Ultima Creator: "Most Game Designers Really Just Suck"

Zing!

(That was supposed to be in reply to Dan, damn comment section!)

I wish all game developers would just shut up. Speak to us through your games!

And how does that make you feel Mr. LawnGnome.

Ha! I sent you something a week or so ago about his ******* kickstarter. Leave it to Johnny to paint him as the shill he is.

What about Ken Levine, David Jaffe, Stig Asmussen (God of War III), Jonathan Blow (Braid), Hideo Kojima, Keiji Inafune, Cliffy B, the list goes on. The aren't that many creative designers out there no...but he's the best one? Give me a damn break, there's no "one best designer". I have a TON of respect for any game designer, but I have read some articles in the past where this guy flexes his egomaniacal muscles and then shuts up for a few more years.

Zing!

Not spam

Well Will Wright actually wanted to make a good game, but EA ****ed it up so bad that it bummed him out enough to stop making games entirely. Seriously, look up information about the beta, it's an actual game as opposed to the timewaster that was released. As far as Molyneux, I think his problem is that he gets too passionate about his designs and his development crew isn't able to make it pan out. All of his ideas are pretty solid and from what I can tell he works really hard on his projects. Then there was Tabula Rasa, which again was a good idea but didn't really pan out due to internal conflicts and a poor release.

It's a shame he phrased it in a way that will make people resistant to his point, but really everything he's saying rings pretty true.

Will Wright was basically unable to do what he wanted when it came to Spore, so it turned out nothing like he wanted it to.

Still, in all honesty, I agree with him. Though I don't agree that he's better than everyone, most game developers do sorta suck. I mean, for every one Kojima, we've got 3 Mac Walters'. Probably because risk taking is too dangerous for publishers to back, and it doesn't take much to sell to the masses.

I think only a handful of designers suck at what they do. The reset of it is publisher/stockholder BS where making games is just the bottom line rather than doing it for the creativity or to please the players.

I am glad Overkill, who made PAYDAY and are working on the sequel, are not only focusing on making their products to be the best they can, but are also listening to their fans as well.

+1 from me. Totally agree here. I'm glad that there are still developers that have the guts to innovate and improve on a good (even if not that popular) game.

Jenova Chen, Kellee Santiago, David Cage, Kojima, Kevin Bruner, Dan Connors, and Tim Schafer. All of these people put Garriott to shame in a million ways. Come to think of it, a lot of others put Garriott to shame, too.

Everyone does. Fucker hasn't made a good game in decades.

I take exception to the use of David Cage. That punk is nothing more than a frustrated film maker who refuses to grow up. He's part of the disease (equally well personified by Hudson and Hepler) that helps to stunt the growth of interactive narrative. Garriott's still a pillock.

Punk? Yes. Stunting the growth of interactive narrative? I disagree. In terms of incorporating interactivity into his stories, I think he does so pretty seamlessly. Though nothing he's doing is truly new and unique, he has a firm grasp of how to have the player experience the story as opposed to simply watching it unfold or taking on the god role.

Either way, I think he's better at integrating the player into the narrative experience than Garriott ever has - and ever will - be, which is the mark of a good game designer.

The Blade Runner game did it better before Cage made a single 'game'. It didn't have plot holes in a highly reactive branching story. It was fun. It also had Joe Turkel reprising his role from the movie. Now tell my Jobin, can you name a single game by David Cage that had Joe Turkel? That's what I thought. No Turkel no cigar.

How many games feature Joe Turkel in general? There should be a next-gen reboot of The Shining! Also, I haven't played Blade Runner, so my ability to compare the two is moot. I trust that it was better than anything Cage has made, though, considering Westwood has a pretty solid track record.

I will say, though, that Beyond: Two Souls will kind of determine how I feel about Cage in general. Heavy Rain was just more of the same from him, and even though I enjoyed it, it didn't feel too much different from Omikron and Indigo Prophecy. If B:TS is more of the same, I'll have no choice but to chalk him up as a one-trick pony.

"Stuck playing cover based shooters for a millennium". Dear god, that sounds horrible

AMEN, brother!

Fuck you, GR comments!
That was a response to Daniel, obviously, not Garriott.

You're right! I did mean to say Fuck you to Garrriott instead of the GR comments system.

I heard that!

Generalizing when he said "Most Game Designers Really Just Suck", he means the fact that designers aren't full developed into the field and have no programming or any artistic ability seeming fall into the positions. Then he went on about that there is no such thing as a good game design school. That clearly has to do in part with the most famous game designers are never going to be teachers. This is also is a field where your product is based upon original and fun ideas so if some corp is backing you why leave? How many times in modern games have you gone into an area killed everything then gone into a new area?

A lot, this is what he is arguing but thanks for the paraphrase.

This man is responsible for the one of the first RPG's (which he created based on his ****ing high school writing assignment) on computer while coding it on a roll of paper. He deserves a lot more than this ****.

I'm sorry, I just keep reading "Fuck you, daniel."

I know, Fuck you Leack doesn't sound as good

Everyone has to remember ED didn't get hugged enough as a child. So we are his new family.

If GR was my family I'd run away from home.

Also uncle Daniel touched me inappropriately once. He told me Beard Anus was a game all families played.

Funny, his games always sucked in terms of design as well.

Does that mean no games have good design to them?

If he's right then so be it. But other designers can talk about the issue without acting like pretentious fools. I can provide a good example if so desired.

I think really it's just a matter of personal opinion, in regards to what makes "good" or "bad" game design. Many people may agree that a certain game may be super awesome, have brilliant design etc, but some people (and there will always be some) will disagree that certain game may not be so awesome at all.

As an artist, the way I see video games is that in a sense, they're works of art (when I say "they're works of art", I don't mean in a "they're so awesome" kind of "art"). Not just about how pretty a game looks in terms of graphics, but how creative a game is made in terms of actually playing the game. Then there's other factors as well. Does the game have a storyline and if so, what's it about? What's the soundtrack like? What is the overall art direction?

I'll be honest - I had no idea who Richard Garriot was, until now. I had to go to Wikipedia to find out a bit about him and what games he was involved in. I didn't like the Ultima franchise. Tabula Rasa to me looked bad and it's a failed MMO. He was apparently an executive producer of City of Heroes/Villains and I adored the CoH/CoV franchise. So in my opinion, most of his games sucked. He sounds very arrogant and kinda up himself, really.

Richard does raise a good a point about game design, but just because he does so doesn't mean he can do it himself. It's very easy to critique others without being capable yourself. What I mean about his point is yes, a lot of games are becoming very "samey" and aren't really trying new ideas or thinking outside the box. On the other hand, some games do and some games pull it off absolutely beautifully (Valve's Portal is a great example, in my opinion) while some games unfortunately don't get it quite right (some good examples I think are Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and Mirror's Edge - fantastic ideas, not very well executed).

About Tabula Rasa: it was actually quite good. I enjoyed it more than I did SWTOR. NCSoft pulled the plug on that game and stopped all advertisement to cut off Garriot while he was off playing tourist in space.

In fact, NCSoft released press information that Garriott resigned his position, while he was off planet.

For emphasis: the company lied while the man wasn't even on the freakin' planet. Let that sink in for a moment.

The fallout is history: Rasa got pulled, Garriott sued and walked away an even richer man. NCSoft had a bit of a financial setback because of it.

It's ironic that he says this kind of **** when one of the stretch goals on his crowdfund is for generic pet system. Yeah, he made some quintessential games, but hes the ****ing George Lucas of game developers. Anything he directs but isn't totally involved in, is bound to be far better than his own personal handiwork, just like Lucas with Empire Strikes Back.

Bonus points: Lucas didn't even direct it.