Game Developers Fear Hollywood-ization of Gaming

While the new generation of console hardware is something to look forward too, CNet has a story discussing the possible downsides to more beefy machinery. In specific, the increase in development time that next-gen games will require may "Hollywood-ize" the games industry even more than it already has been. Warren Spector, from the article: "Once hardware guys give us the capability to do something spectacular, someone's going to spend the money to do something spectacular...The quality bar is going to be raised. Someone is going to spend $20 million or $30 million or $40 million, and the rest of us who don't have deep pockets like that are going to have to find some way to compete."

Comments

Thankfully ..

[.milfox]

Graphics quality isn't everything, same as how in hollywood, FX aren't everything. A movie / game can be awesome in appearance without being 'intresting' in plot at all.

IMHO, plot and world matter MUCH more than the FX or graphics, so .... :P Think about how, say, Napoleon Dynamite or Blair Witch got immensely popular without mass amounts of money spent in their production. The same applies to games.

Re:Thankfully ..

[grumpygrodyguy]

IMHO, plot and world matter MUCH more than the FX or graphics, so .... :P

I agree with you, but there's a problem. Noone has any patience anymore. We all want to be gratified immediately. Noone has the patience to sit down and 'get into' a text-based Zork game anymore, even though it might provide a much richer gaming experience for them. Some of my favortite games like Wasteland and The Bard's Tale are just too slow nowadays. I tried playing them again a while back and when it came to navigating a maze blind, or getting that 3rd servo motor in the sewers I just didn't have the patience to see it through.

Paradoxically the more a game frustrates you, the more fond memories you have of it in later years. But it's harder and harder to pick up and play games like these, because they don't sell anymore. They don't sell because people don't want to work for a sense of accomplishment. They want the illusion of accomplishment. Also the internet has completely destroyed the 'puzzle game' genre because now you can just Google for walkthroughs, maps, passwords, you name it.

In a lot of ways the gamer's greed ends up compromising the magic of gaming. Most people aren't even aware that they're doing it.

Afraid of becoming like Hollywood?

[general_re]

But most big titles are familiar, critics say. Eight of the top 10 best-selling games in mid-April were sequels, some on to their fourth or fifth iteration, according to NPD Group.

Sounds like Hollywood now, for crying out loud. This year, among others, we've got the sixth Star Wars, the fifth Batman movie, the fourth Harry Potter. And let's not mention the slew of derivatives drawn from other genres - Fantastic Four, Dukes of Hazzard - or the remakes of earlier films - Pink Panther, The Love Bug, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, War of the Worlds. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera - hell, if the gaming industry is as dry for new ideas as Hollywood is, might as well give 'em the big budgets to cover for it - if I can't have original, at least blow some shit up for me in a really expensive way.