Game Originality: Any Left? 778
Kamalot writes "In a world where 85% of games are solved with a gun, where are the original and innovative ideas? Adrenaline Vault has a telling editorial about the state of creativity in the game industry, the constant re-hashing of sequels, and a look into the future when technical achievements are no longer the driving force. What happens when every game follows a tried and true formula? Where do the new ideas go if we can't have games like Viewtiful Joe, Shenmue, and Jet Grind Radio? Did innovative, rather than mainstream, games send the Dreamcast to an early grave rather than the PS2's more bland, yet conforming, lineup of titles?"
If only a few people like your game... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:If only a few people like your game... (Score:5, Insightful)
The consecuence is that the games are coming from the same sources, the same creators and the same distributors, and they are not going to take the risk of losing the easy money they're making by releasing a new and original game. So we always get a new version of a product that has a proven market.
Re:If only a few people like your game... (Score:5, Insightful)
But personally I think that this is just a short dip in the curve; at the moment, it just takes a lot of time and effort to create content and a feature rich enough engine to make a game which is polished enough to be sold.
However, that's gonna change. At the moment it's still quite complex to modify games to any real extent. I'm not saying it's gonna get easier per se, but it is gonna get easier to get more done (subtle distinction, but very important).
Every itteration of game engines makes more possible: automatic, procedural and easier content generation and integration; more transparent game rule changing...thgis is being worked on right now. Look at Deus Ex 2 and Halflife 2...the lipsyncing-tech in HL2 and the attribute-techture-tech in Deus Ex make life so much easier...it takes out a chunk of grunt work (which is exactly what automation and computers should be doing).
So while at the moment it takes huge sums of money and years of manyears(?) to create a game, in the future engine licensing will be more and more frequent. And as engines get more and more userfriendly and take more and more of the grunt work out of gamedev'ing, more and more time will be available to play around with game ideas and styles.
And that also means that modders will have an easier time doing the same. And that is, nowadays, where the real innovation in gameplay experiences come from.
Re:If only a few people like your game... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wishful thinking. Easily mod-able game engines, while allowing non-professional programmers to essentially create their own games, are the shackles to which game creativity is bound.
What makes Counter-Strike all that different from multiplayer HL? Slightly different objectives? Different models and sounds for players and weapons? Some new maps? Not exactly innovative.
I'm not saying I know what the answer is, I'm just arguing that easily modifiable engines that hang around for five+ years is certainly not it.
Re:If only a few people like your game... (Score:4, Interesting)
Saying the engine is the limitation means you're blaming your tools...and everyone knows that that just means you're shifting the blame from where it belongs: you. All I'm saying is that the better the tools get, the easier it is...it lowers the barrier to entry, meaning more people try and thus we get more and better stuff to play with.
Anyway, doing that game needed a deep understanding of the tools...now imagine what those guys could have done with an easily modded engine (which HL just isn't...people do it casue it can be done, not because HL is an easy engine to mod); they'd have done it faster, with better gfx, more content and could have spent more time and effort on the game mechanics itself.
Re:If only a few people like your game... (Score:3, Informative)
=Smidge=
Re:If only a few people like your game... (Score:3, Informative)
But, man, that does take me back
Re:If only a few people like your game... (Score:4, Funny)
Microsoft Headquarters?
Re:If only a few people like your game... (Score:4, Interesting)
Not any more than conventional forms are a "shackles" in any other creative medium. Think about things like limericks, sonnets, haiku, comedy, landscape painting, TV sitcoms, anime, mystery novels, buddy cop films, science fiction tv, books, comics, movies, etc... in each case there are rules that govern the form, some more strict than others. In some cases, the challenge gets to be how to break the rule of the form while maintaining the form-- on the surface at least.
Indeed, while the Infocom z-machine isn't quite a "video game" it shows very much that a properly designed game engine can be a platform for creativity. I am sure there are creative Doom mods out there. But think of how many sim-type games there are where the possibilities are endless if you expose somewhat the internals of the engine: car, flight, city, wargame, etc. Then think of some other game systems that exist, like card games (both conventional deck and collectible), RPGs (non-computerized), board wargames, etc.
That said, the one video game I'm waiting for is "fantasy football", only when you think "fantasy" think Tolkien. This was a game that was included in a Dragon magazine I had back nearly 20 years ago and it was hilarious. And even in this case, look at the constraints of form that enable such a game to be readily understood by new players: the whole fantasy genre informs the choices for monster/players and the basic sense of what the game is about.
Re:If only a few people like your game... (Score:5, Interesting)
I think people said (and say) the same thing about Flash: most things produced with it are awful. Sites that use it to the exclusion of normal navigation are even worse.
But at the same time, Flash has caused an explosion of amateur animator's work to be available online. A lot of it is awful, but some of it is good.
As the tools get better, less and less focus is made upon the technical ability with the tool (though we will always appreciate excellence in design). This allows the right people to do something.
Consider this: most of the best stories in our culture were at one time oral tradition: It was the only medium accessible to your average storyteller. Print was out of the picture.
Over time, advances have made it so that, now, any damned fool can write a story that could be viewable by the whole world. This lower technical barrier to entry has resulted in more crap, but it has also resulted in more good stuff being available.
My point is that once the rendering aspect of an engine stops being the selling point (Carmack believes this will be true Real Soon Now, and I am inclined to agree with him), the focus will shift to making the engine a tool instead of the centerpiece. We are seeing the vestiges of this right now.
One of the few truly innovative mods I've seen for FPS games has been Natural Selection [naturalselection.org]. Not 100% original, but certainly quite a bit different from your average mod. It really tweaks with the team dynamics: something I haven't seen done successfully in any mod to date.
When short, playable, proof-of-concept games can be cranked out about as fast as a rough draft of a short story, we will see great innovation in games (note: and be of about the same quality, depth, and length as said short story).
Also, I am interested in the techno system of creativity: one person puts out something that's "pretty good." Other people come upon it, play with it, and one or two will come up with something much, much better. This willingness to play together gives us quite a bit in creativity.
The problem right now is that, to play with a game you pretty much have to entirely recreate it or be very familiar with the coding style of the programmer involved - and that's if you have access to their code and can use the engine that they use.
Text-based adventure games had some elements of "quick to crank out" and "can play with another's code", and that was without as big of a following and without the internet (until modern times, and some of the stuff coming out now is quite good - though I have never had the knack for text adventure games, sadly enough).
These are just some thoughts, let me know what you think.
Re:If only a few people like your game... (Score:5, Insightful)
Producers invest in what is profitable, which really just means what will please the most people the most predictably. New things may please some people a whole lot more, but some people a lot less. And if you make someone happy enough to buy the game, he doesn't need to be made any happier. If we all reluctantly go to see the next Vin Diesel summer hit, knowing its a bad movie, well, we still spent our money on tickets. And if we all reluctanlty buy the next action-packed first-person-shooter, knowing its the same as all the ones before, we still shelled out enough for the game. Making more people happy enough to buy the game is profitable. Changing people's lives with new art and ideas isn't.
Re:If only a few people like your game... (Score:5, Insightful)
But there is really no "art house" business model for games. Instead, you see "art house" games, like Rez, or Shenmue, produced and marketed as AAA games, and then failing in the marketplace. This is a major bummer, and if someone does develop an art house model, where a high concept game can be made relatively cheaply, and designed to break even on relatively modest sales, I hope they become stinking rich billionaires, because it would be rad.
That all said, that doesn't mean there isn't innovation in the AAA, B, kids, and niche catagories. The fact that art house games don't succeed commercially doesn't mean innovation doesn't exist.
Put another way, just because a game is from EA and has super high production values doesn't mean that it isn't innovative, or can't be innovative. And just because Rez and Shenmue didn't sell 10 milion units doesn't mean innovation isn't appreciated.
Re:If only a few people like your game... (Score:3, Insightful)
There is a business model for these types of games. In fact it's been around for a long time.
It's called shareware.
Re:If only a few people like your game... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If only a few people like your game... (Score:4, Funny)
Well, er, we hope. We'll let you know when it's released.
Amplitude? (Score:5, Informative)
Dreamcast (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll always love my dreamcast. The amount of extras that people made for this thing were immense. I have CD's with NES emulators and every NES game out there, as well as Sega's Master System. I believe there was even a VCD player.
Re:Dreamcast (Score:3, Interesting)
Problem with DC was not a lack of advertising. It was a lack of proper advertising aimed at people who would want those games you mentioned. Dreamcast probably had some of the best launch titles around (in Ireland anyway) as well as cracking titles directly after launch.
But Sega chose to let us watch people have headshaving racing and such and thrill us with a their logo instead of putting some of the stunning ingame footage on our tv screens.
Very bad marketing. Sony can afford it because of the PlaySta
Re:Dreamcast (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dreamcast (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't count NES Emulators, etc against the system though, they were one of the reasons I got one.
As far as I know though, being able to burn games came along after the Dreamcast had been on the market for sometime. They had a great lead over their competitors when compared pricewise.
This thing was selling $100 and then $150 less than the PS2 and the xbox and you got great quality games, no one ever knew about it.
Re:Dreamcast (Score:5, Informative)
The Dreamcast was probably also done in by piracy. It was just too easy to play copied games, you didn't even need to mod your DC. At least on the Saturn you had to have a modchip. (Sega CD games have no copy protection, either, but not everyone had a CD burner then.)
Re:Original? (Score:3, Insightful)
And by that standard, NOTHING is original.
If you can't tell the difference between Tony Hawk Pro Skater and 720, you're trolling or lack any appreciation for detail.
I want a "MacGyver" game (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I want a "MacGyver" game (Score:5, Interesting)
In many of those games my solution rarely if ever matched the solutions that the level designers came up with.
Not caring how the puzzle was solved allowed virtually unlimited creativity in those games.
Re:I want a "MacGyver" game (Score:5, Funny)
1) The materials and resulting bomb are completely unbelivable to anyone with a 5th grade education and people won't play it because it's 'too fake'.
2) The materials and resulting bomb are completely realistic and the game developers will be arrested as terrorists under the Patriot Act and probably be executed.
Come to think of it, I might buy a copy of option #2...
Re:I want a "MacGyver" game (Score:5, Interesting)
I know, it sounds like a stupid kid's game, but it's actually a thinking man's puzzle/stealth game(in the vein of MGS). I think the cognitive dissonance between its play style and subject/theme is the reason most people never gave this excellent game a shot.
I learned from King of the Hill... (Score:3, Funny)
The originality is in how... (Score:5, Insightful)
The originality comes in your setting, your imagination and adding your own flavor to the game. While the rare original book, movie, tv show, play or story comes out...mostly they are all just different takes on a common theme.
The Magnificent Seven and the Seven Samurai are the same movie, but both are considered classics.
So, is there originality in new games? Yes, but maybe you are not looking for it in the right place...
Re:The originality is in how... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The originality is in how... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The originality is in how... (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe Baz Luhrmann should be designing games?
Stop Complaining (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm always wary about comments that seem to reflect the "why aren't things better?" mold of thought. Obviously, there are impediments to producing a novel game concept, but if someone came up with a really catchy idea, I think game execs would sign on.
What if Miramax had told filmmaker Kevin Smith that no one would watch "Clerks" and suggested he develop a marketable teen sex comedy instead?
This is a red herring. Clerks pushed boundaries in several directions. If game designers have not done so, perhaps it's simply because there aren't enough people out there pushing the envelope. Time and patience will result in more games. Complaining won't.
Re:Stop Complaining (Score:5, Insightful)
"but if someone came up with a really catchy idea, I think game execs would sign on."
I was working for a game review website a couple years back, and my boss said something during a "lack of originality" conversation that sticks with me to this day.
"Nobody ever gets fired for making the same game."
However, you DO get fired for making a stupid original game. *cough* Viewtiful Joe *cough* So what do people do? Make crappy remakes.
Here's the other reason why no catchy ideas get made into games. The game industry is the biggest "incestuous" industry out there. By this I mean that if you have a job in the industy doing something, you getting fired, only means you work somewhere else doing the same job within 3 weeks.
Look at the requirements for Game Designers. *ALL* of them require 3-5 titles shipped. Nobody cares that they sucked, they think the experience is more valuable than the talent. Every one who's ever picked up a controller thinks they can design the Next Big Thing(TM).
The problem is that there are several people in design positions now who couldn't design the Next Big Thing(TM) unless it involved them taking a photocopier and someone else's design of The Next Big Thing(TM).
Since they're in the industry now, they'll be there forever, or until they get tired of it. Where complaining about the lack of creativity MAY not get results, it's been fairly obvious these past few years that sitting there and doing nothing DEFINITELY won't get results.
Everyone's trying to produce an average seller. Licenses sell titles to the uninformed, and game review websites are bought for the price of a few free games and banner ads. Truth is, there aren't enough people left in the industry who actually care about making a good game anymore.
If you don't believe me, walk into a store and try and count the number of games that you wouldn't be personally embarrassed of. Ask any tester you know how many games they tested that tehy wouldn't play again to save their lives. The industry is stagnant...sitting on your ass and letting them try and figure that out isn't going to solve crap.
Pushing boundaries / Original Film ( Maybe OT ) (Score:3, Funny)
You know how in a rpg battle ( I am thinking Final Fantasy X here where you have the guys waiting to get thier turn to fight just kinda waddling/dancing from side to side looking kinda stupid ) well wouldn't it be kewl if the whole party came to real life! They could talk to some gang bangers, opening thier mouths silently while a floating blue 'window' with some text appeared, the bewildered crack dealers would say something about how they
Re:Stop Complaining (Score:3, Funny)
There's always originality. (Score:5, Insightful)
The longer we go, the more things that will be done, the more games will have been done before. It's like the Southpark episode where Butters tries to come up with a scheme for chaos. "Simpsons did it!" The conclusion: Of course the Simpsons did it. They've been around forever. And as Chef points out, the Simpsons stole some of their stuff from others before them. It's not necessarily about doing new things. It's about applying your (hopefully good and sensible) take on those "tired" ways of doing things to put them into new light.
News? (Score:5, Insightful)
Derivative isn't bad. There are games that are derivative, but a hell of a lot of fun (Civ 2, for example). Games that are derivative crap would have been crap even if they were the first in their fields.
Answers to your questions from a game developer (Score:5, Interesting)
For anyone who laments "Why do companies continue to pump out this sludge?", the answer is pretty simple: because consumers continue to buy.
<speculation> Perhaps in these times of economic recession, people are more likely to go with the "sure thing" (guns, explosions, sequels, etc) with their entertainment dollar than with "riskier" purchases.</speculation>
Re:Answers to your questions from a game developer (Score:3)
That last bit hits the nail on the head. Perhaps if things were a lush as they "used to be", people would be more excited to run out and purchase a cool new game that costs $50-$60. I know that in my current financial situation, spending that much money for a game seems like a financial no-no.
Of course, by not purchasing games, I'm rewarding the companies that stick with "the sure bet" over those that innovate. Clearly, what's needed is a better economy or companies with enough cash to be risky.
Not exactly so... (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry, but I can't fully agree with this statement. It's like asking why record companies still sold CDs for $15 and answering because people would buy the CDs. I can pull this analogy even further - just like the record companies are whining about declining profits, the profit expectations for the gaming industry have been consistently downgraded over the past year.
Re:Answers to your questions from a game developer (Score:3)
Quantity (Score:5, Insightful)
The Dreamcast died because Sega chalked up a laundry list of abandoned systems (32x, SegaCD, Saturn), and customers didnt want anything to do with it. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
I bought a Dreamcast on release day (9-9-99), and was an idiot for doing so. Sega wasnt in any position to back up another console, and to weather the financial drought before it turned profitable. EA's refusal to create titles for it didnt help either.
It was dead before it hit store shelves. And 85% of its library was indeed mainstream boring crap.
Everyone rants about the unoriginality in gameplay. But what do we hype up and get all excited over? Doom 3. Yay now we run around and shoot prettier monsters.
Fun innovative games do come out, and will continue to. And the bulk of the shelves will always be mainstream type stuff.
Thats the way it always has been - just look at the line up for your favorite nostalgia system (c64, NES, atari, genesis). For every standout there were 100 crapfests.
Nothing new here. Just nerd elitism. Sometimes those mainstream trigger finger games are just plain fun.
It's even worse than they say.... (Score:3, Insightful)
BORING
The good thing about Atari in the day was one of the basic requirements: A new game had to look like nothing else that had come before it.
If only more companies would do that today...
Re:It's even worse than they say.... (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah! I loved that! Like that battletank game with 99 games built into it... There was:
1. 2 tanks
2. 2 tanks with walls
3. 2 tanks with bunkers
4. 2 tanks with walls and bunkers
5. 2 tanks with bouncing bullets
6. 2 tanks with walls and bouncing bullets
7. 2 tanks with bunkers and bouncing bullets
etc.
(I know what you mean, though) ;)
-T
Re:It's even worse than they say.... (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, just like Ms. Pac-Man...
uh, nevermind.
it was a lot easier back then (Score:3, Insightful)
That was a hell of a lot easier to do back then for a variety of reasons.
Re:it was a lot easier back then (Score:3, Insightful)
Small dev teams make all the difference... (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's say I want to create a game - any game - today. 3
Re:It's even worse than they say.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Talk about rose-colored glasses. Initially every game was different because there was only one company making games. Once 3rd-party developers started making games, there were about a million clones of all the popular games. Or perhaps you don't remember "Gobbler," "Chomper," etc.
Look to yourself (Score:5, Interesting)
We can then start looking at the games and argue that they are not as original as they used to.
But then again, my younger brother seems to be amazed and thrilled by all new computer games.
Tor
Re:Look to yourself (Score:4, Informative)
Remember, many of us are getting older and "have seen it all." Being jaded is an understandable reaction.
But remember: to a kid, everything is fresh and new. I think that's what people miss most about childhood.
Your grandkids are going to be just as thrilled with UT 2035, as you were with the original Castle Wolfenstein.
why i have a gamecube (Score:3, Insightful)
On the gamecube, you get a game like Pikmin. That is a really cool game, and certainly well done. Metroid Prime is a great example of something that really hasn't been done before (first-person adventure, not FPS). I think Nintendo has always been about quality over quantity.
To me, having to get the latest fighting game is just wasting money (more complex death moves!). Or getting the new NFL 2003 or whatever just because it has the new stats. I guess that's entertainment for some. But it's not what I look for. Even though I'm supposedly in the target PS2 and XBox demographic, I just don't find those games interesting.
Re:why i have a gamecube (Score:3, Informative)
Metroid Prime is new for other reasons... However, FPAs (non-shooting) include the Journeyman Project [legacyoftime.com], Myst (including the one that was free-walk rather than jump from view to view), System Shock (which had a little shooting, like Metroid Prime, but was primarily more puzzle solving), etc.
First Person Adventure games have been around for a while.
-T
What else is new? (Score:5, Insightful)
> What if Miramax had told filmmaker Kevin Smith
> that no one would watch "Clerks" and suggested
> he develop a marketable teen sex comedy instead?
They did, it was the unwatchable "Mallrats."
> Or if Artisan had told the creators of "The
> Blair Witch Project" to drop the film in favor
> of directing a Friday the 13th sequel?
Well, they were pressured to make the even-more-unwatchable "Blair Witch II". Innovation comes in first-generation movies and games, poor sequels are just to be expected.
In the snow! Uphill! Both ways! (Score:4, Insightful)
Oddly enough, I could swear people were making the same complaint in the '80s and early and mid '90s, and the games mentioned still came out. There will always be novelty and it will always stand out against the background of knockoff blackjack / deer hunting / FPS games.
Incidentally, I tried, really tried, to give Shenmue a chance, and it's certailnly beautifully executed, but waiting all day for it to get dark so I could look for sailors again ("Sailors? Not here. I'd try looking in bars.") just wore me out. Of course, I still play Doom because Quake is just too sluggish, so...
3 words... (Score:3, Interesting)
I think the writers of this article took into consideration only the games they personally play, and possibly what their paticular culture plays, without looking at some of the other large gaming cultures (Japan, Korea, etc.).
You'll like this. (Score:3, Informative)
Lots of areas left to be explored... (Score:4, Interesting)
Look at The Sims, for example, one of the first games to be massively popular with females 12-34. It can be, for all intents and purposes, a virtual doll house where your dolls interact on their own. One of the reasons the Sims Online has had difficulties is that most of the customizability that made the game so popular has been stripped out of the game in favor of anti-cheating and multi-player capabilities.
There is very little to do with violence in The Sims and a lot to do with role-playing, dress-up, and relationship management. I once heard a female cooworker describing how much better the game would be if the dolls could be made to be more customizable or if you could change clothes, jewelry or hair in-game.
For that matter, look at relationship and dating sims, which are very popular in Asia. These games range from tame and cutsey to pornographic. While it may be pretty lame and pathetic to interact with a virtual girl instead of a real one, that doesn't change the fact that these games are *very* popular and simply haven't been widely unleashed on NA audiences yet.
Another kind of game that is gaining more wide-spread acceptance in N.A. are the various profession sims or management sims. Most of these are builders, like the popular 'Roller-Coaster Tycoon' variants. Some are more detailed. I can't remember the title off-hand (Was it '911 Paramedic'), but there was a game recently in which the player took the role of a medical professional and had to make decisions on what kind of treatment a patient needed.
The different genres are out there, they just have to be explored more fully.
yeah, right (Score:4, Funny)
- Thief and Thief 2
- The Longest Journey
- Syberia
- Myst
- just about any Sim game
While 85% of the games out there might feature violence, I sincerely doubt that 85% of the *purchases* are of violence-oriented games.
Of course, if you're a college kid whose life revolves around Counterstrike and who uses terms like 'd00d!' then your perception of the matter is probably seriously warped by your personal experience.
Max
Contact the old masters. (Score:4, Interesting)
I, for one, would recommend getting in touch with designers and programmers from the computer gaming giants of the '80s: Broderbund, Sirius, Atarisoft, Spectravision, First Star, HES, Epyx, subLOGIC, Spinnaker, MECC, Synapse... those guys put out some of the most original, on-crack, and wildly entertaining games possible.
Anyone remember Sammy Lightfoot? Crisis Mountain? Boulder Dash? Frenzy? GATO? Paipec? That was a true era of creativity. Imagine if that were applied now.
Console publishing economics (Score:3, Interesting)
This problem, as with the me-too syndrome, is an instance of a general case of problem. Videogames are expensive to make and from a business point of view are a very risky investment. Lots of games get made and only a few of them are profitable but those few wildly so.
There are several possible solutions to this problem. They are all difficult to bring to bear and it's not clear to me which (if any) of them will happen and how much effect they'll have.
One solution is to lower the cost of development for games - this is hard, despite the growth of middleware and tools, because games are complex products and the perceived demands of gamers is ever-growing. There's also the arms race of technology.
Another solution is to spread the money around so that the market is not so feast-or-famine. This is hard because retailers don't like to see margins lowered and companies generally operate on the philosophy that they'll have the "killer" game that will take in all the money. If everyone expects to get the lion's share no-one wants to lower their prices and thus their potential profits. It's a prisoners' dilemma.
Yet another solution is to reduce the amount of games that get made. Ultimately this is the most likely to happen yet it's the one I personally like least. Niche-market games will get killed first, followed by me-too genre games and eventually you'll have a desperate struggle between 2 or 3 publishers with a small range of mass-market but uninspiring games. The same retail profit gathered for less development dollars is a business win, however.
The last solution is to expand the retail market. Make games that appeal to more people, and increase the total amount of money coming into the sector. The more individual consumers you have, the more diverse their tastes and so theoretically you spread your development risk further.
I like the last solution best of all, of course, because it results in a broad base of games and plenty of creativity. The economics of business make it a tough sell to upper management at publishers.
One interesting thing that may change the market a lot is the will of the hardware manufacturers. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have a huge ability to shape the market because they have to approve all product concepts before they get too far in development - you could make the whole game without talking to them but it would suck to find out you'd wasted $5 million when they turn round and refuse the game - so they can shape the lineup of games. What their actions will ultimately be, I cannot say.
I have to agree (Score:5, Interesting)
Clerks and BWP are 2 horrible examples. IIRC, both were made, and then pitched to the studios. There was no real risk to the studios, other than advertising, which was kept to a minimum. BWP was the first, and still best probably, at using the internet community as its major word of mouth platform. A true independent film (IMO) is something made for a few thousand dollars (maybe 50 max), that might make it into the college campus theater scene, makes a few buck more than it cost, and everyone moves onto the next. Not everything is going to be BWP or Desperado.
Video games are now big business. They are becoming the same as the music, TV, and the movie industries. Big budget, bland, built to the lowest common denominator.
Not Just In Gaming... (Score:5, Funny)
- Matrix 2
- X-Men 2
- Hulk (comic book)?
- Freddy vs Jason (god!)
- Dumb and Dumberer
- Rugrats Go Wild (tv cartoon)
- Charlie's Angels (sequel to a movie after a tv show... as if that wasn't enough)
- Bad Boys 2
- Tomb Raider 2
- Legally Blond 2
- Jeeps Creepers 2
- Spy Kids 3-D (aka Spy Kids 2)
- Terminator 3
Note: These are just the hideously obvious onesOMG IT'S THE SUMMER OF THE SEQUELS.... RUN... RUN FAR, FAR AWAY... SAVE YOURSELVES!!!
Re:Not Just In Gaming... (Score:5, Funny)
An entire movie about people who make their cars faster through blacklight technology, strategic decal placement, random kanji, and oversized spoilers. I heard they even tried to give it a plot.
"We need this job done, and there's only one man who can do it."
"Uhh...the guy who just sank $40k into his Hyundai Accent?"
"Precisely."
I would be inclined to agree... (Score:5, Insightful)
One easy example is in fact a very popular game, but one that has endured some of the stupidest arguments in the history of video games: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind-Waker.
It's cell shaded; it frequently looks like a hand drawn cartoon. It recaptures the art direction of the classic SNES era Zelda game, seamlessly into a 3-d environment.
And it was attacked without mercy for being "kiddie".
Just yesterday I was at a Gamestop, playing through the demo of Viewtiful Joe. If you don't know, it's a 2.5-D beat 'em up, similar to Capcom's Strider 2 (for the playstation 1), except with bright colors and a unique take on the cell shading trend. It really stands out among the endless stream of tactical, deadly-serious games that are flooding the market.
And while one of the staff was really into it, the other guy working there couldn't accept that there was a helicopter flying around inside of a large cathedral, and that as Joe, I was jumping high into the air and punching said helicoptor in slow-mo to blow it up. As if the idea that a game could possibly be amusing and light-hearted was alien to him.
Viewtiful Joe is definitely my most looked forward to game of this year; I payed $10 for a Gamecube demo disc, solely for the 15 minute demo, which is really a ridiculous sum. It was worth it. I've played through this demo 5 or 6 times already and if the rest of the game lives up to this potential, it will likely be the best game of the year. (Like last year's Ikaruga).
I am a die hard Dreamcast enthusiast, and yes, most of the best games on the DC are unusual and edgy. Typing of the Dead, Rez, Samba De Amigo, Sega Bass Fishing, Bangai-O!, Shenmue, Chu Chu Rocket, Space Channel 5. Really, who knew a fishing game could actually be FUN.
In fact, the DC also hurt in the market for catering to old school gamers as well. Classic gaming styles such as 2-D fighters and top down, vertical scrolling shooters (like Mars Matrix, Giga Wing 2, and Ikaruga) just aren't as popular as they once were.
Perhaps Sega would have done better to cater to current trends instead of trying to invent their own, but I'll take innovative and intuitive gameplay over the trends of the week any day.
Special mention to the development teams at Sega, Treasure, Capcom, and Nintendo for making awesome, innovative games, at least now and then.
.
ICO (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think it was the most original game made, but fairly innovative in that you have to drag the girl around with you all the time, and try and figure out ways to get her places. Had to use my brain there for a bit. Fun stuff.
It's all about the marketing (Score:3, Insightful)
Simple...marketing. Which games get the TV display at Electronics Boutique? Which ones have cardboard cutout displays?
Most people can't afford to buy any game they want. They have to rely on others to tell them which games are genuinely good. Occasionally a game will get by on its own merits, but most of the time, it succeeds based on a costly marketing campaign. Just like music and movies.
And this marketing costs money, too, so companies decide to market the games that they are relatively sure will benefit the most from it. They don't bet on the little guys with no track record, they bet on the tried-and-true formulas. So, in the end, even an incredibly smart, interesting new title will sit on the shelves because it wasn't marketed well.
Sure, there's originality! (Score:3, Insightful)
Uplink [introversion.co.uk]: Every Slashdotter's dream game. Very innovative idea, properly executed, as well.
Escape Velocity Series [ambrosiasw.com]: While the series is not exactly new, it is still an excellent idea. Completely open-ended, and quite fun. Windows port coming soon.
Wulfram II [wulfram.com]: Multiplayer only. Free. Interesting combination of strategy and FPS. The graphics are a bit dated, although community-funded development work has begun on a new graphics engine. Addicting as hell.
Black and White: Never played, but very innovative from what I've heard.
The Longest Journey [funcom.com]: While it's very similar to the LucasArts adventure games, this game plays like a novel. That being said, if all novels copied each other, we would have stopped writing them thousands of years ago. Recycled concept, AMAZING plot.
Planescape: Torment: At first glance, this appears to be nothing more than a hackneyed D&D game/Diablo clone. Upon playing it, you begin to unravel a superb plot. Very little hack and slash.
Dance Dance Revolution: Never played it, but it's popular as hell (you don't get much more original than THIS)
Morrowind and GTA were both somewhat revolutionary in that they were completely open-ended, and created two of the most original games in two of the most hackneyed generes.
Frozen Bubble/Snood/etc. More proof that such simplistic games can still become wildly popular. Revitalized a dying genere.
Re:Sure, there's originality! (Score:3, Informative)
Games and Films are getting similar (Score:5, Interesting)
Think about it: Atari (or Infogrames, whatever) paid over $20 million to make and over $60 million just for the LICENSE to create Enter The Matrix. It features lame gameplay, bad design, and a boringness that is almost unparalelled (sure its fun for five minutes, but c'mon).
Any game venture nowadays takes a gargantuan undertaking, tens of millions of dollars.
Why?
Well, of course you have to release it on every platform imaginable. This means, to me, that at least one of those platforms is going to get shafted. Normally its the PC version(s). Why? Too many configurations. Even if you do release a PC version, you have to continue to bugfix it as old/new bugs pop up with old/new equipment.
Plus there's the raw talent. Finding a programming team to develop for up to 4 or 5 platforms (can't forget the GBA) is tough. Getting a GOOD team is even tougher.
Plus there's the actors/voice talent. You don't necessarily have to invest a lot here, but hey, it doesn't hurt to get a "big name" on the box. (I know Wolverine's Revenge isn't touting Mark Hammill, but it sure is mentioned a lot on the game/Star Wars Geek sites)
Plus there's the development cycle. Another reason that most games lack originality is that you have to take that original idea, put it on all of these platforms AND make sure its still original and current a few years down the road. When an idea is created for a game, its not fleshed out in any matter (generally) for many moons. This means that any second guessing, or, god forbid, realization that it's never going to work won't come until months down the road. And just think of all the cash already spent!
Anyone remember Prey? Or Duke Nukem Forever? An old joke, but its still viable in context. They either had a terrible idea, or the technology outran them.
I remember a few years ago John Carmack shooting for the most high-end system imaginable (at the time) as his minimum sys requirements for Doom3. This was something along the lines of an 800Mhz PIII and a Geforce2. Everyone thought he was out of his mind. Nobody is going to have something that downright uber in a few years, nobody!
But its that kind of brave thinking that makes good games age well and others turn to vinegar.
When I heard that Railroad Tycoon 3 (a fav series of mine) was going to be playable on a TNT2, you could tell instantly that its development cycle was either a long time coming, or the project manager just didn't have the balls to say "We're going to require a DX8 compliant card to continue." Sure its nice to play it on old machines, but eye candy coupled with great gameplay makes games that last, and aren't stifled by old standards its desperately trying to make pliable with its codebase.
Getting back on target, games are now million dollar "projects" and "ventures" and this means that a LOT of people who control that cash want to have their say, and want to have their approval on it. Just imagine if GTA3 didn't have its two predecessors, and the big boss executive didn't like the idea of stealing cars and running over people for fun (granted there's still Carmaggedon, et al, but work with me).
New gameplay concepts are generally taken in small steps. GTA had two top-down perspective predecessors, the FPS world was born with Wolfenstein 3d on a shoe-string budget, using a character that already had an established fanbase.
Any new, brazen concept is going to get killed at that stage. Concepts don't make executives happy, they want to hear about market forcasts and demographics and marketing strategies. There is too much bullshit involved in a big budget game to really introduce something groundbreaking.
I'm afraid that the GTA series will suffer the same fate of More of the Same. I mean, seriously, GTA: Vice City was little more than a bug fix release, with a larger playing area, newer vehicles, nicer engine, and some (slightly) improved AI. I'm sure GTA: Whatever will be the same way. A
Think of the tired Film Analogy (Score:5, Insightful)
When films first appeared, the very idea of editing was radical; to cut the film into chunks that somehow approximated a jilted eye-movement that had narrative power. Then the rules about editing -- breaking the axis, 90-degree flips, screen-facing, etc. Once we had a credible language for the format, there was a period of stagnation, when we thought this is how films would be... lots of locked-off tripods, static shots, clearly framed heads speaking to the camera, etc. Sound, a technological innovation, pushed the format in new directions ("Who on earth wants to hear actors talk?). Now, look at what we do in films: swooping cameras, crazy filters, surround-sound, virtual cinematography... not to mention the arsenal of tricks given to us by the Leans, Hitchcocks, Spielbergs, etc. of the world.
Video games will go forward once we begin to truly master the art of nonlinear storytelling. I often suspect that our film past, while necessary to arrive where we are now, hamstrings us a bit in terms of expectations. People like to just turn their brains off and be entertained, and any sort of interactive medium is bound to be more work than that.
I once had an idea for a DVD 'film' that would just be scraps of video, selected at the user's whim, constructed in just such a way that you could do your own sleuthing and piece together the film in your own way. That's much more amorphous than what people are willing to go through. It smacks of work to many people.
Don't worry. We'll get there eventually. I do agree with the poster in terms of lamenting the current period, though. The video game industry now makes more money than the film industry and sequels to hit games will sell. It's a given. However, sooner or later, someone will come up with the video game equivalent of something like Memento or 2001, and things will shuffle again.
Re:Think of the tired Film Analogy (Score:5, Interesting)
To follow the pirates into the cave, turn to page 45.
To run away screaming like a little girl, turn to page 13.
Those were the days.
"Non-linear storytelling" is an oxymoron (Score:3, Insightful)
The basic problem is that compelling storytelling requires the storyteller to be in control.
We're in between two phases in gaming. (Score:4, Insightful)
First there was 2D with a few colors. This let us do lots of basically animated board games. There were good ideas because people had been making board games for centuries.
Then we got to the scroller era and every game was the same. Run around, collect stuff. Some were better than others, but within a few years, the genre had run its course and most were just bad coppies of the few innovative ones.
Then we hit the 3D era. Everything now looks like Doom with a gimmic. Some of the gimmics are good, but most are just copies. These games always have lots of guns and flash because the other part of the game can't stand on its own.
What's the problem? There is no shortage of good ideas, the problem is that we can't code those ideas. Any game that doesn't rely on running around and blowing stuff up needs another goal. That goal always revolves around the need for some good AI. The only other successful major genre that I have ommited so far is the RTS game. These work because they are from a macro perspective. The individual AI sucks, but the whole scene behaves mostly ok. Anything that needs an artificial person to behave in a strategic or clever manner just can't be done yet.
When we can do an game where harder doesn't just mean bigger and faster but smarter, the market will explode with "I've always wanted to do this" ideas.
Lack of power in the right hands caused this. (Score:4, Insightful)
This is important, because it means that the resources required to make the game were in the best place they could be, in the hands of the people making the game. All the super-popular games of that time (even to date, occasionally) came from environments like this.
It's not that the creativity and innovation is gone (look at ICO, Fatal Frame), it's that the resources needed to afford such aren't where they're supposed to be.
Articles like this... (Score:3, Insightful)
Editorial Missed the "Real" Conclusion? (Score:3, Insightful)
For example, why would someone buy Unreal Tournament 2010 if the graphics technology peaked in 2006? The same goes for Counterstrike, Warcraft, Everquest and the rest of the games whose sequels are mainly technology upgrades.
We should also look forward to the eventual plateau of graphics/sound technology in terms of video games because it will become cheaper and cheaper for people to make games - the longer the tech is available, the cheaper it is. Already we have individuals who do 3D modeling for ZERO money (unless Valve or Id or whomever buys their mod) and there will only be more of those folks in the future. For Neverwinter Nights, there are people out there writing ENTIRE GAMES for nothing because the tools are available to them.
In short, I believe technology will advance until it reaches the point where incremental sequels will not be able to compete with their predecessors and innovations in gaming will become more common again.
Install something for fun (Score:5, Funny)
I know, for video-game funs it sounds weird, but old guys who played adventure games on old TTY mainframe terminals will understand what I mean.
waah waah (Score:3, Insightful)
Bitch, moan, whine.
I'm sure people were complaining in 1979 about how Galaxian was just a Space Invaders clone, and how surely that indicated that originality in the video game medium was dead.
Why aren't there any original games being made? That questions is logically flawed. Why aren't original games on the best-seller lists? Simply, because people would rather play something more familiar.
Of visual fireworks (Score:4, Insightful)
Even at the cost of being a bit off-topic, I found one exceptionally insightful part in that editorial.
[John Carmack] believes it won't always be necessary for programmers to pump out new engines for each successive generation of releases. This could mean that it might not be long until technical innovation is no longer a driving force in interactive entertainment - at least provisionally.
I am personally eagerly waiting for this to happen in games. It has already happened in the niche area of computer demos. Just marching eye-candy and stunning visual effects on screen no longer gets the group nothing more than a few yawns. The real works of art with concept and possibly even *gasp* plot get all the appraising - and for a reason. There was a time when computer demos pushed the limits and showed what quite rudimentary setups were capable of. I really, really wish the trend saw a comeback.
Originality is, however, dangerous. It takes a certain kind of genius to design and device game with new ideas and working plot. They are far and wide apart, which means that 99% of all the games will, for the forseeable future, remain sequels of sequels and rehashes of the lowest common nominator.
Adrenaline Vault's David Laprad can blame himself (Score:5, Informative)
In the case of Shenmue, hopefully into the garbage. Someone at Sega seems to have confused "innovative" with "boring," "pointless," "repetative," "plot-free," and "wildly unrealistic."
Anyway... back on topic...
The editorial is off base. As any creative industry grows the core of the industry becomes conservative, unwilling to take the risks necessary to create truly innovative work. But just because the core does doesn't mean that everyone will. Some companies will realize that you don't need to sell millions of copies to be successful and will happily make modest profits with smaller markets making truly innovative games. The original Counterstrike was just such a case, it popularized the modern SWAT style game and refined into the basis of many multi-player games. Pop Cap Games [popcap.com] has done phenominally well with their little games, most notably Bejeweled [popcap.com] Something genuinely original? How about surprisingly addictive game about building bridges, Chronic Logic's [chroniclogic.com] Pontifex [pontifex2.com]. How about a hard to explain that can only be inaccurately described as action puzzle play matched with turn based stategy, Moonbase Commander [moonbasecommander.com]. Check out the Independent Games Festival [indiegames.com] for bunches more of genuinely new and interesting games.
Of course, certain genres are completely unreasonable for small publishers, like massively multiplayer online role-playing games. Or are they? How about a MMORPG without any combat? A Tale in the Desert [centralserver.net]. A puzzle based MMORPG? Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates [puzzlepirates.com].
Thanks to internet distribution, it's becoming more and more economical for a smaller company to reach out to a global audience.
So, there is lots of great new game ideas. Sometimes they even escape from big, conservative companies. So why don't we see them? Why aren't more people aware of them? The problem isn't that a lack of new ideas, the problem is the journalists themselves! By focusing on the big budget rehash games, spending time giving us pointless "preview" coverage over and over ("We still haven't actually played the game, but boy, it sure does look neat. We look forward to its release in forty-eight months") instead of seeking out and publicizing great stuff from small companies. It wouldn't take much to get the general public looking for these games, helping to encourage further innovation. Because the journalists hype them so, the game industry is still stuck in the idiot "Big budget, big payoff" gamble that the movie industry is. With a few small budge success stories we could see big companies realizing that quarter or half million dollar risks don't have huge rewards, but they also lack the possibility of becoming catastrophic failures [planetdaikatana.com].
If you're worried about the lack of innovative games, go looking for them, they exist. Point them out to your friends. And if you're a journalist, don't just bitch, tell your readers about what gems you do find!
I agree.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I have to agree with you... there really isn't that much inovation out there. The only things I could think of that are truly groundbreaking are: 1) Dance Dance Revolution (Yeah.... it's just for the kids... but you have to admit that it's quite different from anything out there) and 2) The Typing Of The Dead. I'm not sure if too many people know about The Type of the Dead but basically they took The House of the Dead and instead of shooting zombies with a gun, you have a keyboard and each zombie has a word you have to type in order to kill it. Surprisingly, it is very addictive and the first I've ever seen of anything like this. I think we need more of this type of thinking in the gaming industry.
Finally, somebody recognizes the Dreamcast... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully that covered almost everything. I own GC, PS2, and X-Box, and they mostly gather dust, except for using my X-Box as a media player. Since the demise of the DC, there have been nothing but sequels, and it seems that even Sega has lost its flair for video game perfection. Hopefully there will be another era in video games that isn't driven by profit margins, movie licenses, and sequels. This hasn't just been related to Sega, even Nintendo's proven franchises are becoming more and more lackluster. Please people, stop buying Wrestlemania games and try something new for once. The DC proved that innovation is still possible in a crowded market.
Some original games do sell... (Score:5, Interesting)
Each of these sold better than "Legends of Wrestling" _BECAUSE_ of their originality, because they appealed to a new crowd. The Sims is the best example of this.
Of course, some ideas just don't cut it. Sewer Shark. The Sims Online. Anything for the Jaguar. It's not always because the game sucked -- sleepers like Jet Grind Radio, Star Control 2, Shadow of the Beast, Radiant Silvergun and Panzer Dragoon Saga happen all the time and either miss their audience or are otherwise stutter started into obscurity.
The Dreamcast was killed by speculation and nothing else. Everybody who played Crazy Taxi with me when it first came out loved it. Most of them waited for the PS2 anyway -- because the PS1 had a huge library and Sony was making promises to shake the very earth. It's not ORIGINALITY that killed the DC. That's just stupid. ORIGINALITY was the only think that prevented it from doing a complete "Saturn fail."
Re:Some original games do sell... (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's see:
The Sims was released in 2000 or 2001.
Wolfenstein 3D was released in 1992.
Unreal Tournament was heavily "inspired" by Quake 3: Arena, much as Unreal was "inspired" by Quake.
Mario Kart was released circa 1992.
Myst was released circa 1993.
Parappa the Rapper was released in 1997.
Super Mario 3D (aka Super Mario 64) was release in 1997.
Ninja Gaiden was relea
innovation = Easy to say, difficult to do (Score:5, Insightful)
3d Shooters ? done to death.
Online rpgs ? too much work for 3 bedroom coders.
Puzzle games ? done to death. We even tried 3d battleship!!!
Adventure games ? well, no one had the talent of storytelling. But this is a field that shows more promise than any other. Basically, you can do whatever you like.
So, what you can really do ? even big companies don't have the resources to pull cinematic experiences. It's not that the hardware does not allow it. It's time and resources. The current market simply does not justify too high costs.
Even if you think about any other type of game, its been done to death. The only real innovation is combining formerly separate categories.
About the Dreamcast, all I have to say is that I love it. Today I read about the PowerVR tile engine: super pretty smart architecture for 3d rendering. It's a pity SEGA did not have the marketing hype. Because it's the PS2 hype that killed the Dreamcast: the big anticipation of the uber console that could do emotional experiences in 75 million polygons per second...damn lies by the Sony PR department. But it worked.
Tech as driving force (Score:3, Insightful)
Look at the movies - we've had them for a long time, and technology is still one of the main driving forces. If you believe this will change for either games or movies, you're just being narrow minded.
There never was originality (Score:3, Insightful)
Galaga is based from Space Invaders, and games like 1942 are based on Galaga, just that the terrain moves vertically.
Then games like Shinobi, are just like Double Dragon, Kung Fu Master, and many others where you navigate horizontally.
It goes further in gun based games like Operation Wolf, Duck Hunt, and Terminator. Also, with the many driving games, on to STreet Fighter game.
So, all in all, there have only been game format changes. The differences between games have been marginal and usually just in appearance/style.
OK, here is an idea I've had for a game... (Score:5, Interesting)
You get points for not only rescuing the "damsel in distress" but doing so in the "nick of time" using the most outlandish means possible. Your audience responds by remaining focused on the screen and coming back next week to see what adventures our hero gets into next.
On the other hand if say, she's tied to a railroad track and you rescue her before the train is even on camera, the audience will be bored and start throwing peanuts at each other and some will even get up and leave.
Also, if you fail and the damsel dies, then the audience is horrified and storms out the the theater in mass never to return.
anyway, that's the basic jist, I just wish I knew how to code it.
The FPS, like rock-and-roll, is dead and/or dying (Score:3, Insightful)
If I were to somehow distill the inner workings of my mind and figure out the process my brain goes through when determining whether or not I enjoy a particular game, these criteria would be on the checklist (in no particular order). A Yes answer to each of these makes it a winner in my book.
There are more criteria, I'm sure, but that captures a large chunk of them. There are very few games I've played that meet those criteria (this includes non-FPS titles):
Always something new... (Score:3, Informative)
Thrill of sneaking up and tricking the enemies rather than killing them (Hitman 1 & 2)
Really challenging AI (announced in Halflife 2)
Atmosphere of real fear (Silent Hill 2)
Amazing plotline (Final Fantasy, since 4 or 5)
Easily extendable "create your own world" without quality loss. (Morrowind again, compare to average user-made levels in other FPP games)
These are but a few relatively new tricks that will not get old&boring anytime soon, and before they do, people will come up with new ones.
We're far beyond the times where everything could've been turned into a game: Brushing teeth, riding elevators, catching sheep, eating hamburgers... Nowadays all games need to have a plotline (not only some "intro legend" written in a paper manual), some 3D gfx, good music&fx, several hours of gameplay, more or less "closed ending" (at least a "main quest") - these are a must, and they make all games very similar to each other. But there's a whole big layer behind that, which evolves slowly but constantly and it's NOT just the looks.
Game sameness - churn and politics (Score:4, Interesting)
Game publishers want to move volumes of product, and games that help this tend to be if not disposable than at least shorter rather than longer-lived. That means quick, linear scenarios - the kind best suited, of course, to the 12-year old target demographic. Despite their evolutionary polygonal distance from their forerunner in the old Atari Berserk, these are still only simple mazes for going zap! in. And a consequence of that aesthetic choice is that complexity goes out the window, along with ambiguiety, variety in problem-solving, and other open-ended criteria that most of us equate with "originality."
That said, three major games suggest a countervailing force: the Sims and the GTA3 franchises, and Morrowind. These are major commercial successes that flout the platform-hopping, find-key-open-door rattrap of most games, and point to a more dynamic and nuanced form of gameplay. If this continues, good things will follow.
Ironically enough for a form that traffics in sensation rather than ideas, another tendency to consider is political. Apart from horror and sci fi, there has long been a social and political context in video games. At the risk of simplifying, lots of games through the 70s and 80s reflected utopian leftist values - big bad corporations were always either releasing giant robots or leaving a scorched earth in which vigilante players had to set things to right (with a gun, naturally). Looking over gaming history you see this trend start to level off as gaming moves out of the garage and into the boardroom. Today, in many games, the enemy has been humanized (some would say dehumanized) as a projection of grim right wing urges: Arab or Vietnamese soldiers who must be eradicated in the service of "freedom" or "justice". (How congenial a trend this is to our rulers can be seen in the US Army even deploying its own game.) So our values - or at least as construed by those who control big-money game publishing - can also drive a lot of me-too game making.
Games that make you smarter (Score:5, Insightful)
What I had in mind was something more in the direction of Cyberchase, were the skill being learned was important, but almost incidental to the game play. For example, take all those Everquest-y RPG-y games out there where you're an ancient Greek warrior or a spy or something, and gradually require the player to understand what the characters are saying in their native tongue in order to advance, and after that require the player to speak back in the language. Presto at the end of the game you come out with basic understanding of French grammar and a vocabulary of 1000 words.
I know it wouldn't be easy to walk the line between educational and fun, but if someone managed it I'd be a slavishly devoted fan.
Re:Games that make you smarter (Score:5, Interesting)
The possibilities are astounding:
-A puzzle game that teaches advanced geometry and calculus concepts. Or an adduct to a game like The Incredible Machine that can teach many physics concepts.
-A city simulation game (i.e. simcity) that lets you incorporate network infrastructure, everything from global satellite WANs to 10 node small business LANs, with configurations on every router, switch, bridge, mux, etc in between.
-Something like Parappa The Rapper but using actual music theory incorporating keys, modes, chords, maybe even different instruments. (Hell maybe an electronic interface for keyboards, guitars, and other things....this may even already exist)
-As you said, an RPG type game that teaches language skills to ineract with the different players.
Man, I could think about this shit all day. Like you, I'm a terribly addicted gamer, and I'd love to spend time gaming where it might actually improve my intellectual pursuits. I'm in school now, how cool would it be to walk into a class already knowing the techniques to solving problems in the subject and just learning the theory behind it?
FAQ: How do I ship a clever game? (Score:5, Informative)
Getting them funded to completion is the trick. Even veteran game companies are finding they need to pitch a sequel or a heavy license, and the deal negotiation still takes 3-6 months, during which time you can't make payroll and lose your employees to the monster first-party developers or in-house megacorp developers.
Angel funding generally doesn't work unless you know someone wealthy who really trusts you. Doing the angel circuit is incredibly challenging, and you still have to wait several months for the deal to sign and cash to flow, during which time your tasty team is disintigrating.
What I recommend to teams trying to do original content is find a way, by hook or by crook, to completely develop, debug, tune, and polish the game to completion, to develop their own ads, their own marketing plan, their own box art and box copy. This forces you to think through where the game can be sold, how, and for how much.
Handing a boxed, shrink-wrapped product to a publisher makes recouping your development costs trivial. Most big publishers have slipping product, and most big publishers, particularly publicly traded ones, need to ship a certain # of titles every quarter. There is a powerful demand for completed, fun games, but there is an over-supply of largely unwanted proposals and demos.
I did exactly this with Abuse and turned a $60k investment into $1.1M in royalties on a game that sold lousy numbers of units (though it was downloaded like crazy). I have friends doing exactly this sort of thing now, generally quietly, content to make money on games that they love making, even if they aren't over-exposed mega-hits.
They don't always have a $5M marketing campaign or a $5M art budget behind them, but good, fresh games are out there.
Re:I blame the bloodthirsty media (Score:5, Funny)
Is there anything that isn't the direct result of whoever it is with the 260 IQ (because it would take nothing less to run The Conspiracy) running The Conspiracy?
No, wait, this post must be part of The Conspiracy, too, trying to throw you off the track! Keep digging and you'll find the truth! (Or is this a double-cross attempt by The Conspiracy? All I can tell you is no matter what you decide, The Conspiracy will render your body down for the oil it contains as soon as it gets around to you.)
Re:I blame the bloodthirsty media (Score:3, Insightful)
What tripe. Popular games = what people want. No one is forcing people to buy anything. They buy what they want/like. FPS is cool, on occassion, with the likes of the original Doom and later improvements like Quake and Halflife. DeusEx? Damn-frickin-good. And, sorry, but RTCW is/was kickass fun...and there are plenty of Germans who play/enjoy that "nazi glorifying" game. Check out the network game servers...you will find plenty out of Germany and just about every other country in the world. It isn'
Re:what about myst? (Score:3, Informative)
Awesomest games ever.
Full Throttle and Sam & Max sequels coming! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The Best Example... (Score:3, Funny)
That has got to be the most misleading link I've ever followed.
Shame on me for clicking it even tho *I knew* it was not what I expected to be.
Great, gotta open a new window to get a quick skin fix.