Introduction

I set this blog up several weeks ago and have since hemmed and hawed over what how I would start my posts. I guess I feared what people would think of my thoughts or ideas. But then it occurred to me: I doubt too many people will read this or even care what I have to say. I'm sure my thoughts will get lost among the hundreds of thousands, or millions, of blogs on the series of tubes that is the Internet. Still I have never been consistent when it comes to recording the bursts of genius that go off in my head and so the world has yet to experience them as well. This will give me an opportunity to do just that and hopefully nurture those bursts and seed the growth of new ones through practice. I also hope to somewhat use this blog as a portfolio of sorts in an effort to show off what I have done and what I'm working on in an attempt to continue working in and influencing the video game industry as whole.

For those wondering about the origins of my blog title, "The Giant's Drink, it is an homage to my favorite book of all time, Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. I whole-heartedly recommend this book to anyone. Anyway, in the story, Card envisioned a game that can access the subconscious of the player and is truly an open-ended, "sand box" experience, and this was about thirty years ago! The game is unpredictable at best and is constantly changing and growing like some sort of living organism or virus.

It is unfortunate that this game could not be a reality, at least not in the near future. Excluding the technical deficiencies that would be needed, such as insane AI and real time world creation, I just don't see a publisher taking the risk. It has been said a thousand times, so here I just reiterate some long held opinions, but the market is too saturated with cash cows and there is not enough room for the truly creative endeavors. It all comes down to money, I guess. Working at a major publisher, the majority of the stuff that I get to work on is licensed franchises. All of our new IP has been developed for the Xbox 360 or the PC, so I don't get to really get to be hands on since I work only on titles for Nintendo hardware. But what I have had the opportunity to work on just seems to lack something that makes them special, with the exception of the Avatar games; I have enjoyed them on all platforms.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not some kind of art house game snob. I greatly appreciate creative games and try to support them whenever I can. Still there will always be a spot in my collection for franchise games. For better or worse, I will continue to play games in several series: Halo, FIFA, Tony Hawk (although I have skipped the last two iterations, high hopes for Project 8 though), Metal Gear, and even Zelda. Franchises keep the industry afloat and keep me employed. My only hope is that the future will employ a better ratio between the fluff and the sincere.