Interview Staight outta bedlam

[Monolith]

Tags: Warren Spector

<a href="http://www.eurogamer.net">Eurogamer</a> visited <strong>Warren Spector</strong> in his mental institution and came back with an <a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=89490">interview</a> and a lot of bitemarks. We've already known that he's making games for Disney now, but his affection for playing and making short games and his dream of developing an MMO are something new - in a sorta terrible way.
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<blockquote>Eurogamer: Care to speculate what the hardcore gaming response will be? <i>[To the game he's working on now - Monolith]</i>
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Warren Spector: I don't have to speculate. I know what it's going to be. And I can't wait. Oh my God. It's going to be like the world came to an end. Absolutely. I'm going to be vilified. I'm going to be accused of selling out, yet again. It's going to be glorious. Just glorious.</blockquote>You reap what you sow.
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<blockquote>Eurogamer: Net debate is always something to see.
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Warren Spector: You see, there's always going to be people that you just can't reach. You can't worry about that. The anonymity of the forums brings out the extremes of people. And some people, you're never going to get. And some people, you can talk to. <strong>I want to talk to them.</strong> Things are not always what they seem.</blockquote>Feel yourself invited, Mr. Spector.
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<blockquote>Eurogamer: Priced appropriately, I'm fine with really short games. Valves statistics are fascinating in that way - something like 50 percent of people didn't finish Half-life 2: Episode 1. And that's less than five hours. Scale that up to all games...
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Warren Spector: Wow. That Orange Box though - talk about value for money. I was going to say that I can assure you that people will be playing TF2 at my office right now, but that's not the case. They better not be playing TF2 right now. Anyway - it's about creating a satisfying emotional experience. You don't need 40 hours to do that.</blockquote>But if I can have a satisfying emotional experience over the course of 40 hours...talk about value for money.
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And here's an interesting thought about Half Life 2: Episode 1: what if the 50% that didn't finish it simply didn't like the game enough? But no, it's got to be length that's the problem. I finished Deus Ex, Ultima 7, Thief but I wouldn't finish Deus Ex 2 if it took me 2 hours.
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Spotted at: <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com">Gamebanshee</a>

 

[Drunken Irishman]

I must have missed out on something, but what has Warren Spector done to earn this kind of hostility. I might be biased, since almost all of the games he has worked on belong to my favorite list, but I didn't see anything stupid in that interview. He made sense and sounds intelligent - that's quite a sight amongst game developers.

As far as I know, he really is one of the few good guys out there. He really sounds like he wants to create that ultimate player-driven narrative design (note: I have formed this impression not from this interview but from his blog, previous interviews, Junction Point's official game philosophy statement, etc).

 

[aweigh]

dx2

 

[Drunken Irishman]

That's just one game. His good stuff outweigh DX2 entirely.

 

[Aikanaro]

Nothing wrong with short games. A short and focused RPG would be pretty cool IMO, so long as everything in it is content and not filler.

Novels are great, but I'm not going to start bashing authors who write short stories. Occassionally an author's short stories are better than their novels (see William Gibson, actually the only example I can think of). The same can go for games.

 

[Anaglyph]

Novels are great, but I'm not going to start bashing authors who write short stories. Occassionally an author's short stories are better than their novels (see William Gibson, actually the only example I can think of). The same can go for games.

On the other hand you generally buy collections of short stories rather than a single story that costs as much as a novel.

 

[Radech]

man half-life 2 is such a horrid example - most people(me included) bought it for the mods, just like the old half-life - never touched either of the singleplayer games yet i own both games, and i think 80-90% at least bought half-life 2 for the mods(yeah i know you could buy CS:source individually but that would leave DoD, TF, Pvk and all the other reborn classics out) and huge parts of those never really got into the singleplayer campaign, since as you all know single player fps's are just pointless

 

[Monolith]

That's just one game. His good stuff outweigh DX2 entirely.

His last game. And now he works for Disney. Do you think his next game will be of Deus Ex quality?

Nothing wrong with short games. A short and focused RPG would be pretty cool IMO, so long as everything in it is content and not filler.

Novels are great, but I'm not going to start bashing authors who write short stories. Occassionally an author's short stories are better than their novels (see William Gibson, actually the only example I can think of). The same can go for games.

I could live with a 12 hours game if it was highly replayable. Most games aren't. And 6 hours is just a joke. I take a shit longer than this.

Besides, you have to remember where that was comeing from. Imagine reading that interview 7 years ago, right after Deus Ex was released? I just wouldn't believe it.

 

[thesheeep]

Hmm.. can't worry about Spector. I mean.. he works for Disney, so he simply won't make any games I would care about..

 

[Monolith]

He teaches future game developers at the Universary of Texas. But as nothing good can come out of Texas anyway...

 

[mahdi]

He teaches future game developers at the Universary of Texas. But as nothing good can come out of Texas anyway...

That is blasphemy! What about Dr. Pepper and Shiner Bock?

 

[Monolith]

Haven't drunk both. Aren't they produced somewhere in South America or India nowadays anyway?

 

[Ausir]

man half-life 2 is such a horrid example - most people(me included) bought it for the mods, just like the old half-life - never touched either of the singleplayer games yet i own both games, and i think 80-90% at least bought half-life 2 for the mods(yeah i know you could buy CS:source individually but that would leave DoD, TF, Pvk and all the other reborn classics out) and huge parts of those never really got into the singleplayer campaign, since as you all know single player fps's are just pointless

I've actually never played either Half-Life, but I plan to play it someday, and when I do, I'll do it only for the single player game.

 

[Drunken Irishman]

That's just one game. His good stuff outweigh DX2 entirely.

His last game. And now he works for Disney. Do you think his next game will be of Deus Ex quality?

Lots of people work for Disney. Besides do you know anyone else who gives as much thought to design issues as Warren Spector does? And yes, I hope that at least one of his last three games tops Deus Ex in every way. Deus Ex itself wasn't God, it was just a step in the right direction.

 

[the_Consumer]

Besides do you know anyone else who gives as much thought to design issues as Warren Spector does?

Peter Molyneux.

 

[Hazelnut]

man half-life 2 is such a horrid example - most people(me included) bought it for the mods, just like the old half-life - never touched either of the singleplayer games yet i own both games, and i think 80-90% at least bought half-life 2 for the mods(yeah i know you could buy CS:source individually but that would leave DoD, TF, Pvk and all the other reborn classics out) and huge parts of those never really got into the singleplayer campaign, since as you all know single player fps's are just pointless

100% of people I know who played HL1&2 played them for the SP experience. So I don't see why it's such a horrid example.

 

[Monolith]

Lots of people work for Disney.

And I respect every single one of 'em.

Besides do you know anyone else who gives as much thought to design issues as Warren Spector does?

I don't care how much thought you put into something, if the result is a 6 hours lasting Disney MMO then you're in for some serious bashing.

And yes, I hope that at least one of his last three games tops Deus Ex in every way.

And which one will that be? Cinderella, The Emperor's New Groove or Lion King?

 

[Claw]

Well, but Spector actually said "Half-Life 2: Episode One" so one might wonder if there are any factors besides "game is too long" to consider.
I don't suppose releasing Episode 2 bundled with its predecessors has anything to do with it?

I'm not against short games in principle. But I don't really expect a more satisfying experience out of it, just less content for my money. Such is my trust in the game industry.

 

[Morbus]

I must have missed out on something, but what has Warren Spector done to earn this kind of hostility.

The way he talks about hardcore gamers is enough reason. He talks about them (us?) like they're some kind of close minded bastards... Well, football fans are so close minded because they don't want to watch basketball matches on TV, they just want football matches!!! What a bunch of close minded bastards...

 

[Drunken Irishman]

Other than the typical wishy-washy Spectorian statements I've yet to see proof that it's going to be a 6 hours lasting Disney MMO... which at least would be "different".

Brilliant joke btw.

But, if you don't have Warren Spector to trust, then to whose work will you wait for.

Troika's dead. Tim Schaefer's new game looks like crap. Dragon Age might be good. Obsidian probably wants to make a game that would be universally loved rather than just having one guy in the Codex loving them. Jane Jensen's new adventure game might have a good story and writing, but it's gameplay probably will be the same old puzzle-solving clickfest. But that's still only like 4 (5 with Warren) developers to follow with some hope - 5's a small number when compared to how many developers there actually are.

There ain't that much to wait for in this 4 years of development and multi-billion dollars industry. Just some old franchises after another and I expect something good more from Warren than from others.

But perhaps I'm too idealistic and hope unnecessarily - we've yet to hear anything from Junction Point's game.

 

[miles foreman]

He teaches future game developers at the Universary of Texas. But as nothing good can come out of Texas anyway...

I hope you were joking. Doom and the Ultima series came out of Texas. My roommate just applied for a position at Bioware here in Austin.

And of course Lone Star beer, before it got bought out by Pabst that is...

 

[doctor_kaz]

I must have missed out on something, but what has Warren Spector done to earn this kind of hostility.

He made one disaster of a game in has never admitted fault with it. Instead, he has blamed the failure of the game on stubborn fans and he insults them like he did in those first two questions of the article. The fans of the Deus Ex series practically got on their hands and knees and begged Ion Storm not to remove the skills system, not to use universal ammo, and in general, not to make Invisible War a dumbed down shitty console game. He and Harvey Smith didn't listen, and the game was a such a spectacular failure that it destroyed his studio and the Deus Ex IP along with it. In Spector's mind, the vocal fans of the first game are just whiny and don't have a valid opinion. Thus, his snide remarks about being accused of selling out and the irrationality of voices on internet forums -- those voices that he took a gigantic piss all over with Invisible War.

In summary, he's an arrogant, aloof dickcheese who has absolutely no appreciation for the customers and fans that made him who he is.

 

[Araanor]

He's also behind "The tyranny of choices".

 

[cardtrick]

He's also behind "The tyranny of choices".

No he's not, that's Barry Schwarz, a prof at my school.

Though Spector may have had the inspired choice of applying that idiocy to the gaming world.

 

[Araanor]

I didn't know there was a context outside of games.