GDC 09: Game Critics Rant at the Industry

[IgnisPhaseOne]

Do we actually want to have a serious GDC discussion? I can totally do it, as someone who attended...

TL;DR version, since I won't write the super long one unless people care, is that game designers AND publishers need to make money.

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They'll make what sells, and it's not their fault that their audience is a bunch of adolescent children. Some of them are the exception, Cliff Blezinsky (sp?) comes to mind as an important designer of Epic Games. (His sound designer recounts a story; he played sounds, and Cliff pretended to shoot a minigun just to see what felt right to him). Does that make him a bad designer? No, it does not.

Publishing + development are two different things. Making a game, and finding a publisher willing to put their stamp of approval on it are two completely different things. Game designers/developers rarely go into development without a publisher. But the fault is really with the publishers, because they're doing their damnest to make money. Developers can spit out anything; look at the IGF awards this year. Unique games that, on a low budget, will never get published alongside the Call of Duty 6: Back the Fuck to World War 2, and Gears of War 3: More God Damned Aliens. Which do you think is going to sell more, a game called "Machinarium" or GOW3? (God/Gears of War, take your pick...)

Developers make money by pushing projects into the hands of publishers. And they have a similar problem to the RIAA/MPAA, although publishers haven't banded together to fuck the developers over yet. Publishers make their money by evaluating those projects, and doing a cost-benefit analysis about which ones will make the most money for them, like any standard practice. It's not our fault the public is a bunch of gun-loving, gore-drinking retards, is it? I love my arty game once in a while, and I also like my gore-drenched shooter as well. I enjoy a ton of games, so it pains me to see things like Psychonauts thrown to the wayside.

As far as more mature games go, what does Chaplin want? The evolution of porn? Hello? Why is it one of the most profitable industries in the world? Especially if gaming is like gun porn, why change it? All developers aren't going to start making tons of artsy mature games; nobody would buy them. Not even touching the fact that 60 bucks for an experience you don't want to have is stupidly expensive, but even without multiplayer, what is this "artsy mature" game going to be? Does she want Second Life, and does she know how that turned out?

There are some game developers who still continue to try to produce mature games. And they never sell, and they go back to selling gun-porn in order to survive. Who can fucking blame them? One makes money, the other is their pet project they care about. Only a few will buy the pet project, and everyone else laps up gun-porn. Business model, sorry Chaplin, learn to deal with it...

(This is the short version.)

 

[Nemesis-Kanden]

I gotta say, TC you are the shit for making this topic. I read about jaffe's view in that blog you linked and damn if that didn't bring up some damn good issues/way of thinking.

The comments beneath it are just as good, as he anwsers some of the people posting comments to his entry. Should really take a look.

 

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Aw, I thought this would be something interesting, like a critic complaining about the shit devs put them through during reviews, or how game critics are basically one step above payed advertisers. Games are too focused on violence and guns and big tits? Really? I did not know that.

 

[IgnisPhaseOne]

Aw, I thought this would be something interesting, like a critic complaining about the shit devs put them through during reviews, or how game critics are basically one step above payed advertisers. Games are too focused on violence and guns and big tits? Really? I did not know that.

I can rant about this too, if you want. That's actually the more interesting part of the discussion; related is the death of 1UP, Jeff Gerstmann's alleged firing from GameSpot, etc...

The game media industry is a sick, sick place.

At GDC though, it's not REALLY a place for press. Regardless, a bunch of ex-press people held a panel (Luke Smith from Bungie, Bryan Intihar from Insomniac, N'Gai Croal having left Newsweek, I think Alex Navarro from Harmonix was on there too) talking about the transition from gaming press to game design and some of the complexities that entails.

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And clarification as well; DEVS never grind the press to dust. They're too busy, you know, making real games. The PR companies, and the publishers, THEY are the ones who are guilty of hammering the press and making their job hell. Some devs, like Dennis Dyack and David Jaffe, they personally step out on the lines. But a lot of the time, that's not the case; people who have the jobs of SELLING shitty games wear down on the press all the time.

I personally don't think a developer ever makes a shitty game. But I think that publishers often restrict them, and they can't make the game they really want, or time constraints cause that game to be bad, or not as good as hyped. Or in most cases (Activision), they are just shilling out on previous successes, and the other developers don't put as much effort into the games as they should because they ARE lazy and they ARE making bad games. But that's more hubris than anything.