Posted on 03/07/2013 at 12:25 PM
| Filed Under Blogs
I still feel guilt over putting my dog to sleep, 17 years later. But he was in such bad shape, and according to the vets, with no chance of recovey. It kills me when I think about the light going out of his eyes as the chemicals take effect, and when I think that he didn't know these were his last moments or didn't understand why. Who the hell are we to decide when it's time for others to die? I feel like a thief in the night.
Anyway, video games used to be a programmer's medium. Now it's an executive's medium. In fact, when it comes to most projects these days you'll hear from everyone else working on it but the programmer(s). I like visual art, but the artists are not more important than the programmer, but I just saw a promo video where the art director , story writer and project leads were interviewed and not the programmer. Nor the project lead (unless they're the programmer too), director, cutscene makers, level designers, 3D modelers, composer, etc. Video games are closer to engineering than they are to creative art. Game mechanics are an engineering problem more than creativity. When it's not tackled as an engineering problem, you get the kind of games we get in the AAA sphere these days: focus on everyting else besides the actual play. Focus on "story" and cutscenes and "immershun" and revenue streams. Sorry, but Cave Story is a better GAME than 95% of AAA "games" made today.