The technology debate

This is my first post on my blog. I am a student from the Netherlands. I like writing about games, although not in a very scientific way, but more in a laidback, my opinion and vision kind of way. I have been in the trenches of game production myself, and I like the pre-production phases the most. I played the role of gamedesigner, leveldesigner, modeler, scripter and wrote a few papers about games. Writing for me is a way of expressing myself, and I do have alot of opinions about the gameindustry, development of the newest games, and also subjects which are not related to games, such as art, design, stories (in book as well as tv/movie form). In this blog I will mainly focus on games, but perhaps use a non-gaming source for inspiration or to make a point.


Polygons
Having followed games for many years, there is one clear trend to be seen since the days of the Nintendo 64 and Doom, when 3d games were being developed for the first time. The first 3d games started to use 3d models, which are build out of polygons, todays measuring tool for detail in a game. Games try to use more and more polygons, because detailed games supposedly look better. But I do not think it's worth it to spend so much time and people on creating highpoly models. Just like film and photography was limited to black & white before being able to capture in color, which didn't automatically mean uglier, (just think of all the beautiful film-noir movies, Citizen Kane, and black & white photography which contains much more depth than color photography does), you can make a pretty looking game without having to use highpoly models, which reduces work, widens your audience on the PC platform (wider range of PCs is able to run your game), and makes your game run smoother on consoles and reduces the time needed to spent on optimalisation. Instead of focusing on polygons, focus on art-direction.

Citizen Kane, like many other film noir movies, uses black & white colors to it's advantage by creating awesome shadows with it, which results in gritty atmospheric pictures.

Technology versus art direction
Art direction is important, because it defines the look and feel of the game. Is this game going for a realistic, gritty feeling? Okay, then you might want to use a little more polygons compared to a fantasy game. But you can also make a game gritty by using colors wisely, such as in the textures. Dark colors, suggestive silhouettes of 3d models, overal consistency in the world (if models look gritty, so should the sound and music!) can create a much bigger atmosphere and style than just using more polygons could. Using detail is not a sin, it can be a worthy stylistic choice, but it is a trend in gamesland that almost every game wants to use as much polygons as possible, which is questionable for alot of styles. Why does Halflife 2 still feel realistic and immersive to me after 4 years? Good art direction, consistency in the world makes the world alot more believable, which is ultimately what you want to do, make gamers believe they are playing in this world of yours. Blizzard is master in good art direction, their games don't have many detail, but their use of colors and good character and world design make the fantasy world appear alive. Painters felt relieved when photography was invented, so they didn't have to paint realistic anymore. Painting could depict the unreal, use fantasy. So why should games all try to look detailed, while many of them would benefit from better stylistic choices? But it's probably a matter of time, there comes a point where it is no longer noticeable to the players to use more detailed models. Probably out of effiency, shaders were invented to not having to model every crack in a wall or add detail which wasen't otherwise possible, such as reflective water. Once developers will notice it is no longer noticeable to add more detail to a game, they will have to spend more time on their art direction in other to distinguise it's game from competitors. This will be a good time indeed, but until then, game developers will run after the latest technology. Atleast Nintendo understands technology is not all what gamers want, and focused on other areas with their latest console, the Wii. I hope more developers follow, and leave the technology race, and instead focus on good art-direction and game-design.