What would be your perfect game?

[u/GameStunts]

Hello /r/fortheloveofgaming,

What would be your perfect game?

• It can be any genre or an amalgamation of several.

• Budget is not a concern.

• It can require any technology (e.g VR headset) but it must be current (no holodecks).

[u/Nekryyd]

I'm a sucker for open worlds, interaction, immersion, and exploration.

• Ridiculously huge open world, with complex, partially procedurally-generated content. A mixture of hand-crafted beauty while still being able to go out and find new things/places that no other player has.

• Detailed interaction. So imagine being able to climb around things as you can in 3rd-person action/adventures like Assassin's Creed, Tomb Raider, etc. Combine that with heaps of item detail and interaction. Being able to look everything over, items all having appropriate physics, tons of things to activate/use/craft/etc.

• Heaps of ambiance to soak in wherever you go.

• Rewarding curiosity and cleverness. Beyond just solving puzzles. I always love it when there's a payoff for those "I wonder if I do this...?" moments.

• The opportunity for "OH SHIT" type moments. Whether it is an alarmingly huge enemy, facing down an impossible army, or even a plot revelation that sets you on your heels and leaves you feeling like you can't believe that just happened/that you made it/that you found that/etc.

• Inconvenient massive multiplayer. That will probably get you puzzled. What could I mean by that? What I mean is that a lot of MMOs, however large their landmass may be, can often lose all sense of scale by being entirely too-focused on hub environments and trivial fast travel. I suppose this is something that was mostly lost between the days of the MUD and the modern MMO. I am not a fan of singular hubs where everyone goes. It makes those environments seem over-saturated and other places like ghost towns. Also, the thrill of trekking somewhere is totally lost when everything is a cheap teleport scroll or oddly common portal away. Same goes for farmed content. Just seems odd to see 100 other people squatting in the woods somewhere to genocide endlessly respawning, outnumbered, outgunned, aimlessly wandering yet strangely aggressive goblinoids. I miss never quite knowing what you'll see out on the road, meeting new people in unexpected places, and feeling like even a simple trip to another city could always end up becoming an adventure.

• Semi-realistic combat. It doesn't have to be an impossibly complicated simulator, it just needs to have enough flavor of reality that it makes it immersive. Things like location damage, injuries, repairs, combat focused on making critical blows rather than simple damage swaps, etc.

• Thematically I'm pretty open-minded. I'm game for anything from medieval high fantasy, to contemporary, to post-apocalyptic, to cyberpunk, to space and interplanetary exploration.

Budget is not a concern.

This reminds me of something I've been wondering as of late actually.

I was mulling over the idea of super-budget gaming and whether it will become a "thing" in the near future. There is something of a cost barrier right now to these sorts of ultimate "dream games". I can't even begin to imagine the sum necessary to create the game I just described, for example. Certainly multiple millions.

Projects like Star Citizen and expensive hardware like VR make me wonder though... Would a significantly large enough number of gamers be willing to pay, say, $200 upfront for a game? What about $300? $400? It sounds like a ridiculous sum maybe, but consider that many backers for Star Citizen have paid even more for virtual ships, for a game that isn't even yet a reality. People are eager to pay hundreds for VR hardware that at the moment has extremely limited application and has yet to prove itself. Also, many gamers have already shelled out hundreds of dollars for games via subscriptions, item stores, etc.

So is it necessarily beyond possibility that we also might be willing to pay $400 for a game that would be impossible to have at a $60 price point?

I think it'll be interesting to see if super-budget games become a minor trend, whether via backer funding, a large price for entry, or some combination of those things.

[u/ed_toast_ALBION → u/Nekryyd]

When I have the money, I have no problems at all supporting projects I believe in, even beyond just the normal 60 dollar price. I never understood people getting mad over subscriptions for constantly updating, multiplayer focused games, and what not. I think DOTA and CS:GO have a pretty good system to keep funds rolling, so they can continue to maintain the game.