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Games and the 'Geek Stereotype'
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."
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but is it a slow news day or what? =)
to make this somewhat on topic, i'd actually say that i have to disagree with the article. i think if you concentrate and try to push it out to a demographic thats not familiar with gaming, they'll just resist it more than they normally would. i think to spread there just needs to be more 'killer apps,' for lack of a better term.
Games are suppose to be fun? Since when?
I'd say more, but my guild is raiding.
Video games are never going to be as popular as films or music unless the people who make them concentrate on making them fun.
All right, show of hands. Who is a geek and exclusively plays non-fun video games?
What this gentleman didn't consider is that most of us would prefer to spend $20-$40 on a videogame we would play for weeks, than $20-$40 to go to a movie for 2 hours and have a bag of popcorn.
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But, whatever.
I think that to a certain extent Games create dorks. Those dorks go on to create more games which create even more dorks who create even more games that create still more dorks that create still more games...... and slashdot.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
I don't care for any of the games today. Their "FUN" factor just isn't there. I remember the days of endless quarters playing games like 1942, Galaga and Moon Patrol. Now those were games.
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
unless they're made so that people enjoy playing them? it might shock you but that's what most videogames companies have been trying to do.
.. aren't videogames popular? seriously.. they ARE!.
like, no shit sherlock?
-
ehm.. but
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
How is a game going to become a long lasting classic if the hardware meant to run it stopped being manufactured 20+ years ago and the publishers were pricks about their property and wouldn't release it into the public domain or allow it to be ported? Emulators may take up some of the slack but don't count on those doing the job.
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There are plenty of things that are not as popular as films or TV or music. Some of them are even entertaining such as skiing or going to hockey games.
This comparison isn't especially enlightening, since it doesn't actually describe the relationship between film and games, other than "entertainment". To compare, you must have quantifyable things to measure. The only thing quantifyable they provided was cash outlay... which seemed to contradict the point of the article.
Santa: So tell your folks, "Buy me Bonestorm or go to Hell!"
Is this a joke ?!
'Leading experts agree, fun should be pleasurable.'
I nominate this article troll of the year.
But this is largely due to the high price of a game, around 40. compared to the cost of video rentals or a cinema ticket
I went to see Tomb Raider this week with my girlfriend, including soda and popcorn that came out to be about 35 pounds. The price is about the same, but the movie only lasted 2 hours. A good game can last for months.
Can you believe it? For the last 20+ years we've only really had BORING and FRUSTRATING games! That's why! D'oh!
To quote: "One of the main obstacles was the complicated controls of many of today's games, as well as tough levels which left many players frustrated. "You want a game that is challenging but never frustrating," said Ms Fryer.
Didn't they make the "Deer Hunter" games for those people?
-- "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars" [Oscar Wilde]
Companies are concentrating on mass-appeal over fun. In the early 90's, a game was a huge hit if it sold 100,000 copies. Today, with numbers like that it would be considered a flop. Because of that, the newer games are dumbed-down to appeal more to the masses. Eye-Candy is considered more important than playability.
It's the same situation in the board game industry. Everyone's played monopoly (which is a lousy game), but who here has even heard of Puerto Rico or Settlers of Catan which are two of the best games on the market now.
Jason
ProfQuotes
So games won't be fun unless they're designed to be fun? What will they realize next? Software won't be easy to use unless they put some thought into the interface.
This is why older games are still popular, with less graphics and sound to work with, the hook had to be the game itself. You had to play it because you wanted to play it, not because it looked pretty.
The Blaster Master Fighting for Truth, Justice, and Evil Pie since 1979
And this is a surprise? Cripes. In 1986 I worked for some of the (then) major PC and arcade game companies. Even then, the focus was always on making the game as visually impressive as possible. That's fine, but somehow another important aspect of any game, playability, was lost in the shuffle. The programmers (I was one) and designers would complain about this regularly, but the response was usually something to the effect, "You can work on that while the game is in QC" or "Don't worry, you'll have a whole week before we ship to add playability." Utter cluelessness. And I see it in the current crop of video products: games using OpenGL and DirectX can be visually stunning, it's true, but most are simply not interesting to play after the first hour or two. Not a good return on your fifty dollar investment. Some of the older DOS-based texture-mapped products, such as Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior, Blood and others written using Ken Silverman's BUILD engine had more emphasis on game play. While those games didn't have the graphic quality of modern products rendered using 3D chipsets, they were just phenomenally fun to play. So I agree ... game makes have pretty much exhausted the sex appeal of the fancy graphical environment, now they better start focusing on why people play games: for FUN!
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Just gimme a game with the backstory of Myst and the graphics and interactivity of Quake/Doom/Unreal. I want to explore, not pile up bodies.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
A load of crap I tell ya. Are you telling me punk music was always popular? Or swing? Or certain genres of movies? Hell no. Define "popular". Is it by revenue? I believe the gaming industry already makes more than the other two mentioned industries (don't quote me on that, plus I don't have my resources in front of me to point to). That seems pretty popular. I say it's only a matter of time. Soon every household will have at least one game system. That's not popular? The gaming industry will evolve, just as all other industries. Just give it time.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
These people have never played Frozen Bubble or Nethack.
I currently have a level 8 male gnomish wizard on Level 5 and 6 (I go back and forth, the last (and currently only) merchant is on 5). I'm kinda stuck on 6 because there are no secret doors to be found (searched the walls of every room four times over already) and now way further down.
BTW, Nethack 3.4.2 is out!
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
Damn, that's a lot of popcorn! I too would need more than only 2 hours to finish that.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Perhaps Ms Fryer meant 'easy and non-threatening' when she said "fun". Presumably, every developer is trying to make enjoyable games, but if the barrier to entry is too high (complex controls, steep learning curve) -- or appears to be high -- fewer people will take the time to play them, and so fewer will find out how much fun they (hopefully) are.
Case in point: when I bought my GameCube, I bought some games that I thought my wife would like, and Tony Hawk 3 for me. I convinced her to play Tony Hawk (and it took a lot of convincing at first) and got her through the initial tricks, and now it's her favorite game, hands-down. She kicks my ass in it more days then not, too.
If I hadn't been around to urge her to play, and if I hadn't helped her through the initial stages, she wouldn't be enjoying it now. That doesn't mean that she couldn't have figured it out on her own; it's just that she WOULDN'T have.
I guess I have to scrap my 'Europe-during-the-black-plague-simulator."
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
A leading game expert was flogged for making stupid remarks. Fired.
What about games that don't require bleeding edge technology to run?
I to play video games, but I don't love having to upgrade my system every 2 months in order to play a new game. It seems like everytime a great new game is annouced, the recommended system specs seem to coincide with the latest processor and video cards released that week.
-i
morrowind looked cool, until they decided not to have nudity in it. daggerfall had some nice surprises waiting in certain "motels".
yeah, i know i shouldn't judge a good game on the basis whether it has boobies, but i'm cheap like that...
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
I may be biased here, but as I see it, the really fun games are still coming from the same guy they have been for the last 20 years: Shigeru Miyamoto.
If you want fun games, games that aren't trying to be movies, pick up a Gamecube. Grab copies of Mario Sunshine, Wind Waker, and Metroid Prime. Then you have the right to complain to me that are trying to be beautiful and dramatic instead of fun.
Hell, even retarded Ahnold movies, like Terminator and The 6th Day, bring up relevent settings and illuminate moral questions? Only a handful of the finest games, like Romance of the 3 Kingdoms and Civ explore the awy the world works (worked) outside my limitied experience. Well, I guess Black and White was worth something; a failed game, but it brought that morality and consequences to the table, showing the strengths and weaknesses of each...
Maybe if Warcraft had actually let me choose if the Palladin went bad, and made me struggle with the choice.
The only place in gaming I've seen this sort of development is in the small brand traditional (pen& paper) RPG companies. But they have their own geek-factor by nature of the format.
Looks good for your age..
"When people talk about 'it's only a game', they're cheapening the value of games. It trivialises the time people spend playing a game and time is the most precious thing people have."
but it IS only a game, so why waste what precious little time we have on this mortal coil staring at some screen having our "adventures"."People need drama in their lives. Games fulfil emotional and mental needs that cannot be fulfilled any other way,"
sure they do... like oh, i dunno... killing, raping, torture, and vehicular hommicide to name a few....got humerus? - me
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."
Never going to be as popular?
Funny that the Games Industry makes WAY more money than the Hollywood.
http://jesus.everdense.com/
You can't immediately reveal you're funny comments as a troll post. You have to steal the funny points from moderators and then unveil them. Then watch as they get modded down. It makes the point that these posts are not funny that much clearer. See my journal entry on the subject.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
I think one of the most interesting aspects of gaming today is the fact that we are dealing with a large number of game producers that are following the Hollywood business model. That being, game play is determined by what is proven to work moderately well and that appearances are everything. Everything that is, except money.
Keep in mind that good game play usually requires code that allows for new and exciting physics, game play angles, modes, etc... What really makes a great game is diversity or elements and the ability to interface with these elements in such a manner that it doesn't clip the camera, crash the game, make it confusing for the player, etc... All these game play bonus items take R&D. These R&D items are then 'software' patented which in turn makes it more difficult for someone else to 'license' these for use in their game.
So this leads me back to money. That fact is, 3D and texture artists are cheaper in the short term than a really kick ass programmer that can write code to make the cheesy models come alive in the game engine. Also, it costs SOOOO much more money to write your own game engine, which in turn leaves the game developers with little money at the mercy of what they could afford to license.
The stereotype that games are for geeks is wrong if you ask me. I know many 'jocks' that play video games like they are going out of style. The thing is, they don't admit it or speak of it freely.
So what's the problem with the game industry? I think it's the fact that female population of the earth doesn't play games nearly as much as the male population.
Thoughts?
there's more money in them. If you have a casual gamer, they may buy one or two games a year- hardly enought to make up for the loss many companies take on the hardware. Your hardcore gamer will buy a ton of games, plus spend money on extra controllers, memory cards, online services like XBox live, ect. So it makes sense to concentrate on the hardcore gamers.
I have blog like everyone else
buried deep somewhere... but what I think is the problem is that games need to be written for a WIDER audience. the people that play the currently available games do think they're fun, otherwise they wouldn't play them. there are so many different type of games out there, that choosing something fun is the onus of the purchaser.
Sony helped the market considerably, by openeing up the market of games to non-geeks. a lot of games out there are starting to appeal to those geeks girlfriends now. we've still got a way to go, but companies like nintendo are holding on for dear life to their old ways, to the old types of games.
as good as they were in their day, the world has moved on. Microsoft (sadly) have given the world more proof that Sony was right. They are helpingto extend the market.
But Ms Xbox here is right. The developers need to develop the games. But maybe they're too afraid of taking too big a risk. If they make a game about creating your own garden, how many sales will they make?
Money makes the world go round. and unfortunately for some potential gamers, their perceptions of fun may not be financially viable.
The reason girls and Windows users don't understand UNIX is because all the documentation is in Man files.
figures for 2002 (US)
Food sells better if you make it taste good, movies would be better if people just wrote good scripts, you can play the piano simply by banging on keys in the right order, and your nose'll stop bleeding if you just keep your finger out of there!
c-hack.com |
.....Video games need to be fun?
How obvious does an idea need to be before we stop calling it a strategy? -Dilbert
Some basic structures, or 'language' of the medium has been worked out now, and has proven to be popular with the masses as an accepted entertainment medium, especially ever since someone noticed that games revenue had outpaced that of the film industry. So naturally there is some rabid capitalism going on insofar as people know a few formulas that work... i.e.
- the first person shooter
- the role-playing game (which is generally not really roleplaying, but whatever)
- the racer
- the fight game
- the simulators (and all derivations thereof)
I want a game like Memento. Or Jacob's Ladder. Or imagine some game that used one of those realtime 3D shaders like grayscale pencil-sketch throughout, in some kind of Poe-inspired adaptation... We will see these kinds of things someday but it'll take 'Directors' (do we still call them that?) to do daring things with the medium and push the boundaries of the game's narratives.
Interactive storytelling is a real bitch to get your head around in any appreciable way. Currently I lean towards really open-ended titles like GTA as leading the way in that sort of gameplay, that tries new mixtures of nonlinear play with prescripted events. Or Molyneux's stuff - damn him for going all Xboxy on me - those guys are really thinking about new kinds of games.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
I believe the missing "fun factor" in today's game is a result of a human symptom on saturation and choices. We have so many things to play these days we just take things for granted.
Heck, I used to have basic TV with just 5 channels, I was doing fine. Now that I have over 100 channels, I can't find anything good to watch!! How weird is that.
You don't KNOW fun until you've done the same flipping kick move in Enter the Matrix 4,000 times or kicked the crap out of an agent for 20 minutes, only to have him get up and kill you.
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
"You want a game that is challenging but never frustrating," said Ms Fryer.
Being a long time, hard core gamer the games I find easy are challenging or even frustrating to the majority of other game players. I feel as though I have wasted time and money if a game fails to challange me and forces me to make a concentrated effort to improve my play. Obviously this isn't what the masses are looking for. But in the long run I, and gamers like me, will buy more games. It seems that game developers know this and many new games are very difficult, and demand that the player accept a certain amounts of initial frustration in order to improve to the point of being able to beat the game. The old practice of starting a game off easy and ramping up the difficulty as it progressed often merely resulted in a bland experience. Much of the time spent playing was far too easy and eventually the player would hit a wall they couldn't pass because the game never had forced them to adapt and learn the game in order to pass difficult challanges.
I guess in short, everyone has different ability, and unique levels of patience when it comes to games. It's nearly impossible to make a game that can present challenged to gamers over the entire spectrum of tolerance. This is compounded by the spectrum being polarized between the hardcore gamers with a large skill base and drive to beat each game, and the intro level gamers trying to break into a market mostly aimed at the hardcore. As time goes on, more people will have grown up with video games and begin to flesh out the middle of that spectrum.
An arcade that I went to in those days, back in the early 80s, offered free quarters for good grades. And in those days I got straight As. Then we moved to a new area with no such arcade, and my grades plummeted. Coincidence? ;-)
But there are good games today as well. Madden 200x, the Myst series, the Civilization series, Tekken, Myth, and so on are all great games for me (though Myth and Civ are admittedly a little complicated for the average person and not really mainstream). True, these are a lot more complex than, say, Pac-Man, but still very playable and fun.
There are plenty of really sucky games as well -- further evidence that quantity does not mean quality. I've never understood the hoopla about Final Fantasy -- I got FF X and was thoroughly bored by it. Onimusha Warlords was gorgeous, but lousy gameplay. Metal Gear Solid 2 was just atrocious IMO. Most fight games like Mortal Kombat also got to be *way* too complex (who the hell remembers all the special moves?) -- Tekken isn't as bad as MK in this regard IMO, but getting there.
At the same time, there were plenty 1980s-era arcade games that stunk, as well as plenty of console games as well -- Haunted House for the Atari 2600, anyone?
So I think the overall proportion of good to bad is more or less the same, just that the sheer number of games these days makes the mind boggle with all the crap that comes out. But once in a while a real gem comes out -- Oni, Myst, Civ, etc. -- that more than outweighs the stinkers -- Darkseed, ST:TNG "A Final Unity", Daikatana, etc.
(Though I still like to play little whippersnappers on the PS2 in stores or at the CeBIT and clobber them...they see this 30ish guy and think "I'm gonna kick his ass", then I open up a can o' whoopass on them. Ah, those days in the arcades paid off after all... :-) )
As to the article: I'd say the byline should be "from the no-shit dept."...
Cheers,
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
Unless it's already happened?
The article also claims we need to fix perceptions the games are only for guys. Perhaps things could be improved, but we're doing pretty well, thanks. (The linked article scatters the good numbers all over, so here you go:)
Given the that the majority of game players are adults, claims like "She urged game makers to come up with titles that would appeal to a hardcore 15-year-old gamer as well as someone older who just wants to have fun," are just silly.
The quoted developer says "People don't focus on gameplay. Instead they make a beautiful game that is no fun." True to an extent, but the die-hard players are usually the most ruthless in demanding fun. A bad but beautiful game will get blacklisted by the dedicated gamers while truly innovative games can build up a cult following even without marketting.
The industry has problems, but it's improving all by itself. This is a silly article worrying over nothing.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
Most current games have evolved from Strip Poker.
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
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.
And there are movies based on games:
- Super Mario Bros
- Wing Commander
- Tomb Raider
- Resident Evil
Not sure if I got all... And I leave it up the viewer to decide which movies were good and which were badMy cats ate my karma. They also wrote this comment.
Game deigners in yet another huge display originality intolerance kepp making the same freaking puzzles, even though they are not fun, and completely annoying.
Take Tron 2.0, for example. I loved the game, but I nearly threw it out the window once I got to the blasted moving platform, timed jumping puzzle, and the extra annoying moving platform, flip switches that make platforms disappear and reappear jumping puzzle.
What the hell?! These puzzles make the game hard, but they don't make it fun. Sure you can brag about how you beat it later, like it's some feat of bravado, but actually, it's just bad game design. Games should be difficult...games should be challenging, but they shouldn't just be hard because the developers were feeling spiteful, and/or they are retarded.
You have to make some new puzzles. The only reason jumping puzzles still exist is so people can throw them in once they've run out of switch and fetch quests. Jumping puzzles in 2D sucked, in 3D they suck even more...especially when you have no camera control, and yet....every FPS game has them. Utter idiocy.
Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
A great site for old games that you can't find anymore is The Underdogs. I found their site about two years ago, I think, and am amazed at how many good games there are that no one talks about anymore. Check it out.
What's really sad though is that many games are vanishing because companies refuse to give up the rights to their products, even though any chance of making money on them has long since passed. Hopefully they will not be lost to time.
I disagree that games are "hurt" by the "geek stereotype" as the article implies. It seems more like the casual-trendy-gamers don't like us geeks hurting their image. Too be honest, some of us geeks don't like the casual-trendy-gamers hurting our image. ;P
Games haven't been damaged by the whole geek association - they've been damaged far more by the dumbing-down and removal of fun and challenge for the sake of these "PlayStation-generation" gamers who want to tout their consoles as some sort of fashion accessories rather than play proper games like us old-schoolers always have.
--Fortissimo W.
I'm always faintly amused when an "expert" takes the time out his/her busy schedule to tell us something so obvious and/or useless.
In the practical matters, video games are already on a par with television and Hollywood. Major game releases can expect to have revenues which approach those of major feature films. In their target demographic (teenage and older males) they are already occupying a greater portion of their conciousness than other media. To argue that they aren't going to be as popular as films is pointless: they already are.
But what really seems silly to me is the following quote:
To this I would merely counter with a question: "What movie have you seen recently that changed your life?" C'mon, let's get real. Even if movies do have that power, most of them fall way short of that standard, and yet they remain popular and engaging. Frankly, I don't need movies to tell me how to feel, or to teach me about myself: I have a real life with real family and real experiences to teach me that.But what I do not have is the ability to pilot a light-speed fighter against impossible odds!
It's not exactly earth-shattering to claim that games should be better. They should be. It doesn't take an expert to observe that video gaming still remains a male-dominated activity. But the simple fact is that video games and movies have made a pretty good living out of catering to their audience, and it seems strange to argue that some revolution needs to occur before it will really take off.
There is much pleasure to be gained in useless knowledge.
"Making games fun?" So I *wasn't* having fun playing games all of those years since I got an Atari 2600! I'll tell my parents to take back every yelling they gave me for not doing my homework and "having fun" instead.
I don't actually agree that games should be challenging.
They should seem challenging, without actually having to be challenging.
A drooling moron with no motor skills should be able to beat a game. But whenever anybody beats it, it should feel to them like it took skill, like they accomplished something.
You need to create the illusion that the game is challenging, but without denying the rewarding experience of overcoming the challenge to any of your players.
If a game is too hard for me, I'll get frustrated with it and won't play it. If a game seems too easy for me, I'll get bored with it and won't play it. But if I beat every challenge and don't realize that there's almost no way to lose, I'll have fun.
This is my opinion regarding computer games, D&D, card games, pretty much any game. Everyone should be able to have fun playing. Everyone should have the illusion that they just barely had enough skill to win.
(I think Warcraft 3 probably nails this perfectly. It felt to me like I only overcame it through skill. But personally, I totally suck at RTS games -- I mostly just have fun pushing the buttons and watching the little blinkenlights. However, all sorts of people who are more skilled than me at RTS games also enjoyed it. I conclude that they must have gotten the illusion down right.)
What does this mean, games are no fun? Gee, then I must be having a miserable time and not even knowing it. If a person can't find a game that's fun, I dare say there's something wrong with them and not the gaming industry. First of all, they're probably not looking very hard for a game they would like. Second, they have some stereotype about what games are, leading them to just write them all off as something they're not into.
Of course, there is a large demographic of people who are simply never going to get into a video game. But I would dare say these are the same technophobes that are frightened of computers in general. The people for whom checking email is a chore they can't deal with on a regular basis. And these people are by and large, older people who aren't going to be in the picture in thirty years. The younger generation is overwhelmingly into technology and computer games.
And I've even seen exceptions to these situations. My mother never got into Street Fighter or Doom but played quite a bit of Mario, Tetris and Final Fantasy. These games are not too complex. I would even say a strategy game like WarCraft is not any more complicated than learning how to crochet. My GF who totally hates most modern games loves playing older videogames like Frogger and Galaxian via MAME. And if someone's a total stick in the mud why not boot up a video game version of Scrabble or Chess on the computer? Does anybody here hate Chess?!? It's just a difference of what people choose to spend their time figuring something out. And nobody would be trying to learn how to play more complex games if it weren't fun. Maybe that's part of the fun!
The game that I think has had the most mainstream appeal in the past few years is definitely the Sims. There were women at work who played this game, and would talk about their Sims as if they were family members. It is true that the most mainstream games to cross all demographic boundaries have been the more simple, straightforward, maximum "fun" games. Like Myst, PacMan, Tetris, Mario, Sims. These games are harder to come by and probably only come about every few years or so. But their abscene right now at this moment in time does not mean all other games are no fun, nor does it mean there won't be another mainstream game right around the corner.
I thought that group was called "linux users".
"People need drama in their lives. Games fulfil emotional and mental needs that cannot be fulfilled any other way"
The experience of living and interacting (trying to) with other
humans are already drama. Well, I know what kind of drama
she reffers, but she ought to consult a dictionarie before
giving press interviews.
Since when en games are the ONLY way to fill emotional and mental needs ?
I am wondering if have already asked to Ms Fryer if she knows books, good music, or just a good and real game
(chess i.e.).
I there are some good games, that make you think and make
you a better person, indeed, but most of them are just crap.
And look who is talking about the "Human Natural" need for
gamming, a XBox seller. A drug dealer would say that coke
is good for your brain too.
Then came Jutland, a WW1 navy simulation. It was much more intense and beautiful. It had streaming video cut scenes, awesome graphics (for the time) and complex game play. But was it fun? Well, unless you knew the cheat code to show the proper the angle of your guns it was a lesson in frustration. Great looking game that was almost impossible to win.
Next was Aegis: Guardian of the Fleet. This was a serious game. It simulated an entire Aegis class battle cruiser in modern day warfare. It tended to be long and boring. Again, lots of detail and great graphics, but terrible game play. Not fun.
Fast Attack was another beautiful looking game with tons of detail and gameplay that closely followed the targeting and tracking routines of a real Fast Attack submaringe. But was it fun? Well, maybe if you're a navy simulatin buff. But I got the game for free and could play test it while I worked tech support and I wouldn't even finish it. Boring and impossibly complex to play.
Then came Conqueror 1086 (which we use to refer to as Conqueror 1286, Conqueror 1386, Conqueror Pentium!) The graphics were still good, but they put much more work into the gameplay and story line. And guess what? It was fun to play. I wish we wrote better code to control the game speed. It's impossible to play on today's fast computers. The screens scroll by so fast that you can't controll it. Too bad, it's a great game.
Now we have games like Uplink that have almost no graphics to speak of and yet are really fun to play. Do you see a trend here? The 3D graphics and surround sound do not make a game fun. The STORY makes a game fun, the GAMEPLAY makes a game fun. You'd think this wouldn't be news by now, but people are still surprised to learn that lesson.
the article basicly means : make games stupid so every one can start playing them.
I dont think that will work because: I differ from your average entertainment industry exec. i dont think that most people are that stupid after all. Also i am pretty damn sure that if all games are stupid i will stop playing them.
Of course we should all know that the nice Xbox people do not want to make games popular in order to improve peoples lives. They just want to make money. Which is perfectly ok, but they should try to make money by giving people what they want.
What entertainment company execs essentially want for video games is the television model. That means a couple of games that everyone plays, so development cost can be spread out and most of the $50 price can come in as profit.
And of course in order for that model to work you have to sink to the lowest common denominator. So essentially you have to make the game stupid.
Luckily the television model will never again work (cross fingers). It worked until recently, because people had very few other sources of easy brain stimulation (especially when they are tired from work and are too tired to read). So they settled TV no matter how stupid it was.
Of course the large entertainment companies can make video games liked by most people. But dumbing down games wont do it. All they have to do is make a system where creative people are able to think up new and exciting games that can potentially interest different people.
That is already happening to certain extent. Witness all the bass fishing and deerhunting games. God knows i have never wanted to play one, but i hear they are popular and with people that are not really computer nerds.
Unfortunately the entertainment companies are doing the opposite. The kep bying up developers and then gutting development budgets for all games other than a couple of already established "money maker" titles. Well they can never expect to get new clients this way.