Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Games and the 'Geek Stereotype'

Posted by michael on from the mass-market dept.

ChinoH81 writes "Video games are never going to be as popular as films or music unless the people who make them concentrate on making them fun, says a leading game expert."

2 of 454 comments (clear)

  1. Hmmmm by mao+che+minh · · Score: 5, Insightful
    A lot of games (Metroid Prime, any Pokemon game, Grand Theft Auto 3/Vice City, Zelda: The Wind Waker, etc) sell more copies than major motion pictures sell tickets.

    But, whatever.

  2. Gosh by pilotofficerprune · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Speaking as a industry veteran, a games designer of some years, I now understand what I've been doing wrong all these years. Fun. Damnit! Why didn't I think of that before?
    This observation is, of course, like unto a thing made entirely of poo. I find it particularly offensive coming from the Redmond crowd, whom I've had some dealings with. I am no longer inclined to take advice from a bunch of middle-aged cardigan-wearing preppy types who know everything about project management and zip about gameplay, other than what's been fed them by their Usability department focus-testers.
    MS Usability have a lot of influence over people who are commissioning. They have their act honed and appear to be doing their best to reduce gameplay to a science - to quantify fun. I've been through some of their reports and it's not easy reading. It sums up their attitude to games: clinical, rationalized, objectified, sanitized, blah. They think too hard about it.
    What a difference it is talking to Nintendo. Right from the off they tell you gameplay is king. Everything comes back to the control system. They pound this into you again and again, but it's good. Because they have not made this a science; they treat games design as an artform and know how subjective a thing it is. They understand fun. They know their stuff.