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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?"
Guru meditition Error: "An instance of professor could not be loaded due to a missing a critical library: empathy.lib."
Seriously, I could have applied that analysis to the the media of any century. People could have said that about art in the 16th century, literature in the 19th century and television in the 20th century. Now it's the turn of the new fangled 21st century media, the video game, to be label as "boring and non-progressive".
Wake up and smell the roses. In this world you don't have to be original to make money. If anything, you are penalised for creating something original; daring to be different is often suicidal. This problem is even more accute in the software industry where it can cost a lot more to produce a game that it does a crappy sit-com.
People like their media a lot like they like their sex: Non-adventurous but guarenteed to satisfy. (As a side note, slashdotters might disagree that people want "boring" sex I think the reality is that most people grandstand on this issue; I'd wager that the majority of people feel comfortable having relativity boring sex).
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.
Simon.
Now that Dvorak said its dying, sales will sky rocket and Duke Nukem Forever will be released ahead of schedule.
"For Great Justice."
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.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Dvorak does this all the time to increase page impressions. Don't even bother reading the article.
It's obvious to me that the opposite is occurring. 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'm a big tall mofo.
Can we get a Dvorak topic that we can ignore, please?
/.ers., really.
John Dvorak writes for the average WinTel user who isn't following tech trends more than what makes the evening news. I can't understand how anything he writes is of any interest to
Oh, I can't help quoting you because everything that you said rings true
I think of first person shooters as sort of the "silent movies" of video games. We are at the stage of developing the technology to create truely deep games. The FPS is an excellent platform for testing out new technology (see the newest Unreal engine for reference). Once the FPS proves a technology feasible it can be adopted into games of larger scale; and once we reach a plateau in the realism that can be delivered by games, developers will have to innovate gameplay around that realism.
This is my sig, there are many like it, but this one is mine...
But once we get to photorealism, what is going to sustain growth?
I don't play games because of the graphics. I play games because they are fun. Agreed a fun game that looks great is better than one that looks like crap, however photorealism is not the end state of gaming progression. Look at all the fun people have with games like Bejeweled. That has nothing to do with visuals. Its just a fun game to play. All these first person shooters are featuring graphics because that is what will set them apart. It is tought to build an engaging story that has to involve thousands of monsters to be slaughtered. FPS games are going to decline to a niche, but games are going to persist.
This guy is just being inflammatory for the sake of it.
If you want to see exactly how inane this is, go out and rent the brain-dead Paul Verhoeven film, Starship Troopers.
Poor use of an example there, being that Starship Troopers is a oft-misunderstood anti-war satire.
Mod article +5 Ironic
see, what he's really saying is that *he's* bored with the stuff the gaming industry is putting out there; therefore, the industry just *must* be on the verge of imploding, right?
what he's forgetting is that the gaming industry's target audience isn't self-important middle-aged white men. a demographic that's closer to the mark is kids and teens. *they're* the ones who are providing the main revenue stream for the industry, and, not too coincidentally, *they're* the ones impressed by the fancy flashing lights.
all of the "it's all the same thing" rant is lost on this audience: they haven't been around long enough to know that it's all the same thing, wrapped up in new, shiny paper, and using faster processors and cards. to them, old *is* new again, and it's pretty freaking impressive!
I don't mean this in a disparaging way; I'm just saying that you don't get that kind of perspective about the gaming industry until, very likely, you're no longer part of their target demographic...
Um, I think halo is a bad example of "just another shooter". It really isn't just another action game. It has a number of inovations that give a lot of depth to gameplay.
Health/shields - recharging shields after a few seconds, so you never have to limp around almost dead, team mates can cover you while you recharge for team strategy, etc
Vehicles - the way you can just get in and get out at will
Carrying only two weapons at a time, forces you to choose, not just load up
Melee attacks - always available and make close combat much more interesting
Grenades - always available at a button press (not a weapon you switch to) and add lots of strategy, such as bouncing htem around corners, laying them in front of doors enemies are following you through, etc
Plasma / particle weapons - plasma hurts shields more, particle hurts health more, makes weapon combos more interesting
Motion tracker - Not a radar, you can only see people who are moving, so not moving is a strategic option, crouch walking is slow but you don't show up on motion trackers, so it adds a level of stealth to an action game
Granted, these are all halo 1 inovations, but the balance of all these things in halo 2 is superb. They all come up constantly. I think a better example of a boring by the numbers game is Doom 3.
Everything seemed to be going so nice
'till the end of all beings punched right through the ice
Anyone interested on modern FPS engines sould check this Quake Family Tree.
/me...Looking forward for Quake 4.
This pict how actually most people its on modding already existing engines. Valve its even forward, modding his how mods ( Counter Strike: Source ).
-Woof woof woof!
Huge opportunities will abound in the gaming industry as tools are released that lets the global community mod their favorite games. Storytelling will come to dominate games at every turn, as graphics, physics engines, and audio approach reality. The stories will also need to approach reality. http://autumnrangersgame.com/ is an example, based on the novel http://autumnrangersnovel.com/ and movie http://autumnrangersmovie.com./
What he doesn't explore is why. A distribution channel that favors "safe bets" over radical new concepts. Kinda like the movie industry, cranking out sequel after sequel of the same cliche'd genres.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
I have to agree. I've been reading John C. Dvorak since the 80's, and I tend nowadays to look at his columns as more 'humor' than 'editorial.'
This guy has always wanted to be the Nostradamus of the computer industry, but I don't think I can count on one hand the number of his predictions that's actually been true. He's been in the ballpark a few times, but he tends to blow things ridiculously out of proportion.
I don't agree that the gaming industry is going to face a 'meltdown', but certainly it needs to continue innovating if it's going to continue growing. But that's true of any industry. I do see his point that most games have fallen into a rut of rehashing the same handful of genres, but this will hardly lead to a collapse of the market - more likely it will just mean less *new* gaming demographics. Most consumers have already seen what the majority of games have to offer, and to effectively acquire those segments of the market that have already blown off video games, you need to be able to find something new that appeals to them.
Sounds like novels and movies to me. There's what, adventures, documentary, sci-fi, romance, a few others. Books haven't had any real new ideas except a tacked on story line to keep the reader from being bored stiff.
I hate to break it to Dvorak, but gaming isn't always about something new and creative. In fact, new and creative can be very hard to enjoy for a gamer who's used to certain types of games (go read all the "why isn't it more like
A good story will get me through a really stupid game any day of the week, like a page turner with a great plot and terrible spelling because the writer didn't get a good editor.
I actually am one of those people who quite enjoyed Doom 3, not for the incredible graphics or sound effects, but because it had an intriguing plot line. I'm not saying it was as well fleshed-out as it could have been. I'm not going to refer anyone to the hundreds of people who didn't bother watching any of the video discs in the game or reading the E-mails, they're easy to find too.
There are many types of gamer -- some like newspapers, some like comic books, some like 2000 page novels, some like to reread their favorite magazine fifteen times. The gaming industry isn't dying.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
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.
Showing him Half-Life 2 wouldn't help. Dvorak's problem is that he openly admits he does NOT game. Thus he's like the old guy who thinks all rock and roll sounds the same. Or the young guy who thinks all jazz sounds the same.
It's hard to understand the nuisances of a subculture unless you particulate in it yourself.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
On a Dvorak keyboard CTRL-K decapitates the user.
I have no sig yet I must scream.
But once we get to photorealism, what is going to sustain growth?
The content! the story! how has hollywood sustained after achiving photorealistic CGI? Using it in interesting ways! Creating stories that people love.
Photorealism will just be polishing a tool. It will be up to creative people to sustain the growth of the games industry. Games are now a (highly technical) art form. Did people stop doing interesting things with painting after the Mona Lisa? No. This is just the begining of the game industry, not the end.
With the possible exception of Battlefield 1942, I haven't seen a FPS game since that has held my attention for more than 2 weeks (and I tend to spend upwards of 100$ a month on video games). Everything has been a disappointment to me, and most other people I've spoken to, lately.
There's going to come a point where photorealism is going to be common place, and eventually easy to develop. After that, the developers will be able to get back to the old Arcade style roots - good, solid games with good, solid ideas. They'll worry about story, look and feel, and some new, compelling quirks that grab the players attention. The video game industry isn't going to die. It isn't going to be crippled. Once photorealism is common place, the developers will come back from the jackass side of the game development force and focus on gameplay. Then everyone will be happy, and I'll stop feeling bad about shelling out mass quantities of money for new games.
Although Dvorak is wrong about a "collapse" of the gaming industry, he is right that there is a fundamental change brewing. What he doesn't get is that this change is not just taking place in the gaming industry, but in the movie industry. Technology has reached a point where we can tell any story we want, in any way we want, effortlessly. There is no visual experience we cannot simulate cinematically (did I just make up a word?)
As the realtime visualization of a video game catches up with the pre-rendered illusion of film, the video game industry will end up having to solve some of the same problems that the movie industry is now starting to face: special effects are no longer enough. We take them for granted. Film-makers are now trying to catch our attention in other ways - mostly by remaking old stories or producing sequels. That will get old soon, and when it does there will be a new breed of films that reach people more deeply, challenge their emotions and intellect. We are seeing a smattering of this now, but not in force.
For game-makers, the challenge will be to use their newly available photo-realistic engines ot produce a challenging game. Currently, game companies are development shops - but soon the development will be complete and the art will take over.
I am looking forward to this - maybe I will start to play games again. But currently I am like Dvorak - I have seen too many versions of Quake, and I am not interested in memorizing the correct sequence of keypresses to fire the Super-Duper-Cannon in order to beat the boss on level 17. Great games have a low barrier of entry and are immersive. Think Tetris, and Bejewelled, but also think Doom or Half-Life.
Schrodinger's cat is either dead or really pissed off...
I've have more sympathy for his views if he didn't start off the article by demonstrating that he didn't even understand 'Starship Troopers' :). Geez, how could anyone have thought it was a serious movie, rather than a comedy taking the piss out of American militarism?
Perhaps they read the book before they watched the movie, and expected something intelligent. It was a serious book that was absolutely ruined, after all. Kind of like I, Robot.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
But I more or less agree with Mr. Dvorak. I still remember staying up all night playing Doom 1 when it came out, thinking it was the coolest, and most immersive game I'd ever played. And it was at the time.
But after getting all the way through the game, playing it at different difficulty levels didn't interest me too much. Same old levels, with a bit more speed, and a few more creatures... Playing multi-player online was also interesting for a little while, but it too got boring fast (this was admittedly before todays technologies, wherein you can talk and interact with the other players more fluidly).
I was all geeked about Doom2 when it came out, but after playing it awhile, I quickly got bored with it. New graphics and a new(er) storyline didn't make up for the fact that the game looked and felt like Doom 1.2.
Other FPS games also felt the same to me. Half Life 1 has got great graphics, and a rather involved plot, but other than this, it feels like every other FPS out there, to me at least. Half Life made me think a bit more, as opposed to the hack and slash mentality of the aforementioned Doom series, but it didn't really draw me into the game.
For the record, I've never played Half Life 2 - The whole Steam thing turned me off... I don't think I should have to be connected to the Internet just to play a game myself (non-multi player), and the horror stories of Steams reliability made it something I've avoided ever since.
Long story short, all FPS games have similar controls, similar graphics - They obviously use different graphics, but nothing is spectacularly different in the implementation of the graphics. You're still walking along, with a bobbing hand, or weapon in front of you.
Plus, as these games have tried to get more realistic, the key combinations of them have gotten so out of hand. There just has to be a better way of handling all of the complexities of a 3-D game, without adding 50+ key combinations to do things. No, I don't have a solution to the problem, but neither do I like having to either memorize so much information just to play the game.
Speaking of that bobbing hand/weapon which FPS games always seem to have, some of the implementations of this have gotten so out of hand that it gives me motion sickness just to play the damn things. Although it's not a great game, a good example of this is the South Park FPS - I played this for 5 minutes, watching the bobbing hand, holding a snowball, and felt like I was going to throw up!
How game developers came to the conclusion that there has to be some viewable, hand-related element on screen at all times is beyond me. For instance, using the South Park game as an example, how many of us really hold our hands out in front of us when having a snowball fight? We also don't hold our weapons outstretched at all times, but in these games we do! It all seems to detract from that feeling of realism for me, and when they make these items move as we walk, it just throws the whole "look" of the game off. Yes, I can understand seeing the barrel of a rifle, if I'm carrying one, as it'll stick out in front of me, but why all weapons have to be handled this way is beyond me.
There have been other variations on the FPS themes, and one of the more impressive of these is the Quake tournaments, but even these get old for me fast.
The games that keep me coming back the most are actually the Civilization line of games. No, it's not action packed, and sometimes it too can get boring, but the challenge, and the AI of the game keep me coming back for more again and again.
I also can appreciate the online games, such as Everquest, or Ultima Online a bit more than the average FPS, simply because they're different, and feel more "immersive" to me, even if they're not photo quality, or 3-D. I also tend to return to Mame and SNES games (via an emulator) far more often than I do the FPS's.
In fact, I think that the continued (and growing) interest in emulators, and ol
"Hey you stupid kids, get off my lawn!"
These two sentences precisely nail exactly what is wrong with Dvorak's article. For example:
In fact, I'd go so far as to say that this is MORE true of television than video games. But I'm a curmudgeon.
Modern Gaming Industry Trashes Dvorak
He's a dick!
But seriously, speaking as a game programmer (just made unemployed by liquidating employer, cheers guys), he's probably correct to an extent.
Games rarely undergo really fundamental shifts in how they work. It's fairly easy to trace paths of evolution in fairly small obvious steps concept-wise from Space Invaders (shoot bad guys on a single screen) through Operation Wolf et al (shoot bad guys from a first person non-interactive scrolling view) to Doom (shoot bad guys from a first-person interactive view) to Half-Life 2 (shoot bad guys from a first-person interactive view when Steam will let you connect). You get the odd new genre-busting title, or one which suddenly kicks a genre into popularity (e.g. Wolfenstein 3D was pretty popular, but Doom reached a whole new level of infamy among the non gaming populace).
I guess I just don't see how it can necessarily be a bad thing that most of the big companies don't go reaching for the genre-buster every time, or even some of the time. I remember when EA first brought out John Madden on the Megadrive/Genesis, it was pretty ground-breaking stuff, same with the first FIFA soccer games. Now they mostly just change the player names every year, and make a metric assload of cash out of it. By contrast, you get a company like my previous employers, who try for big original IP concepts with every game, then crash and burn because no-one will publish them (and in our case the managers seem to have no clue about business, but I digress).
I'd love to work on games which revolutionise gaming every year or two. I'd also quite enjoy actually having a job, where I get paid, can buy a house and car and so forth without the spectre of unemployment hanging over me literally every day, which is what happens at smaller game studios unless they're very very fortunate.
I'm now looking at moving to a different country, because there are very few games jobs left where I am, none of them are hiring. Perhaps I'll end up somewhere cool, but I'll settle for a regular paycheck even if it means making Generic TemplateGame 2006/7/8/...
Game dev and music blog
That's funny, because when I saw it back in high school, I got the message immediately.
I guess some people need their preachy messages to be blatantly over-the-top in order to be considered worthy *rolls eyes*
I don't know about you, but I think we could use some more subtlety nowadays.
And then, you can work on realistic physics, and AI. After that, you can work on better stories, non-linear plots, etc.
There's a million directions that technologies can improve in for games. I don't see the world ending when graphics get to be photorealisitc (and that's not going to happen any time soon anyway - compare Pixar level graphics to today's PC, we're many years away from having the processor power to do that in realtime.)
Nintendo's overall popularity may be on the decline, but is the remedy for that to compete with Microsoft and Sony at their own game? Nintendo has itself quite a lucrative niche, Saying Nintendo should back off and innovate less (or differently, or whatever) is like saying Apple should try to be more like Microsoft or Intel, because they have greater market share. What does it matter so long as a ton of people still immensely enjoy your product, and you're consistently turning a healthy profit?
I'm not a huge "console gamer" to begin with, so maybe this should be taken with a helping of salt... But my experiences have been, Nintendo is focused pretty sharply on the younger gamers out there. Being a "30 something" myself, Nintendo has no real charm for me. I think of GameCube as something my daughter might enjoy playing with in a few more years.
Whether they're especially "innovative" or not, I think it's all being lost on their target market. Younger kids tend to be happy with even the "been done a million times already" titles, because they're not old enough to remember playing the originals they're based on.