Video Games are Dead: an interview with Chris Crawford

[zabuni]

link

Some quotes:

GS: When you say new ideas don't go anywhere, what kind of new ideas do you mean? Have you seen any that maybe popped up and fell flat?

CC: I haven't even seen any new ideas pop up. The industry is so completely inbred that the people working in it aren’t even capable of coming up with new ideas anymore. I was appalled, for example, at the recent GDC. I looked over the games at the Independent Games Festival and they all looked completely derivative to me. Just copies of the same ideas being recycled. I didn't see anything I’d call innovative, and this was from people not even interested in doing anything…in making money. It was just straight amateurs trying to be innovative and even they couldn't be innovative.

GS: What would you say to companies like Nintendo, who recently announced their Touch Generations brand for the Nintendo DS, which is meant to categorize certain games into being more accessible to everyone? Do you feel that that's a step in the right direction, or is it just pandering?

CC: I view these kinds of things with skepticism because I've seen that so many times before. Does anybody remember some years back when Sony, with great fanfare, released the chip that they called the “emotion engine” and flooded the airwaves with interviews about how they were going to break the mold and do something completely different, and it never amounted to anything? And there have been other similar attempts that never go anywhere.

The rest of it is an advertisement for his Storytron project, which will come out, sometime, honest.

[jfletch]

The very first issue of Next Generation I got had an interview with him, and he was saying exactly the same shit. This was 1995. I hope being the "industry troll" pays better than "forum troll".

[Robert Sharp]

Well someone will provide the obligatory list of creative games, so I won't bother. But I don't see Crawford's point. Every art form seems stagnant until someone does something different. Yes, it's rare, and it's rare in video games too. But it still happens.

Plus, much of innovation is a series of small steps. Interfaces in many genres have come a long way since those original, new ideas were started. Games like Kohan or even BFME2 offer simple to use interfaces to control large groups of units. Dragon Quest 8 uses terrific character designs to bring life to the console RPG, but it's still old school in many ways.

I'm just not sure what this guy wants. Personally, I want good games, not originality. Sometimes originality leads to a good game, but so can good, solid polish. Blizzard is the example everyone trots out at this point. Their games are super-fantastic, but rarely innovative.

[Jasper Phillips]

I talked to him a couple of weeks ago at the "North West Gaming Festival". He's definitely over the top, but does have some interesting ideas as far as modeling stories. I'd take his views on current games with more than a grain of salt though; I asked them if plays games anymore, and he said he didn't because he was too busy... Someone who doesn't know what games are out there clearly hasn't a clue whether any of them are original. Nontheless, I look forward to seeing what comes out of his research.

[Alan Au]

Originally Posted by Robert Sharp

Well someone will provide the obligatory list of creative games, so I won't bother. But I don't see Crawford's point. Every art form seems stagnant until someone does something different. Yes, it's rare, and it's rare in video games too. But it still happens.

Chris has a point, which is mainly that games have been refined to the point where he doesn't like them anymore.

- Alan

[spiffy]

Originally Posted by Robert Sharp

. Sometimes originality leads to a good game, but so can good, solid polish. Blizzard is the example everyone trots out at this point. .

I disagree, to me a polished game is just that. I'm bored to death of Blizzard games.

But I have to admit, there are games that tickle my fancy which I will like no matter how stagnant the genre. Scifi sims, tactical strategy games, open ended RPG's. . I don't need them innovated so much as I need them to be made again.

[Gordon Cameron]

to me a polished game is just that.

I agree completely and have no particular problem with "just that."

I'm all for it if people want to innovate, tear down the walls, etc. In the meantime I will be playing games.

That screenshot, whatever it is, looks vaguely like the sort of "conversation engine" I have thought might be neat to work into RPGs...

[Charles]

Innovation is overrated.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by Chris Crawford

More likely, the latter. I'm not a fortune teller. I don't know what they'll do. But I think that it is reasonable to expect that an industry that hasn't produced any innovation in at least a decade is unlikely to change its spots.

I stopped reading at this point. He's obviously completely out of touch with gaming. There's no way anyone who knows anything about the game scene today could say that with a straight face.

[Jasper Phillips]

A large factor is that his focus on stories is so narrow -- as far as what he's looking for there really isn't any innovation. Facade is the closest thing, which he knew of and thought was a step in the right direction.

To a certain extent he's also fond of hyperbole and exageration to make his point, and knowingly pushes the buttons of industry veterans (like yourself), in order to provoke a reaction.

[Charlatan]

He might be out of touch, but I tell ya, I still remember playing Eastern Front and Balance of Power on my ol' Atari 800. I'll never forget his description of how the AI worked in Eastern Front - he wrote a Vertical Blank Interrupt routine to do refinement of the computer's move, so the longer you thought about your move, the longer it thought about it's move. And whenever you hit "Done" everyone's units moved. it seemed so daggone creative. And the end screen in BoP if you blew up the world.... good memories.

[Midnight Son]

Spore, gimme.

[mouselock]

Originally Posted by Charles

I stopped reading at this point. He's obviously completely out of touch with gaming. There's no way anyone who knows anything about the game scene today could say that with a straight face.

Err.. name three new, innovative games. Not refinements. Not distillations. But brand new games. I'm having trouble of thinking of any.

Not that I agree that makes all games worthless, but if that's how he's definining innovation (and it's how I would in context) he does have a point.

[Hawkeye Fierce]

Innovation doesn't have to happen solely in big, revolutionary leaps. Just because your game doesn't create a whole new style of gameplay doesn't mean it can't have innovative elements in it.

[Mark L]

Three innovative games? I'll give it a whirl.

Katamari Damacy

Guitar Hero

Wario Ware


I think they're all pretty innovative. They had predecessors in their ways, but c'mon, everything does.

[Jasper Phillips]

Off the top of my head: Odama, Katamari Damacy, Guitar Hero.

[Edit] Damn, too slow! I'll add in Kirby's Air Ride, and other DS stylus games. Likely stuff that'll come out on the Wii too. Net Storm comes to mind for some reason. That funky Ouendan game. Puzzle Pirates. There's a ton really, especially if you look to games made for the Japanese market. Phantom Dust.

These games are all more innovative and imaginative than anything Chris Crawford did that I ever heard of. East Front and Balance of Power had their moments, but there sure aren't the first thing that comes to mind when I think of innovation.

I agree though that innovation is overrated; most of my favorite games are innovative in their own way, but are clearly evolutionary improvements of older games.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by mouselock

Err.. name three new, innovative games. Not refinements. Not distillations. But brand new games. I'm having trouble of thinking of any.

Not that I agree that makes all games worthless, but if that's how he's definining innovation (and it's how I would in context) he does have a point.

Innovation doesn't have to be brand new games. Complaining that there's no innovation cause there's no brand new never before seen game types is like an artist complaining because everyone's been using the same colors forever.

[Mike Cathcart]

Well that should free up a lot of time. Maybe I can read all of those books everyone is recommending in that book thread.

[Troy S Goodfellow]

The Sims (which had a predecessor, but is clearly innovative.)

MMOs (sure, prefigured by MUDs, but designing a game people are willing to keep paying for?)

If by innovative he means born like Athena from the brain of Dani Bunten, then, yeah, we're kind of out of luck. But I don't see how Storytron isn't derivative of the whole adventure game palette; it's an improvement in the mechanics but not necessarily the form of the game. Wasn't Facade (which Crawford loves) just interactive fiction?

Troy

[Derek French]

Chris Crawford - go outside. Kiss a girl.

:)

[Kirian]

Shadow of the Colossus. Every Extend (Extra). Phonix Wright/Gyakuten Saiban, although it is almost an IF. Actually, someone told me that there was a Law and Order game...
Katamari Damacy, then. Aside from Rez, how many synathsesia games do you know? Frequency and Amplitude are not the same thing.
I'm sure I could come up with better examples, given time. I think he needs to talk to Kitsune, or any Japanese gamer.

I read Mr Crawford's 'Dragon' speech, and I thought the allusion to he being Don Quixote was deliciously ironic. I cannot stand the man and his hisitronics fits of pique. Maybe he is different in person, but in public speeches he appears petulant.

Edit: I took too long replying. Damn it.
Crawford lives in the woods, apparantly. In an interview for the Escapist, he was asked how he spends his holidays. His reply was something manly about going outside and cutting down trees and thinning thickets, because he is in the woods and needs no holidays. How... macho.

[Shadarr]

Originally Posted by Charles

I stopped reading at this point. He's obviously completely out of touch with gaming. There's no way anyone who knows anything about the game scene today could say that with a straight face.

When was the last time he shipped a game? Over 10 years ago? I think the Onion headline would read: Chris Crawford decries lack of Chris Crawford-produced games.

[Kitsune]

Yeah, the thing about innovation is that it can take place only in certain parts of a game, but it can still be significant. Wave Race 64, for instance. It's still a racing game in which you race around a track guided by lines of a sort, but its innovation, the extremely realistic way water was rendered, with waves giving you time for tricks or disrupting your turning, etc. was brand new at the time and has turned out to be most valuable in expanding gaming where playing on the surface of the water comes out. Another good example would be, say, Baten Kaitos. No one has ever made a system of getting money in an RPG where you sell pictures you take of monsters. It's brand new and its breeds a newish kind of experience. Vib Ribbon, in a sense, is "just" a rhythm game, but no one had made a game in which the track is composed of music you can have it generate before.

If we're just going to call these refinements, that strikes me as being curmudgeonly for the sake of it, in the same way that game magazines might not hand out their highest score just because a game doesn't do something new, despite the fact that it might be superlative in every other respect. It's reductionism and I hate reductionism. If we're going to break down Katamari Damacy into a maze game like Pac-man where you can alter the maze, then what the hell is the point of treating creatively in any kind of fair way if we're going to have such idiotically high standards and require everything to be born from the ether?

Despite that you could capture and train and fight with monsters before Pokemon, does anyone really want to debate that Pokemon was a new way of doing an RPG? SMT or Dragon Quest V, games with such similar things as a defining feature aren't at all the same type of the thing as anyone who has seriously played Pokemon can tell you. Similarly, are we going to deny Konami the idea they played out in the original Suikoden as innovative just because other parts of the game weren't? Why would a game need to have 100% innovation or close to that in order to be innovative?

But if you define innovation as new game types? In the last 10 years? With no predecessors? That's REALLY easy. Parappa the Rappa, The Sims or Animal Crossing (pick one or both), Brain Training, Ore no Ryouri (My Cooking), Galatea, Atelier Marie, Pikmin, Depth, Tamagotchi, Together with Toro, My Summer Vacation. And then there games where you can compare them to other experiences, but who really wants to go through the trouble of meticulously constructing some weirdo argument that just because there were rhythm games before Dance Dance Revolution wasn't a new idea.

And of course it obviously ignores the fact that tradition is every bit as important a force in design as innovation is, and without a good amount of traditional devices being there, gaming would be in the toilet.

The fact that people are listing Guitar Hero shows that innovation is more a long, lingering line than a quick blast. On a basic, how-to-play-the-game level, Guitar Hero is like a sequel to Guitar Freaks, they're so similar. At the same time, there are obviously some things the developer has done to further the idea of such games.

You can't claim that colored lightbulbs, halogen lamps and Christmas lights back when they were first created and came out, were not innovative just because the light bulb technology had previously been introduced.

-Kitsune

[RepoMan]

Seems like Crawford's high horse is all about artificial personalities in games, and taking games to the next level of interactive narrative.

Facade is "just" interactive fiction? Yes, probably. But it's attempting to break the conversation logjam (also known as You Can't Really Talk To People In Games).

The only true breaking of the conversation logjam will come with Turing-test-level AI, which is still a few decades away. Until then, Crawford will be pretty peeved, I think... it looks to me like the whole story mechanism he's working on is structurally pretty similar to Facade's story model, and Facade has shipped already. So now anything like it is going to be old news, including his own work. Sigh, sucks to be a lone visionary sometimes :-)

Still, between now and the time you really can have a conversation with your computer, there probably (hopefully!) will be more experiments in deeper ways to interact with game characters. I hear Mass Effect is doing some experimentation with this, but it's got a whole hell of a lot further to go. Going to be freaking cool to see it happen, too. God, I love this hobby!

[Shadarr]

Originally Posted by RepoMan

The only true breaking of the conversation logjam will come with Turing-test-level AI, which is still a few decades away.

Personally, I think Space Rangers 2 was a bigger step forward than any "interactive narrative" innovation will be. I don't really care that I have five menu options rather than a natural language parser, what matters is that when I "talk" to an AI character, they actually respond and behave differently because of it. I don't want to play a conversation minigame, I want to interact with other characters and affect the gameworld.

[Shadari]

I keep saying this, but it's not so much innovation that's lacking these days, it's variety.

[Matthew Gallant]

Façade was pretty innovative-- nobody had ever thought to make a game where the only thing a player could do was walk around and say things its text parser wouldn't recognize, like "yes".

It was like a gameplay deprivation tank, very avant garde.

[mouselock]

Originally Posted by Charles

Innovation doesn't have to be brand new games. Complaining that there's no innovation cause there's no brand new never before seen game types is like an artist complaining because everyone's been using the same colors forever.

Fair enough, and I don't disagree.. but (especially looking at the PC space) I also understand where he's coming from. I don't think it means that there's not games worth playing out there, but I'll be damned if I can find a whole lot of things that strike me as "totally new and fresh" in PC gaming space. (Luckily, there's still plenty that strikes me as fun despite that.)

[Coca Cola Zero]

I've played some of Chris Crawford's "games". I'd sooner be damned to only play licensed THQ games for eternity than be stuck in a world where his "vision" was the norm in the industry.

Not to mention he's making the classic "innovation" mistake. When was the last time a book was truly innovative? Or a movie? Or anything? A lot of us grew up when the game industry was just out of the womb, so of course the "good old days" seemed more innovative. That doesn't mean that everything is shit now or that nobody is trying to innovate anymore, it just means that real innovation after the "big bang" extremely difficult and doesn't happen every day, but it does still happen with videogames.

And lastly, I don't know about anyone else, but if I want to converse with something and get accurate emotional repsonses back, I'll talk to, you know, real people. There's billions of them out there and most of them will talk to me for free.

[roboczar]

I especially liked the part where he expressed complete cluelessness about the true nature of MMORPGs. It's like he never even considered the importance of cooperation and functioning social groups to accomplish game goals... not to mention mirror realities like Second Life.

Chris Crawford, man... you used to be so cool. It really irks me that he thinks he has the authority to make sweeping judgements over an industry that he's pretty obviously lost touch with. Seriously. I can't even reconcile what he's saying with my experience in gaming during the past 2 decades.

I guess when you get old, time stops and all else is inferior to your yournger days.