alt Hacker News> Classic procedural generation is noteworthy here as a precedent, which gamers were already familiar with, because by and large it has failed to deliver.
Yes, this is a wildly uneducated perspective.
Procedural generation has often been a key component of some incredibly successful, and even iconic games going back decades. Elite is a canonical example here, with its galaxies being procedurally generated. Powermonger, from Bulldog, likewise used fractal generation for its maps.
More recently, the prevalence of procedurally generated rogue-likes and Metroidvanias is another point against. Granted, people have got a bit bored of these now, but that's because there were so many of them, not because they were unsuccessful or "failed to deliver".
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Almost every 3D game in the past 20 years uses procedural foliage generation (eg SpeedTree and similar). Many use procedural terrain painting. Many use tools like Houdini.
So procedural generation is extremely prevalent in most AAA games and has been for a long time.
Roguelike/lites are is of the most popular genres of indie games nowadays. One of it's main characteristics is randomization and procedural generation.
I’m a hard core rogue-like player (easily over a thousand hours at least in all the games I’ve played) but even so I can admit that hey have nothing compared to a well crafted world like you’d find in From Software titles or Expedition 33, or classic Zelda games for that matter. Making a great world is an incredibly hard task though and few studios have the capabilities to do so.
Is it wildly uneducated to not know any of the games you mentioned? I didn’t realize education covered less known video games? Wouldn’t a better example be No Man’s Sky, if we’re talking procedural gen and eventually a good game.
In any case, I agree that gamers by and large don’t care to what extent the game creation was automated. They are happy to use automated enemies, automated allies, automated armies and pre-made cut scenes. Why would they stop short at automated code gen? I genuinely think 90% wouldn’t mind if humans are still in the loop but the product overall is better.
Procedural generation underlies the most popular game of all time (Minecraft) and is foundational for numerous other games of a similar type - Dwarf Fortress, et al.
And it's used to power effect where you might not expect it (Stardew Valley mines).
What procedural generation does NOT work at is generating "story elements" though perhaps even that can fall, Dwarf Fortress already does decently enough given that the player will fill in the blanks.