LogFAQs > #923675894

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Even games would be subjective - if I'm really good at fighting games, but you're really good at online multiplayer FPS, how do you quantify the skill difference between us? What about someone who is really good at (and really enjoys) single-player JRPGs - do you completely dismiss their skill-set out of hand because it's not competitive, or do you have to find a way to scale skill at creating optimal Diablo character builds or getting the platinum trophy in a game like Dragon Age when someone completes the hardest difficulty? Do speed runners count for more or less than people who play games as they were intended? What about people who play cooperative games that don't have direct PvP options? Puzzle games? People who just chase as many achievements as they can for max gamer score?

Worse, how do you rank someone who spent 200 hours building an intricate and beautiful palace in Minecraft, or someone who built an operational clockwork computer in Little Big Planet? Like it or not, those are also games - and saying "this measure of skill counts but this other one doesn't" is itself an incredibly subjective decision.

You could look at it that way I suppose. When I imagine this world run by the merit of gaming skill though, I first assume that any direct competition would require competing within the same game. So if you're an FPS gamer and someone else is an RTS gamer, the two of you would be in different circles and probably wouldn't compete. Like working at different companies. Maybe this society would have some baseline game(s) that everyone is obligated to learn as a basic means of settling disputes (like chess or...monopoly or whatever).

Co-op games you just have to have group competitions for. Base it on efficiency and completion time if it's not a PVP game. Rate speed runners on speed.

Of course, if you're maybe evaluating a resume or portfolio and judging someone's skill based on all the games they're proficient in, then I guess it does have to be somewhat subjective. But for this, I would suggest there just be a number of official groups that determine skill required for a given game based on standardized factors, and assign values to them. I would of course assume that in a world this focused on games, these official groups would be people that actually know something about games and the games they're rating. So you'd have the International (or national..) Association of games, with dedicated groups for gaming categories like RPG, FPS, and so on..if you're playing a new emerging genre, it's just like trying to sell yourself on a skill for a new market. Start it yourself, or learn something that exists to get work. If your genre is unpopular, good luck breaking in.

That said, you'd be right that some things would be fully subjective, such as rating the design of someone's creation in a game like minecraft. For that though...if it were up to me, I'd simply say that such games lack a non-subjective angle for competition, and thus aren't used in this societal hierarchy. Builds in RPGs can be objectively more effective across the board than another, so that can work. You can't be objective about someone's world design though, unless it's just...blatantly leaps and bounds better. Like someone who designed a very ordinary looking village vs an entire functioning city or something.

But yeah, we'd just have to discriminate against anything that's too subjective. Looks like even a gaming world fails to escape this. Or really, I guess those builders would just be the "artists" in that world...very difficult skill to sell because you need a lot of people to like what you do, regardless of anything objectively good or bad about it. You end up either a nobody, a tiny barely known artist, or you hit the big time.
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"Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be." - Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game