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Anyone remember Levolution? aka gaming Industry "Buzzwords"

Starfield

Starfield

Member
...oh ye I member.

Battlefield 4's levolution must have been one of the most stupid buzzwords that ever existed. On the same level as with power of the cloud, etc...


Anyone got some other examples?
 
W

Wiped89

Member
Not quite the same but ludonarrative dissonance. A really wanky phrase coined by games journalists which somehow spread like wildfire.
 
L

Lord of Ostia

Member
Wiped89 said:
Not quite the same but ludonarrative dissonance. A really wanky phrase coined by games journalists which somehow spread like wildfire.
Click to expand...
Pretty sure games journalists did not invent that term. It's also not 'wanky' as it describes a very real phenomenon. Whether or not that really matters to you as a player is up to you, but it's a real thing.
 
J

Jmille99

Member
Oh I 'memba!

tenor.gif


A few that come to mind:

- Drivatar
- Emergent Gameplay
- Ludonarrative Dissonance
- Transfarring
 
M

Magypsy

Member
His Majesty said:
bounceTek
Click to expand...

Heh, just wanted to post this. The technology is obviously very real and probably pretty nice, but I can't help but feel that the marketing department came up with the name and the idea to highlight it so much.

Ludonarrative dissonance is real though
Emergent gameplay is as well
 
O

Ordinaryundone

Member
Stop N Swop

If there is one good thing about loot crates and microtransactions it's that I haven't had to read any serious "think pieces" on Ludonarrative Dissonance in a few years.
 
J

Jmille99

Member
Would "The Cloud" count? Its clear its a thing, but not quite on par with doing what they claimed or being a gamechanger as they wanted people to believe.

Unless Crackdown 3 proves that wrong...
 
Q

Qwark

Member
Kyoufu said:
Remember when second screen apps on phones and tablets were supposed to enhance the experience?
Click to expand...

That's just because they were doing it wrong. Jackbox is amazing and contains some of my favorite party games.
Edit: Also Wii U had good examples.
 
M

MetroidPrimeRib

Banned
Wiped89 said:
Not quite the same but ludonarrative dissonance. A really wanky phrase coined by games journalists which somehow spread like wildfire.
Click to expand...

Pretty sure it was coined by a developer talking about some early 360 games probably bioshock and it's certainly not a new idea for fiction
 
H

HiddenWings

Member
Wiped89 said:
Not quite the same but ludonarrative dissonance. A really wanky phrase coined by games journalists which somehow spread like wildfire.
Click to expand...

This one bothers me, because it's a word for a real thing, but it's been misapplied enough that it's unusable now.
 
H

HKA6A7

Member
-> "Cinematic experience"
-> Shows you gameplay at 30 fps filled with lens flare, filters and a shaky camera.
 
U

UncleSporky

Member
Wiped89 said:
Not quite the same but ludonarrative dissonance. A really wanky phrase coined by games journalists which somehow spread like wildfire.
Click to expand...

I disagree with this. You should read this article on the subject. It's interesting and raises some good thoughts on the usefulness of the word and how it may have been unfairly attacked in our never-ending quest for more snark and overall dismissive attitudes.

An excerpt:
Unfortunately the concerns raised by these three critics seem to be attacking something else entirely – mostly a disconnect between literal gameplay and literal story, where things “don’t make sense.” In Carboni’s case, he refers to it as occurring when “the game isn’t talking to you, it’s acting like a video game,” asking if West Side Story breaking into song results in “Musonarrative dissonance.” Sterling’s example cites Booker DeWitt going through trash cans and finding money and eating food off of the ground. Chipman claims that “a player that keeps bumping into walls and jumping into bottomless pits” when they’re supposed to “be a badass” is a quintessential example of the idea.

But while each of these may be amusing, the idea that they encapsulate ludonarrative dissonance is disingenuous. No one is claiming that throwing rocks at Eli Vance’s face is ludonarrative dissonance because Gordon Freeman wouldn’t do that; that’s just subversive play. “This wacky gameplay contrivance doesn’t make sense in the context of the game’s narrative!” was never the point of the term. Health-as-an-integer, infinite stamina and pain resistance, and a ridiculous carrying capacity have long been jokes about video games when framed in the context of an actual narrative, but they’re so far removed from the ideas of a thematic and tonal conflict that they’d represent some other issue entirely. So I’m worried they’re tearing down a strawman no one ever purported and in so doing moving the debate away from useful criticism of the term and towards a push for mindless snark against a vaguely related idea.

Speaking of snark – my other concern is that these criticisms seem to stem from a place of anti-intellectualism (a long-standing force in the gaming community). The word itself is a target of ridicule – all three videos poke fun at the word’s roots and length. Again, it’s a long, complicated, unwieldy word – but the problem is that it excludes people from taking part in games criticism, not that it’s a wacky word that’s hard to say.
Click to expand...
 
nekkid

nekkid

It doesn't matter who we are, what matters is our plan.
You might call it “stupid”, OP. But as far as buzzwords go, Levolution conveys exactly what it does with a single word. I don’t see anything wrong with it.
 
D

DMiz

Member
Magypsy said:
Heh, just wanted to post this. The technology is obviously very real and probably pretty nice, but I can't help but feel that the marketing department came up with the name and the idea to highlight it so much.

Ludonarrative dissonance is real though
Emergent gameplay is as well
Click to expand...

The thing that always boggles my mind is that sports games are apparently using all of these physics, but I genuinely question how much of that translates to the actual gameplay experience.

Like, it's nice to know that the dribbles are simulated, but since you rarely have - if ever - actual control over the dribble, including how fast and the direction of the dribble that you put on the ball, it doesn't matter how much 'physics' you put on the thing: at the end of the day, you aren't actually imposing anything on the ball that changes how it works.
 
U

UncleSporky

Member
WillyFive said:
Levolution was a very specific feature to level design where the name worked.

Blast processing however....
Click to expand...

Jim Sterling's latest video (The Business Of Lies) makes it clear that Blast Processing had an actual meaning in defining a specific thing, and it was Nintendo that attempted to make it seem meaningless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKrlvXZ44Vo&feature=youtu.be&t=945

While it was something of a buzzword regardless, your defense of Levolution as being a very specific meaningful feature leads me to believe Blast Processing deserves the same defense.
 
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