Warren Spector, one of the gaming industry’s biggest figureheads, posted a comment yesterday on Facebook bemoaning the reveal of yet another “generically dark, monochromatic, FPS, kill-the-Nazi-giant-robot game”.

“I am so tired of stuff like this,” said Spector. “Could we all just agree we’ll never use the generic gravelly-whisper trailer voice guy ever again? And one more thing: Please stop using Jimi Hendrix to promote your adolescent male power fantasies. Thank you. I’m done.”

Spector has since apologised for his comments, concerned that many were interpreting his words as a personal attack on the development team. “I owe the Wolfenstein team an apology,” he said in a separate post. “I wasn’t trying to diss you or your game. I have total respect for anyone making a game. I know how hard it is.”

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Veteran game designer Warren Spector has used his inaugural column with GamesIndustry International to slam the games industry for what he calls a “stultifyingly narrow” amount of ideas that publishers will allow developers to explore.

“As a medium we remain mired in action and genre conventions,” says Spector. “Even what passes for seriousness in mainstream gaming seems to require zombies, serial killers, aliens or demons to attract an audience. If I were to say I wanted to make a game about rescuing hostages in Iran – without guns! – assuming I could figure out how to make such a game, I’d get laughed out of the pitch meeting.”

Spector claimed that while many films have been able to move past this reliance on genre conventions, games seem to be stuck repeating the same themes.

“Can you imagine a game about a guy on a spiritual quest in a boat with a tiger? How about two old people struggling with the pain of love and aging? Or the story behind a raid to kill the world’s most notorious terrorist? Okay, we could probably do an okay job of that last one, though probably not the events leading up to it – do you water board that guy or not? Seriously? But you get my point.”

“The breadth of content game developers are allowed to explore is stultifyingly narrow,” he concluded.

Source: GamesIndustry International

Anybody remember Cybermage: Darklight Awakening? Coming out in 1995, it was an early example of the sort of innovative FPS RPG gameplay that would later lead to ground-breaking titles like Deus Ex. Toby McCasker cornered Warren Spector, one of the developers of the game and who would later go on to make System Shock and Deus Ex, and asked him all about it.

Warren Spector speaks to games.on.net about ultra-violence in games, why he wants his games to be the ones that change your life, and that if gamers can “just get past their prejudice”, they’ll find that games like Epic Mickey 2 offer a game that is “so much deeper” than Deus Ex.

For many PC gamers, there’s no better title than Deus Ex, and the game’s creator Warren Spector is regarded by the PC faithful as a god among men. James O’Connor caught up with Warren at Melbourne’s recent Game Masters event for a chat.