Some thoughts from the veteran game designer on E3:
This is the year where there were two things that stood out for me. One was: The ultraviolence has to stop. We have to stop loving it. I just don’t believe in the effects argument at all, but I do believe that we are fetishizing violence, and now in some cases actually combining it with an adolescent approach to sexuality. I just think it’s in bad taste. Ultimately I think it will cause us trouble.
We’ve gone too far. The slow-motion blood spurts, the impalement by deadly assassins, the knives, shoulders, elbows to the throat. You know, Deus Ex had its moments of violence, but they were designed – whether they succeeded or not I can’t say – but they were designed to make you uncomfortable, and I don’t see that happening now. I think we’re just appealing to an adolescent mindset and calling it mature. It’s time to stop. I’m just glad I work for a company like Disney, where not only is that not something that’s encouraged, you can’t even do it, and I’m fine with it.
The second thing I noticed was that the most interesting part of the press conferences had nothing to do with games. When the games are the least interesting part, there’s a problem. When did the game conference become about interfacing with Netflix I just worry a little bit. The thing that’s ironic is that I feel like we really are in a golden age, in a weird sort of way. Nobody knows what the future of games is. Nobody. At a time like that Notch can come along and do Minecraft, and Chris Hecker can finally do his incredible party spy game, and Jon Blow can do Braid, and I can do a triple-A Mickey Mouse game – anything is possible.
Is the future… indie games distributed digitally made by four guys in a garage Is it 800 people working on a triple-A game for Disney Is it a social game on Facebook Is it a mobile game on iOS and Android Nobody knows. What that means is, if you have an idea you can reach an audience with it. Pretty much all I saw at E3 was, ‘Well, we’re going to do what we always did, but bigger and bloodier! And we’re gonna talk about Netflix!’ I just don’t get it.
Read the full interview at GamesIndustry International.
