"One-Trick Pony"

Leah alerted me to this thread.

It's a fun read.

I don't usually post to message-boards, because it's easier - and safer - to just not. I do use this journal to answer questions sent directly to me, however, because I think readers - and players - who take the time out to write me an e-mail deserve an answer. Besides, I enjoy it.

Nobody's written me an e-mail this time (well, except for Leah sending me a link to the thread in question). But I'm thinking an answer is in order.

(So, okay, almost every time I've done this - tried to address some thread on a forum - I've done nothing but fuel the fire. Since I'm not the smartest dog in the pen, however, and since I never learn from experience...let's roll!)

(Hey, it's A Guy Thing.)

First off, I'm not easily offended by anything, and that also works the other way 'round: I don't expect my readers to get easily offended by the things I say...write.

Secondly, my diet appears to be an issue. At some point, somewhere in my oft-debated journal, I wrote something about fast food. Specifically, McDonald's. I'm happy to tell y'all that I haven't visited a McDonald's since...well, I prefer real chow. Like a good chicken salad. I have no idea how relevant my diet - which, admittedly, is quite limited these days; not much point cooking dinner for one, is there? I stick to the four basic food-groups: Sandwiches, soup, pasta, and pizza - how relevant my diet is to any of this. So. Diet. Dead topic. Dead and buried.

(Thanks for caring, though.)

Thirdly, PC gamers are a prickly, and often snobbish, bunch.

And, last but not least: Yeah, games are made to generate loads of cash. They really are. It's the awful truth. We don't like to talk about it. It's a bit dirty.

It's not anywhere as simple as all that, though. Any of it.

(Except the diet-thing, which really is as simple as all that.)

(And, yup, I'm being sarcastic...which isn't nearly as awful as it sounds.)

All right. So. Let's start with this:

What's really so wrong about being a snob?

People who only play PC games - and there are a lot of 'em, most of whom have very good reasons for not playing console games - sometimes believe that console games (and, by proxy, console gamers) are more simplistic, less intelligent, and generally nowhere near as sophisticated as PC games (and, one must then assume, PC gamers).

Sometimes (sometimes) they're right. Console games (if not gamers) are often simpler. They're often dumber. And they're often less sophisticated. After all, how many bloody wrestling games have Acclaim released for the consoles since the beginning of time? A lot. They've released a lot.

But consoles have also given the world some amazing, intriguing, stunning, beautiful, deep, challenging, rewarding, and intelligent games. Dozens of them. Hundreds of them. Fantastic games, worth every penny and every hour they've consumed.

Thing is, console gamers are also snobs. And they're just as prickly as PC gamers. Maybe even more so (though I'm really just pandering to the PC gamers out there). Just look at how the hardcore players of one console - let's say the PlayStation 2 - spew bile at the hardcore players of another console, like the GameCube. Or the Xbox. Usually the Xbox. It's called the Console War, and it's the stupidest thing since cheese in a can.

Worse still is how console gamers look down their noses at PC games, claiming they're too complicated, prone to crashing, that they require expensive hardware to run, let alone show a decent frame-rate, and that they're simply not fun.

Sometimes they're right, too. PC games can be too complicated. They are prone to crashing, a lot of them. They do require expensive hardware to run (I've given up trying to upgrade my PC).

And some of them aren't fun. Just like with some console games.

There's not a world of difference, you know. They're all games running on different kinds of computers. The biggest difference is in the way you control the games, and the screen you're looking at. It's more "The Monitor vs. the Television" than anything else. (And not everyone can afford a 21-inch monitor. Me, for instance - I'm staring at a crappy 17-incher right now. When it comes to games, I'm more comfortable on the couch in front of my TV than I am on a chair in front of my crappy monitor.)

So what's so wrong about being a snob? Nothing much, really. If you play PC games because you like the kind of games the PC does well - strategy titles like Sim City 4, online games like Anarchy Online, or (perhaps fittingly) point-and-click adventure games like, oh, The Longest Journey? - why would you want a console? You wouldn't. You're happy. Snobbish or not - probably not - you've found your bone, and you're gnawing on it. (Pardon the imagery.)

If you're playing PC games just 'cause you think console games are crap - and vice versa - you really are snobbish, and you're losing out on some great entertainment. Half of the world's great games are only on consoles. And, again, vice versa. Broaden your horizons. If you can afford it, that is. (If not, stick with what you've got, and count yourself lucky.)

Now. Onto what I like to think of as the Grand Conspiracy: Funcom resents TLJ's success, and that's why we're not doing a sequel.

I liked that one so much that I just had to mention it. As far as conspiracy theories go, it's a pretty good one. It is, of course, quite, quite silly. Everyone at Funcom is proud of TLJ. A company would have to be pretty silly to resent a successful product. Think about it. Yes. Doesn't make sense, does it?

For a small company like Funcom, making games is about using the right resources in the right places at the right time. We've said before that we'd like to make a sequel to TLJ - I've said that, too, many times, more than I should have - and that when the time is right, we...might. (I won't say 'will', because you never know what's going to happen. The world could end tomorrow. That's not so far-fetched, you know.) And for the sequel to come together, there are some people who must come together. One man doesn't make a game. Nor two. Or four. Or eight. Or, indeed, ten. And a few of those people need to be the right people, because TLJ is very much the product of specific sensibilities, and for the planned story to go in the planned direction, the right ingredients are needed. Or the whole thing would just...collapse.

So why doesn't Funcom just give away the rights to the sequel? Uh, yeah, that's a great idea. Why wouldn't we want to give away the rights to a story, a world, and characters we've spent years breathing life into? Why wouldn't we want to give away the rights to one of our biggest successes ever? And as for selling the rights...that would mean we could never do a sequel on our own. And since we want to do a sequel - and since we know that, if anyone's going to do a sequel, it has to be us, because we know What Happens Next - we're not going to do that. Disney would never sell Mickey. We're not selling April. (Perhaps not the most apt comparison in the world, but hey!)

This is getting long, but I have one last thing I want to address: Our sole concern is making money, and so we're selling out to a) consoles, b) a new audience, c) the Devil, and abandoning the PC and our loyal fans.

(Again - big on the sarcasm. And scroll back to my "first off" if you're getting offended. You shouldn't be. I'm not.)

For TLJ 2 to happen it has to be a guaranteed success! It's horrible. It really is. Because a 'guaranteed success' may mean that you create something like Men in Black II, which was just awfully awful, and the worst kind of 'product' there is: A heartless, soulless, bland and trite creature. By playing it safe, by not taking any risks, you're not evolving. You're just going around in circles. But when a game costs three, four, five million dollars to create - and it does, and often more than that - you have to prove to a lot of people that what you're making will appeal to a lot of other people, get great reviews, and sell a lot of copies.

'Selling' doesn't mean you 'sell out', or that you abandon your core audience. It does mean that you evolve with the times, whatever that may mean.

Will TLJ 2 end up on, for example, the Xbox, in addition to the PC? Perhaps. Will it be point-and-click? Maybe not. Will it have beautiful graphics, a great story, intriguing characters, a fully realised world - or two...or three...or (gasp!) four - clever puzzles, amazing music, involving dialogue, pitch-perfect voice-overs, 'bad' language, gay references, political incorrectness, and April Ryan? Yup. I can pretty much guarantee you that.

(Of course, the story won't be exactly - or anywhere near - what you expect, but that's half the fun. The clues are in the first one. Maybe.)

The long and the short of it is this: TLJ was created to make money, as well as provide people with a fun and original adventure, and hours and hours of entertainment. TLJ 2 will be developed to make money...and the other stuff, too. It's how we make our living, folks. Good games = cash = I get my salary = you get more games. The second any of that breaks down, there won't be any more games. Except maybe cheap PacMan clones made in Java. Which aren't a lot of fun to play. Trust me.

There was probably more, but I'm spent, tired, and I've probably set myself up for a long fall and much flaming. But that's life, and I'm enjoying the heck out of it...especially the bit I'm off to do right now.

No, not eat. Sleep.  ¶ 17:34