An Old Theme
We had a rather disappointing experience last night (it was game night). Now, it's true, we had four friends over, and the laughter and alcohol were both plentiful, but one of the highlights, we had hoped, would be a new DVD-based game entitled Shout About Movies 2. Parker Brothers publishes this thing, so perhaps we should have lowered our expectations, but let's be real here: any game supposedly built around people's shouting wildly should actually be at least as well paced as a championship game of chess. This game drags during the the track searches and score totals, and while there are eight rounds to each of the twelve games that are spread across four DVDs, it might well take a month to get through the entire thing. After that, too bad. There are no more clips and scenes and lines. Bah!
How is it that garbage like that can make it to market while games like mine (and many more that must be superior) languish unpublished in garages because these companies have no reasonable submission policies? This is why I need money, though angels are difficult to find in the game market. I want to create Brain In Overdrive games. I want to run a company that produces reasonably priced games that are fun and challenging, not the usual eye-level dreck that fills shelves in Wal-Mart and Target. I want a development team of game-loving geniuses who play with drawings and markers and tokens every day, looking for something that will get game enthusiasts more enthused. Then again, it's just another form of publishing, and the publishing industry is about as bad as any out there.
posted by Andrew Purvis @ 9:58 PM
4 Comments:
The sad fact is that the garbage sells. I was recently discussing a similar situation to a friend who is trying to break into the movie industry. Crap is what is desired by the masses.
I've seen it with movies, books, and music. The material that is written intelligently, or performed with precision and might be cerebral in nature is never desired by most people. In this case, you're experiencing it with a game.
Will there be a change? I doubt it. What usually happens is that those of us who want to produce such intelligent things have to resort to the cliched idea that we'll just do it for ourselves. That sounds great on the surface, but let's face it: We still like to have recognition for our performance.
We really enjoyed the game, perhaps becasue there was no noticeable lag with the DVD player. I am a big boardgamer (and not a videogame player), but Im also very enthused about games we can play on DVD.
It may well be that our DVD player, which dates back a few years, is not great for such games. We were in a reasonably tight game (my team was winning, of course, because I knew who to pick first), but after two rounds, we gave up because we were hoolding entire conversations while waiting for a single team's score. Then again, we were not pleased about being told that George C. Scott was in "atton" or that the movie where the characters shouldn't cross the plasma streams is "stbusters."
Oh, Andrew........
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