reality check

Please, I understand that this is a sensitive topic so please read the entire thread, and associated thread, and try to understand my point before getting heated about it. It's long, so be prepared. I could very well not mention any of this and no one will be hurt but I feel like this community has real potential for growth and impacting the video game industry. I have studied other industries that I believe can help us put a gauge on how this community will and should develop.

I do not believe that video games have been defined as an artform...yet. I think that GG could have a big hand in the development of video games as an artform. But the first thing that needs to be realized is that we will not make games that will in any way resemble the new releases like Halo. Halo was worked on for five years with an unlimited amount of cash to work with. I have met a few of the developers that worked on it and I can assure that not only were they highly talented and professional, but they were also very, very passionate about it too. They worked 80 hour weeks without blinking and they did this for several years. No one does that to just get a paycheck. They could probably earn double working half the hours making business software. But instead they worked 80 hour weeks for several years knowing that there was a very very small chance that their game would be enjoyed by gamers. Very few games well-funded games ever make it into the homes of gamers, this is a fact. Now what does this mean for us?

We can't compete with the big boys on their playing field. You can get frustrated by this statement and rave back at me about how ignorant I am and about how creative we all are and how we are all going to change the world with our ideas and you might even be right, but I still think it's a rational statement. However, accepting that fact forces us to find an alternative way to compete. I think the alternative could be the EBP (Episodic Business Plan) which I wrote about in this string http://www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=forums&page=result.thread&qt=3984
Disregard my sequel argument, Jeff cleared that up for me, but I think the EBP is important because it helps us to focus on things that will help us create our own playing field that I don't think the big publishers could compete with because they have set standards in graphics and "bigness" that they have to continue meeting while disregarding artistic elements.

Once we have accepting that sobering fact, we need to figure out how we can use creativity and innovation to develop an "Indie" style that we can wear proudly, not unlike the "Indie" movie makers. Elements that I often find lacking artistic sophistication in well-funded games are things like pace (they typically maintain the same pace throughout the game rather than the pace being dynamic ) perspective and framing, color composition and color theming, emotional attachment and reward(an artistic reward would be feeling happy, sad or laughing rather than finding a health meter), true character development (other than just getting more agility points. Kojima does do a great job with this in Metal Gear and Miyamoto has always done a great job with this, especially in Zelda). These are examples of artistic elements that I believe would give us a distinct position in the industry. These are not the kinds of things you see in many games, but all the games that have them are considered great. I would attribute the greatness of games like Zelda, Metal Gear, GTA3 to the fact that they have some of these elements in them. I know of no game that has them all. Though it would not be that difficult to make the artistic side the focus of a game because these elements are entirely independent of the technology. Their power these elements can have over the psyche is only limited by our minds.

I'm going to stop now, though I could write a book about it all, until I get some response. I consider myself a martyr here in that I know this isn't stuff that you all want to hear but I feel like the community could really benefit from realizing that we don't even have to try to make games that resemble anything that has ever been made. That is why our freedom is powerful. We don't have to justify an artistic risk to an investor, we can think out of the box and let our minds roam free.

Viva La Revolution