NoirVisage
Banned
cozy spot under that rock, huh?
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Robert Bowling (ex-CoD strategist) opens Robotoki, first game for Next-Gen/PC/Mobile
- Thread starter salromano
- Start date
cozy spot under that rock, huh?
I went back to Heavy Rain because it was an emotionally moving experience. Same for Mass Effect 1/3, Uncharted 1/2/3, God of War, Alan Wake, etc. In my opinion, the ideal game philosophy is:
1) Experience (includes Visual, Aural, and Interactive Aesthetics)
2) Universe/World/Franchise
Notice, I didn't include game mechanics, because I believe the game should play the way it was intended to feel. Heavy Rain for instance doesn't need to be fun. It needs to have gameplay which helps me relate to the main characters, which it does (in a somewhat flawed way). For Uncharted, it's the exhilaration you get when you come knocking on death's door whether that be through navigation or combat (sometimes both).
With any new game, I think developers need to think long and hard on how they want their players to feel and what messages they want to convey. This is the most important aspect in my opinion. This often translates to mood and atmosphere which is usually delivered through the look and feel of a game (a prime example being Dead Space: horror, terror, paranoia).
Depending on the type of game you make, it's either going to have an explicit or implicit narrative. For instance flower and Journey are more of the implicit nature, while games like Persona, Alan Wake, and Mass Effect rely on their story and characters (hence explicit).
If your game is of the explicit nature, the story and message should be presented through the characters. Players tend to become attached to the characters they meet/play as. This attachment creates an opportunity to emotionally affect the player. This in turn presents an opportunity to sell an idea. This is how you get people to see things from a different perspective. World settings can help accomplish this providing additional focus, relatively speaking from the character's standpoint. A quick note on the Universe/World Setting step above, this can apply to sequels. Meaning, the last thing you want to focus on is expanding your story through sequels. Create a stand-alone experience first and foremost that has a clear message to convey.
If your game is of the implicit variety, this becomes much harder (depending on your talents) as you don't have any particular characters to work with. The experience/ideas your trying to sell need to rely on the gameplay, atmosphere, and other aesthetics. Concentration is generally placed on art design and/or mechanics.
I think as much as developers want to distance themselves from film, music, and literature they could learn a lot from them on these very basic principles as I believe they are universal.
Silly.Mikey
Banned
Robert Bowling...please...
What?! The point of games is to have fun..
MikeOfTheLivingDead
Grapetastic!
Not every game is an experience or needs to have narrative or make a player feel anything or have a message. You can have explicit narrative with no characters just as you can have implicit narrative with characters.
I don't watch a movie or read a book to have fun, but people thought that was the point of them back before the 1920's. Any sort of "entertainment" I want to be engaged in often affect a variety of very strong emotions. Having fun is just one such emotion. Sometimes I'd rather feel for a character through their trials and tribulations, like reading a good book. Sometimes I'll feel sad for them, other times happy. They might come across as sensible but mysterious or simple and emotional. It really depends. I might enjoy these novels, but I wasn't exactly having fun when my favorite character of book X was killed off at some point.
Name a game that isn't. A narrative doesn't have to be a story. People often forget this. A narrative can be any sort of compilation of events put together to affect you in some way. Documentaries are narratives for example.
Maybr Ryan needs to put a giant turrent on that girls back, not before having her put on giant boots. Than he can ask for even more money
Randomizer
Member
Lol, good luck with that!
What sort of crazy backwards thinking is this? Even developers of games with a heavy focus on story, such as Naughty Dog have stated that they write the story around the gameplay not the other way around. They are lucky they are self funded as I can just imagine how a meeting with a publisher would go. After two years they'd have nothing of worth to show, except for the story/universe and some art concepts.
I don't see how Ryan Payton is any more qualified to create a game than this guy.
There are those who would disagree with this.
In all honesty thats true
Deadly Cyclone
Pride of Iowa State
So much salt in this thread. I say good on him, creating a studio that treats staff well is awesome and I hope he makes a great game.
Not sure why everyone wants to pick him apart.
Not sure why everyone wants to pick him apart.
I like this. sounds like they're trying to make games that work rather than OH HAY LETS ADD RPG ELEMENTS AND MAYBE SOME LIKE STAT TRACKING OR SOMETHING. Gameplay mechanics coming first is a bad idea, they need to be logical developments of the universe and experience or else you get an unconvincing and piecemeal final product whose pieces don't really fit together all that well. Starting from the universe and using that to define how you want players to experience the game and using that to define the types of mechanics you implement is a solid strategy and people poopooing it Do not know what the fuck they are talking about. It doesn't mean effort isn't put into making the game mechanics work well or to make the game engaging to play, it just means game mechanics will have to make sense thematically
Also putting the idea of treating talent better up front is pretty damn cool even if it is extremely heartening.
Actually they write it around the big set-pieces they thought would be cool to do. "oh shit check out how i can get this airplane scene going".... "Okay now we need to get Nate on an airplane so we can do that scene". I wouldn't call that an adherence to gameplay mechanics over story. gameplay mechanics are the shooting traversing and puzzle-solving in the game and outside of maybe some structural order in the plot to manage pacing I don't see how the game is tweaked to mechanics.
mysticwhip
Banned
right, but if those mechanics were clunky as fuck, wouldn't that destroy your experience?
Yeah, but mechanics coming last in the process doesn't mean they are of no importance. Just that the story they want to tell (the universe/experience) informs how they tell it (the mechanics).
Callibretto
Member
Obviously. his three step is just their method/step of making the game. doesn't mean one of them have to suffer. its not about which one is more important than the other.
Basically to make the best game mechanic for that particular game. they need to know the setting and the experience they want to achieve first.
I bet mgs4 microwave scene gameplay mechanic (button mashing) come after they decided the scenario first and not the other way around
mysticwhip
Banned
I guess but I think creating a game out of kickass game mechanics would benefit more. I doubt a game like vvvvvv would be what it is if the universe and story were created first(not that those are of any importance in vvvvvv). I just don't care much about experiences or game universes.
dragonelite
Member
same here. If a universe seems cool and i want to be in that universe i will probably finish the game and rerun it a year later or so in the dry summer season.
Thank god somebody does or I'd give up on gaming.
Interficium
Banned
So "community manager/mouthpiece starts his own dev studio" is officially a thing in 2012 now, isn't it?
It's hilarious since community managers are some of the biggest bullshitters it seems. Well, I suppose they do get paid to do it.. I just think it's ridiculous when they think they have the knowledge to start up their own development studios or even take major parts in game development.
FieryBalrog
Member
'
Playing videogames is the absolute worst mainstream entertainment medium for this.
Aspiring to make something different is entirely different than expecting to actually get funded to make something different: the guy is known for his involvement with Call of Duty, and that's what investors are going to want to see to minimize risk.
The guy has some money so he could self-fund for a bit, so perhaps he can make a proof of concept that will show people that he can deliver on this new thing and sign a publisher based on that? But he really wouldn't have needed to mention anything about other publishers, etc. if he was going to go that route - even mentioning them implies that they are looking for financial backing.
j0hnny_385
Member
I'm OK with this. I always had a positive opinion about him. From all the interviews, tweets, etc. I got the impression he's a good guy. The bad side (for him) was he was the public face of CoD which meant a lot of day-to-day backlash from various uncivil idiots who "asked" him "questions" on Twitter.
I look forward to his project and more importantly, who'll he hire.
because last time I checked, he's not a dev.
I look forward to his project and more importantly, who'll he hire.
because last time I checked, he's not a dev.MikeOfTheLivingDead
Grapetastic!
How long do you have? Seriously, there are thousands of games out there that don't have a narrative unless you are using a loose definition of the word. A narrative doesn't need to have an effect on anyone or anything, a narrative is simply an account of a series of events or ideas that tell a story or describe a principle. There is no requirement on a narrative to elicit anything from anyone. Many games, dare I say the overwhelming majority of games are really built around a mechanic and/or game genre concepts and whatever "narrative" they have is really a flimsy premise to tie together events and mechanics the designers and devs are putting into the game. Honestly if you want to see real innovation in games, developers need to start rejecting the notions of traditional narrative. Stop trying to regurgitate the crap they grew up with in comics and cartoons and movies and start defining this still relatively new and maturing medium.
Anyhow, not to derail the topic completely. I wish him luck. I'm not a fan of CoD, I think game journalists and community managers are pretty much hangers on that the industry would be better without, and I think he might have an malformed set of principles for game development, but he's trying to do something meaningful in the industry and that's a good thing.
fourzerotwo
Member
You should never, especially in a creative environment, let something as trivial as a job title limit someone's contributions or aspirations.
All it takes to be a creator is the desire to create. Job descriptions and titles do not prevent or allow for that to happen, only an inability or desire to learn and to act.
What I've always loved about the game industry is that we encourage those around us to learn and grow from the expertise and knowledge base they're surrounded by. Not to limit themselves to their job descriptions.
Our culture at Robotoki encourages you to let job descriptions merely be your launching pad, not your confines.
Stop putting artificial limitations on people based on contrived labels and titles. A person's abilities to contribute and create is limited solely by their desire to do so.
Designers aren't born, they're crafted through time and experience. Not everyone is one, but that doesn't mean not everyone has the potential to become one.
thezerofire
Banned
sounds like the guy was fed up of seeing people worked to death and can maybe do something about it. Sounds good to me. While I don't know how well that design philosophy works, I'm interested in seeing how it goes.
fourzerotwo
Member
Don't think of the process as an order of quality, but an order of approach.
Universe isn't greater than Experience which isn't greater than Gameplay Mechanics.
It's about approaching a concept from a platform agnostic point of view. It's about thinking what the player will experience from any device, and then defining the experience per device, and then crafting that gameplay mechanic for that device.
For example, a "building" mechanic on console should be a very different experience than a "building" mechanic on a tablet. Therefore, starting with the universe that requires building is first, the experience and goal of building would come second, and the specific mechanic of how you execute on that for each platform would come last. That way, you're utilizing the unique features and abilities of each device rather than trying to create a "one size fits all" solution or mechanic.
Hence, why I said, the tablet experience shouldn't mimic the console or PC experience, and vice versa.
Priority and Quality is not mutually exclusive concepts.
MikeOfTheLivingDead
Grapetastic!
I take back what I said about malformed design principles. I guess my issue, and the issue of a lot of people is the whole idea of building a "universe" as the primary goal. You say the word universe and it conjures up a lot of different concepts for different people. To me universe, despite the size the word implies, is really a box you are putting all your creative ideas in. This universe has rules. Concentrating on the experience you want to give the player and tailoring that experience to the platform the player is interacting with is a sound principle. Starting from a set of rules however broad the ruleset is, may hamper creativity.
Honestly I think just trying to build a solid independent studio that caters to creative talent is a very worth while goal. As a dev I'd like to see more companies run with principles like Valve, but unlike Valve I'd like to see new studios release a prolific amount of games.
NinjaBoiX
Member
It tells you in the thread title. And, like, 3 times in the article.
fourzerotwo
Member
I believe it is the role of the studio head to create, support, and foster great teams. It is in turn the role of the team to create, support, and foster great games. It is not a studio head's job to replace that of his team, or believe he can do it, but to allow them the ability to do it unhindered.
While each role influences the other, it should be through discussions not directives.
McBradders
NeoGAF: my new HOME
Best of luck to you. If this works out then it will hopefully turn a lot of heads, business wise.
Guerrillas in the Mist
Member
I wish this guy luck. There's no way I can wish ill will against him after some of the bullshit he encountered from psychotic COD players.
Sure, I can agree to an extent. I was using a loose definition. Regardless, though, even the games from way back in the day that had simple levels to mark progression, have narratives. Narratives do intend to affect you in some way. A narrative can be a strict recollection of events as in a documentary, but then you have to think of the general purpose of the film. It was meant to inform you. Inform you of what? Depends on the subject, but usually they go about doing this by appealing to your emotions. Lets take Earth for example. They applied human characteristics to the penguins to help us relate/care and described the landscape and climate in terms that mattered more to us than the mammals themselves. The movie Bully takes a more obvious approach.
Unless we're talking about a textbook or other instructional material, any sort of fictional or non-fictional set of events strung together that affects you in some way is a narrative. You can be simply having fun playing Pac-Man. The way those levels were designed helps get you excited when playing: enemy placement, speed, level structure, etc. All of that contributes to the general feel of the game. They want you to have fun, so they designed the game with that in mind. They put together a collection of levels where you make your "own" (it's really the avatar's as you never really have full control) events. This too is narrative, however unintentional. Even if it wasn't designed to have any specific narrative construct where they forced you to experience a certain event (relatively speaking, they do) you are still creating them yourself and creating an experience.
This is the exact same reason why some people will see art out of smears of paint on a canvas. They see the colors, the thickness, and the flow and it stirs an emotion(s) inside them. They could see their own life in the painting, or someone else's. Some painters use darker, more violent, colors to portray war. In that you might see a country's history. The artist is provoking emotions. They can't force you to feel a certain way, but they can design it in such a way that you can put your own idea of the subject it is trying to convey into the painting. You are more inclined to think of certain events in their choice of symbols: red, black, grey, and orange for war with often sharp chaotic lines (sometimes gradual more emotive strokes: lackadaisical, to indicate suffering or internal pain).
And again, narrative isn't necessarily a story (it often includes a story). It's a collection of events. The structure in which those events are tied is a narrative. The format in which you choose to present those events is a narrative. Which event comes first? Which level? So on and so forth.
...
^ I feel like I'm going around in circles. So I should just drop this, but I did try to clear it up, for the record. I use a very liberal term of narrative found in most literary and film studies texts. The reason I even bring this up is because I feel you're being awfully restrictive of what a game can be. Often times, game designers are hesitant in embracing the concepts and principles of narratives because of the same exact outlook you have. Games could be so much more if they borrowed from this pool of narrative techniques. You can challenge the traditional structure of narratives by mixing events, changing perspectives, breaking the fourth wall, incorporating multiple narrators or a confused narrator. There are many forms of experimentation. Some designers have already played with this: Uncharted, Mass Effect, Dead Space, Persona, Alan Wake, Deadly Premonition, etc. Games have the potential to affect an even larger audience in a more profound way that I'm sure even you would be proud of that don't necessarily add mechanics just for the simple case or factor of that they are fun.
Haven't been a fan of Call of Duty in a long time (last one I enjoyed was CoD4, and now I'm personally sick of most shooters), so I don't really know Bowling too well, or how much he contributed (or whether he's any good), but all the best! Can't wait to see if your end product is as creative as your studio announcement purports it to be.
I'm surprising *myself* by saying: I'm okay with this.
I think it's an interesting experiment to come up with a story first and *then* work out what type or types of gameplay tell that story the best; fit a game to the story rather than the other way around. I do think that could benefit the *storytelling* aspects of game design, which are often lacking somewhat in today's industry.
All that said, it would not surprise me if he's just throwing around PR buzzwords to try to *sound* creative before coming up with yet another tower defense title.
Hot Coldman
Banned
Game mechanics and the experiences you are creating should not be considered separately.
Necroscope
Member
I am fine with him making 18 millions as long as the real developers of the game with real talents and honing years of their expertise make more than that but somehow, I doubt that...
I read the first post and immediately wanted to hate on this philosophy for making games. But then I read the thread and I see this is has been very well covered, thanks GAF.
Personally I do not think that is innovative at all; it is actually what most western and some japanese studios are aiming for nowadays (and it shows when you play the games, unfortunately) . The difference is this guy is explicit about it.
Personally I do not think that is innovative at all; it is actually what most western and some japanese studios are aiming for nowadays (and it shows when you play the games, unfortunately) . The difference is this guy is explicit about it.
You haven't shown that you can be competent in game development, have you? All you've shown is that you can bullshit about Call of Duty and try to sell some flawed game design philosophy. But hey, if you want to piss away money, go ahead.