Popular Science Considers the Difficulties of Videogames
Kudos to Gaming Today for pointing out an article from Popular Science surrounding the efforts developers go to in order to bring us good video games. It’s presented online as a slideshow, but Gaming Today offers a nice summary. Essentially, there are 10 hoops through which game developers must jump in order to produce top-notch games these days. They include:
Processing power; depictions of water; human faces; realistic AI; light & shadows; realistic fire (an evident trend here regarding major processing power); material physics (“It’s no longer enough to make buildings look realistic. Now videogame makers have to be able to knock them down realistically, too); realistic movement; true-to-life simulation (Now programmers across all game types try to pack so many realistic elements into their work—historically accurate weaponry, detailed flight controls …); and motion capture.
My take: I think just about all the challenges listed by PopSci can be met by continued system enhancement and programming. The one I think would most benefit educational video game efforts is realistic artificial intelligence. Imagine a world in which a student asks an avatar for help, and can’t tell if the help comes from a real, live person behind the avatar.
Game Discussion, Game Studies, Game Writing, MMORPGs, Making Video Games, Serious Games, Sims, Simulations, Video Game Research, Virtual Reality, Virtual Worlds, Web 2.0 | John Rice | 
September 24, 2007 7:17 pm
No Comments
Other Links to this Post
-
Halo3 Chatter Blog » Blog Archive » Popular Science Considers the Difficulties of Videogames — September 24, 2007 @ 9:45 pm
-
Video Games » Popular Science Considers the Difficulties of Videogames — September 29, 2007 @ 6:53 pm
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
By Lee Wilson, September 25, 2007 @ 8:50 am
I think this only gets at part of the story. If you look at the runaway success of 2.5D virtual worlds for teenagers you can make a case that for a large segment of the market the quality of the game play and social interaction is far more important than the atmospherics. Habbo Hotel which is mostly 13-16 year olds has as many players as World of Warcraft. The Wii, which has last generation graphics, is outselling XBox and Sony these days. The market is fragmenting in some interesting ways that make the kinds of blanket assumptions about “games” no longer valid.
When it comes to classroom use this is even more critical. Getting game ports opened in many districts takes an act of god and the machines themselves have graphics cards from 2-7 years ago.
By John Rice, September 26, 2007 @ 9:20 am
Lee, It’s an interesting dilemma regarding game ports. I know that all the major CIPA filter companies block games, gaming sites, gaming discussion sites, blogs, wikis, etc., by default. Probably school folks would have better luck setting up in-house networks for their students to play around and learn in; I know that school network folks would feel a lot more comfortable with that option.
JR