience to play them, look at RTS games handing Starcraft to a kid that grew up with fortnite will not mix well i find it a miracle that baldurs gate 3 is so popular, when the game it self is pretty complicated for your average person but it has a lot of eye candy. i played all of these games featured in this video and i liked all of them a lot, but i can't recommend them, because There is almost nothing visually appealing in them for today's audience to be blunt No anime girls, No tits, No fan service, No big daily rewards, and sadly no gachas or cool skins. ofc a kid will be attracted to the multi colored fortnite skin rather the bleak and grim looking dishonored. T.L. D.R. I love them a lot, but my nephew will most likely hate them and call them boring to look at compared to animes or fortnite.
yeah, i feel you. I don't know where to place my grievances with the issue at. these are some of the most cool gaming experiences i have had (deus ex was for SURE) and they'd still bore folks to sleep. Even guys around my age in their mid twenties would have no interest in a deus ex game nowadays.
I feel like some immersive sims create too much excess confusion for gamers sometimes, too, though, it’s not a flawless system. I remember gaming back then when not every game really held your hand. I also remember a lot of games where I got bogged down with multiple overlapping and confusing main missions, side missions, collection quests, NPCs I was reporting to, and so on; god forbid you take a six month break from the game and then try to come back to it; you literally had no idea what you were supposed to be doing, who you were supposed to be doing it for, why you were supposed to be doing it, or where on the map it was supposed to be done. I probably gave up on at least half a dozen “great” games for exactly that reason!
Arkham City's Freeze boss fight is memorable because you can only progress with different methods of attacking Gadgets had setups from earlier so it feels like you are the one who come up with the solutions It is a very good immersive level in the game
I think it’s simpler than anything to do with the game mechanics. It’s about the level of nerdiness/accessibility/marketing/names. Deus Ex? Wtf how do I even say that?! Nobody is telling their friends about deus ex at school without getting labeled as an outcast. Call of duty? “Oh hell yeah those are words i’m familiar with “ Dishonored, Deus Ex, Prey all have similar gritty, dark cover art with obscure characters and unusual looking sci fi tech. This is nerd territory, people who don’t wish to be called nerds will actively avoid taking an interest in them. Skyrim? “I get to fight a dragon! Cool as hell“ This was a brilliant marketing move by Bethesda. They moved away from the extreme nerdiness that was morrowind, a dnd rolls based attack system, to a more mainstream system in oblivion, to an even more mainstream system in skyrim with skill trees. They moved from having obscure creatures like silt striders, to having the most mainstream fantasy creature to have ever been devised. Finally, normal people could play without feeling weirded out by all the newness and they got to roll around in their childhood feels once again. Zelda, one of the longest running franchises from one of the biggest game companies in existence, clearly they know how to make games so easy that children can easily pick them up. Immersive sims can totally achieve this, they just need to be marketable materials with a wider less nerdy appeal. Nerds are and always will be a niche.
We'll just lose so much.... content like that! It took me years to stop being so miffed at skyrim once I realized what was lost. nowadays i don't care because my modded experiences (attempt to) bring it back.
@@littlekmc1493 i agree, morrowind was one of my favorite games of all time, I was so hype for the next one in the series “deeper systems, more complexity!” I thought. Then we got oblivion “ok a little step down towards simplicity, I don’t love it but the core game is still there” then skyrim “Woah, this might as well be a different genre, it’s like call of duty fantasy edition”
Agreed, however the difference is that those games cost a lot to make, so they have to put up AAA numbers. Kind of like any superhero movie that doesn't make Avengers numbers is considered a failure because of how bloated their budgets were. One thing no one says tho, is that devs always live in big expensive cities and have to have big salaries. True, they are overworked, but AI will take care of that. So perhaps the cost of videogame making will go down - or so one would hope - and these niche masterpieces will be able to be profitable without the need for AAA numbers, and perhaps their popularity will grow too.
@@cookieface80 that's more an issue of overblown budgets, literally anything but huge sellers like cod/fortnite or cheap indies is unprofitable, no middle class of AA games anymore, sad
The best example of this is the Fable series. Part 1 felt open world. While on a quest you could essentially wander the map. Fable 3, you follow a glow trail and miss tons of content. There's even areas on the map you'll never explore!!!
I've been playing games since they were coin-op, and deeply love the high immersion (Deus EX and Dishonored are in my top list) but God bless whomever invented the "objective pointer", for when I am forced to stop playing for weeks or months due to work and then come back and don't need to restart from scratch because I don't know anymore what to do or where to go!
An amazing immersive sim is the forest. It really doesnt tell you anything about how to progress the story. The only ways is to search it up or to explore and fight the randomly generated enemies that spawn. Thats a great game
"keeping the mines in would force them to redesign every level in the game" -- alternatively, they could have removed player collision from the mines and scissor clapped imaginary dust off their hands, content in the knowledge that they were completely done solving the problem.
An excellently vocalized view. I think there are a lot more immersive sim elements in games then people realize but we are conditioned not to look for or even recognize these elements. It's more often the gamers desire to intuit how the developer wanted the game to be beaten and when they find an alternative route or method they almost feel like they are cheating. I really enjoyed this video which accurately describes how most people desire to hide within the herd rather than standing out. For whatever it's worth you may now consider me a subscriber. Good vid
I didn't enjoy Prey NOT because it was an immersive sim. I didn't enjoy it because it wore the skinsuit of a shooter with NONE of the variety of weapons, weapon feedback, gun variety and enemy variety that should come me with one. I loved the freedom and multitude of ways I could solve a problem but as soon as the solution was to pump something full of lead the entire game fell apart.
I didn't know the name of the game type, but now i do. Immersive sims and immersive sim elements are MY FAVORITE THING in gaming. I love it when crouching actually lets you access strange places that the devs didn't intend consciously, breaking windows and interacting with in game physics that have an effect on the world. Lately I've been playing postal 2. Hitting people by kicking objects their way or distracting cops with donuts is very very fun. I'm hooked on The Darkness. Action game, sure, but you can see walk into trash cans and tables and the game physics will move them and whatever. Small elements that i like. Would the original "Thief" games fall into this? I never played them but I'd give them a try if so.
In Deus Ex HR I used one of the hackable turrets by picking it up and bringing it in the elevator with me, when the boss fight starts as you open up the elevator I ran behind my homie turret and it took care of it for me I absolutely loved it. In fallout New Vegas at the very very end of Sierra Nevada dlc I used turbo and was able to steal all literally all the gold and I didn’t have to worry about money the rest of the game. Thanks for the memories. Also this is a reason I don’t like Assassin Creed games as much because it doesn’t give you freedom
You also have to take into account that these games were involved in some controversy when they came out, which undoubtedly hindered sales. Deus Ex: Invisible War was consolized to hell, completely betraying many aspects that made people love the first. Mankind Divided got caught in that microtransaction controversy with all the different tiers of stuff, and people didnt wanna deal with it in 2016. People discounted Prey right off the bat due to the cancellation of Prey 2 and then Bethesda forced Arkane to use the IP name for something completely unrelated. Dishonored 2 came out with a completely broken PC port, and also just received somewhat worse reviews overall. Thief 2014 also released to middling reviews because it was such a step back from the previous games. Lastly, I think calling the genre "immersive sims" does a lot of harm to sales. People hear "sim" and think strategy games, which are very niche.
I honestly think that era is gone, until a new developer somehow catches lightening in a bottle and makes somethin somehow everybody likes while remaining "true to the genre". BG3 did this well, for the time. But I don't think BG3 is bringing back Imsim.
I think that people and companies don't understand what word niche means. You don't need to be popular or sell 10M copies to succeed. Just because it isn't as profitable as other games it doesn't mean there's no market for that stuff. The worst thing is when turning the niche game into wide-audiece product, they always fail and are often nail to the coffin for certain series and it's not limited only to modern games, there are plenty of cases from early 2000's where changing game direction killed whole franchises. Simple lesson of marketing keeping core audience instead of alienating it is always cheaper and easier than finding new customer, finding new target often means sacrificing current audience which was already buying your stuff, new customer may like it or not.
I've been playing Fallout 4 again for the past month and a half and I have a very hard time looking for missions because the game doesn't tell you what to do, so I'm just exploring the map and shit and always stumble across something that's connected to a mission but I always find out after looking it up on Wiki
I installed Prey about a year ago wanting a Deus Ex HR (which is in my top 3) but I realized near the beginning that my adult energy wouldn't let me immerse myself correctly. Ended up uninstalling and playing the three modern shadow warrior games instead, mindless gun n shoot. Anyway irl grinding sucks man I want to play cool games
You can sum up the reason why as being that most people don't actually want to have to think that much about what to do in an average game experience. When ever there are two paths there is the choice of which to follow. That's basically the most simple mental challenge in any game. The more challenges the more some people will get stressed. They like having choices at flashy moments that stick out but the true freedom to make choices constantly stresses people out and they don't like it. Especially if making choices has actual consequences and can stall your progress
At 9:40 "Are you going to be looking for alternate ways...?" No, I wouldn't. It's worse. If I stumbled on an alternate way, I'd be worried that if I do that I will break the game and will have failed to trigger something I was otherwise supposed to. In most games, if you do the unexpected, you risk breaking your save. This to me is actually understandable for most games. It is hard for the developer to make every branch of every consequence work for every possible thing that the end user will try.
Agreed. Not to mention, many times when the storyline is engaging, the gamer will obviously want to follow it along to its natural conclusion. Messing up and adding twist upon twist will be engaging to some to varying degrees, but eventually many will want the story to progress to the ending they feel most natural (to them at least) and be done with it, no matter the conditioning or marketing or whatever. True, videogames can allow you to focus on the gameplay and not the storyline to varying degrees, but not every game can be as story-less or goal-less, as, say, Minecraft Beta.
Helldivers 2, is undoubtedly, an immersive sim. Just like my friend who played the first time, just couldn't follow along, because there is no "winning" the game. The story evolves with players decision, and while there are set points along the main story of galactic war, players are given the freedom to do whatever they wish in the mission, including killing your teammates (griefing), intentionally fail the mission to pick up more items, or hop on top of things that aren't supposed to be hopped on, or use the hellpod to kill big enemies. There is no one way to beat the mission, and the ordering of completing sub objectives doesn't matter. Which leads to people kicking players just because they break expectations of how you "should" beat a mission. Sure there is an optimal way, but then it gets boring after a while.
The sad truth is a lot of people just want to see numbers go up or feel progression. Then another set of people are hyper fixated on a very narrow thing like improving their rank or just playing a very niche genre. Then there are people like me, who are exploring new types of games and play lots of different genre. I knew Deus Ex was a good game but the problem is lots of people say lots of games are good... It's hard to know what I will like without just playing it. Videos like yours can help, but only if it really seems to describe what I am actually looking for. I really just have to play it and see. That is the hardest part, getting the game and starting the game. Open free thinking games suffer a lot from min max type people. You give them this elaborate maze with all these fun puzzles and they just look it all up from a guide and go straight to the goal. At this point you might as well put an arrow and not make it a maze. Asheron's call was one of the first 3d MMO, at the end of the 15 years of content updates you could tell which dungeons were from the early days based on how large and confusing the dungeon layout was. The map was crazy huge for it's time even considered very large for todays standards but people would stick to the areas/dungeons with good loot or exp making the large map meaningless, except for the few strange people like me. Basically what happens is you have a bunch of "Not optimal" areas or solutions that nobody goes/does. There is also the matter of patterns and content that all feels the same. Nobody says their favorite location in skyrim is bear cave #5. You did spark my interest in some of those game you mentioned, I think I even own some of them from bundles and free games. I love when people convince me to try a game I have had sitting there for years. I hope I will like some of these games.
Funny enough this is why people don't like Sims, also marketing teams are awful at promoting most games. As a former CoD player in the 360 era, I remember getting Human Revolution for $10 to try it out around 2011. I hated the game and dropped it within the first 30min. At the time I thought it had awful gameplay, you died too fast and was boring. I picked it up again, around 2012 and actually gave it a chance. I fell in love with it, I played the game non stop till I finished it. Sims are like soul's games, you have to forget everything the mainstream has thought about games. Just go in and learn to explore, think outside the box, not just go in running around expecting the game to play itself. Talking about it just makes me excited for the system shock remake/port later this month.
another factor is just effort. to create a solid and stable sandbox for all these possibilities to play out is just plain more effort. the emergent gameplay is also harder to test and to integrate a story with. i dont see a publisher greenlighting an immersive sim nowadays when he can have three cookie cutter formula type of games instead. just look at how MGS5 the phantom pain broke the camels back on Koshima vs Konami. while not an immersive Sim it had very much player freedom in mind.
It's not an example of realism, it's an example of system simulations and how they can allow you do come up with creative solutions that weren't explicitly programmed by the game.
@@hackbod yeah I know, it's the way he phrased it as games pursuing realism that was funny, by showing THAT example lol. You described it better than he did IMO. I would also argue that Skyrim isn't a great example of what he's talking about in this video, as I don't think putting a bucket on the AI's head and them being so stupid that they don't notice or react to it really counts as Immersive Sim style emergent solutions to problems. In most immersive sims, the idea is that not only can the player be creative with how they can interact with the world, but the AI can react to it.
My friend and I back in the day would side by side. Play the same game. Human revolution , hey bro I just got silver tongue...he is in the same area killing everyone in the police station lol
Less than 3 minutes into video. I’m so glad you brought up the Customer eXperience (and by extension building a relation with customer). Sadly this change… Now people are treated as consumers: “just buy products, and get excited for the next product”. EDIT: I would not blame CX for issues in game rather lack of it. Now everything seems to be about profit often short term gain (for example a worse quality product which will seek due to the brand) rather than customer experience. In order to gain customers trust and hope they come back, one need to show it is worth doing business with you. Not something we see in modern gaming with buggy, broken releases or games trying so hard to appeal to everyone they end up being for no one. Not to mention games made from the template with lack of innovation. (I’m referring to big budget titles).
I don't think this is about things being too complicated necessarily. I think you were right to say people don't really know that these games have numerous options and ways to interact with them. When I played Mankind Divided years ago I wouldn't have tried the things you mention because there is risk to your time in video games. If you try something that doesn't work games will very often punish you for this.
Fun fact. Assassin's Creed was intended to be more like an immersive sim, or have immersive sim elements. Thats why the game is so repetitive and can feel very mid, or boring to many. I personally love the atmosphere and simplicity of the game and its slower nature. It works because the game is so short. But you weren't supposed to have markers and waypoints and run in a straigt line between a set of the same three repetative task before a kill. You were supposed to sneak, snoop, eavesdrop and listen in a more natural way by just walking around and exploring the cities in a more organic way. But Ubisoft executives started to meddle and wanted a more "GTA like" experience. And the minimap and quest markers was born.
Good points and I agree with most of them. I fell in love with Prey the first time I played it and I was surprised to find out it didn't do well financially. I also fell in love with Dishonored series and I didn't know they didn't do well financially till I watched your video.
I actually struggle with the more linear games like Call of Duty. When there is only one way to do an objective, I often mess it up. But give me the freedom of coming up with my own solutions, and I can often easily complete the objective on my first attempt.
Very well articulated. Dues Ex was like a revelation for me, it brought so many things to a video game I had always wanted but didn’t know were possible. Creativity, imagination and problem solving (on the players part) are absolutely needed to make a truly great game. Oh, and I believe a lot of what you said is true of cinema as well. We all have a brain and it feels good to use it and not have every detail of a plot spelled out for us.
Thanks for a great video pointing out this. While it's kinda sad that this happens, at the very least I can now keep this in mind whenever I would try ImSim
Excellent video! I always find myself at a loss when trying to explain immersive sims to the uninitiated. And just telling them "go play Prey" doesn't work because, as you stated, they don't really get how to play an imsim.
Although it has an Easy mode and clear quest markers playing BG3 startled me into realizing just how lazy and conditioned my approach to games had become. It was challenging and yet refershing to actually think about what to do and how to go about it instead of functioning as a sort of extension of the writers and quest designers. It helped me realize how much most games actually stifle the creativity of the player, instead of fostering it.
