Atari to revisit Baldur's Gate & NWN

[Pop]

Right, and that's a good point to consider. Still, for any number of reasons I don't think a shoestring BG3 would be successful. BG2 had the series being described with the word "epic" more often than not. It's been something of a blessing and a curse for Bioware as a company.

 

I seem to remember someone in this thread referencing filmmaking in comparison to making games (did I imagine that?) Making games is not like making movies, at least not making movies as you can now. I'd consider a comparison between the age of the Studio and the current gaming landscape. The internet cuts costs somewhat but we haven't yet seen a gaming equivalent of digital photography, an innovation that both makes starting out in the field easier and lowers day-to-day overhead.

 

In order to make a competent looking and playing game that isn't terribly simple (ie not cat golf) you still need quite an investment of time, money and manpower. I'd argue that the difference between an independent game developer and a major professional game developer is greater than the difference between an independent filmmaker and a major professional filmmaker. Passionate people still find ways to make their games, but it's definitely not something you can just up and do in your backyard. If I'm making a movie independently I can be creative and use what I have on hand and what I can find as tools of my trade. If I'm making a game I have to make everything from scratch, just like EA has to. EA just has more resources. Everybody has the capacity to make a ****ty movie. The vast majority of people lack the capacity to make a ****ty game.

Edited December 5, 2008 by Pop

[Slowtrain]

Wargames are the ultimate in no-frills game design though and always have been. They've been plodding along in their niche for twenty-thirty years. They can get away with things that pretty much no other game genre could.

[Slowtrain]

Everybody has the capacity to make a ****ty movie.

 

 

If you mean anyone can pick up a basic video camera and film some random thing like a horse race, then OK, i would agree.

 

Otoh if you mean that anyone can make an actual movie, using quality cameras and film stock and lighting rigs and editing gear, recruituing actors, writing a script, arrnaging locations and what not, not to mention the technical knowledge of how to set up shots and light them and what sort of shots work well for what effects, then I disagree. Even a very small, independent film requires a considerable degree of knowledge and training and experience to make. Plus a lot of people, time, effort and money.

 

Its not rocket science certainly, but then neither is making games.