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Crawford Lambasts Overly Technical Approach To Games
Thanks to the IGDA for its Chris Crawford-authored 'Ivory Tower' column discussing the gap between science and the arts in videogame creation. Crawford, ever belligerent, argues: "Let's face it, the world of game design is dominated by science/engineering people; people from the arts and humanities play a secondary role... the result: a vast wasteland of cold, heartless games, technological works of genius deficient in redeeming social value." He goes on to suggest: "We need educational programs that expose students to equal amounts of technology and art. They should learn to program even as they study Michelangelo, rhetoric and recursion, algorithms and architecture." Do you think this would lead to better, more innovative, socially aware videogames?
There's many games out there that seem to be more tech demos than real games, and even some of the bigger hits, like Ninja Gaiden, I sat there playing it, and it just felt like it was missing something... a soul, if you will. Hopefully we get more games that are more than just the sum of their parts, and I see them from companies such as Nippon Ichi, and Nintendo.
...a whole world of geniuses?
Not everyone can come close to being able to focus on that many areas - the literary/artistic education people are given in this country (at least) is laughable, and there are people who want to add onto all of this?
Why not just get more people who have the artistic skills and prowess more involved in the game making process? Why do companies let engineers write game plots? As I see it, the reason there isn't more redeeming social value in gaming is because no one involved in the creative side of game development seems to be good enough to tie it in.
It's a bit silly to try making everyone into an artist/writer/director as well as a mathematician/engineer/programmer; most people's minds just don't deal that well with one area or the other (right brain/left brain dominance I suppose).
I'll be graduating in a couple of years with a degree in English, and hope to make a name for myself through writing, but the last thing on my mind is getting a job writing video game stories or working on development. I'd love the chance to do that kind of work, but it's nothing I've heard of happening lately.
"Infants flesh will be in season throughout the year." -Swift
As a programmer, I'm a little insulted. This guy seems to ignore that many of today's game designers do not come from a highly technical background,...at least not as technical as the programmers. Furthermore, much of the design either comes from or is altered by the producers. That means that much of the content is swayed by people that don't necessarily have 'any' technical background; they're business people, not programmers or software engineers.
Many of the bigger names in the industry 'are' technical, but they're also artistic, and they mainly hail from the days where only 2 people may be working on a game, forcing programming and artistic expression into one condensed job. However, these people are the exception, and the majority of people who influence the content of video games at this point have little to no technical knowledge of the games they're creating.
The author makes a good point, and more artistic creativity wouldn't hurt the creation of games. I'm just not sure he targeted the problem correctly.
On the flip-side, in a large team there needs to be people who specialise so that the hard tasks can be done.
Communication is an issue in any large team and it's not due to some abitrary divide. In any industry, not just the games industry, anyone who isn't interested in learning a little bit about everything that goes on in their company will always be a problem, from the IT officer that never learns how the marketing deparment works, to the engineer that doesn't know how to budget, to the project manager that doesn't understand how hard it is to workout how long it will take to do something that's never been done before.
The most telling part of the article is below:
What a graphic demonstration of how wrong the author is.First there are games which are work of art, "Planscape:Torment" for example. Averall there is a lot of art/music in the games, and some of that is not of bad quality. More important from educational point of view, videogames brought to public awareness quite a big layer of humanitarian knowledge, not accessable by general public before. Ask teenager of 70-s , who is shaman, where the Jotunheim is, and who were major opponents of Oda Nobunaga during Warring States period. What kind of answer would you get ? Now the situation is different. In the search of content developers digging through a lot of world history, culture and arts.
video games are, for the most part, made by a team of people. so are movies, music, plays, etc.
Sure, some of those people should know a thing or two about the world in general, and maybe have some culture. However, all those plays on Broadway would be nothing without the sound and lighting crews. everyone has their own job to do, and some are more technical than others.
Perhaps game studios should be like movie studios, buying scripts and having a director shape it into a playable and fun game. but the most important thing about a good game is that it runs well on my current system without crashing. To do this you need good programers, no matter what else they are.
Anyway, in a hundred years current games WILL be art, regardless.
However your basic point is right on. In every game company i've worked at more than two thirds of the people have very little in depth tehnical experience. The designers can write simple scripts and use spreadsheets to balance stats, and the artists can use the appropriate art tools, but (on average) they know very little about programing, technical constraints, or the data pipeline.
There's always some artist who insists on exporting art files in the wrong way, even after you've told them three or more times that it will break stuff. The designers often make similar mistakes with the scripts, and frequently their first request for a new feature is totally unfeasible, requiring a programmer to come talk to them about what's possible and how to integrate that with what they want.
Unless the three companies i've worked at have been freak occurances, most game companies have non-technical people doing the art and design. If the design isn't good, either the designers just aren't very good, the programmers weren't able to implement it right (in which case the problem is not enough focus on tech, not too much focus) or as someone else suggested, management decided to get involved for whatever strange reason management always seems to have for screwing things up.
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In other words, they are enormous fun...which some of us happen to think has a social value in itself.
The old I get, the more distain I have for self-styled intellectuals.
If Chaos Theory has taught us anything, it's that we must kill all the butterflies.
The pitch meeting: a play in one act.
The scene: Several businessmen wearing khakis and polo shirts sit around a large conference table. A large screen, ready to show game demos, dominates one side of the room.
Chairman: Ok guys, we're here to decide which games our company, Publisher X, will fund, and which we won't. We don't have a lot of time, Fred over there needs to fly to Japan to give an interview to Famitsu and Joe has a conference call with the Wal-mart guys. Because of this, we're restrained to only seeing each game for about 5 minutes.
Chairman: Our first demo is from the guys at GameDev Studios. Matt, here, will be showing us his game, uh...
Matt: "Hills of Aeden", sir.
Chairman: Tell us about your game, Matt.
Matt pops up a powerpoint slideshow on the big screen, and begins his pitch.
Matt: Hills of Aeden is a third person action-adventure game with rpg influences. Like the Square game, Final Fantasy X...
Fred: Excuse me, Matt, but have you considered changing the name of your game?
Matt: (knocked off balance by the interruption) Um...uh... well, not really. The name is pretty important, as it ties into the answer to the big mystery...
Fred: Because this, "Hills of Eden" thing sounds like a soap opera. Joe, what were the stats on soap opera games?
Joe: (pulling statistics out of his ass) our marketing research says that 7 out of 12 males aged 12 to 27 won't buy soap opera games unless there's nudity involved. However, Wal-Mart and EB refuse to sell games with nudity in them, so they're a no-go.
Fred: Right. That's what I thought. No go on the soap opera name, Matt. How about something with some spark to it. Something that we can use to create a strong IP around. How about something like "Dark Fury", or "Mayhem".
Chairman: Good point, Fred. Matt, we'll need a new name for your game. Now, you've had 3 months of pre-production. What have you got to show us?
Matt: (even further off balance) Well, as I was saying, this is a very story-oriented game, so we hired a professional writer to come in, and together, we've put together a 200 page outline of the game. We've also got together some really good concept art that I think really shows off the style... (furiously clicks through powerpoint slides until he gets to art).
Fred: I like this look, but it seems kinda pretty, to me. Kinda pastel-y.
Chairman: I agree. Pastels are a no go.
Matt: Well, we have some, uh, more bold images, over here. (more slides go by)
Fred: Hey! That looks like that World War 2 game that came out last week. What were the numbers on that game, Joe?
Joe: (more number pulling) NPD has it as the best selling game for last Tuesday in the 21-32 year old bracket, Fred.
Fred: I thought so! You know, we could use another WW2 game in our portfolio. Which battle does your game take place in, Matt? Normandy? Uh, Guam?
Matt: "Hills of Aeden"...
Fred: You mean "Mayhem".
Matt: Right, "Mayhem" doesn't take place during WW2. It's a futuristic game that takes place on another planet where racial tensions between 5 different factions...
Fred: Hmmm... well maybe you can change it to a WW2 game. Those sell pretty well, and we only have two others in development right now.
Chairman: So, Matt, you only have a design doc and some screenshots? No prototype?
Matt: We really wanted the art direction and the story to take precedence...
Chairman: Matt, have you ever heard of John Romero? Daikatana? Designers first?
Matt: Uh...
Chairman: We'll give you our decision later, when you can't actually physically attack us. Thanks for coming by and showing us "Mayhem"!
Fred: Yeah, thanks Matt! Hey, next time, try to focus more on the WW2 aspects of your game.
Matt: Uh...thanks.
Chairman: Ok, guys, next game is called "Police State". Don is here to show us this game.
Don: Hi guys. We've been working hard for the past