Crawford Lambasts Overly Technical Approach To Games 95
Thanks to the IGDA for its Chris Crawford-authored 'Ivory Tower' column discussing the gap between science and the arts in videogame creation. Crawford, ever belligerent, argues: "Let's face it, the world of game design is dominated by science/engineering people; people from the arts and humanities play a secondary role... the result: a vast wasteland of cold, heartless games, technological works of genius deficient in redeeming social value." He goes on to suggest: "We need educational programs that expose students to equal amounts of technology and art. They should learn to program even as they study Michelangelo, rhetoric and recursion, algorithms and architecture." Do you think this would lead to better, more innovative, socially aware videogames?
And the answer is... (Score:1, Troll)
No.
Socially aware? Please. Look, it's important to be a renaissance man/woman and experience life broadly. But games are games.
Re:And the answer is... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:And the answer is... (Score:4, Interesting)
if Peter Jackson set out to do LOTR without first knowing the books inside and out, would it have done as well? if the Wachowski Brothers didn't have an interest in such a wide variety of different forms of Storytelling and Visual effect, do you really think the Matrix would have been as big?
now to Translate that over to the Current Generation of Games. if the Makers of Gran Turismo didn't know cars inside and out, would GT have been the Racing game of choice for both Hardcore and Mainstream Racing Gamers? or, if Square-enix didn't take the time to make sure their storylines not only touched the mind of the Gamer, but the Heart as well, would any FF games do well?
nowadays, Being a renaissance man/woman should not only be Recommended, it should damn near be Required of anyone that even considers having a part in Developing a Game, otherwise everything becomes Generic, Corvettes start handling like GT40s, all main Characters become the same, Game scripts become re-writes of Hollywood Movies, and the industry creates Heartless and uninspired games that re-hash the same thing over and over to the point where its even more common than it is now
as a Programmer thats trying to get into the Game Dev Industry, i make for Damn sure that i do as many different things as i can, Programming is my Specialty, but that doesn't mean i should render something in 3D Max from time to Time, it doesn't stop me from Playing the Guitar, and it damn well shouldn't stop me from going to the Bar and enjoying the night-life of my Hometown.
as far as Socially aware, more MMORPG Developers would do some good by actually being a part of their City's nightlife and finding out how people interact without a Keyboard in front of them. discover the importance of Hand Gestures and Body Contact, inspiration can strike in the most unusual of places, but 9/10- times, its the most Logical place to find that inspiration
Tech Demos masquerading as games. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Tech Demos masquerading as games. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Tech Demos masquerading as games. (Score:3, Interesting)
So what he wants is.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not everyone can come close to being able to focus on that many areas - the literary/artistic education people are given in this country (at least) is laughable, and there are people who want to add onto all of this?
Why not just get more people who have the artistic skills and prowess more involved in the game making process? Why do companies let engineers write game plots? As I see it, the reason there isn't more redeeming social value in gaming is because no one involved in the creative side of game development seems to be good enough to tie it in.
It's a bit silly to try making everyone into an artist/writer/director as well as a mathematician/engineer/programmer; most people's minds just don't deal that well with one area or the other (right brain/left brain dominance I suppose).
I'll be graduating in a couple of years with a degree in English, and hope to make a name for myself through writing, but the last thing on my mind is getting a job writing video game stories or working on development. I'd love the chance to do that kind of work, but it's nothing I've heard of happening lately.
Re:So what he wants is.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:So what he wants is.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Any hope of gainful employment, more or less. I'd be ecstatic to be working in the game industry on that level. I don't know that I'd be satisfied doing that alone my whole life (depending on how much I felt I was able to say while writing games), but coming out of college or even during grad sch
Re:So what he wants is.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:So what he wants is.... (Score:1)
Not quite (Score:4, Insightful)
Many of the bigger names in the industry 'are' technical, but they're also artistic, and they mainly hail from the days where only 2 people may be working on a game, forcing programming and artistic expression into one condensed job. However, these people are the exception, and the majority of people who influence the content of video games at this point have little to no technical knowledge of the games they're creating.
The author makes a good point, and more artistic creativity wouldn't hurt the creation of games. I'm just not sure he targeted the problem correctly.
Re:Not quite (Score:5, Informative)
Chris Crawford is one of the bigger names in the industry. He wrote The Art of Computer Game Design, a seminal book on game design, in 1982, and founded the GDC in 1987.
As far as I know, his main beef is not with proven game designers like Warren Spector and Will Wright, but with the gamedev company-sponsored university classes that teach 'game design' as a mix of computer graphics and software engineering and nothing else, and the fact that that world is so completely separated from the guys talking about 'embodied virtual experiences' and 'hypertext narrative' in the English and Film Studies departments across campus.
Re:Not quite (Score:1)
(That was sarchasm)
Re:Not quite (Score:2)
While the liberal arts clowns were having embodied virtual experiences with all the hot chicks, the engineers were forced to read hypertext narrative in between cramming sessions to get off.
Re:Chris is washed up (Score:2)
Sure many general and high-level rules still apply, but games of today hardly compare to the "trinkets" of the 80's.
The basics of game design are centuries old.
What h
Re:Not quite (Score:1)
-1 Flamebait, -1 Troll. (Score:3, Insightful)
On the flip-side, in a large team there needs to be people who specialise so that the hard tasks can be done.
Communication is an issue in any large team and it's not due to some abitrary divide. In any industry, not just the games industry, anyone who isn't interested in learning a little bit about everything that goes on in their company will always be a problem, from the IT officer that never learns how the marketing deparment works, to the engineer that doesn't know how to budget, to the project manager that doesn't understand how hard it is to workout how long it will take to do something that's never been done before.
The most telling part of the article is below:
What a graphic demonstration of how wrong the author is.Re:-1 Flamebait, -1 Troll. (Score:3, Informative)
Sure. But there are plenty of un-creative, overly technically obsessed, keeping-up-with-the-chipset-joneses-driven game 'designers' out there as well, pumping out boring dreck with their warezed 3DSMax installs, re-used Half Life engines, and 'games == war' mindset.
It wouldn't hurt to have a little more Shakespeare or Chancer in this Modern Literary Front
Re:-1 Flamebait, -1 Troll. (Score:2)
Do you really think they'd be doing this if it wasn't want the company wanted? Are you saying that games design houses are filled top to bottom with programmers like this? Managers, directors, producers and plenty of other non-technical people obviousl
Re:-1 Flamebait, -1 Troll. (Score:1)
Who cares what the fucking company wants, what do the literate, art-appreciating, educated and non-culturally-ignorant game players want? Do we really need more run-around-and-shoot-things, Rat In a Cage style 'level designers' pumping out what only amounts to "Pretty Trap^H^H^H^HWaste of Time" style products?
Yes, in fact, most game companies I've had personal experience with (a few, some quite well known) have been creatively
Re:-1 Flamebait, -1 Troll. (Score:2)
Was the "creatively sapping environment" at Game Systems Robots caused by the coders refusing to program anything new, or the management refusing to bankroll anything that wasn't a sequel?
Re:-1 Flamebait, -1 Troll. (Score:3, Interesting)
I wouldn't say there isn't a divide, but I do concur with you that there is an "Art" to programming, and many/most programmers do instinctively have a creative impulse (except for those COBOL guys, that is...)
But in the gaming industry, in general (and this may just be one of those arguments nobody wins because everyone is using generalities) there is a definite technological-obsession factor that appears to be detracting from true
Re:-1 Flamebait, -1 Troll. (Score:2)
Yep.
Are you saying that games design houses are filled top to bottom with programmers like this?
Yep.
Managers, directors, producers and plenty of other non-technical people obviously agree that this is the way to go -- or worse, they encourage/enforce it.
Because they refuse, and further, actively avoid discussing the problem. They refuse to believe that, yes, there are, in fact, people in the world who do not know how to
Re:-1 Flamebait, -1 Troll. (Score:2)
Most designers in the game industry get there by working up a highly technical ladder. While you're leaning all that higher math, linear algebra, programming languages and techniques, data structures, etc., you're not learning about decent storytelling, the pantheon of literary great
Re:-1 Flamebait, -1 Troll. (Score:2)
They won't. Writers would write something new, which the game industry will not develop in favor of a sequel or clone.
P.S. You'd better believe Crawford knows his stuff.
Hear hear.
Quite opposite. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Quite opposite. (Score:1)
I think all games are works of art, and I don't think Crawford is saying otherwise.
Its just that, as works of art, most games pay no attention to the fact that they are a piece of art, and consequently the artistic value of such gargantuan projects is spent, pretty fast.
Averall there is a lot of art/music in the games, and some of that is not of bad quality.
Well, you know, lets not get into debates on the issue of the subjectivity of 'quality'
I disagree! (Score:4, Interesting)
If anything, we need designers that have more technical skills so they are more able to put their creative skills to better use.
self indulgent tripe (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure, some of those people should know a thing or two about the world in general, and maybe have some culture. However, all those plays on Broadway would be nothing without the sound and lighting crews. everyone has their own job to do, and some are more technical than others.
Perhaps game studios should be like movie studios, buying scripts and having a director shape it into a playable and fun game. but the mos
Listen to the Grand Old Man (tm) (Score:4, Interesting)
I totally agree with him that there is still an unpleasant divide between the academics and the engineers. It's great that people are starting to take games more seriously and I still believe that the current trend will result in a much more mature (in the intellectual sense, not the Playboy-Sims game sense) industry.
However, here is where I disagree with Crawford - I don't think the video game industry will emerge from its 'puberty' once interactive storytelling takes off and the humanities people are finally able to add their 'emotion' into games, but I think it'll happen once academics master the formal elements of games, build theories from the ground up and recognize things computers are inherently good at, like real-time distributed communication and number crunching for complex systems.
After that, all that's left to be done is to create a thriving indy scene and bring game development to the masses, raise public opinion and awareness of games as a medium by creating them for their artistic merit as opposed to their marketability and popularity, and finally, acknowledge the enormous educational potential of games and wholeheartedly integrate the study and play of games into our educational institutions all the way from elementary schools to university departments.
Idiot. (Score:3, Interesting)
Good. Game designers who can't at least begin to understand the technical aspects have no place in game development. The best game designers understand why a programming team can't implement a solution in a particular way due to the underlying complexity. The simpler the design, the better it folds and fits onto the hardware. Designers who simply sit around spouting unimplementable nonsense are eventually going to get punched in the face by the developers who have to actually build the game.
Put it another way: Do you want your car's engine and steering to be designed by an automotive concept artist (the guy who does the first outer rough sketch?) - or a competent engineering team who understand technical problems?
Another point: The consumers of games aren't exactly fine art afficionados. They've got to have a technical bent in the first place if they are going to own a machine capable of playing games. Science / engineering folk tend to know what other science / engineering folk like best.
people from the arts and humanities play a secondary role... the result: a vast wasteland of cold, heartless games, technological works of genius deficient in redeeming social value." He goes on to suggest
The stereotypical "chick flick" hasn't had much of a draw among young 15-26 year old male gamers. I'm not sure warm, lighthearted, socially redeeming fluff games would sell to anybody. "Feel good" movies are forgotten 2 minutes after exiting the theatre - and somebody forgets they've played such a game, what, really, was the point?
We need educational programs that expose students to equal amounts of technology and art. They should learn to program even as they study Michelangelo, rhetoric and recursion, algorithms and archite...
WOAH! Hold on a second there - I'm not sure if you've ever worked on a modern game development team (sorry, things have come a long way since 1979) - but there's a certain specialization of the roles. Unless you're an indie developer and with a team of more than about 4 people, artists produce assets - and generally don't code. Programmers produce code - and generally don't make art. Larger teams even have specialised designers - the "lead designer" will be in charge of the entire game's direction. The best designers are a cross between empowered gameplay testers and someone who knows the level design tools.
Unless somebody is set on making their own little games in their spare time, heeding your advice and learning art alongside programming is a good way to dilute talent and torpedo someone's game development career before it's even started.
Re: Game Consumers (Score:2, Interesting)
That's bunk. The first part of your point because people needn't be 'fine art aficionados' just to be positively effected by art in the same way non-art aficionados can appreciate a fine novel, poem, painting or play. If you thin
Re:Idiot. (Score:1)
That's only true if you define 'technical bent' pretty damn loosely. Last time I checked you didn't need a PhD to plug your playsation in...
Fact is, enjoying games has nothing to do with understanding the technology behind them. Ever seen an 8 year old play Super Monkey Ball? Is he or she likely to understand what a vertex shader is? No. But they still manage to have fun trying to get a monk
Re:Idiot. (Score:2)
A sequel to a clone of an ancient arcade game.
This makes the point better than anything else: there are no game designers, and if there were, most publishers wouldn't allow them to actually design anything.
Re:Idiot. (Score:2)
There's a difference between being able to "at least begin to understand the technical aspects" and being able to build a 3D engine. Lots of modders just know how to create levels, and can do it well, even if they can't implement the editor.
The best game designers understand why a programming team can't implement a solution in a particular way due to the underlying complexity. The simpler
Re:Idiot. (Score:2)
Obviously. No modern game would have made it out of the early design stages, much less to the retail shelf.
The best designers are a cross between empowered gameplay testers and someone who knows the level design tools.
The best designers are people like Chris Crawford who understand game design is more than level construction and a one-paragraph "background story" included with the installation instructions.
Not Exactly true (Score:2)
Re:Not Exactly true (Score:3, Interesting)
Myst came from America. Sam & Max came from America. GTA3 came from America. Pac-Man, Sims, SimCity. This isn't some vast "Japan has Art, America has Shooters" gap.
I would say for every FPS America cranks out, Japan cranks out a lame fighter. For every GOOD FPS America cranks out (Halo), Japan cranks out a GOOD Fighter (Soul Caliber).
For the most part, however, both countries produce good games, usually what their populations demand. I hear GTA3 (a work
Re:Not Exactly true (Score:2)
We tend to only to get the better Japanese games on our shores. And many of those those games, to me at least, are showing as least as much me-tooness as Western games show.
However, when it comes to the number of *companies* that do a good job of encouraging creativity among their developers, I'd say the percentage is slightly higher in Japan. But just slightly.
Re:Not Exactly true (Score:1)
Actually, it was Scotland.
Re:Not Exactly true (Score:1)
Myst came from America. Sam & Max came from America. GTA3 came from America. Pac-Man, Sims, SimCity
what? nice try, but youve picked a glorified screensaver that hard merits being described as a 'game', a virtual doll house that may cater to the boring EA mainstream crowd but isnt paid much attention in act
Re:Not Exactly true (Score:1)
Re:Not Exactly true (Score:1)
i was wandering thru here when i noticed your games list that was presumably intended to represent an impressive list of american gaming or something to that effect, maybe in an attempted comparison to the claim that japanese games are more artistic. im not really sure, its not like you actually addressed his point at all.
i was honestly suprised at the selection of gam
Re:Not Exactly true (Score:2)
(Myst)
what? nice try, but youve picked a glorified screensaver that hard merits being described as a 'game'
That you do not define it as a game does not mean it isn't. Myst indeed *is* a game -- it just doesn't look like the ones you are familiar with. And it was the first CD-ROM success story, despite not being *marketed* as as screensaver.
(The Sims)
a virtual doll house that may cater to the boring EA mainstream crowd but isnt paid much attention in actual gaming circles
That
Re:Not Exactly true (Score:2)
yes, as in it was the first of many games that used a cd-rom purely for a massive storage of endless static pics and non interactive video sequences, and put some rudimentary puzzle games over the top. it managed to sell well probably because it looked prettier than all the other identical efforts. its a 'game', sure, but a game in the same sense that solitaire is a game. you cant possibly compare it to something like GTA3.
when they're both designed by Will Wri
Re:Not Exactly true (Score:2)
(Myst) its a 'game', sure, but a game in the same sense that solitaire is a game. you cant possibly compare it to something like GTA3.
All non-networked computer games are solitaire. And oh yes I can compare it, not directly because they're very different types of games, but in terms of their effect on the industry, and how they opened people's eyes as to what gaming can be.
GTA3 is the best GTA3 it can be. Myst is the very best Myst. I was enchanted by Myst when I played through it, it shows except
Re:Not Exactly true (Score:1)
hahaha i love your thinking. sure, i wouldnt play your accounting game, in fact id probably despise it, but im sure it would unfortunately be a best seller.
by the way
Re:Not Exactly true (Score:1)
Too techincal????? (Score:4, Interesting)
Lots of the designers that I've worked with over the years are people who are in the games industry because they want to be (nothing wrong with that) and have no skills that are of obvious practical use to the industry (i.e. they can't draw, they can't code, and they can't project manage). So, we make them testers, and then when they've been there long enough to deserve a decent salary we make them into designers.
There's no qualifications that you need to be a designer, people just get into it and they're either good or bad at the job. This is unlike both code and art, most studios don't employ coders or artists without qualifications (unless they take them on as co-ops or something).
Maybe all these game design courses that universities are starting up will help, but in the end I think that this is just the nature of the beast.....
Re:Too techincal????? (Score:5, Insightful)
However your basic point is right on. In every game company i've worked at more than two thirds of the people have very little in depth tehnical experience. The designers can write simple scripts and use spreadsheets to balance stats, and the artists can use the appropriate art tools, but (on average) they know very little about programing, technical constraints, or the data pipeline.
There's always some artist who insists on exporting art files in the wrong way, even after you've told them three or more times that it will break stuff. The designers often make similar mistakes with the scripts, and frequently their first request for a new feature is totally unfeasible, requiring a programmer to come talk to them about what's possible and how to integrate that with what they want.
Unless the three companies i've worked at have been freak occurances, most game companies have non-technical people doing the art and design. If the design isn't good, either the designers just aren't very good, the programmers weren't able to implement it right (in which case the problem is not enough focus on tech, not too much focus) or as someone else suggested, management decided to get involved for whatever strange reason management always seems to have for screwing things up.
Re:Too technical????? (Score:2)
Re:Too techincal????? (Score:2)
Which is precisely why so many games fail, and are now almost routinely clones or sequels. Writing and game design are no less technical or important than programming or drawing.
There's no qualifications that you need to be a designer
Understanding game design might be somewhat important.
This is unlike both code and art, most studios don't employ coders or artists without q
Silly segregations in human reality (Score:1, Interesting)
The idea that science and art are seperate is idiotic and a line I hear mostly from incredibly close minded arts graduates... Socially unaware games? Are they really socially unaware? I'd wonder about that...sounds more like pure arts whinging to me...
Social value and fun (Score:4, Insightful)
In other words, they are enormous fun...which some of us happen to think has a social value in itself.
The old I get, the more distain I have for self-styled intellectuals.
i like them like that (Score:1)
He almost sees the real problem... (Score:5, Interesting)
Ian Bogost pointed out that science/engineering tends to be "predictably useful" where arts/humanities tend to be "unpredictably useful".
Then perhaps the real problem is not that science/engineering dominates, it's that business people are the ones choosing where the emphasis of today's games lies. An executive can choose to hire more programmers or more English Department types. The programmers are reliably useful, the academics either incredibly useful for detrimental. If you're spending a billion dollars to make this game, the choice becomes clear--hire more programmers and avoid as much risk as possible.
The only way we'll see more creative, less technical, and riskier games, is if it becomes possible to make games at a drastically reduced cost.
I'm tired of this BS. (Score:5, Interesting)
What a load of crap.
If anything, talent in both fields seems to be quite common among intelligent and creative people. You can't tell me that any engineer couldn't jump right into a philisophical/humanities discussion with relatively few problems understanding what's going on.
The only "problem," if there is one, is that the typical engineering type is outclassed by the guy-with-the-humanities-doctorate when it comes to spouting bullshit, and consequently yields authority or creative control to him because he doesn't want the hassle.
Warning: Anecdotal evidence ahead (Score:2)
A lot of people were quite upset that this would even be an option. There were demonstrations and letters to the editor from not only students, but concerned faculty and community members as well.
I'm in the computer science department. A couple typical CS types that I know decided to write a letter to the edit
Hours worked (Score:1, Interesting)
Most teams are composed almost entirely of young males with fast reflexes who do nothing but work, and games of today reflect this.
Selling books? (Score:2)
The fact that he didn't (couldn't?) articulate what makes a game "cold and heartless" and what might give it "redeeming social value" and gave examples of neither left me feeling that perhaps there is not enough to this "problem" to even adequately define it.
From the article:
Re:Selling books? (Score:2)
Re:Selling books? (Score:2)
If a problem was solved then, then way doesn't that solution work now? And the things he attempted back then working with less
better games?! (Score:3, Insightful)
tech=good, tech!=artistic game (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually, I'm a tech-head too.
I think what Crawford was trying to get at, though, is that there is potential for makeing great art in the video game medium, it's just really hard and not exactly strived for very often. And given the large undertaking and large amount of passionate/opinionated people that it takes to make a game(not to mention the pressure from the business side - I'm not convinced we have a 'truce' or whatever with the business side of things), it'
Why games lack artistry (Score:3, Insightful)
The scene: Several businessmen wearing khakis and polo shirts sit around a large conference table. A large screen, ready to show game demos, dominates one side of the room.
Chairman: Ok guys, we're here to decide which games our company, Publisher X, will fund, and which we won't. We don't have a lot of time, Fred over there needs to fly to Japan to give an interview to Famitsu and Joe has a conference call with the Wal-mart guys. Because of this, we're restrained to only seeing each game for about 5 minutes.
Chairman: Our first demo is from the guys at GameDev Studios. Matt, here, will be showing us his game, uh...
Matt: "Hills of Aeden", sir.
Chairman: Tell us about your game, Matt.
Matt pops up a powerpoint slideshow on the big screen, and begins his pitch.
Matt: Hills of Aeden is a third person action-adventure game with rpg influences. Like the Square game, Final Fantasy X...
Fred: Excuse me, Matt, but have you considered changing the name of your game?
Matt: (knocked off balance by the interruption) Um...uh... well, not really. The name is pretty important, as it ties into the answer to the big mystery...
Fred: Because this, "Hills of Eden" thing sounds like a soap opera. Joe, what were the stats on soap opera games?
Joe: (pulling statistics out of his ass) our marketing research says that 7 out of 12 males aged 12 to 27 won't buy soap opera games unless there's nudity involved. However, Wal-Mart and EB refuse to sell games with nudity in them, so they're a no-go.
Fred: Right. That's what I thought. No go on the soap opera name, Matt. How about something with some spark to it. Something that we can use to create a strong IP around. How about something like "Dark Fury", or "Mayhem".
Chairman: Good point, Fred. Matt, we'll need a new name for your game. Now, you've had 3 months of pre-production. What have you got to show us?
Matt: (even further off balance) Well, as I was saying, this is a very story-oriented game, so we hired a professional writer to come in, and together, we've put together a 200 page outline of the game. We've also got together some really good concept art that I think really shows off the style... (furiously clicks through powerpoint slides until he gets to art).
Fred: I like this look, but it seems kinda pretty, to me. Kinda pastel-y.
Chairman: I agree. Pastels are a no go.
Matt: Well, we have some, uh, more bold images, over here. (more slides go by)
Fred: Hey! That looks like that World War 2 game that came out last week. What were the numbers on that game, Joe?
Joe: (more number pulling) NPD has it as the best selling game for last Tuesday in the 21-32 year old bracket, Fred.
Fred: I thought so! You know, we could use another WW2 game in our portfolio. Which battle does your game take place in, Matt? Normandy? Uh, Guam?
Matt: "Hills of Aeden"...
Fred: You mean "Mayhem".
Matt: Right, "Mayhem" doesn't take place during WW2. It's a futuristic game that takes place on another planet where racial tensions between 5 different factions...
Fred: Hmmm... well maybe you can change it to a WW2 game. Those sell pretty well, and we only have two others in development right now.
Chairman: So, Matt, you only have a design doc and some screenshots? No prototype?
Matt: We really wanted the art direction and the story to take precedence...
Chairman: Matt, have you ever heard of John Romero? Daikatana? Designers first?
Matt: Uh...
Chairman: We'll give you our decision later, when you can't actually physically attack us. Thanks for coming by and showing us "Mayhem"!
Fred: Yeah, thanks Matt! Hey, next time, try to focus more on the WW2 aspects of your game.
Matt: Uh...thanks.
Chairman: Ok, guys, next game is called "Police State". Don is here to show us this game.
Don: Hi guys. We've been working hard for the past
Re:Why games lack artistry (Score:1)
Why didn't Matt get a publishing deal, while Don did?
Here is what Matt did wrong:
1) The name of his game didn't evoke a strong image in the mind of the publisher, as you said.
2) He tried to explain his game, rather than show it.
3) He failed to stay on track and dominate the conversation.
4) The content he was trying to show was too deep for a pitch situation.
5) Matt failed to show his strongest material first, i.e. his conce
Re:Why games lack artistry (Score:2)
Matt didn't have an elevator pitch. The game industry, like Hollywood, derives its entire creative output from elevator pitches, which is why they are only seldom capable of producing anything culturally meaningful.
Successful elevator pitches follow this pattern: "it's like A but with more B." Translated: "it's a clone of A and a sequel to B."
An interesting experiment was tried in the movie industry where the screenplay for Casablanca (with diffe
Meet me on the Wasteland (Score:1)
Look what's out there. In one way or another, the market is dominated by killing simulations. It's a religion of polygon counts and frames per second.
Games with consistently poignant writing are beyond rare. (I can think of only one relatively recent one: Planescape: Torment.) The commercial text adventure, the literature of the games industry, is long dead. Game
The Engineer and the Philosopher (Score:2)
That, my friend, has little to nothing to do with engineers writing code. It's because that's what sells. There have been no shortage of games that were quite different, had artistic merit, weren't bloodfests, and flopped in the marketplace (one of my favorite examples: The Longest Journey. That's what society (well, US society) wants.
So then we ask ourselves -- why is this what society wants?
The main source
Re:The Engineer and the Philosopher (Score:2)
No, it's because that's what's approved.
one of my favorite examples: The Longest Journey.
Which sold well over 250,000 units, hardly a flop, except according to the game media^H^H^H^H^Hindustry, which must label adventures "flops" so they won't take attention away from "FRAME RATE 5: THE SEQUEL 4: THE FRAME RATE"
The problem is that society as a whole does not seem to be interested in literate entertainment when there is much easier-to-deal-with simple entertainment.
Re:Meet me on the Wasteland (Score:2)
So says the game industry, in an attempt to justify their decision to fire the writers.
There is little doubt that a good, well-written and well-marketed text adventure would sell, it's just that nobody attempts it because they believe the hype. Some half-assed column asked "Are text adventures dead?" and the writers of those games said "well, guess so" and gave up on the entire genre as a profession.
Which is even more
To summarize (Score:2)
WAAAHHH!!
Make the meanies go away!!!!!
</badgering>
Ok, so the games reflect what thier creators see as reality, to an extent. The art is cruel because the humanity they see is inherently cruel, as much as we would like to pretend otherwise.
Games are not story driven! (Score:1)
Name any game where the story made up for poor or tired gameplay. It doesn't exist, IMO. Now name a game that had little or no story and was a pleasure to play. Doom 2, Tetris, Ms. Pac-Man, Bubble Puzzle, Chess...the list is longer than a single Slashdot post allows.
Yes they are! (Score:1)
Did any of these have compelling gameplay? Not really. The puzzles were largely non-sensical and frustrating. Most people played them (and still do) to see how the stories progressed, and reveal what the clever writers had w
Game Design is an Art form! (a designer's perspect (Score:1)
I'm in college right now, and have already began production on a small independant game. For almost 10 years now I have dreamt of being a game designer and have studied into what makes one great in this area. (hopefully it will pay off...) I believe to do well, you must be well versed in both art and science, and I've always felt like the bastard child of both areas
Some Perspective (Score:1)
The CS degree was much tougher for me, but I did well in some of the abstract math classes and some of the classes on algorithms and the like. However,