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Adult Games, Child's Play?
Thanks to TotalGames.net for their gamesTM-reprinted piece discussing whether games are actually dumbing down in the industry's rush to produce mature titles. The editorial is concerned that "adding a spot of claret and some unguarded language to your game doesn't require any special artistic skill on the part of a developer." The writer then worries that "...those developers whose bread and butter has traditionally been more abstract titles where the gameplay is the hook and the graphical stylings are aimed at younger gamers, or at least at a general audience, are starting to find their games harder to sell." But original Grand Theft Auto creator Dave Jones thinks that "it's not violence that's selling but simplicity", even for his own series, arguing: "GTA has a very simplistic game mechanic - it is Pac-Man. The people are the dots you eat (run over) and the police the ghosts who chase you", although admitting: "What was different was the level of interaction within the city."
Ms. Pacman, then, would be the prostitute?
Good graphics != good gameplay
Games with bad graphics, when they had to make the gameplay good, because thats all they had, are still played today.
I can think of a lot of games that had breathtaking graphics but you couldn't force me to play twice, because they were just so bad.
GTA itself -was- pacman. it also sucked. it wasn't until Vice City that they really explored the full range of gameplay. With the depth they added, with the polish and the honest attempt to tell a story that just happened to fit with their existing gameplay, -that- is when rockstar struck gold.
When you abstract Vice City out to the level of 'pac man', then everything is pacman. Get the power up, win the game.
right now, gaming only has (predominantly) kids and young adults - and they (predominantly) are more into slickly produced action, sex and sports than, say, a good noir detective story. so clearly that's where publishers are going to pit their efforts. do you see movie studios backing anything truly new?
if we try to impose some sort of artificial limit on what is good content and what is 'pandering' - then we marginalize the entire industry.
the mainstream American Comics scene managed to marginalize itself entirely with the Comic Code of the 60s - 90s. Contrast the current american view of comics (no matter what the story, a guy holding a comic book is an immature dork) versus the japanese view of anime (where it is the content of the anime itself that matters).
Porn and Predator do not diminish all 'mature' film - so why should bmx xxx, or quake 3 diminish gaming's legitimacy?
Right now, gaming is dominated by big publishers, like film is dominated by big studios. We don't have an underground scene yet, and quite frankly we are only recently able to attract actual actors and writers to work in our media.
Innovation will happen, and 'mature' content will find its niche and push the media. In the meantime, yeah, predominantly it's going to be the 'formula', and slight variations that get pumped out.
And quite frankly, that's probably the way it will always be. The only difference we can hope for, is that after enough true gems come out these articles will stop claiming that when a publisher produces DOAX that it is proof that all video games are only shooting for that audience, and only fit for that audience.
People thought early cinema was a bastardized media, incapable of telling a story like a good novel or a play. and partially they were right. The thing is, by being able to explore they eventually found stories they could tell that no traditional medium could.
All this is, once again, is the old guard trying to convince everyone that this new fangled stuff is all rubbish and incapable of telling a 'proper' story. Time will be on our side so long as we don't fall for it.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
yeah now that game play is starting to return to games (metroid prime, kill switch) they are totally sacrificing game length. back in the 80s a game took you at least 2-3 times longer to beat as they do today.
That's a feature, not a bug. I don't want to take 120 hours to play through to the ending of your (padded) game. 20 or even 10 hours is fine. If we're talking about mass-market then you want short games because the mass-market does not have the time to obsessively play a game for that long. If we're talking about artistic value then, again, what other medium has ever made you sit through even 40 hours of artistic expression to get the good stuff?
The idea that greater game length == a better game is so wrong. I mean, a game of chess takes, what a few hours? Clearly it's a bad game. They should have included multiple story-missions and at least two or three other multiplayer modes.
There should be more short games. I want games that will entertain my friends at a party. I want games that I can play in the few hours I have after work that aren't spent doing other stuff. I don't want to devote the next 6 months of my life to your one game. No bok demands that much of my time and no movie does either.
If most of your customers will never see the final two-thirds of your game, why are you wasting your resources on it? Save yourself some effort and time as a developer and start work on the next great, short and tightly-focused game.
I have a lot of opinions about Cyborgs and Architects
...Except There's No Music, No Choreography, and the Dancers Hit Each Other.
Yes Mom, all movies today are just bad language and gratuitous violence... sure Dad, no good rock has been made since the 70's... yeah Grandpa, kids today are much bigger trouble makers than ever before... blah blah freakin' blah...
People have been yacking about this to get attention forever. Remember all the hoopla about Pulp Fiction? Well guess what? Pulp Fiction had a lot of violence, a lot of bad language, and also happened to be an incredible movie!
But back to the main argument:
People have always thrown useless elements into media in an effort to turn a quick profit. Books, movies, whatever... Ever heard of Deus Ex Machina (not the similarly titled video game)? Yes, grand sweeping plays that would just have gods come out of nowhere to resolve the plot. This certainly didn't help the flow of a play, increase the richness of the experience, but it got the audience home at a reasonable hour and it certainly made the authors some money.
Yeah, people throw in bad words and violence to sell a couple extra copies, but don't blame video games or video game culture. Cost vs. content is as ancient as the idea of conveying thought and I hate it when someone portrays this as a new or exclusive concept.
I tend to look at GTA3 as a game similar to Zelda. You have a complex world, free roaming, and some dungeon/quests to complete in order to get new items.
back in the 80s a game took you at least 2-3 times longer to beat as they do today. Maybe you took that long to beat a game, but the games weren't that long. This is the 80's! 90% of the games didn't have a save game feature. How long would a developer really make a game that you couldn't save? The crown jewel of the NES era, SMB3, took 8 hours the first time through. Except you couldn't save so you had to do the same things over and over and it just seemed a lot longer. Metroid Prime should take you longer than 8-9 hours, but you get to save, so you end up only playing 10 hours total. Want more play time? Try giving up the ability to save.
He just said the game mechanics is "Pac-Man"-like, and what differs is the level of complexity...
By reading this signature you agree to not disagree with the post you just read.
It is said the average IQ of the human race is 100 (at least that was the ideea when they came up with). Under 80 and you're "too dumb for school" and anything above 120 and you're a intelligence beast... anyway, it's distributed as a "gaussian bell curve"... in case you don't know what that is, google it.
:P
No really, this was necessary.
The world's population is almost 7 billion.
The population having access to computers is (let's go out on a limb with assumptions) about half, let's say 4 billion.
People that USUALLY buy games (or have games bought for them) are somewhere between 15 and 30 years old. The closer you get to the 18-22 zone, the more games they "consume".
So we can safely say, that out of all people using computers, only about 10% purchase games once a year, even less.
So, that leaves us with about 400 million people in the "I'll buy one game this year" pool (yeah, some buy more, but really only Japan and USA persons buy more than 2 games a year on an average).
The number of titles showing up that are worth buying are about 200 each year. So that leaves us with about 2 million possible buyers for a certain game.
Now, look for some tool/graph anywhere that can integrate (as in the mathematical function) the bell curve distribution surface right-side of a certain number. Play with it for a while.
You will see something startling come up...
IQ=100 required to play and enjoy a game = 1 million copies sold
IQ=105 required to play and enjoy = 800 thousand copies sold
IQ=110 required to play and enjoy = 500 thousand copies sold
(and that goes exactly the same the other way around)
Except for extremely aggresive marketing campaigns and/or "heavy brand name recognition" and/or an "exclusive niche" in a genre... the above rule pretty much holds true.
Do you still wonder WHY games are intentionally "dumbed down"???
It's just the allmighty dollar at work here.
Move along, nothing to see...
DISCLAIMER:
1. The numbers, the logic and pretty much anything except the basic ideea followed in this post... were intentionally exagerated (to prove a point).
2. No mathematician was seriously hurt while making these calculations
3. If you use these numbers to compare best-sellers with their gameplay-IQ, I should not be liable for anything that the lawyers throw at you later
By reading this signature you agree to not disagree with the post you just read.
Very true. Not only that, but if you take the grandparent post's example of Metroid, the argument falls flat. The best players in the world can beat Super Metroid in roughly 45 minutes. The (currently) best player in the world can beat Metroid Prime in roughly 1:45. I don't claim to be the best original Metroid player in the world, but I think I can finish it in roughly 30-45 minutes.
It just took me about 8 hours to get through the latest Prince of Persia. The original (from the 80s!) had a time limit of what, 1 hour? Mega Man could be beaten in an hour, I'd be really impressed if someone finished Viewtiful Joe in that amount of time.
Note that all of these are single player games -- once you add in multiplayer, who cares about game time? You can play forever if you want.
Personally, I'd rather go through a game that has its action densely packed into a few hours than something that drags on just for the sake of lasting longer.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
Where is this underground scene? without any sarcasm whatsoever - i honestly would like to know where i can find it. Maybe i missed it, maybe i'm too cynical. maybe we mean two different things by 'underground'. i dont know.
Where are the independent games that are turning out nontraditional or innovative gameplay or storytelling? an rpg told from the point of view of the captured princess? where's the fps that doesn't feature powerups, a health meter, or a shotgun? where's the action game that is about -preserving- life and property? where's the strategy game that covers conflict between nontraditional opponents (eg. rebels, terrorists, seperatists, etc)?
the IGF thus far has been mostly independents seeking to emulate the established genre games, to try to break into the industry. were it not for underfunded overseas companies competing in America for lack of a native market, there wouldn't even be a decent number of 'independent' games made in a year.
the Mod scene is the closest thing we have in the end, because it gives the best chance for good production quality to a small team that's trying to innovate the gameplay or story.
but most of that is 'me-too', and lacks any sort of recognized legitimacy. aside from counterstrike's undeniable success, does any press even honestly -review- mods? let alone maps, gametypes, etc.
is there an independent gaming rag i can refer to, that covers games and developers that i haven't heard of yet? that reviews the independent games and offers a soapbox for independent game makers?
if by 'underground' you mean that half the pc gaming content is under-marketed, i'd agree. but that's hardly the same thing. part of what makes independent film so inaccessible to the mainstream is that it is not only underfunded and thus lacks the glitz and the attention - but that it covers topics, stories, and storytelling methods that the mainstream hasn't tried yet.
Where are these underground pc games that do this? I honestly hope i'm wrong. I'd love to find an underground culture for people who are getting a little tired of yet-another-fps, yet another rts, yet another rpg.
I just haven't found it by myself.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"