Warren Spector on "Next Gen Storytelling"

[Morgoth]

Click on this Link to proceed. Thank you!

 

It's always a pleasure to read Warren's latest take/rant on subjects he feels need answers. In this article he urges that academics and teh game industry need to collaborate closer in order to prevent the bigger and bigger becoming leap of portraying fidelity vs. offering simulated story telling...so to speak. As things keep looking better rapidly, behaviour that is to be excpected from such graphical fidelity lacks behind. The problem as usual is the lack of fund for proper long-term R&D.

 

The classical Developer/Publisher realtionship for funding R&D won't work there for sure, maybe game developers need to start talking to investors from other industries (IT, semiconductor) that often invest big money into areas like Robotics, Biomedical Engineering, Neuroscience (Human-brain interfaces), McDonalds or Morgoth Industries. I wonder why the big boys like MS or EA don't hand out and pay projects and degree dissertation to Universities in order to solve some tough problems. They have the money, after all!

[Girias_Solo]

Interesting....I will have to read this in full later on. I thought the old guy had left its been that long since he did something (That I was interested in anyway).

[Morgoth]

Well he got screwed with his old company, Ion Storm several times. I hope he's shaking some things up with his new Junction Point studios, though. I heard news about his project(s) are expected in the next months....E3?

[Pop]

He's collaborating with some unnamed "hollywood big shot" on his next project. I have no idea what that means.

 

Coming soon, Randy Quaid's Desperate Acting.

[Morgoth]

Just for the sake of completion: Don't miss out the previous parts of Warrens Next Gen rant.

[metadigital]

I haven't read the article(s) yet, but I intend to.

I wonder why the big boys like MS or EA don't hand out and pay projects and degree dissertation to Universities in order to solve some tough problems. They have the money, after all!

To be fair, Microsoft does fund a lot of "blue sky" research. Okay, it might be capitalistically prudent to buy-out any fantastic new idea that might conceivably become a threat in the future, but they are still funding some interesting stuff. (For example, did you know Microsoft have an enormous Linux division? Big and well funded.)

[Humodour]

I haven't read the article(s) yet, but I intend to.

I wonder why the big boys like MS or EA don't hand out and pay projects and degree dissertation to Universities in order to solve some tough problems. They have the money, after all!

To be fair, Microsoft does fund a lot of "blue sky" research. Okay, it might be capitalistically prudent to buy-out any fantastic new idea that might conceivably become a threat in the future, but they are still funding some interesting stuff. (For example, did you know Microsoft have an enormous Linux division? Big and well funded.)

 

 

Big, well-funded and closed source, I imagine.

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Warren and his groupies need to drop the whole "credible actors" spiel. You don't need the level of detail in Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain to tell good stories, you need - hey! - good stories to start with: all else is peripheral.

[Walsingham]

I think you're bang on there. The problem as usual is a lack of common language.

 

Systems engineering TO THE RESCUE!!!!

 

 

*KA-PWING!*

[mkreku]

I'm trying to be excited about what he says, but I think it takes another masterpiece of Deus Ex dimensions before I start trusting him again. The moronic design decisions he let pass in the development of Deus Ex: Invisible War are just too grave for me to believe he still has the understanding of what makes a game great.

 

Sorry, Warren.

[Morgoth]

I haven't read the article(s) yet, but I intend to.

I wonder why the big boys like MS or EA don't hand out and pay projects and degree dissertation to Universities in order to solve some tough problems. They have the money, after all!

To be fair, Microsoft does fund a lot of "blue sky" research. Okay, it might be capitalistically prudent to buy-out any fantastic new idea that might conceivably become a threat in the future, but they are still funding some interesting stuff. (For example, did you know Microsoft have an enormous Linux division? Big and well funded.)

Yes, but Linux as an OS is an area MS also operates. I'm talking about investements into totally different economical branches. A big Linux division won't solve Warrens worries (HA!) about simulated behaviour and what not.

[Morgoth]

I'm trying to be excited about what he says, but I think it takes another masterpiece of Deus Ex dimensions before I start trusting him again. The moronic design decisions he let pass in the development of Deus Ex: Invisible War are just too grave for me to believe he still has the understanding of what makes a game great.

 

Sorry, Warren.

Don't take him so hard. Ion Storm was screwed by the time it was acquired by Eidos. Besides he wasn't too much involved into the design of DXIW. While he did some suggestions and backed up his buddy Harvey Smith regularly, there's also the fact about the totally broken engine. Good ideas, bad ideas....doesn't matter. A broken engine will always generate a bad game.

 

But this is all over now.

 

Junction Point shall flourish and sprinkle us with new innovative games! Yes!

Edited April 27, 2007 by Morgoth

[Calax]

Warren Spector+Peter Molyneux=Scary good story with so so mechanics?

[metadigital]

I haven't read the article(s) yet, but I intend to.

I wonder why the big boys like MS or EA don't hand out and pay projects and degree dissertation to Universities in order to solve some tough problems. They have the money, after all!

To be fair, Microsoft does fund a lot of "blue sky" research. Okay, it might be capitalistically prudent to buy-out any fantastic new idea that might conceivably become a threat in the future, but they are still funding some interesting stuff. (For example, did you know Microsoft have an enormous Linux division? Big and well funded.)

Yes, but Linux as an OS is an area MS also operates. I'm talking about investements into totally different economical branches. A big Linux division won't solve Warrens worries (HA!) about simulated behaviour and what not.

It was merely an illustration. I was offered a job at Microsoft, for example, based solely on the patent I had registered.

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Warren Spector+Peter Molyneux=Scary good story with so so mechanics?

 

More like vent crawling for ten hours only to find out you can't hurt the guy at the end of the vents and need to be captured by it in order to be told another ten hours of story.

[Pop]

Warren Spector+Peter Molyneux=Scary good story with so so mechanics?

 

More like vent crawling for ten hours only to find out you can't hurt the guy at the end of the vents and need to be captured by it in order to be told another ten hours of story.

Still sore over that, eh?

[Tel Aviv]

Specky sure does complain a lot.

[Morgoth]

There's a new interview with Warren. Read NOW!

[Walsingham]

I think this also calls fro more English Majors* to analyse the architecture of good stries, and explore the dynamism within them.

 

*This post sponsored by the society for the promotion of English Majors, and the Prairie Home Companion.

[metadigital]

I think Arts majors should be sponsored to learn about science before they are allowed near a SF plot.

[Kaftan Barlast]

As a Game Design Academic, I can say that anyone putting their hope in our direction is sure to be disapointed. Game Science is about comming up with new and more complex ways to define and describe what we already know. Its about applying ancient academic methods to analyse games, instead of comming up with a desperately needed new approach. Its about churning out enormous amounts of useless papers that no one will ever read. Its about chocking creativity with formal procedure.

 

 

Academics have never and will never help anyone to make better games, that is entirely up to developers large and small.

[metadigital]

Yeah, and von Clausewitz was a pen-pushing bureaucrat who added nothing to the science of war!

[Morgoth]

Academics have never and will never help anyone to make better games, that is entirely up to developers large and small.

Academics serving in IT and Science are essential if you plan to run a "Technology Company", like let's say Epic games. I also heard that there're a lot of MIT graduates that work on Bioshock (Irrational Games). Chris Kline, the Lead Programmer on Bioshock, in fact once told he researched on "artificial animals" at the MIT.... not that I really know what that means, though. :'(

There's also that guy (forgot his name, Ex-Looking Glass, Ex-Ionstorm, now at Junction point) who developed signal-processors for mechanical arms (Medical Cybernetics). I'm sure a lot of this knowledge can flow in in some technical innovations.

 

Although I agree if you're rather a "Content Company" that puts it's efforts into doing everything possible to serve the story/game solely without some weird adventures into dynamics or AI areas, you certainly don't need to.

 

In the end it's always a struggle between focus vs. survivability or "market demands" ( )

[Kaftan Barlast]

Im not talking about the usefulness of having a programmer with a PhD in Computer Engineering from MIT, and neither is Warren Spector. The thing is that the "Game Science" Warren Spector means is a purely theoretical Academic field that study games the same way an english major studies litterature. My major subject is 3D graphics, but we have to do a good portion of game theory aswell, so I have more experience in the field than Id like. Essentially what we do is write stuff like this:

 

 

"The Semiotics of Time Structure in Ludic Space As a Foundation for Analysis and Design" by Professor Craig Lindley (my professor)

 

 

To which John Hopson wrote an nice article called We're Not Listening: An Open Letter to Academic Game Researchers(from a game developer). unfortunantly he kind of gives in at the end and admits that academics might be useful in the future if the academics straighten up.

Edited May 9, 2007 by Kaftan Barlast

[Morgoth]

Game Design and Art isn't a Science, so no Academics are needed there, either. While technical background is important (i.e. 3D graphics), there's certainly no need from stuff like you described. Except Software Engineer/Programmers of course, they have to deal with formulas etc. on a daily basis.