Co-op horror

[Your Computer]

I'll tell you why: Because debates concerning the semantics of things always end up like this one. Your entire post is trying to invalidate my ideas based on my choice of words, when it is abundantly clear what I am trying to say.

And this is why people do not like semantic debates. It makes no difference what you call it, it's the idea that's being communicated that matters. Honestly, you are just proving me and Naked? No right by saying something as closed-minded as that. Why don't you let go of your preconceptions regarding co-op and consider the idea?

Consider not mentioning a word that you choose not to use fully. Indeed, why use a word if you don't mean it? Whether you care about semantics or not, a consumer looking to buy will. If a company is to label a game as part of a "co-op horror" genre, and if a consumer is to pay real money for it, those words better have the meaning the consumer expects. From what i saw in the article--even from you--, i don't see an example of what i expect to be co-op horror or an example of what co-op horror is. And if what i am to expect co-op horror to be is one person experiencing something and the other being a spectator to it all, or multiple players experiencing different things that are unrelated to each other, i would argue that game has a very low success rate because it has no real indication of what it is trying to achieve.

No project, no matter how big it thinks it can be, will go anywhere without a clear indication of what it is and what it is trying to achieve. Daring not to dive into semantics would show, at least to me, the potential for great failure. It would not be farfetched to say that the consumer doesn't even know what they want if the consumer cares not about semantics. You want a company to fulfill a wish? Clearly define the wish, for you can only be disappointed for not doing so.

Bullshit they are. I already explained in great detail how I believe them to part of the same underlying concept. If you don't believe that, fine, but don't tell me I'm wrong because you are right. Do you honestly believe that a game where you are in complete darkness the entire time would be scary or even interesting? After a while, in fact very quickly, it would become stagnant and colorless. Whatever tension it can build up will dissipate eventually. Honestly, I can't believe you are actually so ignorant as to not see how the two concepts form a bigger picture.

I'm the one that's impressed. I said only one form can ever exist at any one time since they're mutually exclusive. How do you get from that to my statement meaning that a game should only ever have either complete darkness or be completely full of light? Is it because you're stuck on "co-op without co-op"? I would have figured i have plainly explained what i meant by that.

You have not shown how it would work and have been merely suggesting that it could work ("if done correctly"), as if from wishful thinking. Normally the person that starts a discussion presents something tangible to be discussed. All that has been given is the article, which i've already said simply gives an example that doesn't touch on cooperation (which isn't a surprise to me). The existence of any transition, or the in-between, that would occur between gameplay scenarios concerning cooperation and horror is not evidence of developer accomplishment, let alone a project's success.

IIRC, i hear there are games out there (though not related to the horror genre; i.e. bulletstorm) that had considered co-op for the main campaign but chose to drop the idea of co-op because players that were part of the test phase weren't acting the way the developers wanted them to act. They weren't cooperating with each other but competing against each other. These developers had an understanding of what cooperation meant and developed in hopes of implementing cooperative gameplay. The exact same could apply to the co-op horror genre--although, the ambiguity behind the "co-op horror" genre allows for pretty much anything, whether successful or a failure.