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Tim Schafer is a gaming God.
Bow down to him. And while you’re at it, make sure you say 12 Hail Miyamotos, too.
We’re living in a pivotal time in our hobby’s existence. Video games have never been more popular. Much as the hardcore would hate to admit it, you have your Wiis and Kinect and Farmville to thank for that. The casual crowd has fully embraced gaming as a legitimate pastime, and that’s win-win for everybody. The more money tossed around out there, and the greater demand for gaming, the more we see niche genres getting some love, too. Digital distribution helps towards that end; a thought I’ll get to in a moment.
It’s not all sunshine and 1Up blocks, though. As popular as gaming has grown, the superstar developers have yet to yield cross-over household recognition. Sure, your typical soccer mom can discern Mario from Master Chief, but ask the average person to name their favorite game developer and you’ll likely get “Atari?” in response. If you ask someone to offer up their favorite film director, they might not be able to tell a Gore Verbinski from a Darren Aronofsky, but you’ll definitely get a Scorcese, Cameron or Spielberg thrown back at you.
And gaming certainly has a wealth of wizards who deserve the spotlight. Miyamoto. Kojima. Wright. Schafer. These guys are proof positive that somewhere in those labyrinthine lines of code, there lives a beating heart. One man looks at all those digits and churns out another cookie cutter shooter; another sculpts Shadow of the Colossus – gifting us a compelling argument for “games as art.”
As a longtime gamer, I appreciate all flavors, depending on the mood. There are times when a mindless shooter hits the spot, while other times, I need some brain food. Call of Duty might help me while away those long winter nights, but it’s games like Schafer’s Full Throttle, Grim Fandango and Psychonauts that comfort any worrisome thoughts I might entertain that it’s all just a waste of time.
I think some gamers harbor those guilty thoughts from time to time, likely a call back to when we were young and pushed from the nest with that oft-heard mother’s message: “It’s such a beautiful day outside.” Hell, like anything, as long as you game in moderation and take time to enjoy the other trivial pursuits that can entertain a life, there’s no shame in gaming. It’s how I unwind each day from whatever stresses the world has conspired to throw my way. After all, I wouldn’t walk around with my head hung in shame after watching The Godfather, should I ever actually get around to watching The Godfather. But that’s a thought for another day.
No, the point of this piece is to grant Tim Schafer his due. I know the world has moved beyond our blissfully archaic past when adventure games represented the apex of gaming technology, and Schafer has struggled a bit in getting his artistic vision to the masses. Those of us who know his name, know exactly what we’re getting in his game—an experience we couldn’t live without. That’s true even in the rare times when he stumbles a bit, such as 2008’s Brutal Legend, which painted a delightful world, gave us a unique story and then forced gamers into a watered-down real-time strategy affair that might have known the notes but didn’t quite deliver that rocking power ballad we’d come to expect. Even then, the experience of riding alongside Eddie Riggs, the greatest roadie that ever lived, was well worth plodding through the actual gameplay.
Brutal Legend didn’t sell nearly as many copies as it needed to, which is a shame, as EA fought mightily to shepherd this asset after it was unceremoniously left homeless in an Activision acquisition. EA took a chance on Schafer, but it seems gamers are less apt to take a chance on tasting anything unique. Certainly not as a main course. Gamers these days seem more open to experimentation when noshing on the bite-sized portions offered up via the various digital distribution channels such as Xbox Live Arcade, Steam and PSN.
That phenomenon could hold the key to Schafer’s future success.
In the last six months, Schafer’s crew of artisans at Double Fine have crafted two downloadable games, each as creative as the big-box products he churned out during his impressive career that began with him lobbing one-liners for the Monkey Island series.
Last October, the company released Costume Quest, a Halloween-themed romp that plays as a riff on the traditional turn-based role-playing game. The hook here is that children’s costumes morph into mighty forms – a power that comes in handy as they strive to fend off an army of candy-cribbing ghouls. Last week, the company struck again with Stacking, an adventure game that has players controlling a family of Russian matryoshka nesting dolls as they work in unison to settle a forced labor scandal. Both games echo Double Fine and Tim Schafer’s unofficial mantra that character matters.
These are the types of game experiences that nourish our gaming soul. I’ve played every Halo game, the same goes for Call of Duty, and while their broad-sweeping story beats stick with me, I’m hard-pressed to recite rhyme and verse of their narratives. All I know is I went from Point A to Point B, shooting along the way. And those games can be wonderfully cathartic. I always have a great time when playing with a party of my peers.
But the Schafer-directed games have colored my life.
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As an ordained minster I approve of the term “Hail Miyamotos”.
Psychonauts is a brilliant game. One of the best ever made. Day of the Tentacle too. As of late, however, Schafer seems to have forsaken the PC platform. It is as if he no longer remembers that it was the PC that gave him all these opportunities and made him into a designer he is today. So while I am very thankful for the past, I am also a resentful for the present.
a = a bit
I actually loved Brutal Legend (as you can see here –> http://www.avault.com/reviews/xbox-360/brutal-legend-xbox-360-review/), but I get why it didn’t do as well as everyone hoped. I have to say that I really respect what guys like Schafer do for the industry. The shame of it is that, for all the positive press they get, in an industry oriented on sales, they don’t always make it big. This is why I too support the notion of focusing on smaller-scale, profitable games that still allow Schafer and his ilk to bring their particular styles of gaming to the public. So, yeah, here’s to Tim Schafer and DoubleFine. Here’s to all the developers who break the mold into itty bitty pieces and then light them on fire…if only to melt them down and reforge them into something better than just-another-FPS. I raise my (at this hour) coffee mug to you.
@Alaric – I don’t think Shafer turned his back on PC gaming. Instead, I think his nose was pointed that way by the publishers. At the time he was prepping Psychonauts, the point & click adventure had faded to a complete niche – with the majority of those titles coming from the European developers. The market here was not what it once was – although it has had a renaissance of late due to the rise of digital distribution. So, wanting to move from traditional point & click adventures to 3D platformer adventures, I think he saw the consoles as being more friendly to that genre. And I think the publisher (Majesco) did too. The irony is that by the time Psychonauts finally launched, FPS ruled the console roost and gamers weren’t buying these imaginative 3D platformers – hence this title’s quick fade to cult status.
That being said – I think the tide is changing once again. With Double Fine’s focus on smaller downloadable titles, I wouldn’t be surprised if you see him port some of these to the PC and maybe even develop some from the ground up over there too.
There’s no question in my mind that the market is developing and shifting. Consoles (and to a lesser extent, PCs) still are ruled by big-budget titles, but the digital download approach is becoming more popular and more widespread. I actually think that devices like the iPhone have helped with this as people just get used to the concept. That plus other related platforms like iTunes and on-demand video, really. People are getting more comfortable with downloading content, and as a result, you’re seeing demand rise for gaming styles beyond the “hardcore” styles of FPS, RTS, and RPG/MMORPG.
In other words, as demand for more styles of games increases, new markets are opening up to support publishers (and thus, developers). I imagine that the cost for these games may be lower than the “A-list” titles like your Call of Battlefield Honor games or whathaveyou, but the potential profits still exist. This means that, thankfully, we are starting to see some really clever, DIFFERENT gaming pop up in no small part due to the newer modes of distribution.
And I, for one, am loving it.
@Solo4114 – You are right on the money. When I can mention gaming in my workplace and have my boss profess her love for ‘Angry Birds’ – someone whom I wouldn’t think would ever dive into a game – you know the tendrils are making their way through the population. And we all know what happens once gaming gets its hooks in you.
Those Double Fine titles I mentioned – Costume Quest and Stacking – were born from their concept of ‘Amnesia Fortnights’ – where everyone in the company was encouraged to take a break from the angst that Brutal Legend was causing them (this was when the release was in legal limbo) and break off into little groups to brainstorm and breathe life into whatever game type they fancied.
When Brutal Legend 2 was canned by EA, Tim wanted to avoid laying people off so he took a number of their concepts on the road to see if they could land a publisher for one. In two months, he managed to get 4 titles under a publishing agreement.
He says that this has re-energized the studio – and positions them in front of publishers as a shop that can work on numerous projects at the same time – some big/some little.
If they can’t be Epic or Naughty Dog or Bungie (anyone with a huge AAA success to stand beside), this might be the best model for 2nd-tier development houses to follow – allowing them to keep their doors open.
And we, the gamer, benefit.
It really is a shame that Brutal Legend never took off. I’d LOVE to play more in that universe. And honestly, I didn’t think the gameplay was BAD necessarily, just (A) ill-suited to the console medium (at least, the RTS bits), and (B) a bit esoteric for the market. You’d figure, though, that the metal soundtrack alone would’ve sold it, but I guess that niche was covered by Guitar Hero and Rock Band. But hey, who knows. Maybe Brutal Legend 2 will come out some day. If you’d asked me even four years ago if we’d EVER see another Monkey Island game, I’d have dejectedly told you no…but TellTale proved me wrong.
I agree that this helps position the “2nd tier” development houses in a position to (A) stay alive, and (B) keep producing interesting stuff…but I actually started wondering about something. One thing I noticed about Brutal Legend was how terrific the animation was, and how the story actually was pretty cool. Coupled with a badass soundtrack, it was kind of like playing a long-ish interactive film. Other games, in recent years, have gotten increasingly cinematic. Bioware has had great success by developing what I’d argue are basically interactive movies with their Mass Effect series. It would not surprise me if some enterprising game studio started developing films or at least purely video content and releasing it via digital distribution in the next few years. Hell, the story in many of the GAMES I play is often better than the crap I see in MOVIES these days…
@Solo4114 – I don’t know if you’ve played Ninja Theory’s Enslaved (a true sleeper game that deserves more attention) but it originally began life as a film. Andy Serkis (Gollum, Kong) has a big hand in the development company and does a lot of the mo-cap for their games (Heavenly Sword and this one). Anyway – their approach has been to make interactive, cinematic entertainments. With Enslaved they enlisted Alex Garland who wrote the screenplays for The Beach, Sunshine and the proposed Halo flick… All of these elements come together to make something in direct line with what you are proposing.
And that’s what I loved about Brutal Legend. I like the exploration angle, finally wrapped my brain around the RTS stuff (I actually made more headway when I stopped trying to play it like an RTS) – but I came for the story and what I got was epic, and mythic – a fitting tribute to those Heavy Metal Gods of Yore. And I’m not even a metal fan – but coming out of that experience, I had a newfound appreciation for the music. The game is so reverent that any metal fan worth their salt owes it a play through.
That’s why I said that even though the core gameplay never fully measured up to my expectation, I didn’t care.
This was an experience that I wouldn’t miss for the world.
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