Blogged Out: Original Ideas, Chinese MMOs, Wild West Games Gamasutra First up this week is one of our favorite blog reads, the work of Brian "Psychochild" Green, who takes a few moments to comment on the recent chatter that emerged from Scott Miller's blog on the popular subject of licensed versus original IP. It's easy to be idealistic, but as Green points out, we can't all be gaming's answer to Da Vinci: "It's hard to be creative. If it were easy, everyone would create a few original IPs before breakfast and reap the rewards. Unfortunately, it's not that easy. People tend to forget how hard it is to do something they are good at. Programmers look with disdain at people who can't put together a simple C++ program. Writers tend to expect that everyone can string together words as easily as they can. Likewise, creative people tend to think that everyone can come up with something new and original." He's got a point there. We've all listened to that boring bloke at a party whose idea for a book is Lord of The Rings only with slightly bluer Hobbits, and we can’t really blame such people, because being genuinely original is tough. Green points to a parallel discussion on the blog of Mythic's Dave Rickey, who discusses paintings of dragons by way of illustrating the challenges in actually coming up with striking and original imagery for games. What is most important, Rickey argues, is the fantastic nature of a world that is made implicit in the details of that world. It is the finer touches, the nuances that imply the greater whole, which really make the great fantasy universes believable. That kind of artistic challenge is, all too often, an insurmountable challenge for less gifted creators.
Source: Gamasutra |