Why games suck
by Jennie Lees 
{ Jun 7th 2006 at 10:57AM }
When games suck, we tend to blame the developer. This piece by David A. Rodriguez over at Buzzscope tries to shed some light on the development process behind bad games -- helping us figure out why they suck.As with many things in life, it's all about the money -- those who wield it have ultimate control, regardless of how unreasonable or impractical their desires. Rodriguez has a neat explanation: developers aren't artists, but they're in customer service. Whatever the customer wants, the customer gets. In this case, the customer is often the publisher, who wants to make more money by releasing a game that will sell. So, next time you think about picking up that copy of Crazy Frog Racer, remember this article -- and don't.
[Via Eurogamer]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kwipper @ Jun 7th 2006 11:14AM
Well, in response to this article, the only thing we can do as consumers is start reading the reviews of these games before buying them. It's all we can do as a consumer to help the game industry move into the right track.
Stop buying crap games, so that the crap games don't sell. Send a message to the developers and publishers about what is good and what isn't good by attacking them by their wallets.
digitalfirefly @ Jun 7th 2006 11:16AM
That game looks stupid as hell. It's called crazy frog racing, where's the frog?
White Rose Duelist @ Jun 7th 2006 11:20AM
Sadness.
It's really not that complicated. As long as millions of little zombies buy the next Madden game, no matter how little it has changed or how useless the new features are, then EA will not make a greater effort to improve for the following version. Ditto for anything else. This is why innovation is so difficult in video games - not because developers are lazy or uncreative, but because the money is in endless sequels. Katamari Damacy, something new that performed well enough to merit a sequel, is the exception, not the rule. The lowest common denominator wants more of the same, so everyone gets more of the same.
32_Footsteps @ Jun 7th 2006 11:23AM
You're apparently blessedly insulated from modern pop culture, DF. That blue thing with the goggles in the front is the Crazy Frog. You can read up about it on Wikipedia if you want to mourn modern civilization.
Interesting piece, though I think it has the seeds of an even better piece: on how to convince idiots paying for your services that your way is better.
See, where the architect metaphor breaks down is that the person with the money is actually a middleman, and as such he is beholden to the actual customers. So if you can convince the guy with the money that his way is going to lose him customers, he'll change his mind and do it a different way.
Now, when I see a piece on that, I'll feel better about the video game industry being on the right track.
jfc @ Jun 7th 2006 11:41AM
...but that still doesn't explain "Driv3r" now does it?
Eric @ Jun 7th 2006 11:44AM
Isn't that frog suppose to be living under my toe nail in some disgusting commercial?
Yshaana @ Jun 7th 2006 11:52AM
Having worked for a big content provider for mobile phones (games, logos, ringtones and whatnot), I have seen how shitty games can be done.
As the article states, it isn't necessarily the dev's fault if a game is crap. I have seen them try and create a new 3D racing game for mobile phones, they spent 2 months on it, and it sold ok. But upper management thought that making such a game cost to much dev time, and had them do crappy 2D sidescrollers and Sexy Poker whatever.
Making games comes down to that when your held by greedy corporate executives, create cheap ass content, buy a juicy licence (movie, porn star or whatever) and attempt to sell it.
I believe this kind of practice is killing gaming, but will probably continue to exist for a long long time... (or until people become less stupid >.
HotShotX @ Jun 7th 2006 11:55AM
I don't care how much money the "customer" has, shitty games make shitty profit margins. Crazy Frog will end up in the bargin bin alongside all those Mary Kate & Ashley games.
In addition, the "customer" will waste more money for backing a sub-par product that was banking on the licensing involved anyway.
In the end, the only victims here are the developers whose talents are going to waste, and those poor souls who end up with this game on Christmas when Grandma couldn't tell the difference between Crazy Frog and Halo 3.
Darwin's Law...always Darwin's Law.
~HotShotX
Rootbeer @ Jun 7th 2006 12:13PM
"Katamari Damacy, something new that performed well enough to merit a sequel, is the exception, not the rule."
And let's keep in mind that the creator of Katamari didn't WANT to make any sequals to it; was was compelled to only at the behest of the publisher.
Thomas Crymes @ Jun 7th 2006 12:17PM
Companies will always hedge their bets with "safe" games. That is the way it is with movie, that is the way it will be with video games and indeed any medium that requires a substantial capital investment. Every once and awhile, a company will take a chance on an unproven IP, and if it does well, they have a new franchise. If it does poorly, it might sink them.
Just understand the beast. The most likely avenue for innovative gaming is probably XBLA with it's low development costs.
Christopher7xii @ Jun 7th 2006 12:19PM
"I don't care how much money the "customer" has, shitty games make shitty profit margins. Crazy Frog will end up in the bargin bin alongside all those Mary Kate & Ashley games."
Gotta remember, not only "gamers" play video games. There are a lot of kids out there that still play their playstation 1 because that's what they have. They're not huge into games, and anything to kill a few minutes usually does it for them. So while you mock and say grandma couldn't tell the difference between Crazy Frog and Halo3 come Christmas... Maybe she rather her 7 year old grandson NOT have Halo3, and that Crazy Frog was more appropriate?
Unimental @ Jun 7th 2006 12:27PM
Don't forget the impact of deadlines on a game's quality. How many times has a review used the words "seemed rushed" when referring to gameplay? I've been involved in plenty of projects (sadly, none game related) where the almighty deadline has determined the final content. Great ideas are thrown out the window on a regular basis just to ship a product.
The only way to actually make money is to get the product out into the marketplace. Unfortunately, sometimes the consumer is not getting the intended final version. Just a ghost of the original grand plan.
Greg2k @ Jun 7th 2006 12:31PM
"Maybe she rather her 7 year old grandson NOT have Halo3, and that Crazy Frog was more appropriate?"
But can you play Crazy Frog with your sister? Ah, cause you CAN with Halo 3 =P
waxc3 @ Jun 7th 2006 12:31PM
games like this will kill our gaming future.
i am an elementary teacher and i talk games with my kids all the time. for every kid that is playing zelda or super smash melee or halo theres 30 kids playing one of the bad games... you know the games that are all rated 3 out of 10 in the magazines, and their parents see it for 9.99 at target.
i see these future gamers move out of the videogame habit because games are not that fun.... because they are stuck in a glitch in sonic riders or 50 cents horrible game, or have no idea what to do next in dead to rights 2.
the future buyers of this industry are currently very ill informed of what is worth buying and what is not. bad games marketed directly to kids will kill us all soon :(
Jeff @ Jun 7th 2006 12:53PM
"I've been involved in plenty of projects (sadly, none game related) where the almighty deadline has determined the final content. Great ideas are thrown out the window on a regular basis just to ship a product."
And yet the alternative to deadlines can be summed up in three words: Duke Nukem Forever.
Content creators - in whatever industry - would always love to have more time. Look at George Lucas - even *after* releasing his films, he still goes back and tweaks them. Part of it's perfectionism. Part of it's probably fear (of releasing your product and seeing it flop). But whatever the reason, most content creators would probably never release anything if they weren't basically forced to.
(Note I said "most" - not everybody is like this, and some people are prolific in their output. But I worked in the game industry and I now work in the TV industry, both in production roles, and I know that the creators always, always want more time - no matter how liberal the deadlines are.)
You need to have milestones to guide projects along. These are never a mystery to the creators - it's not like 2 days before a deadline some producer springs up and says "oh, and by the way, your deadline is the day after tomorrow." I mean, not unless they just have a bad producer. But most well-run projects will have their milestones set out literally years in advance. Within each "block" of time, there will be smaller deadlines that may not be set until a couple months in advance - but again, it's not like these are just sprung on developers.
We all know that the game industry has a continuing workload problem, so I'm not suggesting milestones and deadlines are always realistic. Producers are often under just as much pressure to finish projects in time as the developers themselves are. But the general *idea* of deadlines and milestones is a necessary one in any creative business. A well-run project will have realistic deadlines that guide the project along and keep it from wandering and wasting everybody's time and money.
martin @ Jun 7th 2006 1:20PM
Elf Bowling on Nintendo DS. 'Nuff Said!
sloppy joe @ Jun 7th 2006 1:36PM
Although he has many good points, most of which are (probably) true, I do have one thing to object to:
It's too easy to say developers aren't artists because they aren't the ones deciding what to make. Artist (Michelangelo, da Vinci, Rafael, Caravaggio and so on) have always, all the way up to Manet, painted what people with money wanted them to paint. What's made the old art interesting is how all the art was made, not the image itself
idioteraser @ Jun 7th 2006 1:55PM
Crazy Frog is just a way to make cash off a horrible pop culture fad spawned by a cell phone ring tone. The damn company that spawned it and other ring tones infests television channel adverts. Wallpapers for cellphones 2.99 each. Ugh!!!
There is an music cd and music videos. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Frog has more on the horrible thing.
intel @ Jun 7th 2006 2:07PM
The amount of artistic license given a developer is key. Artists have little freedom of expression when budgets and deadlines are considered paramount.
lord thanatos @ Jun 7th 2006 3:14PM
lets not get the point, more time doesn't mean that simple control methods or other things cant be implemented. if you'r epromming every day for your job there shouls at least be a basic framework that can be translated game to game, then altered as necessary.
what about programmers/developers who leave in crappy control? no time to fix that? Crap tends to drip down from the top but if you are the programmer it is ultimately coming back to you as the one who left it in bad shape- but at the same time since no ones looking for the programmers of these games in the credits, thaey ar eprobably just like "screw it" and just leave it be.
A shame, really. art is a creation. thy develop routines and code. a programmer is NOT AN ARTIST.
mr @ Jun 7th 2006 4:12PM
I don't care how much money the "customer" has, shitty games make shitty profit margins.
This is blatantly wrong if you just take a look at the real world. Its kind of like spam. If you put close to zero dollars into developing a game, any games you sell is free money. If you are a big publisher, send out 10 cheaply developed games. If one of them sells, you make your money back. Someone better with math could estimate the numbers. This is how a lot of mass-produced entertainment works: Throw sh*T at the wall and see what sticks.
bedpanjohn @ Jun 7th 2006 4:33PM
Does this fit for a company like Rock star, the first few gta's probably didn’t cost that much to make and they weren’t bad games. But of course once they had money they were able to make a much better game. i guess i just kind of answered my own question... keep scrolling
bedpanjohn @ Jun 7th 2006 4:49PM
its like a car, well any product really... but if you buy a Hyundai (frogger game) that costs $9000 brand new, they didn’t spend much on features and reliability; however, if you spend much more for a Mercedes S class (Gears of War) you get vibrating seats, speech control, and auto drive features.
What about a game like geometry wars? i have played that more than The Winnie the Poo game and they probably cost the same to make. (or not i have no clue really)
bedpanjohn @ Jun 7th 2006 4:52PM
*no idea... not due...
Adam Blinkinsop @ Jun 7th 2006 6:31PM
#19 - "A shame, really. art is a creation. [Programmers] develop routines and code."
Wait a minute, create : art :: develop : code. You'll have to define art a little better if you want to exclude programming. Of course, if you never read code, I can understand how you wouldn't consider it art.
I do, though.
John H. @ Jun 7th 2006 11:10PM
The developer claims it's not the developer's fault. Of course he'd say that, despite the fact that he accepted money to be put into that position. It is impossible to excuse him from culpability.
He claims his current game is turning out better than he expected. Of course he'd say that, he's still under contract and is expected not to attempt to decrease the game's sales through bad publicity.
He claims he's not an artist. Of course, of course he'd say that. Because once you divorce conceptions of art from games, they become devoid of any meaning or conceptions of quality. Movies are obviously works of art, thus people are allowed to rant about them being awful. If games are merely products then it's harder to think badly of those who make it.
If you're a game developer yet you refuse to think of what you're developing as art, then why are you putting up with the horrible work conditions to make the damn thing? You'll probably be happier programming something else. If you do it because you like games, then you are an artist, because ultimately you do it for the joy of it more than your pay or other employment-related compensations.
briffe @ Jun 8th 2006 12:28AM
A gamer pays money for a game. The publisher gets the money and pays the developers, which include producers, directors, and designers.
Gamers, publishers, producers, directors, designers - Who are the artists?
(imo the artists are the gamers and the designers - the others seem more concerned about profit. there are always exceptions, of course...)
billychaos @ Jun 8th 2006 2:04PM
I have been arguing for years that the lack of artists in the business (or authority) is why both games and movies suck.
Tom @ Jun 15th 2006 2:17AM
All you gotta do is come up with a really great-yet-simple idea for a game and create it in VB.NET ...and put it online for free. Do that and you can change the world!