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Orson Scott Card on Games, 21 Years Ago
MilenCent writes "Long long ago, Orson Scott Card wrote a game opinion column for Compute! Magazine. In the November 1983 issue, he had some interesting things to say about the essential ingredients of a great game, all arguably still important today. He picked out one company that, at the time, consistently excelled in most of these areas--try to guess which one! Additional commentary over at Curmudgeon Gamer."
"The software firm Electronic Arts has added a fifth requirement for itself: The game must be truly original. No Donkey Kong or Pac-Man clones in this group, of games. Even though each of their games has roots in gaming traditions, the object has not been to recreate a favorite board game, or duplicate a sport, or translate an arcade game." Oh how the mighty have fallen.
"The software firm Electronic Arts has added a fifth requirement for itself: The game must be truly original."
lol
Other company mission statements from 1983:
Mac: Our computers must run everyone's software and be affordable.
Microsoft: By 2006, all bugs and security holes must be eliminated. Also, we will open source everything.
FCC: By 2006, ABC will be required to show boobs at the top of every hour, all day long. Also, Howard Stern will host the Oscars.
2006 - 1983 = 21? man...I guess that's the new math for you
Yes, I agree, games should always be excellent.
Some say he is made with ascii, others that he is eyeballed daily by millions. All we know is, he is known as the Sig
Killing Origin Systems was the beginning of the end of my respect for them.
Now they've evloved into more of a video game sweat shop than anything else. The games they publish that are still good are designed and written by third partys.
Reading this article really hightens my sense of loss for one of the great companies of my generation.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yes, it's hard to believe that *that* company was once the unquestioned leader of innovative gaming.
Consider the company's first five titles:
* Hard Hat Mack for the Atari 800 and Apple II
* Archon for the Atari 800
* Pinball Construction Set for the Atari 800 and Apple II
* Worms? for the Atari 800
* M.U.L.E. for the Atari 800
One is absolutely, bar none, one of the greatest games of all time. Two more are notable milestones in gaming history. Four, perhaps all five, are considered classics.
I like EA and its games. It's a tremendously-successful company, is (I think) the *only* videogame maker other than Nintendo and Sega to survive intact over the past two decades, and over the past 23 years has put out many other fine titles. But let's not forget that there was a time when it didn't depend quite so heavily on annual releases of Madden and NBA Live.
Clearly that one was forgotten about long ago, these days its just endless sequels each containing fewer differences than the last. Originality was forgotten about long ago in favour of squeezing every last dollar out of a 'franchise'.
Read about and download M.U.L.E. here.
Yeah, the ECA days...that cube, sphere, pyramid logo was damn clever.
And the games...man. Archon, Skate or Die, Realm of Impossibility...in those really cool "album cover" like boxes...plus the respect they gave to the game programmers as artists (hence, Electronic ARTS...) That was an amazing time.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
The sports games like the Madden series were the beginning of the end for EA. They made hunks of cash with minimal creativity required. As a result, their production rules got applied to everything else EA made with devastating results. By the time they bought Origin there was no longer any room for out-of-the-box thinking.
Then again, Origin was already half-dead. Starting with Ultima 7 they did just what Card lambasted in his article: "I have little patience with games that play me, forcing me to follow only one possible track or learn one mechanical skill if I hope to win." I remember I lost my first attempt at Ultima 7 because I started wandering around and hit the story elements out of order. U7 part 2 fixed that: you simply couldn't wander beyond the nearby area until you had completed the story-line there. A double-whammy for Ultima 8 which was both strictly linear and required a lame jumping skill to win. Even the beautiful Ultima 9 was nastily linear for the first half of the game, opening up only when you got a control of the ship.
Origin was already in trouble. EA just finished the job.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
I've re-read Ender's Game lately (written in 1985), and was amased by some of the predictions Orson made in just one book. The "network", online news and bloggers (Locke and Demosthenes), hand-held devices used for education (we only start seing them now). Damn, I think we shouldn't be surprised if we see the buggers real soon! :)
1's and 0's should be free.
""Long long ago, Orson Scott Card wrote a game opinion column for Compute! Magazine. In the November 1983 issue, he had some interesting things to say about the essential ingredients of a great game, all arguably still important today."
And yet the one game he had a hand in, Advent Rising. Did poorly in the marketplace.
Look here: http://www.gb64.com/game.php?id=8747&d=18
Hurrah! Evidence of the existence of the computer games industry. It's not something you see often on here. Not the video game industry, the computer game industry: The one that almost all of the major players in the current game industry were borne out of.
Video game crash in the U.S? Irrelevant...computer games never stopped. They went on from strength to strength via the C64, ST, Amiga, and then the PC (when it's CPU speed finally came up to scratch).
It's getting harder and harder these days to find any sort of real history of games due to revisionists re-writing everything and putting such huge importance on video games, Atari, and Nintendo.
Let's have more articles like this.
Bullshit about the sports games. I keep hearing people saying this, yet I can't agree. Every year, the AI gets so much better, the ability to play more realistically gets much better, playcalling gets better, and the ability to change things on the fly gets better. I'm afraid of this stopping now that EA has exclusive rights on almost every sport, but sports games HAVE gotten much better over the past 5-6 years, and it hasn't been just graphics.
If you compare a sports game from 2006 to one from 5-6 years ago, yes, there's usually a huge improvement. Thing is, the improvement doesn't look so big when you compare, say, Madden 2001 to Madden 2002. While the changes and improvements do add up over time, they're not huge from year to year and so the criticism is still mostly valid.
This poo is cold.
You can avoid the ads and the hassle and just get the file here. Everything you need to play it is in the .zip.
You are correct but they're still just making incremental improvements to the same game. It's like taking a 2002 GMC sierra and comparing it to a 2003 GMC sierra. It still does everything the same, just better.
On the other hand, a segway was real innovation. It was a flop, but it was an innovative flop.
I can't say I'm happy with any recent innovations in the gaming industry. The MMORPG concept was pretty revolutionary, but nothing much new is happening now. It's the same basic rules with a new skin, better graphics, etc. Get a license from LucasArts and call it Star Wars Galaxies. Sure it had a better crafting system, but it wasn't THAT different.
There are times when a game seems to finally get a genre right... like command and conquer did with RTS's, or planetside did with real squad based tactics FPS (it's the only game persistent enough that you can ever hope to group with the same people on a regular basis).
I just bought Sid Meier's Pirates! which I originally played on the Nintendo (8 bit) and again on the PC (Pirates Gold!). Nothing too original in this one, but still a fun game, but I only bought it for old time's sake.
I used to play a game made with CGA graphics called "project space station". You had to run NASA and build a space station in orbit, run experiments, launch satellites, keep the orbiter fleet running, etc. That was innovative. Sim city was innovative. Sim City 4? Nope. Second Life is innovative (but I haven't seen it yet). The Sims is pretty innovative. But the Sims 2? Nope. What number are we up to on Civilization now?
I truly believe that we've begun the human age of sequels, and I don't think it's ever going to end. That's sad.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
I have forgotten the link, but some woman with a serious chip on her shoulder has decided that _Ender's Game_ is an apology for Hitler. Although I think 99.99% of the people who have read the book would not agree, she has twisted everything she could into proving her hypothesis. She has also alleged that Card does not write his own books.
The problem is that Card is not politically correct and holds some opinions that are not well liked by some people, particularly about homosexuals. Card is also very religious, which makes him a threat to some people. I think much of the criticism against him has to do with people who are threatened by his politics, so they attack his writing. Politically, he is pretty close to former Senator Zell Miller - both claim to be Democrats, but are big fans of the current president.