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So
why did so many publishers disagree? What was the deal? What happened there?
RG: I think a couple of reasons. One was, I
really wanted to do it episodic. And a lot of publishers just aren't set up to
do episodic games; they just don't really understand the economics of it, they
don't really understand the distribution of it, they don't understand it
creatively. And since I really wanted to do this episodically, I think that was
a big stumbling block.
The other reason was, I think, the name,
definitely. I think that it put people off; they didn't understand it. And to
me, it's like, he is DeathSpank. He has to be called that, because of who he
is, and what the games are like, and what they're poking fun at; it's very
important.
It's
a very overtly video-gamey name.
RG: Yeah, exactly. And, I think the third
reason, and probably the most important one, is that I didn't have a demo. I
think publishers are so reliant on seeing a demo before they do anything, that
it's very hard for them to make decisions unless they can see something.
And I
don't think that's inherently a bad problem, but what I think is a really bad
problem is that publishers won't fund those demos. They expect people to go out
and totally make them on their own, and I think that's generally bad for the
industry, that that happens.
Do
you think that has a long term impact, creatively? Because it seems like you
could have designers experiment in broader genres or concepts if they didn't
have to rely on these massive, set team structures every time they wanted to at
least think of an idea for a game.
RG: Yeah, I think it does. I think what you
find is, really, the only developers that can really get products pitched, are
developers that have very large, established studios; where they can actually
dedicate a team for six months to put together a demo to wow a publisher. And I
think that's putting a lot of burden on developers that I don't think is really
fair.
Image courtesy of Grumpy Gamer Comics
I think the publishers, first of all,
should be able to look at a written design or a verbal pitch, and go, "OK.
You know what? That's kind of interesting. We're going to put a couple hundred
thousand dollars behind this, and see what comes from it." But they're
really just not willing to make that kind of an investment, and I think that's
too bad.
What
are your thoughts on the Hollywood sort of system, where you have individual
creative people who assemble into teams for the purpose of a project, and they
have people that they often work with because they know that they work well
with those people, but they're not in a defined, "Here's the 40, 50, 100-person
development studio." Do you think that could ever work for games? At least
for certain games?
RG: I think that it will. And I think that,
ultimately, it has to. And I think we will shift to that model, but I think
that there are a couple of things that have to happen before we really shift to
that. One is that I think technology has to settle down a little bit. I think
technology is moving forward really rapidly, and part of what a lot of teams do
is exploring new technology, and I think that's kind of hard to do with an ad
hoc thing.
I think the other thing that's going to
have to happen - and this is a really big one - is we're going to have to
become unionized. Because I don't think that you're going to be able to grab
all of these freelance people when you need them if there isn't some kind of a
union structure that's over the top of them. You can't really have a bunch of
animators just floating around from job to job with nothing in between.
So I think there's going to have to be a
lot more structure, and I think that's going to have to come in the form of
unions - which, you know, I don't know that I really agree with that; I think
unions bring a lot of bad things to gaming, but I think they're going to be
necessary for us to move into that Hollywood model.
And I also think that game people are just
going to need to get a bit better at scheduling projects, and planning
projects, and hitting deadlines, and all these other things. Because I think if
you're going to have a lot of contractors that are going to come in and go
away, they really need to know when they're going to go away; because they're
going to be booking other projects behind yours, and we're going to have to
become a lot better about hitting
dates. And I think the movie business, for the most part, they're damned good
at getting their movies done on time.
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You definitely need to give other designers, or level designers, scripters ownership for their part too and the lead designer needs to recognize that. Otherwise team members can get frustrated and you might lose some talent.
Basically I am trying to say its very complicated these days and amazing that situations like I describe ever produce something decent. I think it would be a great idea to have clear definitions of responsibilities and I think the old adventure genre is still ahead of the curve in these respects.
Sergey Eisenstein would not have to re-learn the mechanics of how to shoot a film if he suddenly were reincarnated and put on a brand-new film.
In contrast in games, we're reinventing the platforms and basic tools every 3-5 years, or upgrading them so drastically that the tools themselves wind up re-engineering the way games are made. On top of that, most studios have their own in-house tools and engines, with varying design and user-friendliness.
Sure, there's a bit more standardization happening these days with engines like Unreal and middleware like Bink and Havok, but even with that, there's no "one toolset fits all" solution. Most games require custom programming within the engine, which means the toolset changes, which can mean steep learning curves for the production staff at inconvenient times.
So we can't just go over to Studio Systems and rent 2 Panavisions and 3 Arris, buy 5,000 feet of film stock and "shoot a game" in 3 weeks, then take it over to a post house and cut it together, like filmmakers have been able to do since what, the 1930s? '40s, maybe?
Using their basic standardized toolset, it's still possible for filmmakers to make a *distinctive*, high-quality film. Using a generic game toolset, it's extremely difficult if not impossible for a game studio to make a distinctive game.
We're always going to have a problem to some extent with our constantly-evolving tech and tools.
Take the first-person shooter. Nothing really fundamentally innovative has happened to that genre in years. Why? Too much focus on making it prettier - better graphics. But the fundamental elements - the fact you see out a single-perspective, you move, fire, have a use key, etc - have remained static. Except for minor incremental improvements, the gameplay has remained static.
That's the issue. We can't innovate on the gameplay because everyone thinks it's about tools.
If film people ran the film industry the way game people run games, we wouldn't have Method Acting yet, we wouldn't have New Wave, we wouldn't have Cinema Verite, we wouldn't have Film Noir. We just have a lot of awesome colour 3D cameras, but boring stories and wooden acting.