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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?
Many popular early games were basically tech demos in as much as they were often gameplay wrapped around a particularly impressive bit of coding. I recall the story of a starfield effect on the Atari 2600 that was done by accident, stored away until the current project was finished, then massaged into a game afterwards. I think that game was released as Cosmic Ark, but I'm not sure.
When I take a look at game developers a majority of the staff are generally artists and designers who come from every creative field you could imagine, and it keeps showing in the games. If you only play doom and quake you might not see that there are a lot of more artistic and creative games available. But a game designer (or at least a lead designer) needs a ton of experience to know how to create things that work in games, if you just bring in a famous script writer you're just going to get one long cutscene with no room for gameplay.
If anything, we need designers that have more technical skills so they are more able to put their creative skills to better use.
stuff
Crawford may not have anything nice to say about the game industry, but he knows a lot about games. Listen when he preaches, just don't take his words as gospel.
I totally agree with him that there is still an unpleasant divide between the academics and the engineers. It's great that people are starting to take games more seriously and I still believe that the current trend will result in a much more mature (in the intellectual sense, not the Playboy-Sims game sense) industry.
However, here is where I disagree with Crawford - I don't think the video game industry will emerge from its 'puberty' once interactive storytelling takes off and the humanities people are finally able to add their 'emotion' into games, but I think it'll happen once academics master the formal elements of games, build theories from the ground up and recognize things computers are inherently good at, like real-time distributed communication and number crunching for complex systems.
After that, all that's left to be done is to create a thriving indy scene and bring game development to the masses, raise public opinion and awareness of games as a medium by creating them for their artistic merit as opposed to their marketability and popularity, and finally, acknowledge the enormous educational potential of games and wholeheartedly integrate the study and play of games into our educational institutions all the way from elementary schools to university departments.
Let's face it, the world of game design is dominated by science/engineering people
Good. Game designers who can't at least begin to understand the technical aspects have no place in game development. The best game designers understand why a programming team can't implement a solution in a particular way due to the underlying complexity. The simpler the design, the better it folds and fits onto the hardware. Designers who simply sit around spouting unimplementable nonsense are eventually going to get punched in the face by the developers who have to actually build the game.
Put it another way: Do you want your car's engine and steering to be designed by an automotive concept artist (the guy who does the first outer rough sketch?) - or a competent engineering team who understand technical problems?
Another point: The consumers of games aren't exactly fine art afficionados. They've got to have a technical bent in the first place if they are going to own a machine capable of playing games. Science / engineering folk tend to know what other science / engineering folk like best.
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
The stereotypical "chick flick" hasn't had much of a draw among young 15-26 year old male gamers. I'm not sure warm, lighthearted, socially redeeming fluff games would sell to anybody. "Feel good" movies are forgotten 2 minutes after exiting the theatre - and somebody forgets they've played such a game, what, really, was the point?
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 archite...
WOAH! Hold on a second there - I'm not sure if you've ever worked on a modern game development team (sorry, things have come a long way since 1979) - but there's a certain specialization of the roles. Unless you're an indie developer and with a team of more than about 4 people, artists produce assets - and generally don't code. Programmers produce code - and generally don't make art. Larger teams even have specialised designers - the "lead designer" will be in charge of the entire game's direction. The best designers are a cross between empowered gameplay testers and someone who knows the level design tools.
Unless somebody is set on making their own little games in their spare time, heeding your advice and learning art alongside programming is a good way to dilute talent and torpedo someone's game development career before it's even started.
Not necessarily. Games have already begun to go beyond their initial function as merely 'games' by interacting our citizens. Video games have already served therapeutic purposes... http://www.wetland.sk.ca/children-games/therapeuti c-games-for-children.html ... military recruitment purposes...
http://www.americasarmy.com/ ... and potential CIA agent training purposes.
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030929-123116- 1145r.htm
"Games" have already begun to expand beyond a mere entertainment source.
if Peter Jackson set out to do LOTR without first knowing the books inside and out, would it have done as well? if the Wachowski Brothers didn't have an interest in such a wide variety of different forms of Storytelling and Visual effect, do you really think the Matrix would have been as big?
now to Translate that over to the Current Generation of Games. if the Makers of Gran Turismo didn't know cars inside and out, would GT have been the Racing game of choice for both Hardcore and Mainstream Racing Gamers? or, if Square-enix didn't take the time to make sure their storylines not only touched the mind of the Gamer, but the Heart as well, would any FF games do well?
nowadays, Being a renaissance man/woman should not only be Recommended, it should damn near be Required of anyone that even considers having a part in Developing a Game, otherwise everything becomes Generic, Corvettes start handling like GT40s, all main Characters become the same, Game scripts become re-writes of Hollywood Movies, and the industry creates Heartless and uninspired games that re-hash the same thing over and over to the point where its even more common than it is now
as a Programmer thats trying to get into the Game Dev Industry, i make for Damn sure that i do as many different things as i can, Programming is my Specialty, but that doesn't mean i should render something in 3D Max from time to Time, it doesn't stop me from Playing the Guitar, and it damn well shouldn't stop me from going to the Bar and enjoying the night-life of my Hometown.
as far as Socially aware, more MMORPG Developers would do some good by actually being a part of their City's nightlife and finding out how people interact without a Keyboard in front of them. discover the importance of Hand Gestures and Body Contact, inspiration can strike in the most unusual of places, but 9/10- times, its the most Logical place to find that inspiration
/. is overrun by bed-wetting elitist nerds
let it be known, for anything other than servers, a *nix OS sucks
"Another point: The consumers of games aren't exactly fine art aficionados. They've got to have a technical bent in the first place if they are going to own a machine capable of playing games. Science / engineering folk tend to know what other science / engineering folk like best."
That's bunk. The first part of your point because people needn't be 'fine art aficionados' just to be positively effected by art in the same way non-art aficionados can appreciate a fine novel, poem, painting or play. If you think the only people who appreciate the messages conveyed through these mediums, or the only people affected by the social change they bring about, are devout followers of fine art and academics, I beg to say you're kidding yourself.
As to the second part of your point: You think the only people playing games like Ninja Gaiden, Madden and Final Fantasy right now are also hardcore followers of tech science or at least in a technology-focused frame of mind right now? Try standing by the register at your local Gamestop for a few hours. Games are mainstream now (granted, PC games are still a bit more slanted than console) - people of all mindsets, including the non-techies, play games. The whole point of console gaming is so that people who aren't 'technically bent' can enjoy the same things hardcore geeks have loved for years.
Regardless of the makeup of the consumer base, you don't seem to consider them people interested in 'cultural' materials. They're not going to be the crowds reading Kafka or visiting museums, right? If that's the case, why shouldn't games be a legitimate medium to express some of the same artistic ideas to those people, through a medium that's more relatable? If I'm right in summarizing your statement by saying 'gamers aren't interested in culture,' why could the reason for that not be because no instruments of culture have been appealing to that type of people yet? Why couldn't (shouldn't) games be the first?
"Infants flesh will be in season throughout the year." -Swift
"Perhaps it's because a lot of creative people share the same idea as you seem to state. So, to answer your question in re: to getting more artistic people involved; what would make you consider working on a game?"
Any hope of gainful employment, more or less. I'd be ecstatic to be working in the game industry on that level. I don't know that I'd be satisfied doing that alone my whole life (depending on how much I felt I was able to say while writing games), but coming out of college or even during grad school, I'd jump at the chance.
The only thing is that, I have yet to see anything suggesting that the chance is there. I'd be pleasantly surprised if I'm wrong about that, but I've never seen a game developer put out a call to writers.
"Infants flesh will be in season throughout the year." -Swift
Whilst I agree that there are alot of bad game design and desingers out there. I don't think that it's because designers are too technical. If anything my experience is that they are neither technical nor artistic enough. Generally the people who end up being designers are people that entered the industry from the bottom rung: testing.
Lots of the designers that I've worked with over the years are people who are in the games industry because they want to be (nothing wrong with that) and have no skills that are of obvious practical use to the industry (i.e. they can't draw, they can't code, and they can't project manage). So, we make them testers, and then when they've been there long enough to deserve a decent salary we make them into designers.
There's no qualifications that you need to be a designer, people just get into it and they're either good or bad at the job. This is unlike both code and art, most studios don't employ coders or artists without qualifications (unless they take them on as co-ops or something).
Maybe all these game design courses that universities are starting up will help, but in the end I think that this is just the nature of the beast.....
Ahhh, yes of course the Sciences and the Arts are of course mutually exclusive- a great physicist couldn't possibly also be the writer of equally great literature, a geneticist couldn't possibly also be a painter and poet...
The idea that science and art are seperate is idiotic and a line I hear mostly from incredibly close minded arts graduates... Socially unaware games? Are they really socially unaware? I'd wonder about that...sounds more like pure arts whinging to me...
I'm saying that this divide between "artists" and "programmers" is crap.
... they either use it to justify not going the extra mile to find a technical solution, or they end up doing nothing but attempting to defeat entropy.
I wouldn't say there isn't a divide, but I do concur with you that there is an "Art" to programming, and many/most programmers do instinctively have a creative impulse (except for those COBOL guys, that is...)
But in the gaming industry, in general (and this may just be one of those arguments nobody wins because everyone is using generalities) there is a definite technological-obsession factor that appears to be detracting from true artistic sensibilities.
Was the "creatively sapping environment" at Game Systems Robots caused by the coders refusing to program anything new, or the management refusing to bankroll anything that wasn't a sequel?
Too often, the Programmer Technocratic Elite are given a mandate from "Artists" to do things, only to react with "Can't Technically Be Done", or "Artists Steal CPU Clock Cycle" arguments. The times when true genius has been obvious have been, in my observation, when a programmer thinks "yeah, artistically, that is a cool model/object to implement, even if its freakin' hard", and then goes ahead and works out a good, solid, technical solution to the problem.
But this difficult blend of Art vs. Technology is tricky to manage, and so we end up with many game companies adopting policies of 'Programmers Set the Tools for the Artists" -> "Artists may Only Do what the Programmer allows", and in my not-so-humble opinion, this often results in utter dreck.
Entropy happens in the Art world, it is the muse and the enemy.
Programmers, generally, have a difficult time with entropy, artistically, I have found
Programmers are a kind of Artist. No question about it. But they're also capable of being just as anti-art, as well. Its a fine line, and I really would not say its black and white.
(Jeff Minter for President!!!)
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Ian Bogost pointed out that science/engineering tends to be "predictably useful" where arts/humanities tend to be "unpredictably useful".
Then perhaps the real problem is not that science/engineering dominates, it's that business people are the ones choosing where the emphasis of today's games lies. An executive can choose to hire more programmers or more English Department types. The programmers are reliably useful, the academics either incredibly useful for detrimental. If you're spending a billion dollars to make this game, the choice becomes clear--hire more programmers and avoid as much risk as possible.
The only way we'll see more creative, less technical, and riskier games, is if it becomes possible to make games at a drastically reduced cost.
As if anyone who is an engineer can't possibly understand arts and humanities.
What a load of crap.
If anything, talent in both fields seems to be quite common among intelligent and creative people. You can't tell me that any engineer couldn't jump right into a philisophical/humanities discussion with relatively few problems understanding what's going on.
The only "problem," if there is one, is that the typical engineering type is outclassed by the guy-with-the-humanities-doctorate when it comes to spouting bullshit, and consequently yields authority or creative control to him because he doesn't want the hassle.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
As someone who worked in the industry, I would say that a larger factor is the amount of hours worked by the employees. How much life experience and understanding of the human condition can someone contribute to the art when they do nothing but wake, work and sleep?
Most teams are composed almost entirely of young males with fast reflexes who do nothing but work, and games of today reflect this.
Myst came from America. Sam & Max came from America. GTA3 came from America. Pac-Man, Sims, SimCity. This isn't some vast "Japan has Art, America has Shooters" gap.
I would say for every FPS America cranks out, Japan cranks out a lame fighter. For every GOOD FPS America cranks out (Halo), Japan cranks out a GOOD Fighter (Soul Caliber).
For the most part, however, both countries produce good games, usually what their populations demand. I hear GTA3 (a work of art) failed in Japan because gamers want a straight ahead game with clear rules and goals. Perhaps that's why no one takes any of the crazy Hentai games and brings them to America... different market.
I'm hereby removing the saddle from your high horse.
God Bless America. Why? Did it sneeze?
Lots of defensive techies in here today!
Actually, I'm a tech-head too.
I think what Crawford was trying to get at, though, is that there is potential for makeing great art in the video game medium, it's just really hard and not exactly strived for very often. And given the large undertaking and large amount of passionate/opinionated people that it takes to make a game(not to mention the pressure from the business side - I'm not convinced we have a 'truce' or whatever with the business side of things), it's not surprising.
Of course, it doesn't need to be a work of art to be fun. I can blast monsters till my hearts content in quake or whatever and have fun, but i wouldnt call that great art.
Some examples that might help illustrate my opinion would include checking out Zelda: the Wind Waker, American McGee's Alice, and Dragon's Lair. All trying to not just incorporate good art onto a stable tech framework, but BE good art as a whole. (Alice, IMO, failed, but started off in a interesting direction)
Elegate/efficient tech design is part of succeeding in making great art in game design, of course. I think Crawford is just trying to emphasize that there is MORE than just the seperate parts. There's the whole multi-legged horse thingy.
FUNK!