3-D Gaming Lacks Depth

I’m going to say it, I really don’t want 3-D gaming to be a thing.

I’m going to admit that it already is and there’s no stopping the fact.

There are too many companies with their hands far too deep in the 3-D market’s pockets to pull out now. I can rant and rave on how it wont be successful, but that wont matter. They’ve invested so much at this point that it has to work. And if it doesn’t, you better god damn well bet they’re going to try and force it to.

But that’s not the point, I’ve accepted our fate. I just don’t like it. In fact, I despise it. What was it that convinced the industry that bringing the game into the real world would enhance how emotionally involved someone is in their product? Because it doesn’t. Once you start adding more stuff on the exterior of a game system, you start to distract the player, further taking away their focus from your game. In turn, ruining the “immersion” that PR people talk about so much.

Yeah, immersion, this thing or whatever.

I have the same problem with motion controls as I do with 3-D. Their problems are inherently the same. Motion controls have some good about them, and with smart game design they can actually be fun. But most of the time they just get in the way. They add another barrier to me and the experience. When I’m playing a game with motion control I never feel like I’m really “inside the world”. I feel like I’m waving a plastic remote in front of my television. Me having to physically exert myself reminds me that I am playing a video game. It doesn’t immerse, it puts emphasis on the real world more so. And this is how I see 3-D gaming. If the living room experience is anything like the experience I’ve had in theaters, then it’s going to be a lot of eyestrain tacked on with scenes that really didn’t need to be 3-D in the first place.

I also don’t see 3-D gaming having many practical uses. I mean, like I mentioned before, I wouldn’t mind having it around once in a while, but it’s something that I don’t want to have nagging at me all the time. If you think about it, watching something in 3-D isn’t ALL that different from its counterpart 2-D image. It pops out at you a bit and that’s fun and quirky, but it doesn’t give the viewer enough to make them not want to go back to 2-D. It offers too little to justify the cost on the side of the consumer. The average consumer isn’t willing to pay a sum of $5000 for a needless luxury. It’s not essential to experience hence it doesn’t justify the cost. I would want someone to prove to me that I need 3-D to spend the cash on the t.v. sets. That’s to assume that at some point someone will figure out a revolutionary way to use it that demands we all have a a pair of glasses in our house from now on. Maybe that will be the case some day.

Avatar didn't sell me on 3-D. I know, you're shocked right?

The bigger issue here is that, in terms of games, this is an example of the industry going in the wrong direction with design. Games haven’t grown enough to warrant our new addition to its development. There currently is too much improvement that we can make internally to have new issues, like designing 3-D visuals, to come into the picture (Yes, pun intended). Why focus on this when we could be making advances on in-game engines, or just our basic design philosophies? Games are still in their infancy and have plenty room for tweaking and fixing. We should focus on the more pressing matters and make games better to play rather than watch. People instantly assume that fancy new tech means progress when that’s not actually the case. Just because we can make technological improvements doesn’t mean that we need to. Some things have their place, but they need to be justified.

Alan Lightman wrote an essay (Titled "Progress") on how we need to justify our technological advances

And 3-D does actually have some place, and it possibly might have some positive contributions to the industry too. I don’t deny that. But the promise, currently, is uninspiring. Hearing, “It’ll look really cool to play Kid Icarus, flying through the air in 3-D”, and other arguments of the same sort from every developer is not something that’s filling me with the utmost confidence. Our plans for aren’t appearing to be beneficial to anyone. This so far is nothing but a big waste of time and money. And that’s a damn shame since that money could be put into better places. As it is, I don’t want to play games in 3-D for any reason, and no one has shown me why I should. Once someone can give me a solid reason as to how this needs to be the new standard for video games, Ill buy it. But for now, it’s a bunch of garbage that doesn’t need to exist in our current state of game design.