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

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.