After reading Opinion: Is The Industry Ready For Its 'Game Noir'? on Gamasutra. I felt like the author was pointing out the obvious a little bit. In the past before WoW as I watched MMOs come out, play them for a short bit, then get dragged back to Asheron's Call, I started thinking about why I still played AC years after it had come out. The answer was simply that I liked the game play more than I cared about fancy graphics or sounds. I distinctly remember telling my friends that game developers should just make a cartoony game that looks good but uses significantly less computing power than a comparable generation game.
Blizzard seems to be thinking with this mentality with World of Warcraft. The game did cost many millions of dollars to produce but the graphics were not anywhere close to state of the art when the game was released. I love the cartoony art style they used but it was a change from previous MMOs where each new MMO tries to one up the one before graphically. WoW instead of playing that game went for using just good graphics rather than spectacular and focused on the game play. I think this is the key to making a successful noir game. They need to make sure the graphics are good (meaning not state of the art but still fun to look at) then focus the rest of their attention on game play. This is comparable to what they did with movies where they cut the huge explosions, sets, etc and focused on individual characters doing more mundane and simpler things.
I still believe that the game industry should continue on as it has despite the argument for following a 'Game Noir' strategy. The game industry is still overall successful and profitable. It is a real competition for the movie industry and is growing each year. I think this opinion piece was a plea for the little guy who can't get funding. Yes, many potential great games are probably not being made due to lack of funding and game design is stagnating and progressing slow than it should because developers are scared to try new things but how can we change that?
I think the only answer is to continue on and eventually the industry will become large enough to let the little guy in. The Playstation 2 is the best selling video game console to date and because of this anyone could design almost any game they wanted. The market was so large that niche games could be created and still be successful. Right now most game developers are focused on this race to have the best graphics and coolest effects but at some point they are going to realize that making the next Halo or Mass Effect is not necessary to stay profitable. Enough people will have consoles or PCs that game developers can make the games they want to make. However, I do believe that the most profitable video game titles will always be the ones that had the best funding and best equipment because they will always have the best graphics and effects. People seem to like things that are pretty and shiny and so they will buy the prettiest and shiniest video game.
For those who don't know what film noir is click here.
Blizzard seems to be thinking with this mentality with World of Warcraft. The game did cost many millions of dollars to produce but the graphics were not anywhere close to state of the art when the game was released. I love the cartoony art style they used but it was a change from previous MMOs where each new MMO tries to one up the one before graphically. WoW instead of playing that game went for using just good graphics rather than spectacular and focused on the game play. I think this is the key to making a successful noir game. They need to make sure the graphics are good (meaning not state of the art but still fun to look at) then focus the rest of their attention on game play. This is comparable to what they did with movies where they cut the huge explosions, sets, etc and focused on individual characters doing more mundane and simpler things.
I still believe that the game industry should continue on as it has despite the argument for following a 'Game Noir' strategy. The game industry is still overall successful and profitable. It is a real competition for the movie industry and is growing each year. I think this opinion piece was a plea for the little guy who can't get funding. Yes, many potential great games are probably not being made due to lack of funding and game design is stagnating and progressing slow than it should because developers are scared to try new things but how can we change that?
I think the only answer is to continue on and eventually the industry will become large enough to let the little guy in. The Playstation 2 is the best selling video game console to date and because of this anyone could design almost any game they wanted. The market was so large that niche games could be created and still be successful. Right now most game developers are focused on this race to have the best graphics and coolest effects but at some point they are going to realize that making the next Halo or Mass Effect is not necessary to stay profitable. Enough people will have consoles or PCs that game developers can make the games they want to make. However, I do believe that the most profitable video game titles will always be the ones that had the best funding and best equipment because they will always have the best graphics and effects. People seem to like things that are pretty and shiny and so they will buy the prettiest and shiniest video game.
For those who don't know what film noir is click here.
Cyaz
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