Comments on: Editorial: Fun is Serious Business

By: Jeffrey Philipp

Jeffrey Philipp — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 20:39:54 +0000

It's very true that necessity is the mother of all invention, and that working within constraints can certainly provide one with a great deal of inspiration, but that being said there is no actual choice involved here. You let deadlines slip instead of releasing a non-functioning product, that's the case with every industry, you can buy a toy that is intentionally missing parts. For some reason online software vendors have forgotten this and gotten it into their heads that it's okay to "just patch it in later". you patch improvements in later, not core features.

That's just me going on at this point, but I honestly don't think that there is really a choice, your deadlines are less important than having a working product.

By: Sean

Sean — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 01:23:23 +0000

Something that I've come to believe more and more when thinking about the creation of any art, games included, is that limitations – whether they be integral to the medium itself or ancillary ones like budget and deadlines – drive creativity and are responsible for some of the greatest work. For instance, the NES had a very rudimentary sound processor. The limited number of channels and the memory available to store audio put huge restraints on what audio engineers and composers could do. One couldn't license some epic orchestral score, or alternatively various modern songs as in the Tony Hawk series, and reproduce them in the game. Instead, the makers of such classic titles like Zelda and Castlevania came up with iconic chiptune songs that resonated with players, and still do, in spite of the hardware limitations.

Or rather, not in spite of but because of the limited hardware they had to express their vision in another way and were therefore forced to come up with innovative solutions. Budgets and deadlines can I hope function in the same way. Part of the problem with games like Warhammer seems to have been a lack of focus, refining around one or two core mechanics that are the strength of the game. Instead the developers indulged in feature creep, trying to provide a little something for everyone in the potential audience. If developers are more cognizant of the constraints – budget, time, personnel, etc. – they would hopefully design with those limitations in mind and ultimately deliver a tighter experience that is smaller in scope perhaps but better in execution.

By: Siam Choudhury

Siam Choudhury — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 14:17:08 +0000

RT @TheMMOGamer: Editorial: Fun is Serious Business http://bit.ly/XhjdI #mmo #mmorpg

By: The MMO Gamer

The MMO Gamer — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 14:11:41 +0000

Editorial: Fun is Serious Business http://bit.ly/XhjdI #mmo #mmorpg