Garriott: “Most game designers just really suck”

So, Tabula Rasa.

” Peter Molyneux is another.”

LOL

Meanwhile out the other side of his ass comes yet another Ultima sequel…

Tim Schäfer
Fumito Ueda
Level-5
Platinum lead des
CD Projekt lead des

There is talent yet, moreso than can be clouded by the pompous mutterings of a relic from a day gone by. If he wishes to revel in ye olde glory that grows ever fainter as he ostracizes 99% of the industry, he should at least have the “lordly” decency to create something interesting.

He should have went the whole 9 yards and called Cliffy B a talentless prick.

but cliffy IS a talentless prick

just kidding just kidding i dunno what garriot is talking about here but the industry has a lot of talented people and the fact that he didn’t even name kojima shows his bias.

“Other than a few exceptions, I’ve met virtually no one in our industry who I think is close to as good a game designer as I am”

Wow. Just… WOW. I can’t be. Really. Even with his followup clarification, this still sounds like the douchiest comment I have EVER seen from a known designer. Wow.

notice he waited until it was too late for kickstarter supporters to pull their pledges to say this too

You being on of them.

The guy has a point but I dont think its just designers to blame. Its publishers who think they know best. I know of a few games that had huge ambitions, only to be ‘dumbed down’ by the publisher.

Who remembers Codemasters ‘Fuel’? It essentially turned into a dirt track focused raceresq affair when the brief was an online world where gangs would compete for locations on the map to secure the rare source of oil for fuel.

However, cost decisions about running servers, timescales etc ensured that it just turned into another generic game.

Either way, I just love how big name failures like Garriott continue to ruin publishers and now, looks like, blowing a small fortune on a game that probably will never see the light of day

How his Kickstarter funded I’ll never know – too many old Ultima fans with rose tinted glasses helped I guess – but it has to be one of the worst gaming pitches I’ve ever seen on KS. Genuinely awful.

@12 Who knows? Maybe he funded it himself. After all, the guy has a castle.

We lament the times gone by, how things used to be, then people like this guy try and make a come back only to be shot down by people. I think his comments are massively unfair, given that there is a massive amount of talent out there. Not to mention how accessible game creation and marketing is, almost anyone can make something these days and the crap sinks as always so the balance is maintained. That said, the old guard of games design just can’t seem to cut it these days. Anyway, who cares, I’ll buy and play his game, along with Planetary Annihilation, Star Citizen and several others from old names.

No mention of Ken Levine? Shameful.

There have been plenty of brilliant KS pitches by ‘old names’ and established developers trying to bring back genres or IP that have been left behind by publishers, and I’m all for that.

I’ve backed Double Fine Adventure, Wasteland 2, Shadowrun Returns, Grim Dawn, The Banner Saga, Project Eternity and Torment among others, and I’m excited about every single one. I’m also gutted about some of the others that failed to get funded.

Garriots pitch for Shroud of the Avatar though, that just comes across as poorly planned, with horrendous placeholder art (why not wait until you could show some decent art?) and an air of ‘Look it’s me, Lord British! Aren’t I awesome? Back my vague idea for a game’.

Nevermind that his name these days is synonymous with bad games and tacky, twee fantasy stylings that bring to mind renaissance fairs and LARPing. Don’t get me wrong I love high fantasy, just not the kind with tights, frilly shirts and silly pseudo-medieval language full of thees and thous.

In his defence, the man did essentially create the groundwork for the *entire* RPG genre.

@17: That doesn’t excuse him from not mentioning Ken Levine, IMHO.

LOL!

Look who’s back!

@17: Well yes… based on the already existing PnP games. I’m not saying that he copied them, I just wouldn’t give him THAT much of a credit, since he didn’t “invent” it.

@17 You can kinda debate that until the cows come home, but Rogue beat Ultima by about a year, even if Ultima set a lot more standards.

@21
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akalabeth
Possibly 1979, definitely 1980.

@22 And that’s why you can debate it forever. It’s always gonna be the case when trying to find a “first” at anything.

There were a lot of text rpgs before that as well, so you can always debate who “really” invented it.

@23
Oh yeah, I’m not saying he did or didn’t – I don’t think you can really pin that to one person or team. Akalabeth was Richard Garriott though, that was more my reason for pointing it out. It was what he did before Ultima.

Every now & then, some long forgotten luminary, trots out some guff in the hope of ruffling feathers & praying people still think their relevant.

I bet his scouring the comments threads & stroking his ego. Reminds me of Noel Gallagher slagging of the Brit Awards.

You were good once guys. Let it go.

@24 Oh snap, I totally missed that. Good point.

But then you also had graphic multiplayer RPGs going back to 1975. I don’t think there’s any pinning it unless you do a university level investigation.

The man’s trailblazing is undeniable, regardless of who else did the same. He also has a point which is getting shouted down here with disrespectful sarcasm. The people who contribute the most to what ends up in your hands, those who worked the hardest to get there, are the ones with the least input to its creative direction. Techies and artists are treated like grunts now. They used to run the show (particularly the techies). The suits have taken over, and gaming, for all its audiovisual advances, has suffered. This is why indie development is crucial. It brings back small teams, with creative ideas and direction coming from the same guys doing the actual work.

@27
Yeah, regardless of discussions around how he made the point I think it’s fairly valid. Loads of games would be a lot better with some better design decisions.

@27: I think it’s a pity that the valid points are buried under a huge pile of self-adulation. He basically shot himself in the foot. There will surely be a backlash, which, if you ask me, will completely ignore every single valid point specifically because of that very pile. You gotta admit, it’s hard to take arrogance seriously.

I think you are severely underestimating the influence of Garriot’s work.

Yes, they were inspired by PnP RPGs, but we’re not talking about PnP here, we’re talking about video game RPGs.

Whether it was the design of party based gameplay, morality systems, or open worlds with immersive gameplay, the entire Ultima series either pioneered it or very, very heavily influenced it. The entire JRPGs genre was invented off the back of traditional Ultima design, for crying out loud.