Hello all, new member Alias here, again hoping to provide some meaningful discussion. This time I want to get my anger about the gaming industry out in the open. Since you don't know, I am an aspiring game designer. My major is declared as Game Design and Development, or GDD. I am a competent programmer, and a somewhat-less-than-adequate artist. I know several programming languages, including C++, C#, Java, and ActionScript. I have played many games over the past years of my life, not as many as I would like to, but more than perhaps the average person. This is something I've been mulling over in my head for a while.
My view of games is that they are a form of art, not just entertainment for the masses. Unfortunately, I think that is a line that has become blurry or nonexistent lately. Let's go back and look at forms of entertainment. Dance. Music. Cinema. Theater. Animation (cartoons). All of these are also classed as Arts. Other arts include photography and making pictures with a variety of materials, from wood to stone to canvas to notebook paper, from charcoal to oil pastels to simple graphite pencils. Writing is another huge one, whether it's simple dialogue or an epic. What do games have in common with these? Well... they incorporate almost EVERY one of them. Games have soundtracks. Games have sound effects that must be recorded or synthesized. Games have animation, movies, some have photos, some have singing, most have acting, if only with their voices, some even have motion acting (a few memorable titles include that awful flop Enter the Matrix and Guitar Hero 3).
So what am I supposed to do in this corporate world? Games aren't considered art by most people. For the producers, they are made in order to make money. This is why you have companies like Bungee, who rehash the same game over and over for one reason: PEOPLE WILL BUY IT. People don't want art. People want entertainment. What better way to spend 50 dollars on 50 or more hours of entertainment? Sure beats going to the movies. Let's go to the MMO scene. People pay 10 dollars a month for something they spend an average of 3 hours a day on, not counting the powergamers or gold farmers that spend 18. 3 * 30 = 300 hours worth of entertainment... for just ten bucks. Games are by far the cheapest source of entertainment there is. Who would pay 10 bucks per old movie when they could have 100 times the entertainment length, and only buy one or two movies every so often? The CEOs know this and so they cater to what people want: entertainment. To hell with things like quality: good design, memorable characterization, thought-out story, all of it.
What does this result in? Perhaps 99% of games that are produced are utter trash. Games are made out of Brittany Spears for crying out loud. They're crap, but the Spears fanboys and girls will buy them... which results in cash flow to the producers. What barriers did Halo 2 break? Halo 3? From what I could tell, they were simply the same thing as the first one Bungee made - eye candy and mindless entertainment.
Now take a game like Narbacular Drop. For those of you that don't know, it was this game that inspired Portal, from Valve, the same company that brought Half-Life on the scene. Hopefully one of those names rings a bell. If not, Wiki them.
Narbacular Drop put something never-before seen on the gaming market. And how much money did the producers get? None. They made it for the art of it, because they had a cool idea and wanted to turn it into a living, breathing entity, much like the household name Leonardo Da Vinci painted. He didn't paint for money. Sure he got money for some of his work (at least I would hope he got some sustenance for something like the Sistine Chapel) but most of it was just because he wanted to do it.
How many games are there on the market like Narbacular Drop? Ones that break boundaries and do something that nobody had ever done before? Sure, not every game can be like that - human creativity simply isn't like that. If every idea was a completely new and different one, we would all either be immortal archangels or have destroyed the planet thousands of years ago. And I'm not saying that games that don't do something new and fresh are bad. Take Chrono Trigger for example. Nothing groundbreaking there. Yet it remains to be seen by me personally as one of the best games ever produced, for its superb characterization, story, and gameplay.
But nowadays, companies don't want to put quality in their games. They want to put something out on the market that people will buy. Mostly, this boils down to something that affiliates itself with something else popular, like a movie or an actor or singer, or simple eye candy. OOO WOW that game looks PURDY! This last is what Assassin's Creed boils down to. Storyline: what storyline? It ENDED a third of the way through! Gameplay: boring, one-dimensional, and uninteresting. Jumping from platform to platform... kinda fun to watch, but incredibly uninteresting since all you're doing is holding spacebar and W. Combat is nonexistent, just sit there holding right click and occasionally left click. But damn, it has HAWT graphics. Which is why some people think it's an awesome game.
Well, I am not one of those who will cater to the graphic whores out there. I want to make a meaningful game, one that will make you think about something important, like the human condition, or something else grand and philosophical. Ever play Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of a New World? Well I'm going to spoil the storyline for you.
Edit: Ah ha!!! NEW FUNCTIONZ
It's this sort of thing that I mean. The antagonist was willing to go through an eternity of unbearable pain in order to save his dead friend and keep the world safe at the same time from the spirit who wanted to extinguish all human life. When you finish that game, you sit down and think for a while. You're like, whoah. Imagine if every human were willing to make that sort of sacrifice for the sake of their friend. I want to make games like that. But the fact is, most people don't spend money on them. How am I to provide for myself and my family when people only want mindless entertainment, instead of something that makes you think? The amount of money a company makes producing games like that simply won't allow them to continue doing it. Hiring talented composers, effects techies, visual artists, good voice acting (how many games have you played that actually had decent voice acting? pfft)... it all costs a ridiculous amount of money. Money that won't be refunded, because people don't want what that makes.
Thoughts?
Edit: Sigh, just noticed the rant thread. >< Sorry. I think I would have posted it here anyway, though, because I really want to know if people agree/disagree/any opinions they might have as opposed to just yelling about something to get it off my chest. Mods... ok/not ok?
My view of games is that they are a form of art, not just entertainment for the masses. Unfortunately, I think that is a line that has become blurry or nonexistent lately. Let's go back and look at forms of entertainment. Dance. Music. Cinema. Theater. Animation (cartoons). All of these are also classed as Arts. Other arts include photography and making pictures with a variety of materials, from wood to stone to canvas to notebook paper, from charcoal to oil pastels to simple graphite pencils. Writing is another huge one, whether it's simple dialogue or an epic. What do games have in common with these? Well... they incorporate almost EVERY one of them. Games have soundtracks. Games have sound effects that must be recorded or synthesized. Games have animation, movies, some have photos, some have singing, most have acting, if only with their voices, some even have motion acting (a few memorable titles include that awful flop Enter the Matrix and Guitar Hero 3).
So what am I supposed to do in this corporate world? Games aren't considered art by most people. For the producers, they are made in order to make money. This is why you have companies like Bungee, who rehash the same game over and over for one reason: PEOPLE WILL BUY IT. People don't want art. People want entertainment. What better way to spend 50 dollars on 50 or more hours of entertainment? Sure beats going to the movies. Let's go to the MMO scene. People pay 10 dollars a month for something they spend an average of 3 hours a day on, not counting the powergamers or gold farmers that spend 18. 3 * 30 = 300 hours worth of entertainment... for just ten bucks. Games are by far the cheapest source of entertainment there is. Who would pay 10 bucks per old movie when they could have 100 times the entertainment length, and only buy one or two movies every so often? The CEOs know this and so they cater to what people want: entertainment. To hell with things like quality: good design, memorable characterization, thought-out story, all of it.
What does this result in? Perhaps 99% of games that are produced are utter trash. Games are made out of Brittany Spears for crying out loud. They're crap, but the Spears fanboys and girls will buy them... which results in cash flow to the producers. What barriers did Halo 2 break? Halo 3? From what I could tell, they were simply the same thing as the first one Bungee made - eye candy and mindless entertainment.
Now take a game like Narbacular Drop. For those of you that don't know, it was this game that inspired Portal, from Valve, the same company that brought Half-Life on the scene. Hopefully one of those names rings a bell. If not, Wiki them.
Narbacular Drop put something never-before seen on the gaming market. And how much money did the producers get? None. They made it for the art of it, because they had a cool idea and wanted to turn it into a living, breathing entity, much like the household name Leonardo Da Vinci painted. He didn't paint for money. Sure he got money for some of his work (at least I would hope he got some sustenance for something like the Sistine Chapel) but most of it was just because he wanted to do it.
How many games are there on the market like Narbacular Drop? Ones that break boundaries and do something that nobody had ever done before? Sure, not every game can be like that - human creativity simply isn't like that. If every idea was a completely new and different one, we would all either be immortal archangels or have destroyed the planet thousands of years ago. And I'm not saying that games that don't do something new and fresh are bad. Take Chrono Trigger for example. Nothing groundbreaking there. Yet it remains to be seen by me personally as one of the best games ever produced, for its superb characterization, story, and gameplay.
But nowadays, companies don't want to put quality in their games. They want to put something out on the market that people will buy. Mostly, this boils down to something that affiliates itself with something else popular, like a movie or an actor or singer, or simple eye candy. OOO WOW that game looks PURDY! This last is what Assassin's Creed boils down to. Storyline: what storyline? It ENDED a third of the way through! Gameplay: boring, one-dimensional, and uninteresting. Jumping from platform to platform... kinda fun to watch, but incredibly uninteresting since all you're doing is holding spacebar and W. Combat is nonexistent, just sit there holding right click and occasionally left click. But damn, it has HAWT graphics. Which is why some people think it's an awesome game.
Well, I am not one of those who will cater to the graphic whores out there. I want to make a meaningful game, one that will make you think about something important, like the human condition, or something else grand and philosophical. Ever play Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of a New World? Well I'm going to spoil the storyline for you.
Edit: Ah ha!!! NEW FUNCTIONZ
The main antagonist throughout the game, Richter, wants to open the door to Nifleheim, the demonic realm (a sort of parallel to the Christian Hell). Later on, you find out that you, the protagonist, Emil, are actually his archnemesis. You see, you're not really Emil. You are Lord Ratatosk, a spirit charged with guarding the door to the demonic realm. Richter and his best friend, Aster, were researching spirits like Ratatosk and made their way into the realm where the door was, a sort of alternate dimension. They wanted to ask him something, I don't remember what it was, I think it had something to do with restoring balance in the world. Ratatosk, angered that humans would dare to ask him for a favor after destroying the World Tree, the source of all life, in their human wars, killed Aster and was in turn struck down by Richter. When Ratatosk woke, he blocked out his memories and took the identity of Emil and the appearance of Aster. Throughout the latter half of the game, you play thinking that Richter wants to trade the world to the demons in order for the resurrection of his dead friend, Aster. When you come to the gate, you fight Richter, and beat him, and learn that his plan was actually to kill Ratatosk once and for all, to avenge his dead friend, open the door when its guardian was dead, and resurrect Aster with the demon's power. You already knew this. What you didn't know was what he planned after. Richter, having revived Aster, planned on using the mana of his body (mana = life force in this world) to seal the door to the demonic realm by burning it. Mana is anathema to demons, so they would not be able to pass through the door with Richter, his mana aflame, standing in the way. He would do this by using a stone that would limitlessly regenerate his mana, but burning one's very life force is understood to be excruciatingly painful.
It's this sort of thing that I mean. The antagonist was willing to go through an eternity of unbearable pain in order to save his dead friend and keep the world safe at the same time from the spirit who wanted to extinguish all human life. When you finish that game, you sit down and think for a while. You're like, whoah. Imagine if every human were willing to make that sort of sacrifice for the sake of their friend. I want to make games like that. But the fact is, most people don't spend money on them. How am I to provide for myself and my family when people only want mindless entertainment, instead of something that makes you think? The amount of money a company makes producing games like that simply won't allow them to continue doing it. Hiring talented composers, effects techies, visual artists, good voice acting (how many games have you played that actually had decent voice acting? pfft)... it all costs a ridiculous amount of money. Money that won't be refunded, because people don't want what that makes.
Thoughts?
Edit: Sigh, just noticed the rant thread. >< Sorry. I think I would have posted it here anyway, though, because I really want to know if people agree/disagree/any opinions they might have as opposed to just yelling about something to get it off my chest. Mods... ok/not ok?
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