Stomfront Studios CEO on What Defines ‘Next Gen’

Gamasutra brings us an overview of Don Daglow’s “next gen” keynote speech at this year’s Leipzig Games Convention. In case you didn’t know, the Stormfront Studios CEO has been involved with many games over the years, including the original Neverwinter Nights, Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor, and Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone, making him a worthy candidate for such a topic. The intro:

At this year’s GCDC developer conference in Leipzig, Stormfront Studios (Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Neverwinter Nights) president and CEO Don Daglow tackled the question “what makes games next gen?”

Daglow’s seen a lot of “Next Generations”, dating back to his role as director of game development for Intellivision during the first generation of video game consoles, and shared his opinions in a panel going in-depth on the ubiquitous phrase, what the definition of a “Next Gen” game should be, and how developers can create more unique kinds of player experiences for future generations.

“NextGen Magazine was founded in about 1995, so the idea of next gen was already being used in the 90s,” Daglow noted at the session’s opening. Reminiscing on the first generation of consoles in the mid-eighties, Daglow touched on some of the limitations that developers have trotted out over the ages — first, it was the number of colors, then it was the limited hardware.