After criticizing Microsoft’s bungling of the Xbox One in terms of presenting a clear message to consumers about its benefits, 22 Cans founder and industry legend Peter Molyneux has now criticized the selection of games showcased at E3 2013.
“The vast majority of games on display on E3’s show floor or the ones that were showcased during the Sony and Microsoft press conferences are filled to the brim with shooting and explosions and violence. There’s nothing wrong with those games, but there’s just too much of it, he stated in conversation with GamesIndustry International.
“We’re not truly exciting our audience. We’re not realizing that there are many more gamers out there that love relaxation based gaming. This show is all about adrenaline based gaming, but there are tens of millions of people that love gaming because they can relax. There’s nothing… there’s not a single title in that show about relaxation based gaming.
“I was on this IGN panel, looking at the Microsoft show and what I found incredible about that, being a designer sitting with the press, is that I start to understand how the press think, what they get excited about and what they don’t, and everybody just went for a toilet break when the Battlefield demo came on.
It’s not just gaming that has had this problem though – Hollywood has long since about wowing audiences with special effects in place of a compelling story. The rise of stereoscopic 3D for movies is evidence of the same.
“Hollywood has this problem as well. The most memorable films aren’t the special effects driven films – we’re kind of bored with it – the most memorable films are when they take a character like Batman and make him vulnerable and real and it’s all about his character and why he’s like that. It’s going to be interesting to see what they do with Man of Steel, because it has to be more than special effects.
“We [the games industry] have to make that leap. I think Hollywood has started to make that leap, especially with television. If Breaking Bad was done 20 years ago it would probably be all about shooting people, but it’s all about the characters and their exploration. We’ve got to make that leap in this industry now.
“I deeply care about this industry and I do worry about it. I’m not saying I have any of the answers but I just feel we have been in an amazingly easy world for a long time where we’ve got fans and core gamers that we’ve been unbelievably abusive to and if we’re not careful we’re going to lose the belief of those people.”
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