How The Game Is Played

Are fancy graphics really the answer to all game questions?

Tim Sweeny sure thinks so... ofcourse, his entire world is based around his product, the very high end Unreal engine.

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/36390/118/

Me, I'm starting to wonder.

As much as I love the *idea* ofimmersive virtual environments, in the end none of the MMORPGs I've played have been able to hold my interest
for more then 12 months. In the end they all seem to suffer from shallow game play and shallower game players.

My current addiction though is about as low-tech as you can get. Its a card game, online. How 1970s, right?

The thing is, its an incredibly *deep* play experience. I played Magic:The Gathering (also called Magic: The addiction, or just "gamer crack")with physical cards when it was new.  Now I'm playing again with virtual cards online.Their servers really need work (can anyone say Projhect Darkstar?;) ) but the game play is undeniably deep and fascinating.Also, the people I play with, on first blush, seem a bit deeper.; Maybe it takes a certain amount of a tendancy introspective thinking to really get the hang of something as permutationally complex as MTG.

All this comes back to an interesting question though. Is Tim Sweeny barking up the wrong tree? Is the answer to the future of games not more CPU cycles but more design cycles?

Its an interesting thought.

Posted at 10:52PM Mar 10, 2008 by gameguy in General  |