Over at The Escapist, columnist Andy Chalk is looking for a hero. A game company hero.
It’s a familiar refrain decked out with a personal perspective. What he’s bemoaning is (ahem) the lack of innovation in the industry. You know, how no one is doing anything fresh or interesting these days.
Well, of course not. The companies he mentions are either gone or swallowed up into corporate blandness. It was mostly in the early days, before the small developers went belly-up or were bought out, that companies were willing to take a chance.
Besides, games were cheaper to produce. Today, with mega-millions on the line, who wants to risk something different? Only the indie developers, but they have their own problems with shoestring budgets and smaller sales.
Of course, if an “underground game” really managed to make a big hit, you can be sure that corporate dollars would start waving for a buyout. We know what would follow after that.
However, there are some interesting games out there from indie developers. Maybe Andy should be looking in that neck of the woods (and hey, wasn’t The Bard’s Tale from Interplay?).
Do I hear an “Amen, Hallelujah?”
:)
More like, “CRY MOAR”, to be honest.
It’s like complaining about the lack of innovation in film when all he’s focusing on was, say, Hollywood.
Yeah, I should be more explicit – I was referring to Scorpia’s last paragraph, not the article so much.
Going on the RPG side of things, I’d love to see games from companie like Basilisk, Spiderweb, Soldak, Amaranth, Prairie, Planewalker, *cough*Rampant*cough*, and others make serious inroads on an abandoned audience and knock the mainstream publishers on their keister … sort of like how the XBox Live Arcade did just that a couple years back with traditional arcade games and casual titles. Or the Wii is doing right now with family-oriented games.
The other aspect of this was that in the old days, games were made by PEOPLE as much as companies. EA even made a big point about treating game developers like rock stars, and games like rock albums. Now, however, these companies have learned that if you promote a PERSON and turn them into a superstar, said developer can abandon your and join (or make) your competition. They can’t own people, so they don’t want to promote an asset they don’t own or control. So now companies like to hide everyone in development behind a curtain, and pretend that these games are just products of their PROCESS.
So that’s why you don’t see too many “heroes” in the game industry any more, unless they spend a lot of their time promoting themselves. Like Dave Jaffe. Or (formerly) Jason Rubin. Or Peter Molyneux.
Like Dave Jaffe. Or (formerly) Jason Rubin. Or Peter Molyneux.
Who? Sorry never heard of any of them. Which only proves your point about hiding the develop/design(ers) behind the curtain and making more of a noise about the company.
As long as EA and others are allowed to stomp on innovation this will be a problem.
Indies Unite!
Indies Unite!
Doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose of being all independent ‘n stuff?
The article had a lot of truth in it. I remember EA before they lost their soul to the suits and produced some great games – Pinball Construction Set, Racing Destruction Set, and even productivity software like Deluxe Paint, which was the one the others had to measure up to on the Amiga.
I also liked the 2 games I have played from Arkane Studios whom he mentioned. Arx Fatalis is probably the closest we are going to see to Ultima Underworld III for the near future, and if you haven’t played it you can pick it up in the bargain bin for pretty cheap. Dark Messiah of Might and Magic was a nice break from the typical FPS, using a sword, bow, and magic instead.
Bard’s Tale was by Interplay, but published by Electronic Arts.