Slashdot Mirror
The Future of Game Dev (Except in St. Louis)
ksquire writes "Ben Sawyer, of Digitalmill, has published an interesting article at Avault.com about
the past, present, and future of game development.
Sawyer argues that the game industry is going more and more toward 3rd party development tools and '4th party' publishing -- meaning that game developers are essentially tool developers for game enthusiasts to create mods (also using tools like Alienbrain or Discreet's
GMAX).
I'm really curious as to whether the Slashdot community thinks we'll see a future era of standardized game tools and developers courting modders, or if we'll continue to see more specialized game engines. Maybe a greater PC / Console split?"
Meanwhile, over in St. Louis, the Free Expression Policy Project has filed an
amici curiae brief
by 33 media scholars saying that "Most studies and experiments on video games containing violent content have not found adverse effects."
They're trying to stop the county from banning violent games --
Wired has the story.
ksquire points out that "Sawyer also wrote an article, Serious Games: Improving Public Policy through Game-Based
Learning and Simulation, which was
discussed on slashdot."
netphilter and TCPALaw get credit for the Wired link. Previous Slashdot stories on violent gaming include this one and this one.
TCPALaw's full comment was (minus a dangling modifier): "Wired has a nice story on the St. Louis ban on violent video games. If the ban sticks (it was upheld by Judge Limbaugh against a constitutional challenge... Rush Limbaugh's uncle ... the same judge who struck down the federal ban on junk faxes as an abridgment of free speech - go figure) it could be extended to MP games available to play over the Internet."
Look at Half-Life. I can still, after how long now, fire up Half-Life and join a decent game.
;)
Hell, I can still find Quake 2 servers around, and there's still a few Quake 1 holdouts.
Gamers love mods. For the developer, it gives them a chance to experience how games are made first-hand and also gives them an arena to show off their skills to existing gaming houses.
For players? Depending on the mod community, it's like buying one game and getting ten in return. And everyone likes to save money, eh?
What would be cool to standardize would be the 3D modeling language and behavior scripting representations. After that it is a matter of compiling the world models and behaviorisms into the games custom binary representation.
We aren't that far from this now. There are a number of *common* engines. Various generations of Quake and Unreal seem to be used in all sorts of games. If both of these could compile levels and models designed in a standard 3D editor, others would surely follow.
This perspective only holds in the PC game enthusiast market. The PC market is only a fraction of the total videogaming market and the enthusiasts are only a fraction of that.
The really big market for games is not on PC but on consoles, where customization is pretty much unheard-of. If you think that the industry is getting large enough that 3rd parties can create a market selling tools or libs or whatever, then that's absolutely correct and has been so for over a decade. If you think the market is going to 'decentralize', think again.
Seems to me that arcades have closed because there's less of a need / desire for them. Ten years ago, you could play games at home on your Nintendo, but it didn't even come close to the stuff they had in the arcades. Since then, though, consoles have gotten better, and arcades haven't -- the games you have on an XBox / Gamecube / PS2 rival what you're going to see in an arcade.
Games in the US do have a rating system, the ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board). It's completely voluntary, and all publishers have their stuff rated. Unlike movies who fought tooth and nail against ratings.
It's also more specific than anything on movies or TV. A game doesn't just get M for Mature, but there's a short list of icons explaining *why* it got the M. Ie; Language, Adult Situations, Realistic Blood and Gore, Cartoon Blood and Gore.
Thing is, while most retail outlets are now refusing to sell M rated games to minors, there's still a big whoopty doo because of things like Columbine, where the fact that the shooters played video games was blown out of proportion.
Right now one of the big "targets" of the video game lobby is Grand Theft Auto 3. Now first off you have the title, then you have the box art covered with stylized mobsters, pimps, and prostitutes. Then you have a fairly prominent M for Mature, with underneath: Adult Situations, Coarse Language, Violence, Realistic Blood and Gore.
Yet noone clues in that this isn't a game for 6 year old Billy.
AFAIK, there's no legal accountability if Billy gets the game. Thats what they want, and they wouldn't dare hold the parents or gaurdians responsible for their childs welfare. It must be someone in corporate america's fault.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I'll bet most parents today would advocate a game like D&D that promotes actual problem-solving and creativity over trigger-finger-reaction games. Just another sign of the times.
"Timmy, why don't you play a nice wholesome game like Dungeons and Dragons with the kid next door instead of making his head explode like a blood sausage with a sniper rifle? There's a good boy."
-the walrus
The future of gaming is what every NES/atari/old school gamer has dreamed of. They always complain that games today are just copies of what is popular (how many quake/fps copycats can you name?).
Well, modding is changing all of that. When a game comes out, modders push the limits of the engines to do anything they want... the clincher is... they do it for free.
Now, for game designers to still make money, they have to come out with new and unique ideas. Doing your standard FPS ain't gonna do it anymore. Even single-player FPS with great plots are being done with mods. The games of tomorrow will have to be bigger and better than mod writers (or have a bigger and better engine), which means the days of the FPS copy-cat will soon be over.
Also, to note, some publishers are encouraging the modding community to step forward into the gaming industry. Just look at Garage Games. They are selling their Torque Engine (the engine behind tribes 2) for $100 for a non-commercial license (and if you make a commercial product with it, no problem, as long as garage games is your publisher).
Let the mod revolution continue!
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
I have to go one further here. I agree that the death of the pinball machine was the beginning of the end, but I believe the arcade's final nail in the coffin is the advent of the higher-power home consoles. Before the Super Nintendo and such, you had to visit your local arcade because the best games were only available on the robust hardware, but now... Every kid has a equally powerful system parked under their television at home. Man, I remember putting about $10 a day through my local street fighter machine but nowadays I could buy my own copy instead for the price of a couple of days' play. (i'm not ignoring the rapid adoption of PC's, its just that PC's have only become common for the average Joe over the last 10 years or so. Before that, it was enthusiasts only!) Consoles brought gaming to the masses, and will continue to do so.
Never fight naked, unless you're in prison...