Junction Point boss and Deux Ex creator Warren Spector has spoken out over what he considers a limiting tendency to match a game's subject matter to a certain audience, arguing that if a game is built around meaningful choices, it should appeal to everyone.
It's the kind of spiel you'd expect from a man defending his decision to work on a Mickey Mouse game, rather than the "grown up" action-RPG sequel many fans are clamouring for, but that doesn't make it any less valid.
"Is it the perfect dream thing I'm gonna do for the rest of my life?" Spector told IGN of the new Epic Mickey title. "In a sense, yes. I mean, you know, forever is a big word. I don't know what I'm gonna be doing next week, let alone next year, let alone five years from now.
"I've always made games for myself, you know? I've never, ever, ever thought about, 'Who is my target demographic?' But when he said that I realised that I had never actually thought about making a game for everyone... Why do we have to make games that only teenage boys like, or 20-something males like, or tween girls like?
"And so I hope that what I do for the rest of my career, so in that sense, yeah, I feel like I have a new mission. But in terms of gameplay my mission has never changed. It hasn't changed since I played D&D; for the first time in 1978."
And the nature of that mission? "Well, the thing that always makes me happiest about any game I work on is when I watch a player do something that I didn't think was possible in the game.
"The whole point of games like Deus Ex, and Disney Epic Mickey, and Ultima Underworld and all the stuff I've worked on over the years, the whole point is for players to see a situation, make a plan, execute that plan and then either succeed or fail and figure out where they wanna go from there," Spector explained. "That's what games are; it's about you, right? Not about me, it's about you.
"A couple of weeks ago I watched someone play a particular spot in Disney Epic Mickey 2 and do something that I thought was impossible to do. A player figured out how to do something that no-one on the team thought could be done. And for most developers that's a bug. For me, it's a validation. For Junction Point, that is, 'We know we've done our job'."
Thoughts on all this? The man talks sense, by my lights.
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11 comments so far...
Grummy on 5 Jul '12 said:
*cough*witcher2*cough*
Bezza89 on 5 Jul '12 said:
I very much agree, and my favourite games sort of highlight this apart from a few exceptions. Ghost Recon, Chaos Theory, MGS, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, GTA, Halo, BF mp all throw a situation your way and say ''hey, there's many, many options to overcome this situation you're in, have a bash'' and after some trial and error you've found a winning combo for that scenario which then doesn't apply to scenario B with anomaly X which asks for more brain power.
The problem with some games these days is they are either hold your hand linear (cod, bf SP etc) or offer Hobsons choice (deus ex HR, Mass Effect - still amazing).
Clanger67 on 5 Jul '12 said:
Because by a lot of the mainstream it is still seen as a childish pursuit.Usually by people who haven't got a clue of the content and don't realize or think games can tell a mature,thought provoking,relevant to current events story,equal to books and films.
CunningSmile on 5 Jul '12 said:
Guy has a point.
What confuses me even more is that industry spokes people continually quote the average age of their customer as being in the 30s with a 40% female demographic when trying to get respect, but never actually follow that through when making their products. Everything is aimed at 14 year old boys with ADHD. Mature game? Add more sex and nudity. Complex decisions with real impact? We've got six different types of shotgun, thats almost the same thing.
Grow up guys!
Grummy on 5 Jul '12 said:
I find shooters are a great example here actually. No matter what you think of them, they all boil down to picking the best gun and shooting stuff, then on higher difficulties, it's made harder by cheap tactics, grenade spam or increased health/shields/damage. I find the whole premise behind shooters to be incredibly stale. Even Halo, which for some bizarre reason people praise for its brilliant AI, is just overpowered baddies bouncing around the screen. I don't call that good AI at all. Give me a shooter where I can't just rely on the most powerful weapon and tons of ammo. Yes give me options, but make the options more about what I need for how I want to approach a situation. If I need to rescue hostage A, then I should be able to go in with a P90 and flashbangs then rely on my quick reflexes, but I should also be allowed the option to infiltrate using stealth, distraction and a silenced pistol. But most of all, these situations need to be fairly open to allow for choice, not cramped and linear. Some games do have some great ideas, I think it was Rainbow 6 where if you reloaded before emptying a clip, it wouldn't just fill up, it would put the near empty clip at the back, and you'd actually come around to it again and have to empty it properly, meaning you need to think your reloading strategy better than the current shooter style of reload before battle then shoot-reload-shoot. Hitman is another classic example. Granted it's not a shooter, but it gives you options, and is fantastic for it. Another game I think is worth mentioning is Alpha Protocol. Yes the levels are fairly linear, but they're not corridor shooters, and you always have options. There was no better feeling than playing that first mission in Saudi Arabia, and getting through the whole thing only using stealth takedowns.
Games need to start allowing greater variety and allow players the choice of how to proceed.
Bezza89 on 5 Jul '12 said:
It's good AI because the enemies react to the player, they'll run away if you're massacring and regroup, they'll go to the nearest elite who will attack you and try to evade your fire etc. It's not technically amazing AI, but it is very cool, and a lot of fun to fight. There also isn't one amazing weapon in halo, all will get the job done, but each has their own special use and perfect situation. It's up to the player.
Plamsa wing on 5 Jul '12 said:
There's something wrong when a book that's about S&M can sell millions and is praised like it's the holy grail. Yet when a game with an 18+ rating (i.e NOT for children), tells a mature story, filled with emotion and believable characters, that tackles current events in a mature way and not with some angry coloured bloke with far too many guns, suddenly gets treated by the media and parents like some sort of perverse creation from the devil himself.
msbhvn on 5 Jul '12 said:
I like deliberately juvenile games like Saints Row and Bulletstorm, but games like The Witcher 2 which pretentiously say they're "mature" while clearly still aiming for the lowest common denominator, I tend to find tiresome.
Truly mature games are rare, although R* and Bethesda are doing their best to bring the number up considerably. LA Noire, for all its faults, dealt with mature themes in a way that wasn't insulting. Red Dead Redemption and GTAIV to a lesser extent did the same. The Fallout series is another that doesn't pull its punches with complex morality choices. Even Skyrim has its moments.
In an age where even the most perverted material can be easily accessed on the internet, do we really need pixellated T&A to sell games? The number of female Dragon's Dogma pawns walking around in thongs and not much else seems to answer my question.
Grummy on 5 Jul '12 said:
I don't call that good at all, it's very basic 'if this, then that' programming. Although, in Bungies defence, they seem to be one of the only developers who ever bothered to use it. I can't even think of another shooter that uses it, despite how basic it is. Unfortunately, it doesn't show itself in a very good light. Oh, compared to other shooters with endless spawning enemies that are utterly fearless, it certainly does, but I find it limited as hell. 'We're being shot so lets run away to something bigger' has become extremely predictable and boring over 5 games. It should do so much more. Rather than a horde of individual baddies running around, clustering around bigger baddies, why not let them move in groups, then if a group splinters and they panic, they run and hide, then try to join another group. Learn from player tactics, if I'm standing there, blasting you in the face with a pistol, keep back out of my range to force me to use other weapons or tactics. The covenants running away engine might have been interesting for a few minutes, but it isn't stellar, and isn't especially note worthy either.
TheElderMan on 7 Jul '12 said:
You have obviously not tried creating an AI that can react to very complex player actions in changing conditions in a not entirely predictable way
Freestyler on 7 Jul '12 said:
The rub is that the book is read by a lot of people with actual sexual experience, whereas there's still this pre-conception that "most" gamers are clueless virgins with masturbation fantasy anxiety. Witness the massive boobs of most females in games. Yes, it's funny (to the gamer) but it's no attempt at realism or even the sort of "realism" that exists in game space. No, just massive knockers and stupidly high-pitched voices. All the damned time.
No wonder some non-gamers think most games are strictly for the sad and tragically lonely.
Some Publishers, Developers and Advertisers do everything possible to appeal directly to that audience.