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The Rise and Fall of Franchises
Next Generation has a piece up discussing how game franchises evolve, what makes them succeed, and (in the end) what can make a game franchise fail. From the article: "We regard the evolution of video games largely as the realization of a singular idea: realism. By 'realism' we mean capturing the external world in which we live. Like many art forms - such as photography and cinema - video games have largely been driven by developers' desire and consumers' appetite for greater realism. It is possible to argue that the popularity of cinema derives from the medium's flexibility and power to induce a sense of realism in the spectator, as movies - much like our lives - use language through dialogue, manipulate cinematography and visual effects, and sounds to represent the world or capture our imagination."
I bet if they ressurrected a bunch of old animators and had them produce a new Bugs Bunny cartoon, using old-fashioned 2D art, it would be just as big a hit as some modern/fancier show like "Ice Age". The story can be far more important.
I hate this person already.
Other than that, there was a little bit of interesting commentary in there. He touched on a couple big things I have to agree with, though. Human opponents or teammates (or both) will almost always trump AI. Single player games can be great, but their strength as a franchise will usually fade...eventually you are just doing the same thing with prettier polygons.
Though for some reason, doing the same thing with prettier polygons is more desireable when you are doing it with or against other human beings.
Of all the MMORPGs out right now, the one doing best (WoW) is the one which specifically went for a less "realistic" look and feel to it's design.
EQ2 for instance went for the "make things look more real" approach, and look where they are.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
Yes, they have...and they still do.
Better graphics does not automatically mean lesser gameplay. This is an oft repeated mantra of the 'games were better when I was a kid' set.
Strangely, the parents of those people think that games were better when they made you THINK, like Scrabble.
And their parents thought it was best when games made you PRODUCTIVE like being chained to a loom for 60 hours a week.
But really, today's games generally have far more depth than their predecessors. It's not like Missile Command was rocket science. Compare that to something like Rise of Nations.
In fact, Rise of Nations would have been impossible to do WITHOUT the graphics, because there are so many different types of units to represent.
Or look at something like a good First Person Shooter. In Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, a key part of the game is having the enemy blend in with the environment. This just doesn't happen when you only have 256 colors at 400x600.
No reason to lie.
Hello all:
I just like to make a comment about the realism as described in the article, without getting into whether I agree with the article or not. One thing that the author of this articles seem to miss is that realism is defined as "life-like". Though making a game looks and sounds real is a part of it, but it's not the only part. For instance, a game of "go" or "weichi" has been around for a long long time, and still enjoy a cult-like following in some parts of the world. One of the reasons for its appeal is that the game has very life-like philosophies behind it. In other words, the presentation is abstract, yet the lessons one can learn from playing may be applied to real life.
On another train of thoughts, one can push the article's main idea and arrive at the conclusion that the best game is not playing at all... I.e. the most realistic experience one can get is... real life.
Cheers.
B. Pascal