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The Future of Console Gaming
I've come across a well-written piece regarding the future of console gaming. The op-ed piece deals with machinery, games as well as working within the video game industry.
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I'm sorry, what does this post have to do with anything? You cite a bunch of commonly known facts to back up your argument, but, you don't have an argument.
Yes, games used to be made by one person, now there made by lots (although, actualy the number of people who work full time on the game is usualy less then 10). Movies used to be cheap, now there not. But what does it mean?
[ c h a d o k e r e ]
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
First off, I want to quote what is maybe the most succinct, beautiful, imaginative, and just plain f*cking accurate quote I've heard in a while. You'll know it when you see it:
"First off, it's plain unfair to merely release a game with the exact same engine. New graphics, new level maps, and new sounds do not constitute a sequel. Such a change should be labeled an expansion pack. If you think I'm lying about trying to do this, I'd like to relate a quote I heard at E3 a few years ago, "We used to call it, 'slapping new make-up on the whore and sending her back out.'"
Beautiful.
R.I.P brings up some very interesting points. The point that there's no real indie scene in the gaming industry however belies the fact that while there are in fact small development groups who come up with games, they're very, very often pretty awful...and when they're not awful, suddenly they're plucked from the indie scene and morphed into a GT or Microsoft product.
One of the nicer things about the Shareware scene--noticably absent from R.I.P.'s paper, but it's still in progress--was that small guys actually could make a living. iD and Apogee/Epic are probably the single best examples.
But, overall, you may wonder why I think the gaming industry is broken. See Messiah and Daikatana for that one. The only bright side is that Half Life was *also* horrifically delayed, but managed to far exceed expectations. That gives some hope. But overall...the complete inability to hype with any sense of reality is just disturbing and wrong, to the point where, even with my copious amounts of net addiction, I simply refuse to read gaming news anymore.
It's Just Not Worth It.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
I'm going to be honest from the start. I didn't really read the article. I tried, dont get me wrong, but after I was 2 pages in I was really just bored off my ass and gave up. Maybe it's just because it's monday... I dont know, all I know is that reading license agreements is about as fun as that article was.
:P) and motions become more realistic. I've seen RPG's no longer become a game of rolling the dice, but become worlds for us to escape in, they stopped being sprites and really became characters. FF8 seemed like a movie at times. But even though all this, one thing has been lacking....... Life!
However, I do have thoughts on gaming. I've been around games all my life. From back in the day of Atari, up until the playstation. I haven't shelled out the money for the dreamcast yet, because I did purchase the Saturn for $300 with 2 games when it was new, and promptly sold it to some other sucker for the same price. Beofre that I bought the 32X to go with my sega, and both systems were poor ideas and died shortly after their release. The only worse game system (which i was smart enough to never buy) was the Virtual Boy.
I remember back in the day, playing games over and over again. Games like Space Invaders, Pac Man, and such classics on the Atari. I also remember Pitfall (the original), Donkey Kong (ditto), and Porkys (I think the first shower scene ever in a video game, even back in the Atari games people wanted chicks in showers). *L*
Over time I've seen games improve in all areas. I've seen graphics get better, speed improve, AI improve (anyone play the old baseball game on Atari? I think it was called baseball.
Final Fantasy 8 (FF8), Resident Evil 1,2,and 3, Dino Crisis, Silent Hill, all of these are games that played like movies, but still all of which were cartoony. I'm not talking bugs bunny and loony toons type cartoony, I'm just talking artsy drawing type cartoony.
I think that one of the improvements we're going to see in games is more video, not CGI but actual video shots in video games. It'll start out slowly with just replacing still scenes with video clips, but eventually playing a video game is really going to be like being a part of a movie. People will look like real people, not like drawn characters. People will ACT not just stand in place. People will speak rather than make you read words on the screen.
I think the start would be games similar to the Tex Murphy games on the PC (Under a Killing Moon, The Pandora Detective, and I forgot the 3rd once since I dont have a DVD to play it on.) They are all detective games, but when you talk with people you see video clips of real people answering you. Yeah it took up 4 cds, but I'd rather disk swap and have a great game than have a crappy game with some great options tossed out of it to make it fit on one. And with the incorporation of DVD and larger media such as that into console systems, well it's now possible to fit it all into one disk and have room to spare.
From the article :
My first exposure to modern console gaming was in 1989 when I first played Revenge of Shinobi on the Genesis, followed by hours of time lost to Tetris, and Golgo 13 for the NES.
One of the interesting, and really, sad things about old video games is how much they suck. A friend of mine had a Golgo13 NES game, and I played it for the first time a few months ago when he finally got his NES hooked up again. That game sucks, and sucks bad. (btw, has anyone here seen the Anime it's from? I thought it was pretty bad to, actually)
I think the most fun old games are the ones that didn't try and 'push' the system to far. By that I mean, games that didn't try to produce 'amazing' graphics, because by default those graphic will appear to suck to future generations. When you compare a game like "super Mario bros. 3" for the NES, to a game like "Batman 3" or something, witch was supposed to have lush graphics at the time, looks like crap.
Not that this has anything to do with anything, but...
[ c h a d o k e r e ]
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
A long long time ago, videogames were usually written by one person
;) ), so if I gave it a try, it might be a nice game, but it would look so horrible that nobody would really enjoy it.
... - but all the people's individual qualitites added up give us the possibility to get something done.
This was IMO not necessarily a good thing - not everyone is good at everything.
For example, I'd think I could write a game engine and decide about gameplay - but I'm horrible with graphics (the fact that I'm spending 99.9% of my time on the console and writing this with lynx should give you an impression
Today, the games are developed by teams of people, sometimes past 100 members. There are programmers, artists, marketeers, and even people whose job it is to do nothing but manage the aforementioned people
Leave out the marketeers and managers, and you have a system that works.
We're trying to do just that over at the Free Film Project - and from my experience there, I can say that we have some people who are excellent programmers, but who couldn't write a script, then we have script writers who couldn't even think of designing starship models,
Does that prevent it from being a work of art?
I don't think so.
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
Outside of the people writing military grade combat/weapons simulations, there are not many other programming jobs that are as mentally taxing and physically demanding as that of programming games. [emphasis added] I'm trying to figure this out. I didn't see any further support for this assertion in the article (although I admit to dozing off about halfway through). Add this odd statement to the back-handed swipe that R.I.P. takes at all other programmers - something along the lines of the "the hardest thing they have to do is figure out a new date algorithm". Gee, thanks. Besides, I'll still take the original Infocom text games over most of todays graphics-fests any day. Of course, those aren't very physically demanding either.
Slightly disreputable, albeit gregarious
The games "industry" is broken because it is too expensive to develop and market games.
It is absolutely impossible to make a business case for a "new idea" that costs $3 million to develop, unless you are an established team with at least one, preferably a half dozen hits.
Of course, if you are an established team, its a lot easier to make a sequel to one of your hits than it is to convince the checkbook to invest in a "new idea."
That's why you get so many similar games at retail.
Such an investment requires the game to be a hit just to break even. You can't make money in a limited market starting out $3 million in debt.
"How do you know this game will sell?" Greatest question in the whole industry. You know what? There IS NO RIGHT ANSWER. You don't know it will sell, and neither does anyone else. Anyone who tells you they "know" something will sell and is still working for a living is being "creative."
Not to mention the unbelievable cheese grater that stands between a developer and the retail shelves. Why do games cost $50?; because there are about eleventeen levels of companies who want their part before it gets to the shelf.
When a small team (2-5 people) can develop AND MARKET a game for the cost of their labor, the game industry will improve. Prices will drop, quality will rise, development schedules will be measured in months instead of years, and there will be a much better selection of games.
It depends on what they are trying to do. I have seen some games that looked really great but were ither too complex to be fun, or had no point. Teams seem to get off target and base the game too heavily on "but it looks cool" rather
than "this is cool to play" I still like mario brothers, that game rocks! It definately pushed the limits of gaming when it was released, but they did it in a really well-organized fashion. Using technology to supplement an idea is good,
but using an idea to show technology usually turns out badly.
An example of this idea I think would be the release of Tomb Raider III. Maybe I have half a brain but didn't the movement just suck a little even with the analog control stick for the playstation? And it seemed that there was always some little pit of nasty spikes or some insanely hard puzzle to solve just to get anywhere.
My question why make it so that I have to take out paper and pencil and do come complex mathmetical analysis on the situation or delve deeply into human motivation to win a game now? Why do people feel that taking out real cheat codes is in the best interests of the gammer?
I agree that mario was interesting in many ways. I think that Mario64 was just a cheap knock off and a first demo/test of what the N64 could really do and not a really good game in terms of actual content or ideas or even graphics (can you say obvious 3d graphics primitives).
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
Lack of superstars
Any mark except a publisher leads to an expectation of Genre. Molyneux leads to god game, Meier leads to resource management. Most film directors manage not to get hemmed in like this.
Ordinary programmers who work in the industry, personally I want my name on the box, but I'm not too interested in being a superstar.
18 month production cycles lead to a fluid base of people working on the game making picking a single person difficult.
System's like Valve's Cabal are basically design by committe, a sin in most areas, but here it resulted in a hell of a game (Half-life).
Todays games rely on a lot of organisational work. They are more like other large media projects
Sequels
Juxtaposed with the above, we had a rant about sequels.
Sequels are just making the game characters stars.
This isn't always bad. Crash Team Racing is an example.
This kind of shit regularly pops up. Always negative and just ranting about how bad it all is. Sure its not always fun, but its just a matter of remembering what your building and how cool its going to be.
I know when someone I work with works like a bastard to get their work done, I respect them more than any star.
Anyway, back to it...
I've played video games continually (at least 4-5 hours a week) for the last 17 years. That's arcarde, console, PC, etc. These days, despite having a high-powered 3d machine that can play the latest games. I spend the vast majority of time playing games on MAME. Games like Galaga, centipede, Super Basketball, etc. I just find them more entertaining. Maybe I'm just reliving my youth, but most of those hold my attention longer. I think gameplay/learning curve has been sacrificed at the altar of Resolution * Weapons * Textures * FPS = Great game!
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
And that company is... Squaresoft. From Final Fantasy to Chrono Trigger, this company has always astounded me when I consider the depth of the story line, and the use of technology.
For instance, Final Fantasy VII was the first RPG game to really penetrate the average adult video game market. Also, its 3D rendering overlay on video was pretty cool stuff.
Now, take a look at Chrono Cross and Final Fantasy VIII (If you want to see the Chrono Cross opening - I have it here). These games are truly amazing. Chrono Cross' 3D overlay is even more impressive than Final Fantasy VII's - including shadows and other effects. Final Fantasy VIII's gameplay is unlike any other game.
Squaresoft has always amazed me with what comes out of their Hawaiian offices (who wouldn't want to live there?
You should never take life too seriously - You'll never get out of it alive.
Walk into almost any arcade nowdays, excepting the ones that specialize in older games, and what do you see?
A half dozen Mortal Kombat wannabes, a mess of Lethal Enforcers clones with mabye a few Operation Wolf copies mixed in, and a mess of sit-down racing games which are, mostly, less fun than
Pole position.
Would Pac Man even be made in todays market, if it weren't a classic?
I'm sure burgertime would never have been introduced.
Tron?
Joust?
Lunar Patrol?
Q-Bert?
Centipede?
Asteroids?
Defender?
Zaxxon?
Zookeeper?
Donkey Kong?
Spy Hunter?
Afterburner?
Asteroids?
Would any of the above even be introduced to arcades nowdays if ther were not considered "classics"? These were all treeibly fun games, most more fun than ant recent game, most of which defined their own genres.
But, bomehow, I doubt that any of them would see the light of day today if they were not already "Classics", because none of them is:
A) A fighting game
B) A first peoson shooter
or
C) A racing game (with the arguable axception of Spy Hunter)
I think there is DEFINATELY a lack of originallity in today's cookie-cutter arcade game industry.
The art *IS* dead... the only art left in the arcades is that of creating a more bloody fatality when you defeat your opponent.
john
Imagine all the people...
Ya, I know this is a tad over dramatic, but despite the technology pouring out of every orifice around my room, SMB won the hearts of us all.
From a psychological perspective you could say that our inate human need to look at different things is what motivates the above. Mario is not around really then it comes into the picture via your emulator and then people are interested because it's something new and different from their immediate experience.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
You quote a paragraph from the original article about "slapping new make-up on the whore and sending her back out", and claim that it's the most "accurate quote" you've heard in a while.
I don't know if you were being sarcastic or even just ironic, but in case you weren't being either, I must very strongly disagree.
The quote is a sad reflection of the state of the game industry today. Most of the time, games seem to be almost purely technology-driven, with little regard for gameplay or even originality.
Why is it necessary for a new game to have a completely new game engine in order for it to be worth of being called a new game and not a "mere" expansion pack or add-on?
In the "good old days", game developers would release many games based on basically the same engine. Infocom's classic text adventures were all based on variations of their Z-Machine interpreter. Sierra On-Line created literally dozens of terrific adventure games using their AGI engine -- and when they switched to SCI0 in the late eighties, they stuck with that for at least a dozen more games.
Infocom and Sierra are just two examples of the many companies that used to be able to create many games using the same engine. I don't recall Sierra or Infocom ever being accused of releasing mere "expansion packs" or games that were not worthy of being called sequels, simply because they happened to use the same engine.
To use a more contemporary example, take Looking Glass Technologies' Thief: The Dark Project. Their Dark Engine did not exactly have state-of-the-art graphics even at Thief's time of release. Yet, very few people who played the game complained that the game was "bad" simply because it wasn't as gorgeous to look at as, say, Unreal. For what it's worth, I personally consider Thief to be one of the finest gaming experiences I have ever had in my two decades of gaming.
More importantly, the upcoming Thief 2: The Metal Age is being created with what is at best described as an incremental upgrade to the original Dark Engine. Even Thief 2 will not look as good as the best games did at the time of the original Thief's release. But I'm hardly complaining, and neither are most of Thief's fans. Why? Because I know that Looking Glass's use of an existing game engine is allowing them to devote much more time and energy to the game itself, making for a much deeper, better-crafted, and more robust product than would have been possible if they had been forced to create a brand-new engine again from scratch.
It is an unfortunate reality that most of today's gamers do demand over everything else that their games look cutting edge. Developers are not to blame for the demands of their customers -- although I should point out that it is probably id Software that is to blame for starting this trend in the first place. Perhaps in the mindless shooter genre, graphics do make the game, to some extent; however, in other genres, it may be desirable, and possibly even crucial, to relegate the "engine arms race" to a back burner in favor of the all-important Gameplay.
begin 644
I beg to differ. Games can still be works of art, look at Soul Calibur. Less than a year ago, no one could have ever thought it was going to turn into the almost perfect game it is. If you compare it to the arcade version, it's almost
unbelievable what Namco pulled off. The major difference between having one person or 100 people working on a gmae is scope. You can have a 7 disc Role Playing game full of story and intrugue, instead of a repeating shooter,
which is what most games worked on by one person seem to be. I'm sorry, but games are very much still works of art from time to time, you just have to dig through all of the "me too" crap to find that one game.
Wow interesting! Can you name the game for me? I thought that FFVIII was the longest game with 4 discs as an RPG however maybe I was wrong.
I am really not going with the dreamcast until it proves itself to me and my wallet. I made a little bit of a mistake in getting an n64 and I really regret it. They have a number of games but either they fall into one of 2 categories.
1. Stupid little games that I call "cartoonie" games. Meaning that they have little cartoon characters that run around and the entire world it done with the rules of cartoons and no real intricate human plot development.
2. Good games that are interesting but are either extremely hard or are just limited because they only have that one cartrage on it. Actual voice clips are rare and are usually extremely primitive if they are there. One exception to this would be Shadow Man. That game is actually quite close to what I like. Still a little difficult but getting all of the really nice elements of things.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
In a nutshell, for those who won't read the article, the people who really dictate what will sell are the magazine reviewers and the shop salesmen, who are mostly males between 14 and 25.
A mother goes to a games shop, and says she's looking for a game to give to her 12 yr old daughter. The shop assistant is a 16 year old boy. He likes Quake. Either he tries to sell her Quake, or he'll sell her a random "kiddies" game, of unknown quality, knowing nothing as he does about quality children's software. As a result there is nothing driving children's software to improve.
(the same thing applies to "women's software", "senior citizen's software"). Why is there nothing on the Playstation that will appeal to my Mum? I'm sure if anyone actually put some thought into it, they'd think of something. Sim Country Garden. There, that didn't take long.
--
"(...) I'd like to relate a quote I heard at E3 a few years ago, "We used to call it, 'slapping new make-up on the whore and sending her back out.'" (...) However, I used the quote to illustrate how large software publishers perceived sequels(...)" ;-)
I wonder if he's talking about Tomb Raider
What are we at now? III? IV? I still haven't noticed any improvement in the rendering or gameplay... what's that you say? A movie? Oh that'll help a lot. Look at what it did to Wing Commander.
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The article's premise is wrong. A game programmer isn't the equivalent of a movie industry star. S/he's the equivalent of a grip or at most a set designer.
Honestly, do you open up a new book and think to yourself, "Look at this! This thing has the exact same vocabulary, font, and paper as the last book I read! What a rip off!" Do you watch a new movie, and complain that there wasn't a single new special effect or camera angle? Do you listen to a new rock album, and complain that it's still the same 44khz stereo sampled electric guitars as last time?
In the long run (long run being less than 10 years from now in the computer software world), storyline development should be far more important than engine improvements to how good a sequel to a game is. There's already insufficient attention paid to storyline in most games, and the "tournament/arena" game variety isn't helping. Are people going to be buying Baldur's Gate II in droves because they expect another engrossing world and story, or because they want to see the cool alpha-blending effects in the new engine?
The fact that people can think exactly the opposite is true, that a new game engine is the most important part of a new game, is just an artifact of the current situation where computer hardware and the computer gaming market are improving exponentially, and so compromises made in previous games due to slow hardware and low development budgets are no longer necessary. This situation won't last forever - eventually the size of the market will level off and the rate of hardware improvement will slow or become less relevant. The difference between a 100 and a 1000 poly model is much larger than the difference between a 1000 and a 10000 poly model, and a good engine will allow users with vastly differing systems to use any of the above models in the same game.
There's only so far that you can go with a game engine before other things become more important. There's a reason why the Marathon games (and even Duke3D) had better single player play than the technically superior Quake. Atmosphere, level design, etc. can be more important than whats under the hood.
Quick reality check, though - when I say that the days of huge game engine improvements won't last in the long run, that isn't to say that there isn't lots of room to improve today. Check out the upcoming Halo, for an example of how far we have yet to go.
This touches on the overwhelming failure of indie game developers.
This has links to some good articles about the future of gaming and the rise and fall of shareware and hobbyist game programming.
Back then the gameplay had to be addicting or the game had no chance at all. You cant hide behind 3d graphics or cinematic sequences when you only have a few K to program in.
e n-getting-powerup-to-defeat-enemy games were there? There were a stack of other worthless Space Invaders type ripoffs. While Super Mario brothers was a classic, there have really only been a short list of Mario successes among the painfullyl ong list of Mario games for all the nintendo platforms. There are always games that set the standard and games that follow. Looking back on 20 years of gaming allows your short list to only include the winners.
That being said, there were PLENTY of rip-offs back then too. How many pole position ripoffs or pac-man-guy-moves-thru-maze-running-from-enemy-th
20 Years from now the kids today will look back on Gran Turismo and Quake (both excellent games IMHO) as reverently as we look back on Pole Position and Pac-Man.
-Rich
But, somehow, I doubt that any of them would see the light of day today if they were not already "Classics", because none of them is:
A) A fighting game
B) A first peoson shooter
C) A racing game (with the arguable axception of Spy Hunter)
It actually has more to do with the way games are displayed and played than how good the game actually is. I agree that the "classics" would never see the light of day in today's arcades. But todays arcades aren't about good games, they're about making money. And because the older games were all about fun and getting the high score, that doesn't translate into money for vendors. If you are going for a high score on Pac-Man, it could take you a couple hours...on one quarter. Instead, arcades put driving or shooting games in where the play is about a dollar and the game lasts for about 2 mintues. They get you to play with fancy cabinets and graphics, not good game play or high scores. Times have changed, and I must say, it is really sad.
Apologies to OT.
:) ) are still creatively, technically, or financially under the thumb of money or funding.
Thank you for kudos. If you don't mind, I would like to clip your quote and forward it to George and Scott. They are devoted to the small developer culture and would be pleased by it.
The following are my personal opinion, and not representative of my game project, nor my company.
I had and have a huge choice of companies to code at, and Apogee really stands out as a big company that works very hard to stay feeling like a small indie developer. That Apogee exists. That we are making some cool games and projects. That it feels like we will be making many for a long time to come. Just gives me renewed faith that small guys can still be around to make cool stuff.
I personally (not as representative of the company) contribute what I can to indie game dev. Because indie is fresh blood, and living creativity, of our industry. We will stifle ourselves with clones if we do not maintain and encourage a healthy indie culture.
I agree our field is still very money, very (large) publisher driven. That many small developers (and you would be surprised by *who* are *still small* developers, you would expect after such kicka** titles they should be *big* by now
A few lucky groups break free of that. And I am grateful I code for one of them.
No, it is the consoles, with their proprietary technology and strict content controls that don't have much of an indie scene. The content controls on consoles are driven by a few different things:
1. Profits: By controlling every aspect of video game creation, companies like Nintendo and Sony can make killings. Everytime someone makes a game, they get a cut of the profits. I don't think Microsoft weilds that type of power with developers, but if they do it is a relatively new thing.
2. Fear: The attitude of the U.S. Government and certain powerful political lobbies in the U.S. is that videoogaming and gaming in general are evil and should just disappear. Console game companies have come to the conclusion that if they are to continue to exist (in the U.S.), they will have to restrict content, despite the First Amendment. Electronic Arts did this with a game by a company they bought. Their attitude was "We won't produce it but we are going to sit on the rights and prevent anyone else from producing it either."
Oh, I've read Game Over by David Scheff and I think it is an excellent reference for people interested in the industry. An online reference (which I got due to a Slashdot poster on another thread) is The Dot Eaters an online history of console games.
I agree with the article about the consoles niches, Nintendo seeks to appeal to younger kids, and Playstation to older. However, I think that while it is true that among teenage salespeople the Playstation may get support, a far more powerful persuasion was summed up for me by a kids mom in Toys 'R' Us. She said, "Look at all the games for the Playstation, the Nintendo 64 has only a few." For the inexperienced game buyer, more is going to seem like better because they'll figure there are more chances to find a good title.
Oh, and I want to address the 'life' issue brought up by someone in another thread. The fact is, the first responsibility of games is to have an immersive environment where the player feels that they have some control. They tried creating photorealistic games in the past, but these games didn't sell because they were limited to point and click quick decision making. I'm not talking about more impressive stuff like the rotoscoping in Prince of Persia which allowed for fluid life like movement in characters but to games like Night Trap or Fox Hunt which were just badly made movies with limited interactivity.
Personally, I'm not interested in photorealism (as some people are), I'm not sure I'd even like it if it were possible. I like games that feel immersive like System Shock 2 (or on consoles, the much maligned Resident Evil) but this is a personal opinion. If a game will sell in big numbers, someone will try to make it. I just think photorealistic graphics will continue to be a low priority if it continues to mean low player interaction.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Not necessarily.
Photo-based rendering combined with video, actual shots, digitization can merge realism and dynamism.
Polygonal complexity shall outstrip the "art development budget" required to create that many polygons to build that many models, not only for indie developers, but even for mid-size (non-Square-Final-Fantasy-size) development teams.
Polygon as a basic content primitive shall soon become unwieldily expensive.
Mathematically, both the ideas of "convex hull polygon shell" and "affine transformation of bitmap onto hull -- *ahem* texturing" are temporary artificial constructs eventually inadequate to represent reality.
R.I.P.'s article (and yes, I read it all) strikes me as less of an article about the future of console gaming than a rant about what he thinks is wrong with the game industry today. There's an inferred suggestion of where he'd like the industry to go, but nothing about where it actually will go.
Yes, publishers hold a lot of power, and seek to keep that power by minimizing the role of the developer (just like music until about forty years ago, when the Beatles hit, and the standard contract gave everything to the label). Yes, a lot of publishers release a "new" game by using the same engine and new graphics (but criticizing this strikes me as a bit like complaining that not every movie developed a new camera or lens or special effect during production). And yes, the industry has been dominated by the "adolescent male" segment (though, in PC games particularly, that is starting to change - I don't think 16yo boys are playing all those copies of "Trophy Bass Hunter").
But none of that says anything about the future of console gaming!
So, let me put my money where my mouth is.
During the next year or two, clearly, the landmark event will be the introduction of the PlayStation 2 (and, having been privileged enough to see this beast in action in person, I can safely say, it is a landmark). How is that going to change gaming?
Just my quick thoughts about where the future is really going, and not just complaints about what's wrong today.
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Klactovedestene!
Infocom used essentially the same game engine for most of their titles. But the games were sufficiently different and entertaining that this wasn't a problem but a benefit.
Perhaps game engines these days aren't sufficiently general to allow for different games, just different graphics?
// Namco :)
:)
:) (ouch, please don't flame me or my company on this.)
:)
:) ) that also develop great awesome games.
Namco does it right often too. Though Soul Caliber does sway the vote a little.
// Devil's Advocate
Directly from their offices, I shall put up flame retardant and state that Parasite Eve failed my (admittedly high) expectation of smooth gameplay.
PC FF port was listed, but weren't they done by Eidos-contracted developers, and not the "Japanese"?
(Internally Square segregates "real" Square as the "Japanese" Square. To them "American" Square *doesn't* count.)
// How they succeed
1. You are right. Millions of dollars. Teams, no, hordes of developers. How many in America can afford to the same?
2. No press before its time. "Shut up." "Don't say anything." "Doesn't matter if all the FF fans keep bugging you when it's done, or when they can know something, not a word."
Development of good games sometimes takes lots of people, sometimes takes lots of time, sometimes take both. Japanese fans are more "well-behaved" when it comes to "understanding" the manpower or length of time needed.
You don't see Square posting a screenshot a day starting the 1st month of development of Final Fantasy VIII. No point in showing anything until it is ready.
3. Like all good games, from small teams or big teams, developed in 6 months, or takes 4 years: good, talented, hardworking developers who put it all in it just for you.
// Even more admirable
While Square's game development is admirable, we should perhaps admire "small" game teams without millions of dollars (and hordes of "development ninjas"
// What I think the article meant
:)
:)", optimization, in all counts there are some on the console world that exceeds Carmack, and are not household names.
:) )
:)
:)
There lacks "famous" console developers, not on the same fame level as PC developers.
Console bestsellers (the titles, and the "companies") actually reach a larger audience, and generate more income, than even a "famous PC hit" that is a popular household name.
It is true the "fame spotlight" falls on PC developers a lot more disporportionately than on "equally influentially, talented, successful" console developers.
// console superstar coders
Understanding this lack of limelight, I do my part to praise the coding ability of my fellow console coders (some on and even above the ability of Carmack, but are way less well-known only because of platform) when opportunities arise.
Sales, development record, talent, ability, knowledge, that "super code god power
(Yes, this means they exceed me obviously in code-god-hood.
// fame the harsh mistress
As I "pity" my talented console coder friends for not having the limelight of fame, and discuss this issue, we come to the conclusion that the "PC game superstar celebrity syndrome" is a mixed blessing and harsh mistress:
1. PC fame attracts the *wrong* people. In the early years, it is only about people who do it for the love.
Now because there is so much fame (and sometimes money) involved, we attract a new breed more interested in turning themselves into celebrities, instead of loving the game, loving the code, loving the work.
We also start focusing our admiration of PC developers based more on "glamor", "photogenic", "great personality" instead of honest-to-goodness knowledge, ability, talent, and contribution.
My console developers are grateful their development world did not get "turvey-ed" like ours (PC).
2. Fame means Flame
With additional attention comes additional scrutiny. With additional scrutiny comes additional abuse.
PC developers face the level of drubbing and abuse the likes of which console developers laugh at.
Conclusion is, my smart console developer friends are happy to be anonymously optimizing to the latest ARM instructrions, instead of dealing with the "glamor queens" and the "flaming fanatics."
Good for them.
While I agree with almost everything in this article, I've come to realize that just about every engineer, artist, designer, and producer in the industry agrees as well. They all want to make cool games, but since that involves risk, the suits aren't willing to let them. Yes, there is a minority of superstars who can do anything they want, but that's not the mass of people who inhabit GDC and read Game Developer and GamaSutra. Most are wage slaves who love games and stick around in the hopes that something will change.
But nothing is changing. And the siren song of the dot coms and hardware companies is sucking away many of the best. In my own experience, I've interviewed for lead coder positions 3 times in as many years and there's always been a more a lucrative and creatively free position in engineering fer cryin' out loud than any game position offered.
And don't cry for the suits. While only 1 game in 35 breaks even and only 1 in 4 of those makes the big bucks, the power of being a publisher absorbs much of the loss. Just read the quarterly reports of the REALLY big guys as they gobble up the little guys and there merely big guys. The developer OTOH is forced to design a game he knows no one wants to play, on a schedule that will consume his staff, and for the arbitrary system of milestones covered in the article.
So what to do? Sony says use Middleware and concentrate on the gameplay. Of course, the "Middleware" is currently "Vaporware" and Sony's 2 months away from launching in Japan, but pay no mind to the man behind the curtain. Not surpringly, the developers balk and look forward to harnessing the power of Sony's new widget on the metal and see right through this well-intentioned but impractical scheme.
So what happens next? I'd say thank god for the Dreamcast. Soul Caliber restored my faith in the ability of a company to deliver an excellent game to the consumer even in this day and age. But of course, at only 2 million units sold, the big guys still won't touch it, favoring an unreleased collection of parts in a box called the Playstation 2 because it got all the best hype. Talk about chasing vaporware. Meanwhile, Nintendo hems and haws about a fantastic new machine called the dolphin with a graphics chipset designed by the same guys who tried to pull that awful scam over on Ars Technica and has anybody seen one of these things yet? And then there's Microsoft who isn't working on a console called the X-Box that won't be released in 2001. Yawn, what's next? The T-Buffer?
The more things change, the more they stay the same...
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=00/01/24/09392 46&cid=123
I saw several posts bemoan the sadness of game development not having superstars or celebs.
Not having celebrity is a good thing!
Besides the 2 points above (fame draws the *wrong* people, fame leads to flame) another advantage comes to mind:
Celebrity and superstar worship can stifle as much as it inspires.
Instead of growing into the coder one can become, a fanatic may dovetail his code development into that of whoever is "famous."
While good learning can take place.
Uncreative clon-ing can also take place.
I would much rather game coders and developers are people.
And that good smart knowledgeable talented game coders and developers are "respected people."
Respected for their knowledge and insights. And nothing more.
Even so, there's a lot of originality on display at the arcade, and it's essentially all imported. The last two times I went to the arcade, I played Crazy Taxi (love that game), Mr. Driller (a Namco puzzler), Jambo! Safari (another Sega gem), Guitar Freaks ("Play the guitar rhythmically!"), some Megatouch games (come on, they're cool), Virtua Tennis (yes, arcade tennis, and it's great!) and the incomparable Dance Dance Revolution. All quite original and almost all Japanese, because their arcade market is still doing well and they just tend to be more goofy, original, risk-taking developers. Unfortunately, only the big entertainment centers will ever have these wonderful games because they tend to be heinously expensive (another reason why so many arcades have died).
Now, certainly, there was a fair share of fighting/gun/driving games like Tekken Tag Tournament, Dead or Alive 2, Silent Scope, Crisis Zone, Rush 2049, Ferrari F355, and Off-Road Thunder being played too. But let's not forget that there was a glut of maze games, space shooters and driving games in the classic era too -- there will always be popular genres.
Consoles are far from dead. I know at least from school, there's a lot more talk about the latest console games or the PS2 than there is about Quake 3 or any other computer game. Not to mention that consoles have several things that the computer can't/doesn't have, including real plug-n-play and much much easier (and cheaper) multiplay. And with the next generation of console including modem support (and the DC even has one built in), there goes a PC only thing. Graphics arent' everythign you know, there are tons of console games that are a blast to play. Nah, consoles will still be around for a while.
About the DVD thing. First off, the PS2 will be $300 at launch, and even in a few years, I dont' see it selling for $100, unless it has to to sell some more units. Secondly, the PSX plays CD's, but do you use it as your sole CD player? You can buy a CD player for about $50 now, and why, for only $50 more you can buy one that plays games too! But for some reason, the CD player industry isn't ruined. The PS2 is nice and all, but I think the DVD playback and how it'll kill everything else because it can play DVD's is way over rated.
"As a 3D game programmer I am looking forward to when a Holo-deck wil be feasible, until then we are stuck with very sparsely populated [computer] worlds."
:) (Do not quote this as 3DR engine spec, or you shall be flogged.)
As a 3D game programmer I *am* seeing very densely populated computer worlds, and not just in my engine.
"In the early days, everyone was more or less on an equal footing: no 3d. Now a days, people are rushing to fit every known 3d feature into their game."
... fellow 3D game programmer ... what are you doing your part in the non-spooge category of technology development? :)
In many technology engine developments, many are satisfying the eye, and neglecting many useful things.
Coding gears more towards screenshots that spooge, or short AVI's that spooge.
Spooging is important.
And there are many non-spooging things (related to engine/code/tech) that is also important to research, and develop, that is being neglected in many engines.
So
Anyway, here's a success story for you; Psynogis' Wipeout series. They actually put some work into branding and recognition, and they've produced a great series. I have Wipeout, Wipeout 2097 & Wip3out for the PSX - they also have one or two PC versions and a Wipeout 64 for the N64. A great series, wonderfully produced. It's not impossible, but it needs more skills than just programming - it needs a bit of marketing savvy. Just like any industry.
It just occurs to me it can be awfully funny to get John Katz onto the bandwagon of the poor oppressed abused overworked underpaid not given credit to average enthusiastic game coder. :)
:)
Welcome to the Hellmouth, today we talk to the poor suffering coder who was told by marketing he's gotta massively irretrievably f*cked up the code base in 1 week for E3 deadline or else.
I am *pretty* sure this is true.
Wipe Out success, but at what cost?
My friends who worked on the first Wipe Out, in order to make some deadlines to get into the movie "Hackers" (Kate plays the first Wipe Out game in the movie "Hackers"), were given amphetamines / speed-like drugs to stay awake longer and work faster.
It worked. Productivity was amazing.
Then after Wipe Out shipped, my friends just crashed from all the drug use.
Despite the improved productivity and lack of need of sleep, my friends who tried to develop-game-on-speed route heartily recommend against it.
I just stick with my Diet Coke caffeine of choice and stay away from the meds, because of what my friends told me.
P.S. It was funny how I knew this story. I was coding engine on a game with some developers who were on the first Wipe Out team at Psygnosis. I am hyper-energetic. I sleep little to none. I am coding at the computer all the time, and always have an up-beat energetic cheerful hyper attitude. I eat copious amounts of food, and appears to stay thin.
My ex-speed friends were convinced I was using speed to code. And tried to talk me out of it. They told me how drugs eventually messed you up.
I kept telling them I am not on speed!
Your're right. I tried to sit down and play mechwarrior 3 a while back. I played for two hours and I was still going through tutorials trying to learn to play. Maybe I should've started on Mech1, but that's ridiculous. Too unaproachable. Give me a simple setting and I'll get to all that advanced stuff later.
At the same time, I got Star Wars pod racer, which I thought would be fun. Lame. Looked beautiful, but went through a progression of levels like this: Very easy ->> very hard with no in-between. PROGRESSION people!
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE