Quotes (Patreon)

Good quotes are dangerous, because people can misinterpret them and use them to justify acts the original quote never intended.

Well you see… I wrecked out thirty people at turn 1 because…

One of the most misattributed quotes in-gaming comes courtesy of Jamie Griesemer in the Making of Halo 2 Documentary.

“In Halo 1, there was maybe 30 seconds of fun that was repeated over and over and over. So if you can get 30 seconds of fun, you can pretty much stretch that out to be an entire game.”

Jamie is emphasizing the importance of a great gameplay loop which you can then set in different locations, enemy configurations, and weapons used. 

He’s not saying your game should only be about one thing.

Years ago, I summarized Halo, DOOM, and FEAR’s repetition with these split-screens to contrast Half Life 2’s campaign variety; some viewers took issue with this, saying that reducing Halo to three hallways with an Assault Rifle is cherry picking that could be done, and… fair.

I was attempting to say with imagery rather than words that Halo, DOOM, and Fear, are games built around a core-gameplay loop, whereas Half Life 2 constructs unique gameplay and atmosphere per-level, but that imagery could imply a bias I didn’t intend, and that’s on me as a writer and editor.

If you were to be fairer to Halo, you would showcase vehicle sections, wide open environments, multiple factions, and more. Aspects of the sandbox which go beyond mowing down foot soldiers…

I feel somewhat for Jaime, because I know that quote went beyond just Journalists, and it might've effected even other developers, because in playing games like Goldeneye Rogue Agent recently, it literally is what Jamie described by accident.

It's literally a game with one loop repeated with no variation.

Now, it is unreasonable for viewers to verify everything they see and hear, there's just not enough hours in the day or juice in the brain to be a hard-hitting Journalist every time you open Twitter.

Quoting's different though

That's when you're exchanging information like you'd exchange money, and before handing over cash, you'd want to make sure it's actually money, because in this instance, not everyone can immediately tell you what you've just given them belongs in a game of Monopoly.