Talking next-gen gaming

 Posted by (Visited 4653 times)  Game talk
Apr 032007
 

Destructoid has the liveblog of the recent IGDA San Diego event on next-gen gaming. Interesting to see the responses from the journalists who comprised the panel, as the answers range over everything from graphics to “I’d like to see a love scene in a game.”

  6 Responses to “Talking next-gen gaming”

  1. TCWolffe says:
    April 3, 2007 at 11:59 am

    I find it difficult to read ‘journalism’ where in the first 30 seconds of reading the author refers to someone as ’emo’ and tears down a panelist without having all the facts.

    That said, I found the discussion points very cliche’ and the responses even more so. Its easy to say you want better storylines, most everyone will agree with you there. The answers were all very “safe” answers that avoided exploring what is a better storyline? Though I suppose doing so would result in disagreements (naturally what is fun for you may not be fun for me). As the panel was made up of magazine editors who obviously don’t want to alienate any subscribers out there, the resonses were largely neutral.

    I walked away (well, actually I’m still sitting here) feeling like a majority of the conversation could be summed up as:

    Q: “Do you want better games?”

    A: “Yes, we want better games”

    Q: “What makes a game better?”

    A: “Better graphics, better stories, and better gameplay”

    while skirting discussion on how to get there. I’ll cite this Q/A as the one that stood out the most in that regard:

    Q: “What role would player-created content have in the future of games?”

    A: “Keighley: It’s an important and powerful feature we will see more of.”

    I was absolutely dumbfounded, it was like two people practicing a scene from a script, only they were on different pages!

    There was a comment posted:

    “I wish they would do something like this with us devs. Though, to get honest answers from us, we’d have to be anonymous.”

    This is the heart of the issue, the corporate mentality of not taking a stance on any front for fear of reprisal from some market segment. Cater your product to the audience you intend, and drive without distraction towards excellence in that area. If someone dislikes your design philosophy, they are probably not playing the right game (balancing customer concerns with sticking to your guns, what a fun tight-rope). But the suits would rather take money from dissatisfied customers and neuter their product to the point of trying to satisfy everyone, all the while dissapointing the core community they originally set out to market themselves towards.

    However, I’m not completely blind to the economics of trying to get a blockbuster game produced that has a limited target audience. I’m sure all the panelists are great folks and very insightful, but I feel like I don’t know anything now that I didn’t know before.

    and thus ends the ranting of someone with absolutely no qualifications in any regards aside from years of gaming and lots of long-winded postings on game forums :9.

  2. Mike Rozak says:
    April 3, 2007 at 12:49 pm

    Last year the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) started up a TV game-review show. I Emailed them (a few times) saying that the reviewers should read some game-design theory books so they could intelligently comment about why a game was fun… as opposed to just saying how cool the explosions were. I also suggested that since the average age of gamers is 30-something, that the reviewers should act reasonably matue.

    Neither message seemed to get through.

  3. Adele says:
    April 3, 2007 at 2:05 pm

    I wouldn’t mind more love scenes… well not too gushy, but romance is always good and adds to the realism!

  4. BettyBlue says:
    April 3, 2007 at 11:31 pm

    something without heavy grinding, exping…. (i’m just tired of it)

  5. Michael Chui says:
    April 4, 2007 at 4:27 am

    I’m for more non-gushy love scenes. Gushy love scenes are adolescent. Something mature would be nice. (It occurs to me that sounds like sex. Um, not that, either.)

    Unrealistic romances doesn’t add to the realism. =P

  6. Morgan Ramsay says:
    April 4, 2007 at 7:06 pm

    VGO Network captured audio from the event. Check it out!

    We will eventually have official audio and video media available on our website.

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