Warren Spector's Soapbox Thread

[Infinitron]

Newly unemployed Warren Spector has begun writing his monthly column for GamesIndustry. Let's dedicate this thread to laughing at them.

Where Are Gaming's Role Models?

In the March 17, 2013 issue of the New York Times film critic Brooks Barnes wrote a column, "Hollywood's New Role Model (Beard Optional)." In that column, he talked about movie stars as role models - but role models of a very specific sort.

There is now a class of celebrity whose lives and (occasionally) work break out of the pure entertainment mode to deal with matters of serious significance to the world.

So, for example, a Ben Affleck can go from "Gigli" to "Argo" in the course of his career - and others of his generation can make similar transitions (witness Sean Penn, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Leonardo De Caprio and, precursor of them all, George Clooney).

Clearly, some movie people are bringing a social conscience and a seriousness of intent to at least some of their work. Being unable to divine what's happening in the soul of another, each of us must decide whether this reflects a cynical approach to career development or a sincere desire to express in their work what they find important in their lives. I, perhaps naively, choose to believe the former. However, whichever way you look at it, these celebrities are offering audiences greater variety of content and a level of seriousness that benefits their medium, even at the expense of their own and their studios' bottom line.

So here's my question: Is there any analogue to all of this in games?

I look around and, outside of a very few indie games and, of course, the self-styled and largely unheralded "serious games" movement, I don't see any mainstream developers or publishers offering this kind of serious fare. Ever. As a medium we remain mired in action and genre conventions. Even what passes for seriousness in mainstream gaming seems to require zombies, serial killers, aliens or demons to attract an audience.

If I were to say I wanted to make a game about rescuing hostages in Iran - without guns! - assuming I could figure out how to make such a game, I'd get laughed out of the pitch meeting.

Similarly, there's no way any publisher is going to fund development of a game about Abraham Lincoln that doesn't involve actually fighting alongside the Union army, leading it to victory. The behind the scenes machinations would take a backseat to an elevator pitch along the lines of "You are honest Abe! Once you used your axe to split rails. Now you must use it to split heads!" or, if you're a gamer of more serious intent, perhaps "Do YOU have the military expertise to Defy History and lead the rebel troops to a victory the real world denied them?!"

Can you imagine a game about a guy on a spiritual quest in a boat with a tiger? How about two old people struggling with the pain of love and aging? Or the story behind a raid to kill the world's most notorious terrorist? Okay, we could probably do an okay job of that last one, though probably not the events leading up to it - do you water board that guy or not? Seriously? But you get my point.

There's also this "exit interview", where he says he doesn't understand why Disney closed down Junction Point and laments the soul-crushing AAA industry: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-04-05-warren-spector-the-exit-interview

Q: What do you think of the idea of 'midcore' games; something with the depth of a hardcore game but that's approachable by a large audience. Is that really possible, or even desirable?

Warren Spector: Possible. Desirable. Necessary. I think the success of games like The Walking Dead and Heavy Rain and Journey and even World of Warcraft speaks to the appeal of traditional, approachable games. I'd go into more detail, but for now let's just say I think the secret to achieving the kind of approachability you're talking about lies in balancing skill, choice, goals and ethics. But that's something I'd like to talk more about in my column for you guys so I'm shutting up now.

Q: You've created quite a variety of games in your career. Is there a particular style or genre that you really want to work on now?

Warren Spector: I definitely want to mess around with mobile stuff - phones and tablets - and I'm intrigued by multiscreen gaming. I guess that just makes me another face in the crowd, doesn't it? Everyone's saying the same thing these days. I want to try to make 'real' games in that space - not just rail shooters or swipe-driven puzzle games. I want to tell stories and collaborate with players in the telling of them. Beyond that, I don't know much except I'll probably steer clear of cartoony stuff for a while. And I'm really hoping to make smaller games - games normal humans can finish (i.e., games that can be played in a few hours instead of the uncompletable 100-hour extravaganzas of my youth). I'm thinking smaller, deeper worlds packed densely with replayable story content, not epic quests where you have to do all the boring traipsing around and other stuff that movies wisely cut out.

In a weird sort of way, I've only ever worked in one genre and I don't see that changing. It doesn't matter whether I'm working on a fantasy game or a flight sim or a real-world simulation - I see every game I've worked on as just another step on a single evolutionary path. They're all about offering players more and more power to express themselves through play. The best way to tell you what I mean would probably be to just go and read the manifesto I wrote a long time ago. I've tried to live by that - and build or work with teams that lived by that - regardless of where I worked or what I was working on. Whatever I do next will embody these principles, too.

 

[felipepepe]

Clearly aimed at Bioshock Infinite, I see... and I wonder why he didn't point out any game that managed to escape from that mold, from Stanley's Parable to Dear Esther and so...

 

[Fat Dragon]

Warren's decline has been one of the steepest of all. The talent he once had as a game designer, he lost it all a long time ago. And he knows it.

 

[Infinitron]

The whole "expressing yourself through play" thing is retarded. It's taking one reason, one aspect of what people do in games and blowing it out of all proportion. It is the root of his decline, it seems.

Games are about navigating systems and making interesting decisions. "Expressing yourself" is just one factor out of many in the player's decision making process.

 

[Jaesun]

 

[felipepepe]

Depends, if you see "expressing yourself" as navigating systems and making interesting decisions YOUR WAY, then I think you could call it that way...but most games heavily castrate the players possibilities of action, therefore removing their ability to express thenselves.

If I think that the Illusive Man is a betraying retard, why can't I say NO to him or even shoot him in the face? That would be a way stronger way of expressing myself than just following his orders like a good/bad guy... of course, the more scriped your game is, the less playes expression you have... and since AAA+ games nowadays are mostly cutscenes with QTE, player expression is all but gone.

 

[Infinitron]

Depends, if you see "expressing yourself" as navigating systems and making interesting decisions YOUR WAY, then I think you could call it that way...but most games heavily castrate the players possibilities of action, therefore removing their ability to express thenselves.

It's not even that. What about playing to win? What about playing to compete? Spector's approach is deeply problematic because he's basically saying that games have no meaning except as a means for players to LARP.

Depth? Consequences? Fuck that, here's another shallow choice. Aren't you glad I'm letting you express yourself?

 

[felipepepe]

I don't feel like that... I read him as more worried about "how" players finish a game than "why".

We all beated the Master in F1, but some did it with guns blazing, other through speech, other never even saw the guy, just blew up that nuclear bomb. That is good, but still limited. I find much more amusing that while I did it "regularly", my brother raided the tows & shops and killed every single NPC in the game for weapons, itens & xp before entering the cathedral (goddamn munchkin).

That he had all that freedom allowed him to express himself, while having 3 choices only allows you to pick 3 different answers... problem is nowadays (and that includes Warren's current logic) is all about "choices", not "freedom"... "do you want to kill everyone or save everyone?" Neither, I wanna save who I like, kill some and leave the rest at their own luck, goddamit, and that the game responds to that.

 

[Jaesun]

Yeah my first Fallout playthough I never met The Master (I just set off the bomb). It wasn't until a friend mentioned him and I was like what the fuck? I never met him.

 

[Kz3r0]

Newly unemployed Warren Spector has begun writing his monthly column for GamesIndustry. Let's dedicate this thread to laughing at them.

Where Are Gaming's Role Models?

each of us must decide whether this reflects a cynical approach to career development or a sincere desire to express in their work what they find important in their lives. I, perhaps naively, choose to believe the former. .

 

[tuluse]

I just want Warren Spector to kickstart a first person sneaking game

 

[Metro]

Fuck this sellout, seriously. If he really gave a shit he could go Kickstart a game right now.

 

[Jarpie]

Fuck this sellout, seriously. If he really gave a shit he could go Kickstart a game right now.

Even if he cared he imo simply couldn't make a good game anymore, he's gone past the best-by-date. We need younger blood to replace him.

 

[Blaine]

Can you imagine a game about a guy on a spiritual quest in a boat with a tiger? How about two old people struggling with the pain of love and aging? Or the story behind a raid to kill the world's most notorious terrorist? Okay, we could probably do an okay job of that last one, though probably not the events leading up to it - do you water board that guy or not? Seriously? But you get my point.

If one's intent is to tell a story or to "send a message", then books and movies are generally the way to go. Even the most erudite computer games feature stories that are trite by comparison with what can be accomplished using linear formats, books in particular.

The real question should be: "Does what I'm trying to accomplish actually call for interactivity, or do I simply yearn to shoehorn lofty literary ideals into an interactive medium because I'm a pretentious prick?"

 

[Metro]

Bingo.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Warren's decline has been one of the steepest of all. The talent he once had as a game designer, he lost it all a long time ago. And he knows it.

ITT he was never a designer, just a producer. An ambitious one at that who became senile before his time, or something.

 

[octavius]

So he's just a specter of his former self?

 

[Jarpie]

It's probably given for most codexers where Spector seems to get it wrong with so many other developers; the strenght of the computer/vidyagames is in the interactivity and ability for player to choose and possibility for developers to do branching story/gameplay/quests/etc. How the gameworld, npcs and the story reacts to the different choices, routes and branches the player chooses, and if you want to go more complex, how the characters and the world reacts, "If I choose to help these people, how will they react, what consequences does it have in the long run and how it affects the gameworld", and vice versa for choosing not to help them.

Films and books doesn't try to be anything else than films and books, but most game developers still are embarassed that they're making "just games" and they do them because they're not talented enough to be novelists, screenwriters, film directors and producers, also why try to hide the fact that games are games? Devs should embrace the fact they're making games and tie in the gameplay to the "story bits" somehow, and I think games like Fallouts 1 and 2, IE-games, Arcanum etc. did the story bits and rest of the gameplay seemless enough.

Games are wrong medium to deal with social issues anyway and the subject doesn't suit the way games work, but what games would really excell imo are the high concepts, like "Is there pre-determined destiny or is there free will"-type of stuff, or "Are people just combination of their memories or is there something more" and stuff like that but game writers does not get this at all which is a shame, except maybe MCA, T:ToN devs and couple others.

 

[Infinitron]

No, read the article. The thing about Spector is that he does understand the importance of choices and freedom. Fuck, he talks about these things all the time.

But he doesn't seem to understand that choice is meaningless without being part of a mechanical framework with depth and consequences. He just wants choice for its own sake, as a means of "player expression", not as something with a deeper strategic meaning.

In other words, shallow dialog-based CYOA, not character development with stat checks, skill checks and the appropriate consequences.

I don't feel like that... I read him as more worried about "how" players finish a game than "why".

We all beated the Master in F1, but some did it with guns blazing, other through speech, other never even saw the guy, just blew up that nuclear bomb. That is good, but still limited. I find much more amusing that while I did it "regularly", my brother raided the tows & shops and killed every single NPC in the game for weapons, itens & xp before entering the cathedral (goddamn munchkin).

That he had all that freedom allowed him to express himself, while having 3 choices only allows you to pick 3 different answers... problem is nowadays (and that includes Warren's current logic) is all about "choices", not "freedom"... "do you want to kill everyone or save everyone?" Neither, I wanna save who I like, kill some and leave the rest at their own luck, goddamit, and that the game responds to that.

The two are intertwined. "How" players play games speaks to the reason of "why" they play them. If they make self expressive choices, then to Spector that suggests that the primary purpose of games is self expression.

 

[Cromwell]

No, read the article. The thing about Spector is that he does understand the importance of choices and freedom. Fuck, he talks about these things all the time.

But he doesn't seem to understand that choice is meaningless without being part of a mechanical framework with depth and consequences. He just wants choice for its own sake, as a means of "player expression", not as something with a deeper strategic meaning.

In other words, shallow dialog-based CYOA, not character development with stat checks, skill checks and the appropriate consequences.

He also doesnt understand that theres not much room for expressing oneself in a game which is only 5 hours long, or by his standards "managable for normal human beeings". I would really like for him to further explain his definition of a normal human.

 

[Cromwell]

Sorry for doublepost but I need some help here. Englisch is not my native language so, I always thought expressing oneself roughly also translates to show something of yourself to someone other than yourself. I mean you know yurself already, there is no point in expressing oneself to yourself, that would be like masturbating before a mirror and then send yourself some flowers because you were a very good lover that day.

If someone expresses himself it only has some merrit to it if theres someone other to appreciate it, learn something from it, judge you for it so you could better your self etc. If the only other one is a videogame, whatever genre, you cant really express yourself because a. the options are limited and b. the only reaction you could possibly get depends on the lenghts the designers were willing to go to programm it into.

Because of point a. the reactions on your actions are also limited, so they are not really real since they cant take into account all of what you want to express since you have not enough options to do so. Even if you had the only reaction you get is that from a programmed ai and so by expressing yourself to a game nobodys there to admire it learn something etc, and you yourself are as fucked because you cant either because an ai is also "not real".

So whats the point in expressing yourself to a game, am I overthinking it or did I ust misunderstand what he was saying?

 

[Blaine]

normal human

 

[Blaine]

Sorry for doublepost but I need some help here. Englisch is not my native language so, I always thought expressing oneself roughly also translates to show something of yourself to someone other than yourself. I mean you know yurself already, there is no point in expressing oneself to yourself, that would be like masturbating before a mirror and then send yourself some flowers because you were a very good lover that day.

If someone expresses himself it only has some merrit to it if theres someone other to appreciate it, learn something from it, judge you for it so you could better your self etc. If the only other one is a videogame, whatever genre, you cant really express yourself because a. the options are limited and b. the only reaction you could possibly get depends on the lenghts the designers were willing to go to programm it into.

Because of point a. the reactions on your actions are also limited, so they are not really real since they cant take into account all of what you want to express since you have not enough options to do so. Even if you had the only reaction you get is that from a programmed ai and so by expressing yourself to a game nobodys there to admire it learn something etc, and you yourself are as fucked because you cant either because an ai is also "not real".

So whats the point in expressing yourself to a game, am I overthinking it or did I ust misunderstand what he was saying?

I'd wager that most people haven't spent much time contemplating what "self-expression" actually means. Education, philosophy, psychology, and/or art majors, perhaps? Even so, I'd say you pretty much hit the nail on the head, although it's worth pointing out that a person can improve without outside feedback—provided they're capable of self-criticism and/or have a realistic conception of what constitutes "improvement".

Case in point: Prison artists and prodigious savant sculptors or musicians who create masterworks by dint of thousands of hours of practice. Granted, they're likely receiving feedback from the people around them, but I doubt most savants care, or that a bunch of criminals and meathead prison guards are worthwhile art critics. In fact, amateur critics can hurt an artist/musician/writer by praising crappy work, which is how American Idol became so popular.

 

[Cromwell]

although it's worth pointing out that a person can improve without outside feedback—provided they're capable of self-criticism and/or have a realistic conception of what constitutes "improvement".

The outside feedback there would be indirect. For example if i am an asshole I have to see reactions of my surroundings to get the idea that something with me isnt right. They may not call me an asshole but I dont get invited to a party, I dont get calls etc, then it is upon me to lok to myself what I do "wrong" you dnt have a direct feedback, but you have to have a reaction from something to yourself, an ai can not provide that in a meaningful way. All that Games could do is provoke thoughts about yourself if you see what happens on screen and indirectly think upon that and then in turn use it to reflect upon yourself. But that wouldnt fall under expressing yourself anymore.

 

[Jarpie]

No, read the article. The thing about Spector is that he does understand the importance of choices and freedom. Fuck, he talks about these things all the time.

But he doesn't seem to understand that choice is meaningless without being part of a mechanical framework with depth and consequences. He just wants choice for its own sake, as a means of "player expression", not as something with a deeper strategic meaning.

In other words, shallow dialog-based CYOA, not character development with stat checks, skill checks and the appropriate consequences.

Hmh, I did mention the seamless transition between gameplay and storybits, but after skimming the article, he might not be utterly without a hope, and before when I've read his interviews or articles he's come off as one of those "Games need to tackle social issues"-type of devs. After reading his column he apparently forgot PST but that's pretty much only game I know what deals with serious themes, especially without being pretentious bullcrap.

This quote:

"One, I'm just missing something and serious, real-world concerns are being expressed in mainstream games and/or by mainstream game developers. (I hope this is true.)"

for me shows that he's one of those people who wants games to deal with social issues, blergh.

He is kinda right in one thing though, vast majority of the games rely on action, violence and killing which limits effectivity of the themes but games are pretty damn limited on what they can do and imo only games what can deal with anything else than simple action or gameplay are rpgs and point'n'click adventures but it's not a game anymore if it doesn't have anything "gamey". He and some others seems to want to make something like "visual novels" and maybe there's limited market for those.

Where lot of developers fail in is that they want to deal with "Serious themes" and "character studies" but still want to make AAA+++-games and publishers demand those to be pretty much shooters so we get abominations where Niko Bellic or Max Payne is first lameting their past disgressions and after the cutscene is over player goes on killing people with three digit numbers.

Are there any games what deals with more serious themes more deeper than just scratching the surface teeny bit just to go "Look, we're dealing with totally serious themes and shit!" with exception of PST and maybe couple other RPGs?

But in short, vast majority of the people wants to play brainless entertainment but because they want to look to be "Smart and stuff!" they demand that games deal with "Serious issues and stuffs!" but doesn't want to play other than stupid brainless shooters.