Deus Ex and Epic Mickey designer calls out for less violence and more human interaction in games

By: Muhammad Qasim Hassan

  |   August 18th, 2012   |  

Uncategorized

The popularity of the first-person shooter genre is something that simply cannot be denied and thus it does not come as a surprise to see publishers heavily inclined towards such games.

The lead designer of original Deus Ex and Epic Mickey Warren Spector is however not too comfortable with the prevalence of shooters and violence in games.

In an interview with Eurogamer Germany, the designer came out to state that it would sure be nice to see developers focus more on creating characters whom players can actually relate to instead of concentrating on creating believable guns.

“Can you imagine what games would look like if [id Software cofounder John Carmack and Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney] spent as much time working on non-combat AI as they do on rendering? Can you imagine what games we would have if John Carmack decided he wanted to create a believable character as opposed to a believable gun?” said Spector.

The obsession with violence and first-person shooters bothers him as it keeps the developers from utilising the resources at their disposal to their full potential. Sticking with the same old formula and that too being something that people cannot normally relate to makes the lack of basic human interaction quite hard to ignore.

Spector contended that there should be more to games than just picking up a gun and shooting people. The controller has a wide range of buttons that can be utilised to trigger a variety of actions on the screen. However, limiting the scope of possibilities by remaining fixated on using the technology to create authentic-looking guns and using the controller as a virtual trigger is far from what he wishes the games to offer.

He said that depicting violence and making gun-oriented games is not what the developers are capable of and definitely not something that they should restrict themselves to.

The views of Spector do hold some ground as a number of industry analysts have been pointing at the ubiquity of gun-oriented games in the market, which end up leaving gamers with a very limited option to choose from. Furthermore, these games end up offering a strikingly experience, which is beginning to get considered as a serious threat to the future of gaming industry. Some analysts are of the opinion that with publishers and developers sticking to ideas that have already proven themselves to be successful, there is just not enough innovation taking place. The see the current scenario as alarming and expect it to takes it toll on the overall industry as gamers.

Despite the criticism over the prevalence of first-person shooter genre in the market, the impressive sales figures of such games are causing the publishers and developers to ignore warnings that are being issued by the analysts.