Spore Dev Down On the Wii 315
An anonymous reader writes "As reported by IGN, Spore developer Chris Hecker made a very quotable statement at a traditionally contentious GDC panel. At the 'Game Publishers Rant' event Wednesday morning, Hecker stated that he thought the Wii is a piece of sh*t. He went on to refer to it as 'two GameCubes stuck together with duct tape.' He also took Nintendo to task for not taking games seriously enough. 'It's not clear to me that Nintendo gives a s*** about games as an art form.'"
Can game developers be Divas? (Score:4, Insightful)
it all depends... (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess it depends what makes a good game. Tetris was great, and didn't require complicated AI.
Nintendo doesn't support games as art? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Can game developers be Divas? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps this is an admission that Spore wont be any fun? But that will be OK because it's art and we will buy it for that.
I may be mistake, but I don't think it sucks..... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:it all depends... (Score:2, Insightful)
Unbelievable responses (Score:2, Insightful)
While Sony Home may not be the greatest thing, it is definitely a big announcement and a good step forward. Similarly, the rant against Nintendo probably arises from a disgruntled company but it is something to think about.
There is an utter lack of objectivity in gaming related discussions on Slashdot. With what I would expect the demographics here to be, it definitely surprises me. For someone like me, who is trying to decide which console to buy, these discussions are extremely frustrating for their lack of objective analysis.
It is truly sad that a good post about PS3 is tagged "fanboy" just because it is about PS3
This guy always hates everything anyways... (Score:4, Insightful)
--Chris Hecker, GDC, 2005
To paraphrase his annual edgy developer commentary:
"Game consoles aren't designed exclusively around my own personal favorite part of game design at this point in time."
This is notable? This is news? 95% of game developers probably feel this way. User interface people adore the Wii for exactly the same reasons next-gen artists and AI/physics programmers are frustrated by it. Parents adore the Wii's price for the same reason that high-end next-gen developers abhor it (because big honkin processors, it turns out, are not particularly cheap).
The real problem with his claim is the idea that serious and/or artistic games need massively powerful AI or physics routines in order to affect players. I do not agree that powerful technology is the only key to making an artistic game, or a game that has an emotionally powerful effect on people, or a fascinating narrative. Art direction and writing and getting rid of the publisher committee-approval ideology is a lot more important than neural networks. I am sure that there are certain types of artistic games that will become more prevalent as computing power increases, but to pigeonhole artistic games as games that have really good AI...isn't that just a little self-centered?
What is art? (Score:5, Insightful)
When one speaks of art, they speak of aesthetics. What he argues is that function possesses the highest form of aesthetics. This is an extremely shaky ground for argument. One could easily weigh other factors of a game in with beauty... graphics, challenge, and enjoyment seem to be the pervasive accounts of beauty in gaming. Let's focus on these three and see if we can try to understand why Nintendo chose to focus on enjoyable rather than pretty and smarter games.
Graphics: Since the PS1, graphics seems to be the focus of most games. Higher texture density, more polygons, faster processing. These were what made a game "good" for a very very very long time. And while game sales were still increasing, more and more gamers were complaining that games seemed too much like their predecesors. Racing games were prettier, but they were still racing games. Fighting games had more characters with greater detail, but they were still fighting games. Sandbox games like GTA were getting sharper graphics and interfaces, but they were still GTA. Gamers were catching on that the industry is merely eating glitter to make the same old crap sparkle more.
Smarter: With the same old games comes the same old play. The only way to improve this is through design changes, which serves for temporary "newness" but quickly becomes associative in a near one-to-one nature from previous games in the genre. Final Fantasy games, for example, had a completely different play style from game to game, but functioned on the same basic prinicples as the last game (until 12). Fighting games may have different dynamics of button mashing and combo systems, but they were still button mashers. And racing games? Pfft. So in lieu of breaking the mold and trying to make games that challenge the mind in new ways, developers
Enjoyability: Remember the first time you played a side fighter? Remember the first time you played a virtual fighter? Remember the first time you played an RPG? Remember the first time you played GTA? Wow, wasn't that fun? And so much so, it's had many gamers chasing the carrot on the stick for the companies that put out those games ever since. Remember the first time you played a 3D game with an analog stick? Do you remember all the other games you played using the same analog stick? That was enjoyment you got out of EVERY SINGLE GAME from a simple interface change. Nintendo has been the pioneer in that market since the Super Nintendo (and arguably sooner). Sure, they made a lot of sacrifices to graphics and processing power. But let's face it, the Wii is enjoyable. They chose a different definition of "art". To Nintendo, making games a social experience, making them widely available, and making them "fun" was what "art" is. To Nintendo, their system is THE system to progress video games as an "art form".
To say that Nintendo does not do for gaming as an art form as much as the other two major systems does is rather blind, I think. No other company has been as influential on the other two systems as Nintendo. Top buttons on the d-pad? Sony used it. Trigger buttons? XBox. Analog sticks? Sony and XBox. Force feedback through controller rumble? Sony took it again.. this time illegally. And now, full motion sensing capabilities... SONY TRIED TO COPY IT. So my question to this man would be,
He misses a few points (Score:5, Insightful)
First off, I have to question Chris Heckers developer quality, since he's one of the I need more power because I can't get my stuff run fast enough people. Quite often the issue is that the resources at hand aren't used optimal, either because the tools at hand lack the quality or the developers lack the quality. For example, I'm really impressed with Final Fantasy XII: the developers managed to squeeze quite nice graphics out of the total of just 36MB RAM they have at hand, especially the level of detail implementation is really good. Overall, the PlayStation 2 is a very good example at how developers had to learn to use the resources they have available: the first generation PS2 titles looked awful compared to the games that hit the market in the last few months. And I also remember playing around with graphics programming on my 80386. I never managed to have it do smooth animations, let alone smooth scrolling. Yet others proved that the hardware was not the problem (e.g. Doom), so the problem wasn't that the machine wasn't fast enough, the problem was that I didn't understand to use the resources adequately.
Also, the guy completely ignores Nintendo's situation: unlike MicroSoft and Sony, they don't have money to burn. They have to make a profit off their consoles from day one since that's all they do. They don't have other businesses with which they can make money (apart from licensing, of course). So they can't subsidize their consoles like MicroSoft and Sony do (they sell their consoles for less than their production costs).
This and other issues led Nintendo to conclude that they can't compete with this generation of consoles from MicroSoft and Sony. So if you can't play in the same market as the other guys you have to find another market, and that's just what Nintendo did, and successfully so. They managed to attract people to the Wii who wouldn't play console games otherwise. I know two couples who never had a console but found the Wii to be fun and bought it. They are both in their mid-/end-twenties and only now entered console gaming through the Wii and simply don't care about the PS3 or XBox360 since they don't appeal to them. Chris Hecker simply doesn't recognize that Nintendo is targeting a completely different audience than both MicroSoft and Sony.
Re:News At 11, Industry Insider Hates Nonconformis (Score:5, Insightful)
He's just putting his foot down now before all the Wii is first party games and movie licenses. Toss in a DS and PS2 port ever so often. I think he's already too late for that personally. All Wii users seem to want is more Wii sports and mini games, and he's actually standing up and saying that's not good enough for Spore.
Game Art? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:News At 11, Industry Insider Hates Nonconformis (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft and Sony talk about "games as art" on their websites.
Nintendo doesn't, but makes the most "art" type games of the three.
Apparently Hecker equates "art" to "high budget productions". Is a movie like "Pi" any less art then "American Pie" because it didn't have "next gen" recording equipment?
Besides; ever since slamdance(?) pulled the Columbine game, it seems the public isn't ready to accept games as an artform yet.
Fake controversy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:News At 11, Industry Insider Hates Nonconformis (Score:3, Insightful)
> something really different and new?
Yes. And so does everyone else. The sales of Mario rehashes, Virtual Console style stuff on Wii and XBox is through the roof - much higher than any expectation. Nintendo release old SNES and NES games for the DS. They released the old Mario games on a single cart for the SNES and even bundled the console with it (I miss Mario Allstars more than you can imagine)
Sony do the same thing with myriad rehashes of Crash, Spyro, Gran Turismo (same game, same cars, SHINIER SPECULAR HIGHLIGHTS, same lawnmower engines, MORE LEAVES ON THE TREES).
Modern games are only an artform if you think accurately modelling the wind on the leaves individually makes your car go any faster round the track.
Re:News At 11, Industry Insider Hates Nonconformis (Score:5, Insightful)
As an owner of pretty much all of Nintendo's consoles, I'm not sure what the hell you're talking about. Are you telling me that Twilight Princess is the same game as A Link to the Past? Or that Super Mario Sunshine is the same game as Super Mario World?
Or are you implying that there are no artistic, fresh games on the DS? Kind of... absurd. The Wii will go the path of the DS: Some movie licenses, sure, but also a ton of innovative games you simply can't get on any other console.
Seriously, if anyone can be accused of constantly rehashing old ideas, it's certainly not Nintendo. Ever looked at the games available for Xbox, Xbox 360, PS2 or PS3? Frankly, I feel like I'm living in some kind of bizarro alternate universe.
You reap what you sow (Score:5, Insightful)
You get what you sow. Sony used to be great, but they have constantly fucked with their customers for a few years now. Nintendo used to censor their games and be generally jackasses, but in recent years, they've put out great, fresh hardware and fun, innovative software, and they've shown that they've changed for the better.
People are annoyed at Sony, and they are happy with Nintendo.
So we have a so-so new product announcement from Sony, basically copying Miis, Achievements, Second Life, and adding an unhealthy dose of Micropayments. Big suprise, people don't fall for it.
Then, we have some developer basically explaining that the Wii is shit. Big surprise, people don't agree.
Both companies get what they deserve right now. So, what's your point?
Re:Can game developers be Divas? (Score:3, Insightful)
I will bet that Spore does end up making it to the Wii. Let us not forget what Chris Hecker said now when that happens.
This is funny, fanboy's in trouble (Score:3, Insightful)
You got some amazing posts today, including some kid who thinks The Sims was Maxis first big hit. HA!
This guy is a pro and works for a company that has been making fun games when SERIOUS power was 8mhz.
However since that day two things have happened. We have got more and mhz on our cpu's which at times seems to be only used to update the graphics. It is of no doubt that the Wii in this department cannot compete, pure polygon/texture/fps count it is going to loose to the 360/PS3 and ALL consoles will SUCK donkyballs increasingly so compared to the PC.
BUT that is not what this guy is talking about. He is complaining about lack of power to power NOT the graphics but the game itself. The AI.
AI is often ignored by gamers, we note it when it is bad but in most reviews a decent AI will take second place in importance to the graphics. I have no idea way I mean sure the human race has developed above such supervisial OOOH SHINY!
Eh where was I?
However in the background the AI code has been getting a share of the increased processing power and it shows. Today's AI in games is still nothing to worry any real human but if you ever make the mistake of playing a game from the dark ages you can see just how moronic the old ai's were that had to run on ancient hardware.
This guys complaint is that the Wii with it's simpler hardware just doesn't deliver enough oomph to power the AI in games.
First off, this guy works for Maxis, a game company that has NEVER produced a single OOOOH SHINY game. In fact all their games heavily depend on AI. This has been a problem for them before, their games never looked as spiffy as say your average FPS but offcourse the AI in them was still making your computer sweat. If you ever designed your own FPS level with AI monsters you know how fucking difficult it is to get them to walk straight down a corridor EVEN with massive pre-proccessing. In the sims you got easily a dozen AI all finding their way around a constanstly changing enviroment. While you maybe only seeing the effect of all your girls queing up for the same toilet and peeing themselves (Mmm, there might be a reality show in that) the fact that they even can do that requires a lot of code to be run.
There is a reason the full sims never appeared on the consoles, they just can't do it. (Try them if you don't believe them, the console versions are extremely reduced in capability compard to the PC versions)
Spore, if it delivers what it promises, is going to be much the same. For it to work there must be some serious number crunching going on in the background, yet ALL people see is the graphics.
Maxis can't produce a game that don't look the part. The graphics must pass a certain level or people just won't buy it. I am sure there is a market for a game with amazing ai and 8bit graphics BUT sadly maxis is to much into making a profit to explore that segment. Shame on them.
His claim is then that if a game is going to have passable graphics the Wii doesn't have enough horsepower left to power the AI. It is something PC owners have ALWAYS known. In some games you can alter your settings INCLUDING the ai difficulty level, lower it and performance improves. It is even simpler in the modding scene, lots of user made content mentions that you need a higher specced rig for their content then the original game simply because they upped the number of AI's in the game.
An old example is transport tycoon. A train game from I think the 386 days. If in those days you had more then a 50 or so trains in the game it would start to grind to a halt as the CPU simply couldn't cope. Nowadays a hacked version of the game happily runs with hundreds of trains of any length using the increased horsepower NOT just for graphics (increased resolution) but to run the AI for all those extra objects.
If you take the same game and try to port it fairly to all the gaming machines out there then the Wii is going to have to be the one with the smaller levels (less memory) fewe
RTFC (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:it all depends... (Score:2, Insightful)
This guy should pull his head out of his arse. Serious artistic medium is all fine and dandy, but people get games to have fun playing them, not to sit back and appreciate the aesthetics of the artform, or the complexity of the AI. That's what developers do, not players. Nintendo understands this difference, while MS and Sony take the highbrow road to their detriment. His game isn't headed for the Louvre, it's headed to someone who wants entertainment and enjoyment. The Wii caters for players in this regard perfectly.
Console fanboyism brings out kneejerk reactions (Score:4, Insightful)
For those who take a slightly more settled approach to life, it's easy enough to look at the title of the session. It's the Game Publishers Rant. This isn't supposed to be about rational discussion - it's throwing out exaggerated bile-fuelled versions of reality for the sake of engendering discussion. Look at the previous rants from the Game Developers Rants sessions in the last couple of years. The games industry is dead. Too many people whine about games not being innovative enough. Sony and Microsoft are going to screw your game design. Gaming has degenerated into a procession of Hot Babes - Sexy babes! Lesbian babes! Killer babes!
Do you think all of those things were intended as true statements? Of course not. Taking these rants as a genuine representation of the opinions of these developers/publishers is like assuming [url=http://maddox.xmission.com/]Maddox[/url] is an in-depth social commentator putting forward a model for how we can change life for the better. Take a chill pill, remove that radish from its current uncomfortable location, ignore the agenda-laden reporting from certain sites and enjoy the rant for what it is.
Re:News At 11, Industry Insider Hates Nonconformis (Score:3, Insightful)
Nintendo is hardly the only developer with rehashes.
And besides, sales of the DS are um, a bit higher than that of the PSP.
If Nintendo decided the DS2 [or whatever] would basically be the DS + faster cpu + more ram and say motion sensors
Tom
Hecker is not a developer. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think Hecker is even a Jr. Developer or anything of the sort of the actual game though. He's just another indie hack who wants to think games are some art form (as if we need that particular elitist disease in video gaming).
He's got a bit of a reputation as a ranter about this sort of thing. It's no surprise he'd take this sort of position because Nintendo's mantra of "just make it fun!" is pretty much directly opposed to the idea of games as an art. It's kind of amusing he works for Will Wright though considering Will is probably the most likely dev in the industry to throw art out the window and worry about fun factor first.
Narrow definition of art (Score:5, Insightful)
You're saying that for an author to produce art it has to be a novel or epic-poem, for a painter to produce art it has to be a grand mural, or for a composer to produce art he has to produce an opera.
A haiku can be art, graffiti can be art, and a pop-song can be art
Sometimes the most important way to define art is that it changes the medium after it has been produced
Whether some people would like to admit it or not, Wii Sports could be seen as art because it was produced by the artists frustration with complicated control mechanics and massive budgets; and the industry will never be the same for having experienced it.
Re:News At 11, Industry Insider Hates Nonconformis (Score:4, Insightful)
All Sony really has to do is use the real time weapon swap to flip the DS and the Wii and hit the weak point for massive damage. I think maybe Sony's brother spilled coke on the controller so it's L and R buttons aren't working.
Re:News At 11, Industry Insider Hates Nonconformis (Score:3, Insightful)
Movies aren't art because of the type of special effects it has.
Literature isn't art because of the font and page layout.
So why should games' artistic value be judged by their visuals? If anything can make a game art, it's the gameplay.
Re:Unbelievable responses (Score:5, Insightful)
Guitar hero is totally awesome, but as far as I know, it's on its way to other platforms. I haven't heard about Buzz. If Sony really wants into the casual market that Nintendo is after, they need to chop about 60-70% off of their console price. Of course, that's not really feasible for them in any sane economic sense right now. Sony may really have understood what "people" are after, but if that's the case, it's a new revelation for them. And sadly they've painted themselves into a corner by designing a console less for the generic "people", and more for the "hardcore gamer".
That was their decision to make, and there's plenty of money to be had in that market. The occasional frothing Nintendo fanboy aside, most of the generic people who have been having fun with the Wii are perfectly happy to let the powergamers quietly play whatever they want. It's too bad the "hardcore" crowd can't show us the same curtesy, instead feeling the need to constantly remind us that they think we're playing with a gimmick, and all of our fun is going to suddenly dissappear one day.
Re:News At 11, Industry Insider Hates Nonconformis (Score:1, Insightful)
Perhaps... (Score:3, Insightful)
Duh?
And yes, products can be developed that will run on both, but the compromises required to make it a 'console-able' game are immediately obvious on any PC - look at Oblivion. The most popular (and one of the quickest-released) mods take advantage of the better resolution of a monitor to immediately make the bag/inventory system 100% more useable, with more data displayed, clearer/smaller text, etc.
So when he says "the WII is crap" what he's really saying is that "we're pissed that they optimized this for something other than controlling our game, because we're having to make ridiculous, possibly fatal compromises to try to sell into that market".
Is this a shock to anyone who's played a RTS on a PC and then on a console? No mouse = serious suckage. Spore = RTS strategy = (WII+no mouse) = suckage.* Brilliant insight, dude.
* yes, I know the WII has the point-click thing going, but watching people play at length, first their click targets are HUGE because it doesn't have nearly the precision of a mouse, the response-time of a mouse, nor (apparently) the sample rate of a mouse. WII controller is only a feeble mouse-emulation at best.
Re:News At 11, Industry Insider Hates Nonconformis (Score:1, Insightful)
I've heard Wii fans time and time again touting the fun they've experience when playing the Wii and pointing out that's a key difference between the Wii and other platforms. Awesome. Fun is great, and I'm glad you like it, but in and of itself, that's not art. In fact, if you restrict yourself to fun, you place real limits on the types of art you can express. If you do it with a visually restrictive medium, you place limits on the quality of art you can express.
Art is notoriously difficult to define, and a couple of it's components can certainly be minimalism and fun, but I like to think of this argument as more of a "what canvas do you use" kind of an argument. You can create art with a notebook page and a #2 pencil, but many artists choose to use large canvases and paints because they believe they have a greater range of color and beauty to work with . You can create art with an old 110 camera, but many artists choose to use large format cameras because they believe they have a greater visual quality for their artistic expression.
They Wii expanded the potential for art in one direction, the controller, but they severely restricted it in another, the visuals. They went on to release a bunch of games that rate high on the fun scale, but quite low on the art scale, such as the copy of Wii Sports included in every box. Mario Galaxies is one of the first games I've seen on the Wii from Nintendo itself that I think has the potential to go in the art direction without needing more power to express that art. Zelda, on the other hand, had the potential to be much better had it had a state of the art graphics engine to work with. It was artificually limited by the hardware. It was, relatively speaking, working with pencil and paper when the artistic vision was crying out for canvas and paint.
When you say the Wii is fun and you want fun, then you're comparing oranges to the article's apples. He's right, the Wii is restricted in it's potential for art creation and Nintendo has more or less stated that they don't really care about that. Much like quite a lot of TV, the fans are saying that's ok with them, as art wasn't really what they're looking for. More power to you, but some of us want to have more emphasis on the equivilent of "Apocalypse Now" instead of the equivilent of "Teletubies". Though it's possible to get the former on the big screen, it's impossible to truly feel the power of the former without a theater (or an awesome home theater). The author wants this potential, and I'm pretty darn happy that he's demanding it.
Re:it all depends... (Score:3, Insightful)
The DS and the Wii.
I tout the Wii not because I stopped playing games years ago, but because the message it sends is necessary to the industry for survival. It's the same reason I laud the DS. The industry was suffering from internal hemmorhaging, losing gamers yearly. Most causal players had been shed, and the hardcore were even beginning to be shed (see the incredible decline in Japan prior to the DS). The Wii and the DS are harbingers of the message that our previous notion of what the game industry should be is wrong. It was a self-destructive idea, an iterative process that ostracized all but the top eschelons of the 1337.
Nintendo could have produced a more powerful system, and there is definitely a place for such systems in the industry. However, these systems are the Ferraris of the industry. They are undeniably powerful, but they are also the least necessary. There is a market for them, and it is a good market, but it is not the majority market. Like it or not, far more revenue is made on cheaper cars. The games industry was attempting to sell nothing but "Ferraris" such as the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360. This left the vast majority of potential untapped, as most people aren't obsessed with games enough to spend that kind of money.
I think this is a message that frightens some of the hardcore crowd, and possible the developer in this article. For a long time now games have been a semi-elite club, and systems like the Wii appear to be inviting all the losers to the party. The reality is, just as Ferrari doesn't go out of business simply because the Toyota Corolla is cheaper, hardcore gamers will not lose their part of the market simply because it expands.
The only point which I will agree with you one is that people do forget that Nintendo is a company, and companies want to make money. They aren't some non-profit saviour organization aimed at purifying the market. However, as far as anyone can tell they make money by trying to give gamers what they want rather than tell them what they want.
I have a degree, a real job, and I'm a couple thousand miles from my parents. I'm well classified as a hardcore gamer, I own a 46" HDTV, a brand new car, an Xbox 360, a Wii, a PS2, a DS, a nice PC, and live in a comfortably sized apartment by myself.
Lastly, "Mature" is possibly the most loaded term that can be brought into a discussion of video games.
Pathfinding? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:News At 11, Industry Insider Hates Nonconformis (Score:3, Insightful)
With all due respect, I picked up a DS < 2 weeks ago and I'm currently addicted to Final Fantasy III. My fiancee and I have logged more hours on the Wii playing Super Mario Bros., Super Mario World, The Legend of Zelda, Columns, Donkey Kong Country, and Zelda:Links Awakening than we have playing Wii Sports, Zelda:Twilight Princess, Red Steel, Dragon Ball Z, Rayman, and Marvel Alliance.
So, do we really want to play those games? Yes, yes we do. And I've been emulating games on my PC since 2000 (since I could play some of my arcade favorites that never translated to consoles very well or at all). I STILL buy VC games when I can get (or have) them on the PC for free. Playing these games on the PC just isn't as fun, or I'd rather be playing WoW than Mario on my PC. The Wii is for family, party, and retro gaming for me mostly and it's priced right for it.
Does that mean I don't want to see good new games? Of course not. I'm still looking to play Trauma Center, Excite Truck, and Elebites. I look forward to Mario Party 8 as it's a simple game I can play with my family. I look forward to Metroid as well. Other than that, I'm just biding my time for some real killer 3rd party titles that will probably start popping up in a year or 2, since the Wii is getting super market penetration and developers won't ignore that, despite being 'two gamecubes taped together'.
Of course, it seems that Chris Hecker's idea of 'art' is the latest photo-realistic graphics. Less he forget, that Nintendo had some very good 'artistic' attempts at games. Heck, they had a game called "Mario Paint" where you could be your own artist. *chuckle* but seriously, the Wind Walker was one of Nintendos attempts at focusing on artistic design into a game and it was criticized by so many who think along the same lines that 'art' = 'photo-realistic'. I guess not to many people visit the art museums. Lets just say, there's a lot of interpretive paintings hanging on the walls, not just photographs.
Allow me to point out your earlier comment...
First, why would Mr. Hecker care what other people are releasing on the system in relation to how it would effect the release of Spore? It's arguing that "Hey, someone made a crappy game on the Wii so my game is now incapable of being played on the Wii". Which, of course, isn't logical. And why would Mr. Hecker care what 'all Wii users want' when he's suppose to be addressing game *Developers and convincing them to design 'outside the box'?
Mr. Hecker is simply bitter. He's crying about customers buying habits and he's blaming it on Nintendo and developers. Why? Probably because he's mad that Nintendo decided to not go down the 'more power is better' route and that the consumers liked this and responded with their dollars. Probably because they cannot have Spore do what they want it to do on the Wii and the Wii is the hottest system at the moment. This means that Spore will either have to 'slimmed down' to fit on the Wii structure to tap that huge and increasing market or they don't release it on the Wii and lose all those potential sales.
Guess what? Developers make games for a system. Companies don't make a system for a developer. If your game idea won't fit on the most popular system then you're out of luck. If you're game is so good, make it as you want it, on the system that can support it, and it will sell that system (think GoldenEye). When all else fails... there's always the PC. =)
Cheers,
Fozzy
He's right.* (Score:4, Insightful)
However, from the perspective of a developer who is doing cross-platform development for PC, Xbox360, PS3, and Wii
That's why I think Nintendo made a mistake with the Wii, why I agree with Chris Hecker about the anemic Wii specs, and why I hope for a shorter-than-average life-cycle for the Wii with the imminent release of a Next Gen Wii that offers the best of BOTH worlds in terms of graphics zazz and gameplay spazz, hopefully sometime in the next three years.
Art? (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't blame the hardware (Score:3, Insightful)
With all due respect, this is bullshit. Don't blame the hardware if you aren't a good enough programmer to make it work. This is the problem with today's developers. They expect computers to get faster and faster and need more and more memory because they're too lazy or not resourceful or creative enough to write efficient code.
One of the reasons why most games suck nowadays and are so boring is because of this very issue. Developers rely too much on hardware, faster graphics and better texture mapping in lieu of actual creative game design. Stop blaming the hardware because you have no creativity and can't program your way out of a paper bag!
Art form? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Can game developers be Divas? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's funny that a game developer sees really awesome graphics as mandatory and fun as optional. It kind of reminds me of a lot of game review sites that will give a game a high rating just because it looks pretty and has shiney bits.
I've seen this way too many times to count:
"Although the controls are sluggish and unintuitive and the game play is repetitive and tedious, the graphics really well done....9 out of 10."
Re:Nintendo doesn't care about games? (Score:3, Insightful)
he is simply an artist working on a masterpiece and wants a bigger canvas to work on. nothing new here. this is the exact same argument people complain about every generation: "the ps2 doesnt have enough ram", "the NES only supports x amount of colors at once", "this gamecube's disc size is too small". developers need resources. you arent going to make developers happy by limiting what they are capable of creating.
as for nintendo game sales... lets say you have 20 million consoles available, but you only release two games a year. as long as every consumer buys one game a year, you have one game thats guaranteed to be at least a 10 million seller.
in reality, you are dealing with consumers that buy ~4-10 games a year. if there are only 50 or so games available, you get some tremendous overlap and high sales, because of the lack of options.
right now wii releases have been throttled [whether deliberatly or not, i dunno] so whats happening? vc sales are skyrocketing. nintendo is making nearly [guesstimation here] 80% profit off of virtual console sales. they are selling to a captive audience. 5 million wii owners dont have anything new to buy, so why not push them to buy virtual games that are basically instant profit for nintendo? its crappy that consumers get the short end of the stick and less options, but either way... its good business.