Honestly, we should have posted about this almost a week ago, but since it’s such a unique interview, different from everything else I saw people ask id during the recent QuakeCon, it still deserves your attention.
Gameriot — a gaming site catering directly to the esports (“electronic” sports) set — conducted an interview with Marty Stratton, Executive Producer at id Software, at the recent QuakeCon, and managed to touch base on a lot of topics that everyone else seem to have missed. For instance:
Gameriot: Quake 4 wasn’t allowed to be on CBS sports due to its ESRB rating. Do you think this will be taken into account for the next Quake Arena game, to have it somewhere in the middle of being too violent and not being violent enough to be believable? Maybe an ability or option to turn things like blood and gibs off?
Marty Stratton: Simple answer, yeah. I think we need to think about that. The more games are broadcasted on TV, the more aware we are that blood and gibs don’t exactly make great Saturday TV. I mean, I don’t think we should remove those aspects of the game, but just be able to turn them off if necessary.
Hit the link at the top for the rest of the interview and a striking look at why the NBA-ization of gaming is an inevitability, whether you like it or not.
Now if we could only convince Jonathan Wendel to rape some white chick …