Scrolling game news, I went to some conclusion about some games and their relative success.
I’m talking about story-driven games like Heavy Rain or Red Dead Redemption or Alan Wake.
These games are made –I mean directed- by people around 35-40. What was huge when they were young? Movies. Blade Runner, Alien, Star Wars you name it. There’s a shitload of groundbreaking movies made mid 70s mid 80s when you think about it (post classical cinema Wikipedia says).
1982, a crazy year: Thriller, E.T., Conan the Barbarian… And Blade Runner
These games are appealing to people of the same age, 35+ people who are searching for this “I want to be the hero of the movie” experience they dreamed about when they had pimples all over their face going to the theater to watch Indiana Jones. Game reviewers are often part of this generation and that’s why they always love these games to death.
What was the state of computer games during the eighties? It was still rough. Computer games were just starting to have a comprehensive graphic representation and movies were the obvious inspiration: Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1981. Pitfall!, 1982. So future game developers in their teenage years growing up with that ended up making something like Uncharted? Makes sense to me.
Now, where do I fit? I grew up in the eighties too but I was a bit too young to go crazy for the early 8bits games. Stiff controls, lack of depth.
But then it was the 90s, my teenage years. We saw groundbreaking games all the fucking time. Here, Populous. Here, Doom. Here, The Incredible Machine. Here, Magic Carpet. Here, Sonic and Street Fighter II. And Mario 64. Here, flight simulations. You get it.
I feel I’m part of the very first generation who really has grown up with computer games as main entertainment food. Therefore, I developed a sense of loving movies (unfolding stories/editing combo) only way after becoming an adult and studying cinema in 2000. I just craved for the experience of playing, watching people play, understand the system, learn. Hacking it or trying to.That’s what the game culture was, is for me.
So my teenage years were not about being passively watching a movie over and over again, it was about being actively trying new things in a computer game over and over again (LucasArts!) or trying new things on a computer over and over again.
I’m not surprised that all the big names in the game industry making these story-driven games wanted to be movie directors when they were young. They still want to, and try with computer games. It doesn’t work well and costs millions of dollars but whatever. It’s so much easier to sell to a publisher compared to a game with a new gameplay (“so uh, the goal is uh you can.. You have to play it it’s really fun”).
So IMO that’s why despite having in the industry some strong voices toward the importance of gameplay crafting and search of new experiences, themes, despite knowing how we need to focus on that because it’s the power of computer games, we still have these weird hybrids, attempts of creators who don’t really have the computer game culture in them, making a game about Western movies in 2010. It was just a new support for them, not their main thing like I feel I, and an entire generation had. Now we’re all in the same industry, my game generation is under-represented and it’s a mess.
That also explains why there’s in the industry this hate of social gaming. It’s not just because it uses psychological tricks to make you play more. It’s also because it relies on pure gameplay rather than technical progress, makes millions and makes publishers wonder about the AAA business viability (answer: there’s almost none).
It’s funny.
Also, I celebrate ten years working for the game industry this month. July 2000-July 2010. I’d like to write a long post about it but I don’t want to get you depressed, neither do I.