Death Comes to the Games Industry

[Robert Rath]

Death Comes to the Games Industry

It?s both sad and inevitable, a reminder that as our industry grows more mature it will have to start dealing with its luminaries growing older and eventually leaving, and that creates challenges our medium has never had to face before.

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[shiajun]

I'd add The Walking Dead to the list of games exploring parenthood, even in desperate times. The Lee-Clementine arc is so gripping specially because of its conclusion:

Spoiler

Lee having to prepare Clementine for his inevitable demise. Giving her tools, encouragement and skills to fend for herself in a harsh world without his protection, but doing it lovingly

It things develop they way the article states, I'm looking forward for the future. It's not just the developers that grow older, the audience too is getting on in years. As we grow older we want our interests to reflect our questions and thoughts. It's more or less the reason that mindless shooting is still a diversion for me but no longer holds my interest for long, while more mature (as in, serene, deep or thought provoking) games are more my taste now and leave more of a mark. It'll be great when the age span of the audience is so wide that we get the same diversity of content as we get for books, theater, films, music or any work of art.

EDIT: I'd add that even the reviewers are changing too. Greg Tito accepted as much in explaining how his life experiences have influenced his appreciation of GTAV today compared to years ago with earlier installments in the series.

 

[Griffolion]

Betty Grable...

[a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=a_-w500AmUE#t=57"]I'm really sorry, but this had to be done. Skip to 57s. (Also, forgive the camera recorder quality).

In all seriousness, it's going to be weird when the original legends of the industry begin to die. You kind of imagine the industry to be a forever youthful place, I guess.

 

[Psychobabble]

Yep, looks like this young industry is on it's way to learning the hard life lesson that in real life you can't just pop in another quarter or hit the reset button.

 

[Tombsite]

Interesting perspective on the whole thing. Very nice read as always.

 

[Salieri82]

Yamauchi didn't die - he's just re-spawning.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

That was a pretty bizarre article - going from an obituary to a discussion of the ins-and-outs of insurance policy. Perhaps the Benjamin Franklin quote should be amended to "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death, taxes and insurance"?

 

[moosemaimer]

The first gaming industry obituary I remember reading was for Gunpei Yokoi, another Nintendo luminary responsible for the Game Boy, Metroid, and the D-pad among other things.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpei_Yokoi

 

[Guffe]

I think this was a very interesting read!
Thank you for that.

I got to agree that the way "the world" treats the gaming industry it does make one think of it as a "forever child".

 

[BrainWalker]

I was just thinking about this yesterday. Video games as we know them are basically younger than one man's lifetime. Kind of an interesting place to be as an entertainment industry.

 

[Falseprophet]

Is the AAA gaming industry really that personality-driven anymore? I know there are still some of these luminaries in the AAA games industry like Levine, Suda51, Cliffy B, David Cage, etc. But didn't all of them make their reputations in the PS2 era or earlier? Has there actually been a notable "face" in AAA gaming who made their name in this (7th) console generation? I can't think of any. I've been under the impression that AAA games are increasingly committee-driven affairs constantly looked over by the suits, and only devs like the above are able to actually bring a unified "vision" to a game anymore.

Obviously I'm not counting the indie scene, which is a very different beast altogether, and very driven by individual personalities and small teams.

 

[BlindTom]

I just realised that I will be really upset to see a lot of these people go, luckily I'll probably see visionary indie developers in te next ten years who will be set to outlive me.


It's still weird how Gary Gygax isn't with us any more.