Denis Dyack's Quest For A New Game Biz

Just weeks after Too Human producer Denis Dyack confronted the folks at 1up, he's now talking to Gamasutra about many of the same topics, and seems to be pining for a very different games industry. Specifically, Dyack takes exception to the whole concept of incomplete games being seen by the press, the large and now-deceased glitz and glamour version of E3, and the enthusiast press in general. His big complaint seems to be that enthusiast press folks want things to be good. "I guess I'm really against the whole notion of the enthusiast press. Being so enthusiastic that they want things to be good. I think if our medium is going to become mainstream, and we're going to be considered an art form, we need true critics like the movie industry or even the music industry where people go up and literally critique something, and it's a profession to critique it. In order to critique something, it has to be done."

Comments

Problem Solved - One Stroke

[Babbster]

Publishers and developers: Stop showing games to the gaming "press" before release.

I'll accept my consulting fees in either free games or fresh fish - I'm that flexible.

he doesnt know the movie industry

[majortom1981]

I have seen a lot of reviews of movies that review movies that arent finished.

Re:he doesnt know the movie industry

[Floritard]

Yeah but an unfinished movie is usually just lacking some tweaking to pacing, maybe you clarify something about the plot or maybe you drop a scene here or there. It's largely the same product when it's given a wide release. An unfinished game can have its core gameplay or engine radically changed and wind up something completely different. Apples and oranges.

Re:Problem Solved - Second Stroke

[RingDev]

Publishers and developers: Word of mouth > Professional Critique

-Rick

If???

[sqlrob]

I think if our medium is going to become mainstream

Gaming does better than the movie box office and it's not mainstream yet?

Re:If???

[metroid composite]

No, not really.

Games: cost $50 (or $60 for next gen) Movies: cost $10

If 100% of the population goes to the theatres once a month, and 20% of the population buys a game once a month, the games will bring in more revenue...but won't be "mainstream".

From another angle, the last movie I watched I could tell my parents and siblings to watch, and they may or may not like my taste, but they'd probably watch it to see what the fuss is about. The last game I played I could tell my parents and siblings to play, and they wouldn't (unless I was there with them as an extra hand to lead them through the tutorial, and even after they learn the controls they would never pick up the game on their own).

Re:If???

[DDLKermit007]

I have an exception to what your statement says. Put your family on Wii Sports, and there won't be one person who doesn't pick it up within a minute or two.

Re:If???

[JFMulder]

There was a party at one of my co-workers recently. All the development team was there. Most of the people there were non gamers. So we rented a Wii and hooked it up to the projector. Everybody picked up Wii Tennis really fast.

Personally, I'm not sold on the Wii. Yeah, Wii Sports is fun, but it's boring as hell playing by yourself. I'd rather sink my teeth in some deep RPG or something beautiful and adrenaline pumping like Gears of War. But's that just because I'm not the target demographic *so far* for the Wii. Bite-size games don't appeal to me. That's just the way I am. Maybe someday when I don't have a lot of free time I'll prefer small simple games, but for now, I'm having too much fun playing games like Oblivion, Gears and soon (I hope) Mass Effect and Blue Draon. Yeah I know, Zelda, but hey, I haven't like Zelda games since "Link to the Past" on the SNES and "Link's Awakening" on the Game Boy.

On the other hand, these people are casual gamers, people who quit a long time ago or non-gamers at all, people in their 30s, and early 40s. Their sentiment? Not one of them wanted to buy a Wii even after enjoying it for a while. They all though, "Yeah, it was fun, but I don't feel the need to play it ever again".

In other words, and I've seen this before, a lot of people seem to like it, but don't feel the need to play again, let alone buy one. So I guess mileage may vary.

I know my reply is kinda off-topic to your post, but it just came out that way. :)

I wouldn't be surprised if the very high majority of people who bought Wiis so far were Gamecube owners. I'd love to see figures on that.

Re:If???

[sqlrob]

You're assuming games necessarily cost $50. You're forgetting cell phone games, as well as various online games.

Sixty-nine percent of American heads of households play computer and video games.

Re:If???

[Floritard]

Games: cost $50 (or $60 for next gen) Movies: cost $10
Are you going by ticket prices? If so even that is a little high for alot of places. I can see first-runs here for $6.50. But you are forgetting DVDs which typically cost $20 and many times make up much more than the theatrical run if a movie later turns cult. And then there are movie rentals, which I'm sure generate more revenue than game rentals, both through regular stores and online. Not to mention there are a number of gamers who buy their games used and don't pay that $50-60, and the money they do pay doesn't go to the publisher it goes to Gamestop etc. There is also all that money people spend on game peripherals, whereas movies typically require just one player every 4-5 years. Home theatre equipment specifically is something used both for games and movies, although it's arguably games that are driving adoption of things like HD moreso than movies which don't even have a standard format settled upon. Games typically also have a healthier downloadable offering, whereas Hollywood is still trying to find their ass on that one. As someone else mentioned there is that whole mobile phone market that the industry has been burning our ears about for years now as the next big thing. They are both pretty complicated industries, but I think games are more significant than people think. Movies just have tenure and respect as an art form. I think it will just have to be time that decides when we're ready to admit that everyone plays games, time that kills off those old timers whose narrow vision just sees kid's toys making all those goddamned flashes and beeps.

Re:If???

[Phoenix00017]

DVDs don't enter into the picture in that statistic though. Let's be clear: the game industry is larger than ticket BOX OFFICE sales (http://games.slashdot.org/games/04/12/19/2350234. shtml?tid=98&tid=10). It is far smaller than the movie industry (including DVDs, rentals, etc.) as a whole - which further shows why games aren't as mainstream as some are trying to argue here.

Critics?

[psiogen]

We don't need highbrow game criticism for the games we play. When enough games are created that support highbrow criticism, *then* you will get highbrow critics to discuss them. Until then, you will have lowbrow enthusiasts, which is fine.

Re:Problem Solved - Second Stroke

[Reason58]

Professional critics are word of mouth.

You probably have friends with totally different tastes in movies. As a result, if they were to say a movie was great you would take that with a grain of salt. Humans are all different and they define "good" in different ways.

Critics are the same way. You find a critic who's taste closely matches your own, and use them as a gauge of how much you will or will not like any given game, movie, etc.

Says one thing then does another?

[ironwill96]

Does anyone else find it funny that in the Gamasutra interview he comments on the idea that when all these developers claim to the press / gamers "Oh we're fixing that etc etc" that they are lying and never do it and that it is a bad thing. And then...in the update to 1UP and IGN etc he claims "we're fixing item X you didn't like and item Y is much better now that we've fixed a code issue".

You can't have your cake and eat it too...

Re:Says one thing then does another?

[SirSlud]

Considering how long Too Human has been in development, they do indeed seem to be committed to fixing things rather than just picking a release date at random, stuffing as many things into a game as possible at the cost of quality, and releasing under a blitzkrieg of marketing. He want to say, "It'll be done when it kicks ass. Check us out then and tell me straight up if it sucks." I have seen first hand what he is talking about; it happens 20,000,000 times a day in the business, and he wishes that would change. (Although this does mirror a similar dichotomy they experience in the movie world .. at what point does a movie go from, "We'll release it when its good" to development hell that can kill a project?)

On the whole, I don't think hes being hypocritical, and hes echoing sentiments that I can assure you are shared by many designers and developers. There is extremely limited integrity in the industry in terms of the relationships between the press and the games, and it hurts everyone's ability to produce quality games and judge them at their true value.

He's right.

[b.b.rodriguez]

Its true,

How can somebody be expected to write a relevant and fair review of a game (or movie for that fact) without experiencing the whole thing.

Playing a demo/sample will tell you a little but its like reveiwing an entire movie after you have only watched the trailer, 9 times out of 10 the trailer looks awesome but the movie is crap.

Re:He's right.

[burgerdog]

I totally agree on one level, but in my experience, games with fun demos go on to be fun games, and games with broken demos continue on that path. Gameplay can't be faked like story and acting can be cut around in a movie trailer. Dyack insinuates that because Too Human got a poor response at e3 a year ago, that everyone is saying the game is terrible. No one's saying the final game will be horrible. But what has been shown wasn't impressive. If he spent the time he's been using to do interviews about making the game industry like the movie industry (working in post on commercials and films, I can tell you his perception of our industry is rather off) he could drop a newer demo and shut everyone up once and for all. All this going around and talking about how great the game is now is hypocritical. Isn't his whole point that he shouldn't have to talk about it or show it till it's done?

Re:He's right.

[megabarf]

How can somebody be expected to write a relevant and fair review of a game (or movie for that fact) without experiencing the whole thing. That's not hard to do with a 1.5 hour movie, but with a game that could take 24 or (depending on the game) 40+ hours to play, there is no way any reviewer can get through it all and keep a decent schedule.

When was the last time an art critic spent 40+ hours staring at a painting before making a review? I'll bet they had their general impression of it within the first 10 seconds of looking.

Playing a demo/sample will tell you a little but its like reveiwing an entire movie after you have only watched the trailer, 9 times out of 10 the trailer looks awesome but the movie is crap. There is a major difference here. If you watch a 5 minute trailer of a 1.5 hour movie, you are taking in roughly 5.5 percent of the show. Unfortunately, that 5.5 percent is completely chosen by the people who want you to watch it. It will lose all context and in many cases be the only 5 minutes of the movie that would be worth watching.

For games, on the other hand, playing for 15 minutes out of a 24 hour game you will take in only 1% of the game. Since most games involve some repetition, that 1% may well show 60% of what happens in the game (most people will never see 100% of a game). With playable demos, you can also drive the game where you want it and get a feel for how it works and you can know within a reasonable doubt if the game is worth playing or not. That's something a force-fed video stream will never give you.

If they really want someone to give a proper review of the game should they limit the content to two hours or less? Somehow I don't think they would sell many copies if they did.

You don't expect things to be good, do you?

[paintswithcolour]

'Being so enthusiastic that they want things to be good.'

This just dosen't make sense...a desire for 'things to be good' surely is natural. I've not read a game or movie preview that stated that their not too enthusiastic and hope that it will bomb. Nobody wants to read that, nor would it be the place of any press (consider an item they haven't seen/played) to make such a comment. It seems an excuse for a lousy game...what you read a preview and then you expected the product to actually be GOOD?! And to think you probably paid money for it too...How is showing an incomplete game different to a movie trailer, a music track or a couple of pictures? Surely you generate interest, public enthusiasm and use that to assit the sale of your product.

What the game industry is plagued with is fanboy/ameturish journalism in mainstream press, which dosen't help the image of videogame critics.

Re:You don't expect things to be good, do you?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the point that he is getting at is that there is probably a more efficient progression of steps to compete a whole game as opposed to showing off a half finished product. I may be mistaken, but I would think that if you had your dev teams working on their specific modules and then integrated them in the end, you might have fewer bugs than if you are trying to rush and make things look pretty for a half finished review. I can only imagine how complex the graphics engines are not to mention all the physics and AI an all the other aspects that makes a game good and if you feel that you have to take short cuts to make the half package prettier then there may be some issues associated with those short cuts that will either have to be worked out (delayed game) or left in and patched later.

Accept mediocrity or outright incompetance?

[SpacePunk]

"I guess I'm really against the whole notion of the enthusiast press. Being so enthusiastic that they want things to be good. I think if our medium is going to become mainstream, and we're going to be considered an art form, we need true critics like the movie industry or even the music industry where people go up and literally critique something, and it's a profession to critique it. In order to critique something, it has to be done."

Yeah, the nerve of anyone wanting things to be good. Hell, we should just be glad the installer runs... kinda. When I buy a game, I expect it to be crap, and I'm upset when it's not. I always complain when my order at the local fast food place is correct, and the last time I purchased a vehicle I insisted that it be as fucked up as possible. Yeah, that's the ticket.

SNAFU

If I want to see art, I'll go to a fucking museum or fancy pants gallery. If I want to play a game, I expect it to work. When I open a box for a board game I expect it to work. When I install a computer game, I expect it to work. I know, I know... I'm a nervy kind of guy that wants things to work, and work well. If this guy were talking about the traditional game industry and said something like "Hey, people expect too much if they want play money for monopoly to be in every box!", we'd all be looking around and thinking "what the fuck?" As we should be now.

Re:Accept mediocrity or outright incompetance?

[RagingMaxx]

I think you might be missing the entire point of what he's trying to say. Of course we, as consumers, want the things we spend money on to be "good". He's saying that the press shouldn't go into the review process with too many expectations, because that will affect the way they review the game. Imagine a movie critic visiting the set of an action movie and looking at the storyboards for an awesome looking upcoming action scene (which AFAIK would probably never happen). This is a similar scenario to a game journalist being shown a rough scene from a game and being told about "features" that haven't even been implemented yet. Now imagine that the film runs into budget / time constraints and has to drastically cut the action scene and the special effects for the film. The film critic would have all these awesome images and ideas in their head about what the movie is going to look like, but when it comes time to watch the actual film all that stuff is missing. Their review is going to pan the shit out of the movie, even though there may be plenty of other great things about it. Ultimately the ones that suffer will be the audience and the game maker. The audience will probably be dissuaded from buying a game that might still be really fun to play, and the game maker gets panned becasue their products isn't what someone thought it would be. If game journalists were objective and critical instead of basically being fanboys, we'd get much more balanced reviews that might give us realistic impressions of the games themselves. This is true regardless of whether you consider games an art form. BTW Most professional film makers would consider film an art form (even action films!). Just because you don't recognize the details and intricacies of great games doesn't mean they aren't there for others to enjoy. A lot of great games are art, even if they're really fun to play.

Re:Accept mediocrity or outright incompetance?

[SpacePunk]

Naw, I grazed the point. I failed to add that the product of the press is lousy as a result.

Animal Crossing

[tepples]

How can somebody be expected to write a relevant and fair review of a game (or movie for that fact) without experiencing the whole thing. Worse yet, how can someone experience the whole thing if the title of the game contains "Animal Crossing"?

Yay more Dyack news

[bobstevens_took_my_n]

I get the impression that Gamasutra is hard up for real news sometimes. I want to call Dyack's crusade Quixotian, but I've never read the novel so I'm not sure it'd be accurate. His preaching is odd, though, because he's railing against something that seems quite insignificant to me. On the other hand it's very significant to him, because his game got critically panned an E3 or two ago when they showed a crappy build of a not-anywhere-near-complete game. He can claim it's not about that all he wants, but it's incredibly obvious that it is. It's a bit sad.

Would the game industry be better if reviewers didn't see early copies of games? Would it be any different at all? Probably not much. I'm not sure what he's trying to accomplish, but somehow he seems to have convinced himself that this is a life or death choice for the industry. It's all a bit ridiculous. In a month he's gone from "seeing early copies of games is bad" to "the enthusiast press is bad." I'm wondering where his slippery slope ends, but I'm sure quality industry publications like Gamasutra will be sure to keep me informed.

Game critiques...

[RoloDMonkey]

Games are still a fledgling media. I have found that meta-ratings systems help, but their is still room for improvement.

For instance, I have found that a movie that is getting more than an 80% rating on rottentomatoes.com is almost always a movie that I will find worthwhile, even if it is in a genre that I don't normally enjoy. However, game ratings like those at rottentomatoes.com or metacritic.com aren't quite as consistent.

There are several reasons for this. First, game review scores tend to be overinflated. The median score for a game rating seems to be about 7.5 which makes it very difficult to distinguish which games are really the "best".

Second, unlike movies games don't always age well. The original "Resident Evil" has a great rating. However, I tried playing it for the first time this year, and it was agony. I just couldn't get in to it with its primitive interface.

Last, games are more personal. The amount of time that can be committed to a game is at least an order of magnitude greater than the amount of time that it takes to watch one movie. Also, games are much more diverse. I have never gotten into FPSs, so no matter how highly rated they are I wouldn't shell out $60 for one. However, I probably will buy Heroes of Might and Magic V despite the fact that it doesn't have a stellar rating.