Jeff Braun of Maxis fame works with Oddworld on a new Oddworld title and remarks on modern games journalism, highlighting Yahtzee’s videos.
Invited as a guest speaker at Wilfrid Laurier University, Maxis (The Sims) co-founder Jeff Braun broke the news that Oddworld Inhabitants is working on another title in its Oddworld franchise that is still years away from release.
“They’re such a talented group of people and I really trust their ability to create compelling content,” boasted Braun.
Oddworld Inhabitants, a studio that announced it would split its resources between game development and movie studios, and claims it can now produce games with movie-quality animation.
Braun elaborated, “The rendering tools are getting so good now for 3D animation that you can literally create a linear animation and create a video game using the exact same objects… . The tools are finally getting to the level where we can come out with a show and we can come up with a game.”
As he continued his lecture, he turned his focus on what he sees as ailing gaming journalism.
Braun stated, “I think the future is [blogging]. I don’t read any trade, I do the blogs. I don’t care anymore about these game magazines. I don’t care what they have to say.”
Because of his belief in blogs, he is a fan of sites like Joystiq and Kotaku.
“I like the idea of how there’s attitude behind the blogs,” he continued. “They call the shots. The video games magazines never used to call the hard shots – because they’re advertisers and they would piss everyone off. The blogs, they don’t care – they will just trash anybody and say anything.”
The Escapist’s own Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw was praised as “the future of gaming journalism.”
Braun explained, “It’s right on, it’s the scariest thing. This guy is sharp. That would have never happened on Gamespot – the way he trashes the whole industry.”
He considers Yahtzee’s reviews “one of the most brilliant things I’ve seen in the games industry in a long time… . It’s a shot of something good into the blood of the industry. It was such a kiss-ass world before – people want the truth.”
Source: Cord Weekly
Published: May 23, 2008 07:40 pm