kimrom: I feel interactive digital entertainment could be vastly superior to passive entertainment like movies and television. But it’s not. Not in its current state. And part of the reason why it is not, is because the industry doesn’t give their products polish. I am not sure if this is because they are incapable of doing so, or because the industry as a whole just doesn’t care.
For movies or television to be good, for the product to be believable, it has to create convincing characters, it has to have continuity and so on. It has to be well crafted.
But fact is that In the year 2011, decades after the industry was born, with vast technological ressources available, the gaming industry is still not making believable products.
I am playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution this weekend. And within minutes I see glaring problems and continuity mistakes that I just find utterly ridiculous. In this beautiful yellow universe, where a lot of effort has obviously gone into making it feel “authentic” and atmospheric, everything falls apart within minutes.
This lack of polish, this lack of design, is so bad and so glaringly obvious, that it’s almost an insult to me as player. I am an adult. Why does the industry refuse to treat me like one? Some NPCs will continuously smoke the same cigarette for all eternity. All eternity. Other NPCs will look at you and acknowledge your existence in the universe, which is a really nice little touch - until you jump on their head, at that point they stop noticing you. They don’t even react. The result is that as a player I feel like a lump of pixels, being herded thru a linear story line with no meaningful emotional impact.
Where are all the good game designers?
