Orson Scott Card on why games are boring...

Prime Junta

RPGCodex' Little BRO
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Came across a little article on Wired today. http://wired.com/news/technology/0,72093-0.html?tw=wn_technology_11

It's basically Orson Scott Card pimping his newest book/film/computer game, but IMO he makes a few good points about why games nowadays tend to be kinda boring. Nothing dramatically new, but I found myself nodding in agreement a couple of times when reading it.

Worth a read anyway, IMO. The author of Ender's Game can't be all bad. :)
 
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Very good article / interview. I'll forward this, because I already know a few discussions on exactly that matter.

The thing is, that gamers are in generally agreeing on the failure of the publishers; yet nothing is being done, because the publishers have all of the power in their hands and meanwhiole don't know how to make it right.

It's as if a millionaire tries to build and sell statuesby saying to sculptors : "We need a statue that's appealing to anyone, is being made with the least cost, and sells most".

What would a sculptor think about this ?

I think the power they have is corrupting the publishers, draining them von creativenes, innovation, like a vampire. It's kind of freaky to me.
 
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I've been semi-seriously thinking of starting an independent games studio, once free of my current obligations (with which I'm stuck at least two, probably four more years). I'm pretty sure there's a market out there for games that emphasize story, content, and originality over simply pushing the envelope technically.

I currently work in software development, and we do a lot with OSS platforms using agile development practices; I'd like to try applying the same kinds of methods to game development. Basically, write a game engine on top of OGRE as another open-source project and try to get people from the OGRE community involved, get together a bunch of creative wingnuts to do stuff like dialogue, art, music, and cutscenes, and deliver the stuff as small modules over BitTorrent using a subscription payment model. I see no reason why it shouldn't work.
 
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Clownkeep had a similar idea, but it fell apart!!
 
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Not sure, they just cancelled their game and broke up!!
 
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How serious were they about it? For example, were the people working on the game actually being paid?
 
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Not sure about that, probably not. Dhruin might know more!!
 
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Funny such a critique coming from him. Enders Game was fantastic but most of his other books are intolerably boring.
 
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