Why Isn’t the Gaming Industry Looking to New Media for Inspiration
On the latest episode of Scott Sigler’s podcast only novel “The Rookie” he mentioned fan interest in a video game version of the book. For those of you not listening to it (shame on you) imagine the football movie Any Given Sunday set in outer space. So you have all the action of hard hitting NFL football combined with racial tensions between different species and organized crime behind the whole thing.
With the HUGELY popular Madden franchise out there I would think someone like Electronic Arts or some small start up video game company would scoop up an idea like this and release it as a killer video game. Just thinking about having to pass over alien defensive lineman to wide receivers who can jump 12 feet in the air excites me. If you added the violence and blood from the book someone like Rockstar Games could make a mint at it.
This also got me thinking that there is a whole world of stories being told that could evolve into games. Just look at what Spin Martin is doing in Second Life. It plays like a movie or a game. Just look at it. Walk around on his turf. You’ll quickly forget where you are. Maybe you are already in a game and don’t know it? I don’t know. But, couldn’t Spin be a character in the next game in the genre of Metal Gear or Rainbow 6?
What I’m trying to say is that I’m not a huge gamer so seeing the same story lines played out over and over doesn’t excite me. I think the gaming industry as a whole needs to start looking to new media and the players there for ideas and approaches that are new for them. A stop motion video on YouTube, a particularly cool build in Second Life or a video podcast series could be the inspiration for the next break out game.
I guess having the Wii and playing Zelda so much got me thinking about how I’ve seen it before. Besides the interactive controllers there is nothing new in it for me personally. Yes, I’m having fun and yes I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes, but the “save the princess” routine has been done. Let’s change it up a bit.
January 4th, 2007 at 7:04 pm |
CC is the MAN. You need a kick-ass alien football game, controlled with the WII - imagine using a real throwing motion to control passing on a video game. SWEET!
January 5th, 2007 at 12:34 am |
I love the idea of Scott’s stuff in a video game! But have you ever read a Gamer mag? I subscribe to PC Gamer and the development cycle on a game is in the YEARS - multiples of years. Create-your-own reality games like SL are the only hope for quick to market games. But then as we can all see, the environments that allow ANYONE to build lack all the shiney things that make PC/console games as great as they are (faux-AI, texturing, a decent infrastructure and graphics engine). And for a game like the Rookie, it could only ever be a console game. But Rookie would ROCK on a Wii!!
January 5th, 2007 at 3:21 am |
Follow the pattern:
Blogging:Journalism
Podcasting:Radio
Vlogging:TV
Metaverse (SLs):Gaming industry
That’s the only reason why SL has mattered. It’s the same foundation as the first three.
I never thought in my life I might be on the cusp of not just creating a potential movie script, but a video game, a comic book, retail merchandise, and oh yeah, might as well throw a blog/podcast/videoblog infrastructure around that.
Christ, I downloaded Microsoft XNA so I can dabble in writing games for the XBOX. That’s not my bag, baby, I’m an artist!
(Don’t forget that while most people see the only the short-term of RL firms showing up in SL, I see something totally different-especially with music. Indie musicians playing venues in XBOX Live? We must go there because the power is in our hands to do so.)
January 5th, 2007 at 3:24 am |
I also forgot to add that the gaming space is quietly in dark corners, dabbling in the DIY/sandbox space. MMO functionality, Sandbox functionality, etc. Watch this year some of the titles coming out.
I don’t want to build all of Azeroth myself, THEN play in it. Blizzard Entertainment does that, they do a fine job, and they make Warcraft good. But I wouldn’t mind propping up a cottage in the woods someplace. I don’t want total top down, and I don’t want absolute DIY, I want a space in between. (Isn’t it funny people don’t *get* SL, but they *get* the video game space? Just sayin’
And I think there is an unbelievable amount of money to be made in this space.
January 5th, 2007 at 9:23 am |
I don’t think you’d want EA doing The Rookie; they’d screw it all up.
In all seriousness, though, if any major game company was going to do it, I’d imagine it would be Take Two: They’re known for taking chances, and they’ve already got an awesome football engine (NFL 2K5) just sitting on the shelf that they can’t use because EA has the NFL license.
I think XNA is the best bet, though. I bet you could find an aspiring game developer who wants to make a name for themselves, and Scott’s got a built-in audience for the game already. Hell, I’d buy an Xbox 360 to play a video game version of The Rookie.
As for the Wii giving you new gaming experiences, give it time. The DS was more or less just GBA ports for about a year before the really interesting stuff started to come out really using the system’s capabilities, like Trauma Center, Nintendogs or Elite Beat Agents. The developers need to learn how to program for the thing before they can really stretch it to its potential. I think we’ll see a lot of mini-game collections (we’ve already got Wii Sports, Rayman, and Monkey Ball, with Wii Play and WarioWare on the way) and games like Zelda or the first person shooters that use the remote as more of a gimmick before we start to see games that are built from the ground up to take advantage of the Wii’s potential.
Remember, Zelda is essentially a GameCube game that was modified at the last minute for the Wii. Wait until Nintendo comes out with Metroid Prime 3 or Super Mario Galaxy; that’s where you’ll probably see some things that you haven’t seen before…