Speaking at the Burning Mad: Game Publishers Rant session at GDC today, Spore developer Chris Hecker has shockingly branded the Wii as “a piece of shit” and slammed Zelda's creator, Eiji Aonuma.
Hecker, the founder of developer Definition 6 also accused Nintendo of failing to recognise games as an art form.
Not mincing his words Hecker claimed that "the Wii is a piece of shit!" likening it to two GameCubes stuck together with duct tape, claiming that the system does not offer the next-gen experience he was hoping for, in terms of both graphics and processing power.
"This thing is totally underpowered... This is not about graphics, more polygons, all that kind of crap. What I want to be able to do is spend CPU to make the machine smarter, more interesting and more automatically intelligent.
"It's about interactivity - that is the key differentiator of our art form, and interactivity is about doing something interesting with that input and threading it back to the user. You can't do that with a piece of shit underpowered computer."
Hecker then slammed Zelda creator Eiji Aonuma, who was quoted as saying, "I don't feel that games can necessarily be considered art. There's nothing wrong with that; our goal is just to make games that are fun."
Hecker strongly disagrees: "This is not good enough for people who are leading our industry... If we're going to make games the art from of the 21st century, we need people who care more than just, 'I'm going to make some fun toys.'
Speak your brains Chris, don’t be shy!
Apparently there are more rants on the way - in this deeply formalised session.
What do you reckon? Is the Wii shit? Are games art?
Hecker, the founder of developer Definition 6 also accused Nintendo of failing to recognise games as an art form.
Not mincing his words Hecker claimed that "the Wii is a piece of shit!" likening it to two GameCubes stuck together with duct tape, claiming that the system does not offer the next-gen experience he was hoping for, in terms of both graphics and processing power.
"This thing is totally underpowered... This is not about graphics, more polygons, all that kind of crap. What I want to be able to do is spend CPU to make the machine smarter, more interesting and more automatically intelligent.
"It's about interactivity - that is the key differentiator of our art form, and interactivity is about doing something interesting with that input and threading it back to the user. You can't do that with a piece of shit underpowered computer."
Hecker then slammed Zelda creator Eiji Aonuma, who was quoted as saying, "I don't feel that games can necessarily be considered art. There's nothing wrong with that; our goal is just to make games that are fun."
Hecker strongly disagrees: "This is not good enough for people who are leading our industry... If we're going to make games the art from of the 21st century, we need people who care more than just, 'I'm going to make some fun toys.'
Speak your brains Chris, don’t be shy!
Apparently there are more rants on the way - in this deeply formalised session.
What do you reckon? Is the Wii shit? Are games art?
Read More Like This
Comments
hollywooda 8 Mar 2007 10:59
1/10
that's probably the most in your face headline i've ever read!..... haha, had 2 laugh
OptimusP 8 Mar 2007 16:03
2/10
Yeah, what does Eiji know about art, he only created the Wind Waker and that game was so...hmmm...
it's official, art may not be fun! A guy who works at EA said so! (i know, last part is low, he actually works for Maxis which gets a lot freedom, couldn't resist)
it's official, art may not be fun! A guy who works at EA said so! (i know, last part is low, he actually works for Maxis which gets a lot freedom, couldn't resist)
more comments below our sponsor's message
way 8 Mar 2007 18:26
3/10
Ho, Ho, Ho. What is the spec of this machine, is it that spec we saw year before last, that made it look like an gamecube sped up?
GC2 doesn't need to have as much power as PS3 (with all that third party motion games control stuff) or XBox 360, but it should be within 90% of them, preferable closer to 50%. In that way they would still be cheaper.
GC#, or WII2, should have graphic upgrade to the latest standards, processing power, maybe something like clearspeed, video player (DVD or HD) HD and a bunch of little things, like an HDTV chip and optional hard drive to support PVR. Linux and computer processing. The existing WII can be repackaged PSP style, and souped up a bit, to become the Gameboy Advance 2.
All the technology for an WII2 is around, HDTV chips fit into USB dongles (have two or even four ;) IPOD like hard drives, embedded direct X 10 level 3D parts (laptop and UMPC sized), 1-2ghz power PC (instead of the 3Ghz+ competitors get) all that can go into Mac Mini like PC's (except the Power PC). So, why is the Wii at the level it is, it was obvious, that within an year or two, of the Wii's release, this technology could have been shrunk into an Wii sized package. If the Wii was two to four times bigger at the start, it would not worry me too much.
Thanks
Way
GC2 doesn't need to have as much power as PS3 (with all that third party motion games control stuff) or XBox 360, but it should be within 90% of them, preferable closer to 50%. In that way they would still be cheaper.
GC#, or WII2, should have graphic upgrade to the latest standards, processing power, maybe something like clearspeed, video player (DVD or HD) HD and a bunch of little things, like an HDTV chip and optional hard drive to support PVR. Linux and computer processing. The existing WII can be repackaged PSP style, and souped up a bit, to become the Gameboy Advance 2.
All the technology for an WII2 is around, HDTV chips fit into USB dongles (have two or even four ;) IPOD like hard drives, embedded direct X 10 level 3D parts (laptop and UMPC sized), 1-2ghz power PC (instead of the 3Ghz+ competitors get) all that can go into Mac Mini like PC's (except the Power PC). So, why is the Wii at the level it is, it was obvious, that within an year or two, of the Wii's release, this technology could have been shrunk into an Wii sized package. If the Wii was two to four times bigger at the start, it would not worry me too much.
Thanks
Way
RiseFromYourGrave 8 Mar 2007 22:11
4/10
sounds like a bit of a moron, but hes welcome to his opinion
SPInGSPOnG 9 Mar 2007 07:01
5/10
There's precious little will in the games industry to make these things art. Let's face it, they have to give art away to make it "successful". Artists sell works at massively inflated prices by artificially creating scarcity in order to be able to afford to show their work for free to an audience who can never hope to own anything but a mass produced copy of it. Art is elitist and exclusive.
Art movies make a pitance - but there is still a route to market for them. Art games - not so simple. The platforms are closed. To make a movie, you can just pick up a digital camera and shoot away, then hack the results together in iMovie, duplicate cheaply onto DVD and self publish. The only way to do something similar with games is to publish on the PC, an almost dead market. Publishers are controlled by shareholder value - and this makes them terrified to innovate, because a capricious public almost always spurns innovation.
Games are not art, they are not moving towards being art. If the creators think they are, they are suffering from delusions of grandeur. And they ARE suffering from delusions of grandeur when they pay hollywood screen writers to produce stories a GCSE student could come up with, and then pay 'A'-list talent to do voice overs that any out of work actor could do. Games are a mass market commodity - being driven to greater efficiency by ever increasing project budgets.
Art movies make a pitance - but there is still a route to market for them. Art games - not so simple. The platforms are closed. To make a movie, you can just pick up a digital camera and shoot away, then hack the results together in iMovie, duplicate cheaply onto DVD and self publish. The only way to do something similar with games is to publish on the PC, an almost dead market. Publishers are controlled by shareholder value - and this makes them terrified to innovate, because a capricious public almost always spurns innovation.
Games are not art, they are not moving towards being art. If the creators think they are, they are suffering from delusions of grandeur. And they ARE suffering from delusions of grandeur when they pay hollywood screen writers to produce stories a GCSE student could come up with, and then pay 'A'-list talent to do voice overs that any out of work actor could do. Games are a mass market commodity - being driven to greater efficiency by ever increasing project budgets.
OptimusP 9 Mar 2007 09:22
6/10
Did you saw the new video's of Super Paper Mario and Mario Galaxy? Now tell me again that games can't incorporate some nice fine artsy stuff and a good dose off innovation!
Offcourse those two don't rebunk your claim which is 90% true for the whole industry, but it's nice to see that one the biggest gamecompanies keeps doing stuff like Super Paper Mario just because "they fellt like making it" (actual words from a Intelligent Vision guy). Then again it's too bad that teams like Clover get shut down :(. Then again you have a small trend of big-name people leaving their shareholder controlled mother companies to start their own new creativitypulsed teams. You can them count on only your two hands by they're out there.
All is not doom and gloom yet!
Offcourse those two don't rebunk your claim which is 90% true for the whole industry, but it's nice to see that one the biggest gamecompanies keeps doing stuff like Super Paper Mario just because "they fellt like making it" (actual words from a Intelligent Vision guy). Then again it's too bad that teams like Clover get shut down :(. Then again you have a small trend of big-name people leaving their shareholder controlled mother companies to start their own new creativitypulsed teams. You can them count on only your two hands by they're out there.
All is not doom and gloom yet!
ohms 9 Mar 2007 11:10
7/10
dude sounds like he has a chip on his shoulder about something. well, I've always been taught that something is art if the artist says it's art.
maybe some (western) developers feel the need to justify the existence of their work if it's called art, then it has some merit other than being a piece of entertainment, basically a time wasting activity.
A film by David Lynch might be considered art, but would a film by Uwe Boll be?
I think there may be a cultural element to this too, I think Japanese developers are generally comfortable with making games, and maybe the society there is just more accepting of it, it certainly is more accepting of comics, whereas in the west comics have had the same battle to justify their existence as more than a childs activity, to be considered as art.
Hideo Kojima was asked if he thought video games were art, and he said they were not, but lots of artists are involved in creating them. It seems to be more important to developers in the west to have that affirmation that they are working on something artistic, so that it seems to have more importance than it deserves, but in Japan they dont seem so stressed about that acceptance.*
*post may contain some generalisations and oversimplifications
maybe some (western) developers feel the need to justify the existence of their work if it's called art, then it has some merit other than being a piece of entertainment, basically a time wasting activity.
A film by David Lynch might be considered art, but would a film by Uwe Boll be?
I think there may be a cultural element to this too, I think Japanese developers are generally comfortable with making games, and maybe the society there is just more accepting of it, it certainly is more accepting of comics, whereas in the west comics have had the same battle to justify their existence as more than a childs activity, to be considered as art.
Hideo Kojima was asked if he thought video games were art, and he said they were not, but lots of artists are involved in creating them. It seems to be more important to developers in the west to have that affirmation that they are working on something artistic, so that it seems to have more importance than it deserves, but in Japan they dont seem so stressed about that acceptance.*
*post may contain some generalisations and oversimplifications
sidman1195 21 Jan 2010 06:45
8/10
Wii is not for gamers it"s for retarded people. it can't playgames.it can't play movies it can't do anything it is nothing but a piece if stinky s**t of mario. thats it.
Tamikaze 22 Jan 2010 09:54
9/10
sidman1195 wrote:
Wii is not for gamers it"s for retarded people. it can't playgames.it can't play movies it can't do anything it is nothing but a piece if stinky s**t of mario. thats it.
Issues much? at the end of the day its just down to opinion, i like the Wii, i think it was a good idea. Yes it may not be as powerful or as big as the XBOX/PS3 but who cares? Some consoles that were the weakest of its generation have become successful like the Playstation one for example.
sidman1195 19 Sep 2010 08:23
10/10
@Tamikaze wii is not a gaming console, it is an exercise machine