Gamasutra yesterday featured a story about Junction Point's Warren Spector, who took issue with some of the prevailing trends in the video game industry.
"Game costs are going to be $35-40 million, even $100 million, and the expectations are huge," he said at the Game Education Summit last week. "You have to differentiate yourselves. One-hundred hour games are on the way out... How many of you have finished GTA? Two percent, probably. If we're spending $100 million on a game, we want you to see the last level!"
Spector went on to explain the video game business is changing and although it didn't care about the story in a game years ago, it's now one of the main attractions and certainly paramount in developer minds.
Although Spector made a number of good points, he seems to believe that epic titles like GTA IV, which are capable of lasting you as little or as long as you'd like, are a thing of the past and will slowly (but surely) die a slow and agonizing death. Spector ostensibly believes that developers would rather spend cash on parts of a game you'll see than those sections you won't.
His theory makes sense and it's difficult to argue with the logic, but if epic games fall by the wayside and we're left with titles that don't offer the kind of immersion we've come to expect in some titles, what does that mean for the video game industry?… Read more
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