I've said before that I don't really play games. I don't own a single console anymore and the little laptop that could, the computer I use tap out all these missives is no where close to being able to play today's current crop of pixel-pushing games.
Most of the games I play tend to be flash games. My favorites are those from Eyezmaze,which are just plain fun, and Façade,which is taking a chance with something different. I guess that makes me a "casual gamer." I'm certainly not hardcore.
I'm well aware that the games we, as developers, make today are product. The budgets are too big and the investment too large for the publishers to take too many risks with new projects. For some reason, though, I still care about what I do. I want the project I'm working on to be absolutely as good as it can be. And from time to time, I discover that I'm not alone.
This evening I spent 30 minutes standing in an office doorway discussing how we can make the next project work better. How can we free the artists from their creative shackles and still help them work within the constraints of the technology.
Interestingly I spent these thirty-minutes talking with some of the more jaded and sardonic members of the team. I think it's this care for the game, this desire to create a product of high quality, that makes us this way. It's not that I don't like games and it's not that I don't like making them. I just want them to better. I want them to be the best games they can be.
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