I don’t have too much time here so I’ll make this post as short as possible. I read an article this morning that just burned me. I know that it was just an opinion piece and this is just my opinion. You are welcome to check out the article here:
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=22045
Umm.. This article is wrong in so many ways that I can’t even find a place to begin =(. I’m a little tired of people relating games to movies just because they are both forms of entertainment. Is the Super Bowl like the movie industry because we buy tickets to be entertained? I certainly don’t see Roethlisberger as the next Spielberg. I think the problem with the industry is that it is trying too hard to be like it’s older “alleged” brother the movies, instead of defining itself.
The core flaw of this article is that it takes the perspective of workers being the peons that assemble a game in small disjoint parts, like contract construction workers and set painters building a stage. Games don’t work like that, sorry. This perspective completely ignores the “peon” himself (or herself), and assumes a business objective of maximizing profits at the expense of the workers not the company.
Honestly, who’s name do you expect to see on that front cover when the game is done? Certainly not the people that made the game a reality. Just like in the movies, it will be some overpaid actor (i’m looking at you Tom Cruise) and maybe some game designer with the original vision; that’s it. Rarely, if ever, have I seen a scriptwriter or camera man’s name on the front cover unless he was the Director. The rest of the contributors will find themselves comfortably on the tail end of a long list of names at the end of the game that say “Programmer #999: John Doe” in barely legible font sizes.
Who wants to work paycheck to paycheck when there are dozens of other industries that talented engineers and artists can go to where the money is better and stable? For the love of the game? What love if you are just an outsider, a mercenary for hire. There is no love when your job is to go in, get it done, and disappear before the sun rises.
Please, please, please. Stop putting movies and games in the same tiny black box, it just gives the wrong impressions to people who don’t know better.
There is one big mistake.
Packaged single player stories, similar to movies, will be a minor footnote in the long future of the games industry.
The main reason the games industry is perceived to be lacking in creativity is that right now large publishers hold all the power. It’s really that simple.
and for that I blame the audience.
I agree, there are more issues at hand than just this small topic. My only real issue is how people keep chasing the movie industry like it’s some kind of holy grail when it is probably worse than the games industry right now.
Exactly. The movie industry is currently suffering. Profits are down. Games are seeing movement in the opposite, upward direction.
Movies are a passive form of entertainment, with only one real mode of interaction supported. Games are an active form of entertainment, with evolving forms of interaction.
Movies present a narrative, games let players construct a narrative within the context of the game. That context can have narrative points (e.g. cutscenes, etc.), but they don’t have to be presented in a long, linear fashion for players to make sense of the game or the game world.
So much is wrong with the comparison between movies and film. What’s even worse is the fact that game developers have been chasing this mirage on one level or another for the last 20 years or so. Every generation of new developers seems compelled to make the same mistakes as the one before it, rather than learn from the past.
Agreed. Another unsatisfied, overzealous game dev wishing for his moment on ET and fat paycheck for doing likely less work than many of the true hardworking innovators and industry drivers out there. While he was busy drafting his whiny article, I was staying late and making cool, hey maybe even INNOVATIVE stuff.