Interview J.E. Sawyer Interview By Grupo97

[Rosh]

Rosh, if you want to fall on your sword about the market for complex role playing games not being smaller than simplistic, casual titles go for it - it's a dumb thing to argue about.

Straw man argument. I stopped reading your drivel at that point.

Complex CRPGs were the mainstream while setting new standards years ago. Modern game developers are going for puerile tastes while offering superficial gameplay that doesn't add anything noteworthy towards the genre.

There's quite a difference, and it isn't (as you would like to believe) that gaming and CRPGs weren't mainstream back then. Maybe when you see another decade or two of life, you might see how things will become even worse off, and might even look fondly back at this time and realize what an utter twat of a publisher apologist you've been.

And that's just it. It's not a question of succeeding but of people wanting to get fucking rich. Seeing lots of $$$ without right knowing how to get it. Combining different markets and calling the conglomerate "mainstream" won't do either.

I'll present Exhibit X now: X-Com: Enforther.

X-Com: A widely loved game for what it inspired, with a sequel that played much the same (but was still good).

X-Com: Twitchocalypse: Using the argument that they needed to get a wider market for a sequel to X-Com(!), they decided to add in game features that really didn't compliment the gameplay or genre, with the end result that both TB and RT gameplay was ass.

X-Com: Interceptor: Gamers love flight sims, right? Maybe we should make a space sim version! Naturally, IGNorance awarded it an 80% because they are whores.

X-Com: Enforther: Don't play this. Ever. This is the Mass Effect of squad based strategy games. Complete with shitty VO. How the fuck X-Com got to this point after Interceptor is beyond any rational understanding of idiots in marketing departments.

 

[MLMarkland]

There's quite a difference, and it isn't (as you would like to believe) that gaming and CRPGs weren't mainstream back then.

You fail @ reading. I said market changed, not that crpgs were not mainstream before.

Maybe when you see another decade or two of life, you might see how things will become even worse off, and might even look fondly back at this time and realize what an utter twat of a publisher apologist you've been.

When did I ever say that any of this was a good thing? You're either a complete buffoon who completely fails at reading or you're being a deliberately obtuse troll. Neither one is cool, both are a waste of time.

 

[circ]

Gamebreaking? Wasn't aware of those. The only major bug I was aware of shortly after release was that you couldn't actually find ore-seams for your miners.

Gamebreaking as in, no matter what you did, you couldn't advance further in the storyline until a patch was released. Maybe that's what you meant too.

 

[Shannow]

Shannow, most developers don't self-finance their titles and are reliant on publishers to pay the bills. Developers willing or able to operate in more speculative environments could achieve the kinds of things you want to see.

I know *sniff*
I recently posted a "suits, publishers, devs"-line of whom I hold responsible. A more complete line of blame would be:
Current version of capitalism > suits > publishers >> devs/gamers

[EDIT]: No, when you get the keep, you can let some miners to use it as a base. If the miners have ore you can have a smith improve your soldiers' equipment. The miners can't find ore by themselves . You have to find it on your travels and tell them about it. In my version you couldn't "find" those ore-seams. It was a stupid, lazy bug but I could advance the story-line just fine.

 

[serch]

'Hardcore' cRPGs should be done cutting art expenditures. An old good rpgamer does not seek extreme graphics or voiceovers but good gameplay and writing, using a four years old engine is perfectly fine. You can win your moneys just by cutting how much you invest.

 

[Rosh]

You fail @ reading. I said market changed, not that crpgs were not mainstream before.

Actually, you couldn't decide whether you wanted to quantify Ultima as mainstream or hardcore and then pulled some stupidity involving percents out of your ass.

 

[MLMarkland]

'Hardcore' cRPGs should be done cutting art expenditures. An old good rpgamer does not seek extreme graphics or voiceovers but good gameplay and writing, using a four years old engine is perfectly fine. You can win your moneys just by cutting how much you invest.

A valid tactic.

 

[circ]

Yes. Those wargames essentially look like they did in the 1980s with higher resolution hexes and fancier animations. For me it's not about the graphics, its the art and how its done. ToEE is the apex of isometric turnbased fantasy combat it seems. If Atari were to licence that engine for some reasonable sum, you could have a lot of ToEE clones with good stories, dialogue and so on, and not just good combat.

 

[Monocause]

Rosh, are you going to stay for a while? Visiting these boards started to make sense again :inclineofthecodex:

 

[Rosh]

Seriously thinking about it. I plan on writing some reviews here, and later releasing details of my own game when it comes time to do so.

 

[Seboss]

Looking forward to it.

 

[kris]

I said market changed, not that crpgs were not mainstream before.

Although your example which was handhelds and vapid casual games has really nothing to do with RPG games and PC development. It is not about a changing market here, it is about another market.

But I agree the market have changed a bit. There are more idiots around now that buy any kind of shit and sometimes even like it.

 

[Gylfi.Fenriz.Conquests]

The interviewer's problem is that he muses on videogames using theold critical instruments of cinema and literature.

You can't talk about art and narration for videogames ignoring videogames' unique and most discriminating element which is interactivity... the gameplay. It's inside the gameplay that story finds its uniqueness and beauty, and it's in the the gameplay's freedom of interaction(choices and problems to be faced) that art finds the strength of genius... like in all those freeware mini-adventures(wish i were the moon and don't look back): the beauty is absolutely not the story itself and the art is not in the imagery, they both are elevated by the beauty of the specific way you interact in the game.

 

[Rosh]

Absolutely spot on.

The interviewer's problem is that he muses on videogames using theold critical instruments of cinema and literature.

You can't talk about art and narration for videogames ignoring videogames' unique and most discriminating element which is interactivity... the gameplay. It's inside the gameplay that story finds its uniqueness and beauty, and it's in the the gameplay's freedom of interaction(choices and problems to be faced) that art finds the strength of genius... like in all those freeware mini-adventures(wish i were the moon and don't look back): the beauty is absolutely not the story itself and the art is not in the imagery, they both are elevated by the beauty of the specific way you interact in the game.

Unfortunately as of late, gameplay is often lacking any complexity or depth to the point of being little more than an interactive movie. That is, unless someone counts ducking behind cover and mashing a button to fire while using the occasional health pack as gameplay (it looks like Ass Effect all over again, and these Full Spectrum Warrior rip-offs don't even come close to the original). Then you might as well dust off the SegaCD and pretend that stats are involved somewhere at a fraction of the SLAM DUNK! price. Amusingly, it can be noted that the game audience back then recognized that as crap.

 

[elander_]

It's perfectly ok not to make games like art from a business perspective as long as you put quality in it and don't simply blame the mainstream for being dumb and use it as an excuse for lack of competence and lazyness.

This is where game publishers have failed. The market is not only newbes or hardcore players. It's also everything in between and game publishers didn't realize yet they are loosing money because they don't put quality in their games and only make games for newbes who are still trilled with pixel shaders and lame action.

 

[Gylfi.Fenriz.Conquests]

Absolutely spot on.

The interviewer's problem is that he muses on videogames using theold critical instruments of cinema and literature.

You can't talk about art and narration for videogames ignoring videogames' unique and most discriminating element which is interactivity... the gameplay. It's inside the gameplay that story finds its uniqueness and beauty, and it's in the the gameplay's freedom of interaction(choices and problems to be faced) that art finds the strength of genius... like in all those freeware mini-adventures(wish i were the moon and don't look back): the beauty is absolutely not the story itself and the art is not in the imagery, they both are elevated by the beauty of the specific way you interact in the game.

Unfortunately as of late, gameplay is often lacking any complexity or depth to the point of being little more than an interactive movie. That is, unless someone counts ducking behind cover and mashing a button to fire while using the occasional health pack as gameplay (it looks like Ass Effect all over again, and these Full Spectrum Warrior rip-offs don't even come close to the original). Then you might as well dust off the SegaCD and pretend that stats are involved somewhere at a fraction of the SLAM DUNK! price. Amusingly, it can be noted that the game audience back then recognized that as crap.

Pretty much, yes. The problem could have been generated by the technical improvements made over the years, these big bloated expensive 3d graphics which forced an association with cinema, and eventually many programmers thought that since videogames are like movies, and the MASS itself thinks them as movies, you don't need a deep interaction when you got explosions, romantic stories and sexy heroes, they thought that videogames can be simple and easy visual and visceral gratification.

 

[Rosh]

Simply put, yes to you both. The publishers chase towards pixel shaders and bloom, along with a good dose of puerile tastes, in order to try and turn a profit.

As of the recent months, sales have fallen a good bit, which isn't really that good for the developers given it's the summer months. They usually do damn well considering the kids having a break from schooling.

The market is naive and a bit superficial, but they aren't completely stupid to waste money on crap during this economic downfall.

Maybe the economy going to shit might help the game industry by culling out some of the crap. Hmmm...we could only hope.

 

[Brother None]

Rosh, Cleve and Sawyer in one thread? It's a miracle it hasn't exploded yet.

Maybe the economy going to shit might help the game industry by culling out some of the crap. Hmmm...we could only hope.

It's kind of funny how naive the gaming industry seems to be about the whole economic recession. At least, I suspect some of the core suits are at least competent enough to see the writing on the wall (some of the responses to the crisis have been borderline sensible, such as Sega's. First time in years I've seen Sega do sensible stuff), but the reporting and public discussion is exceedingly naive.

Calling the gaming-industry recession-proof is completely ignoring basic Economics 101 knowledge that all entertainment industries are recession-proof for short recessions or for the first period of heavier recessions. That's not unique to the gaming industry, nor does it really mean what they seem to think it means.

It's not like games aren't still selling, either. Relatively, the gaming industry should be exceedingly healthy right now. It's not, and it's not hard to point to what's causing that: the fleeing from PC to consoles and the accompanying negative hardware margin and need for console manufacturers to ask high percentages of the gross, leading to highly unstable and dangerous profit margins.

I always think it's weird when people point solely to advancing technology as a cause for exceeding production costs, without considering the basic economic truism that lower profit margins lead to a fairly natural economic reaction searching for "safe" options of huge, high-production, focused titles.

If anything caused dumbing down, it's that. And if anything causes gaming companies to panic when profits are receding, it's also that.

There's sure a lot of arrogance to go around. People sometimes forget just how big the gaming industry has been before, and how easily its arrogance sunk it into a crisis. It's a hard lesson to learn, I guess, and it's a shame because the current size of the gaming industry makes the healthy development of independent and low-budget titles more and more viable, but perhaps another collapse is needed.

 

[Gylfi.Fenriz.Conquests]

Oh and regarding the issue of Moral themes and the question whether they should be in videogames, the same argument as above is valid. A deep gameplay interaction, with mind manipulation, choices, crossroads and consequences, is just about as moral themed as it can get... programmers who put C&C in their games managed to give the audience moral themes without even KNOWING it and caring, so there's no need to ask whether you should put moral themes or will people like them, it's all about interactivity, the question is just whether people like interactivity or not and how much of that you're WILLING to provide us.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Yes. Those wargames essentially look like they did in the 1980s with higher resolution hexes and fancier animations. For me it's not about the graphics, its the art and how its done. ToEE is the apex of isometric turnbased fantasy combat it seems. If Atari were to licence that engine for some reasonable sum, you could have a lot of ToEE clones with good stories, dialogue and so on, and not just good combat.

Agreed. Even better, those wargames are much, much more sophisticated where it counts: under the hood. The extra options, much better AI, improved UI's. It is more about taking advantage of the CPU rather than the graphics card. RPG's have gone towards the graphics card these days, like virtually everything else.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

The interviewer's problem is that he muses on videogames using theold critical instruments of cinema and literature.

You can't talk about art and narration for videogames ignoring videogames' unique and most discriminating element which is interactivity... the gameplay. It's inside the gameplay that story finds its uniqueness and beauty, and it's in the the gameplay's freedom of interaction(choices and problems to be faced) that art finds the strength of genius... like in all those freeware mini-adventures(wish i were the moon and don't look back): the beauty is absolutely not the story itself and the art is not in the imagery, they both are elevated by the beauty of the specific way you interact in the game.

As Lord British used to say (before he went mad and chased dollars/rocket ship rides/MMO's), he created interactive objects within the game, and ways to fit these objects into the plot. Gameplay - plot - graphics.

 

[Rosh]

Kind of hard to miss a historical example, too.

There's sure a lot of arrogance to go around. People sometimes forget just how big the gaming industry has been before, and how easily its arrogance sunk it into a crisis. It's a hard lesson to learn, I guess, and it's a shame because the current size of the gaming industry makes the healthy development of independent and low-budget titles more and more viable, but perhaps another collapse is needed.

At times I wonder how folks could forget the video game crash of '83, and then I feel really, really old.

Fallout: New Vegas = X-Box's E.T.?

Oh and regarding the issue of Moral themes and the question whether they should be in videogames, the same argument as above is valid. A deep gameplay interaction, with mind manipulation, choices, crossroads and consequences, is just about as moral themed as it can get... programmers who put C&C in their games managed to give the audience moral themes without even KNOWING it and caring, so there's no need to ask whether you should put moral themes or will people like them, it's all about interactivity, the question is just whether people like interactivity or not and how much of that you're gonna provide us.

Here's the funny thing, and akin to what someone else mentioned about LB's games. When it came to morality, Ultima IV was fairly strict, with a lot of the checks in place. It only was present in part with some of the later games. Why? They didn't need to constantly hold a newspaper above the player's head, ready to smack them on the nose whenever they did something bad. At that point, the player already understood the concepts and what was expected of them, and so were trained to act the part of the Avatar. Ultima VI on relaxed a bit on this, though people still cared if you stole or killed the innocent, but the other virtues weren't strictly enforced. This way, they could achieve object interactivity without having to clutter it up with a load of virtue checks on top of that. You could do some really fucked up things in the later Ultimas, without any problems if you were sneaky about it, but many didn't realize you could because they had immersed themselves into the Avatar.

 

[Black]

Seriously thinking about it. I plan on writing some reviews here, and later releasing details of my own game when it comes time to do so.

Good, because right now we have some people here who think that Baldur's Gate is a good RPG. We could use a purge.

 

[MetalCraze]

We actually have some people here who think that Failout 3 is a good RPG - to which BG looks like a the bestest RPG ever in comparison.

 

[Rosh]

Considering the stagnation of the industry as of late in terms of creativity - I would say that another crash would perhaps be the best thing for the industry right now. It might bring about another PC age of quality.