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Thursday at the Austin Game Conference
Much talk yesterday in Austin centered around Rob Pardo's keynote, but there were several other events you might be interested in. Dell Chairman Michael Dell talked about that company's gaming plans in a 'fireside' chat. Movie producer Jon Landau spoke on the role of gaming in the entertainment industry. Gamasutra has several pieces from smaller talks, with titles like The Death of Cinematics, New Models for Game Stories, and Writing for Digital Actors. Finally, Raph Koster offers an ultimatum to the games business: evolve or die. From that article: "The end result, according to Koster, is the current hit-driven state of the game industry, which focus on the top 20 percent of games. 'The particular adaptation that we've made to this is to not bother making or stocking or selling the other 80 percent,' Koster said. 'So when you walk into your friendly neighborhood GameStop, you won't find the game that is 21 on the charts. Because of limited shelf space, they just don't want it around. It's just not worth having it compared to game number 20 twice, or better yet, The Sims and all of its expansions.'"
This is what gamers have always wanted. D&D had the ultimate in user selection and gamers loved it. The industry needs to learn that pretty graphics are not the only way to sell games and are, in fact, usually not the most important element.From TFA:
Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
Natural selection in the gaming industry is it really new???
He's rehashing that dusty old argument about only 'AAA' titles finding shelf space. About how the industry must wake up from some kind of self-imposed creative coma. Woe, woe unto us.
Y'know I'm really tired of that line of thought. Its completely useless criticism. And its been around since the 'dark years' of the late 80s, when video games were really in a funk. He even uses a - get this - dinosaur extinction metaphor. Yawn. Nothing new to see here, move along.
Meanwhile, in the midst of all this industry atrophy, games like Okami quietly appear and fulfill the promise.
I've often said that the game industry of 2006 is akin to the film industry of 1926; i.e. we have a long way to go. We're developing a consistent 'language' (to use the film term again) and the auteurs are making their marks. But the studios say its expensive! Programming a multicore Cell or PowerPC CPU is hard!
"How are we ever going to record audio and filmed images in sync?? Do audiences even want 'talkies'? Where are we going to find the money?"
Its just nothing new. The only thing that surprises me are that dorks like Raph get anyone to listen to them.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Maybe he should look at SW:G for a moment. That would be a fine example of "evolve and die". Evolution for the no other reason than to do something different != good.
In response to what Koster had to say, I think that over the next few generations of consoles, things will radically change.
First of all, the Nintendo Wii and DS have tried some out of the box approaches to gaming that have opened up new and different ways for games to be played. I'm not saying that the current ways are terrible and obsolete or that they should be done away with, but it is nice to have something new to try every once and a while. If the Nintendo Wii is a huge success, I think that we can expect next generation Sony and Microsoft consoles to include something similar. Sony and Microsoft each have an Eye Toy that also opens up a few new areas, but it seems somewhat unpopular and underdeveloped for. I'd say there are a lot of new ideas coming out, but the market is currently in a process of chosing the best and weeding out the bad ones. There's still plenty of room for evolution though.
Additionally, there was mention a while back by one of the Sony bigwigs that the PS4 might not even use a disc drive, but would download games to a hard drive from an online download service. This is probably the last thing that gaming stores want, but it does remove some of the problems that Koster talked about. Because these stores have limited floor space, they can't physically put every game for every console out there and advertise the hell out of it like they do for A-list titles or highly anticipated games. An online download service doesn't have the problem of shelf-space and could borrow features seen in other online stores such as iTunes or Amazon where people who buy one particular game could be pointed to another that they might like. I'm sure that something like this might help the bottom 80% of games sell better, especially if the game price can be reduced if the game studio doesn't need to pay a publisher to press discs for them. Also consider that the cost of shipping the discs as well as any store mark-up can be removed. The only added costs are running the online store and paying for the bandwidth for downloads. I think it would be cheaper to do it online.
I'd have to say that the gaming industry is in fairly good health. Some consumers might be turned off by the higher prices of the Xbox 360 or PS3, but Nintendo is offering a low cost machine. If people don't like outdated graphics of the Wii, they can get a PS3. If they want a great online experience, get an Xbox 360 and play online with Live. There's plenty of choice out there for consumers. I'd be more worried if all three companies had offerings that were almost the same. A lot of what I wrote about is a few years down the road, but I think the industry is in a good enough position to weather any storms until that time.
"Because of limited shelf space, they just don't want it (number 21) around. It's just not worth having it compared to game number 20 twice, or better yet, The Sims and all of its expansions"
I used to love going to Babbages/Gamestop/Best Buy and seeing some 80-120 games available to choose from. Part of the experience was the selection, seeing all the innovative things out there, and choosing from them. Now that you're down to just the top dog hits, it's not as fun.
So anymore, I just browse the game reviews. Thing is, I rarely go buy what I read reviews about. The impulse buy just isn't there. I think the gaming companies (or more accurately, their distributors) have really missed that.
You can get 15 minutes of fame, but you can go down in history for infamy.
IMHO the biggest problem affecting gaming now isnt storyline its spiraling costs, unecessary costs at that. I realize that the bigwigs at EA and others desperately want to rub elbows with the Tommy Meola's and Steven Speilbergs of the world but they have created an alternate reality for themselves where they are big time entertainment producers. Most of the free world couldnt really care less if the character of bobo the chimp in urban slaughter 6 is voiced by Ben Affleck. The gaming industry keeps promising more and delivering less all while whining that its tooo expensive to make truly innovative and creative titles.
How bout this, scrap the voices, drop the 4 hours of cinematics that everyone skips over anyway, hire some folks off the street or better yet (gasp!) your own staff to do the voices if they are really needed and concentrate on making something thats actually fun to play. You will save a fortune and probably sell the same amount if not more than the overly licensed crap you usually shovel at us.
Attendee 1: "What's all that yelling outside?"
Attendee 2: "I don't know, but do you hear those horns honking?!"
Attendee 1: "Yes, it's almost like they're trying to celebrate something. But what...what could it be?"
Attendee 2: "I have no idea. Anyways, let's get back to focusing on how this talking head says we'll all be jobless soon."
He brought his laptop for this "fireside chat."
Uhhh....am I the only one who thought "WTF?" after reading the above?
Agile Spaceport - You will never find a more wretched hive of scrum and villainy. We must be cautious.
http://www.texassports.com/
The upcoming UT - OSU game is a really, really, really big deal in Austin and (if ESPN coverage of it is to be believed) nationwide as well.
This is something I really wonder about, but when The Legend of Zelda: Wind waker came, everyone was (and many still are) saying that it was too bad the game was cel-shaded. Now comes a new game with cel-shading, and I haven't heard anyone saying anything about it.
Strange....
/ The Arrow
"How lovely you are. So lovely in my straightjacket..." - Nny