[News]

Hi all,

We have just published an editorial titled *Dumbing Up Gaming*,* *which
discusses the issues faced by game developers and publishers always
having to dumb down games. If you could post a link on your site that
would be very much appreciated.

*Link:*
http://www.bit-tech.net/columns/2008/05/29/dumbing-up-gaming/1


*Picture:*
http://images.bit-tech.net/content_images/2008/05/dumbing-up-gaming/fp_img.jpg


*Quote:
*/"Recently someone tried to make a game out of protein folding. The
idea was that if you could make an accessible fun game out of it, you
could effectively get lots of people to process real data for free, and
contribute towards a worthwhile goal. Great idea, but do we have to
assume the game needs to be massively simple in order to catch on? I'm
sure a lot of biochemists play computer games, why must we assume they
are incapable of learning a complex game?

You can take a lot of great game ideas, and then dumb then down to the
lowest common denominator and make them boring and dull, that's a given.
There are some great game ideas though that you just can't dumb down
before they fall apart. Right now that means the game doesn't even get
out of the starting gate.

I've heard of games flopping because the marketing sucked, budget
problems, piracy and poor design but I haven't heard about any big games
failing because they were too highbrow. Yet nobody is even trying to
make those games.

In some ways it's all the fault of our old nemesis, the rocketing game
budget. Rack up a four million dollar wage bill, and you need to sell a
LOT of copies to break even. Selling just to biochemists won't cut it
any more, you need to aim at the wider audience. But if you avoid the
technology arms race and do a lower budget game, what kind of games
could we make?"/
*

*Cheers guys!

Tim Smalley
www.bit-tech.net