The Perils of Pointless Innovation In Games 260
Negative Gamer is running a story discussing the need felt by the major game developers to create the next huge blockbuster, which often leads to innovation and change for their own sake rather than simply focusing on what makes a game fun. Quoting:
"There seems to be this invisible pressure to create something that is highly 'intuitive' and incorporates the highest level of innovation that we have ever seen. The problem is that the newest ideas put into games are either gimmicky, terrible in execution, or blatantly ripping off another title. On the other hand there are series that feel the need to completely revamp a game that played perfectly fine before into something completely new that falls flat on its face. ... There's a critical problem with popular, mainstream video games that isn't as large with other mediums; they are expensive to make and require a lot of time and effort put in to create something masterful. With that, games must take cautious paths. I fully understand the risks, but adding unneeded material to certain games is not justifiable."
Problem... (Score:4, Interesting)
... the author makes some good points but when he started lauding MGS 4 as the pinnacle of what good game design is I had to take a step back.
The amount of cutscenes in Japanese games is offputting while the gameplay is often lacking (or the companies don't have a clue of what was fun about it).
You can especially see how stale the JRPG genre has become by going "simple" (read: cutting corners, cutting the best parts out they had in previous games going way back to the early 1990's). I would love to run a JRPG company and kick a lot of crappy developers and so-called visionaries out, some JRPG dev's are seriously stagnating and backtracking in RPG's in recent years.
Also I couldn't stand FFX and MGS 4 for same reasons, too much cutscenes too little gameplay options. In FFX they simplified the weapon and armor system so radically I felt cheated. They also reduced the number, variety and quality of NPC monsters and did a worse job in terms of art for them, etc.
When "simplicity" means cutting corners it's bad game design.
While I enjoyed Shadow of the colossus, it too had major problems with the land being so barren and having to waste a lot of time travelling back and forth from boss to boss without much happening in between could be a real drag after the novelty of the big world wore off.
Truth be told many game developers don't really have much insight into what works and what doesn't in their games. I can't be the only gamer that feels like game developers of late are flailing around blindly in many regards in terms of what made their games fun.
Re:Hmm have I seen this before?? (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that the newest ideas ... are either gimmicky, terrible in execution, or blatantly ripping off ...
This describes the majority of products marketed by infomercial. It is (once again) not unique to software.
Another area where developers fail (Score:3, Interesting)
Another area where developers fail constantly is that they don't seem to look at prior solutions, it's almost as if some developers don't actually play games themselves.
Only fools learn from their own mistakes.
newest ideas - LOLWUT? (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that the newest ideas put into games are ... or blatantly ripping off another title.
Newest ideas. Blatantly ripping off another title.
One of these things is not like the other.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Damned if they do, damned if they don't. (Score:2, Interesting)
innovation is progress (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe because without innovation, any art form dies?
People who start thinking innovation is pointless are entering what is called the "old man" stage of their life. What they fail to realise is that it is hard to motivate a group of artists to do the same shit they did last year, and artists almost always are the ones driving any successful project. Of course you need to get your fundamentals right, but without innovation, there is no progress. Even if innovation flops, it still progresses the art.
While we're at it, why not ask why physicists work on pointless theories that won't pan out in the end, or ask why mathematicians design models that no one will ever use? The reason is because every once in a while, something catches fire and changes the way we think about things, and the only way to know if that will happen is to publish.
Yep, yep, yep. (Score:2, Interesting)
So then what did they do for the sequel? They decided that they just had to make it *different*. It used DirectX and ran on Windows 95, so it was *not* particularly zippy -- slower on a Pentium II / 233 than the previous game had been on a 386 SX / 16. The artwork and characters, if you compare them side-by-side, look like they probably took more effort to create (more shading, TrueColor, twinkle effects, blah, blah -- higher technical quality), but if you just sit down to play the game, the art in JJ2 doesn't look as cheery and fun (it uses duller colors), isn't in at all the same visual style, and, generally, fails to impress. It's not innovative, it's not particularly interesting, it doesn't bring anything particularly worthwhile to the table, and on the whole it's not as *fun* as the original.
Descent was a really fun game, addictive even. It was innovative -- the first truly 3D game. Not 3D as in flat sprites in a flat maze seen from an internal perspective, like Wolfenstein and Doom, but *actually* 3D: three-dimensional maps, three-dimensional robot enemies, three-dimensional controls, the works. And it was fun to play. Descent II was more of the same. A few new weapons, a bunch of new robots, some new textures for the mine walls, and now you could shoot out lights and darken a room, but basically it was the same game. And lo, it was a good, fun game.
Then they sat down to make Descent 3, and they said unto themselves, "We must not make another game like the first two. We must make this one New and Better and Different and Innovative." So they abandoned the efficient level architecture and rendering engine that made the first two games play smoothly on the hardware of the day, and they built an entirely new game engine that required a high-end (for the day) graphics card, with 3D acceleration. They introduced new weapons again, but they also introduced an entirely new look and feel, and it fundamentally no longer felt like the same game. When fans of the series complained about the onerous new system requirements, they were told, "If your hardware doesn't meet these standards, you are not part of the target audience." Apparently the "target audience" consisted of hardcore gamers only. And behold, Descent 3 flopped.
These are old stories now. Today you can buy hardware that will run Descent 3 smoothly for a beggar's pocket lint, plus shipping, on ebay. I suppose you can probably also get Descent 3 on ebay for $notmuch, but who would want to?
Games do need innovation but the right kind (Score:3, Interesting)
But innovation isn't just about completely changing everything. We don't need completely new control schemes to innovate. Just don't make every damn game feel the same.
Case in point, the BioShock 2 gameplay footage: http://www.gametrailers.com/player/47807.html?type=mov [gametrailers.com]
Yes the graphics are nice but that was exceptionally boring to watch. If you give it early 90's graphics it's effectively Wolfenstein 3D. Where is the innovation in fun that really makes it exciting to those that have played most FPS games? There is none and quite frankly it looks like something to pass on. I don't care how many scripted sequences it has, we've had those, done properly, since at least Half life 1 and it's not really that exciting anymore no matter how good the graphics are.
I think we just need more variety. Look at Street Fighter 4. It's not really that innovative. It's SF but in 3D. But a lot of people think it's great. I personally think that's because you don't really get fighters these days. They've sort of died out. So to get one that's of decent quality is a great thing. So companies just need to quit copying each other and repeating so much crap.
Re:Damned if they do, damned if they don't. (Score:2, Interesting)