Popular games and their weapons
The title might be a bit off base, but does anyone know why nearly all war-like games use the same guns with the same scopes? I googled sights and scopes and found 101 scopes and a plethora of weaponry, yet i see the same things. Please enlighten me, i don't think i got the memo.
Replies
Let's take scopes for example.
This is my Premise/Assertion: To make sure a visual design is sound/usable, scopes need to have some basis in actual functionality.
Something cylindrical tends to communicate rather quickly and easily as a scope. Light goes in, and light goes out the other end. No real crazy distortion.
Now, of course, we've seen concepts before where the scope somehow "dips" into the barrel of the weapon, or is in some other location. While the gun as a whole seems "cool!", I feel lke those designs suffer at a "usability level" in recognition as a weapon with some amount of accuracy. It just looks like a hunk of thing that spits things out.
I suppose it's like the bent fork.
Yes, you CAN make a bent fork. It is not a question of "why not," it's just, yes, you can make one.
But can you USE it? is it useful? Just because it looks/is special doesn't make it user friendly.
And when visually communicating for consumption, does design trump form, or the other way around?
I will assert, in another sense, that when form trumps design, it will alienate a lot more, most often, than when design trumps form.
That brings me to another question about how informed consumers are as far as gun accessories goes. I'd assume most would know a scope (http://www.gunshopfinder.com/trijicon/trijicon_acog_ta31FRMR.html) when they see it, but after having seen that scope in War Z in Totalbiscuit's video, i wondered if non gun users/fps players would know what it was if the lens didn't give it away.
To let the cat out of the bag i was hoping to distribute a ton of guns and accessories as a freebie package, but then i couldn't find anything as far as why most games only stick to the same acog/rds/laser sight/sniper scope/grip models as everyone else and refuse to deviate.
If the game is all about scopes and variety and whatnot (like, say, a sniper game or something), then sure, go for the unique design, but if scope variety isn't a selling point of the game why create a barrier to readability?
I guess the goal would be to design something grounded in reality (via picking and pulling details from real world examples) but also to design something that contains enough 'obvious' elements so as to present an instantly recognizable concept to a laymen.
It's like if you had some suburban neighbourhood with toucans flying around or something. It's not impossible, but it's pretty unlikely and makes it hard to suspend disbelief.
If the game isn't trying to be realistic, and is just a crazy fun shooter like The Specialists or something, then yeah, there's no real "excuse" not to go for stylish interesting obscure weapons. In that case they usually just go with familiarity because everyone thinks m16s and g36s are so BadAss anyway.
There's so many scopes and lasers that i should be able to make a variant that goes along with the weapon design and is also easily communicated. Some things such as knobs and lid covers seem to do the trick as well as a few other things.
simply put: the games are portraying real life scenarios with common, period-accurate weapons. of course every WWII game has a thomposon and a garand, that's what was used then, just like how the BadAss modern setting uses AR15s and AK variants over and over.
Also, high end military magnified optics all look pretty similar, your average gamer doesn't know the difference between a $1800 Night Force NXS and a $100 Chinese knock off.
EDIT oh wait I didnt read OP post properly.. I'll shut up now..