Video Games: The Movie Page #11

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I often compare indie developers

and big huge studios

to a couple of guys

in a Zodiac raft

and an entirely

fully-loaded battleship.

Each one has its own strengths,

and I think where the indie guys

literally and figuratively

run circles

around the big publishers

is that they're a lot more mobile.

They don't have to make

as many complicated,

boardroom-based decisions.

They can focus on the kind of

game that they want to make,

and because of things like Steam,

they can take their game,

make it awesome,

and then get it directly to players

who then spread the existence

of their game

because they love it so much

that they're telling

other people about it,

they're sharing it on forums,

they're giving it

to their friend lists,

and they don't really need

to make that investment

of ridiculous amounts of money

on advertising and marketing.

The AAA games have beautiful

graphics, big budgets,

incredible art teams,

but that's not always necessarily

what makes a great game.

Really, whenever a platform has

opened itself up

to allow hobbyists

to be able to create products,

you get incredible amounts

of innovation.

The interesting thing about that

is when you get to a team

of like 200 people,

the ability to innovate

is pretty much zero.

You have to basically go with

what was designed originally,

and that's what the game becomes.

The smaller the team,

the more you can discover

the really important

flashes of lightning

and flashes of insight that happen

after large parts

of the game are done.

And then you're like,

"Oh, you know,

what would be really cool

is in this section

and that section

if we could do this."

You know, and if you have a 200-person

team, you can't pivot on a dime like that,

you have to be like,

"Well, that would be nice,

but we don't have time

and we have to get done."

I do think that there's like

a revolution afoot in gaming

where people are interested

in finding those games

that have more character and soul

than what they've

experienced before.

A large game developer might

not be able to take big risks

on a virtual reality title

that only works in VR

and really utilizes it.

But in indie, they're driven by passion,

by wanting to make the best game possible.

They're usually

not sitting there saying,

"How can I make something

that really gives me

a nice return on investment?"

And I think that

that's going to become

more and more important

in the game space

in the coming years.

Where do we go from here?

Many think that when it comes

to the next-next generation

of the campfire,

the traditional game controller

tied to a screen

gameplay experience

may have its limitations.

One of the things

I'm most excited about

is virtual reality.

I think a lot of us can remember

back in the early '90s

when movies like

The Lawnmower Man came out

and VR was gonna be

the next big thing,

and it never really was

'cause the headsets

were big and clunky,

the graphics were crappy.

Well, thanks to recent advances

in smartphone technology

and screens and tracking devices,

VR is set for a big comeback.

I didn't actually start out

to create a virtual reality headset,

I set out to buy a really nice one.

So I tried buying all manner

of different head mounts,

and none of them

was really what I wanted

for playing video games

immersively.

And so I said, "Oh, shoot, well,

it looks like I'm gonna have

to actually try to make my own."

And I actually found

that it was something

that there was a lot of technology

that had advanced

over the last few years

and it was actually something

that was finally possible to do.

How do you walk around

in a virtual world?

How do you physically move

in a natural way

beyond just sitting down

and using a keyboard and mouse?

That's why we developed the Omni.

It's an interface

that allows you to walk

and move freely and naturally

in your favorite game.

Well, when you break it all down,

I hope we never get rid of the kind of

gaming where I just get to sit on a couch

and push some buttons for a while.

Could those early pioneers,

whose ideas eventually

gave birth to an industry,

have guessed what it

one day would become?

Would it be foreign to them?

Or did they have a feeling

from the beginning

that the ideas and creativity

of each generation

of new designers and artists

would forever reinvent the medium?

You know, back when we were

working on games on the Atari 800,

I think people would

have laughed if you said,

"This is gonna be

a meaningful art form

and it's gonna be

in The Smithsonian one day."

I never thought

it would amount to anything.

Nolan was running around saying,

"Oh, it's gonna be a big industry!

We're gonna sell millions of

games and it's gonna take over!"

And I fully expected

that Atari was gonna fail

until the day Nolan and Joe

came back from visiting Warner.

He informs us they want to pay

this money for us, you know,

like 20 million

or 30 million dollars.

It was like, "What?"

The amazing thing for us, you know,

back in the early days,

is we envisioned this.

We really did look forward to a day

where video games would

be interactive movies,

would look like interactive movies.

And, I mean, we are there.

The spirit of curiosity

and invention

that was there

at the industry's creation

is still its driving force.

Today's game designers

continue to give audiences

new and fresh interpretations

of classic stories.

What began as a single pixel

has now redefined

what storytelling is

for the 21st century and beyond.

The future of games

inherently gets tied up

into the future of technology

in a lot of ways.

And it's really hard to know

beyond a couple of years

where technology is gonna go.

We have a faster rate of invention

than probably any medium before it.

I think video games

in the next 30 to 40 years

are going to be unimaginable,

where you can't tell

fantasy from reality

and you can live the dream that

you've always wanted to live.

They have a lot

of really intelligent people

becoming intelligent

through the use of this stuff.

Video games, I feel like, are

inching towards the holodeck,

because that's the end goal is to have to

be as much like real life as possible.

Couldn't the whole world

just be digitized

and that make it an easier,

safer, and better place?

I could see us getting there,

and getting there quick.

What is the ineffable

sort of characteristics

that make real life important?

I think this is what video games

are going to start challenging

in the next 20 years.

The size and scope of

the modern video game industry

might well be far beyond

the greatest expectations

of the men who began it.

But games will continue to be

created as they always have,

by drawing on history and culture,

imagination and technology,

to deliver stories and experiences

that delight and challenge

generations to come,

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