I think there is a big difference between `form` and `content`.
Form is the appearance that something has and how it behaves and what it seems to be in a very objective detached kind of way. The form of something is merely how it looks visually and how it seems to be different from other things. Form has no meaning whatsoever but in this world many people believe that one form is better or worse than another.
So many games now focus almost exlusively on the form in the game, which means they're focussing on trying to change the shapes of models to show more detail, trying to eggrandise the environments that you play in, trying to show some sign of improved behavior through more realistic or interesting changes in the form (ie animation) and trying to show higher and higher levels of realistic appearance as some kind of show of prowess.
This is all entirely based on putting the `forms` in the game on a pedestal and milking them for all it is worth. This pretty much squeezes the living daylights out of any kind of soul or meaning or valuable content because all of the focus is on the surface with nothing beneath.
With a strong focus on realism there is increasingly less focus on symbolism or something beyond appearances, and that usually means a diminishing of spiritual content. These games have no soul. That is why, I believe, so many such games are war games and games of violence and darkness. Those who focus so intently on making a big deal about an appearance tend to also be those who look at life in the same way and live in a mindset of darkness, with in some cases perverse happiness gained from murder and death.
It goes hand in hand with trying to make the form of the characters and the form of the environment so important above all else. Appearances and forms mean nothing and so unless the developers can see the world in a different light they cannot increase the meaning of the game in any way other than to increase the technical specs, or to overinflate the importance of the graphics. All they can do is then put all their efforts into making the game bigger in appearance or having finer graphics. It's an expansion in the direction of vanity and away from any kind of real meaning or substance, and all these super-high-end engine features are really just a cover for the intense lack of insight or depth that most of these games end up with.
And of course as has been said, it depends largely on who is using the engine and what use they put it to and what they decide to focus on. But sadly in so many cases I think this is true - people including the developers and the customers have the wool pulled over their eyes thinking that all this shock factor and big ego nonsense is more appealing or desirable than something of greater real worth.
And that kind of a focus is really a spiritual problem in today's societies, and just happens to express itself in the form of these games.
The alternative to form is content. Content is to do with where you are coming from. It's to do with how you evaluate what is important in the big picture and what is true. If you're coming from a very egotistical place then you will focus heavily on painting a fanciful dream illusion and the game will end up being a shallow meaningless emptiness. If you are coming from a place of truth and light and, quite frankly, spiritual maturity, then the focus isn't going to be on how things appear, and is going to be more on the beauty of the relationship that you have with it. After all, oogling fancy graphics and getting all excited about polygons is shallow nonsense, compared with a deeper relationship based on a sense of what is really important.
If the content is right, the form is irrelevant because the content provides the meaning. If the content is wrong the form ends up having to fend for itself and its meaninglessness has to be compensated for in distorted egocentric ways.
Gameplay is more to do with the right content than focussing on the form, and when the gameplay is right it does not matter what the form is. when the gameplay is right the form could be anything from some bizarrely simple graphics to some wacky off-the-wall japanese oddness to some pretty ray-traced glorious enviornment. The important thing is that the focus is not on how things look because the content, ie the gameplay - the relationship that the user has to the form, is more important than the form itself. Without that central core of a beautiful relationship a game is left as an empty shell and all it has to show for itself is its appearance.
All this said, I'm not sure which is more disappointing, the developers who continually focus on appearances and totally ignore the depth of content, or the customers who share the same mindset and keep on buying into it just as much.
So in terms of the original topic, I would say the language you write it in is not important because the graphics are not the deciding factor. Graphics have the potential to distort and to paint a picture of something untrue, which generally is the intent to make you think wow that is amazing and I must buy it, but which ends up being disapointment at its total lack of depth or meaning. If you can look past the allure of the graphics then good content and good gameplay and a good ethic or mindset is much more important and you can do that no matter what your tools are. It could be a flash game, it could be written in AMOS Basic, it could be some huge mega engine, doesn't matter. But it DOES matter to the people who think the graphics are all important. But how can you expect someone like that to appreciate what good gameplay is, anyway?
I think you can create a mega-high-tech game engine and have it do all sorts of things that might offer some degree of excitement for the customer, but if that's all there is to it then that's a huge emptiness. On the other hand if you have decent gameplay then it doesn't matter what the graphics do - but, you can get the best of both worlds by using that super great game engine in a wise and artistic way that complements the deeper soul of the game, rather than detract from it. The more eye-candyish and attractive the graphics become the more it steals attention from what is really important and it should never get to the point where it so exclusive.
Form is the appearance that something has and how it behaves and what it seems to be in a very objective detached kind of way. The form of something is merely how it looks visually and how it seems to be different from other things. Form has no meaning whatsoever but in this world many people believe that one form is better or worse than another.
So many games now focus almost exlusively on the form in the game, which means they're focussing on trying to change the shapes of models to show more detail, trying to eggrandise the environments that you play in, trying to show some sign of improved behavior through more realistic or interesting changes in the form (ie animation) and trying to show higher and higher levels of realistic appearance as some kind of show of prowess.
This is all entirely based on putting the `forms` in the game on a pedestal and milking them for all it is worth. This pretty much squeezes the living daylights out of any kind of soul or meaning or valuable content because all of the focus is on the surface with nothing beneath.
With a strong focus on realism there is increasingly less focus on symbolism or something beyond appearances, and that usually means a diminishing of spiritual content. These games have no soul. That is why, I believe, so many such games are war games and games of violence and darkness. Those who focus so intently on making a big deal about an appearance tend to also be those who look at life in the same way and live in a mindset of darkness, with in some cases perverse happiness gained from murder and death.
It goes hand in hand with trying to make the form of the characters and the form of the environment so important above all else. Appearances and forms mean nothing and so unless the developers can see the world in a different light they cannot increase the meaning of the game in any way other than to increase the technical specs, or to overinflate the importance of the graphics. All they can do is then put all their efforts into making the game bigger in appearance or having finer graphics. It's an expansion in the direction of vanity and away from any kind of real meaning or substance, and all these super-high-end engine features are really just a cover for the intense lack of insight or depth that most of these games end up with.
And of course as has been said, it depends largely on who is using the engine and what use they put it to and what they decide to focus on. But sadly in so many cases I think this is true - people including the developers and the customers have the wool pulled over their eyes thinking that all this shock factor and big ego nonsense is more appealing or desirable than something of greater real worth.
And that kind of a focus is really a spiritual problem in today's societies, and just happens to express itself in the form of these games.
The alternative to form is content. Content is to do with where you are coming from. It's to do with how you evaluate what is important in the big picture and what is true. If you're coming from a very egotistical place then you will focus heavily on painting a fanciful dream illusion and the game will end up being a shallow meaningless emptiness. If you are coming from a place of truth and light and, quite frankly, spiritual maturity, then the focus isn't going to be on how things appear, and is going to be more on the beauty of the relationship that you have with it. After all, oogling fancy graphics and getting all excited about polygons is shallow nonsense, compared with a deeper relationship based on a sense of what is really important.
If the content is right, the form is irrelevant because the content provides the meaning. If the content is wrong the form ends up having to fend for itself and its meaninglessness has to be compensated for in distorted egocentric ways.
Gameplay is more to do with the right content than focussing on the form, and when the gameplay is right it does not matter what the form is. when the gameplay is right the form could be anything from some bizarrely simple graphics to some wacky off-the-wall japanese oddness to some pretty ray-traced glorious enviornment. The important thing is that the focus is not on how things look because the content, ie the gameplay - the relationship that the user has to the form, is more important than the form itself. Without that central core of a beautiful relationship a game is left as an empty shell and all it has to show for itself is its appearance.
All this said, I'm not sure which is more disappointing, the developers who continually focus on appearances and totally ignore the depth of content, or the customers who share the same mindset and keep on buying into it just as much.
So in terms of the original topic, I would say the language you write it in is not important because the graphics are not the deciding factor. Graphics have the potential to distort and to paint a picture of something untrue, which generally is the intent to make you think wow that is amazing and I must buy it, but which ends up being disapointment at its total lack of depth or meaning. If you can look past the allure of the graphics then good content and good gameplay and a good ethic or mindset is much more important and you can do that no matter what your tools are. It could be a flash game, it could be written in AMOS Basic, it could be some huge mega engine, doesn't matter. But it DOES matter to the people who think the graphics are all important. But how can you expect someone like that to appreciate what good gameplay is, anyway?
I think you can create a mega-high-tech game engine and have it do all sorts of things that might offer some degree of excitement for the customer, but if that's all there is to it then that's a huge emptiness. On the other hand if you have decent gameplay then it doesn't matter what the graphics do - but, you can get the best of both worlds by using that super great game engine in a wise and artistic way that complements the deeper soul of the game, rather than detract from it. The more eye-candyish and attractive the graphics become the more it steals attention from what is really important and it should never get to the point where it so exclusive.