07-18-2012, 04:33 PM
The sad thing is that people would actually go for that. The game industry stopped being about "creating the most fun experiences" and turned entirely into a business. If a company wants to cut corners and not use so many level designers (or any at all) and use algorithms for level generation, that's a saved budget. It's a really shitty thing to say, I know, but that's pretty much the truth in the real-world. And it's incredibly sad.
My only defense for the procedurally-created levels, though, is that it's pushing the current limits of game development. We're already entering the development era where we're focusing on voxels and particles (both of which are algorithm-based), and so game devs want to see if they can't push the limits any further by using this procedure-based development for things other than simple cosmetics. Random-generated levels is a great way to really show what a game is capable of, and it definitely will push boundaries if it can get to a point where a randomly-generated level is indistinguishable from a hand-designed level.
Like I said, though, that's my only defense on it. It's still a really stupid cop-out.
My only defense for the procedurally-created levels, though, is that it's pushing the current limits of game development. We're already entering the development era where we're focusing on voxels and particles (both of which are algorithm-based), and so game devs want to see if they can't push the limits any further by using this procedure-based development for things other than simple cosmetics. Random-generated levels is a great way to really show what a game is capable of, and it definitely will push boundaries if it can get to a point where a randomly-generated level is indistinguishable from a hand-designed level.
Like I said, though, that's my only defense on it. It's still a really stupid cop-out.