Playing Mogul In The Games Industry

incognitius writes "As sometimes happens, a mainstream publication (the New York Times Magazine, free reg. required) has a feature article on videogames written by a non-gamer. The piece, called 'Playing Mogul', discusses how and why video games conquered music, TV and the movies to become America's pop culture of choice. The article offers some interesting insights into the future of the industry, though it's pretty incompetent in places. It also gives one a good idea for what Atari is doing these days. Worth a read, especially to see what millions of non-gamers will read next Sunday morning." Particularly notable is Atari boss Bruno Bonnell's turning down of a game featuring "a major hip-hop artist" which it's claimed "would net Atari many millions of dollars" because it "lacks an ethical dimension."

Comments

violence in video games

[zors]

One of the things people forget alot, when theyre talking about videogames with god p.o.v. or any game where you get to choose how violent to be or how good or evil, is that the choice belongs to the player, its not forced on them by the game. For example, in a game like Black and White, you can choose to be a good god, or a bad one. Or in KOTOR you can choose to be light side or dark side. What these games really do is show what people like to do in a situation without consequences, whether you may be preternaturally good, or evil. granted its not a perfect microcosm of life, but there is something here. Maybe the game isn't whats fucked up, its us. This actaully reminded me of when my brother tryed playing postal 2, and he was disgusted when he tasered a cop so much that she urinated on herself. Well, he didnt HAVE to do it that much, if he really hadnt wanted to.

If you want to know the future of the industry...

[Meat Blaster]

You need only look at the competing industries (radio, TV, music, movies) and realize that the mentality of the individuals at the top has a common element: maximize stockholder return. Creativity, once integral to the game industry, today has little or no bearing on the decision of which projects to approve and which to ax -- instead, it's all about repackaging what was hot yesterday and marketing the hell out of it.

In a way, this signals the maturity of the game industry. The others have been doing this for decades, but none to the extent that it's been going on over the last 5-10 years, and the solution for those that are tired of the sameness of what's popular in the game industry is probably the same as that for the other industries: give your patronage to the independent developers, and sweep the bargain bins whenever you can.