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GDCE Keynote on The Future of Games
Gamasutra is reporting on Sony Executive VP Phil Harrison's keynote at the Game Developer's Conference Europe. He discusses where he thinks games are, and should be, going. From the article: "We have to continue to put creativity first, otherwise we will turn into a formulaic industry. It's up to us all to... try to put innovation foremost, otherwise the consumers will go elsewhere. If we're not exciting these eyeballs better than anyone else, people will go watch Lost."
"Sony to sell good games in the hopes that consumers will like them and, by extension, buy them."
Yeah. This deserved a whole article.
Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!
" otherwise we will turn into a formulaic industry"
Unlike the one just now.
We need to innovate or people will just watch Lost?
Now, I've only seen the first episode before giving up, but does Lost turn into something other than a formulaic twist-turny too-clever-by-half 24-alike with far, far too many scenes stolen wholesale from Jurassic Park sequels?
Because scoring a big hit by cobbling together bits and pieces of other successful things seems to be _exactly_ what Lost is doing.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Execs thinking like this is one reason we have a bunch of expensive 3d games that aren't much fun instead of fun 2d games.
Way back in the 8 & 16 bit days, it was easier to sell a game based on graphics alone. Times have changed. Sony will have to figure out (like Nintendo seems to have) that most of us don't want our eyeballs excited. We want to have FUN.
"We have to continue to put creativity first, otherwise we will turn into a formulaic industry"
A !!!
A ....
BWAAAAAAAAAAAH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-H
*whew* ahem, sorry about that... let me regain my composure
yes... the worst thing to happen to the video games industry is to become to formu-*snicker* too formulaic..... pffft
BWAAAAAAAAAAAH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAHAHAHAHAHAH
oh man, i almost had it there.... whewwwwwwww... hehe
May you be touched by His Noodly Appendage. RAmen.
Actually season 1 of Lost was more about a character-study than anything. On top of that, it had a story line blended in. I liked it. Worth checking out on DVD if anyone missed it.
Innovation? Plenty of things to innovated in game design.
First AI: This is hardly developed very extensive in a game. Games with fantastic AI are few and far between. AI has enormous potential and deserves the same attention graphics got.
Sound: Currently we can play near CD quality sound effects in a game. But sounds are mostly used in a linear way: trigger->play sample. There must be millions of ways to use sounds in games and modern PC's have the power to generate sound effect on the fly. Plenty of possibilities there.
2D: These days every thing is 3D. Sure it's handy to use 3D as you can use the hardware to do a lot you'd otherwise needed to do in software, but why don't we see some modern day 2D platform games or adventures?
Contest games: Instead of Yet another soccer game, how about we get something new? zero gravity ping pong in a cube for example. or some sport played in some far away country?
Bottom line is: The game industry needs to take risks again. With other words: we need more independend game developers.
Yes, Lost is actually pretty good. On several occasions I made the choice to watch Lost instead of playing video games (I guess that's the point of the quote). So, there you have it - you're a bit behind. I tried to help you out.
Thanks. Does it continue to be as blatently silly, though? We rather liked the character stuff, but my wife has refused to watch any further until I reassure her that there aren't really any fantasy monsters roaming the island, as she's not in the mood for another SF series right now.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
There is definitely a supernatural element to the show. The storyline implies that the characters' presence on the island is the result of more than just a freak accident. The show has enough character development and side stories to keep most non-sci-fi types interested as well.
It was my fiancee that got me into watching the show (Like you, I thought it looked like crap from the commercials). So, women do like it... of course, she likes LOTR and watches Battlestar Galactica with me every week also...
DirecTV Tivo has a summary of the entire first season of Lost condensed to 22 minutes. So, if you're fortunate enough to have that gem of a device, you can see what transpired first season and be able to understand the 2nd when it starts.
Sony and MS are the main offenders of keeping things formulaic and predictable. Even being a Sony fanboy and reviewer for four years has not been enough to overcome the truth of the matter: Nintendo's Revolution is my only hope of the game industry being brought out of this slump. Sony and MS are quite openly happy to keep things status quo and keep pumping out derivitive garbage while charging more and more... yay!
The game industry needs a good swift kick in the dick, and I sure hope Mario is the little italian plumber to give the boot.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
Contest games: Instead of Yet another soccer game, how about we get something new? zero gravity ping pong in a cube for example.
Dude, you just described Pong. As in Pong from 1958.
My Hello World is 512 bytes. But it's also a valid Fat12 boot sector, Fat12 file reader, and Pmode routine.
If we're not exciting these eyeballs better than anyone else, people will go watch Lost.
Lets not forget exciting the brain. The eyes are doing quite well so far, lets get the brain back into things as well.
E.
Never rub another man's rhubarb - The Joker
Did we hit a time warp or something? Is this "Slashdot: News From Ten Years Ago. Stuff That's Ancient History" or something?
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
Harrison is out of touch with reality. Here is one quote from early on in the keynote:
...call for developers to look more closely at episodic content, referencing the 'watercooler' effect of TV shows like 'Lost', commenting: "Our industry should move away from putting 20 hours of content onto a 5 gigabyte disc, and shift to a model which embraces more of an episodic delivery of content, just like television." "
"
There are several problem with this. First, the whole "episodic content" buzz has been around for about 6 years now. It's been attempted and it just doesn't work. Why? Because the quality suffers when you try and condense a million dollar game engine down to One Episode of gameplay.
It's an even bigger gamble than standard game development because you spend just as much money on a full game engine, but then have to charge the customer LESS because the content is shorter (1 "episode").
Next, in the time it takes to develope the next episode, technology marches and you have no choice but to upgrade the game engine. (Gee, starting to sound alot like standard game development practices of today, doesn't it? Except now you're a "budget" developer because you've been mandated to only produce "episodes".)
So "budget" episodes doesn't work, how about full-budget episodes? Well gosh, isn't that what we have now? There's been a new "Silent Hill" game almost every 1.5 years now. We're up to #4 now. They pretty much play the similar and have same themes. I'd call that episodic.
Same goes for Onimusha. Devil May Cry. Anything with a series of sequels is, in my mind, "episodic".
I think it is very interesting that Harrison speaks out the need for innovation after a brutal attack on the DS.
...between "Innovation" and "Marketing".
By this, I mean a Marketroid got to design the DS.
There's absolutely NO point to touchpads other than people like my brother saying "The DS is awesome! It has a touchpad!"
And how original an idea was that? Touchpads aren't new by any means.
Or, let me put it this way -- it's exactly as much "innovation" as all the weapons in a Ratchet and Clank game. "COOL! THE SHEEPINATOR!!! I JUST TURNED AN ENEMY INTO A SHEEP!!!!!" Great, now you'll never need to use it again.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I'd rather watch my hard drive try to survive another week than another 5 mins of Reality TV.
Hello, TV & Film industry, can we get some scripted products please, anyone...
I am embarrassed to admit, I have watched a whole episode of Filthy Rich Cattle Drive. Come on, its got Noah Blake (Berretta Jr. can't be far behind, Oh yeah, that would require a script.)
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