Comments on: What does game design research tell us? What the research shows (from what you said anyway) is that players don't care about aesthetic changes. As I think you were getting at, what would happen if you move level boundaries, or changed the scale. I think much current game reviews of the older style (IGN, Gamespot and the like) focus heavily on the "immersive experience," which is most easily explained by aesthetics. But when playing, the space and mechanics become the experience (with aesthetics contributing obviously) so traditional reviews become pretty useless at describing or critiquing the actual game experience. I think the bigger problem is not the game reviews themselves, but the strange notion that total immersion is the ultimate goal of all games. What the research shows (from what you said anyway) is that players don’t care about aesthetic changes. As I think you were getting at, what would happen if you move level boundaries, or changed the scale.
I think much current game reviews of the older style (IGN, Gamespot and the like) focus heavily on the “immersive experience,” which is most easily explained by aesthetics. But when playing, the space and mechanics become the experience (with aesthetics contributing obviously) so traditional reviews become pretty useless at describing or critiquing the actual game experience. I think the bigger problem is not the game reviews themselves, but the strange notion that total immersion is the ultimate goal of all games.

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