CrazySpence
Rear Admiral
I don't really care for games of today. Too much FPS.
Another Internet Cynical Essay About FMV Games
- Thread starter LeHah
- Start date
t.c.cgi
Vice Admiral
Everything sucks! The only things that don't suck are vacuums.
frostytheplebe
Seventh Part of the Seal
CataclysmX
Rear Admiral
Pretty nostalgic article, even if it does come off as pessimistic.
I enjoyed it, I think the first FMV game I played was Maddog McCree this weird shooter game that had FMV sequences for gun duels in a wild west type of background, for the SegaCD.
I enjoyed it, I think the first FMV game I played was Maddog McCree this weird shooter game that had FMV sequences for gun duels in a wild west type of background, for the SegaCD.
Prometheus
Spaceman
Let me link this article here, it's related to the topic, but approaches it from a more fundamental level.
It gets especially interesting when he starts to talk about "Data intensity".
A little appetizer:
It gets especially interesting when he starts to talk about "Data intensity".
A little appetizer:
Iceblade
Admiral
And amazingly enough, it is still true today. Gaming is very process orientated, but instead of DVD/CD drive speeds, it is CPU/GPU processing power that affect gaming experience.
Course there is no reason why this gaming would not be process orientated as it is fundamental aspect of gaming that "you can't interact with data."
Thanks Prometheus, that was a very interesting read.
Course there is no reason why this gaming would not be process orientated as it is fundamental aspect of gaming that "you can't interact with data."
Thanks Prometheus, that was a very interesting read.
Prometheus
Spaceman
What he is saying that games are not process oriented enough. They are too data intensive, instead of process intensive. The latter permits interactivity, the former constrains it.
If you click on the link within the article, or look around in that archive, you'll find more on process intensity.
Yes, todays games are still not a lot better. You can see it just by looking at the gigabytes some games take just to install them.
If you click on the link within the article, or look around in that archive, you'll find more on process intensity.
Yes, todays games are still not a lot better. You can see it just by looking at the gigabytes some games take just to install them.
Quarto
Unknown Enemy
Ah, yes - Chris Crawford. When I first read some of his work, it was amazing - "wow, there's a guy out there talking about actual theory behind game design, and he's a famous game designer!".
...In time, reading more of his essays and comments and interviews, I realised that a) he's stuck somewhere in 1980, and b) he's got a very, very bitter grudge against the game industry. At the end of the 1980s, games changed from something one guy could develop to team-based. Many of the most famous game designers at this time had trouble adjusting to the new reality. Some of them were left by the wayside, unable to really achieve anything more in the industry, and coming to the conclusion that it just wasn't for them any more. They went on to achieve great things in other lines of work, and some - like Jordan Mechner - even stayed semi-involved in the games industry. Others became very bitter, and seemed to blame the industry itself for their lack of success. Chris Crawford is one of them - in one interview, he actually complains about the first Wing Commander game as being horrible, industry-destroying and all that, because it cost a lot of money and now everyone else will have to spend as much money.
From that point onwards, Chris Crawford's theories have become pretty worthless, and this essay confirms it. On the one hand, you've got an offhand reference to his very sharp predictions in the early 1980s about laserdiscs - boy, he really knew his stuff back then. But on the other hand, this whole article about CD-ROMs shows how he doesn't understand anything any more about the industry or the technology underlying it. About the only positive aspect of the article is the fact that he's not ashamed to post it, even decades after reality proved the whole text to be a complete and utter load of nonsense.
About that data-oriented versus process-oriented thing in particular - note that it's possibly the dumbest criticism you can level against the CD-ROM: "well, the trouble with pots is that they are designed to hold things". Duh. Of course CD-ROMs are data-oriented, they are, after all, a medium designed to hold data. And of course, data in itself does not make a game. But it also doesn't take much imagination to realise that being able to hold masses of data is a huge advantage, in particular because it frees you up to use processing power for other things. For example, if you can stream music off the CD-ROM, you've got more processing power left to render graphics. Similarly, streaming cutscenes off the CD-ROM freed the programmers to focus on the game, instead of developing ever-more-complicated ways of presenting cutscenes. Back in the early 1990s, this was great, great stuff - back then, we didn't have 3d hardware acceleration, so the more you could take off the processor, the better you could make the game. Similarly, we didn't have the possibility of presenting cutscenes in the game engine - imagine Wing Commander limited to (speechless!) in-flight comms and you get the picture. A few years later, processing power exploded in an amazing way - but that was a few years later.
FMV games are a great subject to talk about - they're one of the most maligned types of games in the industry. One of these days, I'll write a bit more about this (...when I have the time). For now, let me just point out something that should be obvious to everyone, but sadly is not - for their time FMV games were amazing, and gave a huge, enormous boost to the industry. Especially in terms of impact on the public, any one lame FMV game achieved more to boost game recognition than a thousand Dooms ever would. Today, people laugh about FMV games as the Concordes of the games industry - advanced, but hyper-expensive and utterly unnecessary aircraft that ultimately failed to replace ordinary jets and, in retrospect, can be seen as pure folly. But this is entirely the wrong comparison. Instead, we should look on them as WWII-era trans-Atlantic passenger ships - doomed to ultimately be replaced by passenger aircraft, but at the time, so bloody useful that we can't even begin to assess their impact on the world.
In conclusion, Chris Crawford was wrong - not just in his predictions, but also in the theory underlying those predictions. Data-intensive CD-ROMs do a hell of a lot to boost process-intensive games. It's just that Crawford, constantly regretting that it is no longer possible for one man to make a game, and therefore disliking anything that makes it possible for big teams to make even better games, refused to see it.
he's basically saying what we all know in a more complicated way, that CD-ROM-enabled FMV could be a gimmick that developers hung on skeletal games.
But yes, the data-capacity of the CD-ROM disc is not in of itself some kind of problem. The popularization of CD-ROMs made the data-intensive 3d revolution possible. FMV mutated into the extensive voice-over we get in contemporary games. And hardware developers have been searching for ways to put more data on a disc ever since, with DVD and Blu-Ray and on and on ...
Quarto
Unknown Enemy
No, we gotta give him more credit than that. Anyone can say that - and it doesn't take a two-page essay to say that. You gotta look deeper into his essay and look at the theory (...and that's when you'll realise his point of view is worthless, proven utterly wrong by time).
As for the CD-ROM being potentially a gimmick, I don't see any point of even stating it - that's why I don't think he's just trying to say that, either. Yes, the CD-ROM has been used as a gimmick. So has absolutely everything else, though. There are below-average games out there built around the amazing appeal of VGA graphics. There are below-average games out there built around the amazing appeal of Sound Blaster. There are below-average games out there built around the amazing appeal of 3D hardware acceleration. There are below-average games out there built around the amazing appeal of joysticks. There are below-average games out there built around the amazing appeal of the Wiimote. There are below-average games being developed out there right now built around the amazing appeal of Project Natal. You name it, it's a gimmick. 80% of the industry makes gimmicks. To point out that the CD-ROM could be used as a gimmick to sell-below average games is to state something so bloody obvious that anyone who seriously makes this argument basically proves that he's got nothing at all to say on the subject.
Prometheus
Spaceman
He was right in his predictions. Haven't you noticed the "(Yet)"?
It wasn't before pure "FMV games" died out, that CD-ROM games became viable. Yes I've read the thing with him disliking Wing Commander. But disagreeing with him on one thing (or even multiple things, there's several things I disagree with him), doesn't make me unable to appreciate most of his writings.
You say he's "stuck in the 1980s"... well, actually I think he has a point when he says games, as a whole, haven't come very far. The technical side got much better, we have better graphics, there is more money and more people involved... But really, as a whole it hasn't come very far.
Well - it's a bit like saying that novels hasn't come very far since Dumas and Dostoyevski(is it right english transliteration??). Or, that action movies hasn't come very far since dr No. Of course we have better visuals, nicer explosions, byt they haven't come very far at all. There may b true, but it is a pointless remark. Games are not made to go very far. They are made to be entertaining. Also, where you can really go with, say a racing game. You can add graphics, sound etc, but in the core it wouldn't be that different from say first Test Drive...
t.c.cgi
Vice Admiral
I was just thinking the other day how the Bad Company 2 single player was JUST LIKE Wolfenstein 3D in every way, from narrative to gameplay.
Or how the Resident Evil 5 coop experience was totally not at all even one step above Duke Nukem 3D coop.
Nope. Gaming hasn't gone anywhere.
Prometheus
Spaceman
Yes, that's something like the reason why he quit the industry... His visions were about taking games to a much higher "level", realizing much more of their untapped potential. Comparing with those other types of media you listed, games have much more untapped potential, just because they're interactive. But well, when the public doesn't want that, tough luck.
I'm assuming you're being sarcastic.
Yes, these are definitely improvements. But it really are babysteps compared to the untapped potential of games.
t.c.cgi
Vice Admiral
The same could be said for landing on the moon. Frankly it's a really bizarre way to downplay progress to make someone else not sound like an idiot. He called it and he was wrong. The proper way to handle that is to say 'he's only human' rather than propping him up as some gaming Nostradamus.
Quarto
Unknown Enemy
What a bizarre distinction to make - that's like saying reptiles weren't viable before the dinosaurs died out. It begs the question, what in blazes, then, were the dinosaurs?He was right in his predictions. Haven't you noticed the "(Yet)"?
Besides that, it was thanks to FMV games, that games as a medium became viable. In the early 1990s, it was the CD-ROM that drove PC sales like crazy - and it was FMV games that did the most to push this. People would walk into a store and see a trailer for Wing Commander III. There were news stories about these new-fangled games with actors and cinematics, and that really, really sold a lot of people. FMV games are what really gave games an audience - not because they were great, but because they caught the imagination, and that's exactly what was needed at that point.
Finally, note that Chris Crawford wasn't making the distinction between FMV games and CD-ROM games, because FMV games didn't exist back then. You're trying to say he predicted the downfall of the dinosaurs - but he wrote this piece before the first fish crawled out of the water.
I don't think Mancubus' analogy of Dumas and Dostoyevsky was right. Let's try another one: that's like saying movies haven't developed very far because they're not interactive. Or better yet, like saying theatre hasn't developed very far because the actors still refuse to talk to the audience. The latter is an especially great example, because, as near as I can figure out, that's the kind of interactivity Crawford was looking for. And here's the thing - it has, as a matter of fact, been tried in theatre, and found to be utterly, completely worthless. Artsy experimental theatres where the public participates in the show, the actors talk to them, yadayadayada, they're a dime a dozen. All over Europe, stupid governments prop up this junk with millions from the taxpayers' pockets, all in the name of taking art "to a new level". And you know what the taxpayers do at the end of the day, having been forced to pay for all these experiments? They go and see Shakespeare.
He didn't quit the industry, though - the industry quit him. He had his ideas about where games should go, but they weren't compatible with the technological and business-related changes in the industry. He then decided that it's the industry that's wrong, and he's right - and basically, hasn't written or said anything noteworthy about games development since then.
And here's the thing - the great, big problem Chris Crawford had with the industry wasn't that it wasn't innovative enough. Nor was the problem that the industry didn't want to do new things. I mean, look at the one game he complains especially loudly about. It's not Wolfenstein, it's not Commander Keen or any other repetitive (but fun!) platformer. It's Wing Commander - the game that made everyone go, "whoa, you can have a story in an action game? Whoa, a dynamic story, with interesting characters? Whoa, you can make people care about the characters? Whoa!".
I think, all things considered, the worst part about Chris Crawford is that he's managed to create this legend about himself - that he's this great, spurned genius, who wanted to create these wonderful, magic games, but the dumb, ignorant public, deceived by cunning-but-stupid marketing buffs spurned him, so he walked off into the sunset, his potential unfulfilled but his honour intact. It's impossible to argue with that, but it's also such utter tripe, that it's pointless to argue with it. Hey, I could be the best president Poland would ever have, but the dumb public didn't vote for me, and in fact I, uh, neglected to stand as a candidate. But oh, the potential...
Suuuuuure...
Jason_Ryock
Vice Admiral
I remember when we bought our first computer with at CD-Rom drive, it came bundled with a bunch of cheap little action games on disc - that ALL had FMV embedded in them somehow, from the educational (Some undersea exploration/education game) to the action based (Some gunslinger/wild west shooter that was ALL live action) to the sci fi (Iron Helix ~~~!).
Also I just wanted to point out that the 2010 Presidential Elections take place on July 4th.
QUARTO FOR PRESIDENT!
frostytheplebe
Seventh Part of the Seal
Yeah I used to hate that, my family skipped from 3.1 straight to Win98 with no stops in between. Pathetic I know... I remember the first CD game we got was a game that came with the "Rage" drivers.
It was an aweful 3-D game where you had to repell enemy invaders on Earth. I then started buying up every CD game I could find.