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Games Industry Echoes Of Hollywood's Golden Age?

Posted by simoniker on from the lorne-lanning-is-charlie-chaplin dept.

Zack Young writes "I just read an article over at TweakTown Gamer that has an interesting comparison between the movie industry and the gaming industry. It mentions many of the similarities between the relatively young gaming industry and the film industry of the 1920's, including the introduction of new technologies and how they shaped and are shaping the artistic direction the formats take." The article also suggests: "The overall structure of gaming companies... resembles the studio system of the 'Golden Age of Hollywood' rather than the fragmented independent layout of today. The movie studios such as MGM, Paramount or Warner Brothers had their own stock of actors, writers and directors from which the crew of a particular movie was comprised."

9 of 26 comments (clear)

  1. It's gonna be more evolution than revolution by Toxygen · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The article makes mention of the advent of "talkies" being a revolution in the film industry and what the comparable revolution would be in the gaming industry, but didn't movies just use an announcer or a narrator, or even just a piano playing in the beginning? That's still sound for the movie, regardless of the source, and different implementations of the same idea is just evolution.

    1. Re:It's gonna be more evolution than revolution by Jerf · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Quality" and "quantity" are two points on a continuum, not binary absolutes.

      A sufficient change in quantity becomes a change in quality.

      Having a generalized sound track is so different from having "a human voice not of your choosing and a piano" that the two are hardly comparable, even if technically both are sources of sound.

      The litmus test is, "Will my understanding of one contribute significantly to my understanding of the other?" In this case, the answer is no; understanding what is possible with "a guy and a piano" will only give you the barest hint of what is possible with a full soundtrack.

      I'd say it justifies "revolutionary" as a term.

      (That said, at this point the only true "revolution" left for gaming is significantly more physical interaction, or direct neural connections giving the impression of more direct physical interaction. "(Distributed) Multiplayer", massive and otherwise, was the last "revolution" in gaming and I doubt there will be any more for a while.

      ("But you can't predict the future! Maybe something awesome will happen!" No, but I can make a structural argument: We've tapped all the senses that can reasonably be tapped (taste and smell are irrelevant, touch in non-trivial modes is essentially what my "physical interaction" point is about and is very hard), and we've tapped human interaction via multiplayer. There's nowhere for a true "revolution" to come from anymore, just a whole lot of incremental evolution that may add up in totality to a revolution, but with no one true "revolution" point.)

      OK, this rambled a bit, but hey, this is Slashdot, right?

  2. Golden Age by saramakos · · Score: 3, Funny

    I thought the TRUE golden age would start when Duke Nukem Forever finally comes out?!?

  3. More like the 80's? by NanoGator · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Just struck me as a little odd that the state of gaming was compared to the 20's instead of the 80's. It seems like in the mid-to-late 80's is when we saw the the start of convincing effects. The result of this was fewer compromises in making a movie with a vision. It wasn't perfect, things still looked fake, but man it just got better and better.

    You'll have to pardon me, I just watched the Back to the Future trilogy. Cannot help but be reminded at how refreshing I found those movies when I was a kid. Seems to me that gaming's in that state right now. The graphics are quite sophisticated, the renderings are very close to what the artists intended, but there's still quite a leap to go before we get to 'convining'.

    Maybe I'm just focusing on the wrong aspect, though.

    --
    "Derp de derp."
    1. Re:More like the 80's? by Viptorian · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The difference between the 20's and the 80's was that actors would sign to be exclusive to a particular studio. They could not go anywhere else to make a movie. Period. Thats kind of like when Squaresoft decided to only work with Sony. You used to see a lot mroe loalty with video game companies and the designers. However, i'm amazed at all the cross-console licesing that is going on. you can pretty much buy the same game for any system these days. Go to a video store and look at what games are not on rival systems, look at the company that made it and see if you see the name of that company on any of the other company's labels. You can still see the loyalty these days, its just not as obvious, especially with sega and atari primary as game developers these days.

  4. Re:Definitely by sofakingl · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hardly any decent games? This is the SNES and Genesis era you are talking about, an era that many gamers think of as the real gaming golden age. There were so many good games on both of those systems that are looked apon as being classics. Super Mario World, Sonic the Hedgehog, the SNES Final Fantasy games, Chrono Trigger, Street Fighter 2, Phantasy Star 4, Castlevania 4, and several others were released in that era, and are cherished by many gamers.

  5. A little late! by Allen+Varney · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I pointed out these similarities in an article for Amazing Stories back in 1998, and I was nowhere near the first to make the observation.

  6. Programmers like actors? by R33MSpec · · Score: 4, Interesting
    "..The movie studios such as MGM, Paramount or Warner Brothers had their own stock of actors, writers and directors from which the crew of a particular movie was comprised.."

    On another train of thought - I wonder if programmers who gain 'status' for creating outstanding games may be well known enough (e.g John Carmack) to be exactly like an actor, in the way:

    Programmers will have a personal manager and be able to almost freelance between game companies for particular game projects - like an actor is offered movie roles, a programmer would be offered contracts by gaming studios for a particular game.

    Games would highlight even more so the fact that a particular programmer worked on a previous 'hit' game - like any new movie will highlight any A-list actors it may have in it.

  7. Sound Revelution? How about GTAIII? by FouRPlaY · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It seems to me that Grand Theft Auto III might just be the sound revelution.

    Not only does it tell a story, but it is the free-form, non-linear, go-at-your-own-pace, any order, video game ideal. The user is complete control of the progression of the story.

    Not to mention its commercial success.

    Sounds like a candidate to me! ^_^