bit-tech News: Dumbing Up Gaming

news · May 29, 2008

Hi all,

We have just published an editorial titled *Dumbing Up Gaming*,* *which

discusses the issues faced by game developers and publishers always

having to dumb down games. If you could post a link on your site that

would be very much appreciated.

*Link:*

*Picture:*

*Quote:

*/"Recently someone tried to make a game out of protein folding. The

idea was that if you could make an accessible fun game out of it, you

could effectively get lots of people to process real data for free, and

contribute towards a worthwhile goal. Great idea, but do we have to

assume the game needs to be massively simple in order to catch on? I'm

sure a lot of biochemists play computer games, why must we assume they

are incapable of learning a complex game?

You can take a lot of great game ideas, and then dumb then down to the

lowest common denominator and make them boring and dull, that's a given.

There are some great game ideas though that you just can't dumb down

before they fall apart. Right now that means the game doesn't even get

out of the starting gate.

I've heard of games flopping because the marketing sucked, budget

problems, piracy and poor design but I haven't heard about any big games

failing because they were too highbrow. Yet nobody is even trying to

make those games.

In some ways it's all the fault of our old nemesis, the rocketing game

budget. Rack up a four million dollar wage bill, and you need to sell a

LOT of copies to break even. Selling just to biochemists won't cut it

any more, you need to aim at the wider audience. But if you avoid the

technology arms race and do a lower budget game, what kind of games

could we make?"/

*

*Cheers guys!

Tim Smalley

www.bit-tech.net

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