On a higher level there is the notion of completely removing "failure" from a game's vocabulary, but there are ways that could be really bad for a game's design. Certainly there's no reason something more creative and sandboxy has to have a way to tell you that you're doing it wrong, but I think if games just kept going without ever setting the player back, we'd find players wanting to set themselves back anyway. Part of the appeal of a game is being able to try things without necessarily having to deal with the consequences if you don't like them, so even if you stopped killing the player, I think you'd sometimes find him committing suicide.
- shMerker
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In response to "Going Rogue" from The Escapist Forum: Gaming industry needs something like the digital camera. You need to make it so that "anyone" can make a game, easy and effectively. Only then can a truly great game be made by an "indie".
We don't need burned out vets making SNES ports with some twists, we need new blood. Oldies had their chance and look what they did, they turned the gaming industry into Gamingwood, something interesting every few years and then back to tried and true, many times even less than that.
- SonofSeth
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In response to "Sidhe's the One" from The Escapist Forum: I enjoyed the article but the doom & gloom gets to be a bit much in these write-ups about the game industry. As Miles Davis once said, if you aren't afraid of mistakes then you won't make them. You'll just be learning. If a person is willing to challenge themselves to constantly make games that don't yet exist, that are doing something new, then they don't have to worry about their contribution to video games. They will be exploring and pushing the medium forward, which is the best thing you can hope for artisitically.
That does not, alas, pay the bills. I just think it's unhealthy for any artist to gauge their success by how much money they make. Van Gogh only sold one painting, Cormac McCarthy was brutally poor until just a few years ago, and William Blake lived off charity his entire life. Whereas Miles Davis, great musician that he was, also made a great living off his music. None of those artists are any less important in the annals of history.
That same drive that makes people abandon corporate companies and go indie seems like it's in a similar spirit. If they can't be ensured that they'll be rich, then at least they know they're making something good. That's a reward that nothing can stop you from receiving.
- L.B. Jeffries
