Criticism
Although interactive movies had a filmic quality that sprite-based games could not duplicate at the time, they were a niche market— the lack of direct interactivity put off many gamers. The popularity of FMV games declined after around 1995, as more advanced consoles were released.
Cost was also an issue, as these games were often very expensive to produce: Ground Zero: Texas cost Sega around US$3 million, about the same as a low-budget movie would cost in 1994. Others attracted Hollywood stars such as Isaac Hayes, noted R&B singer/songwriter and performer (Shaft), who appeared in Johnny Mnemonic: The Interactive Action Movie, Dana Plato (Diff'rent Strokes, cast for Night Trap), Debbie Harry (lead singer of Blondie hired for Double Switch), and Ron Stein (fight coordinator of Rocky and Raging Bull, who was hired as director for Sega's boxing game Prize Fighter).
Another issue that drew criticism was the quality of the video itself. While the video was often relatively smooth, it was not actually "full motion" as it was not of 24 frames per second or higher. In addition to this, the hardware it was displayed on, particularly in the case of the Sega CD, had a limited color palette (of which a maximum of 64 colors were displayable simultaneously), resulting in notably inferior image quality due to the requirement of dithering. The content was also a point of some criticism, as many FMV games featured real actors and dialogue, which was problematic if the acting itself was poor. Game designer Chris Crawford disparages the concept of interactive movies, except those aimed at elementary-school-age children, in his book Chris Crawford on Game Design. He writes that since the player must process what is known and explore the options, choosing a path at a branch-point is every bit as demanding as making a decision in a conventional game, but with much less reward since the result can only be one of a small number of branches.
Read more about this topic: Laserdisc Video Games
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“Like speaks to like only; labor to labor, philosophy to philosophy, criticism to criticism, poetry to poetry. Literature speaks how much still to the past, how little to the future, how much to the East, how little to the West.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“To be just, that is to say, to justify its existence, criticism should be partial, passionate and political, that is to say, written from an exclusive point of view, but a point of view that opens up the widest horizons.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
“A friend of mine spoke of books that are dedicated like this: “To my wife, by whose helpful criticism ...” and so on. He said the dedication should really read: “To my wife. If it had not been for her continual criticism and persistent nagging doubt as to my ability, this book would have appeared in Harper’s instead of The Hardware Age.””
—Brenda Ueland (1891–1985)