'F*** casual gaming,' says Rockstar boss News

Ah, I am not the only one left manning the barricades I see.

Still, its a losing battle :(

According to Houser, too many developers make games about the same old themes - "orcs and elves, or monsters, or space"

or generic marine troopers

'Fuck casual gaming,' says Ari Gold.

Still, its a losing battle

That all depends on how long GTA can beat Wii Fit in the charts.

According to Houser, too many developers make games about the same old themes - "orcs and elves, or monsters, or space"

Or urban violent crime?

Yeah, fuck casual gaming indeed.

But Dan, this is a pretty guarded statement given that you heap praise on the Wii afterwards..

Go dude!

Well if Houser thinks GTA is successful because of its narrative then he's massively mistaken. You could take all that story crap out and it would still be a great game.

There's a wonderful bit of storytelling in GTAIV where there's a huge clap of thunder and flash of lightening as you drive back to your safehouse to find it's been torched. There's so much thought in that game, it's just superb.

Ok, but the GTA IV story is (as far as I've gotten) really pretty good. So they've advanced in that area.

Badass.

"Houser went on to question why it seems to be okay for violent content to feature in films and TV programmes, but not games"

It's because you are in control of a game. In films you watch a violent act. In a game, YOU are the person who chooses to carry out a violent act.

Games are interactive, that's the big difference....little Jonny can sit and watch cars being stolen in a movie, but in GTA little Jonny is the one who chooses to steal a car, and then to stab the owner with a knife and reverse over the corpse :P

@Stu

Weather in GTA4 is a random thing.

During that particular part of the game it was a sunny day for me.

that's all great and everything, but the main reason i havn't picked up GTA yet is that I don't have time to play it. job. family. friends. freelance work. anime to catch up with...

I do know, however, that me and the g/f will get a few games of Wii bowling in tonight when we get back from the pub....

That guy sounds like a complete idiot.

I'm tired of this stupid comeback from companies like Rockstar when people critisize their violent games. Saying that "It is something that you see every day in a film or read in a book" just doesn't hold weight and sounds pathetic, even though strictly speaking it is true.

YES you do see violence and sex in books, film and television - the key difference is that in those mediums the viewer is not taking an active role in the violence being dished out. For example, in a book - you might read about some poor fella getting struck over the head with a baseball bat 20 times, but in GTA - you actually make a conscious decision to do that yourself (as I have done loads of times,... even ran over the body with a hummer just to make sure the twat was dead)

So.. there IS a difference.

The participation in violence is altogether more stimulating than just watching or reading about it. Doing all these crazy things that we just cant do in real life is a hoot... For me personally, the more realistic these games get I sometimes consider the implications of doing that in real life...

But thankfully I have been able to control my impressionable young mind.

Last night I went into the Strip Club. I was unsatisfied at the lap dances I received (I wanted extras) so I went and found a handily placed shotgun in the office, then re-entered the club and blew the dancer away... and then all the other girls in the club, the bouncers too, and then the police that arrived on the scene were slaughtered one by one until I ran out of bullets. It felt good, I was duly arrested and released 6 hours later.

Violence in games is NOT the same as violence in films or books. That doesn't mean it needs to be banned.

"game casual fucking" says sickpuppy

Or aspire to

@chrisola

How did little Jonny get the game? Most likely culprits are parents who don't realise, parents who don't care, and stores for selling it to him. Those aren't the same issue, that's about getting people to take notice of age restrictions and take them seriously.

So why, for responsible adult, is it not okay for violent games? You're right that it being interactive does make it different, but I though most adults could just not stab the owner of the jacked car and reverse over him. Although in game I prefer to go forward, handbrake turn and run him over, but that's both the beauty and curse - free choice.

The more you make a game feel free, the more you have to allow, so the furthur you can push immoral actions. In GTA3, you could, if you choose, make use of a prostitute and kill them for the money. But you were never told to, it's just an extra bit of freedom. No politician will go on about how you can walk about Liberty City sightseeing if you want, or just play darts, or do any of the other cool little things that they put in to make it feel awesome.

Erm, he said "Eff asterisk star asterisk"?

Why the censoring?

Thankfully he's not some tard who thinks Wii = casual gamer. It was the playstation afterall that started the casual gaming revolution.

Besides titles like GTA, Metal Gear Solid etc are the titles which the casuals love...

Oh yeah indeed screw casual gaming!

I never understood the British sales figures for Metal Gear Solid. It's a frustratingly impenetrable idiosyncratic mess - an acquired taste that is the absolute antithesis of causual gaming for the masses. And yet it sells like hotcakes.

I imagine that a fair proportion of its buyers don't get past the intro sequence.

In terms of him not understanding what the conversation is about, it's about the difference between passively watching or reading about violence, and being given the ability to actively place yourself in the aggressors shoes. He's not a stupid man, but he must think we're stupid if he thinks we believe he doesn't know that full well, so it's pretty daft of him to just ignore it like that.

"Still, its a losing battle

That all depends on how long GTA can beat Wii Fit in the charts."


I don't understand this "war" thing, that was clearly imported from the US. I mean, imagine the Wii fit sells 8 millions copies, and GTA 4 sells 8 million and *one", this would mean Wii Fit is "oh da looser"...

An Epic guy said the other day, that there's also this crazy idea that if a game doesn't sell as much as Halo 3 (insert the record holder here), it's automatically a failure. This is dumb, imho.

Why can't we all just get along?

\hugs a casual gamer

F*** GTA I want Walker 2.

Big words from someone that makes a game that hasn't changed muc h from the original release.

"YES you do see violence and sex in books, film and television - the key difference is that in those mediums the viewer is not taking an active role in the violence being dished out. For example, in a book - you might read about some poor fella getting struck over the head with a baseball bat 20 times, but in GTA - you actually make a conscious decision to do that yourself (as I have done loads of times,... even ran over the body with a hummer just to make sure the twat was dead)

So.. there IS a difference."

Oh right, so it's ok to sit and watch ultra-violence as long as you don't actually physically have anything to do with it, because we all know that it will be totally unaffecting to the veiwer right?

meh typos

You know, one of the things that's really shocked me in all the hoopla over GTAIV is my realisation that people actually gave a toss about the plots of GTA games; this was something I found strange, because in my experience of the series (ie, up to and including Vice City) the narratives of Grand Theft Auto never hit me as anything more than a basic, self-conscious string of gangster movie cliches. I'm not even stating that as a criticism - after all, a large part of the appeal of the GTA series is that it lets players live out their gangster movie fantasies - but I never got the impression, from the games I played at least, that they were ever attempting to do anything more than ape movie stereotypes, and certainly not that they were attempting to provide a showcase for games as a legitimate storytelling medium. Is this guy talking out of his ass, or do the later GTA games genuinely hold their own as narrative experiences?

Whatever the case is, I do feel he's bandying terms like "groundbreaking" in a fairly disingenuous way. GTAIV is clearly a fantastic title, and I can't wait to play it, but I've seen and heard nothing about it to convince me that it's anything other than Another 3D GTA Game, just like the other 3D GTA games they've been releasing over the last seven years. Again, that's no criticism: the brilliant Mario Galaxy, for all its bells and whistles, was just Another 3D Mario Game, and I'll be pretty disappointed if MGS4 isn't Another MGS Game. Game fans from all walks of life tell developers they want vastly new and different experiences, but they're lying; what they want is the same thing they know and love, but better, over and over again. GTAIV is just that: Same Old, But Better. That's fantastic, and they've done it brilliantly, so they deserve our money and adulation, but to try and tell me that it's "groundbreaking" just seems like they're insulting my intelligence. You can scoff and curse and scream "gimmick" all you want but when you break it down, a weight-and-fitness game aimed at middle-aged women breaks a hundred times more new ground for the videogame medium than the hundredth driving-and-shooting crime game does, no matter how good it is...

PS - Mentalist(air) - I know just what you mean about MGS games. Honestly, I think that the series's position as a "Big Franchise" does it no favours at all; once you get past the blockbuster trimmings, the games are and always will be incredibly offbeat and idiosyncratic in their approach to gameplay and plot structure, and are in no way titles that everyone would enjoy. Sadly, I think you're right about most purchasers never getting past the intro; whenever I look in the PS2 pre-owned section in any shop I can barely move for copies of MGS2 floating around for insultingly low prices...

PPS - Bloody hell, Razz, you basically just took a point that it took me 219 words to express and summarised it in 17. Why can't I be that concise? :P

@Velios

Actually, I tend to feel more involved if I'm reading a good book than I do when I'm playing a video game & definitly much more emotionally connected with the protagonist & the world in which they exist - Which, when reading something like American Psycho is definitly not always a good thing.

@SleepyMagpie
I think he likes the Wii as a console, but hates that soo many developers only use it to sell 'casual' games.

They should make GTA IV on Wii.
Scale graphics back to GTA:SA standards and shoe-horn some motion control in there.
Reintroduce some of that RPG stuff like CJ working out in gym.
GTA: Fit.
It would be lovely.

"about something we can all relate to. Or aspire to"

You tell them, Houser. We all relate or aspire to be psychotic killers...

/ contemplates Manhunt purchase

@SleepyMagpie
I think he likes the Wii as a console, but hates that soo many developers only use it to sell 'casual' games.

Really? You think? Wow you must be really intelligent. I could have never deduced that from the story. Wow! You must be like a professor. I bow before your superior intellect.

Loopy wrote:
"Oh right, so it's ok to sit and watch ultra-violence as long as you don't actually physically have anything to do with it, because we all know that it will be totally unaffecting to the veiwer right?"

No. I can tell that you'd love to have an argument, but nobody is saying movies and books don't have an effect, and the post you quote certainly doesn't say that at all. Read it again.

It's saying (and I agree) that games give you a vastly more active participation in the violence, and that's something nobody can deny although Houser seems quite comfortable to do so.

"But Dan, this is a pretty guarded statement given that you heap praise on the Wii afterwards.."

I think the most telling part is his use of the word "hopefully" when delivering his apparently firmly held belief.

I tend to feel that very grumpy people are not good ambassadors for the games industry. Anyone reading his interview could just be thinking "if he hadn't grown up on violence in video games, maybe he would be a bit calmer".

@Rash'

Well judging from the sales...

"No. I can tell that you'd love to have an argument, but nobody is saying movies and books don't have an effect, and the post you quote certainly doesn't say that at all. Read it again."

Heh no, I've been hanging arond on internet forums long enough to know not to get too involved in these online "arguments", as they're generally worth nothing more than the bytes they are comprised of.

In answer though, yes, I did read it, and yes I understand what he's saying, but I always find it interesting how people will selectively quote/use other peoples opinions to reinforce their own bias and skew arguments in their favour.

Maybe I'm just playing devil's advocate here,but some people will, as one poster mentioned above, get far more emotionally involved with characters and situations in a book/film than they ever will with in game actions. Who's to say which media type is more likely to lead to violent tendencies than another?

Also, try not to talk down to people, even on here, you make yourself look like an idiot. ;)

"The participation in violence is altogether more stimulating than just watching or reading about it."
Catagorically proven to be the exact opposite actually. Gamers care less about their actions and more about getting 'the goal' whereas movie-goers are more absored by the action and, thus, more affected by it.

This tidbit came out of the last Government computer game witch-hunt.

@kangarootoo


I think when he says he grew up with violence, it isn't videogame violence he refers to...

rock27gr, frightening isn't it?

@ DFawkes

completley agree with you.

I also think there should be MORE non violent stuff in games like GTA IV..

It has a fairground and rollercoaster, why can't i go on the rides?
Why isn't there an arcade full of crappy games to play on?
It has a dockland area with big cranes, why can't i mess around with them and pick stuff up?
Why isn't there a race track i can drive cars round?
Where did the monster trucks & tanks go? (ok not really too non violent there :P)


etc etc :P

(please let me know if any of the above happens at some point, i'm still only a couple of hours in!)

Here, here.

Where's the Wii version of GTA: San Andreas Stories? Put online play in there and it'd be huge!

Voice chat with the Wiimote speaker / mic.

That'd convert the casuals!! BANG, muthaf***ers!

Rockstar Table Tennis was kinda casual.

They could take the San An engine and optimise it for Wii - making a non-violent game set elsewhere.

They could incorporate some Fahrenheit style interaction using gesture control rather than the right stick / button bashing.

Statement taken out of context!

"I want to f*** casual gamers" gasps Rockstar boss. "GTA 3 was, despite it's glowing reviews and obvious merits, purchased primarily by the nambiest, pambiest, couldn't-control-an-analogue-stick-with-both-hands, shelved-after-cocking-up-the-third-mission and only-played-once-more-because-of-the-cheat-that-let's-you-pl
ay-as-an-old-lady-before-only-ever-using-PS2-as-DVD-player type gamers... and they made us very f***ing rich. Ta luv!" stated Dan Houser in some interview.

I hope this has cleared up any misunderstanding.

DFawkes: "So why, for responsible adult, is it not okay for violent games? You're right that it being interactive does make it different, but I though most adults could just not stab the owner of the jacked car and reverse over him. Although in game I prefer to go forward, handbrake turn and run him over, but that's both the beauty and curse - free choice.

The more you make a game feel free, the more you have to allow, so the furthur you can push immoral actions. In GTA3, you could, if you choose, make use of a prostitute and kill them for the money. But you were never told to, it's just an extra bit of freedom. No politician will go on about how you can walk about Liberty City sightseeing if you want, or just play darts, or do any of the other cool little things that they put in to make it feel awesome."

Yeah, but it's not REALLY free, is it? True, the GTA games have a lot of diverting non-violent content thrown in there, but at the end of the day it's nothing more than window-dressing; actual progress through the game and engagement with the developers' overall design structure is based entirely on driving, shooting and killing. Colin Campbell of http://www.next-gen.biz had a brilliant quote on this subject:"The choice we have as gamers to kill that person or this person is an illusion of choice. There’s no such thing as an ‘open-world’ game. I can’t play GTA IV and decide I want to become Liberace."

Yes, you do have the choice to play GTAIV as an entirely moral, non-violent game, but only in the same way that you have the choice to wear a dinner plate as a hat. Playing the game the way it was meant to be played means shooting and killing people. I'm not condemning that; just saying that that's the way it is.

"We're hopefully going to prove that there's also a very big audience for people who want entertainment in another form, who think of games as being a narrative device that can challenge movies."

Kudos.

@mudallica

Since when did open world and sandbox mean that you can do and be anything and anyone you want? An open world game is a game where rather than linear progression through environments separated out as levels, you can instead travel to any location the developers have opened to you at will, rather than the confines of one small level or location. Sandbox simply means that you are given a large playing space and some toys to play with your friends, without necessarily following any objectives. You are confusing open world with the real world and sandbox with a lottery win. Where you really can almost do anything.

agreed casual gaming will destroy gaming as we know it!

you have been warned!