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Sid on the State of the Game Industry
"I kind of miss the days when games were judged on their game-playing merit alone. I'm a little concerned about how far we (the game industry) are into the licensed four-page-ad marketing blitz era these days, which may be a natural evolution of the industry. But I'm always worried when we put more emphasis on glitz and production values than on the game. That's a trend that looks good for a while until you realize there's no game industry any more. If we don't have gameplay, we can't really compete with other forms of entertainment because we can't do graphics as good as the movie industry and we can't make sounds as well as the recording industry. All we can do that's special to us is be interactive. So we have to hang on to that and make sure we do a good job.
| | "A good game impresses you with what you're doing. I think that's a fundamental difference that I as a game designer need to recede in the background."
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"There's a key difference between games and movies. In a game, the more attention that's focused on the player, the more successful it is. In a movie, you're really watching somebody else's story, so the better the story or the better the actor, the more interested you are in the movie. In a game, the more interesting you are as a player, the more successful the game is. So, in a way, things that work in movies are designed to impress you with what somebody else is doing. A good game impresses you with what you're doing. I think that's a fundamental difference that I as a game designer need to recede in the background. The more the player is thinking about the design or the designer, the less successful I've been, because I want the player to forget somebody designed this game, forget that this is a game, and believe that this is an experience that the player is having. Whereas in a movie, the more you're aware of the director or the stars, the more you're impressed with them - that helps the movie to be successful. In a way, trying to impress people with design or personality or whatever works to promote movies doesn't work with games because it takes the focus off the player who is supposed to be the star. The more the player is the star, the better a game you have.
"There are certain similarities in terms of subject matter, marketing, getting people excited about experiences, and things like that, but I think the idea of the focus on the player is something we have that is very different from other forms of entertainment."
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