Top 3 Products & Services

Dated: Aug. 13, 2004

Related Categories

By

Great Nintendo visionary Hiroshi Yamauchi, now retired, has long been saying that the Video Gaming industry has been headed in the wrong direction and as a man who more or less created the home gaming revolution, I would think that his opinion carries certain weight.

I too share Yamauchi's belief that gaming is headed in the wrong direction and that manufacturers have drifted out of touch with the gaming public, in rather dot-com fashion. Rather than providing games which entertain and capture the imagination, the big players are busy chasing polygons, trying hopelessly to find some kind of absolution in technical prowess for their blatant lack of creative vision. Striking parallels can be drawn between the ignorant mishaps of the gaming industry and the bursting bubble of the dot com boom, organisations were drawn in by a false hope or vision, and failed as a result of their lack of foresight or abundance of unjustified faith. Essentially the industry is forgetting the fact that the purpose of home entertainment is to entertain.

Sure, of course polygons and performance were an issue. The leap from the 8 bit to the 16 bit era, which brought us the legendary Super Nintendo was indeed a step forward for the gaming industry, as it provided greater playability, and allowed us to delve deeper into a gaming experience, however we have now hit a threshold.

Increasing the hardware specification of a console is of little relevance anymore, as it has less and less potency as we advance further into technical advancement. In the 8 bit era the industry was an infant, wading ankle deep in the potential a huge market had waiting for it. With progression to the 16 bit era, it found its adolescence, and explosive growth, however in the modern gaming era the industry has entered adulthood and in extension of this rather whimsical metaphor, must begin to grow wiser, rather than attempting to grow taller.

I admit that technological advancement does have an impact, but only when it provides a better gaming experience. When I'm experiencing newfound levels of boredom during an attempt to extract enjoyment from "Enter the Matrix", I am not comforted by raw figures of processing performance or graphical realism. I kick a few people, run up a few walls, and consider the possibilities of a well deserved refund (If not compensation for the mental scarring caused by exposure to boredom in such a raw, unrefined form).

Take virtual reality as an example, if it were ever brought to the masses in a usable, inexpensive form, it would provide a completely new interface through which entertainment could be delivered, new immersion would be experienced, entertainment would result. Technological advancement is not the enemy of the gaming industry, ignorance is. The industry has been moving off in a tangent, thus ignoring entertainment itself, its main modus operandi.

Give us playability, not polygons.

Now that you've gotten free know-how on this topic, try to grow your skills even faster with online video training. Then finally, put these skills to the test and make a name for yourself by offering these skills to others by becoming a freelancer. There are literally 2000+ new projects that are posted every single freakin' day, no lie!

Previous Article

Next Article