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Dive

Jul 1 2005, 03:36 AM

Post #1

Apocalypse Tribe Radio

Group: Dark Templar
Posts: 1824
Joined: 10-December 02
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An interesting article on stagnant game design.

Older related "video game crash" topic here.

This is a semi satirical article based on the dead ends in game and console design prevalent in the current crop of releases and upcoming titless. It goes through many annoyances which I'm sure many of you have noticed. A small sample:

QUOTE

Give us a genre of game we've never seen before. Something that's not an FPS or an RPG or Madden NFL or...

Why isn't a there a spy game where we actually get to be a real spy rather than a hallway-roving kill machine? You know, where we actually have to talk to contacts and extract information and tap phones and piece together clues, a game full of exotic locales and deception and backstabbing and subplots? A game where a gun is used as often as a real spy would use it (that is, almost never)?

Where's the game where we're a castaway on a deserted island and the object of the game is to find food and clean water and build a shelter, a game where we can play for one month or six months, because whether or not we get rescued is randomized? Where every time we restart we get a different island with different wildlife and vegetation and water sources?

Granted the article was written with humor in mind but the subject and the many valid points ring true.

Please if you have the time, read the article, it will get you thinking about how much better games could be.

What are some things in gaming you would like to see implemented that haven't been done or not done enough?

Replies (1 - 4)

HC82 View Member Profile	Jul 1 2005, 10:31 AM Post #2
Badass Billionaire Extraordanaire Group: Paragon Caste Posts: 969 Joined: 13-December 02 From: NYC Member No.: 4	Current game design knowledge and application is BEYOND stagnant among most developers. It's a festering shit pool of stinky sweating lepers. Game design needs to be taken down to a science, but most game designers don't look at it that way. It's more intuitive for some of them, or cut and paste, then expand a cool idea here and there. If I can play an old school shooter and enjoy it more then a new school action game, it's evident that there is a cog loose in the game design mechanics of the present. This is assuming we take only raw gameplay mechanics into consideration and not gameplay reviews ad hominem(opinion as fact, despite the truth of the facts) or enjoyment based on nostolgia and personal preference. If game design was a science, that 15 year lapse in a shitty game being produced would not occur. Game designers aren't understanding the fundamental aspects of what defines fun on numerous levels of the core basics and work from there. Well, more research on game design as a science needs to be done. As for actually gaming ideas, that's much too complex to really break down and say: "We need A, B, and C in all games from now intill the future." It's also an artform too, so it's not always that rigid and personal preference can play at least a 50% role in how much someone enjoys a game, regardless of quality gameplay mechanics.

AC9breaker

Jul 1 2005, 10:59 PM

Post #3

Soul Hunter

Group: Magister
Posts: 2208
Joined: 10-April 03
From: NJ
Member No.: 23

Haha

!
A great read indeed. Thanks to you Mr.Dive a new page has been added to my favorites list. My favorite part in the article is when the writer is discussing about the frustrations of jumping puzzles in first person shooter games.

QUOTE

-THEY SHOULD HAVE NEVER DONE IT IN THE FIRST PLACE. EVER. WHOSE IDEA WAS THIS? I DEMAND TO KNOW. WAS IT TUROK? WAS TUROK THE FIRST? THE VERY FIRST FUCKING PERSON TO EVER PUT A JUMPING PUZZLE IN A FIRST-FUCKING PERSON GAME SHOULD HAVE BEEN FIRED, TIED DOWN AND HAD HIS EARS FILLED WITH PISS.

The writer of the article pointed out some very important things that I'm sure many of us can relate too. When I read the part about Electronic Arts and its monopolistic hold on NFL games, it reminded me of a post I read over at another message board I frequent, Insanity Elite. It was a link to some womans blog who's husband was a former Employee over at Electronic Arts. In short, the workers where being taken advantage of and brainwashed so to speak. I wish I still had the link so I could post it becuase it was a very insightful read.

Anyway, the point was that the bigwig suits where taking advantage of the sleep deprived, socially destroyed workers and treated them like toilet paper. This I feel is how many big companies and such look at us. We are toilet paper so they can wipe their shit on us then throw us away once they're done. Its a social injustice found much in the world today. The rich get rich and the poor get fucked. They pushed their workers to meet these deadlines, and even when they where ahead of schedule they where still getting fucked. They made it seem like the company being efficiant is us, the gamers losing out on content. I agree with HC82 that games are like an art, but i dissent with his opinions on incompitent programer but more like greedy managers and bosses. I really feel that the videogame industry has unfortunetly been curropted by the green. Although just like everything else, there are those few filtering spots of sunlight in this forest of commercialism.

But basically, these companies are just catering to the mob mentality by giving them more of the repackaged meat. Rather then trying to be innovative. Simply becuase it involves being different, which means a risk, which means possible $$$ loss, and thats just the way it is. Money makes the world go round and its grip has effected every aspects of our lives. Just the other day on E-bay I saw someone was selling Love. Bid started at $100 dollars.

--------------------

"Brotherhood asked for no friendship, only loyalty. They stood back to back as the galaxy burned - always brothers, never friends; traitors together unto the last."

--an Excerpt from a Night Lords Novel Void Stalkers Chapter X: Revenge

Dive

Jul 1 2005, 11:08 PM

Post #4

Apocalypse Tribe Radio

Group: Dark Templar
Posts: 1824
Joined: 10-December 02
Member No.: 1

QUOTE (AC9breaker @ Jul 1 2005, 11:59 PM)

It was a link to some womans blog who's husband was a former Employee over at Electronic Arts.

I think this is the link you are talking about.

HC82 View Member Profile	Jul 2 2005, 07:00 AM Post #5
Badass Billionaire Extraordanaire Group: Paragon Caste Posts: 969 Joined: 13-December 02 From: NYC Member No.: 4	I don't even consider the current EA games as game developers. I just see them as publishers, regardless as to whether or not they do developement. As a company, they're a souless entity that embraces capitalism at its core. That obviously doesn't apply to all it's workers, but I really have very little respect for EA as a game developer and only as a business. I try to seperate the art form from the business, even if they intertwine. Either way, one affects the other. Games cost money, lots of money to make, so it's a given that finances play a role in development. Regardless of development costs, I see general gameplay flaws that are not a result of business or finance, but merely bad design(ie. jumping puzzles in 1st person shooters). As for EA, the majority of their non-sports inhouse games are fairly bleh, anyway.

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