Making the game we want to play
Andrew Stanton of Pixar on their approach to the creative process:
The day we start thinking about what the audience wants, we’re going to make bad choices. We’ve always holed ourselves up in a building for 4 years and ignored the rest of the world, because nobody are bigger movie geeks than we are, so we know exactly what we are dying to see with our family and kids. We don’t need other people to tell us that. We trust the audience member in ourselves.
Which is a philosophy I definitely subscribe to. You can worry yourself green about what players will and won’t like, you can do focus testing on concepts and characters, you can survey the market and conduct polls, you can identify and follow every new trend, but in the end the only opinion you can truly trust is your own and the opinions of those around you – the people who will spend three, four, five years of their lives working on a project. We’re all gamers, we all want to make – and play – the best game possible, and that’s what directs our decisions every single day.
That doesn’t mean we don’t listen to the players and the community, but at the end of the day we need to go with what feels right to us and not second guess our own choices.
(Via /Film)
Well, I agree that a game should be the developers vision. Just with any artistic medium like movies, novels or music the main driving force behind it should be the artist. If you have a good idea and execute it well people will like it… most of the time. Or sometimes something the artist thinks is great, people in general, just won’t like. It happens to all of us sometimes. Art is after all just a matter of taste. And because it’s a matter of taste we always need to keep the people in mind who will be consuming the art.
As a chef, one of the #1 rules I have is to always keep the customer in mind when making dishes. It’s easy to start thinking that we, as artists, know better than the plebs. It may be our vision, but unless we are making art for arts sake, we still need someone to consume it. And with luck, enjoy it. I assume game design would be similar.
On that note (keeping the consumer in mind) the thing that I really want is a game with vision, something that has a feel and atmosphere very different from what is currently available. I feel like I am far more likely to get this from a tight group of player/developers working with a defined shared vision than with a game that is made by committee which will always end up looking like what is already available in the market (problem with Hollywood). Thus not listening to me too much, is the best way to give me the product I want…maybe.
The Ring and MMO in the same sentence got me very interested in TSW. I think making that game truly frightening would be a task that would require true vision. A scary MMO? Good luck with that one, it would be awesome.
I keep saying it, but I really think TLJ graphic novels would be a great idea. Just think about it – no worries about gameplay, loading times, CDs, pirating issues… just the TLJverse, characters, story and dialogue in the purity of the Glorious Comic Form.
I’d be happy with a TLJ/TSW pamphlet right now.
I would totally buy a series of TLJ graphic novels.
Or even non-graphic novels!
While a comic would indeed be awesome, I thought there were serious issues with pirating via torrent sites.
A TLJ comic would be awesome. Perhaps I’ll make a TLJ fan comic sometime? ^^
@Guyra, *in Arnie voice* Go on, do eet! Do eet now!!!
GET TO DA CHOPPA!
I don’t really like the graphics novel idea all that much, I think the TLJ series would be much more apt to be told in regular novel-format.
I dunno, most of my favourite moments in TLJ or Dreamfall were visual ones. Looking through the glass at Eingana, seeing the White Dragon on the cliffside, that moment when the living room turns, watching Klacks playing hopscotch, the incredible Dark People’s Library… And the TLJverse has a great aesthetic too. I’d miss all that in a novel.
Ahhh, Klacks playing hopscotch… among the finer moments of gaming.
I agree that TLJ and Dreamfall had great aesthetics, but you wouldn’t necessarily lose it in a novel. In good novels you’ll experience nearly as vivid pictures in your mind, and they can be even more powerful. Though a novel probably would lose much of the comical aspects of the game… Then again, I’m not sure they’d fit in a graphics novel either.
It’d be a shame to make those wonderfully talented concept artists unemployed.
I hear Norway has like six months of daylight — with all the extra hours in the day, Ragnar has heaps of time to create TLJ games and comics and novels. :p
An insomniac like me could do a lot with those extra daylight hours.
Oh come on, listen to yourselves people! Asking Ragnar to do TLJ novel/comic/whatever as an alternative to a TLJ game is akin to asking Leonardo da Vinci to paint his next Mona Lisa as a (graphic) novel.
WTF?
TLJ is what it is because it is a game. I do not dispute that the concept has been developed enough so that we can talk about TLJ universe, which can be depicted in other games as well as other mediums (including novels). But it will always be in its best in a form of a game.
And I for one would never consider TLJ saga complete until I get to play a game that contains that completion. Period.
That last one was for you, Ragnar.
Otherwise I will go and create a gome just as damn good and won’t give a closure until you do. Then my fans, along with your fans, will put a psychic pressure on you so great that even you won’t be able to withstand it
Seriously, Ragnar, do the game first. You can keep novels/comics/pamphlets/paintings/Broadway shows in a pipeline and release after that