Singaporean game developers lack creativity

I got this article from IGN. View the actual article here.

UK, January 11, 2007 - Ian Livingstone, Eidos' supreme commander of worldwide product acquisitions, has criticised developers in Singapore.

Livingstone opined that Singapore lacked "the ability to think outside the box to create new intellectual property, new game-play and new characters". Then, just to add insult to injury, he bemoaned: "The tendency here [Singapore] is to make copies of previous games, rather than to think about what the world hasn't seen before or what new games haven't been done before. [There must be a] unique selling point that differentiates them [game developers] from everyone else."


I completely agree with him as well as the comments about MW not being wholly original. But what IS 100% original these days?

You also have to understand the kind of society that Singapore is:

a) Educators and parents here vilify computer games.
If your grades aren't good it's because you've been playing to many video games (never because the curriculum is boring). The idea of a good education system here is to cram as much practical knowledge you can into a kid so they don't even have the time to think about what they are learning. When you're not at school, you're having tuition at home, the rest of the time is spent actually doing the homework. This is actually a really good formula for creating robots, ...uncreative robots. < No, we're not Cylons.

The general opinion is that of "If you play computer games you will never achieve the Singaporean dream of becoming a scholar." < Pretty retarded dream in my opinion.

b) Singapore is a VERY meritocratic society.
Most of Singaporean society doesn't view making games a REAL work (nevermind that the videogame industry is worth billions). Artists, game developers and other jobs that don't generally command a high pay aren't even considered professions. My friend, who is an artist, bemoaned how a taxi driver chided him when he revealed his choosen field and asked him to get a real job.

I feel like I'm under constant pressure to get a job working in a bank (because I can get one with my nice CV) because a banker has a higher social standing than a game developer. How retarded is that concept?!

It's a little difficult to produce good creative work if everyone you know keeps telling you that what you're doing is a big waste of time.


Singaporean game developers have already fought societal stigmatisation to pursue their passion and I can see that more and more Singaporeans are pursing their own dreams instead of ascribing to old mindsets. Here's a crazy idea: MAYBE THEY FEEL FREE TO PURSUE THEIR OWN DREAMS BECAUSE THE GAMES TAUGHT THEM HOW TO!

We just need a bit more time to really get completely "out of our boxes".

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