I wonder if it'll lead to better games, at least in the short run?
Not likely. Yet Another Game Development Library(tm) isn't going to change the industry's inability to greenlight an original design, try something genuinely new, or stop making one sequel after another.
But it would be the funniest scene in theater history! Imagine hundreds of former Star Wars fans booing and hissing continuously during the lava surfing. Then when the Beach Boys music starts, everyone stands up and yells insults or screams in horror.
Which sold well over 250,000 units, hardly a flop, except according to the game media^H^H^H^H^Hindustry, which must label adventures "flops" so they won't take attention away from "FRAME RATE 5: THE SEQUEL 4: THE FRAME RATE"
The problem is that society as a whole does not seem to be interested in literate entertainment when there is much easier-to-deal-with simple entertainment.
There seem to be constant complaints about lack of quality stories in games, movies and television shows. People also complain often when good stories are canceled, especially from television.
The commercial text adventure, the literature of the games industry, is long dead.
So says the game industry, in an attempt to justify their decision to fire the writers.
There is little doubt that a good, well-written and well-marketed text adventure would sell, it's just that nobody attempts it because they believe the hype. Some half-assed column asked "Are text adventures dead?" and the writers of those games said "well, guess so" and gave up on the entire genre as a profession.
Which is even more ironic, considering that apparently some of the most recent text adventures are spectacular games, and that affordable text adventure game designs beyond all reason would be possible with modern PCs.
Why didn't Matt get a publishing deal, while Don did?
Matt didn't have an elevator pitch. The game industry, like Hollywood, derives its entire creative output from elevator pitches, which is why they are only seldom capable of producing anything culturally meaningful.
Successful elevator pitches follow this pattern: "it's like A but with more B." Translated: "it's a clone of A and a sequel to B."
An interesting experiment was tried in the movie industry where the screenplay for Casablanca (with different plot details, but the same structure) was sent to various movie studios as a new project. Every single studio rejected it, most with form letters. Now what is more depressing: the fact that Casablanca could never be made today, or that no studio recognized it?
It is very likely the same thing would happen in the game industry if the design for say, Myst or Civilization were sent to various publishers.
By the way, any developer who makes a cold pitch to a publisher should spend their time more productively. A publisher WILL NOT sign a game based on a cold pitch from a third party developer. I would only try such a presentation for the entertainment value.
This makes the point better than anything else: there are no game designers, and if there were, most publishers wouldn't allow them to actually design anything.
I'm not sure if you've ever worked on a modern game development team
Obviously. No modern game would have made it out of the early design stages, much less to the retail shelf.
The best designers are a cross between empowered gameplay testers and someone who knows the level design tools.
The best designers are people like Chris Crawford who understand game design is more than level construction and a one-paragraph "background story" included with the installation instructions.
Dude, the second the industry becomes open to hiring semi-technical, well-rounded, English major types to *design* games, I'm *so there*. They aren't, but I'm very patiently waiting for the day when they are, if they ever do.
They won't. Writers would write something new, which the game industry will not develop in favor of a sequel or clone.
P.S. You'd better believe Crawford knows his stuff.
Do you really think they'd be doing this if it wasn't want the company wanted?
Yep.
Are you saying that games design houses are filled top to bottom with programmers like this?
Yep.
Managers, directors, producers and plenty of other non-technical people obviously agree that this is the way to go -- or worse, they encourage/enforce it.
Because they refuse, and further, actively avoid discussing the problem. They refuse to believe that, yes, there are, in fact, people in the world who do not know how to compile C++ that also happen to know more than they do about certain subjects, like game design, grammar and narrative structure.
By failing to consult experts in these fields, they damage their own products and company, and accomplish nothing but to demonstrate their own arrogant ignorance.
So, we make them testers, and then when they've been there long enough to deserve a decent salary we make them into designers.
Which is precisely why so many games fail, and are now almost routinely clones or sequels. Writing and game design are no less technical or important than programming or drawing.
There's no qualifications that you need to be a designer
Understanding game design might be somewhat important.
This is unlike both code and art, most studios don't employ coders or artists without qualifications (unless they take them on as co-ops or something).
But they do employ designers, upon which the success or failure of a game depends most, without qualifications.
This is why so many games fail, and why the industry will continue to be limited until game design and writing become just as important as how fast the engine draws polygons.
Hollywood would laugh uncontrollably at the suggestion a movie could be made without a writer.
He wrote a second book on game design in 2003 that should be required reading for each and every employee in the game industry. He understands the problems in the game industry better than 95% of the upper-level executives at the largest companies, and he has probably forgotten more about game design than most programmers will ever know.
Sure many general and high-level rules still apply, but games of today hardly compare to the "trinkets" of the 80's.
The basics of game design are centuries old.
What has he contributed lately, beyond criticism? It's easy to point out problems. How about some viable, applicable solutions?
Isn't that what the article was about?
This is one of the major problems in the game industry and most other industries: there is no respect whatsoever for knowledge and professional experience. This "eh, what do you know, old man?" crap costs the industry millions every year as project after project is canceled, or faceplants at retail.
It SUX! It Blows! It's stupid looking! Sony RUL3Z!! Gamecube SUX!! BLAAAHH!!.
Four months ago everyone (and that means EVERYONE) said the Nintendo DS would tank. Now people can't get enough of how cool it is. Now everyone is saying the PSP will tank, when four months ago it was to "instantly stomp Nintendo out of the handheld market."
Face it folks. Everything sux. Because everything sux, nothing has any value. When nothing has any value, it is much easier to ignore the suffering of other people.
People are losing their jobs right now because "everything sux." Little gets invented at large companies any more because "everything sux." Good projects never get funded because "everything sux." Businesses can't get capital becuase "everything sux." Society suffers because "everything sux."
For months prior to this E3, there has been constant speculation about how crappy the DS will be, and how stupid the designers were/are for including two screens. "How can they do that without making it look stupid?" people asked. Over and over and over again.
Then everyone sees it and realizes Nintendo isn't staffed by a bunch of total morons. Then, in the space of one web page, it goes from "Sony will win. Give it up. Gamecube sucks. Blah blah blah" to "wow, the DS is cool. Zelda isn't cel-shaded any more, so that's also cool, and the PSP is a giant pile of crap."
Over the next week, the game media and technology pundits will also, grudgingly, realize that Nintendo, like Apple for PCs, is the market leader in video games. Sony succeeds with volume. Nintendo succeeds with innovation.
All that processing power, and the latest games still run at about 22 frames per second, if that.
The CPU can do six billion instructions a second, the GPU can do 18 billion, and every last cycle is being used to stuff a 40MB texture into memory faster. What a waste. Yeah, the walls are even more green and slimy. Whoop-de-fucking-do.
Would it be great if all that processing power could be used for something other than yet-another-graphics-demo?
Companies (with a profit mission) will still invest in R&D to stay ahead of their competitors, and universities (with an educational mission) will still invest in R&D for the sake of progress.
No they won't. They can't sell what they produce if any other company can simply copy their product. The price will drop to zero and all R&D will become worthless.
You are aware that patents are distinct from and unrelated to copyright, yes?
The original message mentioned patent trademark AND copyright.
Who is going to publish worthless information? Who is going to invest their time to produce something that is worthless and will remain worthless no matter how valuable it should be? Answer: nobody. The publishing industry ceases on day one of no copyrights.
sensible copyright laws
Fine. Would they stop wholesale flagrant infringement? I doubt it. Look at iTunes. Apple allows people to do just about anything they want with their music except put it on w4r3Z R US, and many people still invest hundreds of hours trying to find a way to crack it, with thousands cheering them on.
You say on the one hand that nobody respects the law with respect to copyright, and yet if copyright were "repealed", 30% of the economy would vanish overnight.
They are two entirely different arguments. "Nobody" is a figure of speech referring to people who infringe. Repealing copyright would render trillions of dollars of capital in our economy worthless. The arguments refer to two different contexts.
Sure. I'll hire a couple hundred economists to write up a 600 page report that nobody will read, and people will still argue that the number is inaccurate.
Let's start with books, newspapers, advertising, radio, television, film, theatre, music, software, research, pharmaceuticals and semiconductors. All of those industries, and all the businesses that support them vanish on day one.
That's not even close to a complete list, by the way. Yeah, I'd say it's about a third.
This argument has long since lost any credibility. There is no point at which the "Fair Use supporters" will agree to stop wholesale infringement. No amount of legislation or agreements or anything else is going to stop people from saying "well, what's to stop me from just downloading it?"
Discussion of legislation is pointless. Nobody respects the law now. Why would any new legislation change anything?
If copyright is repealed (for example) 30% of the economy vanishes overnight. Think the last recession was bad? Think the Great Depression was bad? The number of people who would lose jobs that depend on copyright, patent and trademarks is incredible.
Copyright is in need of reform, but it's academic unless the "we want it all for free" bullshit stops.
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder if it'll lead to better games, at least in the short run?
Not likely. Yet Another Game Development Library(tm) isn't going to change the industry's inability to greenlight an original design, try something genuinely new, or stop making one sequel after another.
But it would be the funniest scene in theater history! Imagine hundreds of former Star Wars fans booing and hissing continuously during the lava surfing. Then when the Beach Boys music starts, everyone stands up and yells insults or screams in horror.
It would be hilarious.
It's because that's what sells.
No, it's because that's what's approved.
one of my favorite examples: The Longest Journey.
Which sold well over 250,000 units, hardly a flop, except according to the game media^H^H^H^H^Hindustry, which must label adventures "flops" so they won't take attention away from "FRAME RATE 5: THE SEQUEL 4: THE FRAME RATE"
The problem is that society as a whole does not seem to be interested in literate entertainment when there is much easier-to-deal-with simple entertainment.
There seem to be constant complaints about lack of quality stories in games, movies and television shows. People also complain often when good stories are canceled, especially from television.
The commercial text adventure, the literature of the games industry, is long dead.
So says the game industry, in an attempt to justify their decision to fire the writers.
There is little doubt that a good, well-written and well-marketed text adventure would sell, it's just that nobody attempts it because they believe the hype. Some half-assed column asked "Are text adventures dead?" and the writers of those games said "well, guess so" and gave up on the entire genre as a profession.
Which is even more ironic, considering that apparently some of the most recent text adventures are spectacular games, and that affordable text adventure game designs beyond all reason would be possible with modern PCs.
Why didn't Matt get a publishing deal, while Don did?
Matt didn't have an elevator pitch. The game industry, like Hollywood, derives its entire creative output from elevator pitches, which is why they are only seldom capable of producing anything culturally meaningful.
Successful elevator pitches follow this pattern: "it's like A but with more B." Translated: "it's a clone of A and a sequel to B."
An interesting experiment was tried in the movie industry where the screenplay for Casablanca (with different plot details, but the same structure) was sent to various movie studios as a new project. Every single studio rejected it, most with form letters. Now what is more depressing: the fact that Casablanca could never be made today, or that no studio recognized it?
It is very likely the same thing would happen in the game industry if the design for say, Myst or Civilization were sent to various publishers.
By the way, any developer who makes a cold pitch to a publisher should spend their time more productively. A publisher WILL NOT sign a game based on a cold pitch from a third party developer. I would only try such a presentation for the entertainment value.
Super Monkey Ball
A sequel to a clone of an ancient arcade game.
This makes the point better than anything else: there are no game designers, and if there were, most publishers wouldn't allow them to actually design anything.
I'm not sure if you've ever worked on a modern game development team
Obviously. No modern game would have made it out of the early design stages, much less to the retail shelf.
The best designers are a cross between empowered gameplay testers and someone who knows the level design tools.
The best designers are people like Chris Crawford who understand game design is more than level construction and a one-paragraph "background story" included with the installation instructions.
Dude, the second the industry becomes open to hiring semi-technical, well-rounded, English major types to *design* games, I'm *so there*. They aren't, but I'm very patiently waiting for the day when they are, if they ever do.
They won't. Writers would write something new, which the game industry will not develop in favor of a sequel or clone.
P.S. You'd better believe Crawford knows his stuff.
Hear hear.
Do you really think they'd be doing this if it wasn't want the company wanted?
Yep.
Are you saying that games design houses are filled top to bottom with programmers like this?
Yep.
Managers, directors, producers and plenty of other non-technical people obviously agree that this is the way to go -- or worse, they encourage/enforce it.
Because they refuse, and further, actively avoid discussing the problem. They refuse to believe that, yes, there are, in fact, people in the world who do not know how to compile C++ that also happen to know more than they do about certain subjects, like game design, grammar and narrative structure.
By failing to consult experts in these fields, they damage their own products and company, and accomplish nothing but to demonstrate their own arrogant ignorance.
So, we make them testers, and then when they've been there long enough to deserve a decent salary we make them into designers.
Which is precisely why so many games fail, and are now almost routinely clones or sequels. Writing and game design are no less technical or important than programming or drawing.
There's no qualifications that you need to be a designer
Understanding game design might be somewhat important.
This is unlike both code and art, most studios don't employ coders or artists without qualifications (unless they take them on as co-ops or something).
But they do employ designers, upon which the success or failure of a game depends most, without qualifications.
This is why so many games fail, and why the industry will continue to be limited until game design and writing become just as important as how fast the engine draws polygons.
Hollywood would laugh uncontrollably at the suggestion a movie could be made without a writer.
He wrote a second book on game design in 2003 that should be required reading for each and every employee in the game industry. He understands the problems in the game industry better than 95% of the upper-level executives at the largest companies, and he has probably forgotten more about game design than most programmers will ever know.
Sure many general and high-level rules still apply, but games of today hardly compare to the "trinkets" of the 80's.
The basics of game design are centuries old.
What has he contributed lately, beyond criticism? It's easy to point out problems. How about some viable, applicable solutions?
Isn't that what the article was about?
This is one of the major problems in the game industry and most other industries: there is no respect whatsoever for knowledge and professional experience. This "eh, what do you know, old man?" crap costs the industry millions every year as project after project is canceled, or faceplants at retail.
It SUX! It Blows! It's stupid looking! Sony RUL3Z!! Gamecube SUX!! BLAAAHH!!.
Four months ago everyone (and that means EVERYONE) said the Nintendo DS would tank. Now people can't get enough of how cool it is. Now everyone is saying the PSP will tank, when four months ago it was to "instantly stomp Nintendo out of the handheld market."
Face it folks. Everything sux. Because everything sux, nothing has any value. When nothing has any value, it is much easier to ignore the suffering of other people.
People are losing their jobs right now because "everything sux." Little gets invented at large companies any more because "everything sux." Good projects never get funded because "everything sux." Businesses can't get capital becuase "everything sux." Society suffers because "everything sux."
Yeah. It's important.
Fine. We'll connect the dots then.
For months prior to this E3, there has been constant speculation about how crappy the DS will be, and how stupid the designers were/are for including two screens. "How can they do that without making it look stupid?" people asked. Over and over and over again.
Then everyone sees it and realizes Nintendo isn't staffed by a bunch of total morons. Then, in the space of one web page, it goes from "Sony will win. Give it up. Gamecube sucks. Blah blah blah" to "wow, the DS is cool. Zelda isn't cel-shaded any more, so that's also cool, and the PSP is a giant pile of crap."
Over the next week, the game media and technology pundits will also, grudgingly, realize that Nintendo, like Apple for PCs, is the market leader in video games. Sony succeeds with volume. Nintendo succeeds with innovation.
By the way, I have 9000 karma.
So now Nintendo's cool again?
have so many ports from their non-portable cousins?
Because games are too expensive to develop.
The more likely question is whether the two of them are going to live in the same appartment if they relocate to Los Angeles when the show moves...
They'll need a roommate too. Preferably a doctor, lawyer or CEO with a lot of savings.
Why fire everyone? Is it some kind of new rule that every time a business does something new that step one is to fire the entire staff?
MCI just announced 7500 layoffs today. Another several thousand careers out in the street. Wonderful.
All that processing power, and the latest games still run at about 22 frames per second, if that.
The CPU can do six billion instructions a second, the GPU can do 18 billion, and every last cycle is being used to stuff a 40MB texture into memory faster. What a waste. Yeah, the walls are even more green and slimy. Whoop-de-fucking-do.
Would it be great if all that processing power could be used for something other than yet-another-graphics-demo?
Like, maybe some new and innovative gameplay?
progress will speed up
Progress will stop. No company will be able to justify the R&D expense.
Companies (with a profit mission) will still invest in R&D to stay ahead of their competitors, and universities (with an educational mission) will still invest in R&D for the sake of progress.
No they won't. They can't sell what they produce if any other company can simply copy their product. The price will drop to zero and all R&D will become worthless.
You are aware that patents are distinct from and unrelated to copyright, yes?
The original message mentioned patent trademark AND copyright.
and publishing industries
Who is going to publish worthless information? Who is going to invest their time to produce something that is worthless and will remain worthless no matter how valuable it should be? Answer: nobody. The publishing industry ceases on day one of no copyrights.
sensible copyright laws
Fine. Would they stop wholesale flagrant infringement? I doubt it. Look at iTunes. Apple allows people to do just about anything they want with their music except put it on w4r3Z R US, and many people still invest hundreds of hours trying to find a way to crack it, with thousands cheering them on.
The argument has lost all credibility.
The number of people who would lose jobs that depend on copyright, patent and trademarks is incredible.
From the original message.
You say on the one hand that nobody respects the law with respect to copyright, and yet if copyright were "repealed", 30% of the economy would vanish overnight.
They are two entirely different arguments. "Nobody" is a figure of speech referring to people who infringe. Repealing copyright would render trillions of dollars of capital in our economy worthless. The arguments refer to two different contexts.
Care to back that number up?
Sure. I'll hire a couple hundred economists to write up a 600 page report that nobody will read, and people will still argue that the number is inaccurate.
Let's start with books, newspapers, advertising, radio, television, film, theatre, music, software, research, pharmaceuticals and semiconductors. All of those industries, and all the businesses that support them vanish on day one.
That's not even close to a complete list, by the way. Yeah, I'd say it's about a third.
This argument has long since lost any credibility. There is no point at which the "Fair Use supporters" will agree to stop wholesale infringement. No amount of legislation or agreements or anything else is going to stop people from saying "well, what's to stop me from just downloading it?"
Discussion of legislation is pointless. Nobody respects the law now. Why would any new legislation change anything?
If copyright is repealed (for example) 30% of the economy vanishes overnight. Think the last recession was bad? Think the Great Depression was bad? The number of people who would lose jobs that depend on copyright, patent and trademarks is incredible.
Copyright is in need of reform, but it's academic unless the "we want it all for free" bullshit stops.