i think he meant technical artists
Why decline in generalists leads to disjointed games and harms tool quality
111–114 of 114 posts
Re: Why decline in generalists leads to disjointed games and harms tool quality
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
While this was nice, I also especially like the sections where he realizes he was wrong to keep insisting on doing stuff himself, like when they finally get a dedicated artist and sound designer.
The two are unrelated. In the latter, he was referring to a dedicated artist/sound designer for the final product. In my comment, he is referring to building a quick prototype to show to the team. Once he's done that, the dedicated folks will make the actual final/production version based on his prototype.
Oh, yes. I didn’t mean to imply they were mutually exclusive. Just that the one spoke to me more than the other :)
Re: Why decline in generalists leads to disjointed games and harms tool quality
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
A book is not a visual medium. A game is. In a book, you imagine the environment in your head, in the game, the graphics are already imagined (and drawn) for you. If the graphics already exist, a "modern" flat soulless UI overlay just makes for a painful disjointed from the in-game world experience.
Just for discussion's sake. It is debatable what happens in our heads. When we play one of the earlier pixel Zeldas, one might argue our mind is filling in all the details with higher resolution images. I can still agree with this argument, though. In terms of the UI, the game controller is also a soulless interface, and I guess one could claim it gets in the way of experiencing the game. My opinion is simply that th…
I am not talking about "if it's pixelated, you can imagine it being immersive". Games like Tropico, SimCity 4 or Sid Meier's Pirates have fairly high-resolution icons (well, obviously not on 4K but it isn't pixel art either) which leave not much room for imagination, and they work very well.
The "soulless UI" effect happens when developers try to use flat design in a game where it doesn't work with the aesthetic. A game set in the future? of course. A game set in 1700? hell no. and also if the game uses too many numbers. If there are many "+20% this, +10% that" that also feels unimmersive so the player is dragged out of the game world.
Re: Why decline in generalists leads to disjointed games and harms tool quality
#114I’ve worked in games for twenty years and can safely say there are way more generalists today than there have ever been. Better tools and more awareness simply mean there are way more people making games. Even within large game teams you’ll also find loads of generalists. The issue has never been a lack but that the industry itself crushes you into a box and insists you don’t exist. I’ve sat in meetings where general…
> There aren’t a lack of generalists, organizations are just blind to their existence and have no understanding of how to use them. A generalist is a threat to the organization as a concept. Organizations rely on power and information flowing in well defined ways. Information flows up, control flows down. A generalist might disrupt that by passing information and instructions sideways . Which is why, no matter how of…
Yes and: Seeing Like a State, the notion of legibility, really gelled these concepts for me.