The State of the Games Industry and Elemental

You know, I think the gaming industry is a sad, sad creature right now. Not a weeping type of sad, but a pathetic type of sad; I can pinpoint roughly when this happened, too. It was the debut of the XBox.
Do not get me wrong, I am not blaming the XBox for the shoddy state in which our games are developed and lobbed at us, but it is what that represented. Microsoft is very smart, they stepped into the ring and catalysed the console wars JUST after gaming began to go very mainstream...then Halo came out, a mediocre game by all standards (fun, but eh...many games are fun), but so popular. Why?

MARKETING

The dawn of the XBox marked the dawn of marketing...and a focus on marketing means a focus on style/image. A focus on style/image means little to nothing devoted to substance. Spending more time on the wrapping paper than the gift means that it's about making the sale based on surface appearance rather than crafting something lovingly for the art/passion/etc. of it.

The console wars hit...polarized customers equal more publicity equals rabid fans equals more money. This is also when the PC began to REALLY become marginalized, "the PC is dead" appears to be true. The other day at EB Games I was looking for Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity. No probs, right? It's new, it should be all over. It's not, the people working there didn't know about it and while they were wheeling and dealing when it came to console games, I asked them about one of the most recent and well-known and largely innovative and gutsy PC games around. BAM, the EB Games employees knew nothing. I was told to look online because "PC games are hard to find these days."

That is blatantly untrue...they're everywhere and flourishing, but they ARE hard to find in THESE stores. Why? The masses follow the marketing.
"PC gaming is dead."
The industry-at-large WANTS this phrase to be true, and do you know why, dear reader? The PC is an open platform; and you literally CANNOT do on the PC what you can do on consoles. What is this all-important thing that is worth pulling the wool over our eyes, faking the death of a once-proud platform when the attempts to murder it failed? What is worth ripping the soul right out of the heart of the games industry, depriving most games of such a soul?

Centralization.

With centralization, you have CONTROL. That is the treasure many of the industry titans are after; you can see it in the polarizing "console wars" and rush for console exclusives. I wish I didn't arrive at this end, but it seems to me that consoles really are bad just by their very nature. They are closed, and as long as they are closed, the temptation will be to great and there will be someone to seize the reins of power that centralization brings...consoles could be opened, but that would IMMEDIATELY render them into PCs by nature. If consoles were made to be open, they would be consoles only in name, and PCs in essence.

Anyway, that long exposition was not to speak against consoles; in fact, I will say a good word in the realm of consoles...one I never could have imagined myself saying:
Viva Nintendo...at least they don't seem to be self-important egomaniacs who take themselves WAY too seriously. Nintendo, with all their rehashes and reliance on the same old IPs, remembers what adventure is, they remember what a soul is, and have elected to maintain it.
Nintendo remembers what passion is.
Nintendo remembers what fun is.

Nintendo churns out art -- stagnant, tired art, but art nonetheless. I mean, they all do copy/paste jobs with a new coat of paint, but if you're going to feed us copypasta, at least make a good meal...I don't want crap from a box you whipped up in ten minutes or less.
It's the soul that matters the most.

Let's look to PC gaming now, because ALL OF THAT was to get to this point: I want to talk about Stardock.

PC gaming has been suffering, too. Suffering under the hands of Steam and its ilk...no, let it not be said that I am making Valve out to be the evil corporation. They are a business, and as such, they want to make money. That's the problem...but they still have soul in their games, no?
Yes, they actually do...I recently played Portal when Valve offered it free after having the validity of a cake spoiled for the X time, where X is infinity minus one. Portal showed me that Valve has soul TO SPARE.

What's the problem, then?

It's never been the "what" or the "why" that is the problem here: it's the "how." Namely, Steam -- I loathe Steam from the bottom of my heart; I am always at odds with it because, to sound "hippy-ish," I am well in tune with the nature of the PC. I love that it's open, I love the feel I get on it when I play a game, I love that it is a meeting- and marketplace of ideas.
Steam is trying to turn it into a closed platform...they are trying to turn it against its nature. To me, Steam is an aberration, and I have (largely) turned away from it. Unfortunately, it is so vast that it is hard to ignore, but I know I love the Total War series...I have abandoned that series. I don't like centralization; it puts everything ultimately in the hands of the one or ones controlling whatever complex in which everything is centralized. I don't like using a paradox, it's stifling. I also don't like how EVERYTHING I do that is associated with Steam has to go through Steam. Yes, play offline and all that, but that argument is missing the point; why is the ability to freely play what I purchased and enjoy an extra? It's not part of the program. That betrays the nature of Steam, and it is dipping its hands into everything I have from them. It's all very Orwellian...Valve is not bad, mind you, but this state of things they have created ought not to be.

Now, let us look at something that is exactly the same and completely different at the same time: Impulse.
Impulse is Stardock's delivery system, and one that Steam has taken quite a few ideas from (like those discounts...guess who did it first). In Impulse I have an account, can buy games, download games and patches; if I don't have the game disc I can get the game right off of Impulse wherever I may be.
What's the difference?
CENTRALIZATION
Impulse doesn't try to centralize...they do the same things as Steam, but they are pure service; they dip their hands into nothing. Instead, those hands freely offer things to us and do not demand control in return. This is half of the reason Stardock has my respect, because Stardock, I think, is representative of the heart of the PC, not just as a gaming platform, but as a whole (interestingly, they also develop general applications, further adding to this holistic representation). It is a side (which, thanks to Steam, is definitively a SIDE) on which the indie devs lie, some smaller devs, and, occasionally, some bigger ones.
Stardock is friendly, active, and engaging with its fanbase, and people outside its fanbase. All who knock at the door of Stardock can expect to be greeted warmly.

You know what the main difference is between them and most other companies? Stardock does not have a single "ivory tower" game developer in it. They are all gamers who make games, and that is why they can recreate the charm that games used to have, and that is why I now have an excitement for a game that I have not experienced since I was quite young. This brings me to the second half of why I respect them so much.

Stardock knows what a soul is; they pour effort into finding it, for a soul is not something manufactured (a truth lost on most of the industry). Without a soul, a game will only encourage anyone saying games are not art -- art without a soul is art in name alone, only because people will it to be art. With a soul, art simply IS art. Stardock's games have soul.

Elemental: War of Magic has a soul.

Elemental is a fantastic fantasy (ha) Turn-Based Strategy game that is said to be the successor to the Master of Magic throne.
I don't believe these people...I believe that throne will not be good enough; it will not be able to contain and do justice to what Elemental will be. You see, Elemental IS soul given SUBSTANCE. True substance! I have been waiting for this game for quite some time now and I never knew -- I'm not some high-horse riding elitist; I'm subject to having whatever lenses the companies want pulled over my eyes, but once I was forced to really think and evaluate what I was buying, all the illusion shattered, and I could only take refuge in a small corner of the industry where the last bits of color remained (props if anyone gets the reference).

Of course, now that corner isn't so small anymore, and those within are a creative force to be reckoned with.
Case-in-point: Elemental's world is a living one; the life strongly emanates from every facet of the game -- from the artwork right down to the way the mechanics are handled. It is not a construct to justify the player and is only justified by the player's presence. It is art, it is truly alive.
Not only that, but it is given over to the player fully, both in-game and out. The word "customization" just doesn't cut it; the player has truly been incorporated into the game...the player truly has choice. Deus Ex started popularized the image of this world but didn't actually do it...Elemental actually went and did it. Stardock, you crazy people, you are wonderful, and I thank you for giving me back an artform I hold deal, and giving it back alive and well -- too many corpses have I been sold. No longer!

In a way, Elemental PERFECTLY represents the state of the games industry. You are a sovereign, and a great war has recently come to an end. Yeah, you are fine, mostly, and and there is victory, but look around for a second.
That war turned the world into a blighted wasteland. EVERYTHING IS DEAD.
The beauty you once loved? GONE.
The art you could make with it? It is no more.
Oh, and to add to this, there are sovereigns who practices death magic. They would sap the life out of whatever scarce patches of beauty are left to power their vast machine...and they would take that path when they don't need to. Sovereigns can bring life back to the land and magic and beauty can flourish once again.

Oh, did I forget to mention? Yes, sovereigns can bring life...they can also apply their powers to take it and use it, perverting it for their own ends.

Oh, look, is that an oasis on the horizon?
Nay, it is a large city, and it is growing; it is a haven of life. Try as it might, death magic cannot prevail against life magic -- ironically, death magic NEEDS life; if there were no life, it would have nothing to use. It would have no resources, no raw materials.

Stardock, thank you for this wonderful city of life and beauty, where such things are not looked upon as mere resources, and where true art is possible. You are quite refreshing.

Now, I am going to go back to being as giddy about Elemental as I was for Quest for Glory 4. If you don't know what Elemental is, I promise you, even if turn-based isn't your thing and you won't buy it, it is worth your while to check this game out.

Here it is being explained by the head honcho: http://www.rockpapershotgun...

This time the game is being explained in a different light in developer journals: http://forums.elementalgame...

Last, but most certainly not least, here is the site: http://forums.elementalgame...