BLITZEN'S PROFILE

author=GameOverGames Productions link=topic=1683.msg26878#msg26878 date=1218244644
-SquareEnix needs to split back into Squaresoft and Enix, instead of buying other smaller gaming companies stock to put them in a better position for another takeover.
We don't need them to become a Japanese EA, we need good Rpgs.

Well, this is exactly what happened when the movie business began. Over the first few years, the studio system grew by swallowing up smaller production companies and distributors, until eventually it was an oligopoly with tight control over this industry, and it was this way from about 1920 until the late 40s, early fifties, when new legislation was passed that allowed smaller production companies and distributors more room in the market.

But, as a business, the primary responsibility of Squeenix is giving good returns to its shareholders. The highest-ups who make these descisions just crunch the numbers and sign paychecks and release games based on market analysis and such and such. I really don't think they care that there are a small-base of N.Americans that have grown tired of thier products, because as long as they're making a profit here, nothing is wrong to them.

Business is businnes.

Coming up next: top ten ff7 parts where you should use phoenix downs....

author=Shadowtext link=topic=1683.msg26628#msg26628 date=1218074140
While on the subject of TV/Movies and Video Games: I wonder if the Muppets are going to make it into Kingdom Hearts at some point, since Disney apparently owns them these days?

Goddamn Squeenix, LEAVE MY MUPPETS ALONE HAVEN'T YOU DONE ENOUGH HARM AS IT IS?!?!

I use a series of punch cards.

That's the inherent difference in crafting names for games and for stories, however. In the most mechanical video games, names are identifiers and have little else to do with the game. For example, anyone who plays Tetris knows the peices, but it is not nescessary that they have names, because the player has an idea of the properties of the piece without having to have it labelled. The pieces, although without names or shapes that exist in the real world, become symbols and thus the player gives them an IMPLIED meaning through thier interaction with them.

When it comes to CHARACTERS, they are essentially units of your game mechanic, in this case the basic RPG Mechanic structure. Any meaning you give them, ie names or graphical uniqueness that doesn't serve a discretlely function purpose, in an IMPOSED meaning. This means that you actually TAKE AWAY some oppourtunity for the player to be creative and attribute thier own meaning to those objects. An example is your typical RPG cast, where the characters are funtional representations of the stats they represent. Let's say you have a tank-style character, and as a designer you put the title of Knight on it. What you have actually just done is LIMITED the interactive experience by applying a label rather than no label. While the player could have attributed to the lableless object any value that they wished, you as a designer had gone ahead and done it for them.

It all depends what you are trying to do as a game designer if you think this is a good thing or not. Sometimes it is nescessary for identification purposes (ie the player needs to know which object is a KEY style object and which is a LOCK style object in order to progress in the game). Or, if you're designig the game with the aesthetic as vital to the gameplay experience, then it will play a huge role in your presentation.

Personally, I would think that the best games are the ones where you can take away the atmospheric elements and be left with something that is still a hell of a lot of fun. There is still a creativity in good design that can exist without an aesthetic focus. That being said, themes and aesthetics help differentiate your design if it is similar to others, to the point where it develops to become a mechanic in itself that differentiates it from other designs.

I'm not taking either side of this dialectic, but keep this in mind when you are designing your games.