Dishonored creator discusses stagnation in the Industry – Video Games Update
Viktor Antonov, who was the creator of the City 17 level in Valve’s Half Life 2 and currently working on the upcoming first person stealth game Dishonored for Bethesda, argues that developers should take more risks and shouldn’t rely on sequels that much.
In an interview with Eurogamer, Viktor mentioned that there has been very little innovation in the industry over the past five years as the market is dominated by sequels of already established Intellectual Properties (IPs) or war shooters.
One of his gripes with current generation games is that they are focusing too much on realism and because of that most games tend to lose the features that made them fun to play.
"We were always waiting for the next generation of great worlds or great graphics. Well, great graphics came; the worlds that came with these graphics are not up to the level of the graphics. Graphics used to be an excuse 10 years ago, that we can't make
great worlds. Right now, we have a lot of New Yorks, we have a lot of war games. Please everybody, let's do more science-fiction and more crazy worlds out there,” stated Viktor while discussing the technological advancements in graphics and appealing to other
developers to create more fantasy games rather than pushing for realism.
Viktor does have a valid point as the majority of the gamers are also fed up with the countless sequels and prequels hitting retail and dominating the sales because of the higher marketing budget and familiarity with gamers. This puts a lot of pressure on
developers creating new IPs when they have to go against established blockbuster franchises leading to studio closures when the new game fails to do well in the market even if it scored positive reviews from critics.
Arkane Studios will be taking a gamble by bringing out Dishonored for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and the PC on October 9, 2012 as the holiday season this year is packed with top selling games like Halo 4, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, Assassin’s Creed 3 and
Grand Theft Auto V. Viktor went on to say that the team at Arkane has created an exciting universe in Dishonored and they can’t wait for gamers to get their hands on it when the game comes out in October.
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