Irridium said:
Will you be switching out contributors as time goes on? Maybe get some discussion with the dudes from LRR or perhaps Shamus Young?
Either way, this is very interesting, and I hope for more.
This is a good question. Have you emailed them at
[email protected] ?
Kapol said:
Very, very interesting... I'm looking forward to seeing more of this. It seems like a good idea to get three fairly separate viewpoints and have them all discuss a subject with one another. Though I feel this one ended a bit quickly, with the end feeling fairly sudden. But then again, I've been getting that feeling from a lot of things on this site lately... videos and writing alike. Perhaps I just don't like the fact it has to end.
The quick end, I think, came mostly from the elephant in the room - motion controls - being exhausted as a topic, with each party having their own opinions drawn in the sand; because it was more of a discussion than a debate up to that point, I think MovieBob and James Portnow were unwilling to argue with Yahtzee - Portnow is a professional in the industry and has to make sure he doesn't say anything that he'll regret later, and MovieBob may have too much respect for Yahtzee to regard him as an opponent. Yahtzee's comment on private sword-arm use probably didn't help the awkwardness of the situation.
I do wish that they'd elaborated more on innovation in the industry; after motion controls were brought up as an example, it felt like they neglected all of the other potential topics for discussion - indie games on XBLA, WiiWare games, etc. Few specific games that utilized new concepts were mentioned, which I feel is a shame; I think it may stem partly from being unable to know who had played which game, and from knowing that THE innovative success of the moment - Minecraft - was off the table as a topic, because it's a PC game.
Kapol said:
As for what Moviebob said about the movie industry reaching a stale point, I think that's beginning to happen again. New ideas aren't selling very well, while movies that make the person watching it feel like they've seen it before are doing great. While I could go with the 'The King's Speech beating The Social Network argument,' I feel that's a bit unfair as The Social Network was a big money maker. Instead, I think the case of Scott Pilgrim is more appropriate, where it's a movie with an unusual artistic direction, story, and overall feel to it, it lost to movies that the audience knew they would like. The same could be said about the movie industry now as the game industry: people aren't willing to risk their money on anything they aren't sure about, so the new ideas don't make enough money to be worthwhile to the company. If it isn't already there, it seems to be heading that way at least.
I think the affliction that you're talking about is that Hollywood is still making movies for theaters rather than Netflix - still aiming for people that buy into marketing rather than seeing past it. I think that, like music, the distribution of movies is in a transitional phase, and like music, the producers are years behind where the costumers are. In my opinion, the market seems to be gravitating towards a decentralized system where people find what they like rather than obeying instructions of what to like, and are willing to pay less, but buy more.
I think that all forms of media production are becoming less oligopolistic, where a few major studios dominate the entire market, and closer to a perfectly competitive market, which accepts any and all players - the barriers to entry are lower and lower with each passing year, and the communication between producers and customers edges slowly towards perfection. I think that independent producers innovating in order to produce low-budget, high-quality, low-price offerings that are very successful is an inevitability; it's just a matter of when.
Rolling Beast said:
I agree with Yahtzee when he says that motion controls aren't quite there yet, resulting in a less immersive experience. Also just give me a "run"-button and I'm ready to shoot/swordfight while being immersed and sitting on the couch. As long as I can do everything from there It'll enhance my gaming-experience in the right way. What my living-room lacks most - and I asume that goes for a lot of us - is space and in the end, that's what takes me out from a game-world the most.
If Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft have been paying attention at all, they have surely heard your complaint many times. I do think it's possible to achieve an immersive experience with motion controls, but in my own opinion, the motion itself must be the goal, not the result of the motion. Two of the Wii's most successful titles - Wii Sports and Wii Fit - are such because people liked the *method* of play, not the goal or context of play. People want to swing bats, and punch air, and do pushups, and keep their balance. But this is *not* the same desire as wanting to kill monsters.
The people who care about motion care about their own fitness and exertion, not about escapism. Once the industry realizes that, we'll see a lot of games that will encourage and reward you for getting off the couch.
Jabberwock xeno said:
TheBobmus said:
I approve of this.
Please make this weekly!
Seconded.
Also, not a single bashing of Halo, YAY!
I'd bay to see this stuff evry week, but I don't have money to pay you guys. I would if I did though.
Tell them that!
[email protected] . Forums are mainly for readers discussing articles with other readers; if you want people working at the escapist to listen to you, email is your best bet.
Mr. Omega said:
I agree with Bob's point about shaking the controller working like a third button (if done right, it does add a nice little touch), but also think Yahtzee is right in that making the player exert a lot kind of defeats the purpose. In other words, little shakes, but not full on waving, is the best way to handle motion controls.
Yahtzee hit on this before; small motions are a fun novelty, but mostly because they are an accurate and fast method of input - the more complex or precise the action must be, the greater chance of misinterpretation by the hardware - the more immersion lost.
shogunblade said:
I guess my only issue I am having is that I have no idea who James (Portnow) is. I know who his little character is from the show, but otherwise it was a very interesting roundtable.
James Portnow's proper introduction was halfway through the first mailbag episode of Extra Credits: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2216-Mailbag-1
Patrick_and_the_ricks said:
brodie21 said:
if there IS a direct neural interface, then we will have an inception-like problem, with people not able to tell that they are in a game or not....
That's why you would have to have a hud.
If our technology reaches the point of having a neural interface, there is NO REASON why we shouldn't be able to have a hud outside of the game. I want this.
Nocta-Aeterna said:
As for James Portnow's last point on the immersion of games thorugh motion controls: Ive said it once, and I'll say it again: Upgrade the Kinect's precision so we can use non-tiring combinations of simple hand gestures for spell-casting.
I have yet to execute a virtual kamehameha that doesn't involve a controller of some kind. This is an injustice and must be remedied.
Fanghawk said:
I was just thinking last week that it would be great to see more Escapist crossovers, kinda like Doomsday Acade and the ZP/Unskippable "visit" episodes did back in the day. I look forward to reading more, and seeing if anyone else will add contributions.
That actually brings up an interesting thought: for the occasional episode, could you have an industry guest that Yahtzee, MovieBob, and James could discuss/debate with? I'd love it if we could get Tim Schafer or Jason West in a chat with the Escapist crew....
Actually my dream would be if Bobby Kotick would sit down with them for a video episode, but in the interest of civil discourse, perhaps that should held off for a while.
I highly doubt Kotick would do anything for the industry that doesn't have a guaranteed immediate payoff for his wallet and his incompetence. That said, again, email the escapist to say that at
[email protected] .
carnkhan4 said:
It's interesting how sci-fi gaming is divided between super-active holodecks and super-static gaming matrix style...
A lot of games seem to be aiming for a combination of the two, which I disagree with. We need to have established industry examples of perfect "active" games and perfect "inactive" games before trying to nail down what would make a good combination; the guesses that are being made so far aren't doing anything for anyone.