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Game designer Chris Crawford gets his grump on
Veteran game-designer (though he hasn't released a game since 1991) gets his grump on in this interview with Gamasutra. They begin by asking about his recent statement at the Game Developer's Conference that video games were "dead," in which he elocuted, "We put food in, shit comes out." Indeed. So with the industry already dead -- or, as he equivocates, just braindead -- how do we resuscitate its limp and fallow body? According to Crawford, it's as simple as this: interactive storytelling, a fourteen year project of his. Like he did at GDC, Crawford swings the ideal of "innovation" around like a blunt instrument; a straw-man argument wherein games are (brain)dead since every single one doesn't expand the medium. By his metric, both cinema and literature have been braindead for years although, somehow, he manages to excuse them using a slightly different metric. Really, the more I read and hear his arguments, the more confused and confusing they become. Crawford sounds like someone who's been left behind by the rapidly evolving games industry, frustrated by his marginal role and lack of influence. For anyone who heard the volley of questions leveled at Crawford following his GDC rant, it's clear many people in the industry -- while often frustrated -- don't share his doom and gloom prognosis. For a companion rant, check out Gamerjunk's blow-by-blow rebuttal.
Girls 'n' Games event: this news is so old
While E3's keynotes were kicking off last week, several academics, developers and advocates of women in gaming gathered at UCLA to discuss girls, games and everything relating to the two. However, from Gamasutra's account of the event, nothing new was really discussed. Some of the key points brought up: Girls play games. (Well, duh.) Developers shouldn't try to focus on "girl game design" -- stereotyping game design by gender leads to missteps. Player-generated content is popular amongst girls, as is social gameplay. "Cuteness" in games, like anime and manga culture in Japan, encourages girls to get involved in gameplay. Women gamers and girl gamers are different; women and teenage girls have different demands on their time. Girls and women shouldn't just be gamers, but developers too.
Mr. Katamari not interested in Revolution
For how quirky and unique a game Katamari Damacy is, I find it odd that its creator is not interested in the Revolution at all. When conversing with Gamasutra's sister-publication Game Developer at GDC, Keita Takahashi claimed "So, there's nothing I really want to do with it right now." He went on further to say "I'm not really interested in it. I don't think a controller should have that much influence on the enjoyment of games."Don't you think he's kind of missing the point? Isn't it not so much that the remote influences the game, but more that it adds a whole new dimension to the gameplay? Red Steel isn't a brand new type of game forced to compromise to the remote's characteristics, it takes the unique properties of the remote and aims to mix it with conventional first-person gameplay to create something new. How can you possibly not be interested in that?! Of course, comparisons to Red Steel aren't all that valid since noone has tried it, but you get the point, right?
Ubisoft Montreal: Yep, we'll make more Rev games
Yannis Mallet, the recently-promoted Ubisoft Montreal Studio CEO, conducted a small Q & A session with Gamasutra. Most concerning the upcoming Nintendo Revolution was the allusion to Ubisoft working on more titles for the platform aside from the already-confirmed Red Steel. When asked about upcoming games for the Revolution, Yannis said "I can say definitely, as any other developer, we are looking at this magical platform, and we want to be part of the adventure. You know already that Red Steel is made public in Game Informer. That's an exclusive Ubisoft title, made in Ubisoft Paris. And I'm pretty sure we'll see other Revolution games from Ubisoft. And some of them, I'm sure, will be made from Montreal."
Pandemic talks Revolution (again)
Gamasutra scored an interview with Pandemic's Josh Resnick, the second Pandemic member to speak their opinions on the Revolution. While more focused on the joining of the two distinct development houses, there is some talk of the Revolution. In asking about the difficulties the Revolution presents from a developer's point of view, Josh said "I don’t think it’s going to be as easy to take a product from one console to the Revolution, and so I think we are going to be looking to see how we can tailor our products to that platform. But we do that also with other platforms as well, it’s just that the Revolution may challenge us even more."One of the initial concerns after the Revolution's remote was shown was just how third-party titles would be ported over to the console, something Nintendo stated would be easy provided a shell was acquired by the user. Josh's statements show a bit of reluctance toward porting over their established franchises to the Revolution and instead reaffirm the belief that the Revolution will see fresh titles, exclusive to the platform, from development houses.
Inside the Bioware-Pandemic super-developer
We reported last year on the merging of developers Pandemic and Bioware into one "super-developer", and Gamasutra has followed up the move by interviewing the heads of both companies, including Pandemic CEO Josh Resnick (right). The studios aren't merging directly, but share revenue and a common executive team, an interesting move for future companies which might plan to follow in their footsteps.It appears that the companies are working together closely, with only a little technology sharing as of yet--the simple move of giving feedback on each other's products is apparently working wonders. However, Bioware and Pandemic intend to stay fairly separate, each focusing on their genres of expertise. Unfortunately the interview reveals no tidbits of information on Bioware Austin's MMO plans, but the CEOs are confident that there is room to innovate and customers to be had in the MMO space still.
A postmortem on Accordion Hero (with a little info on Guitar Hero, too)
Just in case you missed the Guitar Hero parody Accordion Hero reported here on Joystiq a week or two back, Gamasutra has now posted a tongue-in-cheek postmortem on the squeezebox simulator. It's cheeky.You'll learn not only "that accordion players get all the girls" (with female players, of course, getting all the guys), but you'll also get a handle on some detailed developer data such as the number of accordions broken during development (none) and the number set on fire during the same period of time (twenty-three).
Nintendo's got a new backend
Gamasutra reports that Nintendo HQ has adopted a new software management solution in Aldon Lifecycle Manager. What this new program allows the bigwigs over in Washington to do is maintain a high level of awareness throughout different development projects (such as all upcoming Revolution titles) as they go through their lifecycles. Now, apparently, it won't be the impossibly difficult task of walking over to the development area and asking the Project Lead where they're at currently. It's now only a mouse click away. Let's hope it helps those at Nintendo who've been having problems with their TPS reports, also.
Games vs. popular media: the debate
Gamasutra reports on a panel held this weekend in Austin entitled "Games: the bastard children of popular media". Responding to Roger Ebert's comment last year that video games don't measure up to the standard set by other popular media, the panellists' debate covered movies, youth culture and even the moral situations of Ultima IV, pointing out that:Games, being interactive, are meant to tell stories in a different way, by giving their audiences a participatory experience. Instead of watching a movie about the horrors of war, a gamer can play Civilization and see what happens to an area of the world.An interesting point brought up in the report is that of longevity--will we be playing the games we play now in 500 years' time, just as Shakespeare's plays are still studied and performed? It's unlikely; printed paper, unlike today's consoles, probably won't become obsolete. Perhaps what survives of today's games might not be code and sprites, but characters, stories and concepts, with Mario becoming as time-honoured as Hamlet and Macbeth.
The science behind game addiction
Are games addictive? That's the question posed over at Gamasutra, and Neils Clark has gone into some detail to explain the science behind addiction and its relevance to gaming. Unfortunately, the answer isn't as clear-cut as a simple "yes" or "no".Addiction itself is a complicated area of psychology and neuroscience, and it's often implicated with gaming by those who fail to understand either concept. What's increasingly clear from this article is that there may be flaws in research relating to game addiction--from conceptual confusion to extended assumptions, as well as the tendency to embrace concepts before they are fully investigated. Clark points out that "research has simply suggested that at most, people are becoming addicted to games, not that games themselves are actually responsible for addicting people."
Are we learning the wrong lessons from WoW?
Gamasutra has published a soapbox piece examining what WoW is teaching us about gameplay, and asking whether it's teaching us the right things.The main points include the much debated "Time over Skill" mindset imbued in the endgame, the push away from self-reliance to group play, and the "You're either with us or against us" guild mentality. Finally, the extensive Terms of Use Agreement and its use in disciplining players is also brought up.Not all of the lessons learned here are bad--there are real-life echoes of all of these points, and learning to invest substantial amounts of time in a task as well as how to effectively work in a group could be considered positive aspects of WoW. However, these four points are all fairly offputting to casual players, especially when those casual players reach the endgame.Having played solo for most of 60 levels, suddenly a player learns that they're not going to be able to take part in much of the remaining content without a guild or group. They're competing for places in guilds or raids with those who have invested much more time, and thus have better gear. Bored, they turn to exploring the game world, and suddenly get banned for being in a place they shouldn't have found. Harsh lessons indeed.Obviously, the "hardcore vs casual" debate has more to it than this; but in terms of the lessons taught by WoW, it seems there are two sides--one for those with lots of time and a popular guild, another for everyone else.
Curing MMORPG inertia
As MMOs become more accessible, casual players who have little contiguous time to play can run into a form of player inertia. The effort required to reach the next level is too great; levelling up is too far away to justify a week of plugging away for an hour a day. This inertia inevitably causes players to stop playing altogether, and to leave the game.This soapbox column at Gamasutra addresses the problem with an idea based around "dynamic lifestyle adjustment". Why should your characters freeze when you log off? Instead, let them do some low-level adventuring without your intervention -- a small trickle of experience gain which, if you're offline for long enough, will help push you towards that next milestone.It's an interesting idea; MMOs, for the most part, follow similar templates along the lines of "experience and skills are only gained when players log in and work for them". While some differ, none take it to quite this extreme, and it would be interesting to see a game take this idea and aim itself squarely at the casual market.
User feedback in MMOs
The sheer number of players in WoW means that you'll run into a variety of people while levelling and otherwise passing the time in-game. Currently, the in-game feedback mechanism is one-sided, and limited: if a player is unbearable, then they can be welcomed to your /ignore list, but if they're worth remembering then they get a place on your friends list.Depending on how you play, these lists may be sparse or full, but if you're anything like me then you wish there was something more to it: the ability to see what others think of a player, and the ability to help others stay away from bad players or gravitate towards good players.This soapbox piece over at Gamasutra goes into the ins and outs of character rating systems as applied to MMOs. It brings up some important points; people will try to game the system, by creating characters solely to leave ratings, and there should be further requirements such as having to group for X minutes. Also, there would have to be a RP explanation for ratings, and a decision would have to be made over whether to use user-specific or character-specific feedback. The former means that everyone can be forewarned you're a jackass; the latter means you can RP a jackass without harming your other characters.Personally, I'm not sure I want a disgruntled group member harming my reputation for life just because we disagreed on the best way to heal -- nor do I want the person who called me a n00b because I wasn't specced the way he wanted to have much of an impact on my ability to find instance parties. On the other hand, I'd definitely like to be able to avoid people like that. It's unlikely a system like this could be shoehorned into WoW by Blizzard, but it's certainly fair game for an addon, if enough players would install it.[Image credit: Fan art by George Tutumi]
Multi-level gameplay
Gamasutra has a Designer's Notebook piece by Ernest Adams centring around the concept of 'multi-level gameplay' -- that is, games with multiple 'levels' of interaction, or different modes of play. An example is the interrelated tactical and strategy modes found in war-games: you can make decisions that affect the entire world, but also fight individual battles on the ground.Multi-level games are more complex, but allow you to enjoy different aspects of the game -- knowing that you'll have to fight personally if you move an army to a particular spot makes you feel more involved than if the computer simulates a battle. They are hard to design, however, and balance between the different game modes is key.
The story behind game logos
Many of the more memorable game logos, from Doom 3 to World of Warcraft, were created by the same company: Hamagami/Carroll. This interview with Justin Carroll goes into detail about the company's history and design process, and it's an interesting read, shedding some light on this obscure corner of game production. Surprisingly, Carroll never plays the games himself--he doesn't have time--but he employs a company full of avid gamers, all working to capture the game's spirit in its branding. While a game's packaging and logo will rarely make or break that game, having a box and design that appeals to shoppers and reflects the quality of the game is undeniably important.
