5 ms·

All that great tech, and the end result is just another game where you shoot people until they're dead, then repeat with more people. Sad, really.

by Gring 14y ago

cowkingdeluxe 14y ago
This is incorrect. Whether it's the UDK engine or Cry Engine, you can do some amazing things with them if you have the capability. You are only locked into FPS if that's only what you're capable of making.
- baddox 14y ago
  That is also incorrect. Making an FPS does not imply that you are incapable of creating another type of game.
  - cowkingdeluxe 14y ago
    "You are only locked into FPS if that's only what you're capable of making." It seems clear to me that I implied that being only capable of making an FPS means you are locked into making an FPS.
- Gring 14y ago
  If you look at sales, 95% of Cry Engine game boxes sold were first person shooters. I don't expect anything different for the future.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - kaeluka 14y ago
    might be; but fact is: that's not the only thing, the engine allows you to make
    - Gring 14y ago
      Sure there might be an outlier of a good game somewhere. But the current market drives future innovation. And the current market is "crap sells well". Let's guess what everybody is working on...
      - deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
  - cowkingdeluxe 14y ago
    And what about UDK, which is similar engine but with more widespread adoption?
  - replax 14y ago
    While it's true that most of them are FPS, I don't think it is 95%. Look at Aion for example (MMORPG)
sp332 14y ago
It's helpful if you don't think of them as telling separate stories. It's more like watching different interpretations of Hamlet, or Romeo and Juliet. It's basically the same story over and over, but if it's told well, then it can still be entertaining.
- betterth 14y ago
  This is pretty offensive to anyone who actually plays FPS games and isn't just bitching from the outside. There are some great FPS's with amazing stories that make up a large part of the bedrock that is gaming as a cultural medium. They are not retellings of the same story any more than Oscar-bait movies are retellings of other stories. It's like saying "don't look at Harry Potter or Star Wars or Lord of the Rings as separate stories, instead think of them as different interpretations of the monomyth. It's the same story over and over, but if done well it can still be entertaining". When all's said and done, I'd like to call them separate stories. Identifying the common plots and tropes doesn't make them the same at heart.
  - sp332 14y ago
    Well maybe I had it backwards. Maybe FPS's are trying to tell different stories but for some reason they all try to use the same tools to do it. Really, shooting people is not the best way to tell most stories. The creators of the Drake's Uncharted series, really great FPS games, are complaining that it's hard to get any serious dramatic emotion in a game that has you getting shot at most of the time.
    - betterth 14y ago
      What do you propose the player does in an action oriented, modern, gun-based game? What skill based mechanic can eat up 30 hours of a 40 hour game and is superior to point and click FPS shooting? At the end of the day, your player has to PLAY the game and I guess I can understand the frustration of the grinding and the mechanic, but I fail to see what is superior. Maybe people want more games like Heavy Rain? I loved Heavy Rain, it was an incredibly engaging and emotional story. I had a great connection with the characters and story, but there's only one problem: it's basically a choose your own adventure movie. Lots of watching, some playing, very little skill involved.
nickik 14y ago
Come up with something more fun then shooting down virtual people and earn a lot of money.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- harryf 14y ago
  So lets try to really break this one down. Game development costs significant money so gameplay can't take significant risks. Any viable alternative must be able to generate comparable returns. Cynically put, for a game to be a success, there needs to be enough instant gratification for mass appeal. Same lessons from Hollywood... First person shooters a popular primarily because they give us an adrenaline rush, with secondary effects like boosting your ego if you play multi-player. That's why the format works. So what other options are there? You could invent another format that produces similar adrenaline rushes such as Amnesia, which is really just a spin on the FPS. Perhaps there are similar things you could try by simulating, say, a rollercoaster or a jet fighter. But what else is there which provides the same immediate gratification of an adrenaline rush? An endorphin rush... Now here the obvious choice would be sex, and I'm sure the porn industry is watching closely, but there's too high a risk of censorship for the mainstream game industry I guess; our society is much happier with violence than sex. But another trigger of endorphins is relaxation. What about games which, when you play for an hour, you finish feeling relaxed, happy and calm? Take flow for example - http://interactive.usc.edu/projects/cloud/flowing/ http://interactive.usc.edu/projects/cloud/flowing/ - there's even a learning element there. Throw in some elements for player creativity, and you have your secondary ego boosts for longer term gratification. I don't think is has been explored enough to understand the potential, so risk is high but at the same time, rewards could also be high if you're the first on the scene.
huhtenberg 14y ago
Where's Jonathan Blow when we need him? Seriously though, cross this level of graphics with a storyline centered around exploration of a creatively made-up world, and it'd could be a birth of a game genre - an exploration as a game.
- wlesieutre 14y ago
  Busy working on The Witness. IIRC, they're not using a premade engine for it.
- el_presidente 14y ago
  Something like GTA?
baddox 14y ago
Why is that sad? Should "great tech" only be used to create the kinds of video games you like?
- Gring 14y ago
  It's my opinion, baddox. Look at this video (from the atlantic jonathon blow article), then tell me the state of video games is just fine: http://bcove.me/vf4eof01 http://bcove.me/vf4eof01
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
greeneggs 14y ago
It's an interface problem. In the real world, for example, I prefer ultimate frisbee to laser tag, but in a video game we can't simulate anything more than point and shoot.
gosub 14y ago
http://dear-esther.com/ http://dear-esther.com/ is a good example of using modern game media for story-telling.
- Gring 14y ago
  Yes. Portal was also an amazing use of modern game tech without being destructive.
archangel_one 14y ago
In some ways the tech encourages that, unfortunately; the huge numbers they quote for the Xbox 360 (which incidentally is 7, not 10) are only achievable with heavily vectorised code which implies heavy graphics work rather than AI. I guess they'd say that's what the market wants though.
nettdata 14y ago
Not true at all. We're currently in the beta testing phase of our game where you get to shoot mechs until they're dead. http://mwomercs.com http://mwomercs.com Totally different than people.
- nik_0_0 14y ago
  Seen the trailer, looks awesome! Keep up the good work :)
- dsl 14y ago
  Please stop browsing HN so we can have this game sooner. Love, The Internet
ChuckMcM 14y ago
Perhaps, I don't think we've seen a Crysis powered porno, that would be popular with the kids :-) I think though that you've may have conflated cause and effect. This sort of engine isn't really useful in a poker game. Do you remember the beautifully rendered ChessMaster games on the Amiga? I remember people talking about a 'waste of the graphics' to render chess pieces like that. I don't think anyone has done a good Myst replacement, this might be good for that too. An archeology game? possibly. Remember that the 'engine' and the 'game' are two different things. Perhaps the 'safest' thing to imagine is an FPS, known audience, known play etc etc. Licensing isn't cheap, so if you're paying for it you don't want to risk that capital on a hyper realistic 'angry birds' now do you? Some other thoughts on uses for an engine that does good visuals: 1 Mechanical puzzles - build machines to solve puzzles. 2 Life/City/Population simulators - more fun to watch. 3 Sex games - mentioned above. 4 Sports games - haven't had a decent FP kayaking game 5 Where's Waldo type I'm sure there are others.
- Gring 14y ago
  Oh no, my point isn't about cause and effect. I believe that when they set out to do a great graphics engine, they don't have derivate, tasteless games in mind. They're actually doing innovative, great things well worth their time. The problem is the other half of their studio, which creates games based on those engines. This is where all the problems lie. No taste. And it's not just Far Cry and Crysis. Check out their recently released iOS game "Fibble". It's tasteless horse radish.
  - nazgulnarsil 14y ago
    Horse radish is hardly tasteless. Is this a colloquialism I'm unaware of?
    - Gring 14y ago
      No, but "tasteless horse radish" is a completely useless thing. Which is my point.
- OzzyB 14y ago
daenz 14y ago
If money from that is what it takes to drive the tech forward, I'm fine with it. Someone has to supply the cash to push this stuff forward, why not young adults that love shooters?
- Gring 14y ago
  That's a good point. But the end result should be "lots of great games". And I can't find them. This paragraph best sums it up: “Watch this—it never fails,” he said, bending over his computer keyboard. On one of his twin monitors, Hecker pulled up the movie-trailers section of Apple.com; on the other, he loaded the upcoming-releases page of GameSpot.com. The movies, Hecker pointed out, encompassed a huge diversity of topics and approaches, from buddy comedies to period dramas to esoteric art films. The video games, on the other hand, were almost all variations on a single theme: outlandishly attired men armed with gigantic weapons, shooting things. Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/the-most-dangerous-gamer/8928/?single_page=true http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/the-most...
teamonkey 14y ago
If you have an engine like CryEngine3 you need hoards of people creating content to make it look good. If you have hoards of people creating that content, you need to sell a lot of copies to pay their wages. To sell a lot of copies, you have to make something that appeals to the mass market. The mass market, at least for those who care about the kind of graphics attainable only through top-of-the-line game engines, wants straightforward mechanics where they kill things, providing a black-and-white scenario where they can feel that they have won.
jQueryIsAwesome 14y ago
Its all related to your perception; maybe the constructions falls over you if you hit them hard enough, and maybe there is a part where the place is full of mirrors and you hardly can tell the difference between an enemy and his reflection... but all this little things probably doesn't make it a "new game" for you; but for some people it does.

All that great tech, and the end result is just another game where you shoot people until they're dead, then repeat with more people. Sad, really.

by Gring 14y ago

All that great tech, and the end result is just another game where you shoot people until they're dead, then repeat with more people. Sad, really.

cowkingdeluxe 14y ago

This is incorrect. Whether it's the UDK engine or Cry Engine, you can do some amazing things with them if you have the capability. You are only locked into FPS if that's only what you're capable of making.

baddox 14y ago
That is also incorrect. Making an FPS does not imply that you are incapable of creating another type of game.
- cowkingdeluxe 14y ago
  "You are only locked into FPS if that's only what you're capable of making." It seems clear to me that I implied that being only capable of making an FPS means you are locked into making an FPS.
Gring 14y ago
If you look at sales, 95% of Cry Engine game boxes sold were first person shooters. I don't expect anything different for the future.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- kaeluka 14y ago
  might be; but fact is: that's not the only thing, the engine allows you to make
  - Gring 14y ago
    Sure there might be an outlier of a good game somewhere. But the current market drives future innovation. And the current market is "crap sells well". Let's guess what everybody is working on...
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
- cowkingdeluxe 14y ago
  And what about UDK, which is similar engine but with more widespread adoption?
- replax 14y ago
  While it's true that most of them are FPS, I don't think it is 95%. Look at Aion for example (MMORPG)

sp332 14y ago

It's helpful if you don't think of them as telling separate stories. It's more like watching different interpretations of Hamlet, or Romeo and Juliet. It's basically the same story over and over, but if it's told well, then it can still be entertaining.

betterth 14y ago
This is pretty offensive to anyone who actually plays FPS games and isn't just bitching from the outside. There are some great FPS's with amazing stories that make up a large part of the bedrock that is gaming as a cultural medium. They are not retellings of the same story any more than Oscar-bait movies are retellings of other stories. It's like saying "don't look at Harry Potter or Star Wars or Lord of the Rings as separate stories, instead think of them as different interpretations of the monomyth. It's the same story over and over, but if done well it can still be entertaining". When all's said and done, I'd like to call them separate stories. Identifying the common plots and tropes doesn't make them the same at heart.
- sp332 14y ago
  Well maybe I had it backwards. Maybe FPS's are trying to tell different stories but for some reason they all try to use the same tools to do it. Really, shooting people is not the best way to tell most stories. The creators of the Drake's Uncharted series, really great FPS games, are complaining that it's hard to get any serious dramatic emotion in a game that has you getting shot at most of the time.
  - betterth 14y ago
    What do you propose the player does in an action oriented, modern, gun-based game? What skill based mechanic can eat up 30 hours of a 40 hour game and is superior to point and click FPS shooting? At the end of the day, your player has to PLAY the game and I guess I can understand the frustration of the grinding and the mechanic, but I fail to see what is superior. Maybe people want more games like Heavy Rain? I loved Heavy Rain, it was an incredibly engaging and emotional story. I had a great connection with the characters and story, but there's only one problem: it's basically a choose your own adventure movie. Lots of watching, some playing, very little skill involved.

nickik 14y ago

Come up with something more fun then shooting down virtual people and earn a lot of money.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
harryf 14y ago
So lets try to really break this one down. Game development costs significant money so gameplay can't take significant risks. Any viable alternative must be able to generate comparable returns. Cynically put, for a game to be a success, there needs to be enough instant gratification for mass appeal. Same lessons from Hollywood... First person shooters a popular primarily because they give us an adrenaline rush, with secondary effects like boosting your ego if you play multi-player. That's why the format works. So what other options are there? You could invent another format that produces similar adrenaline rushes such as Amnesia, which is really just a spin on the FPS. Perhaps there are similar things you could try by simulating, say, a rollercoaster or a jet fighter. But what else is there which provides the same immediate gratification of an adrenaline rush? An endorphin rush... Now here the obvious choice would be sex, and I'm sure the porn industry is watching closely, but there's too high a risk of censorship for the mainstream game industry I guess; our society is much happier with violence than sex. But another trigger of endorphins is relaxation. What about games which, when you play for an hour, you finish feeling relaxed, happy and calm? Take flow for example - http://interactive.usc.edu/projects/cloud/flowing/ http://interactive.usc.edu/projects/cloud/flowing/ - there's even a learning element there. Throw in some elements for player creativity, and you have your secondary ego boosts for longer term gratification. I don't think is has been explored enough to understand the potential, so risk is high but at the same time, rewards could also be high if you're the first on the scene.

huhtenberg 14y ago

Where's Jonathan Blow when we need him? Seriously though, cross this level of graphics with a storyline centered around exploration of a creatively made-up world, and it'd could be a birth of a game genre - an exploration as a game.

wlesieutre 14y ago
Busy working on The Witness. IIRC, they're not using a premade engine for it.
el_presidente 14y ago
Something like GTA?

baddox 14y ago

Why is that sad? Should "great tech" only be used to create the kinds of video games you like?

Gring 14y ago
It's my opinion, baddox. Look at this video (from the atlantic jonathon blow article), then tell me the state of video games is just fine: http://bcove.me/vf4eof01 http://bcove.me/vf4eof01
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

greeneggs 14y ago

It's an interface problem. In the real world, for example, I prefer ultimate frisbee to laser tag, but in a video game we can't simulate anything more than point and shoot.

gosub 14y ago

http://dear-esther.com/ http://dear-esther.com/ is a good example of using modern game media for story-telling.

Gring 14y ago
Yes. Portal was also an amazing use of modern game tech without being destructive.

archangel_one 14y ago

In some ways the tech encourages that, unfortunately; the huge numbers they quote for the Xbox 360 (which incidentally is 7, not 10) are only achievable with heavily vectorised code which implies heavy graphics work rather than AI. I guess they'd say that's what the market wants though.

nettdata 14y ago

Not true at all. We're currently in the beta testing phase of our game where you get to shoot mechs until they're dead. http://mwomercs.com http://mwomercs.com Totally different than people.

nik_0_0 14y ago
Seen the trailer, looks awesome! Keep up the good work :)
dsl 14y ago
Please stop browsing HN so we can have this game sooner. Love, The Internet

ChuckMcM 14y ago

Perhaps, I don't think we've seen a Crysis powered porno, that would be popular with the kids :-) I think though that you've may have conflated cause and effect. This sort of engine isn't really useful in a poker game. Do you remember the beautifully rendered ChessMaster games on the Amiga? I remember people talking about a 'waste of the graphics' to render chess pieces like that. I don't think anyone has done a good Myst replacement, this might be good for that too. An archeology game? possibly. Remember that the 'engine' and the 'game' are two different things. Perhaps the 'safest' thing to imagine is an FPS, known audience, known play etc etc. Licensing isn't cheap, so if you're paying for it you don't want to risk that capital on a hyper realistic 'angry birds' now do you? Some other thoughts on uses for an engine that does good visuals: 1 Mechanical puzzles - build machines to solve puzzles. 2 Life/City/Population simulators - more fun to watch. 3 Sex games - mentioned above. 4 Sports games - haven't had a decent FP kayaking game 5 Where's Waldo type I'm sure there are others.

Gring 14y ago
Oh no, my point isn't about cause and effect. I believe that when they set out to do a great graphics engine, they don't have derivate, tasteless games in mind. They're actually doing innovative, great things well worth their time. The problem is the other half of their studio, which creates games based on those engines. This is where all the problems lie. No taste. And it's not just Far Cry and Crysis. Check out their recently released iOS game "Fibble". It's tasteless horse radish.
- nazgulnarsil 14y ago
  Horse radish is hardly tasteless. Is this a colloquialism I'm unaware of?
  - Gring 14y ago
    No, but "tasteless horse radish" is a completely useless thing. Which is my point.
OzzyB 14y ago

daenz 14y ago

If money from that is what it takes to drive the tech forward, I'm fine with it. Someone has to supply the cash to push this stuff forward, why not young adults that love shooters?

Gring 14y ago
That's a good point. But the end result should be "lots of great games". And I can't find them. This paragraph best sums it up: “Watch this—it never fails,” he said, bending over his computer keyboard. On one of his twin monitors, Hecker pulled up the movie-trailers section of Apple.com; on the other, he loaded the upcoming-releases page of GameSpot.com. The movies, Hecker pointed out, encompassed a huge diversity of topics and approaches, from buddy comedies to period dramas to esoteric art films. The video games, on the other hand, were almost all variations on a single theme: outlandishly attired men armed with gigantic weapons, shooting things. Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/the-most-dangerous-gamer/8928/?single_page=true http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/the-most...

teamonkey 14y ago

If you have an engine like CryEngine3 you need hoards of people creating content to make it look good. If you have hoards of people creating that content, you need to sell a lot of copies to pay their wages. To sell a lot of copies, you have to make something that appeals to the mass market. The mass market, at least for those who care about the kind of graphics attainable only through top-of-the-line game engines, wants straightforward mechanics where they kill things, providing a black-and-white scenario where they can feel that they have won.

jQueryIsAwesome 14y ago

Its all related to your perception; maybe the constructions falls over you if you hit them hard enough, and maybe there is a part where the place is full of mirrors and you hardly can tell the difference between an enemy and his reflection... but all this little things probably doesn't make it a "new game" for you; but for some people it does.