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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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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?
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.
Is this a joke ?!
'Leading experts agree, fun should be pleasurable.'
I nominate this article troll of the year.
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.
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
that's not a 'movie cost' that's a 'girlfriend cost', a good game can last for months, but if you spend your money on videogames instead of on taking your g/f out, you know what you're gonna get (or, actually, what you are POSITIVELY NOT gonna get ;)
-- the cake is a lie
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
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.
You prefer the phone over IM/Text?
I hate the phone. When people call me, I tell them to try IMing me if they actually want a conversation. I can say more, faster, over IMs than the phone, plus I am not so limited in how many people I can talk to at once.
I have a cell phone, but you know how often I actually talk on it? Almost never. You can be sure I more than use my monthly allotment of text messages though.
I am looking forward to the day when I wont have to pick up a phone ever again.