Gore Verbinski

[Hammerskjold]

I read on FiringSquad that Gore Verbinski is working on a new genre of computer game. He is reported to have said he has never played a game where he felt "tremendous loss." Apparently he has not played Diablo.

You mean this?

http://www.firingsquad.com/news/newsarticl...?searchid=19919

That follows to:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-verb...ack=2&cset=true

And let's throw this in for good measure.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_in...tory=17281


I like Mr. Verbinski's work in 'The Ring' remake. I also enjoy his first Pirate movie immensely. I certainly look forward to seeing what kind of game he will create.

Having said that, I do think some of the points he mentions is a bit stale by now. The whole 'never played a game where there was a feeling of tremendous loss or emotional response' is to me, is too much like judging a whole field of literature by just cherry picking one or two books. (Even if he did mention the excellent Bioshock.)

But since he mentioned this in the Gamasutra article.

Verbinski concluded with one more impassioned plea to the game industry to fight stagnation by refusing to play it safe. "The collision between gaming, film, internet and animation has just occurred and things are still mutating... this is the time for madness, for brilliance."

I quite agree with him, but not quite on the same wavelength. I think the next leap I want to see is the equivalent of desktop publishing for gaming. That is, you don't necessarily need the huge backing of a publisher to create a game, because they're the only ones rich enough to finance it.

I'd like to see a re-invention of the one person or a small team being able to create a game. In a lot of ways, things like this are already happening, a la 'Everyday Shooter'.

I don't forecast every single person that is given a hypothetical 'game creation tools in a box' will necessarily create a masterpiece, anymore than anyone given a canvas and paint will create a Mona Lisa.

But I for one don't see any real merit in a huge requirement like mining the minerals for pigments and distilling various liquids for the paint, collecting hairs and assembling it into a brush, and growing the cotton for the canvas just to be able to paint a picture. (edited add: I know it's an imperfect analogy, since even the simplest video game by it's nature is still comparatively more complex than a painting.)

Then again, maybe I'm hoping for the impossible since the video games at the moment, is still tied to it's technical side like an umbillical cord. That to me, is a bigger hurdle than 'video games not having emotional response etc'. A hurdle which at least to me, has already been cleared by some games mentioned by various replies here. It's just that some people choose to either conveniently move the goalpost so to speak, or haven't played it and only basing their experience on games that are not representative of their genre or times.

To sum up my ramblings. Mr. Verbinski did have some interesting and IMO valid things to say in general, sprinkled with a few dead horse unfortunately. But I think I will be more interested if \ when his game comes out.

edited addition: It might be just me, but I for one can't wait for mainstream articles about video games to shed the ole' "oh my, hasn't video games come a long way since the days of Pong and bleep boop sounds and simple graphics etc etc" routine.

Granted video games as a form of expression is not as old and mature as say, film. But I don't imagine I would be reading an article that discusses contemporary film that starts with something like, "Oh my, hasn't cinema come a long way from the days of the kinetiscope, 16 frames per second, no color, and only a live piano accompaniment for audio."