Game Originality: Any Left?

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?"

Comments

If only a few people like your game...

[BgJonson79]

No matter how good it is, it's not going to sell. A certain degree of conformity is necessary. That said, I'm sure there are people out there who are clearly smart enough to be able to combine A Good Time (TM) with Something New (TM) that Everyone Can Enjoy (SM).

Re:If only a few people like your game...

[bigjocker]

The problem is that the industry has reached such a highly commercial and competitive level that it's almost imposible (and getting worse all the time) for small companies to enter the business.

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...

[KrispyKringle]

In this respect, video games are a lot like expensive hollywook blockbusters. The amount of money that goes into production is prohibitive for small art-house flicks (or games). Those who shell out the money would rather invest in something tried and true than something scary and new. Perhaps even more a factor, the tastes of the market tend to be pretty bland and repetetive. People don't necessarily want something new, or at least, what they want to be new isn't predictable enough to spawn much investment in new things.

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...

[Mac Degger]

It's more the complexity and cost that is the barrier to entree and the damper on innovation.

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...

[iocat]

Actually things *aren't* like Hollywood in that respect. Right now, there is a market for AAA games, which correspond to Hollywood blockbusters. And there are markets for B games (think Trailer Park Tycoon, etc), kids games, and very niche games (thing hex-based, turn-based war games), which correspond to Hollywood B movies, Hollywood kids' movies, and Hollywood niche movies.

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...

[Computer!]

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.

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.

The originality is in how...

[craenor]

You tell the story, not in the story itself. The works of Shakespeare have been re-imagined for hundreds of years now. Hollywood has been retelling the same stories for a century.

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...

Stop Complaining

[rwiedower]

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

[Alkaiser]

Wrong.

"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.

There's always originality.

[JKConsult]

You just have to look for it. I'm not going to post a long list of original games, for a few reasons. One: the list will be nit-picked incessantly, and that's not really the piont, and Two: What I consider original, you may not. The point is that just like buying a car, or watching a movie, or choosing a book, you just have to separate the wheat from the chaff. Is there less originality in games now than there was X number of years ago? Yes. It's a fact of any developing system. Stephen Jay Gould says (paraphrase) that "As a system matures, it becomes harder to stand out."

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?

[DogIsMyCoprocessor]

In every field of human endeavor the work done is 99% derivative, and it has always been that way. Look at writing, music, film, science, hell, look at software in general. The truly original works stand out, so we tend to think they are more common than they actually are.

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.

Quantity

[stratjakt]

The Dreamcast didnt die because gamers dont like innovative games. Some chalk it up to its easy no-mod-needed piracy, though I doubt even that had much of an effect, being prohibitave to the mainstream non-techie gamer.

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.

What else is new?

[EReidJ]

We have this problem in every entertainment industry. He talks about it as if it's something unique to video games. Look at the one industry he tries to compare it to, movies:

> 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.

I would be inclined to agree...

[AtaruMoroboshi]

It seems to me that a lot of the games I find myself most into get attacked for being different.

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.

.

Re:Dreamcast

[Babbster]

Also done in by the fact that people weren't buying games for the system, instead doing things with NES emulators, Sega Master System emulators, VCD playing and game piracy.

Think of the tired Film Analogy

[thatguywhoiam]

The way I see it, video games are in an era right now comparable to the state of cinema in the 20s and 30s. We've figured out the basic language of the format, and are only now starting to wade into the deeper waters of narrative-driven game-creation technique.

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:Dreamcast

[aliens]

True piracy was a concern, but originals always ran a bit better and smoother I thought.

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.

Finally, somebody recognizes the Dreamcast...

[wumarkus420]

I have felt the exact same way about DC and PS2. When the DC came out, it seemed that every week, some completely original game would be released. Remember Seaman? Where you spoke to the artificial fish through a special microphone? Or the way Space Channel 5 gave a new spin on the memory type games (no, it was very different than Parappa). Or Soul Calibur, the best fighting game ever released (yes, it pwns Tekken). The list goes on and on - the mentioned Shenmue and Jet Set Radio... some memorable RPG's, great multiplayer games, sports games that quickly rivaled anything that the lame EA franchises have come up with, Crazy Taxi, the innovative Samba de Amigo with REAL maracas (yes I have a pair, and it's fun)... Virtual Tennis, the best tennis game EVER made, Phantasy Star Online, one of my favorite online RPG's (not massively-multiplayer), which had FULL support for ethernet connections, including a great port of Quake 3 Arena, with an easy to use DC mouse and keyboard to go with it! The accessories were also as innovative as the games.

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.

innovation = Easy to say, difficult to do

[master_p]

I have two friends that I know back from the university. We are always in discussion of our next gaming project. Well, we have not been able to make anything!!! anytime we started, we found out that someone else has done the same before us!!!

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.

Games that make you smarter

[Phoenix666]

I have thought about this a lot, being horribly addicted to video games and having woken up at the end of many a fourteen hour binge feeling empty like I had wasted precious life. Boy wouldn't it be great to become completely immersed in a game at the end of which you wound up speaking fluent Chinese or having acquired some other skill useful in the real world? I know that there are plenty of kids' learning games out there to teach phonics and stuff like that, but that's not what I'm talking about. Those are too pedantic.

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.