2D Boy: Gaming Hasn't Seen a True "Masterpiece"

Tom Goldman

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Aug 17, 2009
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2D Boy: Gaming Hasn't Seen a True "Masterpiece"



The creator of World of Goo [http://www.amazon.com/World-Goo-Pc/dp/B001ENOVP2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1289355202&sr=8-1] doesn't think we've seen a gaming masterpiece yet, but he has a plan so we can someday.

2D Boy co-founder Ron Carmel spoke at the Montreal International Games Summit this week where he formulated an idea for the videogame industry to create truly amazing titles. In his opinion, a gaming "masterpiece" hasn't yet been developed, but it's possible if the bigger fish in the industry set aside a percentage of their budgets for videogame "concept cars."

It's actually a very clever idea. Carmel proposes the creation of medium-sized studios whose funding is allocated partially for the purpose of "risk-taking." He believes that "creating this within a major developer doesn't present a problem," and could be made up of around 10 developers with a budget in the area of $2 million.

Carmel compared this kind of studio to the small groups within car manufacturers that create concept cars as "a marketing expense" that builds the company image. "There's no reason the larger game companies can't do that," he thinks. These groups would operate in a similar way to that of independent developers, which usually create a product going by vision rather than the desire for wads of cash to inflate their pockets. If a game in this situation didn't earn money, it wouldn't lead to the termination of creative people that did a good job regardless.

Carmel wants these gaming concept cars to be developed so that the industry can advance from its current position. The best big budget titles and smaller indie titles have been "great works" in Carmel's opinion, but he doesn't think we've "seen a masterpiece of video games" yet. Using television show The Wire [http://www.amazon.com/Wire-Complete-Dominic-West/dp/B001FA1P1W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1289356337&sr=8-1] as an example of what media can do at its best, Carmel compared it to videogames and said they've never been as "expressive as the great works of film, television, literature."

Though Sony studios like Team Ico have developed titles such as brings in $745 million [http://www.amazon.com/ICO-Shadow-Colossus-Playstation-3/dp/B002I0J5FG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1289357297&sr=8-2] per year, why not set a little of that aside to see what can be done?

Source: Gamasutra [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/31432/_MIGS_2010_World_Of_Goo_Dev_Tells_Publishers_To_Create_Indie_Team_Within.php]

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teknoarcanist

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It's fantastic to hear someone cite The Wire as a pinnacle of fiction. That show deserves some goddamn recognition -- and he's absolutely right that gaming has come nowhere near that level of sophistication. SotC is fantastic, and probably my favorite game of all time, but if The Wire is The Mona Lisa, SotC is a dimly-scribbled cave drawing in the rough shape of a hand.
 

teknoarcanist

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Many people consider The Wire to be the best program ever to air on American television. Watch it and you'll understand why. It makes shows like Lost and Battlestar Galactica look like Scooby Doo.
 

MetroidNut

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I dunno. Personally, I think Half-Life 2 might qualify as the Mona Lisa of gaming - and continuing with my love for Valve, Portal might just be a Picasso of gaming; strange, unique, and a masterpiece.

More on-topic, though, I like the idea (even if it does seem a little unrealistic). Original, risky ideas seem to be good for the industry as a whole.
 
Apr 28, 2008
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Activision is in the perfect place to try new and interesting things. They have the juggernaught that is WoW bringing in about $170,000,000 USD a month and the millions from the COD franchise.

And what do they do with this money? Use it to push out sequel after sequel and other crappy, one-note games. Usually movie tie-ins.

It would be great if they did this. But I doubt they would. Which is a shame, because it may get people to stop seeing games as kids toys. Not a lot, but any amount is good.
 

Yog Sothoth

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teknoarcanist said:
What isn't great about The Wire? It's a perfect encapsulation of crime, poverty, politics, and the crumbling infrastructure of the modern American City. It's also probably the best use of episodic format I've ever seen. (Makes Lost look like Scooby Doo. Hell, even something like Mad Men feels a little cardboard-y by comparison...)
Really? I've heard next to nothing about it till this news story... Maybe I'll check it out then.
 

Yog Sothoth

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teknoarcanist said:
Many people consider The Wire to be the best program ever to air on American television. Watch it and you'll understand why.
I liked your first response better, lol...
 

Benmonkey7

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I think we need gaming to be accepted as an entertainment medium before we can get a masterpiece. But that is a great idea, if only we could actually get it. More Shadow of the Colossus and Minecraft experiments, less Call of Duty remakes and clones.
 

Lullabye

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They need to do a game that crosses Ookami with SotC successfully, and then we will have our masterpiece.
 

righthanded

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I agree that World of Goo might be or is at least very close to being a masterpiece. I don't cite Valve games because, while great games, they don't really advance the humanity of the art. What does HL2 say? What does Portal say about being a person? Nothing that other media have not ignored.

I personally feel like Minecraft is headed in the right direction... a set of rules defines what makes a game. Nearly everyone has the same first Night in Minecraft... evoking fear and excitement and curiosity... the rules of the game, not scripted sequences or narrative, evoke these emotions--that is the true use of gaming--where the ruleset and logic of the design evoke real emotion, not scripted sequences or narratives.
 

Sixcess

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Tom Goldman said:
Carmel compared it to videogames and said they've never been as "expressive as the great works of film, television, literature."
Games will never be taken seriously as Art until gamers, critics and the industry alike drop this line of reasoning.

Portal is Art, SotC is Art, and I could list others. To dismiss them as somehow not worthy because they don't deliver the same kind of experience as a non-interactive medium is idiotic and speaks volumes about the inferiority complex the industry suffers from.

Start judging games as games first and last. Otherwise it's like dismissing a novel because the reader doesn't have any control over the direction of the story.
 

LoopyDood

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The_root_of_all_evil said:
Nice idea. Financially, it's unsound though.

People with money got that way by not taking risks.
To tell you the truth, it's the other way around. People with money are either born with it, or took a risk and had it pay off. Risk and reward.

People with money stay that way by not taking risks.
 

Blue Musician

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ProfessorLayton said:
I think we have seen a "masterpiece." It's called World of Goo.
LOL, actually [sub]some[/sub] PC gamers have seen more than one. There are two games: Pathologic and The Void, both games by the Russian indie studio Ice Pick Lodge. Truly great games, though the most hard and stressful ones as well, you know, just like everything is.