Warren Spector 10 domande inglese

Our Cover Story dedicated to the biggest names of the videogame's industry hosts Warren Spector, one of the most innovative minds known ever seen in the world of videogames. With his games Warren tried to push games "a bit further" and in some cases he contributed to revolution the games we used to know, with games like Ultima Underworld, System Shock and Thief. Warren kindly accepted to partecipate to our 10 Question Cover Story, so here are his answers... enjoy!

Nextgame.it: Technology: are we near or far to the creation of credible worlds, not only visually, but on the "structure" point of view (AI, environment simulation, etc.). Which direction the tech development should take, in your opinion to achieve this sort of credibility? How will you take advantage of new and powerful hardware?

Warren Spector: I think we're doing pretty well already when it comes to creating "credible" worlds and things can only get better. Frankly, visuals are about the least important part of creating more believable worlds. What we need are worlds that are more fully realized -- worlds filled with interactive objects and more intelligent NPC's capable of making more sophisticated decisions than Shoot/Don't Shoot. We need to create game-worlds that allow players to exercise real-world common sense in dealing with problems, something more and more developers are beginning to realize. Hardware is part of the answer but what's really required is that developers make different design decisions.

Nextgame.it: When do you think we will assist to the revolution of the gaming interface? Are we going to use game pads and keyboard mouse for the years to come or, finally, a new kind of man-to-game interface will raise to our attention? Which directions would you take if you were in charge of developing such peripherals?

Warren Spector: If I had any great insight into peripherals, hardware and control interfaces, I probably wouldn't be in the game development business! Having said that, I suspect we'll see (hear?) more voice recognition stuff in gaming. It'll be nice when I can talk to a character instead of clicking on them and selecting options from a text list. As for character control, I don't see much that improves on gamepads, mouse and keyboards. Hope there's someone out there smarter than I am: we could sure use more intuitive controls!

Nextgame.it: We are in 2001, the year of "A Space Odyssey". Science Fiction always tried to foresee the future in technology achievements and some times books and movies could guess right. Did you see some particular idea, in books or movies, that you believe it can be realized in a near future?

Warren Spector: I think we'll see fully immersive simulation environments in the home in our lifetimes. Maybe I'm being naive, but I really think I'm going to live to see a holodeck. If not that, then, at the very least, someone's going to solve the problems associated with VR headsets and datagloves sooner or later. Sooner, probably. And the development of personally helpful, intelligent computers seems like a sure thing... someday, we'll wonder how we got along without that goofy MS paperclip guy, or something like it, done right...

Nextgame.it: In 2001, starting from Japan, the new standard in mobile technology UMTS will spread all over the world. What kind of interactions do you think UMTS will have with videogames and do you think these new technologies will be able to bring some revolution in video gaming, as we know it today?

Warren Spector: I'm sure mobile gaming will spark at least a minor revolution. What kind of revolution that will be is anyone's guess. My hope is that it WON'T be a revolution involving games that intrude on our everyday lives. People should play games. Games shouldn't play people. As soon as you put a game on a phone, everyone starts thinking about how "cool" it would be if the game called you up and, basically, urged you to play right then and there. I just think people moving in that direction are missing what makes people play games in the first place. It's just wrong...

Nextgame.it: Are Videogames the new enemy? We read on regular basis (on newspaper and magazines that have nothing to do with games at all) that games tend to alienate people and instigate to violence. Some games were accused to be blasphemous. Do you think there is an actual possibility for a videogame, for the realism it shows, to influence a gamers psyche to the point to lose control and harm someone? Or are we assisting to the usual crusade against the new "bad phenomenon", a cheap way to explain some unexplainable behavior by a human being?

Warren Spector: I think the most you can say about the effects of games is that some people will be affected by some games at some times in some ways. Not much there to base public policy on! Historically, new media always get the blame for society's ills... movies were the target in the 1920s and 30s... conservative cultural critics had comic books in their crosshairs in the 50s... television got the blame in the 60s... we were just next in line. Someday, some new medium will come along that young adults get and "mature" adults (i.e., the policy makers) don't understand and the pressure will be off games and on that new medium. People always minimize the effects of media they grew up with and see danger in media their kids use. We're just seeing history repeat itself.

Nextgame.it: In the past multifunctional set-top-box projects failed in a miserable way, but today many manufacturers are moving again in this path. Were the past failures just a matter of times? Why today those kind of solutions should succeed where hardware like CDTV, CD-I and 3DO failed?

Warren Spector: The earlier set-top-boxes you mention were probably a little too early and a lot too expensive. Things are somewhat different today in that the net has acclimated people to the idea of merged media. We get all sorts of media content from a single source already. All a set-top box does is move the single source from office or den to the living room. In addition, we're all acclimated to the idea of content delivery via cable and satellite and, I for one, wouldn't live without something like TiVo or Replay or Ultimate TV. We're already seeing convergence at the television set; it's just a question of when someone puts ALL the pieces together in a single box so I can get rid of the three or four I already have. It's inevitable.

Nextgame.it: Buying a PC or a Console today without the option of a connection to the Internet has very little sense. Most videogames have now built-in multiplayer capabilities, but the creative effort is going no further than the usual Capture the Flag and Deathmatch kind of game, leaving apart the massive multiplayer world such as Ultima Online. Considering broadband technology, that will be available soon for millions of gamers, what are the ideas that can revolution online gaming, in your opinion? Which path would you take?

Warren Spector: Well, I'm probably not the right person to ask this question. I still think single-player games have a lot of growing up to do before we get all carried away with multiplayer stuff. Having said that, I think you're going to see more and more people working in the small-group, cooperative multiplayer space. Games that allow several people (not thousands, but half a dozen, maybe) to work through a story or puzzle or what have you together... those will find a ready audience, I think. Cooperative storytelling is a tough problem, though. It's going to take some really clever, creative design work to make it work.

Nextgame.it: Arcade games are struggling among a deep crisis: do you think there is a solution to this problem or the arcades just lost their appeal forever because of the great power of the home consoles and PCs?

Warren Spector: Once again, what I think you're seeing is history at work. Just as television became the dominant medium of visual communication, pushing movies into more of a niche (though a BIG one, of course!), I think you'll find people taking advantage of the power of home systems to the detriment of arcades. Why go out to take part in what is, in essence, a solitary experience anyway, when you can experience exactly the same thing in the comfort of your own home? The arcades are going to have to provide new sorts of unique, cost-effective experiences (as they always have) if they're going to retain an audience.

Nextgame.it: Advertising has become the engine of many business, sometime overrated if we consider the failure of the free Internets in America. Do you think that in the future we are going to see videogames full of advertising messages, considering the great amount of money needed to produce a modern game?

Warren Spector: I hope we don't see ads in games, that would be terrible! (Okay, I admit, we thought long and hard about including real-world products in Deus Ex but that was because we thought it would make the game-world seem more real. That was a situation unique to Deus Ex or, maybe, some other games set in the real world, though.) As a way to defray development costs, advertising would just be horrible. We have to find ways to avoid that.

Nextgame.it: Considering the questions above and your answers, in which way your current and future projects can contribute to revolution the videogames'world?

Warren Spector: I hope every game that comes out of this studio pushes things a little further in creating believable, full-interactive worlds. That's certainly our goal. Frankly, when someone does come up with a viable VR set-up or holodeck-style system, I hope they look to games like Thief and Deus Ex as models of how best to take advantage of their new hardware.