{"id":26369,"date":"2019-08-22T14:49:40","date_gmt":"2019-08-22T18:49:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=26369"},"modified":"2019-08-29T14:45:22","modified_gmt":"2019-08-29T18:45:22","slug":"why-spiderwebs-games-look-like-crap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2019\/08\/22\/why-spiderwebs-games-look-like-crap\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Spiderweb’s Games “Look Like Crap”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jeff Vogel<\/a> (via Dare Obasanjo<\/a>, Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n

The key problem here is that, when most people say, “Your art looks bad,” what they mean is, “I want art that is good.” They mean, “I want AAA-quality art.” And I can’t make that. Not even close.<\/p>

I have had games where I worked very hard to improve the graphics, spending a lot of time and money, and they really did look better! But when I released those games, the vast majority of people who had said, “Your games look bad.” STILL said, “Your games look bad.”<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

When you spend more money, you need to increase sales to match those expenses. Make sure you have a good chance of doing this, and make sure you can stomach the risk.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

That is why all of my games have a more generic fantasy style. I have to work with a lot of different artists. It’s the nature of the business. Thus I have to write games in a way that the artists can be replaced. The generic style this requires is not ideal, but it is necessary.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Update (2019-08-29): Jeff Vogel<\/a> (tweet<\/a>, Hacker<\/a> News<\/a>):<\/p>\n

Basically, my blog post said, “Some people like my art, but I am still super-bad at art. Always have been. Fixing the problem costs time and cash, and I don’t have any of either to spare. So that’s why our games look bad.”<\/p>

I got a lot of questions about this. Good questions. Why can’t I afford art direction? How much does art cost? Why don’t I do this or that smart thing? So that’s why I’m writing this. I want to answer the good questions.<\/p><\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jeff Vogel (via Dare Obasanjo, Hacker News): The key problem here is that, when most people say, “Your art looks bad,” what they mean is, “I want art that is good.” They mean, “I want AAA-quality art.” And I can’t make that. Not even close.I have had games where I worked very hard to improve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2019-08-22T18:49:44Z","apple_news_api_id":"126c2aa1-633f-4167-a956-dd10c6edb9a1","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2019-08-29T18:45:27Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AEmwqoWM_QWepVt0Qxu25oQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[101,77,418,937,30,32,1609],"class_list":["post-26369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-business","tag-design","tag-game","tag-hiring","tag-mac","tag-macapp","tag-macos-10-14"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26369"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26416,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26369\/revisions\/26416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}