Last summer I built an installation that stood unsupervised for 3 months, with a soundtrack running from a portable philips cd player on repeat, 24/7. Still using the player today as walkman. Insane, totally insane. I was sure it'd break down.
THe existence of efforts like mobygames and IMDB never stop surprising me. Looking at the purpose of such efforts, one finds either
A) Marketing of new games, that reach an established gamer community thru linking the developers earlier efforts,
B) Archiving of an existing culture for posterity.
One can of course see A as a viable and possible truth, even though it doesn't seem to plausible without an accompaning conspiracy theory. B, though, isn't quite enough as an explanation for all the effort people put in collecting information on title, both for IMDB and mobygames, and others, of course.
The answer rather lies in
C) is the best game ever made, and everyone must know about it
And that's the interesting part. This part of us that cries out for the need of affirmation "There must be someone else who's seen " or just plain differentiation "Well HERE's a title NOONE's heard of - makes ME different".
So it's an interesting conflict of interests, trying to gather all information from all the sources of game information into one. For the people running those sources, it means cutting off their means of differentiality, becoming one of many others, rather than just one.
Why is IMDB so big? So widely-used? Because it's so damn good. Why is it so good? You tell me. In the meantime, I'm putting my hopes to mobygames.
Yup, Kojima is making "Boktai" for GBA, for which a light sensor comes installed in the cassette. A pretty picture: http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/news/02/ 17/boktai/boktai_screen009.jpg
Interesting point, however sort of off-target. Yes, of course ILM is obviously a market-leading institution, excelling in research and press coverage. They produce many wonderful effects by the minute. I'd still, though, would like to point to a problem that Rob Coleman (ILM) brought up at the festival: They are constantly competing with the smaller, more flexible studios. Mr. Lucas comes in and goes "well, I saw this effect in that BBC show by Framestore CFC - it looks great, and they did it for XXX $ in YYY months. Why does it take you guys triple that time and quadruple that cost?"
The smaller companies can move faster into newer technology. When a company like ILM switches to e.g Maya, it takes them a *lot* of license-money, training money and *time* out of the production pipeline. A smaller company makes that transition without a flinch.
ILM has cutting-edge research, but it is a cumbersome movement of the Beast to get it into production.
Giving WETA the credit the commentator did is not "fanboyism". It *is* remarkable that they pulled it off. And, people need to be reminded that BIG doesn't always equal BEST, and groundbreking research doesn't always equal groundbreaking production *coughstarwars* *cough*.
Yes, the article you posted has very interesting points - thank you - in showing the dangers of smaller studios advancing beyond their capacity. However, I believe that WETA has proven very capable of just that feat.
But that's just my five cents.
Yes, interesting discussion, definetaly. However, there was *no* real-time category at the awards - a problem we later discussed with the organizers. Hopefully next year will feature real-time.
Also, *trivia* there's an expansion for the gamecube coming out - a little box that holds cards which come with different games - producing smell:-) Seems like been-there-tried-that-20-years-ago-didn't-work, but still, Kojima is allegedly going to use it in Metal Gear Solid 3 - Snake Eater. Who knows. Maybe the world is ready for the smell of... snakes?:-)
Well, interesting as your comment may be, it would be interesting to see what games you think would be in the top ten - obviously you have some really excellent candidates.... or?
Just as a short comment, excellence in 3D doesn't stop at the visual. It contains physics, lighting, animation, creating the feeling of life, novelty... so even though I'm sure many won't find there favorite game on that list, I feel it's a pretty decent representation. Still, it would be interesting to hear other views on the subject.
Well, Shelley Page from Dreamworks would be my bet. She organized that part of the festival, and seemed really devoted to it. Also, as far as I understood from the Awards, there will be some sort of trailers or contact info for the producers on the page.
This is also, however, an interesting question more generally. It is always hard to get hold of independent productions. In lue of the fact that most independent producers - myself included - aren't in for big money grabs, it is basically strictly a distributional problem. I am currently developing an online AV archive solution, which I hope I will be able to get in the independent pipeline state of mind. We'll see.
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Last summer I built an installation that stood unsupervised for 3 months, with a soundtrack running from a portable philips cd player on repeat, 24/7. Still using the player today as walkman. Insane, totally insane. I was sure it'd break down.
THe existence of efforts like mobygames and IMDB never stop surprising me. Looking at the purpose of such efforts, one finds either
A) Marketing of new games, that reach an established gamer community thru linking the developers earlier efforts,
B) Archiving of an existing culture for posterity.
One can of course see A as a viable and possible truth, even though it doesn't seem to plausible without an accompaning conspiracy theory. B, though, isn't quite enough as an explanation for all the effort people put in collecting information on title, both for IMDB and mobygames, and others, of course.
The answer rather lies in
C) is the best game ever made, and everyone must know about it
And that's the interesting part. This part of us that cries out for the need of affirmation "There must be someone else who's seen " or just plain differentiation "Well HERE's a title NOONE's heard of - makes ME different".
So it's an interesting conflict of interests, trying to gather all information from all the sources of game information into one. For the people running those sources, it means cutting off their means of differentiality, becoming one of many others, rather than just one.
Why is IMDB so big? So widely-used? Because it's so damn good. Why is it so good? You tell me. In the meantime, I'm putting my hopes to mobygames.
Yup, Kojima is making "Boktai" for GBA, for which a light sensor comes installed in the cassette. A pretty picture: http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/news/02/ 17/boktai/boktai_screen009.jpg
Interesting point, however sort of off-target. Yes, of course ILM is obviously a market-leading institution, excelling in research and press coverage. They produce many wonderful effects by the minute. I'd still, though, would like to point to a problem that Rob Coleman (ILM) brought up at the festival: They are constantly competing with the smaller, more flexible studios. Mr. Lucas comes in and goes "well, I saw this effect in that BBC show by Framestore CFC - it looks great, and they did it for XXX $ in YYY months. Why does it take you guys triple that time and quadruple that cost?" The smaller companies can move faster into newer technology. When a company like ILM switches to e.g Maya, it takes them a *lot* of license-money, training money and *time* out of the production pipeline. A smaller company makes that transition without a flinch. ILM has cutting-edge research, but it is a cumbersome movement of the Beast to get it into production. Giving WETA the credit the commentator did is not "fanboyism". It *is* remarkable that they pulled it off. And, people need to be reminded that BIG doesn't always equal BEST, and groundbreking research doesn't always equal groundbreaking production *coughstarwars* *cough*. Yes, the article you posted has very interesting points - thank you - in showing the dangers of smaller studios advancing beyond their capacity. However, I believe that WETA has proven very capable of just that feat. But that's just my five cents.
Yes, interesting discussion, definetaly. However, there was *no* real-time category at the awards - a problem we later discussed with the organizers. Hopefully next year will feature real-time.
:-) Seems like been-there-tried-that-20-years-ago-didn't-work, but still, Kojima is allegedly going to use it in Metal Gear Solid 3 - Snake Eater. Who knows. Maybe the world is ready for the smell of... snakes? :-)
Also, *trivia* there's an expansion for the gamecube coming out - a little box that holds cards which come with different games - producing smell
Well, interesting as your comment may be, it would be interesting to see what games you think would be in the top ten - obviously you have some really excellent candidates.... or?
Just as a short comment, excellence in 3D doesn't stop at the visual. It contains physics, lighting, animation, creating the feeling of life, novelty... so even though I'm sure many won't find there favorite game on that list, I feel it's a pretty decent representation. Still, it would be interesting to hear other views on the subject.
Well yes :-) Technically again though, this new expansion is also pulled :-P
Well, Shelley Page from Dreamworks would be my bet. She organized that part of the festival, and seemed really devoted to it. Also, as far as I understood from the Awards, there will be some sort of trailers or contact info for the producers on the page.
This is also, however, an interesting question more generally. It is always hard to get hold of independent productions. In lue of the fact that most independent producers - myself included - aren't in for big money grabs, it is basically strictly a distributional problem. I am currently developing an online AV archive solution, which I hope I will be able to get in the independent pipeline state of mind. We'll see.