Now that we’ve qualified what “bigger” means I think we’re all happy.
I was operating my logic under the notion of Bigger = Best (in terms of quality.) Square may sell more games, but it doesn’t really matter if they all suck.
I mean, I think all of the Focus Film movies I’ve seen so far have been loads better than most of the Hollywood drek out there, but does that mean Focus Films is “bigger” than, say, Paramount? Bigger implies a lot of things: bigger sales, bigger presence, etc.
But, like I said, if you want to talk quality, then the proper adjective would be “better.” Unless, of course, you usually use the word “bigger” to describe when something is better…
[quote=“Abadd”]I mean, I think all of the Focus Film movies I’ve seen so far have been loads better than most of the Hollywood drek out there, but does that mean Focus Films is “bigger” than, say, Paramount? Bigger implies a lot of things: bigger sales, bigger presence, etc.
But, like I said, if you want to talk quality, then the proper adjective would be “better.” Unless, of course, you usually use the word “bigger” to describe when something is better…[/quote]
You’ve never heard of the phrase “A bigger prescence” or “A bigger showing”–both of these imply quality. You just haven’t been around as long as me I guess. If you look for them they’re there. 
Look up the definition in MW under the sense 4a-b. 4a: CHIEF, PREEMINENT; 4b: outstandingly worthy
Edit: Nevermind. I no longer care.
Before this topic gets irretreivably lost in the black hole of what words mean, I feel I should remind everyone of two things:
-
In many of the contexts where “bigger” is used it often does equate to “better”, but this is essentially through connotation - a bigger prescence is a better presence and a bigger showing is a better showing because having more of a presence and having more of a showing is a good thing. “Bigger” and “better” aren’t interchangeable for non-quantitative measurements, though: I think we can all agree that Panzer Dragoon Saga does not have bigger gameplay than Final Fantasy 7, no matter how better or worse people may think it is.
-
In the context of the phrase “Can you see Sega being bigger than Square in RPGs?”, the business sense of quantitative sales and popularity is implied.
Is it safe to go back to the topic now? 
Edit: Forget it. I can’t believe I wasted my time typing up that long response.
[quote=“Lance Way”]Before this topic gets irretreivably lost in the black hole of what words mean, I feel I should remind everyone of two things:
-
In many of the contexts where “bigger” is used it often does equate to “better”, but this is essentially through connotation - a bigger prescence is a better presence and a bigger showing is a better showing because having more of a presence and having more of a showing is a good thing. “Bigger” and “better” aren’t interchangeable for non-quantitative measurements, though: I think we can all agree that Panzer Dragoon Saga does not have bigger gameplay than Final Fantasy 7, no matter how better or worse people may think it is.
-
In the context of the phrase “Can you see Sega being bigger than Square in RPGs?”, the business sense of quantitative sales and popularity is implied.
Is it safe to go back to the topic now? [/quote]
I 
Lance!!!1!
Abadd may love Lance but it does not make me less correct. In one sense Lance is correct, but DivineDragon is also correct in one sense, hence we are equally correct. Accusing me of incorrect usage when I am correct is just silly and you obviously did it to bail Abadd out of his ignorance or you created it out of your own. One or the other Mr. Lance.
You simply can’t refute the dictionary and popular usage no matter how much you refute it unless you want to petition Merrium-Webster’s decision of the definition. Good luck! If it can (and is) used in this fashion effectively it is (and can be) used in this fashion; believe it or not I have heard your example phrase (“is big on gameplay; bigger on graphics and gameplay blah, blah, blah”, “bigger on story”) used in this context before. It implies a qualitative value that means: “Better”.
Your thinking about semantics concerning the incorrect way to utilize the inflected form of ‘big’. I’m refering to the correct (because it can and is) way to utilize the inflected form of ‘big’ (bigger). It has been ‘canonized’ this way, is being utilized this way, and shall be utilized this way in the future forevermore–correctly so.
I never said it was interchangeable, you created that rouse to bail Abadd out of his ignorance because I showed him up and made him look like a fool–which your trying to do to me…ineffectively. Very.
[quote=“Lance Way”]
2) In the context of the phrase “Can you see Sega being bigger than Square in RPGs?”, the business sense of quantitative sales and popularity is implied.[/quote]
This is also subjective and if you cannot see that you are as shortsighted as Abadd is. This could just as equally express Sega being more “outstandingly worthy” in RPGs–which is indeed a sense in the MW dictionary (4b to be precise: again, do you want to refute it?).
I certainly hope so. I think Lance has learned his lesson for the day: he can’t surrepticiously inject false charges in an argument (he wasn’t involved in) to cover up for a friends’ ignorance (not in the demeaning sense, mind you).
So now the question is: who has the ‘bigger’ argument?
I DivineDragon! (too good to pass up; wait I don’t love myself–really!) Nighterz!
chill out and/or stop posting.
I must say I think you took that rather too personally, and neither of your conclusions about why I made that post are correct. I can assure you I wasn’t attempting to accuse you of anything, or to take any particular “side” in the matter; to be quite honest I just skimmed through both your own and Abadd’s posts, noticed a debate on semantics that seemed to be consuming the topic and attempted to give a brief and simple answer that would lay the matter to rest. I didn’t realise I’d need to be so technical (and my post was therefore brief to the point of being technically incorrect), so I won’t cut any corners with this reply.
Fear not, I wouldn’t dream of doing it; words will simply mean whatever people use them to mean, and dictionaries will reflect those uses. I was firstly just pointing out that the word has come to be used in a positive context because of the connotations it’s picked up during its etymological development; as I said, “bigger” has become “better” because the majority of things that people bother talking about in a quantitative way are generally things that they would like to have a large quantitative value of. Having bigger sales than your financial opponent is good, having a bigger house than you neighbour is good, having a bigger amount of cash in your wallet is also good, and so on. However, the past usage (and the most common current usage) of the word “big” is its literal implication of a quantitative measurement; this is fairly basic in of itself, but it ties in to what I’ll elaborate on below.
That was most certainly not my example phrase: if you look at my post, you’ll see that I wrote the quite different statement “Panzer Dragoon Saga has bigger gameplay than Final Fantasy 7”, not “Panzer Dragoon Saga is bigger on gameplay than Final Fantasy 7”. This is a significant difference, because (as you’ll see if you check Merriam-Webster) the figure-of-speech term “big on” / “bigger on” has a specific definition of its own: “strongly favoring or liking”, and while it is obviously linked to the standard definitions of “big” it is not a direct use of those standard definitions. On the other hand, I was simply replacing the word “better” with the word “bigger” to illustrate how - even if such a use could be argued as technically correct - that use is not particularly logical because it is both an uncommon use and a non-literal use of the word (based on its most often-employed definition). The immediate impact of that word-use on the reader is one of semantic confusion; even if someone could technically use the word bigger in that statement and be “correct”, there’s no particular reason why they should or why they would want to.
The way I was considering the problem was this: if I had written the sentence “William Shakespeare is bigger at writing plays than Christopher Marlowe” in any English essays I handed in during my time at university, I would have been severely marked down for word use. Not because it’s literally and irrefutably incorrect - as you say, Merriam Webster tells us otherwise - but because common sense tells us (and the person reading it) that it’s an unnecessarily abstract employment of the word in context; there is no particular reason why I should employ an uncommon and technical usage of the word “big” to imply “better” in a non-quantitative value when I can just write the word “better” and avoid that confusion on the part of the reader. (Of course, I’d have been severely marked down for using the word “better” in such a hideously sweeping statement anyway, but that’s another matter entirely.)
There’s no reason to be so dramatic over an issue such as this one; and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that saying any word will be used in its current form “forevermore” is an exaggeration in of itself.
Again, you seem to be taking this far too personally; there is no grand conspiracy going on against you in this forum. You’ll notice that my post was not literally directed at anyone - I opened with the phrase “I feel I should remind everyone” - as I simply wrote it as a general statement with the intent of settling the issue, as I say. I used a couple of lines that you’d written only to illustrate a point, which to be quite honest I probably didn’t need to illustrate anyway as it pretty much goes without saying; I did not create any ruses and I did not try to make anyone look like a fool, as to be quite honest I’m not that childish.
It’s true that I wouldn’t, but when reading a sentence on a normal message board I also wouldn’t assume that the writer was using a relatively uncommon definition of a word in a given context. Reading the question “Can you see Sega being bigger than Square in RPGs?”, I’d conclude that Goonboy means “more popular in the RPG field”; that he was going by Merriam-Webster definition 4c of “bigger”, as in “of greater importance or significance” - “Can you see Sega being of greater importance or significance than Square in RPGs?”. Essentially, when someone says “Can [Company X] be bigger than [Company Y] in [Field Z]?”, you can more or less guarentee that they’re talking about success, regardless of what other definitions of “bigger” might technically be valid; it’s just the way the phrase is most commonly used. Then, by the end of Goonboy’s first paragraph, it’s quite clear that he prefers Sega RPGs to other companies’ RPGs already; the issue he seems to be putting forward isn’t whether or not they’ll be better in the future, but whether or not Sega will compete with Square in the RPG field and garner a similar popularity. Definition 4c of “big” seems to be implied.
So no, I don’t agree that this could just as equally be taken to mean “Can Sega make higher quality RPGS than Square” (which, correct me if I’m wrong, seems to be your point more or less, or at least it seemed to be what you were arguing when I made my first post). Although that may be one valid dictionary definition of the word “bigger”, the context of it points us towards another valid dictionary definition: the definition that people usually have in mind when they use this figure of speech, involving success and importance rather than quality, as this does seem to be the case here.
I agree you’re correct that it can technically be used in the way you’re saying, but in the interests of day-to-day communication I’m far more concerned with what people probably mean than with what they might mean, as frankly, anything could mean anything. For example, the term “RPG” can technically indicate pen-and-paper RPGs, but as it probably isn’t meant to mean this in context this probably isn’t relevant to the discussion.
I’m not sure why you’re taking such a condescending tone over a simple issue of semantics; people will judge you and like you on how well you argue, not on how well you can put another person down by implying that they’re some sort of child who needs lessons taught to them. Again, I can also assure you that I wasn’t “charging” you with anything or attempting to support anyone in particular with that post, but simply trying to bring the matter to a close without having a relatively unimportant issue of semantics drag the thread off-topic as it has done. It’s probably worth pointing out that I have never even talked to Abadd outside of this forum, and only talked with him a very small amount here; I hardly know him well enough to consider him a friend, and even if I did I do not stick up for people when I think they’re wrong, friend or not. Regardless of who was on either side, I’d have responded in the same way… I simply tried to direct the thread back on-topic so that the thoughtful posts others were making didn’t go overlooked.
EDIT: Edited for clarity.
People should learn when to give up arguments around here.
School banned the first page of this topic, so I can’t read it yet… being using inappropriate language have we, children? 
Having said that, the system here seems to ban everything which they have found as being even slightly related to fun… 
Debating one’s point is different. But when someone tries to insult you at the same time that’s when the argument usually ensues. It seems noone
around here can simply make their point without trying to insult the poster whose opinion that they don’t agree with.
I am guilty of this as well. I mainly retorted parn because of his insult to me in another forum which obviously dragged into here.
I still think that with the new management and the extra cash lying around Sega could become a top RPG producer in the same leauge as Square. They have to anyway as we all know that RPGs is the biggest sellers in Japan.
It was inevitable that Sega would have to create more RPGs since becoming a third party to meet their profit margin.
Why do you think they are suddenly focusing on racing games in europe?
They’re the biggest sellers in this region. Although they gave away their biggest asserts in the video game sports arena they will probably create more arcade style sports games to appeal to the american gamer.
Lance:
Biggest. Post. Ever.
I know this might sound like a crazy idea to the people running the show at Sega, but why not make a game with both old and new fans in mind? Why not retain your hardcore fanbase while trying to reach out to new fans?
I can totally understand Sega abandoning unpopular genres like rail shooters in favor of moving on to greener pastures, but Strategy/RPGs have always been popular in Japan. Why not, I don’t know, try to turn them into a whole new trend outside of Japan as well?
With a solid 3D graphics engine, it could be done. Crazy I know.
I watched Interplay cancel a widely anticipated turn-based RPG in favor of making an Action/RPG all in the name of money, and now I have to watch Sega of all companies make the same stupid mistake with Shining Force Neo. Fools.
Anyway, if Sega actually developed a true Shining Force game that faithfully replicated the classic gameplay of older games while taking the series even further into the 3D realm, and if Phantasy Star Universe exceeds or even meets everyone’s expectations, then you might actually see me pointing to those games as examples of how to make great RPGs.
Until people open their eyes to the truth, most popular will always equate to the best.
Well that’s the reall issue here isn’t it?
For years now the statistics have proven that it’s a very hard to formula to come up with.If a series hasn’t formed a mainstream fanbase after 2 games it’s near impossible.Because hardcore fans will be attached to the patterns in the old games and the changes needed to please a mainstream audience in a new game are often too great to please the hardcore audience.
If PDO had provided good profit (sold well) then it would be a nice example.
I… uh… yeah.
Didn’t realize I needed “bailing out,” but I was just thanking Lance for explaining what I meant in a way that perhaps only he could.
Not entirely sure why Divine Dragon is taking this so personally, either. To each his own, I suppose.
[quote=“Geoffrey Duke”]
I know this might sound like a crazy idea to the people running the show at Sega, but why not make a game with both old and new fans in mind? Why not retain your hardcore fanbase while trying to reach out to new fans?[/quote]
That’s kinda mutually exclusive. Hardcore fans prefer different genres of games to this latest generation of gamers, who think Sonic Heroes is a decent game…
[quote=“Abadd”]I… uh… yeah.
Didn’t realize I needed “bailing out,” but I was just thanking Lance for explaining what I meant in a way that perhaps only he could.
Not entirely sure why Divine Dragon is taking this so personally, either. To each his own, I suppose.[/quote]
Was your post directed at me?Because I never implied you needed to be bailed out.
Don’t worry, Gehn… not you. Was talking about the semantics war between Lance and Divine.