Feature on Edge online.
It’s funny how for so many veterans making games are trying to continue what they loved growing up with them, the power of stories, the passion for making games they want to play.
I started my career thinking like that, but my personal journey being pretty amazing and still unfolding, escapism never worked so much with me (except with absolute brilliance like Monkey Island) especially with other mediums being much better at that.
Now what I’m fascinated with games is basically the failure simulator side and how important it is to fuck things up in a game because it’s totally OK! It’s a game, you can start over. I just love that so much because in real life you’re not allowed to try and fail anymore to the point that people fake things up just so that they look good. Escapism, virtual items, they go too much toward this trend. Not judging, just explaining.
Counter-strike. It’s not even about skills, it’s about the failure of a group of people to communicate and complete tasks, the perfect team that can cover and succeed on a mission despite having the pressure that things can go wrong in a million ways possible (so often in a really comic way) and that you’ll have to be ready for it. I smile like a maniac writing this, remembering emergent situations that are the core fun of this game. It’s fabulous.
It’s the confidence-building simulator, the A-Team simulator part of computer games that I value more than anything else. It’s unique to this medium.