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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.
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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.
Read about and download M.U.L.E. here.
""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.