The Future of Gaming According to ESA at E3

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Entertainment Software Association president Douglas Lowenstein has spoken on the future of gaming. He urges game developers to create more complete games, make them easier to play, and also addresses the problem of emerging platforms and of censorship. Here's a snip:

Lowenstein also suggested that video game publishers and developers create more games that are socially relevant. “If we can make games about terrorism, why can’t we make compelling games about politics or global warming? Why can’t there be games which force players to struggle with weighty moral and ethical issues within compelling game worlds?” he asked.

Lowenstein also criticized what he calls the “Mature-rated game track.” “Just because the market is aging doesn’t mean older players won’t play compelling Teen and Everyone-rated games,” he said.

Games need more emotional impact, said Lowenstein. “We need games with better stories, more interesting and complex characters, games that keep you up in the middle of the night wrestling with whether you made the right ethical or moral choices, games that stay with you when you’re done with them, games that make you happy when you play them, and afterwards,” he said.

Read the whole thing at Yahoo.

[ May 23, 2005, 12:52: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

 

Or, to put it another way, we need another PS:T.

He is right about the M rated band wagon. It seems like publishers now think that a game has to be rated M to garner an audience. That is, of course, ignoring the numbers any new Mario or Zelda game puts up, despite getting K-As. When Bioware first announced Dragon Age, a bunch of people were on their boards asking if it was going to be M rated. Not if it was going to be a mature story that might garner an M rating, but just whether it was going to be M. One of the devs replied what I think should be the ideal. He said it would be M if the story warranted it. Considering the level of maturity in many M-rated games, (cough, Liesure Suit Larry, cough), that really seams like the best idea.

Story first. Let the rating fall as it will.

 

Yeah well i'd also say that theres also the problem with "teen-rated" track which says go for the bigger market and bigger audience to get the bigger sales. Which results in lower quality software.

But really if you make a "better" game with good quality and appropriate for its domain content (even if a portion is mature) it will sell more anyway

Some game see the mature content and go overboard (like some rockstar games)