It is not enough to have the perverted Industry collapse or shrink. We need to create a new industry, or rather ‘movement’, to replace it.
Most of my “gaming side time” is not based on reading game websites and all. Yuck. Who wants to read the Industry Propaganda? Anyways, most of my “gaming side time” is spent in the ‘modding sphere’. I am fascinated at high school kids and college kids working and making some truly interesting stuff in some games. What is most interesting is that these kids are not from Japan, America, or western Europe. They are from eastern Europe, from Russia, and even from South America. Why are they modding? There are not many game available in their area. And taxation is so high, it is impossible for these kids to buy new games or even new consoles. This is why they huddle around PC gaming so much. It is also why they mod games because they have no other place to go.
Remember, the first game makers had to make games because there were none that existed. I believe a big reason why there isn’t that gamer-as-developer community today as there used to be in the early 80s is because there are so many games out today (as well as these games being millions and millions of dollars which is something a kid in a garage cannot do by himself). So instead of becoming a “game developer”, the gamer would just buy a new game once he is bored with the old one. In the old days, if the gamer was bored with games he had to make the one to entertain him.
Computers were also “more fun” back then. It was considered normal to tinker with them. In fact, that is why people bought a computer back then! Today, many young people buy a computer only to lose themselves in some digital realm.
The computer is a very, very powerful asset. But the computer can also be a very, very powerful liability. The computer can literally drain years of your life away on nonsense. Just ask a ‘hardcore gamer’ of World of Warcraft. They are shocked at how much life they wasted in that game. So computers can be used either way.
Anyway, it is fun to watch these kids from many non-English speaking countries tinker and make their little games. Fascinatingly, these ‘baby developers’ are not much different from ‘professional developers’ in terms of personality and behavior. So the reason why you see me make posts about development is often a pattern I am spotting from these kids that I also see in the “professional games”.
It is also why I am a broken record on putting the customer on the pedestal. Too often, I am seeing people make games because of their “vision” and when customers (or in these kids’ case, other gamers) do not behave with great rejoicing like peasants welcoming in Pharaoh, the ‘kid developers’ get angry and even depressed.
What I find fascinating is not the kids’ technical know-how. It is quite true they are good at programming and doing graphic art. But what is fascinating is even though they are refined on that end, they are raw on the emotional end. The idea that the player is the central axis the game revolves around hasn’t yet sunk in. And seeing ‘professional game developers’ out there, it may never sink in!
This is why I defined a game’s “content” as the interesting choices the player has. I want the focus to be on the player. There is too much focus on the art assets, sounds assets, the terrain, and on and on. One thing I keep seeing are games that are ‘lopsided’. Meaning, the game might have excellent terrain, but it is poor everywhere else. The game might have excellent programming and scripting, but boy that art is atrocious. Or it may have excellent ingredients all around, but the game becomes repetitive very fast. It is repetitive because the team (these kids have their own teams! haha Not as much ‘lone wolves’ going on here) kept building more and more assets stacked on top of what they had. Or to use an analogy, if NSMB Wii had sixteen worlds instead of nine, would it have increased the content of the game? Not exactly. As soon as the game becomes repetitive, it ceases to be interesting. And a game’s content is the interesting choices the player has. Repetitiveness is the big enemy. No, what increased NSMB Wii’s content (and its value) a thousand-fold was the multiplayer. Now, the player has many more interesting ways to play the game. So content shouldn’t be seen as the amount of game assets but in the amount of interesting roads the player can take. The key word is interesting. If you are just putting in roads that are not interesting, the BIG ENEMY of repetitiveness comes up.
The reason why I am critical of say Miyamoto is not to be critical but to remove the notion of “Game God” and put the focus back on the customer. Kids are growing up and rushing to be part of the “Game Industry” because they have a ‘vision’ and think they are the next ‘Miyamoto’ and truly believe that their game is going to have people build them golden statues. The only person who should feel he is a “Game God” should be the customer. When the customer says, “I feel like a Game God!” is when you have a great game.
The other reason why I like the old modding circles is because it dissolves the line between gamer and developer as it used to be. In the old days, game makers were no different than the average gamer. Today, due to the ‘Industry’, there is not only a big frickin wall between the developer and the gamer, the developer is only allowed to speak from the Industry cloud of ‘Game God’ status. There are legal reasons why the developers are kept locked up away from the gamers. But we don’t need the ‘Game God’ nonsense.
And it isn’t what customers say that is important. What is important is the behavior of those customers. If the customers stop playing the game in the middle and say they are bored, there is a problem. Customers never fully articulate why they do what they do. So the game maker has to be a very clever analyst of human behavior to figure it out.
“What does Human Behavior have to do with programming a game?”says the kid. It is because a game is only half the experience. The other half of the experience is brought in by the customer. The customer’s life, beliefs, and whatever else are very critical. And the game maker cannot change the customer’s life and beliefs. I always liken the game being the chemical agent and the customers being the environment. When an entertainment phenomena breaks out, the reaction from customers is like lighting fire. The phenomena literally spreads like ‘wildfire’.
It may sound odd, but I am learning so much from these kids! hahaha Waiting for the Industry to die isn’t going to be enough. We have to remake a gaming culture where it is encouraged for any gamer to make their own game. The big “Industry” companies do not like this idea because they see it as a threat! But what type of gaming would you rather have?
What we have now with a few companies and message forums rippling with “console war” and gamers arguing over vapor products?
Or where there are many companies, big and small, with many independents and the message forums are on fire with new ideas and people helping one another to make a game. There are, of course, many people who are not making games but they know how to give constructive criticism.
I would rather live in the second world of gaming. How about you?
