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A "Vow of Chastity" For Game Designers
Enoch Root writes: "Nowadays, it seems like the gaming industry is bogged down by an obsession for technological innovation at the price of true creativity in gaming. Ernest Adams of Gamasutra proposes game designers remedy this by pledging to a sort of designer's Vow of Chastity, in the spirit of Von Trier and Vinterberg's DOGME 95. Down with 3D acceleration, it's time for innovation!" I've seen a couple of the movies that the DOGME crowd produced -- both were really good. But the medium of movies is a little different than gaming, so I wonder how will this can carry over.
I don't know about this. I certainly do not take good programing for granted.
I mean, there is the obvious free shot at Microsft. I just heard on the TV (just as I am typing this), that Microsoft is making a move into the Cellular phone market. Now I do not know if this if part of an investment scheme, or if you will see MS cell phones Real Soon Now. Honestly, how many would be skeptical of an MS phone? (someone go look this up and submit it please)
Now there are an awful lot of good programmers out there. But the fundamentals of design are so important, that if you do not have it, you can multiply your time and have lots of late projects and missed deadlines. Like that has never happened before.
How many games have even shipped on time? How long did you wait for (insert title here)?
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
More ideas that came to me... oh, also... one of the best games I've ever played was 'TRACON', where you took the role of an air traffic controller in a regional TRACON (Terminal Radar Approach CONtrol) in LA, NY, or any of tons of other regions (available as expansion maps). You were armed with nothing more than your scope and a set of commands that you could issue to aircraft. Certainly, one of the most addictive and engaging games I've ever played... and it ran on an 286 DOS PC with a VGA card.
Some other nifty possible games...
TERROR: a multiplayer (or vs. AI) game where you create your own terrorist network, including managing cells, and Making Your Point. Individual terrorist nets being controlled by different players then battle for some purpose on a fearful and unsuspecting public. Consult with some real terrorist researchers for technical details, and make it as real as possible.
POL: You're the campaign manager for a politician attempting to sway public opinion and get elected. Deal with marital infidelity, character assassination, real assassination, and fickle public opinion.
SNIPER: You play the role of a Navy SEAL team countersniper. You're given an assignment, as a scout, an assassination, or as support for an assault. You must work with your spotter (or, have a gameplay mode where you *are* the spotter, working with the sniper) to stalk, deceive, survive, and succeed.
INFERNO: First-Person firefighting game. You start off in training, running hose, doing drills. As you get better, you're put onto real duty. Your rank in the Fire Department goes up, the buildings get tougher. Scenarios could include a chemical factory, high-rise apartment building, or Detroit on Hell Night.
It's all to easy to go "There's no originality in games these days - they're all copies of older games or specific genres. I sure do wish we had the originality we had in the 80's". For anyone who has thought that, I encourage to you have a look at the vast collection of old games (classicgaming.com is a good jumpoff point). After playing 6 or so games, you'll remember that the majority of games were ripoffs of other platform/racing/fighting games. Just remember, for every Elite, we had Wayne's World, Kid Kool, Narc and Renegade to offset that. If anything, we have *less* crap copies of games these days due to the amount of money it takes to produce a title.
iD Software *cough cough* Quake III Arena *cough cough*
Why do you people think Unreal Tournament *vastly* outsold Quake III Arena. It's just plain fun, and in a lot of ways innovative (anyone who's ever played the Deck16 map that comes with UT instantly falls in love with it. As a deathmatch map it is a classic and has something for everyone: sniping, explosives, one on one short range battle).
Quake III was pretty -- from a technological standpoint. And I'm sure a lot of Linux-heads liked it because of the release of source code (although, I couldn't even get the *binary* to properly run). But if you want real innovation I encourage you to download the full Linux version of UT from Epic's site, along with all the great free bonus map packs and characters they gave away to the community (*cough cough* like an appropriately free version of Quake III Team Arena *cough cough*).
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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email: proprietary becomes free, org to com
It has been well known for the last three or four years now at least that games suck for the reasons given here. Gamemakers have known it. They just can't come up with any new ideas but not for a lack of trying methinks.
If you really think you know so well what the gaming world needs, go make a million dollars.
Vidi, Vici, Veni
Quake players are conditioned to expect desolate, badly designed, intellectually bankrupt worlds that don't have anything in them that isn't there for a specific purpose. If there's an oil tank, or anything else not just painted on the wall, you know it must be there for a reason, since no game designer of the Quake ilk would put a prop in the game simply for atmosphere or decoration. The Quake worlds are so barren and devoid of complexety, that whenever you see a scrap of paper on the floor, you can be sure that the game hinges on it. Quite unlike real life.
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
Funny things have been happening in the industry too, great games like Wipeout XL are getting no PC sequels. We're lacking in popular genres. Ever take a look at what fighting games have come out in the past five years?
Whatever happened to the great innovation PCs had without 3D accelerators? Commander Keen, One Must Fall, Terminal Velocity, Jazz Jackrabbit, Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max, Hero's Quest... We even had our own version of Contra called Duke Nukem II! Have you ever noticed that the same companies making these wonderful games only want to heavily market their FPS's, and RTS's (save LucasArts obsessed with racing games)?
Other than RPGs which reel me in with their story, the last few games I found myself addicted to are Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PSX), Ghost in the Shell (PSX), Soul Calibur (DC), Dracula X (PCE CD), and Ridge Racer V for lack of finding equivilants on PC. But why can't my ultimate gaming machine with a 900MHz CPU and 256MB of RAM and a GeForce 2 GTS provide me with ultimate games?
Or even ultimate graphics? Lately the only game that has impressed me on PC since Unreal has been Serious Sam. I know the topic was complaining about advances in graphics, but on the PC I don't see it. I was more impressed by the stylistic and incredibly well modeled Sonic Adventure on Dreamcast than say, Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament. Despite people claiming those games have such excellent graphics, I just find them bland, and every effect is just a common staple these days.
Oh well that's the end of that!
.sig: Open Source, Open Mind
Diablo II? I played it a few times, but I got bored with it very quickly. It's supposed to be an RPG - a ROLE PLAYING GAME - but all you do is go to a demon infested place, kill'em all, pick up weapons, treasures and potions. You become more powerful, the demons get stronger, blablabla.
Much better : Dungeon Master. It had everything Diablo II has, but it also had puzzles and a really good magic system : a series of symbols that you could combine to create a spell. The spell didn't work? Maybe it wasn't a real spell after all, or maybe you just weren't experienced enough. And how did you obtain a spell? Did you just obtain that knowledge by gaining a level? No. You had to find them in the dungeon, take hints from the potions you found, or just try a combination.
You say that the video game industry is thriving now more than ever before. Their budgets may be increasing, but not their output. You should find yourself some old Commodore 64 gaming mags. The amount of games that were released in one month - wow. And with so many games released, there was a lot more competition. So they were forced to make their games fun or watch their games gather dust on the shelves.
Well, enough ranting. All I've written here will be lost to those who have been blinded by graphics. And the rest of us will just MOVE "ZIG".
Nobody believes the official spokesman, but everybody trusts an unidentified source. -- Ron Nesen
I agree that the standards are being continually raised, but the point is that game design is not progressing as fast as sound and graphics. Just like I feel that software (with the exception of middle/high end 3D software) is not progressing as fast as hardware. This is not any one group's fault, things like standards and monopolies are keeping progress back. That said ...
If you've used MAME or NESTicle recently, I'm sure you realize how incredibly crappy and juvenile games like Metroid and Zelda really were
This is borderline trollish. If this were true, do you think there would be a MAME and NESTICLE. Do you think there would be the big demand for games on ebay and roms off of websites?
we've become so accustomed to 3D engines and photorealism
Skillful crafting of buzzwords, but I don't think we're quite to the point of photorealism. I don't know about you but when I look at a photograph I don't see polygonal edges and harsh lighting transitions. I think that the Dreamcast was the first console to have enough power to make 3D viable. I hate the 3D graphics of the playstation. The N64 is ok, but not great. I think that with the gamecube and the Xbox 3D will really become something that can surpass good 2D as far as making an immersive world and a more profound experience. I still think that Super Metroid for Super Nintendo is the greasted game of all time by a wide margin. (if you haven't played it from start to finish, buy a SNES, buy the cartridge and hibernate, you ow it to yourself). Whenever I try to think about what makes a game great I go back to Super Metroid. Yes I have played it recently, and I still stand by my claim more than ever. It used everything to its advantage, from control, to graphics, to using music (and the music is incredible) to set the tone and mood. I have come up with the following list of things that I think all games should follow.
1. As little repetition as possible (think zelda, not mega man, not mario brother one).
2. Use music to set the mood, not as something that needs to be filled in because you have to.
3. Pit power against power, having a weak character and a weak bad guy is boring and stupid.
4. Progression. Character gets more powerful, enemies get more powerful.
5. Balance. Everything needs to be balanced, no temporary surges of power (heavy barrel), plot is neccesary but it shouldn't get in the way of game play in the slightest. I don't think that revealing the plot as the game goes along is a good idea.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
I think that you miss the point of several of the dogmas. Those particular characters are forbidden because the games that you mentioned made them into hackneyed old warhorses, so those games are basically exempt. Similarly, Wolfenstein3D (AFAIK the first true FPS) didn't violate the ban on FPS games because they wouldn't have been on the list until they were done to death. The goal is to prevent designers from returning to hackneyed genres and characters, and the ones listed are basically a provisional list of ones that are already clearly meet that criterion. If Vikings become excessively popular, or business strategy games, or any other character or genre that isn't currently exceptionally popular, they may well wind up on the list of hackneyed characters/genres.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Kind of like writing haiku instead of free verse poetry. The limitations of the form encourage creativity.
That said, I think that the challenge of balancing interactivity with the feeling of narative is more than enough challenge for any game designer. The question of "how do I tell a story when I don't know what the main character will do?" is something that we are all still trying to answer.
Also, you are still programming, which means that you need to create a finite state system in which a correct reaction results from any given action of the user. You need to keep in mind the limitation of the player to master controls, absorb information, and comprehend the events. You also need to work within the physical reality of a 2D screen connected to a computer or game console.
For all these reasons, I don't think we need to impose more limitations on ourselves, just yet.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
It depends on what you -want- from a game, not 'how the game plays' - let's face it, there are only so many ways to design an interface for a game. I haven't seen a new interface in years. You've got top down, side scrolling, 3D platformer, isometric, stationary (i.e. Tetris, Dig Dug, etc.), and first person. There isn't anything else - not really. Mario 64 was the first 'new' interface I've seen in years, and it probably wasn't the first (come on, correct me).
What has changed about games is how they draw the player into their world - how you catch their interest. Zelda captured it with puzzles... not really much plot, but a lot of puzzles. It still does, to this day - the Zelda series has just gotten larger and expanded on this idea with better graphics, better interaction, and better storytelling. The fact that they reuse the basic 'catch' isn't important, as there are only so many of those 'catches' you can use.
Diablo's "catch", for me at least, was character advancement. Diablo wasn't Zelda - Diablo was Rogue - or probably more accurately, Angband or NetHack.
However, as you can probably see, I'm supporting your evidence (all games have predecessors from - not late 80s or earlier 90s, but early 80s and late 70s) but I disagree with your conclusion. The problem is that you're focusing on things that change ridiculously slowly. You want a new 'genre' of video game. I'm happy with the ones we have, thank you - I just want more. An occasional new genre would be nice, but for now, I'm happy with what we have.
Basically, the 'no innovation' claim is akin to saying "There's no innovation in modern literature." Well, in some respects, that's true - new genres aren't really born overnight, they take quite a bit of time to develop. But literature isn't going downhill, nor should they stop writing books in a current genre. Please! I am perfectly happy to read another slew of books by [Insert Favorite Author Here].
Gaming is another form of artistic expression, and I eagerly await each new Final Fantasy just like I would a new novel from Orson Scott Card (one of my favorite authors). Not because I expect something massively different, but because I want another Final Fantasy. It's that simple.
The problem, currently, is that we've got tons of Harlequin romances sitting on videogame shelves - we call them first-person shooters. They're thoughtless, mindless games that take two seconds to develop and sell like crazy. However, this didn't go away for the publishing industry, and it won't go away for the gaming industry. No loss, in my book.
I'm sorry, but chess has knights. Breaks the rules :(
As demonstrated here, there is nothing so bizarrely inexplicable in any game that it can't be explained in a reasonable fashion with enough misspent contemplation.
In all seriousness, it is good that most "representational" games are just a thin layer over an abstract game. Reality doesn't make a good game. Games where you blow up enemies and pick up the little piece of fruit they leave behind can be a lot of fun.
But I do agree in general that there should be a line drawn between special strangely hidden bonuses and strangely hidden essential parts of the game. However, look at Metroid! Everything is hidden, nothing is explained, yet it's one of the greatest classics around.
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The point they were driving at was that a "normal" person would not even think to look in an oil canister to find a med kit, where as the typical game junkie would immediately know that blowing up the oil canister is worth a try, because you get hidden goodies when you destroy objects in a game.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
He thinks deeply and cares about the people who will be playing the game. Take the character animation of Mario, as controlled by the player. It sacrifices realism for playability, in a way that is a great call. When Mario is facing one direction, and you move the joystick in another direction, what does he do? Does he take a few seconds to execute a perfectly realistic standing turn, then start walking in the direction you want him to go after he turns around? No! He pivots instantly, and starts walking in the direction you want, right away without any delay. This is imporant because the movement of the character is directly controled by the player, who would become quite bored and frustrated if they had to wait for Mario to turn around all the time.
There are many other excellent design decisions in a game like Mario 64, but they're subtle and expertly woven together into a classic game that a wide range of people can play for many hours. The guys designing Quake were too busy thinking about their red hot sports cars and platinum blond trophey girlfriends, to care about the people who would actually be playing the game.
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
Fight Club: $63 million
Being John Malkovich: $13 million
High Fidelity: $20 million
Rounders: $12 million
Talented Mr. Ripley: $40 million
Clerks: $27,000
A similar situation happened with the C64 and the Atari 2600. The hardware is set, unchanging, and the games that come out for them get better and better as time goes by, as developers come up with ideas that, using the same hardware, are designed to be better than previous games.
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
I would gladly pay my hard-earned cash to play any of the other three games you mentioned though, if they were done well. Great ideas!
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
2) I was wrong about the spelling
3) I made a HTML mistake
4) I called OTHER people morons.
Could someone mod me down please. I want as few people as possible to see this.
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Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
It's like those contests they have where you have to do a web page in 5k or I know there's a contest to do 3d in like 5k as well as size and other restrictions in the C obfuscation contest.
By putting limitations and creating rules, you remove the option to make lazy compromises or simply copy previous artistic works. Again, it's totally voluntary for the sake of experimentation and personal development. So to say "well we wouldn't have quake" is kinda missing the point.
W
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
They understand and expect that noone will adhere to these guidelines. These rules are an idealistic extreme, written to nudge the general game development community a little bit to the side.
And by the way, I think a great game could be written within these rules, just as a great movie could(and has been) be made with a camcorder.
The true heart of the game is not in its technology. This is their point, and I think they make it well, barring one or two minor aspects I disagree with.
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
The graphics actually interfere with the game if there by default, and to the point of losing the fun if they are unremoveable. I would like my Civ games to have a setting called "play cinematics once:" the first time I discover a wonder or there's a battle between a roman phalanx and an armor unit (ah, Civ) I wouldn't mind the pretty-pretty, but I want to be given enough attractively designed, cleanly laid out information to understand the game state, and no more as a rule.
I would love to see Edward Tufte design a Civ type game.
Hardware acceleration, higher resolutions, and digital sounds have only brought computer gaming to a new level of detail and realism and in no way detract from the playability of a game.
Well, they *do* detract from playability. It takes so long to get your engine and content competitive with every other game out there that there's only half as much time left to do the actual game.
In the absense of anything decent to play, my entire office recently went retro en-masse; we've been playing Super-Bomberman, R-Type, Yoshi, Mariocart, Sonic&Knuckles, Gunstar Heroes, NBA Jam and so on for a few weeks now. Each one of these games held our attention for many more hours than any number of the anal-retentive and morally suspect 1st person shooters that seem to be considered 'cutting edge' in certain circles nowadays.
I don't think your tastes are more refined, quite the opposite in fact. I think you've gotter much *easier* to impress.
Anyone remember this one? Sounds like the first Dogma2001 game... cool that they made it more than 10 years early...
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Fight Club with little or no special effects?
That movie had a whole lot of effects...hell half the extra stuff on the dvd release is explanations of how they did what. The stuff for the mid-air collision is quite neat...give it a watch. Not to mention the exploding buildings at the end...and the virtual fly-through of Jack's apartment...and the zooming-through-structures shots. Tons of really really well done CG in that movie.
Of course, the movie did still have excellent dialogue and a good story, but to say it had little or no special effects is just wrong. Good special effects are the ones that don't leap off the screen as being something that isn't really there.
"That's Tron. He fights for the Users."
Oh, I always read and reply (and this reply is also to the fellow below with the bus tickets).
Those are prices from a storefront retail game store around the corner, and include a year warrantee and instruction booklet. The games come nicely shrink wrapped, and I don't have shipping or handling tacked onto the price.
The mere fact that they are being packaged and sold in a retail storefront of a large chain (along with Super NES, Genesis, and other "retro" games) show that there is a strong demand for them. *That*, more than anything was my point... these "retro games" that the original poster said "suck when you actually play them" are still being sought after in a storefront environment.
And yes, I know I can get them cheaper, but since most are $1, the majority are a deal... that's under shipping via eBay. On top of that, I will occasionally stop by CompUSA or some such place for a network card or other piece of equipment despite the fact that I know very well that they are hideously priced. The convenience sometimes outweighs the cost savings.
Beyond that, I support places that have what I want... I don't direct order my (pen and paper) RPG suppliments, and my girlfriend dosen't get her comics from some dealer on-line; we buy from the corner comic store, paying a few bucks extra for the ability to browse. The local game store that has the NES carts also has game tourniments every Saturday, and not for promotional reasons - they often are King of Fighters or other cult classic competitions, /not/ the latest "must sell" title. I'll pay a little extra to support that in my town.
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Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
While this is an interesting concept, the way this concept is described is pointless. One of the 'rules' is not to use knights, wizards, clerics, or dragons in the game, but the designers can use massai warriors, shamans, and kangaroos. Okay, so the retelling of the King Arthur remains derivative whether you use knights, Massai warriors, or accountants. The issue here is breaking down cliches and stereotypes, rendering the expected moot. Games shouldn't be designed for the newest gadget, but the newest gadget should be designed for the games. Essentially, game designers shouldn't be thinking about hardware. Of course, if they aren't then they will be designing games no one can play. I'd much rather see game designers commit themselves to 'rational environments'. Instead of designing the game with power ups (med kits, ammo, armor, etc) in oil barrels and crates, put them in rational places or don't require them in the game in such a quantity that they need to be collected in that fashion. Imagine a game that doesn't have generic med kits instantly bringing you back up in health. Or, if the medical supplies you carried in on your mission run out, you have to divert from the main objective to find the medlabs to get more bandages, painkillers, etc. I personally hate having to blow everything up to find stuff.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
>Why not say "the game may not take place in
>fantasy universe" or something like that.
Because there's plenty of fantasy you can do that doesn't involve that stuff. It just wouldn't be traditional fantasy. Although, to be fair, it does ignore transformative uses of these traditional elements (as seen in fantasy novels such as "The Iron Dragon's Daughter").
>3. my mom won't buy me new hardware.
You have no idea who this guy is, do you?
Anyway, the rules are to avoid a reliance on technology. By taking away the tools that a modern game depends on, he hopes to change the way game dev is looked at. He doesn't mean to ban 3d acceleration for all games ever, just for games that choose to take this challenge.
>7. violence is bad, congress says so. it's also >cliche in games.
He never says the first - that's your projection.
He *does* say: "If you spend time on them, you are wasting energy that could be more profitably spent on gameplay or AI."
>9. I think games should be like real life.
He says that this only applies to representational games (the Sims), not abstract games (Tetris). Also, not necessarily like RL, but predictable to one who knows RL. That is, they should *make sense*
>10.random pet peeve / cliche
It's another way to make people shake up expectations. If a guy wanders around looking like Darth Vader, what will players expect? Well, if he turns out to be a good guy, (or totally unimportant), that would be *different*, which is his goal.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
the fact that some people really, really like certain genres. Computer games aren't High Art (meaning that they would be paid for by people who have been carefully trained to like certain things), they are commercial art, and the goal is to make games that people enjoy (and pay for). Originality is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
As for a lack of imagination and creativity, face it: those are scarce resources. People don't come along and make something like Metal Gear Solid as the first CRPG ever. There are better first-person shooters than Wolfenstein. Dune 2 and Herzog Zwei were barely playable.
Creating a new genre is one of the hardest things to do, and the results are rarely particularly popular or profitable. Few people are so utterly bored with new variants of Rogue that they're willing to start over on a new genre at the "Rogue" level of development.
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I think the "don't make them like they used to" mindset is a load of crap. People point to all the best games from 5 - 10 years ago and compare them to the hundreds of really mediocre games on the shelves today. What they seem to forget is that 5 - 10 years ago there were also hundreds of really mediocre games for every good game. I used to play on my brothers ZX Spectrum, and while there were some really great games, and I remember quite well that there were hundreds of other games that just sucked. The technology has changed, but I don't think the situation has. There are some really good games on the shelves these days. If somebody can't seem to find any good games today, then I suspect the problem is not with the games. There are really good action games (q3, CS etc), LucasArts has consistently made really good quests (e.g. Grim Fandango, Monkey Island series etc), and I'm pretty sure in every common genre you can find a number of really good recent games. The number of new genres appearing has probably diminished (that will get harder over time) but that has nothing to do with what makes a game good. Just like it is possible to make a really good movie without doing anything new or original. If anything, game developers can be stifled by trying too hard to focus on doing something *new* rather than doing something *well* - the problem with trying to make a good game is that everything has to be done well and just "gel" (the sound, the graphics, playability, story (if applicable) - if just one of those things is not quite right, a game tends to flop. So game makers who tell themselves that because some central concept in their game is new and original then they're likely to succeed are fooling themselves. The 1%/99% inspiration/perspiration rule applies. Dogma2001 seems to imply that original==fun.
Yes!
Whenever I come across yet another game (or book) set in a thinly veiled Tolikien universe I always wonder if the designers (or author) are embarassed by their obvious failure of imagination.
In a similar vein, here's a challenge to weblog designers: stop using from-the-lame-quip dept.. Even if you're using Slash or some other Slash-like code, use a little creativity! How many identical Slash-alikes does the world need?
I remember from the days of playing on my brothers ZX Spectrum, there were some really good games, but for every good game there dozens of really crappy games. The situation has not changed. People seem to forget that there were also so many crappy old games.
This leads to a clear, gritty style of gaming, closer to 1940s Hollywood than MTV. I'm speaking (on another subject) at GDC, but maybe I'll make a remark about this.
Here's the opportunity "Garage" game developers have to get their games out on the shelf. Here's the problem:
Why can't you have innovation AND creativity?
Lets look at some games that showed some serious creativity (expect lotsa Spector):
Thief. Sure the graphics weren't Q3, but it *was* 3D. It was a 3D shooter without the shooting.
System Shock Series. Here's a real killer to the theory presented. It took a 2D RPG and made it a FPS. It took creativity and added innovation, which made it an absolutely excellent game.
Deus Ex. Take an innovative game, with a creative plot, and make it open-ended. A success!
You see, innovative games can (and are, for that matter) creative. The problem is that the kiddies just want their Quake fix and kill their buddies. This means low profits for the creative games. Which is another reason how this theory will fail (who's going to play them?).
Sure PONG, breakout, and tetris are fun, but when you can have fun with innovation, its just more attractive...
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Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Some of my favorite movies in recent years have been low-budget productions. Like...
Fight Club
Being John Malkovich
High Fidelity
The Matt Damon flicks, esp. Rounders and The Talented Mr. Ripley.
Any number of Quentin Tarantino flicks.
In fact, I'd watch any of these over Star Wars: The Phantom Menace any day. Are there some good examples of games that put the gameplay/story ahead of the production? If not, there should be.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
In those brave days, all computer games had to be innovative just to be playable on such limited machines.
The problem today is the gluttony of resources at the programmers disposal. They seem to be focusing on graphics at the expense of playability.
I think that games companies should look at the Japanese console companies attitude on this one. With games like Mario 64 and MarioCart and so on, they focused on gameplay far more than on graphics, with the result that these are truly great games.
We can see their influence on the American creators of Spyro the Dragon, a game with great gameplay and graphics.
To many games companies these days suffer from the illusion that a good game depends on good programming, when in fact it should depend on good design. In these professional days, we can take good programming for granted, more or less.
We need to make design the single most important phase of a games development. The answer is not through a stoic philosophy, but through thinking things through but still employing great graphics and sound.
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Clarity does not require the absence of impurities,
/* And you'll never guess what the dog had */
/* in its mouth... */
--Larry Wall in stab.c from perl
Quotes from the games listed on the news page of happypeguin.org
I have to admit though, I was dissapointed when I went to the page not to find any "just like game x, only with Tux as the hero" games to make fun of, not that they don't exist in droves. Ugh, Worldforge... I was able to satisfy myself as to the status of WF as a massive circle-jerk when a recent freshmeat announcement heralded "creatures now gain and lose weight accurately as food is eaten and digested" as the stand-out improvement.
Here is my list of rules for the "Linux Games Dogma 2001":
Oooh, that came out mean. I'm just in a pissy mood today, but I'll stand by all these points. There are playable games for Linux, but there's a s**tload of bilge as well.
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
You are not alone in that wish.
Games are sold through awareness. People only buy the games if they have heard them (over and over and over). This is a generalisation, but typically, a game will only make it if it has a "wow" factor, i.e. it grabs media attention. A similar factor lies in content. Controvercial content like blood-and-guts enhances the game's hype. This is well understood. Take Rogue for example. A simple, complete, and quality game, but lacking any wow factor (except, when it was released / escaped).
Thus, a game creator has to produce at the leading edge, else the game fails. There is no alternative. Either it is a game which pushes the limits, or it is not a game which succeeds (easily).
This is encouraged by hardware manufacturers as well. New technologies, providing only marginal benifits are touted as "the next best thing", and games are close on the heels.
Basically, I am the sort of person who refuses to race technology, so I play classic games like Civilisation, etc. These are what I considder quality games (and I know this is not a universal opinion), but it does allow me to spend my money on things other than the cash-draining graphical revolution.
On the other hand, I wish the chastity thing would work, it is a nice (but doomed) idea.
.. if only.
You are missing the point about the dogma 2001 manfest. The point _isn't_ that a good game designer can't create a game that break any or all the rules. Of course, a good game designer can use any of the elements in a game.
However, a good game designer does not _need_ any of these elements in order to create a good game. So a good game designer should be able to tro create a good game that follows all these rules.
The idea with Dogme 95 wasn't that all films should follow these rules either. It is meant as a challenge, an experienced directer can use Dogme 95 to see if he still can make original films, without techincal bandaids or worn-out cliches. The latest film from Lars von Trier, the biggest name behind Dogme 95, is _Dancer in the Dark_ with the singer Bjork. It was an expensive and technically challenging film after European scale, and wasn't even close to being Dogme 95 certified.
Ever listen to grandpa complain about how they don't make 'em like they used to? The truth or falsity of that aside; the reason grandpa says that is primarily because things are *different*, and people don't like change.
:)
Similarly, people like me who grow up playing the 2600 find newer games lacking...but it's because they're not what I'm used to. If you're over 20 years old, you're a grandpa when it comes to computer games
Slashdot 's editors are dickheads
There are some who say that gameplay and content have been dwindling, to be replaced with flashy graphics and Full Motion Video, but In my experience, this is simply not true. Hardware acceleration, higher resolutions, and digital sounds have only brought computer gaming to a new level of detail and realism and in no way detract from the playability of a game.
I would much rather play Final Fantasy VIII or Diablo II any day than games that were popular in the '80's. I believe the reson for this unfounded nostalgia for vintage video games can be traced back to an issue of perspective. Let's face it, most of you were a lot easier to impress when you were 12, than you are now (apologies to any 12-year-old readers). We viewed Atari and NES games with a sense of awe and newfound respect because the technology was so new and innovative. If you've used MAME or NESTicle recently, I'm sure you realize how incredibly crappy and juvenile games like Metroid and Zelda really were. Now, we've become so accustomed to 3D engines and photorealism, that we often take for granted how amazing computer gaming has become. It's not that the games are getting worse, it's just that our tastes are more refined.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
So I have been forced to come to the conclusion, that maybe good acting and a good story _can_ carry a good movie.
However, I suspect not alone. The directers behind all three movies are both technically brialliant and experienced people, so are the camera men and other support staff. I suspect it makes a huge difference whether the man holding the "souped-up camcorder" and the man directing him are experienced professionals who _know_ how a scene must look on screen to look good, or not.
Apparently, Dogme 95 has become popular outside Denmark by young directors with limited budgets, who think the rules may be a short-cut to success. And apparently, they have all been failures. So I suspect Dogme 95 only works for experienced directors, who need them to get a chance working with the basics again. Young directors should use any technical trick in the book to make their stuff work.
Maybe something similar is true for games.
Bullshit. Just because we all can see that very few people would follow this doesn't mean that it isn't targeting everyone. Nothing in it says, "This is only intended for those of you who aren't involved in making real video games." This targets EVERYONE, and explicitly declares, "...for the interactive entertainment industry." It does not say,"for the indie gaming community." And even though he admits, "Now I realize that... nobody at EA or Sony or Blizzard is going to pay the slightest attention to Dogma 2001." This doesn't mean he isn't targeting them, it just means he knows his ideas are crap that will not be picked up by the people who matter.
No I very much didn't. I was just saying that there were good games back then. The original person was saying that games like Metroid suck, and the only reason people thought they were good was because they were 8 at the time.
Beside the fact that I wasn't 8 at the time Metroid came out (I was a "wee bit" older), I still play games from that era. Pac Man (Arcade), 1942 (Arcade), Metroid (NES), Choplifter (Apple II), Wings of Fury (Apple II), Beneath the Root (Apple II), Star Wars (Arcade), Empire Strikes Back (Atari 2600)... these are all great games (that I still play) from an era that the original poster said (paraphrasing): "All games sucked, if you tried them, you'd remember".
And yes, 95% of games are crap. 95% of anything is crap. Sturgeons Law applies to every form of entertainment.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
First, let me say I found this really interesting, because it explains after the fact why I didn't play any video games for so long -- I played Doom and Street Fighter, why play them again with different graphics? I play Everquest, which at least has a believable world and gameplay.
But my question is, are there any open source game projects going on? I'd love to work on something like that.
There are two things going on here:
1. What I like to call the "SNL sure was better in the 70's!" effect. When people collectively remember the past, they always remember the good stuff and sort of mass it all together into some sort of fantastic memory of what gaming used to be. For as long as I can remember, there have been more games that suck, than one that don't and More SNL skits that suck in one episode, than ones that dont. (sorry for the runon)
2. Second. If you take the perspective of going back in time, and looking forward, I'd bet you'd see that 90% of the great games developed over time came along with great tech developments. Think: birth of widespread home consoles: pacman, 8bit: Super Mario, 16 bit:Sonic, and on and on. It was the development of new technologes which drove developers to create better software. Of course I'm leaving out about 2000 great games.
In any case, I look forward to seeing what this project develops. Maybe they can build some backward compatable console games so we can pullout our old ataris and such.
tcd004
The guts of the Pentium 4 REVEALED!
Don't go here unless you need Stock Photography
I have been playing a game called netrek for about 6 years now, and I still have yet to come across anything better.
Netrek is something like 16 years old, with roots back to Empire (which is even older), but it is still by far the best game I have ever played. You pretty much need 1024x768, but I was happily playing for several years with a 4 or 5 color client (prettier ones do exist).
It's not just a game, it's a sport. It's an art in that it takes years to master. These are two things I have not been able to say about any other game.
Description of netrek ripped from FAQ: Netrek is a 16-player two-dimensional graphical real-time battle simulation with a Star Trek theme. A game is divided into two teams of 8 players (or fewer), who dogfight each other and attempt to conquer each other's planets.
Netrek is the probably the first video game which can accurately be described as a "sport." It has more in common with basketball than with arcade games or Quake. Its vast and expanding array of tactics and strategies allows for many different play styles; the best players are the ones who think fastest, not necessarily the ones who twitch most effectively. It can be enjoyed as a twitch game, since the dogfighting system is extremely robust, but the things that really set Netrek apart from other video games are the team and strategic aspects. Team play is dynamic and varied, with roles constantly changing as the game state changes. Strategic play is explored in organized league games; after 6+ years of league play, strategies are still being invented and refined.
--
Since it's free, you can check it out at this URL: http://www.netrek.org
One reason it is such a masterpiece is that it was built and fine tuned by gamers for gamers, and not driven by the desire to soak $$$ from a mass-market (10-15 y.o. flash and trash goobers). Netrek demands a lot of intelligence, skill, and attention span - things that not just everyone has a lot of, and therefore doesn't make a lot of money.
Mawen
A vow of chastity? It's a noble goal, but the big money in gaming is in the mass market of squels and big names like Diablo. Development houses probably won't get support from the corporates who know next to nothing about gaming and only care about the bottom line.
So how do you combine innovation and market success? You got me. It HAS been done (Quake, Jedi Knight, The Curse of Monkey Island, Age of Empires 2.) But such instances are rare. The marketers and sponsors want development houses to go with the tried & true mixtures present in Starcraft, Quake, etc.
The bottom line? If you can innovate and please the marketers, and do it under that vow-of-chastity thing, you'll be a multi-millionaire.
O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law:
If you've used MAME or NESTicle recently, I'm sure you realize how incredibly crappy and juvenile games like Metroid and Zelda really were.
So you see a lot of graphical problems in games played through NESticle. The problem isn't in the games; it's in the emulator. NESticle is not one of the best NES emulators; it was written to an early draft of the NES documentation and contains several detectable flaws. One of these flaws can be exploited in merely four instructions of 6502 asm code:
NESticle also has inaccuracies with respect to Sprite 0 hit detection (causing scroll timing to be off) and mixing of VRAM writes, VRAM reads, and scroll commands. Examples of better emulators include LoopyNES, NESten, nester, RockNES, BioNES, and FCE Ultra.
rm `find / -name "nesticle.exe"`All your hallucinogen are belong to us.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Anyone remember playing that game throughout the night five years after it was released?
Anyone remember why it was so fun?
What about games like Warlords and Warcraft.
That's the type of innovation we need. Something that sticks with us for years afterwards.
But do we play it now? No, better games (or maybe I should say improved games) have come out and captured our attention.
I wish game developers (not all, there are some great ones out there) would take enough time to pull their heads out of their collective asses and stop all the crap they're trying to push on us.
And another thing I would like to see stopped is the early release of games. I hate having to wait for a patch to be able to play the damn thing like it was intended. Bugs I can accept. But we should start to punish them for releasing crappy code.
A vow of chastity, a dogma of usefulness and junklessness for website. No banner-ads, no crappy script code, no <font> tag (whose only purpose is to multiply the file size by 10 and make the fonts so tiny I need to scratch my nose on my screen to read them), no to make identations, no...
I've never seen a page from a professional site that validate as HTML 4.01 transitionnal. Because professional site always use WYGIWYG (no typos: what you get is what you get) editors who systematically bloat the page with bullshit.
A dogma of standard-compliance, code optimization and user's preferences respect (no crappy <font> tags that override them) will be really needed.
I know, it's harder to write Perl/PHP/Java/Whatever code that output correct valid code than crappy silly code, but it's possible andworth the trouble.
sigmentation fault
I think it was Alan Kay who defined technology as that stuff that wasn't invented when you were born. Good games can and should be made with 1980s technology like Adams advocates but they should be made with 2000s technology as well as 1900s (think board games). Consider the analogy with visual arts. Some use oil paints, some use charcoal, some user cameras, and some use computers. Within each there is plenty of room to be creative and inventive. Let good games flourish and use or avoid whatever technology the designer chooses. -ken kahn (www.toontalk.com)
Corporate game companies have one ultimate goal for each game: You master/beat the game, get bored and go buy another one. Then the cycle repeats
So, there's currently 2 types of games out now: 1) Those you can beat right away (and thus forcing you to buy a new one) and 2) Those in which people play together, therefore guaranteeing that it will be different everytime and you will keep paying your monthly fee.
Why should game designers create something so innovative that you keep going back to the same game and playing over and over? Then there's no turnaround for them. But wait! Then they can sell you a cheat book to make your gameplay even better. Chalk up another $15 for them
The online gaming model is the best way to introduce innovation, because there IS NO TURNAROUND. There's the potential to keep playing and playing and playing.
If there's no turnaround time and no inevitable point when SumGuy will shelve the game for good, then you can work on innovation. Why work to innovate a game that is only worth $60 retail, when you can work on something that's $20 every month?
So now we just need a non-StarWars/Tolkien/Cyberpunk/Vampire adventure/action/strategy game and we'll be set for life.
DaveCheck out www.happypenguin.org. There are more open source game projects than you can shake a stick at. From the Worldforge project, which is an attempt at a massively multiuser role playing game platform to Nethack (Which isn't big on graphics but is damn playable) you can find lots and lots of open source projects, many of them quite impressive.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
This would be a great idea to set up as a competition, actually, with a critic's choice and player's choice award at the end. I'm sure that you could get one of the game companies to sponsor it (particularly as it would get that company the chance to potentially snare a new developer or two).
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Is this really what the Dogma proponents had in mind?!!
The film vow was to give up gimmicks that are now substituting for plots. They were not required to give up genres: drama, comedy, science fiction, fantasy, fiction, or nonfiction.
Check item 8 of theDogme 95 vow of chastity -- "Genre movies are not acceptable".
I'd love to see a new genre, but I currently don't have the creative energy to create one. It's a monumental task to give up all genres and create a new one.
But that's exactly the reason Dogme 95 exists (for films) -- it's worthwhile *because* it's hard. It's a challenge for those who *do* have that creative energy, something designed to help them channel that energy to create something new and exciting.
Remember, nobody is saying all films, or all games, should comply with the Dogme vow of chastity: Lars Von Trier (sp? In conformance with Dogme rules, his name doesn't appear on the website) went on to direct the very non-Dogme "Dancer in the Dark" after Dogme's "The Idiots" -- it's just an interesting set of rules to work within, and it's good to see what comes out the other end. Constraints often produce good art. Some of my better amateur poster design as a schoolkid came from being restricted to what the school office's photocopier was capable of reproducing...
--
I do, however, mean that if everyone followed these, we would have no new games like these.
Yup, still missing the point. Nobody is saying everyone should follow these rules. The idea of Dogme95 for films is that a filmmaker might *choose* to follow these rules for an individual project, to test themselves, see what they come up with. For games it would be the same.
Lars Von Trier directed the Dogme 95 film "The Idiots", then went on to direct "Dancer In the Dark", a film which very much breaks the Dogme 95 rules.
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One of my favorites, and IMO deserving of a place higher on the list was this one:
Games would be far, far better if they just adhered to this simple rule. I've seen far too many games that are difficult or impossible without a cheat guide simply because the require an illogical action on the player's part to go on to the next stage. I remember particularly clearly one step of Half Life that I couldn't get through without the cheat guide simply because I considered the action required and then rejected it as so ridiculous that the author couldn't possibly require you to do something that stupid. Any game designer who does something like that deserves to be flogged.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Yes, this is the whole point of the exercise. To "force" those game-developers who wish to do things this way, to create new kind of games, with fresh ideas everywhere.
Note that not all games have to be done this way. There has been a few Dogme-films around, and meanwhile Hollywood et al. have turnet out a great number of traditional flicks. But most of the dogme films have been quite successfull, and many non-dogme film makers have got inspiration of them.
I welcome this idea, and look forward to seeing the results, also in other games...
In Murphy We Turst
This was posted to MUD-Dev a while back.
Frank Crowell wrote:
> The other interesting one has to do with "no man-made black" except
> for ink. So I looked around my house with the intention of "poofing"
> everything that is man-made and black. Black cat survived, but I lost
> some computer and stereo equipment. Fortunately my car is blue but I
> will use this technique to get a parking space. For a few things I
> had to look very closely -- I mean is black only "000000"?
I replied:
heh. I think this is probably his best rule, despite its
inapplicability in RL. It is hard to draw, shade, and light black
things. Note that you can still use black for shadows (as long as
they are safe or non-fictional shadows). Except for possibly this one
rule, The Sims is a Dogma 2001 game.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
They missed the entire point. Though the stated point of the dogme '95 rules were to get the junk out of movies, the rules themselves are generic, sweeping. "handheld only." period. not "There shall be no knights, elves, dwarves or dragons. Nor shall there be any wizards, wenches, bards, bartenders, golems, giants, clerics, necromancers, thieves, gods, angels, demons, sorceresses, undead bodies or body parts (mummified or decaying), Nazis, Russians, spies, mercenaries, space marines, stormtroopers, star pilots, humanoid robots, evil geniuses, mad scientists, or carnivorous aliens. And no freakin' vampires." Why not say "the game may not take place in a fantasy universe" or something like that.
t in uum.zip
This is of course avoiding the problem with every one of these rules. The dogma rules were trying to regain some mythical past when men were men, and movies were pure. (which is bullshit, but that's another rant). The rules for "dogma 2001" can be summed up thusly:
1. expensive hardware break my piggy bank.
2. hardware isn't getting cheaper
3. my mom won't buy me new hardware.
4. cliches are cheap and stupid
5. cliches suck.
6. superfluous stuff is superfluous
7. violence is bad, congress says so. it's also cliche in games.
8. cliches are still stupid
9. I think games should be like real life.
10.random pet peeve / cliche
A true set of "pure" rules would be much simpler:
1. The game should not require the user to buy new hardware to play it. an X year-old machine should be adequet.
2. Cliches and genres are to be avoided. They are cheap and overwrought. Innovative uses and twists on cliches that confound the player's expectation are permissable.
3. There should be no superfluous content. The game should contain no more than is necessary to play.
that's it. I don't believe violence is to be avoided, mostly because it's damn exciting and makes for a fun game. It is, however, overused and thus falls in to the cliche category.
Keep in mind I think the original dogma rules were totally off the mark. Cinema is an artificial construction no matter how wobbly the camera is. Games definately need a shot in the arm, and hopefully they'll get it.
ps, Continuum is still the best Dogma Ywwg game ever made... it has been posted to freenet if you want to check it out.
freenet:KSK@/software/abandonware/dos/games/Con
I've been working on an online multiplayer game on and off for the past year. It's not playable yet, and it's not flashy, but I think it could be interesting. Email me if you want :)
If this guy had his way:
:)
We wouldn't have Q3. For that matter, we wouldn't have Doom. All you FPS junkies would be making do with Wolfenstein3d.
We wouldn't have Everquest or Diablo II. I'm not certain, but I think that means all my friends would be hooked on smack, instead.
We wouldn't have ANY Mario game after the first. (Well, maybe Mario 2, but who'd miss it?) Although I will agree that the whole Mario thing has been pushed waaaaay beyond reason, I can't imagine never having played SMB3. My NES wouldn't have been the same.
We wouldn't have any Castlevania games. I'm playing Symphony of the Dark right now (again). One of the best games ever, IMHO.
Basically, what I'm getting at here is, this guy has made up a bunch of rules to try to get rid of all the crap games, without thinking about the impact on the good games. (But I'll grant that that is in line with what the original Dogme did.) A better approach would be "Don't buy crappy games." I'll take that vow right now. Let the designers make whatever they want. If it sucks, it'll come back to them, and (hopefully) they'll learn.
Why? Because the art of film is not the drama. Take away the auteurist director, the interesting camera work, and the other "trappings" they are hoping to avoid, and you are left with a stage play, shot on location with a souped-up camcorder. No thanks!
Likewise with gaming... The best 3D games are the ones that are emersive. I can lose myself in a low-G Quake deathmatch, and imagine myself drifting through the air in a wide, parabolic art, emptying my shotgun at my enemy. It's magical and dreamlike. Take away the "death animation" and replace it with something less real-looking, and your diminish the experience.
That said, I applaud this guys effort to urge more creative genre choiced.
The most fun solo FPS I ever played was Outlaws by LucasArts. Nobody makes westerns into computer games, but they did it, and did a great job at it. I felt just like John Wayne when I walked through the middle of town with a rifle in my hands, just like Clint Eastwood when I lit dynamite sticks with my cigar, just like Buster Keaton as I was leaping from one train car to the next, and just like Robert Redford every time I ducked behind the corner of some saloon to reload my revolver.
While I don't know if anybody should bother to follow these guidelines too cloesely, every game designer should read this manefesto just for the ideas it might give you. Here's a few that came to mind for me:
CHARIOTEER: horse racing in the Roman Colleseum.
MED-EVAC: play an unarmed medic who must enter battlefilds to reach wounded soldiers to bandage their wounds and get them on a vehicle to the MASH unit.
TIMBER TYCOON: Buy and manage forest land to produce wood for lumber yards and paper mills. Clear-cut enough to make a profit, but don't attract attention from the environmentalists, or they will spike trees and pull other stunts that could injure your logging crew and/or slow down production.
MARS MISSION: You have the required propulsion and life-support technology for a manned mission to Mars. Using actual orbit maps, plan a mission for the next available launch window and fly it. (A later expansion pack could involve building a sim space station.)
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I understand that the point of Dogma2001 is to focus on the creativity and break corporate paradigms, but I dont believe that putting bounds on what you can do will necessarily guarentee creative success. Stale games are stale games. And avoiding stale aspects is always a challenge to a game maker.
Suppose Dogma2001 caught on and a game came out in the order of magnitude as the original Lemmings. It's always a wonderful thing when someone pulls off a creatively successful game, but soon that too will be stale because of endless clones. Now what? I think the real Dogma2001 should be to have a personal goal for creative success no matter what it may be.
This can relate to just about anything you want to succeed at.
FUNK!
Just as with movies, television, board games, books, or any other form of entertainment, any attempt on the part of the "creatives" (writers, artists, programmers, et. al.) to define some sort of spectrum of acceptability is doomed to failure.
One, the creatives don't hold the purse strings, and the marketing people and various VPs of this and that are really the ones in control.
Two, even if the creatives did have control and could stipulate exactly how their games are developed and what hardware/software they're targeted for, the artificiality of a set of deterministic rules for the act of creating entertainment is doomed to fail.
I could see these rules being applied, but in a different way. If the VPs actually grokked the concept, some bold company might actually decide to go after a broader slice of the market by deliberately aiming their games at a stable platform that wouldn't require constant hardware and OS upgrades.
The bottom line is always money, and the folks who hold the pursestrings will only agree to change their habits when it offers them the promise of increased profits.
Don't get disheartened, though. Creativity has a way of seeping past constraints. For example, if you haven't seen it yet, check out A-Sharp's King of Dragon Pass, which is an excellent example of innovation in gaming.
The best way to encourage innovation in gaming is to vote with your pocketbooks, because that's what the game companies will understand.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
The film vow was to give up gimmicks that are now substituting for plots. They were not required to give up genres: drama, comedy, science fiction, fantasy, fiction, or nonfiction. Yet the article suggests we give up genres. I'd love to see a new genre, but I currently don't have the creative energy to create one. It's a monumental task to give up all genres and create a new one. I'd settle for retiring hackneyed genres, like 3-D shooters, for awhile.
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So, 99% of games released now are crap. 99% of games released for Atari were crap. 99% of everything is crap! Ignore that 99%, you're not going to get rid of it.
There are still some absolutely terrific games coming out all the time. Including plenty of new 2D games.
No set of rules is going to make lousy game developers make great games, and it's damned hard to keep truly original game developers from somehow releasing their innovations.
Also, people rarely get things right the first time. Derivative works tend to be better than completely original ones. There's been a more-or-less smooth progression from Rogue to the newest unbelieveably cool RPGs, each borrowing heavily from the last generation.
Just as accepting the limited technology of a platform gives you freedom within it, accepting the limits and cliches of a genre gives you a base on which to build your own contribution.
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