Letters To The Editor: Submit A Letter
View All Letters 
| 03.09.2007Warren Spector Has Valid Points
As someone in his 40's, I have played literally hundreds of PC games since I first played the text game Zork on a Commodore (or was that Ladybug on an Apple II?). Over that time I have found that the basic sentiment expressed by Warren Spector in his interview about the emphasis on "let's make it look pretty" has replaced the emphasis on the story for many of the games today.
My children have occasionally watched me play an older DOS game and have asked why I'm not playing something that looks better or is newer. (What are they talking about, it has 16 colors!) They get a strange look when I tell them that the graphics are not what is really important, it is the story that I am part of that is the real reason I'm playing. The important part is what is going on in my head, I tell them, not necessarily what my eyes see.
I can understand their viewpoint though. Because so many of the current games they play on various platforms have focused on visualization of a designer's world to a great degree, there has not been a great need for my children to imagine that world. They see what the designer wants them to see, and it pretty much stops there. I think that this is the one biggest area though that separates games from other media: the ability to use your imagination while playing to affect the outcome.
My youngest loves the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. He has an extensive collection of the action figures that he uses to re-enact many of the scenes from the movies, but he rarely if ever uses those figures as starship captains or ambassadors from some alternate reality. He is locked into seeing those characters in only a certain way.
I think that is what is going on today in gaming. Developers and publishers are locked into thinking in only certain ways because of what they have seen done and what has been commercially successful. Who would have thought when playing id's original Doom that there would have been hundreds(?) of shooter games made from that template? Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but who wants to be a sycophant?
Whether it is dungeon crawling, going to war, or charting new planets, the ability to go there and experience something is what separates gaming from more static entertainment forms like movies and books. Those media have completely scripted experiences; the ending is in place even before you start. Nothing you do can change the outcome in the least. The best games allow one to influence the story along the way, even providing alternate endings depending on the actions performed (if they have to end at all). Too often though I find I'm locked into the same old game stereotype and my imagination is forced into only seeing things in one way. It may be fresh to the kiddies, but not to me.
This does not diminish the fact that better graphics are capable of making a game more enjoyable and immersive, but there are so many other factors that come into play. Sound, characters, design, interface; so many things are involved which allow the parts to transcend into something greater. As games have evolved over the years, the various pieces have assumed greater importance in the finished product.
The games that pull me into the story, that remove me from my daily life for a while, they are the truly memorable ones. The ones where I can love or hate a character, feel emotions that I would not normally feel in daily life, or allow me to experience something that I would never have thought of otherwise are what have kept me gaming these many years. These are also the things that will keep me gaming into the future.
Warren Spector is right. To think that all possible game concepts have been explored is ludicrous, and to keep regurgitating the same formulaic games over and over with minor changes is stagnating for the industry.-Curtis Suddarth
|
|
|
|
|
Letters to the Editor
