Warren Specter on the Future of Video Games

Warren Specter .... hahah I take his word with as much credability as Romero on the future of video games. Warren Specter manages to take, one of the best PC games ever Deus Ex, and makes a sequel which shares the "worst game ever" throne with Daikatana.
 
The industry is neither stagnant nor in any trouble. Just because one person is bored with a genre or series doesnt mean its stagnant. His assinine view is just the product of someone with far too much stock in his own opinion. I hate whiney artists that get mad when people dont appreciate things in the exact way that they want, you just make it and I'll decide if I like it thank you very much...
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Dead, you make some good points and some asinine points. For one, everybody reading this needs to remember that we are NOT the majority. Gamers do not equal us anymore folks. People reading forums like this one are the minority. Spector is talking about the majority of gamers, which let's face it, at this point are frat boys playing Madden and Halo. You and I might be able to appreciate the difference between good and crap, but the mainstream consumer is concerned with two things: 1) is it cool? 2) does it look pretty? These are the people who pay $15 to see the next ashton kutcher movie on opening night and listen to Brittany Spears and Good Charlotte on their drive home. So while people like us might buy Quake 13 because it's a good game, there are people who buy Madden 06 BECAUSE it's Madden 06, regardless of anything else. Spector also has a good point about genres. As the gaming industry has matured I would say we have lost more genres than we have invented. Every year we get gobs and gobs of games in one or two genres while the other genres descend further and further into niche markets.

So when people talk about the state of the games industry being crap and the consumers being idiots, remember that they're not talking about you, they're talking about the uninformed consumers who would never read stuff like this anyway.

Also, I HIGHLY recommend the following article. [H] linked it on their main page before but if you like games at all and have not read it you absolutely must.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/8/3
 
DukenukemX said:
I don't think you got what he said.

What he's saying is the reality that games are becoming like hollywood. They pump the junk out because idiots buy it. If you buy the hype the game gets sold and they do what they've always done. Just with better graphics.

He has a good point. People need to expand and understand new horizons. Otherwise we'll be playing Quake 6 on our Pentium X. Except with better graphics. :rolleyes:
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But even with Hollywood spitting out blockbusters for the masses, you still get 3 or 4 rare gems every year that are different and enjoyable.
 
Draax said:
Warren Specter .... hahah I take his word with as much credability as Romero on the future of video games. Warren Specter manages to take, one of the best PC games ever Deus Ex, and makes a sequel which shares the "worst game ever" throne with Daikatana.
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Shhhhh.... your gaming ignorance is showing!
 
TheBluePill said:
But even with Hollywood spitting out blockbusters for the masses, you still get 3 or 4 rare gems every year that are different and enjoyable.
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Is the game industry doing that though? Most of the advertising dollars by the big publishers are going towards established titles and sequels. Most of the rare gems are being put out by smaller, self-funded developers.
 
makes a sequel which shares the "worst game ever" throne with Daikatana.
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what about that truck racing game? I forget what it was called but X-Play did a hysterical segment on it. Basically, it's a 1v1 race, your computer-controlled opponent does not move, you can drive through anything, and you don't even need to follow the course. They showed the truck going off the track, up the 75 degree hill that filled the middle of the track, over the top of it, down the other side, and winning. I bet that game is worse than daikatana.
 
Slartibartfast said:
what about that truck racing game? I forget what it was called but X-Play did a hysterical segment on it. Basically, it's a 1v1 race, your computer-controlled opponent does not move, you can drive through anything, and you don't even need to follow the course. They showed the truck going off the track, up the 75 degree hill that filled the middle of the track, over the top of it, down the other side, and winning. I bet that game is worse than daikatana.
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OMG that is freaky, I just looked at the review of that game.... somethign like big rigs racing or something. It showed screenshots of the computer control vehicle not moving and the PC controlled truck riding on the side of a hill.

I stand corrected .... lol
 
As gaming goes more mainstream it will inevitably be simpler...i.e. bland and dumbed down. Forget about complex interfaces and character progression (things that made Deus Ex and SS2 so good). They are too complicated for Joe Sixpack to wrap his head around. The DEx2 interface is a perfect example of that, when compared to the original.

Gaming born in the realm of the geek, then got watered down so the big devs could sell it to freakin everyone and make a bundle. Once the golden goose is dead, and the mainstream has moved on to ruin something else, innovative, challenging games may make it back on the scene.
 
finalgt said:
So, this guy is saying that the videogames industry is becoming one where creativity and originality are marginalized for the sake of profits. And this is different from Hollywood...how?
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That was my thought as well. Hollywood rarely does anything innovative or new. Hasn't for decades and yet movies still break records every year. The truly fresh ideas in film end up in limited (or no) release in art theatres two towns down the road. I can't say that I'm in favor of the stagnation of originality in either medium, but I don't think it is anything like a death knell for the industry.

 
You don't think so? I'd say that if innovation ceases in the next 5 years, Quake 6, Halo 7, and GTA 32 are the ONLY games we'll be talking about. God help us all...
 
*sigh* I'm taking potshots at unoriginal games, and you pipe in with that. I thought we called a truce? :D
 
There can't be a truce without fair criticism. Halo 2 and San Andreas were rehashes, but Nintendo does it too.

You don't honestly think that Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, Mario Kart: Double Dash, and Mario Sunshine were original, do you? They were superb games but they were basically updated versions of titles that existed earlier. MP2 added the dual-world twist and MS added the water-pack. Other than that, all we had were graphical updates.
 
I agree to a point (esp. with Metroid), but agree to disagree. MP2 and both of the Mario games were sequels, in the better sense of the word. Especially compared to the GTA and Halo series. Usually Nintendo isn't afraid to try and re-invent their prime IPs (see: Zelda WW), which I do like about them. They were proper sequels in comparison - ESPECIALLY after playing GTA over and over. I'm getting tired of the "urban thuggery" that Warren is talking about. I just saw an ad for True Crime: Streets of New York and almost hit the TV. Honestly, I'm hoping that even Halo gets more than a visual and weapon/vehicle update again, because Warren could easily be predicting the future.
 
Bungie was under way too much pressure to produce with Halo 2. They announced a launch date way too early and Microsoft was on their backs about delivering.

We can already tell that they're not doing this with Halo 3. Hell, they've barely even admitted that it exists. Next to no information exists on it, despite the fact that it's likely been in development since Halo 2 was released. It looks like they're giving them time with it.

I agree about WW, but they've rehashed Zelda before. Majora's Mask comes to mind. We'll have to see whether or not they raise the bar with the next one or if they're content with the different graphics engine.

By the way... :p at the True Crime commercial.
 
DarkSeraphim said:
Bungie was under way too much pressure to produce with Halo 2. They announced a launch date way too early and Microsoft was on their backs about delivering.

We can already tell that they're not doing this with Halo 3. Hell, they've barely even admitted that it exists. Next to no information exists on it, despite the fact that it's likely been in development since Halo 2 was released. It looks like they're giving them time with it.

I agree about WW, but they've rehashed Zelda before. Majora's Mask comes to mind. We'll have to see whether or not they raise the bar with the next one or if they're content with the different graphics engine.

By the way... :p at the True Crime commercial.
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Did you play Majora's Mask? Same engine, COMPELTELY different game... not a rehash at all. I'm hoping for the sake of the franchise that they don't turn Halo into... Halo. lol
The next Zelda looks even more of a deviance in the formula, which is a good thing. :mad: to True Crime.
 
rehashes have thier place. Sure I "may" be bored with quake 10 but what about some 10 year old playing games for the first time? Its not a rehash for him. Obviously there are BAD games like that rig racing eye sore but for the most part its all a matter of taste. I play all kinds of games from fps, rpg, mmo(well not anymore), all the way down to fighting games AND especially madden and I take offense at the idea that me buying what I like somehow will bring the industry down. A good game will sell regardless of the genre so all warren has to do is make a great game which has done....in the past and people will buy it. Civ4 is selling quite well and thats not exactly a mainstream genre. I'm not exactly sure the majority of gamers are frat boys either, just look at the highest selling game of all time the sims, doesnt strike me as a "frat boy" type game...

I keep getting told that I just dont get it but honestly I think you guys dont get it :(
 
I think most people are unaware of the most disturbing trend in the games industry: the more highly acclaimed a game is, the worse it sells. I know you don't believe it but it's true (I had a link showing it somewhere but can't find it, I can't do any research right now because I'm at work and almost anything with the word "game" in it is blocked, even the IGDA and ESRB sites).

Look at it this way:

Who says Ico was a bad game? Pretty much nobody. But how many copies did it sell? I'll bet less than 500k.

Viewtiful Joe on the gamecube? I LOVED that game. Every review I read of it absolutely adored it. It sold about 250k.

Rez? Good luck finding it, it goes for like $60 on ebay used. Nobody says it's a bad game, but it didn't sell enough for very many copies to be printed.

Why is Radiant Silvergun so damn expensive? I've seen it sell for SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS brand new. I would say it's the most sought-after game in history. So why is it so rare?? Well obviously it was never released in the US. But why? Because Treasure knew it's not the kind of thing Americans tend to go for. They only released Ikaruga over here after the massive buzz it got, and even then I bet it barely sold anything compared to GTA and Halo.

There is a consistent inverse relationship between units sold and critical acclaim. I know it sounds wrong but let's face it, people still buy Big Game Hunter. Yes, of course there are exceptions to this, so maybe I should reword it: the more games appeal to the old-school gamer in all of us, the less they sell. If this were not true, EA would not be planning on releasing 25 sequels next year now would they. The gaming genertion of today is really split in two: those of us who grew up on Nintendo, Genesis, Atari, et al, and everyone else who got a Playstation because the graphics were pretty. And that latter group is the larger group, and they are in control of the market. Say what you will, you cannot deny this. The sales figures prove it.
 
Sims is one of the highest selling games ever BECAUSE it appeals to more than just the mainstream... actually, the mainstream (i.e. the madden/halo crowd) didn't even play it much. It was OUTSIDE the mainstream where it shone. Not only was it extremely original, but hordes and hordes of women, and adults above 30 were playing Sims. It also appealed to younger children - Sims tapped a VAST crowd of non-gamers... Hell, I worked at a pharmacy for a few years, and one of the lady pharmacists that worked there couldn't give a rats ass about gaming. Her young (15-19) boys played the PS2 and the Gamecube, but she couldn't tell you the difference between Final Fantasy and Jak X. But her and her 8-year-old daughter would regularly play the Sims together, and they are not even close to the mainstream. This is similar to the effect that Nintendogs is having now, both in North America and Japan.

I'm dating a "semi-gamer" girl... and believe me, FPS titles and sports games couldn't interest her in the least bit. But pop on Donky Konga, The Sims 2, or Nintendogs, and she'll be there for hours. This is exactly the types of stuff that Specter is talking about, and exactly the kind of crowd Nintendo is trying to reach out to with the Revolution. The "mainstream" doesn't bring half the cash that the rest of the populace does, and if you can lure them in, and keep them there, gaming won't devolve... again.

Slart is right... us who grew up on the Ataris and the Nintendos are in a far different boat, looking for more than the "pretty graphics and lovely blood" that the Playstation gave us. And believe me, if the trend continues, we'll quickly outgrow gaming as it's being redefined. Hopefully people like Specter and Miyamoto can stop the degeneration of gamers, as it is so glaringly obvious that the whole industry is heading into trouble.
 
I agree with stevie wholeheartedly. The sims is a fantastic example of what is possible, what is untapped. But the people with the money are too scared to risk it, so only big names like Wright, Molyneaux etc get to take those chances.

Man, talking about this stuff gets me so mad :mad: :mad: Anybody want to start a publishing company with me??
 
Slartibartfast said:
I agree with stevie wholeheartedly. The sims is a fantastic example of what is possible, what is untapped. But the people with the money are too scared to risk it, so only big names like Wright, Molyneaux etc get to take those chances.

Man, talking about this stuff gets me so mad :mad: :mad: Anybody want to start a publishing company with me??
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Alright, let's go. We'll develop for PC and Nintendo... screw the mainstream :D
 
Slartibartfast said:
I agree with stevie wholeheartedly. The sims is a fantastic example of what is possible, what is untapped. But the people with the money are too scared to risk it, so only big names like Wright, Molyneaux etc get to take those chances.

Man, talking about this stuff gets me so mad :mad: :mad: Anybody want to start a publishing company with me??
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Sure, how does dummies wit no money's Inc. sound? We'll pay our developers with sarcasm and optimism, who wouldnt wanna let us publish thier shit???
 
Sure, how does dummies wit no money's Inc. sound? We'll pay our developers with sarcasm and optimism, who wouldnt wanna let us publish thier shit???
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hey we're not crapping on you

We'll develop for PC and Nintendo... screw the mainstream
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Actually stevie I said publisher, not developer (although developing would be pretty fun, I can't wait for the Revolution :p ). I think that what the industry could really use is a publisher willing to take risks on indie games, help them get to market, get them advertising and distributing. Kinda like artisan/miramax does for film (the film Pi was excellent, but the game equivalent would never see the light of day). The only channel for indie games right now is on-line distrubtion which gets pathetically little publicity. Too bad I'm broke :D
 
Deadsexy, did you even read our posts?
Edit: just found out that the team responsible for Nintendogs is looking at making a Revolution Nintendogs title that uses the Wifi network... now THAT would sell far more than the millions + sold on the original Nintendogs DS. He also mentioned something about a cooking game :D Haha the ideas that come out of those people are exactly the ideas that have the potential of selling far more than the next iteration of PGR, due to their appeal to non-gamers or 'semi-gamers'.
 
Gloried Tamagotchi :rolleyes:

Sales don't always correlate with quality...if they did, Pokemon wouldn't have been able to sell after they regurgitated the same game over and over again.
 
DS, just because Nintendogs isn't "cool" to you, doesn't mean it's just a glorified Tamagotchi. It sold a lot more than you think, and it wasn't because it was Pokemon 33.
 
DarkSeraphim said:
Gloried Tamagotchi :rolleyes:

Sales don't always correlate with quality...if they did, Pokemon wouldn't have been able to sell after they regurgitated the same game over and over again.
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You're right, sales don't always correlate with quality. But something tells me you're going to be one of the elite corps of hardcore X360 !!!!!!s posting sales figures after the launch saying, "See?! It's as awesome as we said it would be! Look at how many people bought it!"
 
I wouldn't be surprised. I remember the same thing happening for Halo 2 and GTA SA.
 
finalgt said:
You're right, sales don't always correlate with quality. But something tells me you're going to be one of the elite corps of hardcore X360 !!!!!!s posting sales figures after the launch saying, "See?! It's as awesome as we said it would be! Look at how many people bought it!"
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Something is telling you wrong, then. I'm not even buying one at launch. The quality of the games will determine whether or not it was a worthwhile launch.

I was one of the ones preaching the qualities of the Dreamcast on 9/10/99 when it only sold a couple hundred-thousand.

There is a difference between being a !!!!!! and defending something against blatant bias/ignorance.
 
And the Dreamcast was a great system. You're missing the point of this thread.
 
No kidding...that was my favorite launch ever. NFL2K, Powerstone, Soul Calibur, House of the Dead 2 (Cheesy, but enjoyable)...Soul Calibur again (Honestly...the amount of time that my friends and I put into this game was just ridiculous..."...just one more match" all night).
 
Soul Calibre was probably the pinnacle of Dreamcast... lol
Back to topic :D
 
Draax said:
Warren Specter .... hahah I take his word with as much credability as Romero on the future of video games. Warren Specter manages to take, one of the best PC games ever Deus Ex, and makes a sequel which shares the "worst game ever" throne with Daikatana.
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Wrong.

First, DX:IW wasn't a bad game, in fact it was a very good game. It just had nothing to do with Deus Ex or what made DeusEx so good and as such was massively disappointing to those of us who want more, better DX. But taken on it's own merits, it still stands a pretty good game.
They should have gone the Snowblind route (which was originally meant to be another DeusEx game) though and made it a whole other franchise.

Second, blaming Spector and Smith is easy, lazy and stupid, everyone who follows this kind of stuff is well aware at this point that Eidos took over and ran the show at Ion Storm for DX:IW and ordered it dumbed down and consolified for maximum profit, which is why Spector and both Smiths quit (as in left the company that Spector co-founded) the instant they were legally allowed to, i.e, when their contracts with Eidos were fulfilled, when IS had delivered the games).

Spector knows good games.
 
MartinX said:
Wrong.

First, DX:IW wasn't a bad game, in fact it was a very good game. It just had nothing to do with Deus Ex or what made DeusEx so good and as such was massively disappointing to those of us who want more, better DX. But taken on it's own merits, it still stands a pretty good game.
They should have gone the Snowblind route (which was originally meant to be another DeusEx game) though and made it a whole other franchise.

Second, blaming Spector and Smith is easy, lazy and stupid, everyone who follows this kind of stuff is well aware at this point that Eidos took over and ran the show at Ion Storm for DX:IW and ordered it dumbed down and consolified for maximum profit, which is why Spector and both Smiths quit (as in left the company that Spector co-founded) the instant they were legally allowed to, i.e, when their contracts with Eidos were fulfilled, when IS had delivered the games).

Spector knows good games.
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In your opinion I am wrong, in mine you are making excuses for possible the worst sequel ever, Deus Ex invisible war just plain sucked, there is no saving merit to it. Blaming Spector is easy, lazy, and stupid ... please, frankly you are making up a story about how Eidos took over and was really the culprit for the poor game. When you are in charge of a game, you are responsible if it is a flop, if he doesn't have the balls to speak up about the business practices of Eidos, or how he doesn't like the direction the game is taking, .... it is still his fault.
 
Draax said:
In your opinion I am wrong, in mine you are making excuses for possible the worst sequel ever, Deus Ex invisible war just plain sucked, there is no saving merit to it. Blaming Spector is easy, lazy, and stupid ... please, frankly you are making up a story about how Eidos took over and was really the culprit for the poor game. When you are in charge of a game, you are responsible if it is a flop, if he doesn't have the balls to speak up about the business practices of Eidos, or how he doesn't like the direction the game is taking, .... it is still his fault.
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Dues Ex 2 wasn't a bad game. It just wasnt dx1.
 
Draax said:
In your opinion I am wrong, in mine you are making excuses for possible the worst sequel ever,
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Agree to disagree, both of our opinions have strong support.

you are making up a story ...
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No I ain't.

if he doesn't have the balls to speak up about the business practices of Eidos...
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Or maybe he just wants to be able to have a job, that's kind of hard if you have a reputation for publicly bad mouthing your employers.
 
Warren Specter is a moron. He completely lost me when I made 180 changes to Thief: Deadly Shadows in which the thief community was completely against. They got thousands of people to petition for things to stay the same, and yet good old Warren's response was "I know better than the fans do".

What an idiot. And he wonders why T: DS failed commercially, and only got a half-assed cheer from original fans.
 
Warren Specter is a moron. He completely lost me when I made 180 changes to Thief: Deadly Shadows in which the thief community was completely against. They got thousands of people to petition for things to stay the same, and yet good old Warren's response was "I know better than the fans do".
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Heaven forbit a developer should try something different rather than just doing what the fans want. If a musician records the same stuff again every 2 years people get mad and stop buying their stuff, but if a developer changes anything they get called a moron...
 
Good for him for trying different things. This reminds me of the American 2004 election. Bush was "steadfast" when he didn't change his mind about things he did wrong. People loved that. However, Kerry was a "flip-flopper" because he changed his mind about the lovely Iraq war. People hated him for it. I sat back and laughed because in reality, there is nothing wrong with changing your mind.

This isn't meant to bring politics into the thread, by any means. I just mean that if people aren't allowed to fuck with the formula a little bit, we'll all end up with *take a deep breath* Halo 2, GTA SA, Quake 4, Madden 2006, Mario Party 7 etc etc etc. Sequel after sequel after unoriginal sequel. The same God damned path as hollywood! Call Warren an idiot for making "bad" sequels, but the man is dead on about the industry. DEAD on.
 
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