What's the deal with sandbox games?

[Udderdude]

The staggering success of modern sandbox game style has really confused me, since I don't see any reason to play any of them. They're typically easy as fuck to break/abuse, have little to no effort put into balancing their content, and generally their content is quantity over quality anyway.

Is there really any reason anyone plays these besides to have some sort of manchild power trip fantasy where they can be insanely powerful in an alternate universe with little to no effort? Since nothing is really solidly designed it's really just dicking around until you get bored, to me.

tl;dr Why the fuck do people play these things?

[DJ Incompetent]

The "manchild power trip fantasy where they can be insanely powerful in an alternate universe with little to no effort" is really big again right now, so I keep being told. The top 4 360 indie download games are all minecraft clones.

It's probably the 'discovery' of Minecraft becoming a new subgenre that's leading the charge on this crap. I also keep being told the kids aren't interested in game stories and are all about bending a world to their will.

It appears to be less about "the game or established world in the sandbox" from a decade ago and now the industry shift is all for "remove the game world, leave the sandbox."

*shrug* I'm no analyst. Just shit I've observed from the people and the articles 'n what-not. A big one being "ZOMFG EVERY NEW UPDATE TO MINECRAFT MAKES IT WORSE I LIEK IT BETTER IN ALPHA!!"

[Blackbird]

I find sandbox games to be incredibly boring. They feel to me like lazy development - like an RPG MMO but with all the quests and "things to do" stripped out.

My pet theory is that game publishers love making them because they are (probably?) cheap to produce. It's not like they have to worry about game balance, multiplayer, difficulty, complex narrative, or anything that might be difficult from a planning standpoint =/. So there's less development time.

[Estebang]

Dead Rising 1 is the only truly great sandbox game: the schedule leaves you very little room to screw around, and your time, progression, and inventory have to be carefully economized, especially if you want to rescue all the survivors.

GTA IV handles it pretty well by constantly forcing the story on you, and exploring/blowing stuff up in the city is more interesting than in most games, partly because you're so fragile even with full health and armor. They really got carried away with the man-dates, though.

That was a great comment in the other thread about "can you?" games versus "you can..." games, DJ Incompetent.

My pet theory is that game publishers love making them because they are (probably?) cheap to produce.

GTA IV cost Rockstar $100 million, and it still has PS2-quality textures in a lot of places.

[shmuppyLove]

Yo Minecraft!

I'm really happy for you and imma let you finish, but SimCity was one of the best sandbox games of all time.

OF ALL TIME.

So sad ... I actually had a much more intelligent post, something about sandbox vs open-world/free roam games, etc etc. But it wasn't really that funny, so ... I went with Kanye instead.

[Udderdude]

I've taken to calling them McDonalds Playpen games instead of Sandbox games lately, myself.



Look how much fun you can have in the playpen, kiddies!

[shmuppyLove]

I've taken to calling them McDonalds Playpen games instead of Sandbox games lately, myself.

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lhwsw2Qwr41qdqojz.jpg

Look how much fun you can have in the playpen, kiddies!

Well at least SOMEONE is having fun

[CMPXCHG8B]

tl;dr Why the fuck do people play these things?

Because the average gamer who subscribes to this stuff has nothing better to do with their free time. What cracks me up is the number of people who really aren't having fun when you ask them how long XYZ achievement took, and they reply with something stupid like "16 hours of hard work".

Yo Minecraft!

I'm really happy for you and imma let you finish, but SimCity was one of the best sandbox games of all time.

OF ALL TIME.

SimCity 2000, 3000, or 4?

SC2000 was the only game I took seriously because you could actually sit around and grow a city without worrying about literal piles of shit stacking up in a landfill. SC3000 was pretty good, except for the aforementioned addition of garbage disposal. And SC4 was just plain obscure with the level of detail they decided to drill down to. Air quality, economics, land worth, distance from schools, firehalls, hospitals... Ugh. So much to manage, so much to worry about. And if you want a truly large city complete with skyscrapers, you gotta engage in inter-region play, which was horribly broken and strangely implemented (given that the stats exported by a city were static in a city that imported them- you could use this to exploit the gameplay pretty easily). And the engine was shit, it never worked (and still doesn't) properly on an ATI card.

-CMPX

[Ebbo]

What's that? Someone enjoying something I don't? Nooooo... That can't be real.

I've only played briefly Minecraft and yes, it's pointless and there is no real objective other than dicking around, punching cubes and seeing how deep I can dig my way until I hit lava. But sometimes, in a right mindset, that's all I need. I always liked legos when I was a kid (I still kinda do) and maybe that's why I actually had some fun while playing Minecraft. Nothing more, nothing less.

About GTA games, I haven't played those but I did watch once my drunken friend trying to fly helicopter in GTAIV. He seemed entertained.

[Udderdude]

Minecraft is so removed from the game part of sandbox game that I don't even really consider it a game. It's clearly not complete enough, even in it's release version, to be considered a game.

What's that? Someone enjoying something I don't? Nooooo... That can't be real.

Take this kind of shit back to 4chan/reddit/neoGAF plz

[Moniker]

I sided with 'meh' (like most) instead of 'nay' because a well-done sandbox game can be really good. I've been talking up Zelda 1 a lot lately, but to me that remains the pinnacle of open world gaming (if open world==sandbox). Gameplay is fundamentally sound and is enhanced by a lack of linearity. The GTA games are fun purely because of the open world aspect, as the gameplay itself tends to be lacking in the fundamentals. Bethesda... there are hits and misses. I had lots of fun with Fallout 3, and a little fun with ES3&4. A big world is less important than an engaging world, something that Bethesda seems often to forget. I think that's representative of a lot of sandbox games - the loss of perspective that could=/=should.

In one sense, I applaud Minecraft/Terraria/Dwarf Fortress for being true sandbox games, instead of being open world with a linear quest shoehorned in to keep everyone happy.

[Davey]

Is there really any reason anyone plays these besides to have some sort of manchild power trip fantasy where they can be insanely powerful in an alternate universe with little to no effort? Since nothing is really solidly designed it's really just dicking around until you get bored, to me.

Maybe I'm not getting something, but it seems like you have a very clear understanding of their appeal.

[Skykid]

I voted meh because nothing ever held my attention except for Red Dead Redemption. I couldn't even be assed with Dead Rising 1 or 2 - so boring.

[Moniker]

Is there really any reason anyone plays these besides to have some sort of manchild power trip fantasy where they can be insanely powerful in an alternate universe with little to no effort? Since nothing is really solidly designed it's really just dicking around until you get bored, to me.

Maybe I'm not getting something, but it seems like you have a very clear understanding of their appeal.

The manchild power trip is certainly true of GTA games, and to an extent, of gaming in general. And I don't think that appeal is to be wholly derided - fun is fun. But the best games are those that make you grapple with the limits of your power, and that's doubly true of sandbox games. No one really plays Minecraft Classic for more than a few minutes, because doing anything is effortless and requires no toil. But what's great about games like Sim City is you're constantly being checked by potent limitations, and have to revise your goals to suit. Likewise with Dwarf Fortress you don't have any set goals except survival, and finding a way to competently meet that one goal leads you to all sorts of creative solutions made possible by throwing lots of roadblocks up.

[Ruldra]

San Andreas was massively fun if you ask me. Lots of stuff to do and it was great to just fuck around and cause havoc on the streets. Racing on the streets, jumping off buildings and mountains, playing at the casino, conquering territories in gang warfare, taking part of the triathlon...heck I played the shit out of it and I wouldn't be surprised if there were more stuff I ended up missed.

Red Dead Redemption looks great too, but unfortunately my console couldn't run that game for 2 minutes without overheating so I had to get rid of it.

[iconoclast]

I agree with the first few posts in this thread. Sandbox games (and open world games in general) are incredibly boring to me. Give me a linear, tightly designed stage any day of the week over a big open field full of nothing interesting.

I have enjoyed a few of them though. Dead Rising 1 was great, Bully was pretty good (and the only good game Rockstar has ever made), and Red Faction Guerrilla was fun for a few days. Other than that, I'm feeling the sandbox meh.

[shmuppyLove]

Oh wow I totally forgot to mention Just Cause 2, that was an amazingly fun game, and I don't generally like that style. I did not like Mercenaries 2 though.

I also had a lot of fun with Prototype.

[drauch]

Lot's of shit to do. The end.

[shmuppyLove]

WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH AIRPLANE PEANUTS?

[BPzeBanshee]

The staggering success of modern RPG games has really confused me, since I don't see any reason to play any of them. They're typically easy as fuck to break/abuse, have little to no effort put into balancing their content, and generally their content is quantity over quality anyway.

Is there really any reason anyone plays these besides to have some sort of manchild power trip fantasy where they can get married in an alternate universe and take up lycanthropy? Since nothing is really solidly designed it's really just dicking around until you get bored, to me.

tl;dr Why the fuck do people play these RPGs?

Fixed. You know I could use your post as a formula for attacking pretty much anything.

Actually, it really is just you, or rather the group of people who see no purpose in a game that doesn't provide you with a strict objective. Minecraft's formula obviously works, the clones are crap and should be avoided at all cost unless there's something peculiar about its programming language, and yes a true sandbox IS about dicking around till you're bored and getting your own idea about what to do.

Before I was doing any kind of programming I was doing modding for Burning Sand and came up with some pretty neat visual effects. I spent more time actually experimenting with the modding functionality than what I did actually playing in the sandbox, but that's still creating stuff withing your little sandbox nonetheless. That game in turn was based off the Java game World of Sand which as far as anyone knows was made by some Japanese guy who never gave his name out to anyone (though if anyone can actually prove me wrong that'd be nice).

Bottom line: it's a thing of preference that's becoming more popular. I'm all for it so long as it actually succeeds in capturing interest otherwise it'll be just like RPGs for me.

[stryc9]

Why the fuck do people play these things?

Glad you asked. I was going to go on some sort of psuedo-intellectual rant that touched on the inquisitiveness of human nature and the need for freedom in creating one's own destiny and so on, but I'll save you the wall of text.

They're shit.

[ED-057]

Well a sandbox game is just a game without a set itinerary for the player right? That isn't necessarily going to have any bearing on whether the gameplay is worthwhile or not. You just play until you`ve had enough, except if it is a non-sandbox game then that may involve restarting from the beginning if the game has "ended" and you`re not tired of it yet.

It`s like comparing a porno with a plotline about a pizza guy vs. one of those gravure videos where they just go to some random beach armed with a hulahoop and bunny ears and start filming. The storyline or lack thereof doesn`t really determine the entertainment value.

Good sandbox games: Mount&Blade, Dragonforce

(potential new years resolution: stop talking about porn on shmups forum)

[xbl0x180]

BORING. Nay.

I'm not a very good gauge on what's exciting, though. If it were up to me, it'd be animu video games most of the time with a bit of shoot-'em-ups and pinball to complete things. The more a game features smooth-as-hell animation, the better

[Obiwanshinobi]

To me sandbox games are Metal Gear Solid 3 and the original Deus Ex. Easy to exploit and break, but such things have been always a part of the video games' universal appeal.
Apparently Devil May Cry's juggling with the enemies was inspired by an exploit the devs found in Onimusha (in early stages of development I assume). Hence the DMC was born - a sandbox game about dicking around with its combat engine.

[Ruldra]

Oh wow I totally forgot to mention Just Cause 2, that was an amazingly fun game, and I don't generally like that style.

Just Cause 2 is awesome. If you guys think sandbox games are boring, you need to play that one.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I might add that I had tons of fun with Vice City and San Adreas on the PC, where switching between mouse & keyboard and a joypad is a non-issue thanks to the getting ito/getting out of a vehicle animations (a hint - on foot controls are better with the former, vehicle controls are better with the latter). The performance, draw distance and whatnot is also better on a properly powerful PC too. Also, EAX.
My first experience of those games was on the PS2, and it was fun alright.

[DragonInstall]

I can never finish sandbox games. I always get bored after a couple of hours.

I know you're suppose to immerse yourself into it, but I just can't do it.

I think the issue for me is the gameplay is usually very bland. It's just a bunch of bad mini games in one big world.

$ wasted
GTA3 - never finished even first city area
GTA Vice City - 2 hours
GTA 4 - Fuck this game
Oblivion - finished a few quest and aimlessly wandered. Damn psychic guards really ruined the immersion
Fallout - So boring...
Red Dead - Felt pretty good, but this is when I realized wtf am I doing playing this genre.

Yeah this genre is definitely not for me. I really tried to get into it, seeing how so many people love it. But I just want to fall asleep after a couple of hours into these games.

I did manage to finish GTA San Andreas... So to me, that's the best sandbox game so far.

[beatsgo]

My problem with sandbox games: you're obligated to do task if you want to 100% everything, which is ironic. As if the game is requesting you to play it like a "social game", which are god awful to begin with. They are fun once you get into it, but they lose their luster as soon as you seen everything to the game.

[mesh control]

GTA series was cool when I was 11 (holy shit that was a long time ago) and I just wanted to play games to kill people, steal cars, and be nihilistic.

Now that I'm older, that doesn't really appeal to me. Seems like rather than focus on the mechanics of the game, the developers try to shove as much content as possible into the game, regardless of the quality.

Crackdown looks pretty cool, need to give that whirl one of these days.

[Estebang]

MGS3 is NOT easy to "exploit and break." I mean, sure, you can just ignore being sneaky and gun down everyone in the game, but that's still not outside the boundaries of what choices the developers intended you to have, and in my opinion it's actually the more difficult (if quicker) route.