Where Have All The Game Gods Gone? 106
GameDailyBiz's media coverage article examines the absence of newly-minted 'game gods' from modern design. The article stems from PC Gamer's look back on the occasion of their 150th issue. One of the covers they show off is one proclaiming 'the game gods', well-known designers such as Will Wright or John Carmack. Modern game design, often with large teams, would seem to preclude elevating many new designers to such lofty heights. From the article: "Aside from a smattering of recognizable names like Naughty Dog's Jason Rubin and David Jaffe of God of War, renowned developers don't spring to mind like they once did. Even worse, Media Coverage would have trouble recognizing these two 'game celebs' if they showed up wearing matching shirts that said 'I'm with Jason Rubin' and 'I'm with David Jaffe'."
Nostalgia Trumps True Skill? (Score:5, Insightful)
Try this out, search the web for "creator of doom" and then search for "creator of world of warcraft" or "creator of oblivion." And I think you'll find that one person (John Carmack) is attributed with Doom while the topic isn't even addressed when talking about WoW or Oblivion.
I would also say that we, as consumers, are guilty of buying the same old crap over and over (Madden Football, anyone?). The producers know we'll do this and they cater to our needs with mediocre games. I would wager that today's games are a immensely more complex than games of yore, thus making it nearly impossible for a game to be entirely concieved in one person's head.
There are so many things working against a solo developer to get a game going. Aside from developing licenses for platforms skyrocketing, there are things like console wars that only compound the different platforms they made need to support it for. I know you probably know of a thousand good indie games for the computer, but any for a console? As far as computer games go, the customer base is often very demanding (we're nerds, what would you expect) and I think companies rely on people with specialized skills to put a product out at every step of the way. Is this bad? Not necessarily, there are still good games being produced--just not in the same fashion as before.
Along with the above contributing factors, great game developers today might not seem so great because innovation of years past is much more nostalgic to us. That's right, the same reason that we know Van Gogh & Picasso but can't name one contemporary artist says a lot about how nostalgia rules the art world. I look back on Kubrick's movies and say, "Christ, where have all the good directors gone?" when in reality I'll probably be worshipping Darren Aronofsky after he's dead just as much as Kubrick. Note, that was an example of my opinion--please do not hijack this thread with speculations of who's the better director. Unfortunately, the media won't cover someone until they're dead (Stanislaw Lem, anyone?) or at least that's how the American media seems to work.
Wait until these men age & die (or leave the business) then nostalgia kicks in and they are remembered as a "Game God."
Re:Nostalgia Trumps True Skill? (Score:5, Insightful)
These days we do have a few major players like Hideo Kojima or Shigeru Miyamoto, but they are no longer able to be the jack-of-all-trades their predecessors were. They are like film producers or directors, with the talent to see a creative vision through and help an entire team realize it.
Re:Nostalgia Trumps True Skill? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not necessarily. A good programmer who had the proper tools to develop on that platform could easily produce such a game, but what you received next week would have more in common with the simpler games of the 80s and 90s than with the overproduced "A-list" titles that line the shelves today.
There is nothing about modern platforms which actually require "legions of artists, programmers, musicians, sound designers, directors, producers, voice actors, motion actors, and craft services". It's just expected that the games will be that complex.
You could package up something like Nethack or M.U.L.E. for the 360 and it would play just fine, but don't expect EA to publish it for you.
Re:Nostalgia Trumps True Skill? (Score:2)
Back when the entire screen was 280x192 (Apple ][) with only six colors to use, even a non-artist could actually create usable game graphics simply by trial and error. You could literally add and remove pixels until it looks about right, because most things are about 10 pixels high. In the age of 32-bpp 1024x768
Re:Nostalgia Trumps True Skill? (Score:2)
Re:Nostalgia Trumps True Skill? (Score:2)
Sure, a text adventure game implemented on an XBox still won't require an artist or a musician, just as it did not in 1985. However, a 2-D shooter game in 1985 might not have required a real artist or a real musician, because a reasonably knowledgeable amateur can fake it and hide under the poor capabilities of the machines at the time. A 10x10 black and white icon depicting a soldier can easily be drawn b
Re:Nostalgia Trumps True Skill? (Score:2)
And yet one of the first things most people do when they play a new game is turn the video options way down and shut off the music. That says something about what really is required.
What matters is gameplay. Remember that this started with the argument that it was no longer possible to code an entire game in a week. I'm saying that it is and that the game could be playable anmd fun, not that it would be a best-seller.
Re:Nostalgia Trumps True Skill? (Score:1)
I'm not even a gamer and I know this is complete bullshit.
Re:Nostalgia Trumps True Skill? (Score:1, Informative)
I know what you mean, but man, that's one bad example. Have you SEEN the devteam credits for nethack? That's fifteen years worth of work. (And it shows.)
Re:Nostalgia Trumps True Skill? (Score:2)
I wouldn't call some of the more recent "A-list" games "overproduced". Some were great games because of the high production values, including time spent on developing a good story, development of graphics that help s
Re:Nostalgia Trumps True Skill? (Score:2)
"The Fallout games"
Surely you meant to say "Both Fallout games". Otherwise someone might think that there had been a third game made with that name, which of course there wasn't.
Re:Nostalgia Trumps True Skill? (Score:2)
lol. That's what I meant of course. I've managed to suppress my painful memories.
Re:Nostalgia Trumps True Skill? (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, we used assembly language. If you think that current game systems are technically more complex than the 2600 or that a decent 2600 game could be programmed in one night, you obviously never tried it.
I know this will sound like your grandfather's story about walking to school in the snow but the 2600 had no interrupts, no BIOS o
Re:Nostalgia Trumps True Skill? (Score:2)
Who are you? (Score:2)
Re:Nostalgia Trumps True Skill? (Score:2)
Re:Nostalgia Trumps True Skill? (Score:1)
But also, Both of the games (WoW and Oblivion) are sequels to popular chains.
The Single "God" will get new games off the ground but wouldn't they be less effective for
sequels?
The other thing is, entry. The older games had what tools to use? How much did they have to
develope themselves. But now tools are becoming more standardized with companies making game engines and not games.
Some games are still monotheistic (Score:2)
Brad has the Vision(TM)(C).
Should hit stores end of this year. Brad originally was a designer for 989 studios (original Everquest) and is now rolling his own MMO. While you are right about Oblivion and Warcraft I think Vanguard is a good example of a "game god" leading the way.
Re:Nostalgia Trumps True Skill? (Score:2)
Cube: a really fast FPS; the world is fully editable from within the game. Its sequel is playable although still buggy.
Warsow: a "tricks" based FPS. The tricks are much like those in the Quake games, with the addition of wall jumping.
Xpilot: a little like multiplayer game of asteroids, except with land masses and more weapons. Also like Continuum, except older and better.
BZFlag: needs no introduction. Multiplayer capture the flag.
There
Re:Nostalgia Trumps True Skill? (Score:2)
Our game sci
Re:Nostalgia Trumps True Skill? (Score:1)
In fact, I think this is one of the reasons so many sucky games are made these days. Being someone's child can be a great advantage to a game in development -- it is a lot easier for a novel gameplay vision to be held by one person alone than by a team of co-designers.
Exam
Design By Committee (Score:2)
I think I could have just said Hitchcock and that would be enough, but you see where I am going. In software development, there are a very small number of people that are masters of their art. In fact, in any area of human accomplishment, this is true. My area is martial arts, and history has shown the same pattern.
I
Will Wright to Rule Them All (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Will Wright to Rule Them All (Score:1)
Re:Will Wright to Rule Them All (Score:2, Funny)
I think that when the Wii comes out we may find other Gaming Gods on that platform, but for now we can stick with Will Wright right or wrong.
Wrongo (Score:1)
FIX'd
Re:Wrongo (Score:2)
So long as Shigeru Miyamoto is around, who needs other Game Gods?
really fixed
Re:Will Wright to Rule Them All (Score:2)
We still have them (Score:2, Insightful)
What about Sid Meier?
Re:We still have them (Score:3, Informative)
It's about the lack of new 'game gods' being created by new titles. Sid Meier is well established. Since
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization_(comput
Re:We still have them (Score:2)
But as I posted above, there are still (new) games coming out that conquer markets; it's just that there are more than one guy behind it, in case they're only counting such cas
...for the last ten years (Score:2)
What about Sid Meier?
As the TFA points out, the names that have dominated for the last ten years haven't changed; it's speculating on why no-one else has recently joined the pantheon.
Advantages of the PC (Score:3, Insightful)
And here we find a forgotten element in game developers: DEMO VERSIONS. You can always download demo versions for PC games. But demo versions for console games can't be downloaded - you'd have to purchase a game magazine which includes whole CD or DVD with the demo of *ONE* videogame.
No demo versions, no public to impress. No public, no purchases. No purchases, no money.
That, and the fact that most (if not all)
Re:We still have them (Score:1)
Re:We still have them (Score:1)
corporations are to blame (Score:4, Insightful)
EA? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:EA? E3 EA! (Score:1)
Re:EA? (Score:2)
Thus speaks a man who clearly has never played Total Annihilation anywhere near enough
Oh & before you come back with "But C&C was the original" Two Words "Dune 2"
Easy Answer: (Score:4, Insightful)
Also they were around at an oppertune time when there were HUGE steps being make (Carmack made DEATHMATCH, took mods to the mainstream, put graphics in games that were cool/fast enough to make my mom say "wow" - so many things we take for granted).
Re:Easy Answer: (Score:3, Informative)
Bullshit.
The last 2 games I bought were 'Masters Of Defence' and 'Lux', both done by teams of under 6 people. They both have low system reqs, can be bought online, and are great fun. They both start in less time than battlefield 2 takes to show its first splash screen.
There ar loads of high quality games being done by lone develoeprs or small teams. Ive been doing it myself since 1998
(http://www.positech.co.uk)
The 'hype' only occurs for the 100+ team games, be
Re:Easy Answer: (Score:1)
Re:Easy Answer: (Score:1)
Not sure about Will Wright and Sim City, but there were quite a few guys working on Wolf3D and Commander Keen.
Tom Hall, Adrian Carmack, John Carmack, John Romero for Keen
Where Have All The Game Gods Gone? (Score:1)
Well, I'm right here. Have you seen me play frozen bubble lately? My friends call me a "God!"
Re:Where Have All The Game Gods Gone? (Score:1, Funny)
CliffyB (Score:3, Insightful)
Most franchises these days are associated with the developing company. The Price of Persia: Sands of Time trilogy, Jak and Daxter, and even Grand Theft Auto -- everyone knows the companies behind the games but people don't really know the individuals. In the end it's probably a better way for the company to operate.
Re:CliffyB (Score:2, Informative)
If your CliffyB is Cliff Bleszinski, he was one of the three primary designers of Unreal back in 1997, and the driving force behind its sequels.
I don't know if that means he's not a new Game God, or whether it means it takes ten years for them to percolate to that status.
Re:CliffyB (Score:3, Informative)
Jazz Jackrabbit! (Score:2)
Time to fire up DosEMU. God I loved that game...
We don't associate games with Devs (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:We don't associate games with Devs (Score:2)
Because... his paychecks have been bouncing, all this time? I have family in this line of work. They get things like juicy raises when business is good, live comfortably, and are sought after because they can not only work hard, but because they're local talent. You simply can't replace the more creative, make-it-really-shine people with a crew halfway across t
different kind of game designer 'god' (Score:2)
I still think that at any time, however, a genius individual can produce a tetris-like game (i.e. Tetris), and completely either create a new genre, and/or dismantle or change the direction of the gaming world. With so many games on the market, it
Real Simple (Score:3, Insightful)
lack of credit (Score:5, Insightful)
And he gets more credit than most of the people I'm thinking of.
Game-god athiesm (Score:5, Interesting)
So someone developed some cheats and patches and "trainers" and the like for RCT. Several people, actually, a variety of things you could do... But Chris Sawyer didn't like people cheating, apparently (never mind that this is a single-player game of a fairly open-ended nature)... so what does he do? There was some code, either in the original game or an expansion pack, that would sit and watch for some obvious signs of cheating (I think the main one was that if you had researched ALL the rides and stalls and such in the game). If it caught you cheating, the game would crash. Intentionally. And not just that! The game would create a secret little data file so that it would crash again, next time you started, whether or not you were trying to cheat this time around. Eventually some people provided a patch, but with the next expansion pack and such things were changed so you would need a DIFFERENT patch, and this time it would check if there, like, weren't enough trees (did you clear the land so you could have your own little sandbox world? HORRORS! You're not allowed to do that!)
Roller Coaster Tycoon was great. Transport Tycoon was a gem as well. But I don't like getting bossed around by the God of my Game. If these multi-programmer teams can realize things like this better, and let people cheat at their single-player games (at least) if they want to cheat, please, why stop them? (Heck, you can cheat until the cows come home in a game like Morrowind/Oblivion or Half-Life (2 or otherwise) by using the console, and the Sims 2 takes codes as well...)
Re:Game-god athiesm (Score:1)
Re:Game-god athiesm (Score:2)
Re:Game-god athiesm (Score:1)
Re:Game-god athiesm (Score:2)
OpenTTD ftw (Score:1)
Many people think it's more fun than Sawyer's own followup Locomotion [1up.com]. And you can't beat the price or the platform availability (Win32, Linux, OS X, MorphOS)..
(just wish there were a Symbian or Palm version
Because they're not all American (Score:5, Insightful)
Tetsuya Mizuguchi - Rez, Lumines
Shigeru Miyamoto - Donkey Kong, Mario, Legend of Zelda, Nintendogs...
Masahiro Sakurai - Super Smash Bros, Kirby, Meteos (Produced by Tetsuya Mizuguchi)
Or, rather, anyone in the Sonic Team or Nintendo's HAL, EAD, and Intelligent Systems...
Re:Because they're not all American (Score:2)
Frederick Raynal - Alone in the Dark, Little Big Adventure\Relentless, Time Commando, LBA2\Twinsen's Oydssey
Michel Ancel - Rayman, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Beyond Good & Evil
Other game designers I think are worth mentioning:
Tom Hall - Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Rise of the Triad, Anachronox
American McGee - American McGee's Alice (well, he's relatively new as game designer)
The real problem is that these days people dont' really focus on who created the games. Well, ex
Re:Because they're not all American (Score:2)
Re:Because they're not all American (Score:2)
Re:Because they're not all American (Score:2, Informative)
Tim Schafer - Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, Psychonauts
Yu Suzuki - Virtua Fighters 1, 2, 4, and the upcoming 5; Shenmue I & II
CliffyB - Unreal, ummm... Jazz Jackrabbit? The upcoming Gears of War
And they don't mention that we now know 'more' designers than we did previously. The spotlight shined on the 'Gods' has been diluted a bit by the shoving of more people into the spotlight, without said light growing relatively. At least it seems that way.
George Broussard (Score:5, Funny)
Remember, Gods don't have to become Gods by doing happy, fluffy things for the good of humanity. Hades and Aries come to mind along with just about every other act carried out by Hera.
In thousands of years, mythology will cause Broussard to be remembered as the son of and (Chaos and Chronos), combining the powers of eternal time and the nothingness from which all else could have sprung but ultimately was delayed.
Gone with the C64 (Score:2)
Re:Gone with the C64 (Score:2)
So yes, the crap was there. It's just nowadays we get sequels of crap
Re:Gone with the C64 (Score:2)
The ROM pit (Score:1, Interesting)
See also somethingawful's ROM pit, dedicated to remembering the crap of yesteryear:
http://www.somethingawful.com/rompit/ [somethingawful.com]
Now I've broken your rose tinted spectacles you'll be able to see the sneaky pink elephants better.
Carmack is a famous coder... (Score:3, Insightful)
The lack of Game Gods has nothing to do with a lack of talent. Its an attitude. The difference between a great rock musician and a Rock Star, is attitude.
John Romero had great design talent, but it was his style and attitude that elevated him to a Game God status.
Re:Carmack is a famous coder... (Score:1)
DAIKATANA!!
Simple Answer (Score:1)
Everybody forgot the iddqd code.
Re:Simple Answer (Score:2)
This is just a pr issue (Score:2)
Well I can name two (Score:3, Interesting)
It takes time. (Score:5, Insightful)
Game Play Important (Score:3, Insightful)
Eugene Jarvis, Larry DeMar, Ed Logg, Bob Flanagan, Owen Rubin just to name a few.
what about 'directors' or 'producers'? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:what about 'directors' or 'producers'? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Where they are? Are you blind!? (Score:2)
LOL
Seriously. Look at the by far most dominating MMORPG and who's behind it. Then see how the same devs made the most successful PC RTS series in gaming history. Not to count reinventing the Action RPG genre previously mostly just found in Roguelikes.
How can the article miss this? If there was some "game gods" of today, why shouldn't it be a group of designers that have conquered a major part of the PC game industry today? Other "game gods" can be found in Maxis who made th
sequels (Score:5, Insightful)
Lately, I've been playing: Civ4, Homm5, quake3 (yeah, I still do), and Elder scrolls IV. My wife plays sims 2 and is looking forward to Caesar 4.
How about "Where have all the New Games gone?"
Poker (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Haven't gone ANYWHERE (Score:2)
Size & Effort... (Score:3, Interesting)
John Carmack - Wolf3D
Will Wright - Sim City
Both "ground breaking" *IDEAS* in their time, and both have what would be considered lack-luster graphics now. The sad fact is that if Sim City or Wolf 3D were released today, they wouldn't be given the time of day. The big companies (Sony, EA, Atari, etc) have pushed us to the point that no one great person could come up with a new breakthough game...
Todays blockbuster games are developed by large teams of programmers, designers, sound artists, voice actors, 3D modelers, etc...
Of course, 2D graphics were much easier to hack together than 3D graphics...2-bit sound was easier to hack together than 16-bit CD quality surround sound...this is just the evolution of the gaming industry. Want to see where it's headed, look at film...we are about where film was back in the 60's...audiences are starting to demand more...story and gameplay have taken a back seat to better graphics and commercial crossovers (RIAA musicians, MPAA voice actors, etc)...
There will occasionaly be a few independent breakthroughs...but in general, these will be a thing of the past.
Where is video gaming's Kevin Smith or Quentin Tarantino? Open source is a good bet, but everyone knows open source are rarely the result of a single person's effort...Flash games show some promise...but just like independent film, fans are going to seek out these developers until they become a commercial success...
Bill Budge? (Score:2)
God is dead (Score:2)
We're lacking really "memorable" games. Everyone knows Civilisation. Everyone knows its creator. Everyone knows Leisure Suit Larry. Everyone knows its creator (provided he's old enough). Or think about Populous (ok, if you are close to becoming a fossil).
Who knows the creative head of any EA Sports game? Or the "Lord of the Rings" RTS game?
They're not memorable anymore they're a "line" of games, cookie-cutter style. We arrived at the fast food equivalent of games. Haute cuis
Kenta Cho? (Score:2)
That old hobbyhorse answer, lack of innovation. (Score:1)
There are a variety of reasons (Score:2)
1. Burnout ruins many careers.
Will Wright wasn't always a high-flying game designer selling millions. He worked on a shooter-type game [mobygames.com] back in the day, and the development of that lead him to explore some concepts which lead to the development of the classic SimCity.
Now consider what would happen if Will were a programmer in today's environment. Wh