A Plea For Game Devs To Aim Higher 179
A recent article written by Mike Acton of Insomniac Games challenges video game developers to broaden their ambitions and fight to get back to their rebellious roots. Quoting:
"[W]hy is it that game developers are beginning to drown in a culture of fear, or more specifically, a fear of change? Is it because the gaming world has gone too corporate and is no longer exclusive to small teams of genius misfits and creative underdogs? Is it because the demographics of game players—once made up almost exclusively of teen boys—has widened to include nearly everyone from 5-50? There are people who would deny that it’s fear of change that keeps them where they are. There are those that are content with the status quo because they believe that they have a formula 'that works' and there’s no good reason to risk a major change when they already successful with what they’re doing. ... Game developers are, at their heart, futurists and this is what they need to do now—put themselves ahead of the times so that they can surpass the stale leadership and old models that are holding them back"
Re:This Reminds of Bruce Sterling's Speech (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a bit longwinded, but indeed a very good read. I really liked this part, it gives deep insight and is still true today:
"But even that isn't enough, you know.... There's talk nowadays
in publishing circles about a new device for books, called a
ReadMan. Like a Walkman only you carry it in your hands like
this.... Has a very nice little graphics screen, theoretically,
a high-definition thing, very legible.... And you play your
books on it.... You buy the book as a floppy and you stick it
in... And just think, wow you can even have graphics with your
book... you can have music, you can have a soundtrack....
Narration.... Animated illustrations... Multimedia... it can
even be interactive.... It's the New Hollywood for Publisher's
Row, and at last books can aspire to the exalted condition of
movies and cartoons and TV and computer games.... And just think
when the ReadMan goes obsolete, all the product that was written
for it will be blessedly gone forever!!! Erased from the memory
of mankind!
Now I'm the farthest thing from a Luddite ladies and gentlemen,
but when I contemplate this particular technical marvel my
author's blood runs cold... It's really hard for books to
compete with other multisensory media, with modern electronic
media, and this is supposed to be the panacea for withering
literature, but from the marrow of my bones I say get that
fucking little sarcophagus away from me. For God's sake don't
put my books into the Thomas Edison kinetoscope. Don't put me
into the stereograph, don't write me on the wax cylinder, don't
tie my words and my thoughts to the fate of a piece of hardware,
because hardware is even more mortal than I am, and I'm a hell
of a lot more mortal than I care to be. Mortality is one good
reason why I'm writing books in the first place. For God's sake
don't make me keep pace with the hardware, because I'm not
really in the business of keeping pace, I'm really in the
business of marking place.
Okay.... Now I've sometimes heard it asked why computer game
designers are deprived of the full artistic respect they
deserve. God knows they work hard enough. They're really
talented too, and by any objective measure of intelligence they
rank in the top percentiles... I've heard it said that maybe
this problem has something to do with the size of the author's
name on the front of the game-box. Or it's lone wolves versus
teams, and somehow the proper allotment of fame gets lost in the
muddle. One factor I don't see mentioned much is the sheer lack
of stability in your medium. A modern movie-maker could probably
make a pretty good film with DW Griffith's equipment, but you
folks are dwelling in the very maelstrom of Permanent
Technological Revolution. And that's a really cool place, but
man, it's just not a good place to build monuments.
Okay. Now I live in the same world you live in, I hope I've
demonstrated that I face a lot of the same problems you face...
Believe me there are few things deader or more obsolescent than
a science fiction novel that predicts the future when the future
has passed it by."
It's not the game devs that are the problem.. (Score:3, Interesting)
..it's the publishers. Most publishers will only play it safe, sticking to established brands and themes. I'm sure there are a hell of a lot of game dev studios out there with great game ideas, but what's the point if no-one will publish it?
Playing devil's advocate, perhaps the publishers have a point. Today's game-buying community loves franchises (FIFA, Final Fantasy, Mario, Zelda), loves playing the same game over and over again (CoD) and virtually ignores great new games (Enslaved, Bayonetta).
And yet... (Score:4, Interesting)
...I find games are better than they've ever been - whether or not they're doing something new. They're more accessible, more immersive, better-written, with a more in-depth and convincing set of stories. Innovative gameplay quirks, while fun, aren't the point of video games any more. We've come a long way from "Come up with a new mechanic, write a paragraph justification in a manual, sell for $10" that was around twenty years ago.
Now, games are about telling stories or creating a world. Look at the Halo series, the Half-Life series, the Mass Effect series, the recent Modern Warfare games. You have games as a medium to tell a story now, and an interactive one at that. I vastly prefer a re-used gameplay mechanic to tell an interesting and original tale with believable characters to a beautiful mechanic with nothing to keep me interested beyond the thirty minutes of "Huh, that's cool."