In the rush towards motion control and other intuitive forms of game inputs, we could run the risk of "throwing away our entire history," warns longtime designer Warren Spector.
"I think it's kind of weird...that we've sort of said, 'We've go 20, 30 years of people learning how to do this -- sitting on their couch and having a good time, and knowing where the buttons are -- and we're saying 'You've got to stand up and wave around and gesture,'" Spector said during the Gamasutra-attended 'Lunch With Luminaries' event at Game Developers Conference 2010.
He suggested: "We're in the process of throwing away people -- kids, adults -- who know this stuff." Part of the industry's present eagerness could be outside pressure, Spector added. After all, gaming looks more exciting when it is moving onto the Next Big Thing.
"Especially from outside the industry, there's a tendency to want to see seismic shifts, to want to see radical change, and we have to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater," he said.
"I don't know if we want to throw away our entire history because we want to use gestural controls," Spector commented, adding, "I hope we keep our perspective a little more rational."
One of gaming's strengths is its capability to appeal even to the most niche audiences, particularly in the modern connected era.
"I have a friend who just lives for his hardcore submarine sims -- him and 5,000 other guys," Spector said. "But now there is a way to reach that specific audience."
"I hope there's still room for the single-player experience," he said. "That's still what I love to do."
Of course, the designer was more than aware of the arguable irony of his motion-based concerns: He's heading up Epic Mickey, a major upcoming Wii game. Spector isn't against motion controls, he stressed, but he hopes motion fever doesn't become too dominant.
"By the way, I'm working on a Wii title and I'm loving it," he said.
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I am hoping that they port epic mickey to other systems, as I would like a chance to play it.
If you're using the Wii as an example, despite the sex appeal of the motion controls, you still see games like New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Smash Bros. that use a traditional control scheme and do well. I don't see why these schemes can't simply coexist on the same platforms.
The Playstation 2 was so enormously successful, cause they appealed to casual gamers with games like EyeToy and Sing Star. Todays gesture controls just move one step further.
Take a step back and iterate on what we have right now...
Even simply being able to let players 'draw' on screen seems like it could be an incredibly rich form of interaction though that kind of mechanic is difficult to 'evaluate' in code apart from the most mundane properties like x / y position on screen. This seems to be how we design and program for games so the hard part may be coming up with design which can encapsulate or encourage 'qualitative' use of gestures. "Crayon Physics" comes to mind as an example of this kind of game though the urge to progress using the same solution can easily overwhelm seeking more creative ones.
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On the other hand "Heavy Rain" really shows up the limitations of trying to access emotional realism through traditional movement + button controls where the experience is of being led through what something is supposed to feel like; instead of players feeling first -> then feeding meaning back into the game system through their own agency. I've never had much luck having a meaningful 'conversation' with anyone driving around in my car with a gun, because that's what traditional joystick controls are -- representations of movement, triggers, and now with analog controls: acceleration. Its arguable that PC users are a bit luckier as they have the entire written language at their disposal and I wonder what it might be like to play say an old Infocom game using a Braille keyboard ..
-- Chuan
A bike is still a bike
A car is still a car
a boat is still a boat
And after all these years, the design still works just fine.
Golf games with motion sensing are really cool.
Natal opens up new venues for neat interactions and possibly new audiences.
...and I still love my God of War and Final Fantasy.
The market is diversifying, so what's the problem?