Tuesday, March 11, 2003
Actually I have a little more to say about the game industry so bear with me for just a minute longer which is fine by me because I have to head in to work in a few minutes anyway and the clock is ticking so I'm likely to write extremely long sentences such as this one and where was I oh yeah.
Costikyan's right in that gaming is unique in that it's "virtually infinitely plastic" (his adverbs not mine), that anything should be possible. That it isn't is a testiment as to how bad off the industry has gotten.
But I don't know about you guys, but I don't see many good, original games in any venue, either on store shelves or on the Internet. I didn't go to the IGC, so I don't know what kinds of things they had on display, but you'd think their work, if it was good, would generate some sort of internet buzz. Unless we've not been able to see it to buzz about it. Busy little bees.*
The thing about games that gets me is that we've gotten to a place now where implementation is easy, but design is hard. Programming skill is almost a commodity these days, which strikes me as strange because I used to sweat out long nights in 6510 assembler on my old Commodore 64, but it's true, but coming up with the Good Idea seems to be eluding a lot of people.
In case any of these people are reading this, I'll let them in on The Secret, if it'll just get them producing new original games. Here it is: when brainstorming for new ideas, either start by keeping in mind the limitations of the hardware and trying to come up with something that takes special advantage of it, or, start from something entirely outside of videogaming (like Miyamoto's garden), and "work in," so to speak. Don't, under any circumstances, start from a previously-existing game unless you change so many things about it that it would have been easier to start from scratch. I mean it, DON'T! I don't care if you think Gauntlet would have been great if you fought aliens instead of monsters. I don't care if you think Tetris would have been great if there were only different kinds of blocks. I especially don't care if you think a game in which you run around and shoot things is "enough," whether it's set on Mars, in a fantasy realm, in an office building, in the subway, or in the works of Lewis Carroll. In fact, if it's set in the works of Lewis Carroll, please do us a favor and not make it yet another Quake clone!
Yes, I'm talking to you American McGee! I don't care if you think it's in the spirit of Alice in Wonderland, I'm the great holy Turd of Truth floating down in my crappy etherial splendor, here to tell you it damn ain't! Don't you realize that you based that thing off a great work of literature that was written with wit and awesome intelligence?! Would you put Captain Ahab in a starship chasing Monstro-the-freaking-space-whale in real-time dogfight sequences?! Would you give Yossarian a pistol and a hundred powerups and have him gun down Colonel Cathcart?!! Would you put Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas in Dynasty Warriors -- wait, someone's recently done just that!! God, I'm foaming at the mouth here.
Damn it, I hate this industry!
Sorry about that, just something I had to get out from under my hat. But back to the original point: take the ultra-geek approach, or the no-geek approach. Either go all the way, or don't go at all.
The great trash heap has spoken. Nyaah.
(* Actually, I hated Gladiator. And I admit, I don't exactly swarm all over game development sites at the moment.)
