For those of you that know me well, you know I am a very technically oriented guy. You know that I will not rest until I’ve opened every piece of gear in a studio to see what makes it tick or if I can improve it or modify it.
One area that always intrigued me has been videogames. I grew up in the 90s, where the Nintendo SNES, the Mega Drive 32, Sega Saturn and PlayStation made their mark. I’ve abandoned gaming due to time constraints but recently I’ve made a point to catch up on the current game generation.
Games have evolved from a square, pixilized interactive media that had little or no content to a media that can deliver – in my honest opinion – better and more intense stories than the moving pictures ever could. One reason is because the player becomes part of the story – even for linear games. The other is because a developer has more than 10 hours to convey a story, develop characters and show you a different universe. Fallout can take you on adventures through the capital wasteland that can amount to over 100h. Skyrim beats Fallout for a few hundred more hours of exploration and questing.
Even the Blockbuster-type games will leave you hanging on the edge of your sofa for 10-15h. Uncharted 3 can get your blood pumping better than any modern day blockbuster movie, and Tomb Raider (2013) really made you feel like you were learning how to “toughen up” and become an hero.
I’ve recently joined Berklee Online for their course on Video Games, where I’ve been learning Unity3D, more specifically, Unity3D audio engine, scripting and how to prepare media for deployment in videogames. It’s been an interesting journey adapting my knowledge of computer science and Python and use it to create scripts for Unity3D in Javascript. From simple audio managers that can manage interactive music arrangement, or trigger SFX. I’ve become so intrigued that I have picked up books on Artificial Intelligence scripting using C# and Unity.
I’ve been lucky enough to have been guided on this adventure by Gina Zdanowicz, the owner of Serial Labs – which specialises in sound design and music for games, post production etc. She was credited on Take2 games such as Bioshock2 and X-Com: Declassified.
I think it’s fair to abandon the “videogame” name. Games have become alive, from the big television in shiny HD to your phone and portable devices. I think that 2013 proved that this platform can easily surpass other mediums when it comes to storytelling, entertainment and replayability – giving the general public more bang for the buck. Unfortunately for many, the “videogame” still brings the memory of time-wasters such as pong, tetris or the money-eating arcades. The industry deserve a new, catchy name for what’s being done here. I believe games are here to stay and might even become a favourite medium of entertainment for the general public.