Missing the 'Whole' Point in Game Development

An Anonymous Reader wrote to tell us about Walter Kim of the Ludonauts. He has an interesting argument about game design: "many videogame developers, particularly the Western ones, approach their craft with far too much of a hard-headed pragmatism, a nuts and bolts mentality about development that has, consciously or unconsciously, extended itself to design. What you end up with are a bunch of games that, while they may exhibit a great deal of cleverness on the level of individual level design, are stitched together with about as much finesse as duct tape."

Comments

Aeris' Death

[MilenCent]

The first footnote from the article:

I recently stumbled across a review (http://xenon.stanford.edu/~geksiong/papers/sts145 /Final%20Fantasy%20VII.htm) of Final Fantasy VII for a Stanford History of Computer Game Design class. This review claims that Aeris' death is the first time in RPG history that the death of a main playable character is an "essential and critical element of the plot." Completely untrue. It was done at least once before, in Sega's 1994 RPG, Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millenium.

Oy. It was done much earlier than that, in Phantasy Star II. Oh who will morn for poor, forgotten Nei? Or Tellah (FF II/IV), for that matter? Or the Flying Men from Mother?