A gaming wasteland?
Video game guru Greg Costikyan delivered a rousing call to arms at the Game Developers Conference last week. The full text is up on his Web site now and is making the rounds in gaming blogs, like Kotaku.
Greg’s basic point, and he makes it with humor and eloquence, is that technology and money are ruining the industry. Judging from the speech’s enthusiastic reception, this is an increasingly popular view.
Look, this guy forgot more video game knowledge in the time it took me to write this than have learned in my whole lifetime. My industry lore is a sputtering candle next to his intellectual quasar. He was recently researching the history of British and American boardgames in the 18th and 19th centuries, for God’s sake. Plus, he has a cool goatee and a ponytail, while I have a receding hairline and am relatively deficient in the whisker department.
Still, I say Greg is wrong. My authority comes from the simple fact that I am a video game consumer, and I see a serious disconnect between our experiences. He thinks money is sending the industry to Doom 3 hell in a handbasket. This alarmist argument boils down to a rallying cry for the Half-Life 2 Luddite, the Mario Malthusian, the Paul Erlich of Pong.
First, Greg seems irked that not every game that comes down the pipe is wholly original.
He acknowledges the last 20 years have seen “a startling burst of creativity and innovation”, and then three sentences later laments, “But it’s over now.”
Just like that. With four words, the Golden Age of video games comes to an abrupt end. What caused this mass extinction of creative critters, marking the dark dawn of an era ruled by hordes of tiny, undifferentiated furry mice.
It’s also odd that he points to GTA as a sign of the tried and true. I guess that’s true to some extent, since “GTA: San Andreas” was technically the fifth installment of the series. But it was released just a few years after GTA III cracked the open-ended criminal adventure genre wide open. It’s as if someone panned “Gone With the Wind” because the historical epic had already been done before.
In fact, as a whole, video game sequels improve on their predecessors. And not only in the graphics department. This is obviously a matter of taste, but I’d rather play “Doom 3” than the original any day. I hear “Burnout 3” is one of the most addictive games ever made, despite being the third in a series elbowing for attention in one of the industry’s most crowded genres. “GTA: San Andreas” has something like 150 hours of gameplay. And “Halo 2” was a genetically assisted leap ahead of the original.
He then takes aim at everyone’s favorite bogeyman.
In his Xbox Weekly e-mail newsletter, Jeff Gerstman of Gamespot, sees the potential in Microsoft’s keynote.
I’m sorry, but Greg seems to want to kick the industry kicking and screaming back to the past, when the alternate distribution model was mailing floppy disks out in Ziploc bags. He doesn’t like what he sees now, and of course everything was better back before video games became bigger than Hollywood. He has no real solutions.
In the meantime, has anyone seen my copy of "Far Cry"?
UPDATE: Just as I was posting this, I checked back on Greg’s site and he has a few more postings up on these issues, including from someone saying essentially what I did: “Thanks for the rant, but what you are going to DO about it?”
To his credit, Greg admits“my rant is bullshit", and then proceeds to offer concrete and interesting solutions to the problems he raises. It’s definitely an interesting debate and he’s got a lot to say about it.
Still, I’m not convinced that there is really a problem here. I’m sorry, but I just don’t see this supposed utter lack of creativity, not only in games, but in movies and books as well. Yeah, you get a lot of over-hyped “Tomb Raider 2” and The Da Vinci Code bullshit, but you also get beautiful creations like “Big Fish” and The Life of Pi. The Golden Age is today.
Greg’s basic point, and he makes it with humor and eloquence, is that technology and money are ruining the industry. Judging from the speech’s enthusiastic reception, this is an increasingly popular view.
Look, this guy forgot more video game knowledge in the time it took me to write this than have learned in my whole lifetime. My industry lore is a sputtering candle next to his intellectual quasar. He was recently researching the history of British and American boardgames in the 18th and 19th centuries, for God’s sake. Plus, he has a cool goatee and a ponytail, while I have a receding hairline and am relatively deficient in the whisker department.
Still, I say Greg is wrong. My authority comes from the simple fact that I am a video game consumer, and I see a serious disconnect between our experiences. He thinks money is sending the industry to Doom 3 hell in a handbasket. This alarmist argument boils down to a rallying cry for the Half-Life 2 Luddite, the Mario Malthusian, the Paul Erlich of Pong.
First, Greg seems irked that not every game that comes down the pipe is wholly original.
He acknowledges the last 20 years have seen “a startling burst of creativity and innovation”, and then three sentences later laments, “But it’s over now.”
Just like that. With four words, the Golden Age of video games comes to an abrupt end. What caused this mass extinction of creative critters, marking the dark dawn of an era ruled by hordes of tiny, undifferentiated furry mice.
As recently as 1992, the average budget for a PC game was $200,000. Today, a typical budget for an A-level title is $5m. And with the next generation, it will be more like $20m. As the cost ratchets upward, publishers becoming increasingly conservative, and decreasingly willing to take a chance on anything other than the tired (sic) and true. So we get Driver 69. Grand Theft Auto San Infinitum. And licensed drivel after licensed drivel. Today, you CANNOT get an innovative title published, unless your last name is Wright, or Miyamoto.Apparently Greg is appalled at the thought that publishers actually want to make products that a lot of people will want to buy. Moreover, these selfish publishers actually hope to make money from this despicable behavior.
It’s also odd that he points to GTA as a sign of the tried and true. I guess that’s true to some extent, since “GTA: San Andreas” was technically the fifth installment of the series. But it was released just a few years after GTA III cracked the open-ended criminal adventure genre wide open. It’s as if someone panned “Gone With the Wind” because the historical epic had already been done before.
In fact, as a whole, video game sequels improve on their predecessors. And not only in the graphics department. This is obviously a matter of taste, but I’d rather play “Doom 3” than the original any day. I hear “Burnout 3” is one of the most addictive games ever made, despite being the third in a series elbowing for attention in one of the industry’s most crowded genres. “GTA: San Andreas” has something like 150 hours of gameplay. And “Halo 2” was a genetically assisted leap ahead of the original.
He then takes aim at everyone’s favorite bogeyman.
How many of you were at the Microsoft keynote?An easy target, but who can argue with the evil nature of the Beast from Redmond? Once again, that pesky pursuit of profit rears its head. And the “HD Era" -- the horror! Well, Greg, you can keep your crappy 8-bit graphics and bleep-bloop soundtracks. I’ll take my games in steaming, searing, sexy hi-def, with 7.1 Dolby and THX, thank you very much. Yeah, I’m a graphics slut, so what?
I don’t know about you, but it made MY FLESH CRAWL. The HD Era. Bigger. Louder. More photorealistic 3D. Teams of hundreds. And big bux to be made.
In his Xbox Weekly e-mail newsletter, Jeff Gerstman of Gamespot, sees the potential in Microsoft’s keynote.
Breaking down barriers of small-ticket online commerce, micro-transactions will allow developers and the gaming community to charge as little as they like for content they create and publish on Marketplace. Imagine players slapping down $.99 to buy a one-of-a-kind, fully tricked-out racing car to be the envy of their buddies....He states the industry is “well and truly fucked” and calls for “revolution”. He calls on developers “to starve for your art, to beg, borrow, or steal the money you need to create a game that will set the world on fire”. People should find alternate distribution channels, different business models.
[W]hen I look at "developers and the gaming community to charge as little as they like for content they create and publish on Marketplace," lights start lighting up in my head. If this comes to pass, it means that we, as today's game players, could conceivably create a map, or a car, or some sort of additional content for an Xbox 360 game, upload it to Microsoft, and presumably enter into some sort of profit-sharing partnership with the company to make real, actual money for content that we've created. That could be cool. I have nothing but respect for the people out there making mods for PC games, and if this ends up being that big, and the games end up being that expandable, this could be a very, very exciting development.
I’m sorry, but Greg seems to want to kick the industry kicking and screaming back to the past, when the alternate distribution model was mailing floppy disks out in Ziploc bags. He doesn’t like what he sees now, and of course everything was better back before video games became bigger than Hollywood. He has no real solutions.
In the meantime, has anyone seen my copy of "Far Cry"?
UPDATE: Just as I was posting this, I checked back on Greg’s site and he has a few more postings up on these issues, including from someone saying essentially what I did: “Thanks for the rant, but what you are going to DO about it?”
To his credit, Greg admits“my rant is bullshit", and then proceeds to offer concrete and interesting solutions to the problems he raises. It’s definitely an interesting debate and he’s got a lot to say about it.
Still, I’m not convinced that there is really a problem here. I’m sorry, but I just don’t see this supposed utter lack of creativity, not only in games, but in movies and books as well. Yeah, you get a lot of over-hyped “Tomb Raider 2” and The Da Vinci Code bullshit, but you also get beautiful creations like “Big Fish” and The Life of Pi. The Golden Age is today.
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