halo 2's design was "take the 30 seconds of fun from halo 1, and copy paste it"

for a whole level

yes

TBH, I'd say part of the problem is that studios _don't_ really do that anymore

but thats most of those franchise milking products

Not the AAA guys, anyway

The talk there is usually about "set pieces"

thats not "safe"

that

AAA games go for safe, which creates boring duplicates

fun is not something you can really quantify and calculate and since most AAA studios are under the thumbs of publishers run by bean counters, its a risk

only visuals to "sell" and be like "This is what kids want, go buy it now"

instead they look at whats being sold around them and what sells best and go "copy paste that"

well, fun doesn't come with a manual

people don't know what can be the new "fun" thing

thats the biggest issue in entertainment 😛

in some cases, fun isn't even the goal

i remember watching some dev blogs on Destiny's creation, and they straight up said it was designed around addiction, not fun.

in their mind addicting == fun, but that is far from the case

thats actually one of the 8 categories of fun

Engagement is a huge thing nowdays

Partly because of the huge budgets

i did not have fun most of the time playing that game.

just google 8 types of fun

@Timcast Google asked who I was voting for in some survey. I told them Democrat

(I'm voting down ticket Republican)

It's not proof. Just a fun coincidence

@Dr.Wol go into a casino and look at those addicted.

there were 8 types of fun thought up
Sensation. Game as sense-pleasure. Evoking of emotions in the player. ...
Fantasy. Game as make-believe.
Narrative. Game as unfolding story.
Challenge. Game as obstacle course.
Fellowship. Game as social framework.
Discovery. Game as uncharted territory.
Expression. Game as soap box.
Submission. Game as mindless pastime.

and yes, addiction is also a method for games

mobile games do this a lot

when they give you a daily limit to play

and they are often not fun

with the daily limit, people can't get their "hit" as much as they want

and they keep wanting that hit more the next day

they can't play themselves into exhaustion

My ordeal is that I honestly like high-end graphics and big worlds

Discovery. Game as uncharted territory. 😉

big worlds

Hence, my mission is to make that stuff cheaper

@velvitonator i'm in a similar boat. although less graphics. which is why i like ubisoft games, despite me fully admitting their games are very very very similar these days,

the only way to make stuff cheaper is really to support smaller studios where you can