The collapse of the Industry
polycounter lvl 19
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1784975,00.asp
Interesting article. While I don't particularly agree, I found it an interesting read anyway, and food for good discussion here on polycount.
Interesting article. While I don't particularly agree, I found it an interesting read anyway, and food for good discussion here on polycount.
Replies
The categories are shooters, puzzles and mazes, adventure games, sports games, and simulations. That's it. Most of today's hottest games are combinations of two or three of these categories, with a storyline added to keep the players from being bored stiff. When my kids show me a game, I usually say that it's nothing but the same old running-jumping-kicking-shooting with a new background. They leave in a huff.
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This guy's a wanker. If the same logic were applied to Hollywood, movies would have been over decades ago. People like playing games like prize fighters like winning fights.
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None of this will save a doomed industry. The business is going to attempt to sustain growth and creativity by making game players buy newer and newer machines. Computer gaming has always been sustained by never-ending improvements in resolution and realism. But once we get to photorealism, what is going to sustain growth?
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Holograms. Duh.
what is going to sustain growth?
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Smell-o-vision, of course.
If that doesn't flatten the market, the never-ending need to satisfy the demanding full-time game-player should do it. Some of today's games are ridiculously hard to play—unless gaming is your so-called life—and so daunting to casual players that they will quickly reject them. Who needs to devote themselves to a game just to play it once in a while? I'll take Spider Solitaire instead.
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Wow this guy got under my skin
Christ. Get real. Grow up. If YOU are bored, don't cry the sky is falling just because you've ceased to enjoy something. Many of the rest of us still enjoy things long after they are "old school".
"OMG that story is just a combination of english words that have been used billions of times before! OLD! Boring!"
To simply say everything has been done before is a cope out.
As per the article, I agree to an extent but would point to the industry not "growing up" with its expanded age audience. Kids dont have alot of $50. to spend repeatedly. Adults do, but adults have seen many of the same ideas before.
I think John was just being lazy and had to meet a deadline so he fell back on the old standby, pick a subject and then complain about the lack of innovation etc...
"am I the only one upset about the lack of new colors today? Artist are content to just mix 2 or three colors together and leave it at that, where are the innovators?
His logic is fundamentally flawed.
Just because something has been done before does not mean that it is not worth doing again. Put a new spin on it, and it's still good. And the games are still fun.
John C. Dvorak has made sex seem boring.
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well maybe you should try a new position instead of making him do all the work.
I mean, we should just shoot ourselves, except for the fact that has also been done before.
r.
p.s.
He neglected to mention a new genre that has earnest room to grow, MMORPG's.
...ah, probably something that only a few of the Australians will get. I think rather than looking at this all this talk of impending doom, we should look upon the forced change as our very own little renaissance.
The movement needs to begin somewhere and I say where better than here. Instead of just going over the same wailing and gnashing of teeth again and again, why don't we put our heads together and work out exactly how we're going to spark this revloution.
ILM can use game engines and assets for pre-visualisation, Lucasarts can re-use ILM's digital assets etc.
Cool article about this in this months's wired.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.05/presidio.html
http://www.mgnet.karoo.net/frasiermainpic.jpg
He needs to look at human history of recyling shakespear, remaking brilliant original movies, and songs to see that this has always been the case. Yes there have been brilliant innovations in art like the implemention of perspective. I'm sure when artists began to use this new "trick" to make their paintings more lifelike and engaging there was a Dvorak there to wail about the collapse of painting.
To be honest, I really only posted this because I'm tired of the topics in general discussion lately. I'll try to figure out a better one that I actually agree with and that we haven't gone over to death, tomorrow.
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Then why bother with trife like this:
http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=40526&an=0&page=0#40526
And thanks for the link, good read.
(besides, it was some idiotic "The revolution will be 3d displays!"
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that's not what I read. let's see if I can find it again.
edit: http://forums.gamespot.com/gamespot/show_messages.php?board=314159282&topic=20676049&page=0
edit: sure the industry has problems and there's a lot of retreading old ground. but come on. kind of like the "if it's too loud, then you're too old" axiom for music, excuse me if all i can picture is grampa swinging his cane when i read that article.
we're a very young industry--by about the 20 year mark the film industry hadn't even begun to produce some of the greatest films ever, but they had a pretty good handle on the basic genres we still have today. where's all the clamoring for new genres of film? are games all worn out and unoriginal just because we're not inventing new forms left and right?
NO!
since games are still young its easy to look at the lack of 'new' kinds of games and think that's a problem. but in the early days it was kind of hard not to swing your elbow without creating a new videogame genre. hey maybe instead of space invaders i'll do a football game. WOW LOOK, SPORTS GAMES. we've got them all sorted out now for the most part, but we're finally starting to invest the forms we've got with some real life.
i can understand that from his vantage point (behind bifocals and in a rocking chair) that a lot of games must look like the same old thing with a slightly different coat of paint. a lot of them are, in fact. but all the time we're moving forward, refining our craft. the emphasis may be on visuals, but even some of the most re-treading sequels these days still manage to hone gameplay further. it might look like the collapse of the industry to grandpa, but then i guess people that close to death tend to have a fairly pessimistic outlook on things generally
ok, now all the ad hominem 'lol he is old' jokes are out of my system... really. why anyone pays attention this guy at all is anyone's guess.
bonus points to him, by the way, for completely misinterpreting the film adaptation of Starship Troopers. i didn't like it (as it had nothing to do with the seminal science fiction novel of the same name), but if he couldn't tell that Verhoven had his tongue planted firmly in cheek the whole time... sorry, guy.
Sure there are changes on the horizon but most of those changes stem from technological advancements with game developers taking advantage. More and more main stream players are coming on-line as indicated by the fact that the gamming industry is fast out pacing any other form of entertainment for that matter threaten to over take every form combined.
This all comes from the fact that it is a lot simpler and convenient to get into gaming than what it use to be. At one time you needed a degree just to install the game. Now you have things like the PSP,DS consoles that are taking on the roll of an appliance that has the similar sell ability and as common place as the telephone.
Sure ten years from now your kids might be playing Quake 10 or UT2015, but so will tens and thousands of others that might be experiencing the first person shooter for the first time.
John Dvorak makes his living writing short op-ed pieces that are designed to generate controversy (and sell magazines). 21 years ago, Dvorak was writing irritating columns about the Macintosh for MacWorld magazine (both the Mac and MacWorld were all shiny and new back then). It sounds like he hasn't changed much. If he were to show up in a gaming forum and make those comments, we'd label him "a troll."
The author of the Biblical book of expressed much the same view of things 2500 years ago That which has been is that which will be, and that which has been done is that which will be done. So, there is nothing new under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Dvorak is just paraphrasing someone else's thoughts in the matter.
http://www.the50centgame.com/us/
Dvorak really seems to only see things from his perspective.
I'll add this as well - just because something has been done before doesn't mean it's a bad game. The whole idea of remaking an idea is basically to refine it, do it better, bring it into the modern graphic world.
Articles like this really make me laugh. Does Dvorak think that no new people are being born? Of course kid's grow up, and many get bored with games because "they've all been done before". But to ignore the millions that are "coming of age" and discovering games for the first time is just plain stupid. Does he think that 12 year old Johnny isn't going to play Doom 3 because it's not much different than the original, which he had never seen before?
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Games are for 12 year olds? Last time I checked the average age of gamers was late twenties and getting older. Comic books had the same stigma -'just for kids' Fuck Johnny. System of a down? heard it before, 20 years ago, they called it Anthrax.
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I'll add this as well - just because something has been done before doesn't mean it's a bad game. The whole idea of remaking an idea is basically to refine it, do it better, bring it into the modern graphic world.
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Yes, the same game with a higher polycount? -Fuck you. <u>This</u> is why games suck.
Remember when you coundn't wait to get home and load that new game up?
Now it's -what level of disapointment should I brace myself for?
The industry is not collapsing, but it needs a good kick in the arse.
EDIT- wait no. not a kick in the ass -it needs it's head lopped off!!!
There will always be a market for remakes of games. Just look at movies. Half of the movies people think are original are remakes.