work well for him. It was certainly more successful thanBalance of the Planet, because
it was a lot better looking and had plenty of cute features. But it was not as educational
asBalance of the Planet.
SimEarthhad a lot of interesting systems in it, but it was difficult to understand
what was going on.
It was more that all of the different systems, they sort of didn’t add up to anything. He
had all of these simplifications, but they weren’t purposeful simplifications. They were
simplifications to make the internal systems accessible, but they didn’t really add up to
anything. The model for the way living systems develop didn’t seem to make any sense
to me, even though it was easy to see its results.
I’ve heardBalance of the Planetcriticized for not being a lot of fun. Do you see fun
as the sine qua non of game design?
That’s exactly the problem.
Many people do see fun as the
sine qua non. That’s one way that
the game design industry has
gone down the wrong path.
Basically, computer games and
video games are now one, and in
fact they’re all video games in
the sense of cute shoot-’em-ups,
lots of graphics, splendiferous-
ness, and emphasis on fun in the
childish sense. I see no reason
why computer games needed to
constrain themselves in this
fashion. It’s rather like some-
body saying, “I went to go see the movieDas Boot, but it wasn’t any fun, so it’s a
crummy movie.” Well, I’m sorry, butDas Bootwas not meant to be fun. I think we could
agree thatSaving Private Ryanis not a fun movie, but it is a damn good one. And the
same thing goes forSchindler’s List. And, sure, there are plenty of fun movies.Star
Warswas lots of fun. But Hollywood doesn’t constrain itself the way the games industry
does. I suppose that was the whole thrust of my efforts all through the ’80s and into the
early ’90s, to help the games industry become a broad-based entertainment industry,
rather than a kiddie, fun industry. I failed at that. It is now most definitely not an enter-
tainment industry, and never will be. They’ve painted themselves into a corner from
which they can never extricate themselves. It’s rather like comics. It’s a shame to see
the medium of comics used brilliantly by people like Spiegelman and McCloud, yet it is
relegated to the comic book stores where the kids chewing bubble gum come. Not
enough adults take graphic novels seriously. Some progress is evident, but it’s a slow,
slow process. I’m not sure they’ll ever pull themselves out of that dump.
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