Video game industry

Some people suspect that if they know too much about a subject, they won’t be able to enjoy it anymore. Let’s call it the Critic’s Curse: because they have analysed so much, they will find fault in everything and enjoy nothing.

Of course, there are the people that argue that this also applies to game design, as outlined by Josh Foreman in a blog post over at Gamasutra:

One of the reasons why getting into game design right now is so interesting is the fact that part of the business, of the creative process and of the production is still forming – and in a constant state of flux.

While on one hand, game production teams have grown larger in order to produce even more content (after all, many AAA titles boast to have 50+ hours playtime – which is 25 times as much as a normal action film), other people reduced their teams and are producing awesome games with teams of three or four people.

John Lanchester argues in this essay that the production of games has become so expensive, the democratic effect is vanishing – quite in contrast to the rest of media, where the internet made it simpler and cheaper to produce for.