Dvorak Trashes Modern Gaming Industry

oskard writes "John C. Dvorak recently posted a PCMag.com rant trashing the gaming industry, predicting a complete market-meltdown in the near future. Titled 'Doom 4: End of the Game Industry?', it was interesting to see how the 3D Realms Forums reacted to the article. He claims that 'games have hardly changed since the invention of the first-person shooter.' His kids have obviously showed him too much Halo 2, and not enough Half-Life 2." From the article: "The business is going to attempt to sustain growth and creativity by making game players buy newer and newer machines. Computer gaming has always been sustained by never-ending improvements in resolution and realism. But once we get to photorealism, what is going to sustain growth?"

Comments

I happen to agree

[mfh]

I agree with him. The other day I went to Future Shop to buy a game or just browse and I walked by every title thinking how uncreative the games industry has become. I don't pay for copycat games.

Make something original.

Storytelling will differentiate tomorrow's games

[22RealMcCoy]

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HL2

[DrXym]

Certainly Half Life 2 is a step above the standard FPS fare, and has some great graphics, but it still very much suffers from the same faults as many FPS games - linear game play, scripted events, levels that box you in, zombies, stupid AI, health meters, a standard range of weapons etc. Its not that much different from most other FPS games in that way.

With that said, the cut-scene engine is excellent, the production is good, there's a semi-coherent plot and the gravity gun is a lot of fun. It's certainly a hell of a lot better than the invisible rail shitfest that is Doom 3, that's for sure.

Re:Don't fall for it.

[Kombat]

It appears that people are becoming more and more addicted (or "drawn to" if you prefer a less inflamatory term) to video games as they become more interactive and realistic.

I wouldn't be so quick to draw such a "cause-and-effect." I actually think that the ever-increasing realism of some particular genres will work against the games. I mean, Mortal Kombat was fun when you could rip the loser's spine from his body, and it was obviously fake blood and gore. But what will happen when it actually looks like footage of a real man, actually ripping out another man's real spine? Of course, it will still just be a simulation, but is society ready for a generation of kids who literally can't tell reality from fantasy?

It's (relatively) easy to distance yourself from video game violence when it is so obviously CG, but technology will eventually approach the point where the video will achieve startling realism. What will that do to the kids who've grown up playing these games, and who have a pretty good idea of what an actual gunshot wound looks like? People complain that kids are desensitized to violence by today's video games, but as realistic as they are, no one would ever confuse them with actual video footage of an actual murder. What sort of desensitization effect will games have when they become indistinguishable from video of actual violent acts? Will the desensitization effect rise to a new level? Are we ready for the potential implications?

Or will game makers simply shy away from the truly graphic, photorealistic violence, and save such abilities for ever more realistic non-violent games, like racing or flying simulations? Then again, maybe a photorealistic "Flight Simulator 2010" is just what Al Queda needs to properly train for their next mission?

Food for thought.

Re:He's off the mark.

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently saw an interview with the creator of the blackberry, extolling how much work went into his device, the engineering, the science, and how, if you were to take it back 200 years into the past, it would be essentially less than useless. It would have no impact on the timeline, and only become a curiosity.

He then held up a physics boox, and said that if you dropped it off 200 years into the past, that the ramifications would have been far reaching and nearly immediate.

And that's why books will always be around, and better tools than any video game. Let's just hope everyone else realizes that.

Re:He's off the mark.

[Dogtanian]

Don't be fooled by Dvorak, the gaming industry is unlikely to implode. It just means that we'll appreciate the ground-breaking games more when they arrive.

Actually, I'd expected the gist of it to be that the gaming industry was going to die because of the economics of it; namely the "feast and famine" nature that sees companies having massive hits, then going to the wall because they can't get funding for the next big-budget blockbuster.

That's as good a reason as any to avoid the games industry like the plague, as far as I'm concerned. That and the fact that it looks interesting from the outside (and thus attracts high numbers of applicants), but actually pushes its participants (or at least the programmers and testers) notoriously hard- doubly so when launch-time approaches- and gives them precious little creativity.