I think the biggest problem with the industry today is that many developers are looking at the wrong areas for inspiration. Rather than focusing on making a game that is fun, they focus on making games that will sell good, either because they hype it up so much, or they are "cheap" sequels.

If more developers simply focused on making games that were fun, I think we would see a lot more top selling games. That is why certain developers, like Will Wright, have had a hand in a lot of top selling games. They focus on making fun games, and believe it or not, fun games sell well.

Corry Trout
ctrout@telusplanet.net

My thoughts are if you take no intrest or have no vision of a game your working on, your taking the beauty away from the game. Games are works of art, if Leonardo painted somthing he didnt want to, his work would look like crap. Just how a game that no one wants to make will turn out like crap. People who try and take game developing to a more professional level take the beauty and art out of games. They should be developing applications and not games.

First of all I''ll start off saying that anything that "Leonardo" created would be very far from "crap". However, that is not what I want to talk about. It seems to me that the question here is why you are creating games in the first place. Is it to :
A: Make lots of money?
B: To be able to play the game that no one else has made yet?
or, is it the more overlooked,
C: To entertain an audience?
It seems to me that if your answer _solely_ A or B then you should probably reconsider going into the gaming profession. Because, ultamately, the purpose of creating games is to entertain an audiance and in order to do that you need to consider that audience. When doing this you may have/want to put in things that you may not particularly think are the coolest but, if the audience enjoys it you enjoy it.
Jonathan

quote: Original post by Kyle Radue

I''m not saying it''s right, but the gaming industry is a business and one of the largest aims of a business (the largest to most) is to make money. A lot of people have a hard time coming to terms with this.

It is right. The game industry is an *industry*, not a social club. A game company is in business to make money. Hobbyists can afford to be narcissistic, but those of us who actually make a living at this have bills to pay. That means reaching out to our audience and not calling them stupid just because they like something we don''t.

Professionalism doesn''t mean abandoning your own tastes. Professionalism means being able to faithfully and passionately serve the tastes of others.

Jason

I don''t know where you get off calling games Art.

Leonardo was a professional. He was PAID to paint, he was PAID to sculpt and he was PAID to invent. He wasn''t interested in what art historians would say 500+ years later, he was interested in lining his pockets.

Make no mistake, he did one HELL of a job, when he was told to paint this or that, but he was a professional. It didn''t make a difference if he wanted to paint this or that, at least not after he took the job. I''m sure there were some jobs he declined, but probably not many.

Games get called Art the same way everything else does. By proclaimation of critics, historians and scholars. Which hasn''t happened yet.

Until that day, games are products. Those professionals involved in the creation of these products should be held to the same standards as professionals in any other industry.

If you only want to do your own thing, go look up Chris Crawford. He''s your guru and I have absolutely NO idea what he''s doing now.

$0.02

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster

...games are products. Those professionals involved in the creation of these products should be held to the same standards as professionals in any other industry.

If you choose to be ''professional'' and work for someone else, you have a duty to your company to provide the work they ask you to, and in return their side of the bargain states that they give you a nice amount of money every so often for the services you render. I don''t see why there''s any room for argument or discussion here.

But if you want to do your own thing, then you have to lead. Chris Crawford might not be doing so well, but the Sid Meiers, Peter Molyneuxs, and John Carmacks of this world are doing pretty well. Nearly anything done well can pay well enough to keep you housed and fed. The richer you want to be, the more you will have to bow to commercial concerns. It''s a compromise thing. I think it is easier to make games that you would enjoy yourself, as (a) you can guarantee that there is a certain demographic that enjoys it (although not the size of said demographic), (b) you are already familiar with the mindset of that demographic and can more easily identify what the important concepts are, allowing you to embellish and build upon them.

I shudder to think what the games industry would be like if it got any more ''professional'' in the meaning of the word put forward above. If ''professional'' means ''designing for the market'', and if that means ''letting the marketing dept. decide the game concepts'', which will probably mean ''code a clone of the last game that sold well, but add 2 new features'', then the industry will go downhill in terms of quality and variety.

If you do what is yours and dont what is not - while keeping all around you well informed and updated about it in a smoth and peacefull manner - and people socially respect you.

Then you are most likely considered a professional....

just my 5 cents

Isn''t Chris Crawford actually working for IBM? I might be mistaken, but I thought I saw that mentioned on the Erazzmatazz site.


People might not remember what you said, or what you did, but they will always remember how you made them feel.
Mad Keith the V.

quote:
Games get called Art the same way everything else does. By proclaimation of critics, historians and scholars. Which hasn''t happened yet.

Until that day, games are products. Those professionals involved in the creation of these products should be held to the same standards as professionals in any other industry.

As hard as it may be for you to beleive, there are designers in there who aren''t just in it for the money. They design games to express themselves, just like any other artist.

Maybe I''m on my own here. Maybe I just have an impossible dream. But, I would love to see game design change. Designers, programmers, graphic artists, sound artists, writers, and maybe even others should work damn hard day in, day out to make the best game they possibly can. Who cares if it makes a penny? What does money really matter in the end. Our society is much to obsessed with material things these days. They forget that there is so much more.

Game design should not be about marketing, or consumerism, or any of that. It should be about producing a work of art. So, the next time you think about calling us non-artists you might want to consider the fact that there are some of us working damn hard to improve this "industry" and we don''t appreciate people like you.

Uh oh. Maybe I should''ve used the tags

"When i was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse, out of
the corner of my mind. I turned to look, but it was
gone, I cannot put my finger on it now. The child has
grown, the dream has gone." -Pink Floyd

quote: Original post by Gregor_Samsa

What does money really matter in the end. Our society is much to obsessed with material things these days. They forget that there is so much more.

Uh, excuse me, but money is pretty darned important. It buys you time (which is freedom), comfort, education, and health, among other things. Given all of the above, you can pursue what you really want to create. If you can make money off of it, then you can come back for round two. If not, you may not get a chance for round two.