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Videogame Industry Slumping

14th June 2006, 6:05pm
A videogame designer by the name of Chris Crawford has labelled the industry as stagnant. He developed for Atari in 1979, and has been ever since. He chatted with Gamasutra, saying:

'... The industry is just rehashing the same stuff over and over,' he said in the interview. 'During the 80s there was a lot of experimentation, a lot of new ideas being tried-- many of them really bad-- but there was at least experimentation. Now we don't see any experimentation whatsoever.'

The interviewer asked his opinion on Nintendo's latest efforts with the DS and Wii. Crawford did not deny the validity of either system, but pointed out that previous ideas like Sony's Emotion Engine had failed miserably, resulting in some skepticism on his part.

So, what advice can he offer? '... copy Hollywood more closely.' Hollywood apparently encourages young filmmakers with new ideas and perspectives to get their movies made. He added that maybe companies should look in university campuses for up-and-coming talent, and maybe even set up an education program themselves.

'I'm confident that we will see some of these bright graduate students coming up with really weird ideas and bringing them to a pre-commercial level within the next five years.'
by Nick Schaedel » Author's Blog