---

A very interesting and thought provoking list of the top 20 things wrong with today's games that, by all reasonable hope, should not be allowed in future titles.

Problem is, gamers buy up bad games in droves, encouraging designers to release more crud. This is outlined in great depth in the article below.

** Warning ** Article has swearing.

http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/games/manifesto.html

This should be taught and discussed in all game design colleges.

---

I laughed so hard reading it. So very true, but still the sub-comments are damn amusing. heh

To be fair though, gamers are buying this stuff. If they want innovation then stop pissing all over the titles that breed it.

Honestly, when I develop a game.. I want to know that I'll make enough cash to make rent and put food on the table. Innovative games don't really bring in that kind of money unless your some legendary name.

Even then as Peter Molyneux(sp?) has found out, no matter how much of a game god you are; doesn't mean you can't be touched by poor sales (well in a comparitive terms against the best selling games).

Every game that really pushes the industry forward has been sorely overlooked in recent years because gamers have changed. It's not longer people like you or me who's purchasing guide the industry, we just work in it.

There is no room for creativity anymore, it's all about the buck at the end. Gamers can bitch all they want about it, but until they change thier purchasing habits developers can't have thier hands untied and your not going to find much in the way of unique new titles for the major formats.

Remember, most developers now aren't thier own bosses. You can pitch the idea, but the publisher has a very real hand in the direction of a project. If it looks like it's going to be unique, your often told to scale back or something.. make it more 'marketable'. Most developers nowadays don't have the pure freedom that guys like Valve or id Software have.

And what do they do with their freedom? They create generically identical new evolutions of thier previous games. How ironic!

---

I believe this article shows exactly what is wrong in the gaming world - the audience.

All our games are aimed solely (mainly at least) at one audience, and one audience only: Young boys from 11-18 years old, with sci-fi and fantasy themes.

That's it. There's nothing else (hardly) at all. And pretty soon, this enetertainment medium will become stale and extinct, because no-one can be bothered to make anything for anyone else. No-one is trying anymore.

Walking into a PC-games shop, there'd probably be about 1 title I'd consider buying, out of the possibly 300 titles availible; there all basically duplicates of each other on an interactive level - no-ones adding anything new. I've become so bored with todays games, I've haven't bought one in the last 2-3 years (the last game I played which felt truly 'fresh' was Black & White)

---

That was actually pretty damn good . Cheers!

---

Sounds like he has some issues...

---

Hehe, he does'nt want much - like FPS's that have jumping but absolutely no puzzles involving jumping!

I liked the Halo2 article, that John guy must be nuts.


Van-B

---

---

I laughed my socks off at this part...Lmao


Was a good artical though!

---

Very good article. Pretty funny too. I liked the parts about "exclusive screenshots".

---

Yeah also a lot more focus on working to complete games not just belt them out by the release date would help a lot of problems.

---

If you liked that one, also read this one.

http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/games/halo2.html

NOTE* Contains *huge* amounts of profanity, sexual content of a twisted nature, references to racism, violence and anti-social behaviour, might be abit too funny for some people.

No really. Holy cra*.

EDIT:




I'm sorry I just can't get enough of this article.

---

http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/film/swflash.html

This one is not for little kiddies..its about star wars and i was dying with laughter!

---

Wahaahahahaha! couldnt stop laughing!

but my humor is sick so..

GICO

---

rofl thats such a good article. You made my day

---

glad this thread isn't a month old

congratulations on succesfully averting disaster.

---

Well jimmy, since it was in teh newsletter, it has special qualities

---

Unfortunately the article is really just a banal rant. There are some valid points in its murky depths, but it misses a huge point about the game industry.

The game industry is a business just as all industries are. If terrible games like Enter The Matrix can sell millions of copies, then developers will continue to produce them. The amount of time needed to get highly convincing AI doesn't pay off for many companies. I'm sure it could be better in many games, but there are deadlines that have to be met. Sports titles continue to sell well, even when they are identical to last year's version. So they will continue to be produced.

---

Omg that was a great and funny article....hahaha =)

---

A very interesting artice. His ideas for game genres are quite cool, its hard to think of unusal games on your own. I might make a game using one of them

Also - I've never realised this but all Nintendo GC games have no loading screens! Wow!

---

Not true. While a majority are well designed not requiring them, there are a number that still do.

Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg for example, but the loading times are a matter of seconds.. that said there is also Spyro Enter The Dragon who's loading times can sometimes equal Half-Life 2's.

Heh, spot which game comes from a developer that's home on the Playstation.

With the PC, you can forgive loading times.. despite not liking them, the way the hardware is setup it makes streaming game media quite difficult under Windows. Atleast not without some relative overhead.

For Consoles though, they're designed with very little Ram so your only real option is to stream data, and process it R/T. Why Sony games take so damn to load is completely beyond me as that hardware is MORE designed around streaming data than the others.

---

I think this has more to do with Nintendo putting pressure on developers to minimise loading times, rather than the console itself. Most Nintendo games have no loading screens at all, or the loading screens are "hidden" (eg. Mario Sunshine - where level loading occurs during the fade-in & fade-out transitions when you jump into a level portal, or Metroid Prime, where levels are divided into very small sections, divided from each other by doors. The next section loads as you approach each door). Some GC games do have noticeable loading times, but these tend to only occur in third-party games.

---

Very interesting stuff

---

Guys, I think he meant the NINTENDO gamecube games. Those are the ones without the loading screens

---

Not true... Pikmin has a very brief but noted loading screen.

---

Yes... I wrote Nintendo GC games

---

Very good article.