Elite Creator On Attracting Mainstream Gamers

Thanks to BBC News for their article featuring a counterpoint to the view that games are just for 'geeks and guys', a point of view recently given publicity by Microsoft's Laura Fryer. The respondent, David Braben, co-creator of seminal 3D space title Elite, argues for the importance of empathy, and suggests that "the 'shoot-it-if-it-moves' mechanic of games like Quake [is] a fundamentally empty experience, unless you're fighting people you know well", even commenting that "...in Elite, we made shooting another space craft illegal, so the player had to think before opening fire." He also discusses his company's forthcoming Sony-published PS2 title, Dog's Life, a mainstream-aimed title which "seeks to create [an] emotional bond with the player" through cute, endearing dog interaction, and, uhm, a 'Smell-o-vision' mode.

Comments

Illegal?

[Oddly_Drac]

"in Elite, we made shooting another space craft illegal, so the player had to think before opening fire."

Unless you'd chosen the path of a pirate, which although risky did have the rewards you'd expect for trashing a Python inbound to a rich system.

Mind you, I don't think that many games will reward trading narcotics in these slightly moral times.

No death please, we're not normal women

[carndearg]

I was lucky enough to work for the publisher of one of David Braben's earlier games, and in my opinion he is a rare voice of sense in an industry populated largely by vain sefl-obsessed tossers.

However in this case I do not necessarily agree with him. I think his point of communicating emotion by body language is a very interesting one and I will certainly have a look at Dog's Life but I do not agree with him that "pointless killing and death" is keeping women away from gaming. He is right that games like the Quake series are not necessarily babe-magnets but he should watch women playing other games. Pocket tanks is the example that I always think of because my fiancee and her colleagues are hooked on it. No shortage of death and killing there but that doesnt seem to bother them.

In my view the hurdle is not in the games themselves but in the delivery, quite simply the industry markets to young males not young females.

Re:No death please, we're not normal women

[inkless1]

Watching my girlfriend use the flamethrower on passerbys in GTA, and score 200 kills in Dynasty Warriors 4 - I'd have to say there is wisdom in these words...

Quake Deathmatch has grown boring not due to lack of socialization, but because it's simply grown boring. Most games don't make the effort to make it challenging with bots, and so humans become the only real target.

elitist bastard

[bigbigbison]

the 'shoot-it-if-it-moves' mechanic of games like Quake [is] a fundamentally empty experience

So instead of promoting his own style of game on its own merits, he does so by turning up his nose at another style of game. I love it when people who are in a field like gaming that is looked down upon by elitists become elitists themselves by denegrating the work of others in the field.