More good news for Zelda in America

[OB1]

I'm going to introduce another metaphor. The video game industry is a gigantic carnival with hundreds and hundreds of tents waiting to be entered. Many salespeople attract audience members into the tent with flash and pizazz (pretty grahics). Others mention positive statements made by other audience members (EGM's game of the month). But until you actually pay the man at the tent entrance and watch the show, you don't really know how the experience will suit you. Many games promise the world, but once you get into the tent, there's nothing to sate this appetite.

Hahaha! What the hell?

There are multiple dimensions in my argument and, taken as a whole, I think it all makes sense. I have been saying this entire time that the look, animation, and presentation are not important for me. They are the noises, flashes, and smells coming from inside the tent that attract an audience. I think, in the scheme of things, that a game that had a different look, animation, and presentation would still be Zelda:the Wind Waker. For the mass market, however, look, animation, and presentation is paramount. You need to captivate the audience. What I would be willing to do if I was Nintendo is to compromise a smidge on the presentation side if it meant that I could get more people to open their minds to the game, let their guards down, and step behind the curtain. Then, I'd blow them away with all of the creativity I have. As an artist who would focus all of his creativity into entertaining, that's what I would do as Nintendo.

This sounds more like an essay to Nintendo for some job interview or something.

I understand that you want Nintendo to be the uncompromising artist. And that's simply a difference of ideals. I'm okay with that. I'm just saying that by compromising at just a 5% rate that you can change the audience's willingness to enter the tent by far more than 5%. I think the important thing to note is that this compromise rate is a continuum. It's not black and white:

0% Total Control, uncompromising artist, OB1's ideal. Example: Samba de Amigo
5% A nice compromise. You're considering the desires of the audience, but you have enough control to completely exceed their expectations. My ideal. Example: Metroid Prime
10% The limit of artistic integrity. It's beginning to effect the game itself.
20% You're now into over-compromise territory. Gameplay is effected.
30% You're now well into over-compromise territory. You may be borrowing some ideas from a successful product.
50% You've practically lost control of the product. You can still make a decent game, but you don't have enough control to blow away expectations. Example: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
80% You're making a clone. You can maybe make it distinguishable from the original product, but not by much, or else the suits will fire you.
90% You're making a sequel to a successful game, and the publisher (probably Midway) wants you to basically change the uniforms and update the rosters. Maybe you can add a feature here or there.
100% You're doing a straight port.

Uh... ok. Am I supposed to argue back at something?

Of note: successul titles have come from practically all points on this spectrum. However, as you get near 100%, it is almost guarenteed that the popularity of the series will decrease. However, titles near 0% are very hit-and-miss in terms of success. Because the artist does not even consider that he is making a product for the audience, it's like playing pin the tail on the donkey. As I hope you can see, I detest when companies are so conservative that they pander to the current tastes of the consumer. But my reaction to that is not to jump to the opposite extreme. Rather, I'd like to find a balance that is heavily in the favor of the artistic integrity of the artist, but an artist that realizes that he is not in a vacuum.

EDIT: Help, can't find spoiler tag. [/B]

You can still make fantastic art while entertaining people at the same time. As Bey Logan once said, "art is born in restraint and dies in freedom" or something to that effect. He was referring to movies, but it can also be applied to video games.