Creativity, a Problem for the Gaming Industry? 522
Steeda95GT writes "A Reuters story reprinted at Forbes.com is an interesting read, saying that 'The gaming industry will shrink unless we start to see new games'. It talks about how the ratio of original titles to sequels is dropping dramatically, but it also goes on to say that upcoming sequels (Doom 3, Halo 2, Half-Life 2, GTA: San Andreas) will be successful only because their predecessors were."
Garage Games (Score:4, Interesting)
4 kinds (Score:1, Interesting)
Arcade style - pac-man, pong, donkey kong, any card game
Third person - Games where the character(s) are viewed/controlled from above; Kings Quest, Warcraft, etc
First person shooter - duke nukem, doom, GTA
racing games - need for speed, etc.
Some games span more than one category, like GTA, but most (graphical) games can fit into one of these categories.
This story was on Slashdot a while ago... (Score:2, Interesting)
logical mistake? (Score:3, Interesting)
the fact that the originals were successful suggests the designers did something right. so what does it mean that they will *ONLY* be successful because their predecessors were?
in other news: "$team won the $league, but only because they beat all their opponents"
the only thing they might mean is that the games suck but they will still succeed on hype, but how the f*ck can they say that when they aren't even anywhere near release date yet?
Maybe.. (Score:5, Interesting)
I think Half-Life 2 will be successful not purely on its name. Half-Life had no name to begin with, and the company that made it had no prior history. That was their first game, and it became one of the most successful games in history. They've had time to learn from their mistakes and do cool new things in this game.
Halo 2 I know nothing about. I have no interest in it since it will probably be an Xbox-only title, so perhaps someone here who finds Xbox interesting can give us some insight on the potential technical innovations for that game.
GTA: San Andreas. How can you make a statement one way or the other on this one at this point in time? They have yet to release any actual information on the game yet. We haven't seen any screenshots or feature lists or anything. If they're knocking the possibility of innovation based purely upon its name, then let's take a trip down memory lane and remember the differences between GTA and GTA2.. then GTA2 and GTA3 (clearly the biggest difference), then GTA3 to Vice City (not really a huge difference technically, but I think the gameplay was much improved and it was even more fun than GTA3 for most people). Anyway, the point is that without any information about what GTA:SA will be like, you have no room to knock it at all. They may have expanded this game to be a fucking huge region instead of a single city.
The public has already found what it wants. (Score:5, Interesting)
"We have to think very carefully about the type of audience we're reaching with our games," Andrew House,
These two quotes sum it up perfectly.
It's not that new, original, refreshing mechanics of gameplay aren't -- it's that they're not what's marketable. By far, the largest chunk of the gaming public is that which loves sports games, racing games, FPS's, and traditional RPGs.
Games like those can only deviate from their core gameplay so much before they stop appealing to that chunk. Furthermore, it's not just about mechanics, but style. Except for RPGs, nitty-gritty "realism" is what dominates; just look at Need for Speed, Project Gotham, Unreal Tournament, Halo, Madden. That style dominates and will continue to dominate until a large-scale shift in gaming culture happens, something on the scale of the transition from 2D SNES cuteness to grim-and-cool 3D PlayStation.
What of titles like Pikmin, Fusion Frenzy, Cubivore, or that one game where you go down tunnels and match up music with what's written on the walls? Marginalized, utterly marginalized. They are all fantastic games -- and had they come out during the golden age, the '70s and '80s, when game mechanics were just beginning to be explored and there were very few established norms, they might have become classics.
Re:New, must-have games drive console sales. (Score:3, Interesting)
Morrowind to a lesser degree, as well.
The unique ones often go unnoticed... (Score:5, Interesting)
I seriously regret having put it off for months.
The story, though fairly basic, is sometimes downright hilarious. There were three times where I seriously had to contain myself, and throughout the rest of the plot there are many of chuckles. A lot of things are simply said in the dialogue that really came out of left field. And it all comes through with great anime style, and quality voice acting. This is akin to the "Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail" of tactical RPGs.
There's a lot of hidden things to explore. The demon senate concept is amusing to say the least, though I haven't managed to persuade any senators by force yet. The item world is ridiculous, and turns the game into a FF Tactics meets Dungeon Crawl concept since its always different, and I end up with all sorts of crazy items if I survive.
And the core game itself? Pretty good. I'm 9 chapters in after about 30 hours, and have a feeling it'll be 60 hours before I just beat the core game -- but they're going by as fast as they did for the original FF Tactics. Nevermind the fact the game supposedly has a ton of different endings, and that I could spend forever leveling up to level 9999, getting all sorts of insane items and ridiculous looking attacks, etc.
Yet, good luck finding it. 14 stores and one had two in stock. I'm sure this was a low-volume venture by Atlus here in the states. I've thoroughly enjoyed it, but most folks haven't even heard of it. Which is a shame.
----- ----- -----
Perhaps people would buy original games ... (Score:3, Interesting)
I think that's why web-delivered games [ridiculopathy.com] are getting to be a lot like the independent film scene. They cost much less to produce and distribute than console or PC-specific games so developers and designers can experiment more. Also, consumers expect more risks.
For example, in the console market people will buy up racing & football sequels where the only changes are new stats and color schemes. On the other hand, sites that offer only "look I made a clone of that other game but in FLASH" fare tend not to do well.
I for one like sequels. (Score:5, Interesting)
I think that certain sequels like Grand Tursimo 3, Soul Calibur II, GTA3 etc. are better than many of the so called creative games.
Not to mention that many sequels are very new and diffrent and have very little in common with the previous titles other than the name.
Games are currently outdoing the movie industry in sales....so games are dead, long live games.
Rubbish (Score:2, Interesting)
So before you complain about the lack of originality in games, open your sodding eyes for once and look past the big publishers.
Trust (Score:4, Interesting)
seriously, we need Nintendo to start making up games again - just like back in the day...
wait a minute...
Actually, now that I think about it, the whole concept behind an Italian plumber and his brother fighting an evil turtle with spikes (ok, its a
"Koopa") to save Toadstools (mushrooms) and a really hot cartoon chick of a princess really by eating fireplants and shooting fireballs, and sprouting a racoons tail and ears to fly does make me wonder what they were doing when they came up with that concept....
(Of course, then again you have to wonder about the Ninja Turtles, Sonic [a flying fox?, a superfast hedgehog?], Power Rangers, etc... Pokemon I can kinda understand, as uhm, they're kinda a pet thing...)
Context: Industry Faces 'Crisis of Creativity' (Score:5, Interesting)
Enjoy some context (not intended as a criticism). Part of the reason is demographic trends and part of the reason is financial. The ideas in the article seem to support a shift to creativity as discussed in an article with some game industry experts last year.
Re:i blame EA... (Score:3, Interesting)
Mario
Zelda
Metroid
Sonic
Street Fighter
King Of Fighters
Pokemon (hell this year they are just re-releasing Red/Blue!)
Final Fantasy
Metal Gear
I could go on, but the point stands. And I'm tired of typing for today. Silly AC.
Re:Sakura Wars games? Might as well shell out $50. (Score:2, Interesting)
What you talk about is people, probably like yourself, who cast their opinions on people (vocally) based on what they play. Sadly, you and people like you are full of shit.
Tokimeki Memorial and Sentimental Grafitti are more like your "Never Been Laid: 2003" than Sakura Wars is. Never played those but then I don't care to.
Sakura wars plays out more like an anime than a relationship sim. Unforunately people like you short circuit the thinking process and judge the game without experience (I think they call that predjudice, you might be familiar with the concept.)
This is another reason creativity and diversity in games is stunted in the US and Europe. People simply refuse to consider things outside your average blood and guts action games, RPGs, Sports, Racing, and Puzzle games.
Re:Creativity? (Score:5, Interesting)
Half-Life 2, while great-looking from the gameplay that's been shown so far, isn't revolutionary. It isn't using inverse kinematics for the first time in its physics engine, it isn't the first graphics engine to pass pixels more than once, and it isn't the first game to use vehicles in game play.
It might improve on these things, but it's not ushering in a new era of elements we've never seen before.
Re:Creativity? (Score:5, Interesting)
While it did fail (miserably), Nintendo also took a chance and developed the Virtual Boy. Sony and MS, on the other hand (while respectable companies) have decided to make systems and games which are already proven winners (violence, RPGs, FPSs). And I think we can all assume that the Nintendo DS is a really creative idea (which can very well sink the company or put it back to #1). Just my $0.02...
New Games Don't Sell (Score:5, Interesting)
I could think of many others. There are some that have another reason (for example many rythum games don't do too well in the US), but many were just great games that didn't do to well. I think a big part of the problem is that many parents buy games. So why risk their $50 or $60 on something the kid might not like when they know the kid has GTA3 or NBA 2k3 or some other game and they can just buy the sequel and the kid will almost certainly like it (even though it might not be that great).
There are many games out there, and many are fun. But personally I don't buy very many games (innovative or not). There are games that I've played and then thought "I wish I bought that", but I'm not going to because I've already beat the game. But far Far FAR more often the game wasn't that good (or terrible) or it was just short. I can't afford to take the chance to buy games. If games were $30, I would buy more, but a $60 for a new game you've got to be kidding me if you think I'll buy any games that look interesting. I think this is proven by the fact that I have about 5x as many GB/GBA games as most other consoles. Losing $25 or $30 on a game that looked fun (FF: Tactics was nice, but just not for me) isn't so bad. But if the games cost more, I wouldn't buy very many.
Sequels aren't always bad. Some are very innovative or really improve things (think GTA3 vs GTA2). As you can see above I'm eargly awaiting the sequels to many games. The problem is that some games get a sequel. Then they get another and another and before you know it you're on volume 10 of about the same thing. (Final Fantasy games don't count because each one is different, they're not true sequels (except X-2, which is almost "non-sequel" in it's own right)).
The end result of all this (and I think moving away from the razor blade model of video games would REALLY help) is that we get mostly sequels and remakes/collections and such.
I can't afford to take risks on innovative games. Of those above, I own Animal Crossing (because I rented it and got addicted to it and bought it) and Pikmin (because it looked fun and I trust Miyamoto). It's too risky.
Re:Trust (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Creativity? (Score:1, Interesting)
1) First game with a muscle system.
2) First game with eye shaders at level of detail where they simulate cornea buldge.
3) The editors they were showing for path planning and AI schedules are an insane breakthrough over how games are currently made.
Re:Creativity? (Score:5, Interesting)
At 43 I'm one of the original video game generation, starting with \spacewar and various Apple1 sims. I still love gaming as much as I did 20 or 25 years ago but if I have a choice between jumping my wife's bones or hanging with a bunch of 15 year olds in some 'clan' the kids can go on without me. Sorry, I've got the doctorate to work on and other stuff to do to bother with a LAN party, so I won't pay one cent more for that functionality; good AI (defined as something that can suprise me 9 times out of 10 and approach each situation differently even in replays) is worth an extra $30 or $40.
Creativity study on GBA (Score:3, Interesting)
To tie it into a "shrinking market" angle, I think that the size of the GBA installed base says that, at least at some level, there is a huge sector of the public willing to eat crap and call it great. Judging from the ongoing poor level of quality in all other media for as long as anyone can remember, it seems that this sector of the public is here permanently and thus there will always be a huge market for drivel. Oh well.
Re:Creativity? (Score:3, Interesting)
The worst thing to see in modern games is not just a lack of revolution, but even a lack of evolution. HL2 might not be doing much that is new, but its combining state of the art concepts in a new way. Compare that to Warcraft 3, the antithesis of a revolutionary game, in which not only is there nothing new and very little almost-new but there is also a disastrous lack of even BASIC features common to almost every other modern RTS game. It is like a 5 year step backwards in gameplay and a not-impressive graphical engine, only succeeding on its predecessors' shoulders.
Product Comparisons (Score:5, Interesting)
How do most game concepts start? "Super Killer Frenzy Shooter is a cross between Quarter-Life 3 and ReallyFarOutCry, with an RTS component based on..." Even game developers are constantly comparing games to other games by saying this is a little of that, and a little of this, or just like game X but with feature Y. I can only imagine that other creative industries do the same (movies come to mind.)
This is not just the way big publishers do business. A lot of pitches I've seen from smaller developers include how they are different or better than a list of already released games. Mostly popular games.
Most game companies are out to make money. Usually so they can continue to make games and not end up on the dole. So, we tend to look at what is popular and selling. It's very risky, especially with the game development budgets these days, to try something brand new. It still happens, it just doesn't happen as much as the early 8-bit days when it was literally one guy in the garage doing all the design, coding and art. Unless you look at the shareware, PDA and demo scenes where small teams and individuals are still making games there.
Sequels are popular with publishers because a) they tend to cost less to develop since you can use assets/engines/design from the first game, b) if the first game was popular, the sequel _usually_ sells well unless it's a bad game, c) you can get more press since you don't have to sell the magazines on a completely brand new concept that they are not sure will appeal to their market and d) you find it easier to get "buy-in" from your internal sales and marketing staff when dealing with a known property.
I don't think the games industry is non-creative, but we've definitely matured and tend to take less risks overall. Sequels and derivitive products are a way of reducing that risk.
Agreed. (Score:5, Interesting)
Still other times you have a "sequel" to something that is so old, that the developers can't help but reimagine it for the current technology, and you have what looks to be a very promising title, such as with the upcoming Sam & Max game...
Re:Creativity? (Score:2, Interesting)
Which is why I propose that rail guns be included in Madden 2005.
Kidding aside, I can think of one huge way sports games can evolve to something beyond cookie-cutter creations; let players change the rules of how the game is played, a la Calvinball [solitaryway.com].
For instance, why not let players of baseball games change the rules of the game so that hitting the ball out of the park is an out instead of a home run? Or make it so that more than one baserunner can be on the same base at the same time? Using a system like the one used to make triggers in Starcraft, players could create their own rulesets. Frankly, I'm somewhat surprised it hasn't been done already. Of course, as you said, the sports genre is definitely the least creative genre.
'Only' because their predecessors were successful? (Score:5, Interesting)
I wholeheartedly agree that there nearly isn't enough creativity in the video-game industry. Because it is a mass entertainment medium, the incentive to give the creative people real creative freedom is severely lacking. But also, because video-games are such a mass entertainment media, the laws of market apply to it, i.e. more often than not, a bad game will flop, and a good game will sell, sequel or no sequel. Like with movies. This is what recently happened with, say, Deus Ex 2, which had a lot of hype going for it and a huge fanbase but (even though I loved it) most people didn't like it and it flopped, even though it was a sequel to one of the most critically acclaimed games of the past decade.
That said, there are several other things to take into account.
First of all, what matters in a game isn't the title as much as the gameplay mechanics. In a movie or a book, a sequel implies a lot of things : same characters, same genre, same universe... Of course there are lots of unconventional sequels out there, but in a videogame what is appealing is the gameplay (in the broader sense, i.e. gaming experience, graphics, etc.) more than the characters or the story. Look at a game like The Legend of Zelda : The wind Waker. It's, what, the tenth sequel to one of the most successful franchises in videogame history? And yet wasn't that a very ballsy game? The Wind Waker was a very innovative game in more than one way. A very creative game, no matter how much of a sequel it was. Sams with an other hit console game like Prince of Persia : The Sands of Time. An other adaptation of an old school 2D game into a 3D masterpiece. Boooring you say? No, because even though it's a sequel, there are tons of creativity jammed into it. The gameplay mechanics, the famed rewind, the animation, the level design... The point here is that because videogames rely so much on gameplay mechanics, a sequel is far from meaning an uninnovative or non-creative game.
Very far from it.
The main problem with the videogame industry isn't that there isn't creativity, it's that there is no incentive to give the creative people the creative freedom they require -- much like Hollywood. As long as boring, unimaginative sequels will sell, why should execs look further than boring, unimaginative sequels? I only wish that there was a 'creativity crisis' in the video-game industry. Those things force the people with the big $$$ to take chances, to crop the useless fat out. Look at what happened with television : HBO proved with The Sopranos that a quality TV series could actually make money. Now we see all kinds of great shows pop up all around the place like Six Feet Under, K Street, but not just on cable, with The Shield, CSI, and many more like The Wire, Dead Like Me, and more I'm forgetting. Only a few years back the only reason I kept a TV was out of habit, for DVDs and the occasional documentary or Star Trek. Now I find myself cancelling dates (yes, I can get dates) to watch a great TV show. The problem with the videogame industry is that a good videogame takes a lot of money, and a lot of skills. The time when you could program a game on your Amiga in your bedroom while your brother drew the sprites and made a bad MIDI soundtrack for it is long gone. Once again, why is HL so good? Because they've been working at it since the first one came out! And because Valve hired some of the best programmers they could find! That's what, six/seven years of development and with very talented people. I can only imagine how much money has been invested in this project. And it paid off! The game is fantastic, even before it came out. It's got the best graphical engine anyone has ever seen (John C
Who can forget Zak McCracken (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Creativity? (Score:3, Interesting)
Where do you put Civilization? It's not real time strategy. It's a turn based strategy. But that term usually applies to the now vanishing wargame, which Civilization is not in the strict sense. And where do you put the classic roleplaying games like Ultima, Bard's Tale, etc?
Re:Perhaps people would buy original games ... (Score:3, Interesting)
This is an area where I think a system like Xbox Live could really start to shine. Why not offer limited, playable demos through the Live service? Since you know that people will have a broadband connection hooked up anyway and it has this large harddrive that goes mostly unused, why not put some demos on it? If I had a nice menu of various Xbox titles that I could browse and select, I would probably go out and buy more games, particularly maybe those games I would usually overlook. It would take a while to download a playable demo, but people download movies and games all the time so this wouldn't be that much different. Heck, why not have it download in the background while playing another game? I know they have demo CDs and things, but having all the demos in one location would really be cool. It's like going to Apple's Quicktime trailer site where you can preview tons of movies in one stop.
plenty of creativity on display at GDC (Score:5, Interesting)
At the IGDA awards, three games were given "Game Innovation Spotlights": the EyeToy, Viewtiful Joe, and WarioWare Inc. All three of these seem quite novel and worthy of the attention.
At the Experimental Gameplay Workshop, both indies and mainstream games were shown. On the indie front, this year's Indie Game Jam [indiegamejam.com] games (full disclosure: I co-run this event); Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates [puzzlepirates.com]; and Zoesis' [zoesis.com] The Demon and the Princess. On the commercial front, the creator of Namco's Katamari Damashii [gamespot.com] spoke about and demoed the game ("Was it difficult to convince Namco to let you do this game?" "Of course." was even funnier with the long pause for translation between question and answer); we had presentations about WarioWare and about the explorations of time as a game mechanic (specifically in Prince of Persia, Max Payne 1 & 2, and Viewtiful Joe).
(There were a few more presentations about more academic "games": Ken Perlin's work on natural-language-programming for kids, "Haptic Battle Pong", and I forget what else, as I was developing a fever during the 3-hour EGW.)
The winner of the Indie Games Festival's web downloadable grand prize, Oasis [oasisgame.com], is a fairly original and creative game (full disclosure: I did contract work for Oasis' developers on a different project), and since this is announced at essentially the same ceremony as the IGDA awards it has a fairly significant cachet.
So I think the Reuters reporters just didn't go to the right events at the GDC.
The story itself has plenty of debatable claims. Are gamers, as the article claims, getting more conservative, or are publishers just getting extremely conservative and releasing more sequels and focusing their marketing dollars there? Hint: nobody debates the truth of the latter.
You ask too much, grasshopper (Score:4, Interesting)
Warcraft III was evolutionary enough to be entertaining. It developed the notion of 'heros gaining experience' for realtime strategy games and all the aspects that went with that. It improved upon the AI. It introduced multi-angle 3d to realtime strategy as far as I know.
Besides, how often has the publishing industry put out 'a new type of book.' Npt too often.
But unless there's some benefit or call for a 'revolutionary' type of game, 'evolutionary' improvements can keep things entertaining for a decade.
Besides, the advantage of 'sequel' games is that people can pick them up quickly and play them with their friends without a huge learning curve. They just need to learn the particulars of the current game. Too much 'revolution' kills the market because it takes too long for many people to learn to play the new game. This means fewer multi-player games, removing a big incentive for folks to buy and a particular game.
I used to test games for Turbo Graphix. I kept telling them they should focus their efforts of making one or two good multi-player games.
With the possible exception of bomber man, and dungeon explorer, they never did.
Re:Imminent death of net predicted (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Creativity study on GBA (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Again with the Warcraft! (Score:3, Interesting)
As to the heroes, they are the worst example of a great idea. Warlords Battlecry (and WBC2, and in a few months WBC3) has MUCH deeper *PERSISTENT* heroes. Kohan had WC3-ish heroes before WC3 did. The same goes for Kingdoms Under Fire.
There is exactly ZERO creativity in WC3, aside from the storyline. As I said before, they not only did NOTHING new (which pretty much solidifies the lack of creativity), but they ignored a LOT of things that every other good RTS does to make the game interface less of an impediment to gameplay. The only way you could even possibly consider WC3 evolutionary would be if you consider that it is marginally better than every other (all 2 or 3 of them) game using a map trigger system.
Re:The unique ones often go unnoticed... (Score:3, Interesting)
This puts lots of games into the low selling list. I know the programmers want to get paid, however the high price of a game without a demo is still a pricy pig in a poke for most people. I had a case where the demo ran better than the game. This alone reduces my willingness to buy a high cost game. (Nerf Arena Blast Demo runs on HD, game requires CD in drive slowing gameplay) Unfortunately this descrepancy sent me to google to find the no-CD crack on the net just to get it to run like the demo. If a game won't install on the HD and insists on the CD being in the drive, please let me know before hand. If copy protection is used, let me know before hand. I only let the young kids work from working copies. They too often wind up under the wheels of the chair as carpet protectors. I would rather loose a 20 cent blank than a $50 game. Work copies are cheap insurance. I'm very reluctant to spend $50 on a game that I won't let the kids play because they might break it.
Re:Maybe.. (Score:3, Interesting)
That "everyone" is a niche market. "Wow, vertex shaders!" "Real-time displacement mapping". Not that many people look for that stuff.
If you want to see what's coming in graphics, download a SpeedTree [idvinc.com] demo. SpeedTree generates large-scale terrain with grass, trees, and ground, through which you can move in real-time. Each tree is different. There's full level of detail; get close to a tree and examine the bark and leaves. Leaves and branches sway in the wind. There's a library of tree types, or you can define your own. SpeedTree technology will be appearing in mainstream games soon. The demos require a graphics board with a good OpenGL; GEForce 3 or better will work. The demo is Windows-only, although it's possible to use SpeedTree on other platforms.
Partly right, mostly wrong (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't think the games industry as a whole is in trouble right now, nor do I think there's a lack of innovation. I think last year's big success story in this department was probably the Eye-Toy. If there seems to be less innovation than there was in the late 80s, early 90s, this is largely because there was, quite simply, more that hadn't been done back then. Admittedly, there are some areas where the industry is perhaps overly focussed on sequels and remakes, with Gamecube titles being perhaps the most notable (Mario Sunshine, Resident Evil, Ikaruga, Mario Kart Double Dash, Rogue Squadron 2/3, Zelda etc - although the excellent Eternal Darkness is an honourable exception).
However, while I believe that the last year has been a generally successful one for the games industry and I don't see any reason why the next year shouldn't also be a good one, I do think there is one area of the industry that's in serious danger of fading away. The major console-players will all survive for another generation (trying to predict further ahead than this is foolish), but (and this is where I get modded down), the PC gaming market is in serious trouble.
We're now in the mid-point of the current console cycle. In fact, we're now possibly over half way through it. And yet, while the PC had firmly established itself as the technically dominant platform by this point in the last two console cycles (SNES/Megadrive(Genesis) and PS1/N64), this time around, it just hasn't. Most major PC titles have also appeared on at least one of the major consoles, with the direction of the port varying. Technically, the PC *is* capable of better (more on this later), but developers have been too lazy, too worried about losing money from console ports, or too afraid of technical innovation to unleash this.
I was thoroughly depressed when Call of Duty scooped all the Game of the Year awards last year. Why? It wasn't a bad game... pretty atmospheric and probably the best implementation of its genre to date. But... it used an engine that's now years old and, to be frank, absolutely butt-ugly and it did nothing whatsoever to push back the boundaries of PC gaming (which I think a Game of the Year title should have to). Let's face it... consoles can "do" the Quake 3 engine. They've been able to do it for years and if there isn't a console port of Call of Duty already, then it won't be for technical reasons. If the PC hasn't established its technical dominance, with a good range of games considerably prettier than anything the current console generation can do before the next generation of consoles start appearing, then I think it's finished as a mainstream gaming platform.
If this all sounds a bit bleak... well... it is. But do I think there's hope? Maybe a slight hope. I've been absolutely knocked off my feet by the Farcry demo (will be buying the full game as soon as I get paid this month). I have no doubt that this game's engine goes way beyond anything that any of the current consoles could realistically impersonate. Problem is, it's just one game. Sad though it is to say, if PC gaming is ever to regain its old prestige, developers are going to need to spend the next couple of years focussed on graphics over gameplay (not that I think there's been a particular focus on gameplay on the PC recently). They need, for the love of God, to stop licensing the Quake 3 engine because it's easy to build a quick and dirty game on it and they need to start trying to push back the frontiers a little.
Re:Which leads to the unspoken truth... (Score:4, Interesting)
You're kidding, right? Have you seen:
* Any of the decidedly non-safe LOTR movies?
* American Beauty?
* Lost In Translation?
* The Matrix films (whether or not it's your thing)
* And tons more I can't list off the top of my head right now because it's 1:42AM and I'm tired...
Re: Total Annihilation (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Creativity? (Score:2, Interesting)
Then novel ideas get a damned sight harder.
It's said that every sitcom is just a rewrite of something from I Love Lucy. I think that's an exageration. I think every sitcom is just a rewrite of something from I Love Lucy or Burns and Allen.
Shakespeare lifted every one of his stories. He rewrote them beautifully, but none of them were his original idea. Disney is famous for lifting ideas. As I recall The Lion King was the first Disney original. It's also pretty damned derivitive.
Quick. Come up with the next idea that's going revolutionize the world as we know it. It's out there somewhere. All you have to do is think it up. Easy peasy.
What's the most common question aspiring writers ask of established novelists?
"Where do you get your ideas?"
"I send a check to a post office box in Schenectady and they send me back an idea."
That's exactly the same question game developers get asked.
Maybe they should try the same answer. I could use a post office box people send money to. Not that I have any novel game ideas. I'm stumped myself, and I'm reasonably bright, creative and interested in games.
Sure, there's a great deal of fiscal timidity in the market. You want to make money, not lose it, so there's a natural inclination to go with a winner.
Especially if you can't actually think of something new.
New and good.
That's even harder than new.Not all ideas are created equal.
And quite frankly I don't really mind if they don't have an idea. I'd be perfectly happy if they just made improved versions of the best games extant where such is possible, and leave 'em alone where it isn't. I don't need a godzillion games. I don't have time to play a godzillion games. A solid half dozen with infinte replay would be spiffy.
But that's not what they do. They feel compeled to come up with a new game, can't think of anything decent, and either pump out crap or crapize the good game instead of putting out a solid update.
I think I'll go play some chess.
KFG
The Incredible Machine... (Score:5, Interesting)
Sadly, I've never seen a 3D version.
And people still cry out for a 3D version of Leisure Suit Larry
Re:Creativity? (Score:3, Interesting)
A sequel in the modern sense is not a "Jet Set Willy 2" rehasing of exactly the same game but with a few extra rooms, but a continuation of a series.
It works in the same way as long running literary series - I find myself looking forward to a new Dark Tower novel, or a Jack Ryan story in the same way that I'm anticipating Half Life 2, UT2k4 or any of the other quality franchises out there. Sequels can move a series on, can provide new insights and offer a deeper gaming experience in a familiar world. Did people cry about the death of creativity when Agatha Christie produced *yet another* Hercule Poirot novel?
Of course, this doesn't always hold true - the Tomb Raider series springs to mind - but then tastes vary.
Risk vs. Return (Score:4, Interesting)
It takes a lot of money to make a commercially successful game, and most investors don't want to invest in "starving artists" with just and idea and no real solid plan for financial return.
Re:Which leads to the unspoken truth... (Score:4, Interesting)
Just because some of them make more than others doesn't mean that even the relative flops weren't 'safe'.
American Beauty & Lost in Translation were character driven films, which wouldn't have cost a great deal (in relative terms) to make. Hence the risk wasn't great.
And Lost in Translation wasn't particularly original or challenging anyway, although obviously that's just IMHO.
Re:Creativity? (Score:2, Interesting)
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing
It sums up your point perfectly.
AI is a long forgotten art. And MMORPG's are the way the game companies can forget AI altogether.... they just get us gamers to do/be it!!??
Well. (Score:3, Interesting)
import (Score:2, Interesting)
For example, try out Katamari Damashii.
It is a new PS2 game from namco and you roll a ball over objects to get bigger and bigger because god destroyed all the stars and you have to get them back.
It has a memorable soundtrack also.
Here is the link [katamaridamacy.jp]
Re:What do they expect... (Score:3, Interesting)
If you want to break into the industry, the easiest way to do it is to create a mod for a game. That gets you something on your resume, and an actual prototype you can show around to people. Even if it's not the genre you want to do, it will show any potential employers that (a) you know what you're doing, and (b) that you've got some innovative ideas. (Assuming the mod is any good.) And most importantly, (c) that you can follow through and actually finish something.
One finished product is worth 10 works in progress any day.
Re:Which leads to the unspoken truth... (Score:3, Interesting)
Young Gamers are poor, Older gamers are frugle... (Score:4, Interesting)
And to tell you the truth that hasn't changed in all these years I still like games from those categories/genres. I have expanded my gaming to included PC gaming, RTS and online FPS like Quake/unreal. But the gameplay/genre could still be boiled down to 5-6 genres you can count on your fingers.
There's a few problems and realities that the industry has to face:
1) Games and gaming are $!@# expensive (Esp for teens/kids who don't have rich parents) which limits the size of the market who can afford them. Look at what happened when Nintendo dropped their Gamecube to $99 they sold 2.5 million more! Thats nothing to sneeze at you just increased your market by 15-20% with a single price cut. I believe games themselves could reach a much wider audience if they didn't cost so much to produce and retail for over $40US ($60-70$CDN).
2) The older you become the more discriminating and jaded you get with the more games you play. It's unavoidable, the novelty loss gets worse with time, it becomes harder and harder to wow a seasoned gamer. Your nostalgic 'old favorites' from when you were a kid look like a pile of crap nowadays, with the rare few old games that are as your nostalgic mind remembers them.
3) Game rentals, I'm sorry but game renting negates almost any reason for anyone to purchase a game. The publishers and companies are just F'n dumb I swear! Available game rentals should be DEMOS of the game, not the complete thing. How moronic it is when you can buy and finish a game on 4-7$ weekend rental at blockbuster then fork out $40-50 for a brand new singleplayer game that once finished sits on the shelf and collects dust, thats over 500% savings at least for the same gaming experience!
Gaming industry has to wake up and realize that games are consumed differently them movies. It's not like the movie industry where you release to the theatres first and then make DVD/VHS versions available later, and you can consume movies much faster then you can consume games due to their short length of usually 1-2hrs. Rented games are available usually the day they are released, which totally negates any reason to buy them, after you've already played them! It's very simple economics really. Thats what has been the norm all throughout these years in thh industry, you can rent any game and finish it in a weekend rental for %500 less then actually buying the game.
Re:Creativity? (Score:3, Interesting)
http://coinop.org/g.aspx/100392/Timber.htm
Re:Who needs... (Score:3, Interesting)
I have to disagree with that. Ever heard of a tiny little platform called the Gameboy Advance? There are some *amazing* games for this little device (which, btw, from what recall, has sold more than the PS2, the GameCube, the XBox, etc) with amazing gameplay that still rely upon 2D sprites to get the job done. See Castlevania (any) or Final Fantasy Tactics, etc etc.
Then there's the oddity of PopCap games. They're doing really well, and they don't have earth-shattering graphics, either.
The problem is a choice of SCALE. Everyone seems to think all the games developers want the next DOOM or QUAKE or GTA in terms of success. Which, of course, every developer probably wouldn't MIND having success along those lines, but many are content with being successful enough to keep producing games for a living (and putting a little aside for retirement).
Independent Sims Expansions: Slice City! (Score:3, Interesting)
Maxis has produced seven expansion packs for The Sims, and they have all sold extremely well. Some of the expansion packs have implemented ideas we had while developing the game, but didn't have time to put into the original product (like visiting town, socializing and shopping in Hot Date, or the pets in Unleashed).
In fact, a separate product from Maxis called SimsVille was cancled, largely because The Sims Hot Date expansion pack was able to realize many of the important new features that distinguished SimsVille from the original Sims.
The Sims expansion packs and objects are fundamentally different than typical monolithic game mods. They are modular components that plug together synergistically, not exclusive universes that you can only play one at a time. You can combine Sims downloads all together at once and play with them all like a big pile of legos, but you can only play one DOOM WAD at a time.
But the official expansion packs from Maxis are only one measure of success. More importantly, the players themselves have produced orders of magnitude more downloadable objects, skins and other content, than Maxis has produced.
The Sims is a flexible enough platform that supports other games and activities at many different levels: socializing, building, storytelling, crafting skins and objects, programming tools and behaviors, etc.
There has been an exciting Renaissance of original creative player produced content for The Sims. Player created content is the reason The Sims continues to sell so well after four years.
The Ultimate Sims List [ultimatesims.com] links to more than 3600 active Sims fan sites, where you can download an uncountable and growing number of objects, skins and decorations.
Player created content is where all the original creative action is happening with The Sims these days. Tools like The Sims Transmogrifier [thesimstra...rifier.com] and RugOMatic [thesimstra...rifier.com] enable players to create their own content. Players have figured out how to program the objects and written independent behavior programming tools like IFFPencil2 [thesimsworkshop.com].
One creative player called SimSlice [simslice.com] has taken object programming much further than anyone at Maxis expected, by developing Slice City [simslice.com]: a game within the game, like a little lilliputian version of SimCity! Other players are even creating add-ons to the Slice City add-on [simslice.com]: making buildings, parks, landmarks, seaports and marinas to plug into Slice City!
I've made a video demonstration of RugOMatic and Slice City [thesimstra...rifier.com], that shows how to create rugs for The Sims by dragging and dropping pictures and text, and then set them on fire and kill people with the Slice City disaster menu!
-Don
Re:Creativity? (Score:3, Interesting)
Fantasy = Elves and Dwarves
Darkly Mature = Vampires and Zombies
Arcade Action = Antropomorphic Animals
Simulation = Intense Resource Management
It may take a genius to invent whole new categories, and maybe the first designer who looked at games such as Bard's Tale or the SSI silver box D&D series and realized most players were getting tired of having to draw maps on graph paper to finish them was a genius, but maybe it just takes a bit of dissatisfaction with the existing limits.
Right now, Id is designing to put back the hordes of monsters found in some levels of Doom and Doom 2, and taken out in Quake, because 100's of monsters/level with Quake's genuine 3D, improvements in lighting and such would have overloaded even high end home PCs of that era. Hordes of monsters is apparently something many first person shooter fans want.
What you're calling evolutionary change can broaden the market. I always liked finding secret areas in doom myself. When Hexen came out, based on the doom engine, it lost points with me because hanging around to search for optional secret areas meant fighting new monsters, as they were set to infinite respawn, and sooner or later they would drain you out of ammo if you loitered. It's a mere evolutionary change to make a game so that players can turn off such a feature, but it broadens the base the game is likely to appeal to.
Re:Which leads to the unspoken truth... (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's think of some games which sold spectacularly well, or are played the most.
- The Sims. It's _the_ best selling game of all time, even taken by itself. If you add the seven full-price add-ons for it (and yes, some of us bought all seven:), it dwarfs any other game by ludicrious margins. In spite of being a 2D isometric game in an age of 3D bump-mapped pixel-shaded games.
- Counterstrike. The most played online game. It's based on Half Life, which is how old? Right. The graphics were horrible, the hostage AI was piss-poor, but people were buying Half Life like crazy just to play Counter-Strike. Why? A new mode of play.
But let's go even farther back in time:
- Diablo. Strictly speaking not totally new, but it still was original enough for a PC game. It also was a quality title: rock stable, good game balance, a good interface, easy learning curve, and basically a self-adjusting difficulty curve to fit most gamers. It sold like hot cakes.
- Dune II. A 2D 320x200 game, completely unimpressive as graphics go. Yet not only it sold great, it spawned a new genre. For a while everyone who wasn't making a FPS, was making a RTS instead.
- Wolfenstein 3D. You may notice that Id never needed a publisher ever since. Again, it was so popular that it spawned a whole new genre.
- Sim City. It practically invented the city building genre.
- Civilization. Probably the game which actually did _more_ than spawn a new genre. You'd be surprised how many games are essentially derived from Civilization. From obvious stuff like "Two Thrones" to practically any space colonization/empire building game out there, there's one solid market segment playing Civilization derivatives.
So, you see, my take is that people _did_ vote with their wallets for more original games, and did so again and again. Invariably truly new games sell _far_ better that titles whose only quality is "hey, look, we have even nicer textures. Look, we have 1324 screenshots too."
You think that would send a message to publishers already. But no, instead they'll keep making retarded clones instead. (And by "retarded" I mean: by people who haven't even understood what made the original sell well. So they'll make something that looks like a clone, but misses all the fun parts.)
No matter how many such truly original games appear and rake in a big pile of cash, the publisher still won't think "hey, let's try more original stuff." They'll just think "ooh, The Sims sold well. Let's include that in our next game."
(Except see above what I've said about retarded clones. So far they invariably missed every single part that made The Sims fun. Even though Will Wright even spelled it out in dozens of interviews.)