What It Takes to Make a Kinder, Gentler Video Game
What It Takes to Make a Kinder, Gentler Video Game
What It Takes to Make a Kinder, Gentler Video Game
By Caren Chelser
November 26, 2022
Summary
In 2003, Ken Hall was art director for Realtime Words, the large video game developer that made APB, which later became APB Reloaded, a highly popular free-to-play video game.
At the time, free-to-play games, where players get most of the game for free but must pay to unlock the rest of the game or improve their performance, were still in their infancy.
The strategy was aimed at hooking the casual gamer, but Hall had a rude awakening, perhaps like Dr. Frankenstein might have felt when his company received data showing gamers in South Korea were playing as much as 35 hours a week, and that was on top of their day jobs.
"This was long before people were worried about the addictiveness and the compulsiveness of video games. But I really wasn't happy with the consequences of what we were creating." Hall decided to step back from the video game industry.
Earlier in his gaming career, he worked on a game called B-17 Flying Fortress, a flight simulator involving World War II-era B-17 bombers as they flew across wartime Europe.
For the project, he interviewed aviators who flew those planes to make sure the game portrayed their experiences accurately.
When he reentered the video game field in 2017, he wanted to create a game that conveyed not just the battles of war but the lasting consequences.
Destiny's Sword is a sci-fi adventure where players command a squad of futuristic peace-keeping troops.
Reference
Chesler, C. (2022, November 26). What it takes to make a kinder, gentler video game. Wired. Retrieved January 3, 2023, from https://www.wired.com/story/destinys-sword-empathy-2dogs-video-games/