I Put That Really Badly

Managed to stir up a lot of comments there.  Ok, so I was wrong.  I have to agree that the mechanics of Halo, DMC, GTA actually are fun by themselves in many ways, and I probably would appreciate blue square versions of all those games on some level.  But if I was an executive I wouldn't have greenlighted any of those games on the basis of a blue square demo, because they would lack the visceral fun that I believe the console market craves.  The non-blue-square versions of those games have that visceral fun in spades.

Comments

[Sean]

The thing is, isn't it easy to add good graphics to a blue square demo? (It sure sounds easier than adding good gameplay to a visceral rendering demo.) If so, why wouldn't you greenlight it as a hypothetical executive, other than because you're assuming as a hypothetical executive you'd be just like all the real (clueless?) executives?

[mike]

The question isn't just adding good graphics to a blue square demo, it's adding viscerality to a blue square demo that lacks it through graphics. And I guess the idea is that nothing should be greenlit unless it has viscera.

(speaking from my limited experience with non-hypothetical executives, they can't see past the blue squares no matter how awesome the gameplay is. sometimes even non-hypothetical designers get caught up in placeholder art.)