Theory

[icycalm]

http://insomnia.ac/commentary/mini-game ... or_morons/

Yoshiki Okamoto is no mini-gamer:

CN: You worked on the title Dark Mist for the PlayStation Network. Do you think downloadable games are a good place to work, or do you want to continue working on high-level boxed games? How do you view the market for the two different formats?

YO: Well, the number of downloadable games being made fluctuates based on what publishers want. We really received a lot of help from SCE when our company was getting on its feet. We might feel a game like Dark Mist won't be the most profitable choice for downloadable content, or even all that necessary due to the slow PS3 hardware sales. We're happy to make it for them though, because of what they've done for us.

CN: It's an interesting title because it combines aspects of shooting games as well as dungeon RPGs. Those types of shooters seem to have gotten very popular for downloadable games. What are your thoughts on the genre?

YO: From my own personal perspective as a gamer, I'm not all that interested in them.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3 ... php?page=2

[JoshF]

Does he hate Every Party then?

[icycalm]

Quite possibly. Maybe he doesn't actually hate it, but as with Dark Mist, it's certainly nothing that gets him excited.

We're happy to make it for them though, because of what they've done for us.

In the interview, he explains several times that they had to make whatever games the big publishers asked them to, according to their specifications, in order to repay their help with setting up the company.

[CosMind]

That's quite interesting considering that what they've made so far doesn't seem like stuff that could pull in enough bones to repay publishers. I don't find it odd that those "big publishers" giving out the specifications don't know how to specify a successful game. It will be interesting to see what Game Republic creates once they're free of this debt.

[Jedah]

UK Resistance's satiric view on the subject:

http://www.ukresistance.co.uk/2008/05/l ... unces.html

[icycalm]

A very good illustration of the main point of this essay can be seen in the film The Hurt Locker (2009). At the end of the movie the protagonist even explains the concept to his son, using more or less the same words I did.

[icycalm]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/wasteland-2

But we’re looking ahead to what we can do if you all back this project in force. At $1.25 million, the money will go primarily into making the world bigger, adding more maps, more divergent stories and even more music.

At $1.5 million, the world gets even bigger. You’ll have more adventures to play, more challenges to deal with, and a greater level of complexity to the entire storyline. We’ll add more environments, story elements, and characters to make the rich world come alive even more. We will even be able to bring Wasteland 2 to OS X and Linux! And after $1.5 million the sky is the limit.

Notice how they don't say "At $1.25 million the money will go primarily into making the world smaller, removing more maps, less divergent stories and even less music."

"At $1.5 million, the world gets even smaller. You'll have fewer adventures to play, fewer challenges to deal with, and a smaller level of complexity to the entire storyline. We'll subtract more environments, story elements, and characters to make the poor world come alive even less. And after $1.5 million our basement is the limit."

None of these earlier designers can conceive of progress in terms other than increased complexity. That's how the artform was built. That's what "building" means. And now we have all those clowns with their "simple but deep" nonsense, etc., and you know the rest.

AND AT $10 MILLION WE'LL MAKE IT SO SIMPLE BUT DEEP THAT EVERYTHING WILL BE RANDOMLY GENERATED AS IN SPELUNKY, AND YOU WON'T HAVE TO PRESS ANYTHING TO MOVE AS IN CANABALT, WHILE LAUGHING ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK!

The funny thing is that even "indie" kickstarters say the same things, because it is impossible to sell this tripe to people who are paying money for it. It is only once a game is out that its makers (or its players) try to defend it with this nonsense. The entire humbuggery has been concocted for the purposes of internet message board bickering.