Topic: Whoa! Ouch...A little harsh there Chris...

[Smoke39]

Not that it really changes much, but IGN says:

Although he stated the system is "severely underpowered," Hecker noted that he wasn't simply referring to the Wii's graphical capabilities. He wants to spend a console's CPU making games more intelligent, and he has found the Wii doesn't have the power to process things like complicated AI.

At least his desire for power is for gameplay purposes and not just more flashy graphics, right?  But the art comment is completely ridiculous.  Here's some more info on it from IGN:

Hecker also took Nintendo to task for not taking games seriously enough. "It's not clear to me that Nintendo gives a sh!t about games as an art form," he said. To illustrate his point, he searched for references to games as art on all three console manufacturers web sites. While he found numerous such references on both the official PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 sites, Wii.com had none at all. He then shared quotes from executives at Sony and Microsoft talking about games as a serious artistic medium, and then a quote from a Nintendo executive saying the company only wanted to make "fun" games.

Apparently, art isn't allowed to be fun.

[Strell]

Bit Generations Series
Rhythm Tengoku
Tingle RPG
Super Paper Mario
Paper Mario 1/2
Electroplankton
Earthbound
Zelda: The Wind Waker
Hotel Dusk: Room 215
Warioware Series
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island

The above fully exempts Nintendo from ever being called a company that doesn't care about art and style in their video games.  Hell, you could make a few more arguments - Starfox, Metroid Prime, Mario Paint.  

Nintendo might not be pushing a powerhouse system, but if I'm going to listen to high schoolers bitch like little bitches, I'll walk into a high school and call them all some random slur.  I'm sure that will net me just as much intellgentsia as this guy obviously is throwing around.

Like I said, power comments aside, I have to think that was the most offensive thing the guy said, and he's absolutely out of his gourd.

[Adrock]

Many games have great art direction, but I don't consider games art.

If I had to choose, I'd say Ico and Shadow of the Colossus are pretty artsy. There's just something about those titles. They're so simple yet they evoke such strong emotions.

[Strell]

If those games don't count as art - which I can understand - then they definitely count for style.  

After that, everything becomes semantics and syntax.  Point being that if the guy calls Nintendo unable to achieve art, then no one else is either, because I haven't seen too many games that approach stylistic visuals.  Sure, there are some out there - Okami, Rez, Katamari Damacy, etc - but the point is that Nintendo has always been driven to inject their games with unique visual flair.

That's all I can say, because I don't think the "can games be art?" argument will ever be settled.

[hudsonhawk]

Quote
Originally posted by: pap64

Take for example, the PSP and DS. EVERYONE in the industry and even the fans said that the DS would tank and that the PSP would destroy Nintendo's handheld dominance, mainly because it was the thing gamers wanted in a next gen handheld. 3 years later and the DS is a worldwide phenomenon.

Everyone said that?  I think you're getting a little revisionist there.  A lot of industry people thought the PSP would have a tough battle ahead of it, and there were an awful lot of comparisons to the GameGear and Lynx, which both went up against Nintendo and failed badly.  Very, very few people thought that Nintendo's decade of handheld dominance would just collapse when the PSP came along.

But anyway, this guys comments are being taken way out of context.  It's a rants forum - it's for developers.  They're supposed to bitch about the state of the industry, the tools they use, and the platforms they develop for.   Last year he bitched about multi-core processors and how they were a bitch to use.  This year he's bitching about the Wii being underpowered.  He's a PC developer, used to powerful systems that are easy to program for.  

[GoldenPhoenix]

I really disagree with the fact that his comments were taken out of context, he sounded like a petulent child with his language. He did not come accross as professional, knowledgeable, or credible. Makes me wonder how underpowered the Wii is, or he is just whining and complaining because he doesn't want to take the time to program around the limitations.

In regards to PSP, there were tons of people, including publications that were attacking the DS for being gimmicky, while PSP was pretty much going to walk over Nintendo because of its traditional controls, multimedia features, Sony brand name, and purty graphics. Heck you could see that confidence come through with the UMD format which various publishers supported heavily, you don't do that for a system that you fear is going to struggle.  

[NWR_pap64]

Quote
Originally posted by: hudsonhawk

Quote
Originally posted by: pap64

Take for example, the PSP and DS. EVERYONE in the industry and even the fans said that the DS would tank and that the PSP would destroy Nintendo's handheld dominance, mainly because it was the thing gamers wanted in a next gen handheld. 3 years later and the DS is a worldwide phenomenon.

Everyone said that?  I think you're getting a little revisionist there.  A lot of industry people thought the PSP would have a tough battle ahead of it, and there were an awful lot of comparisons to the GameGear and Lynx, which both went up against Nintendo and failed badly.  Very, very few people thought that Nintendo's decade of handheld dominance would just collapse when the PSP came along.

I don't know where you read that, but you are mistaken. From the very beginning people were placing money on the PSP being the winner.

Gold just summed it up for ya. Brand name, pretty graphics, a powerful system, good games and many, many other things made the PSP very appealing.

Hell, I remember clearly when Tommy Tallarico of G4 said; "If I was a gamer, I would pick the PSP". The PSP was seen as being the gaming machine while the DS was seen as a huge gimmick. People even went as far as to question Nintendo's mentality of competing against their own powerful GB brand.

The DS was so big of a success that it was able to downright destroy the Gameboy's legacy by creating a new one.

I'm not exaggerating here, its a fact. Look for articles detailing the DS and PSP struggle and you'll see that fans were betting on the PSP being the winner.  

[IceCold]

If anything is, Pikmin is art. Nintendo took stunning realistic environments, and made them completely contrast with the vibrant Pikmin. It's so surreal and awesome.. That's one thing I really love about Nintendo. Realism is boring. When they need it they use it, like in Pikmin, but there's always that distinctive flair.

That's why Mario Galaxy is so visually appealing to me.

[Strell]

Man, I gotta tell ya - I am really sick of the "Wii is so underpowered it can't do good AI" jazz.

Someone please show me one game with good AI.  Please?

I have never seen one in my life.

[SixthAngel]

It was very common to call the DS a "stopgap" to slow the psp down until the real gameboy came out.  Most people did not take the ds seriously at all.

Does anyone actually believe some guy who plays second fiddle in a game he is making will actually change anyones mind?  This will not change a thing.

[Hostile Creation]

There's a big difference between artsy and art.  I see games that strive to be artsy as essentially failures, or at the very least are hindered by their self-indulgence.  A game's art direction doesn't make it art, though it contributes to it.  A game's music doesn't make it art, though it contributes to it.  A game's gameplay is what make a game art, immersing the player in the game, having them experience emotional responses to what's happening in the game (ranging from awe to sadness to nostalgia to frustration to sheer bliss of accomplishment, and most often, FUN).
Nintendo, as far as I'm concerned, does that better than anyone else out there.

[capamerica]

I want to add a bit to my last post:

It wouldn't surprise me if he's looking for a new job come Monday. Its okay to let the developers comment on the difficulties of developing, but when you have a ass hole like Chris Hecker bitch up a retard storm it not only looks bad on him but the company too.

Sure the Wii doesn't have the graphic power of the PS3 and Xbox360, but it doesn't need it since its not working with HD. A lot of the PS3 and Xbox360 power is lost when it works with HD. The problem we have right now is that 90% of your Wii games are just GameCube ports. The Wii has a lot more graphic power then you all truly know about, and we're just now starting to see a few games be shown off that truly start to use the Wii's power.

Just look at the Xbox360 launch, the games all looked like slightly better Xbox titles. and I bet if it wasn't for the fact that the 360 had been out for a year already your PS3 games wouldn't have looked much better too.

Has anyone looked at a PS3 or Xbox360 on a normal TV, you really don't see a HUGE difference, yes they look better but not a whole lot better then last Gen. Its not till you plug your system into a HDTV that you really see the difference. And like 85% of a America I still don't own a HDTV and I don't plan on getting one till my current TV dies. And thats cause I don't see a need for a HDTV the quality isn't that much better with DVDs and TV only part of HD I like is the wide screen.

Graphics only matter when you have a sh!tty game that can't stand on Story and gameplay alone. If you need graphics to sell your game then thats a sign to me that they game is going to be sh!tty. A sign of a good game is one that can be downgraded and still be a lot of fun to play.

Dead Rising could have been just as fun on the Xbox as it was on the Xbox360, It may have a 1/4 less zombies but it would have been just as fun.
Gears of War could have been done with the Unreal 2 engine and still have been a blast to play. If last gen should have shown us anything its that graphics don't matter. If they did then the PS2 should have been dead last with the Xbox and GameCube taking the #1 and #2 spots and the Dreamcast being #3. Hell even the handheld war has shown us that a superior system doesn't stand a chance to a new and innovating system that has a generation behind graphics.

[Pittbboi]

Correct me if I'm wrong, because I didn't really follow the handheld wars, but I think there were a lot more factors involved in the DS' success over the PSP other than just "people saw the innovation".

I think there's a lot of retrospective thinking here. From what I remember, one of the reasons people thought the PSP was going to topple the DS was because it seemed to have a lot more going for it. Heck, when the PSP launched it had more games than the DS had managed to collect in its several month head start. It was more advanced,with a huge screen, and major developer backing. What killed the PSP was all that extra functionality making it cost more than people wanted to pay for a handheld. Honestly, if PSP had sacrificed some of the bells and whistles in order to price the PSP more competitively, it would definitely be a bigger threat to the DS than it is now.

It's easy to say now that the DS creamed the PSP from day 1, but at the beginning nobody was certain. With the DS starting out so slow, everyone thought the PSP looked like a real threat, and for good reason. The DS was less powerful and had less games, and with the touch screen not being put to good use yet the only real benefit the DS had was its price. Luckily, that was more than enough to give it an edge. The DS' and Wii's success are very much similar: they're owed not only to their own design, but also to Sony just royally screwing up and making it easier for them to pull ahead.

[IceCold]

Great post cap. I agree completely.

[Plugabugz]

Someone here on this forum (i think it was oohhboy, or Pro666) who said they're using a relatively "old" (in age ) PC and it works fine when they are choosy over how they do things.

Games developers want more power under the hood so they don't have to be inventive. Windows Vista is a good example of that - 512 horses, when other systems needs less than that. I don't know how developers can say they want more complicated AI - F-Zero GX has 29 other computer players right?

[Smoke39]

How complicated do you really think it is to make a racer stay on a track?  What if you want 29 characters doing something that's actually intelligent rather than driving in circles?  With realistic physics vying for processor time?  Things can start to add up.  The rapid pace at which technology is progressing likely has made programmers more lazy to some extent, but there is a limit to how far a little ingenuity will take you.

[Infernal Monkey]

I should punch each and every one of you in the vagina for making this joke thread about a joke quote from a joke developer spawn four pages. IN THE VAGINA. There's no escaping. Not even for Infernal.

[KDR_11k]

No, you should punch yourself (or whoever your avatar is) for using such a small page size because it's only two pages for me.

[Infernal Monkey]

B-b-b-b-but

[UncleBob]

Quote
Originally posted by: UncleBob
Just wondering, besides the unproven-on-the-market Spore, what has Chris Hecker created?

Anyone?

[KDR_11k]

Nothing. He's listed in the special thanks section of quite a few big games but never anything else.

[hudsonhawk]

Cap, I think you completely missed the point.  He's very specifically calling out the CPU capabilities and pointing out how that will limit the gameplay opportunities.  Actually your example is backwards, there will be a lot of great games on the Wii but Dead Rising is exactly the kind of game that won't be there - tracking thousands of characters on screen at the same time is exactly the kind of thing you won't be able to do with the Wii.

Again, I think you're all taking it way out of context.  Sorry to upset your daydreams about him losing his job because you disagree with what he said, but he'll still be there Monday.  Chris Hecker has taken part in this forum every year since they started it.  The whole point of the forum is to be contentious, to stir up discussion, to be funny and over the top.  Read the past transcripts and get a little perspective on it.

You'll also see where he's coming from on the games-as-art thing.  You'll either agree with him or disagree with him, whatever, but at least you'll know what you're reacting to.  Right now I'm not convinced you do.

Quote
OK so.. why are games and films . I mean comics and films interesting to talk about with respect to games, they’re the art forms that have come around in the recent history.. we know what they did. Film was the most important medium of the 20th century. Comics started to be important and then failed. Why? They just did the same thing. They found something easy: superheroes in bright costumes and they just did it. More and over and over and all of a sudden they weren’t stocked anywhere. In the 50s they were in any store you walked into. Now they’re in stores with men in the back playing games involving dice.

You really wanna be happy at an award ceremony, so I realised I didn’t wanna rant, I wanted to rave. Games are really totally amazing. How often do you get to be there at the start of an art form? Once every 100 years?

Games are different  from other art forms: they’re interactive! There is feedback! No other art has this. I don’t care whether you call it games or storytelling, it’s all the same in my mind. Games will allow us to be affected emotionally unlike any other medium in the history of mankind. Power Fantasy is not the only tool in our toolbox! You can play some games right now that show hope. Interactivity is important and can be more so if we do the right thing. Games are really cool, and that’s my rant.

[Deguello]

If he's simply being disingenuous in order to stir discussion, I have less respect for him than if he actually believed that crap.

Considering the evidence that he argued contrary points only one or two years earlier means he is just orally masturbating, which means there is probably a good reason nobody really pays attention to this weird rant forum at GDC of all places.

[Strell]

I fail to see how some iteration of Dead Rising could not be done on the Wii, especially when the Gamecube pumped out Pikmin years ago.

I AM NOT SAYING IT COULD BE PORTED AS IS.  You'd definitely have to drop some of the characters on screen or drop their polygons.  But I imagine it would be doable.

However I am not much of a tech guru so maybe someone can clarify my theory here.

[hudsonhawk]

How did he argue contrary points 2 years ago?  He said that the multi-core CPUs are a pain to program for.  That doesn't mean, "these CPUs are too powerful!" just that he prefers traditional single-core architecture.

I don't think he's being disingenuous here, just hyperbolic.