Can you explain "soul" in measurable terms?

Soul refers to the idea that a game was created with passion and dedication that wasn't necessarily driven by complete profit motive. This idea is similar to the artist who creates works for the joy of it, with profit being a secondary concern at best. Consider Beksinski, pic related.

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I just use "atmosphere"

Soul just refers to how much love and passion a dev put in the game. But this is Yea Forums so it just refers to "games i like" while like soulless means the opposite.

but that's what bothers me about how it's used, I don't doubt that many games today are made with passion and dedication but somehow they're less soulful? 90% of "soulless" complaints are explained by "the original had less saturation" or "more was left to the imagination" or "I have nostalgia for the original", which has nothing to do with how much effort was put in

game artists are professionals
that was as true when you were a kid as it is today
deal with it

it's the difference between a girl fucking you because she loves you and thinks you're cool vs a prostitute fucking you because you're giving her money

Then explain why people were calling Reggie (a literal corporate mouthpiece) “soulful”

yes actually
tactful and subtle are synonyms, they mean something is reserved, considered, not overwhelming
good just means something is seen as quality, and there are several ways to objectively assess the quality of a game. no such objectivity exists for "soul"

If it's anything like the other shitpost images it's a combo of brightening the already bright 3DS game and darkening the hazy 64 original

oh you're trying to epic troll for the win
my bad dude I'll leave you to it

I've only just BARELY figured out how to properly explain what I mean when I say a movie/game is "comfy" to someone, and even then I usually have to give examples to get the point across fully.

At least that words not as obtuse as "soul"

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remember when the buzzword we criticized people for using was "fun"

>I put my opinion in an image macro so that means it's true and undeniable
Fuck off back to twitter.

I believe a soul is measured in dharma and karma.

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>Beksinski

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I think it has to do with the inclusion of oddities and aesthetics that are (intentionally or not) mysterious or curious in nature, as well as flawed to a degree that gives them a tinge of reliability/humanization to people who don't work in the field.

I think Mario 64 vs the DS remake is a good example. The original was made with hardware that hadn't been optimized yet and was cobbled together in a lot of ways, which owes to why so many people are more attached to it compared to the DS version which is more homologous to the rest of the series.

I hate when people pull the nostalgia card. I played FFVII and liked it when I was 21 years old in college, I just fucking played Chrono Trigger for the first time this year, and those games are great and filled with soul, plenty of modern games are filled with soul too, you tell me DMC5 is not soul? Then fuck you.

fun is a meme term used to advertise bad games. anyone can create artificial fun, it's called a skinner box.

soul is ineffable: it just has soul or doesn't
the majority of games before the 7th generation have soul

how can I be nostalgic of a game if I havent played the game before?

>the majority of games before the 7th generation have soul
absolutely untrue, way to prove OP's point

you cant. just dont argue with retards who dont understand soul, they will never understand

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Something having soul just means you like it. Soulless means you do not

Kirby was always pink. Unless you consider soul to be localizers messing with the artist's original vision.

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soul: old
soulless: new

contrary to popular belief, most game developers are very passionate about their work.

I think a better context for Soul would be to examine the intersection of art and technology. Limitations encourage artistic expression. Like any other piece of art, the final product is defined by the rules of it's canvas. In older games, things like simplistic lighting, gesture, form, and color are tantamount in a way they really aren't today. You see, what is abstracted, is what is expressed. The artist's "touch" is what is missing, as paradoxical as that may seem.

The simple fact is, videogame art is intertwined with the graphical arms race. For many years, a game that "looked better" simply had better graphics than the competition. The push for realism (not just for things to be "realistic", but rather perfectionism within the medium) has brought these tradtionally artistic values to the wayside. 3D graphics themselves are an inherently soulless medium, as they are expressed through the perfectionist lens of a computer.

So what is Soul? I'm not sure anyone can fully answer. It's as inscrutable as art itself. However, I would say that Soul can be defined by how the art is expressed in spite of it's canvas, and not because of it. When you take away the computer rendering digital points behind a screen, what is left?

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Kirby is a fag.

Old graphics and lighting

>contrary to popular belief, most game developers are very passionate about their work.
Most are not given the amount of control required to translate that passion into the finished product.

It's a pretty nebulous concept, so I always just ask what they gauge "soul" by if it enters the discussion. For example:
>Do you consider it to be the amount of passion and heart poured into making something? The dev's love of their craft, materialized?
>Do you consider it to be a set visual and aural >style, one that isn't utilized any more?
>Or is it simply a nebulous concept of how a game makes you feel?
Regardless, none of these are in definitively measurable, quantitative forms, because soul is essentially measured by the person spouting it.
Personally I try not to use it, but if someone brings it into an argument I generally try and focus it around the first point.

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>people still think soul is just a meme
It doesn't even have to refer to something old either. Just compare the look of the recent smurf movie to the 2011 ones. It just so happens that a lot more old shit has more soul.

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if you are so dense that you cant understand soul, even after this image, there's no hope for you. just get off my board

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a soulless individual will never understand soul, no matter how hard you try to explain it to them. its not something that can be taught

youtube.com/watch?v=2tXmsxvCOGc&start_radio=1&list=RD2tXmsxvCOGc&t=9
perfection

Quantity of optional details which devs has zero reasons to put in but they did still.

Adj. Soul:
1. Describing elements found within a piece of work (typically in media) as having been crafted with integrity
Adj. Soulless:
1. Describing elements found with a poece of work (typically in media) as having been made by “people who don’t get it”, typically designed for focus groups and demographics, rather than being genuinely good

It just so happens that mostly everything in the past has integrity, while everything in the future is designed by people who don’t have the touch of honesty.

>3D graphics themselves are an inherently soulless medium, as they are expressed through the perfectionist lens of a computer.
I disagree with this. 3D graphics and digital art are tools, they aren't inherently lacking artistry because they are digital.
That said I think talking about limitations makes a lot of sense here – the other half is the obsession with replication that many modern games have. Whether it's an HD remake replicating an older work in a modern style without understanding the artistry informing its original creators' decisions, or a realistically styled AAA game replicating the natural world. It doesn't even need to be the art style itself, but the digital implementation replicating the concept art without interpreting it, like all games had to interpret their concept art when the technology wasn't advanced enough to recreate it.

You can't explain anything good in this world in measurable terms.

See OP

>made purely to make money
>no one dreamed to make this
you're not giving contemporary devs enough credit
also
>padded with filler detail and clutter
wtf does this even mean?

I agree with you its tossed around wily nilly, ive seen people say that DKC:TR, Mania, and even fucking Mega Man 9 dont have soul

Another example of New being Soul and Old being Soulless is the upcoming Joker Movie Joker vs the Suicide Squad Joker

>what is filler detail and clutter

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replication also describes how "soul" tends to be lost the more a work is monetized and sequelized. Look at NSMB. The whole thing, from the very first DS game, is an attempt to replicate the original 2D Mario games by rearranging their components in different shapes. You also get the sense that every graphic in the game is ruled by branding documents and style guides that specify how much reflectivity the environment is allowed to have, the precise degree of curves on hills and trees, and the hex colors of Mario's cap and overalls – pure reproduction divorced from the original artistry.

Easy example is Crash Bandicoot for the Ps1 vs the remake. Naughty Dog were pushing the Ps1 hardware to its limit to make the original games and it shows. Every line of Crash had to be selected carefully: no neck because that would waste polygons, they chose to make him orange because it was a vibrant colour that would stick out on an old crt tv, etc.

Now the limitations that formed Crash no longer exist. So when it came time to remake the game they tried their best to make Crash look like the original model, but with actual lighting, realistic fur, more polygons, more exaggerated facial expressions... and the whole thing looks just a bit off. Without the limitations that created him and the insane level of care put into designing him it's just not the same little guy.

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I don't think the "soullessness" of the CTR remake is a direct result of the added detail, but of misinterpreting what the original meant to convey DESPITE its limited detail. Like the village and ships in the third comparison – where the hell did that come from? The random-ass polar bear? The cartoonish proportions of the pillars and completely wrong lighting?

See pic related for a definition of soulless

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Despite what some of these Anons might have you believe, soulless is not exactly about a lack of passion and integrity, rather, it's about lower standards. In fact, I think these guys should stop sticking that label onto every new game, although I would say games coming from publishers like EA have that soulless aspect to them but I digress. A lot of devs these days have plenty of admiration for classic games and are gung-ho about making games, but when it comes to nuanced aesthetics, they don't seem to "get it" and I feel that it comes from easier to use development tools and a lack of direction/desire to push the envelope in terms of aesthetics from their higher-ups.
Take a look at The render on the left was painstakingly created in a difficult to use CGI tool. I have no doubt that Rare's artists went through many hours of trial and error in order to fully understand how to create such lovely art as you see in that render. So I guess you could call it soulful, since they were pioneers of the pre-rendering days and were experienced.
The render on the right was created fairly recently, with user friendly tools. I would assume the artists had standard experience, education, and were trained to create industry standard art. Now, I doubt the devs despise Donkey Kong and only wanted to make a quick buck or whatever the dumbass who wrote those captions would have you believe. I believe with certainty that they love DK, however the devs just don't have that experience and nuance for aesthetics.

(cont.)
I guess what I'm trying to change the respective definitions for soul and soulless are: Aesthetically nuanced, created by industry pros, pushed to look it's absolute best, and, rather plain, industry standard, not ugly but not exactly breaking limits either.
I think it's kind of insulting and rude to the game artists, to call their work soulless, as if they really hate making good art. I feel that is the fault of higher ups in charge of leading the projects, it's usually the publisher. I don't doubt that they look at some early art and go "Hey, that looks alright. Ship it." In previous generations, publisher and directors often pushed for the best and most unique visuals whilst nowadays they simply push for industry standard, or just "okay", looks. That is what soul and soulless is to me.

Measurable in the caratheodory sense? A soul is measurable if, for any set A in the hereditaty sigma algebra countably covered by your pre-ring, the soul splits A for the outer measure, i.e. mu(A) = mu(A intersect Soul) + mu(A setminus Soul).

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I got you man, heres some soul.

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not everything that's real is measurable, retard

Well put together work with good unique mechanics. It means the game is good.

Soul is literally just a meme buzzword for charm.

>Can you explain "soul" in measurable terms?
That which makes videogames worth playing, or what makes a scene, soundtrack, story etc memorable and thought provoking; even timeless

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OP is factually correct

soul is literally just "how much I like something." prove me wrong