Games are data, not Renderers
Was Quake 3 the same as American McGee's Alice the same as Soldier Of Fortune? Are Astroneer, Moss, Unravel the same games? The answer is clearly no, even though each set of these games share roughly the same platform technologies. The variety of experiences we create from the same technologies are bounded only by tooling and input data. This doesn't ignore the fact that those experiences owe to a renderer. In reality though that we are ultimately trying to achieve by making games is to key into the overall consciousness of the players, meaning their imaginations, possibility space, and thought processes. Something running at a decent framerate with graphical detail is the cherry on top . Why are so many creators obsessed with underlying technologies? Why has that obsession bled out into the players consciousness? I'm a victim to this technology first way of thinking. I ultimately want to create and share thematically interesting interactive experiences, though too oft