FeatherTrap 
Knight of Boops
@Officer Hotpants
It’s a made up, overly pretentious definition invented by the same hacks in the Gaming “Journalism” crowd that everyone here loves to laugh at, designed to draw a fake through line between a bunch of games that have only tangentially related mechanics and themes-if any at all.
Thief is a stealth game, Alien: Isolation is a survival horror, Deus Ex and System Shock 2 are FPSRPGs, Dishonored and Prey 2016 are overrated trash.
And wouldn’t you know it, this incredibly vague “genre” that is completely made up by media shill twats just so happens to draw this line between woke trash games and beloved classics. Almost like they’re saying “look, this is exactly the same thing! You should love this too!”. Go figure, wonder why that is.
The “Immersive Sim” doesn’t fucking exist. It’s too vague of a definition to even be usable. I’m reminded of the people who try to tell me that JRPGs are actual role playing games, because you play the role of a character. By that definition anything can be a roleplaying game. Look, in Call of Duty 4 you play the role of Soap, therefore: Modern Warfare is a Roleplaying Game! It even has an XP progression system, case closed!
Obviously I’m not actually saying it is, my point is that this definition is so vague as to be unusable. Japan just make turn-based adventure games, not RPGs. Cope and seethe, J”RPG” fans.
“Action Adventure” is of course, the other one and the impetus to this conversation. I’ve heard that label be applied to so many games, especially over the early 2010’s period, and the only through line between them is “fights happen”. Sometimes they also tend to explore new places, but based on that definition I could call Halo an “Action Adventure” game, which I won’t because that would be cringe.
Here’s just a general rule with genre: If you have to have debates to define and classify what the definition even is, that’s a good sign it’s not a real genre. “Immersive Sim” has about as much meaning and tells me as much about a game’s content as “Lord of the Dance”. It’s worthless, and should be binned.
Also, as Razorfist pointed out: It’s mathematically demonstrable that being labelled an “Immersive Sim” has the same effect on a game’s success as being diagnosed with at least three different forms of late-stage, terminal cancer. The general audience seems to recognise at least on some level it’s a woke buzzword and avoids games slapped with it like Ebola.
If you want to kill a game before it even launches, or make sure no-one ever touches it again, call it an “Immersive Sim”. If you actually want the game to succeed and get the audience that will appreciate it, describe it by it’s ACTUAL fucking genre.
It’s a made up, overly pretentious definition invented by the same hacks in the Gaming “Journalism” crowd that everyone here loves to laugh at, designed to draw a fake through line between a bunch of games that have only tangentially related mechanics and themes-if any at all.
Thief is a stealth game, Alien: Isolation is a survival horror, Deus Ex and System Shock 2 are FPSRPGs, Dishonored and Prey 2016 are overrated trash.
And wouldn’t you know it, this incredibly vague “genre” that is completely made up by media shill twats just so happens to draw this line between woke trash games and beloved classics. Almost like they’re saying “look, this is exactly the same thing! You should love this too!”. Go figure, wonder why that is.
The “Immersive Sim” doesn’t fucking exist. It’s too vague of a definition to even be usable. I’m reminded of the people who try to tell me that JRPGs are actual role playing games, because you play the role of a character. By that definition anything can be a roleplaying game. Look, in Call of Duty 4 you play the role of Soap, therefore: Modern Warfare is a Roleplaying Game! It even has an XP progression system, case closed!
Obviously I’m not actually saying it is, my point is that this definition is so vague as to be unusable. Japan just make turn-based adventure games, not RPGs. Cope and seethe, J”RPG” fans.
“Action Adventure” is of course, the other one and the impetus to this conversation. I’ve heard that label be applied to so many games, especially over the early 2010’s period, and the only through line between them is “fights happen”. Sometimes they also tend to explore new places, but based on that definition I could call Halo an “Action Adventure” game, which I won’t because that would be cringe.
Here’s just a general rule with genre: If you have to have debates to define and classify what the definition even is, that’s a good sign it’s not a real genre. “Immersive Sim” has about as much meaning and tells me as much about a game’s content as “Lord of the Dance”. It’s worthless, and should be binned.
Also, as Razorfist pointed out: It’s mathematically demonstrable that being labelled an “Immersive Sim” has the same effect on a game’s success as being diagnosed with at least three different forms of late-stage, terminal cancer. The general audience seems to recognise at least on some level it’s a woke buzzword and avoids games slapped with it like Ebola.
If you want to kill a game before it even launches, or make sure no-one ever touches it again, call it an “Immersive Sim”. If you actually want the game to succeed and get the audience that will appreciate it, describe it by it’s ACTUAL fucking genre.
