Thursday 8-Jan-2004 12:04 PM Highly respected Deus Ex creator Warren Spector quizzed about the videogames scene, past, present and future An industry legend, an industry veteran, dubbed by certain parties the Miyamoto of the West, Warren Spector is without doubt one of the most respected figureheads in the videogame world. We recently cornered the Ion Storm studio director to get his opinions on the whole gaming scene, past, present and future.
Was 2003 a good year for videogames, in your opinion? What were some of your own personal highlights of that year?
Spector: Overall, it was a pretty good year. The overall quality level of the games released, particularly in the areas of graphics and sound, was never higher. The number of games I find myself wanting to play is up (after what I considered some pretty lean years!).
Being a big fan of competition in the marketplace, I'm especially pleased about the number of quality Xbox titles released in 2003. And any year in which I get to play a game as fun, challenging, innovative and self-reflexive as Wario Ware for the GBA is a good year!
But, speaking personally, the US release of Deus Ex: Invisible War is the absolute high point, of course!
Looking at the flipside of the coin, what for you were the low-points in the videogame world in 2003?
Spector: Well, it certainly seems that innovation is in relatively short supply. Publishers seem to be releasing a lot of "me-too" product where I might prefer some unique, innovative games. And it certainly seemed like a tough year for independent developers, which I think bodes ill for the future.
There were also just a ton of titles released last year. It seemed as if there were three new titles coming out every day in the run-up to Christmas.
With costs rising and so much competition, risks are only going to go up. That all seems like a recipe for disaster to me...
What titles have you/seen played in recent times that you would say have pushed the boundaries of videogames?
Spector: Well, Wario Ware, of course. I mean, who would have thought you could create a genuinely good game using just one button for your UI and featuring games that last about five seconds?
It was also nice to see games like Knights of the Old Republic succeed massively while joining the growing trend toward "freeform" gameplay.
Prince of Persia certainly upped the ante, graphically, and they actually made a rewind function work and make sense, contextually - that was huge.
How difficult is it as a developer to remain unique (in terms of games) or come up with unique ideas for games?
Spector: Ideas are easy. Seriously. The ability to convince someone to give you money to implement a unique idea... That's relatively rare. What's really hard, though, is actually going and implementing that idea.
Developing and shipping a game - even a bad one - is hard. Shipping a good game is harder. Shipping a good, unique game, man, don't even ask! My professional background is pretty limited - some time as an academic, followed by board game work and then into electronic games - but I find it hard to imagine anything harder than making games! (Rewarding too, of course!).
In which key area or areas would you most like to see the first-person shooter/RPG progress over the next couple of years?
Spector: More freeform gameplay. More player control. More significant decisions with believable and serious consequences. Way better non-player characters - better virtual actors, better facial expressions and ability to emote, better physicality and motion (that isn't just canned and scripted but is as deeply simulated as our best game worlds), better conversations and conversation systems, better non-combat AI to bring characters to life (and better combat AI, too!). Man, I have a wish-list as long as your arm!
Where do you see technology taking us, in terms of changes/advancements it will allow developers to bring to the FPS/RPG genre?
Spector: Hate to sound like a broken record but better characters, better non-combat AI and better conversation systems are a must. I think, and hope, someone will figure out how to make a massively multiplayer game that doesn't suck (in other words, one where everyone who plays can feel like the hero of a story).
I don't think we're done with advances in rendering technology - I suspect that many games will look even more realistic in the future than they do now.
(I just hope all that rendering technology gets used to create some non-representational games. I'd love to see more games that don't look like the real world or like a cartoon! Come on. We can do better than that!).
Yes, when we spoke to you recently about Deus Ex: Invisible War, you made a comment about advancements you'd like to see in general made to in-game characters - the sort of stuff Valve is doing in Half-Life 2. How far do you think we should go down this road - do you eventually want games to have characters that are completely human-like?
Spector: I don't know about completely human-like... Games don't have to be realistic and, in fact, realism isn't even a particularly desirable goal, in my mind. What we do need is believable characters.
The key is that we find ways to make players care, that we make them believe in the humanity of the characters they interact with. That doesn't mean we won't accomplish that through smoke and mirrors - I doubt game developers are going to beat the Turing test! - but I'm tired of games that offer human characters that are more like cardboard cut-outs than they are like people.
I find it hard to care about a marionette. ICO made me care about its characters. In Invisible War, I very occasionally found myself thinking about a character as more than a box I could open to get some information or money or tools. I want that feeling of connecting with something real all the time as I play a game.
But let me be clear - most games don't require believable human characters. (Heck, I don't ever want to play a shooter that makes me believe in the characters I'm mowing down!).
But in the games I work on, the games Ion Storm makes, you bet I want better characters!
Finally, what games are you most looking forward to this year?
Spector: Half-Life 2 and Gran Turismo 4. Don't expect to see much of me for a while, once those games ship!
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