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Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

jeff-vogel.blogspot.com

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Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#541

Post by tripzilch »

nimblegorilla wrote: post #247
Goronmon wrote: post #214

I wonder what the sentiment would be if the situation was reversed. Here we have a developer effectively looking to pay below market rates for artists, and then unsurprisingly not finding many good artists willing to do that long term. Not a judgment on my part, just saying that he's looking to keep the art budget to an absolute minimum. Instead if it was an artist defending his choice to make relatively simple games…

> If the context of the discussion was about developers instead of artists, how would HackerNews feel about someone lamenting the fact that they can't get any "affordable" developers to work on their projects? That's an interesting way to look at this article. It seems that many solo entrepreneurs have a hard time evaluating the skills of those outside their own domain. It feels arrogant to criticize someone profitab…

He doesn't sound willing to take outside advice on visual aspects of his games.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#542

Post by mumblemumble »

jofer wrote: post #277
mumblemumble wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose, but all of that takes time, and he is only one person, and he only has so much time. If he directs some of it toward all the things you're suggesting, he'll necessarily be directing it away from the things that make a Spiderweb game a Spiderweb game. I don't think he ever came out and said this directly, but he dances around it throughout the article: As a very small indie developer, that's a huge risk to…

That's a really good point that I think a lot of folks are overlooking. Spiderweb games has been around for a long time and has a dedicated following. I actually felt pretty alienated when things like Geneforge came out -- It seemed like a huge step away from the simple sprite-based graphics I loved in his earlier games. (Not that Geneforge was bad, mind you! Just a big change.) Spiderweb has always had a very distin…

I'm also thinking here of Telltale games. The original Telltale wasn't ever going to take over the world. But they had figured out a niche where some people (largely, admittedly, a nostalgia crowd) liked what they were doing enough to send a little beer money their way every time they put out a new episode. It was sustainable.

And then at some point they had a moderate mainstream success, and that got them thinking that maybe they could grow into a much bigger game company, and so they started pushing hard at trying to grow. That was the point where me and a lot of other fairly loyal Telltale fans stopped buying their games. The effort they put into other things meant that they were no longer putting as much care into the things that earned them their original fan base. And, at the same time, they found out that breaking into the mainstream market is a lot harder than it looks.

And now there's no more Telltale Games.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#543

Post by mumblemumble »

tripzilch wrote: post #531
johnnyanmac wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I interpreted the article differently from you. I saw this as a cold hard look at what works and the dangers of changing your brand (or rather, the fact that "better X" doesn't always mean more success when you're Forte is Y), not some general argument against the idea of artistic integrity. Doing what Vogel can now do after 20 years and an established audience would lead to ruin for 99.9% of devs today aimin…

Yes the business reasons were perfectly fine, and he didn't explicitly argue against artistic integrity, it's just that he didn't display any, while making arguments about artistic choices.

There's an interesting unstated major premise here, that "art" exclusively means pictures.

Spiderweb tends to focus on different aspects of game making that are admittedly a lot less visual, but are arguably no less artistic. This is a wildly hyperbolic analogy, but it seems to me that suggesting that Jeff Vogel doesn't care much about art because his games are weak on the visuals is a bit like suggesting that Led Zeppelin didn't care so much about art because their shows didn't offer the same visual spectacle as a GWAR performance.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#544

Post by grawprog »

sha666sum wrote: post #505
grawprog wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at the screenshots in the article, I actually liked the graphics in Avernum 3 and even Escape from the Pit, they seemed consistent and actually pretty well done if a bit simple. I understand the complaints about Queen's Wish. They're not necessarily bad, I don't mind a lot of the tiles, but something does seem off with it. That being said, I've seen far worse and if the gameplay's good then it doesn't seem li…

I never managed to play any games in the Avadon series, because they don't have as good keyboard shortcuts as the Avernum series. One of the Avadon games even has a Linux port, which wasn't done by Jeff himself

The Linux port is what I've been looking at. I didn't realize it was ported by someone else, it would also explain why that's the only one of his games that comes up.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#545

Post by dalore »

nothis wrote: post #490
jimbokun wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the correct response to a question of why they don't make a "better" looking game is that they don't care. Or, maybe, it's a taste issue. No, he plainly states it is a cost issue. He can't afford to hire the people who could create truly "good" art for his games.

Steamspy lists their games as having sold [in the millions]( https://steamspy.com/dev/Spiderweb+Software ). If they wanted to, they absolutely could afford a B+ tier art guy going through the basic steps of making their backgrounds not look like programmer art, for a few months. You can actually see some decent concept art and character design in their current games but they're drowned out by a stubborn refusal to ac…

You say they, but it's only one guy as explained. It's not that he sees art direction as a waste of resources, he sees it as a risk to his future. To expend resources in the art direction he would have to hire more people, and try and ensure the same art style. Which would mean he would need more sales. Plus he would have to upfront these expenses and he might not make it back.

It's an extra risk he doesn't want to his lifestyle that has worked for him for 25 years.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#546

Post by scott_s »

meheleventyone wrote: post #288
scott_s wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jeff has an art director. And he likes what that art director produces. You don't, but he does.

I don't disagree with that at all and of course Jeff will do what he wants and is welcome to that. I just think the art direction is the encompassing unaddressed point that follows through the article despite the enumerated constraints. Also where he does touch on art direction the things he chooses to highlight are not why his games look bad. Particularly when he highlights games he grew up with like Ultima V which…

But what I think you're missing is that in order to have an art director who is capable of delivering on what you're talking about, Jeff would need another person. And he clearly explains why he does not want to risk hiring another person.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#547

Post by ehsankia »

sprafa wrote: post #511
ehsankia wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been reading this article, which one have you been reading? https://i.imgur.com/rZozQHD.png

I don’t understand how that implies people who dislike his art style to be stupid. I’d see the expression more as a reflection of “find your niche, ignore everyone else”

Saying that you're glad people have attacked your art, and hoping that they continue is needlessly combative and reeks of an holier than thou attitude, as does the rest of the article.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#548

Post by bscphil »

udp wrote: post #51
cousin_it wrote: post #35

Jeff, the art problems of your games have nothing to do with low-res. Baba is You (or Downwell) are just as low-res, but manage to look good because they use fewer colors and choose them well. I recommend learning that skill, it will make your games look way better and it honestly doesn't take that much time.

Baba Is You and Downwell are a totally different kind of retro. They're trying to look like NES games. John's games are retro as well, but they channel the very different style of 90s Windows games, which had so many colors (256) they didn't know what to do with them all.

I was going to say exactly this, but you nailed it.

The 90s game style saw more powerful chips and higher color depths as a chance to do realistic art and skeuomorphic interfaces.[1] I'm sure they looked good to people then, but the reason they look so dated now is that realism as a design goal is better accomplished with modern graphics technologies than anything they had available then. Anything that still looks "good" does so because it was able to carve out a stylistic niche that didn't depend on having a more realistic interface as the end goal.

Pixel art games look timeless (to me) precisely because their limitations meant that designers had to find a style that worked for the particular game. To be sure, there are 80s games with bad art, but I think on the whole the older art was better (and is now more iconic) because the limitations pushed creativity.

I still love to play low-res games (including new ones like VVVVVV[2]), but most of them are in an older art style than John's games, which (if I'm being honest) look (visually) kind of crappy to me.

[1] The poor font rendering in most 90s games doesn't help matters either.

[2] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/VVVVVV_-...

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#549

Post by JBSay »

EpicEng wrote: post #540
JBSay wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something made of straws comes to mind.

Don't see why it would. Maybe I am reading too much into that one sentence, I don't know. The whole "talented... for a reasonable price" bit stuck with me though. If all of the talented people want a certain rate, then guess what? That's the market rate.

Yes and he acknowledges that by saying they are "really HARD" to find. Clearly after 25 years in the industry he didn't wait for you to point out that reliable talented artists don't usually come cheap. He's simply decided they are not worth the price tag for his business.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#550

Post by 8bitme »

Big props to Jeff.

As he says repeatedly in his posts if you don't like his art style or games you're free to find other games.

He's been supporting himself successfully this way for over 25 years despite the criticism. Clearly there is a community of people who favor his style of games depsite "the old school art style"

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