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Creativity, a Problem for the Gaming Industry?
Steeda95GT writes "A Reuters story reprinted at Forbes.com is an interesting read, saying that 'The gaming industry will shrink unless we start to see new games'. It talks about how the ratio of original titles to sequels is dropping dramatically, but it also goes on to say that upcoming sequels (Doom 3, Halo 2, Half-Life 2, GTA: San Andreas) will be successful only because their predecessors were."
No, its guts. Guts to try new things to break away from what is known in games, to produce the kind of games that new customers really want. The market is what you make it.
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
The big companies aren't willing to take any risks. That's why there is GarageGames.
originality and creativity when repackaging the same game and slapping a subtitle on it will rake in millions? The Sims comes to my mind...GTA is in a similar boat in my mind...
Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. -Martin Luther
The end of the internet and the descent of the gaming industry into an uncreative apocalyspe has been forseen at least 2-3 times every year for the last 20 years. It's time to accept the instability but long living state of both industries and move on with our lives.
And also companies like EA (Sierra).
Tribes died, WIng Commanders, UO, etc, etc. It's all charts, numbers, and rehashing as opposed to highly motivated developers and a creative team.
But it is not just EA chasing after proven material. Upcoming titles such as "Halo 2," "Half-Life 2," "Doom III" and "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" are all expected to top sales charts this year, in large part because the games that preceded them were so successful.
Sure this will get them noticed more, but if the games don't have innovative graphics and gameplay, the popularity of the previous titles is not going to mean shit.
Does that mean that gaming industry for Macs is doubly threatened? (death of Apple first, then death of games)
The movie industry seems to be doing just fine on sequels, I think the game industry will be fine though.
And just for the record, no I didn't read the article.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
I don't think the sequels will be succussful because of the originals, i think they will be successful because the simple fact that they are entertaining! People may initially buy a game because its a sequel to a game they loved, but if the reaction to the sequel is negative, word spreads and the game doesn't sell. Its very simple economics, the sequels must be as good (and in many cases better than) the original or there's no profit to be had.
"Anything that's invented after you're 35 is against the natural order of things" - Douglas Adams
Successful only because their predecessors were? Thats certainly a backwards way of looking at it. They're successful because they kept doing (and by expanding upon) what made their predecessors good games.
They may not be original, but that certainly doesn't mean they won't be fun, which is what gaming's supposed to be about. Why reinvent the wheel when you know what people like?
Mod point free since 2001
To reply, you must answer the following question:
What is the 11th word in the seventh paragraph on the first page of this article?
David Wong predicts! Said article.
Sorry, Sam & Max's cancellation is still upseting me. http://www.savesamandmax.com Nothing wrong with sequels. GTA3 was vastly better than GTA1 and 2. Just because it's a sequel doesn't mean it isn't going to be creative. Just think about the amount of Final Fantasy games, or a lot of the Nintendo games. Pretty much every incarnarnation of Mario has been very creative and original. I think part of the problem may be piracy and the fact that the top selling games like Half-Life sell an ungodly amount of copies more than other solid selling FPS games like No One Lives Forever. Thus, people copy what sells big, not what works.
Analysts have been saying the same thing about Hollywood for 20 years, but every year the box office is consistently bigger than the last (and rising faster than inflation) -- and much of that is powered by sequels. In 2003, 6 of the top 10 grossing movies were sequels. And when Hollywood is short on sequels, they recycle old ideas -- Spider-Man was the #1 film of 2002, and it's free to spawn more sequels anew.
Bottom line: Creativity has been floundering for a long time, but people keep buying games, keep watching TV, keep going to the movies. Businesspeople would be fools to abandon a known quantity (the revenues of any sequel are easily predictable) in favor of new stories and fresh faces, not matter how much some of us would love to see them. To think that people will suddenly stop buying games because they're all sequels is silly; gamers really have no choice except not to play... and only in WarGames/I. is that a real option.
filmcritic.com - Movie reviews on Internet time
I hope Doom 3 will be able to stand out on its own, even without the support of its line of predecessors, but even if it turns out to be "just another sequel" as far as plot and gameplay, lets not forget its merit as a techdemo. Many of the games on the market today are based on id's engines, and even if Doom 3 itself is not the great game we are hoping for, the technology behind it will undoubtedly power at least a few great games to come. Aside from that point though, I would have to agree: the game market is becoming saturated with copycat and sequel titles. What the game market needs is not more games, but more focus on creating innovative new gameplay. Case in point: I still waste a few hours every few months playing the original Pitfall just for the fun of it. Now who can say that for most of these modern FPS, RTS, or MMORPG formula games?
The same 30 or so basic plots have been recycled in Hollywood for past 100 years. I'm sure the video game industry will survive just the same.
>upcoming sequels (Doom 3, Halo 2, Half-Life 2, GTA: San Andreas) will be successful only because their predecessors were
the fact that the originals were successful suggests the designers did something right. so what does it mean that they will *ONLY* be successful because their predecessors were?
in other news: "$team won the $league, but only because they beat all their opponents"
the only thing they might mean is that the games suck but they will still succeed on hype, but how the f*ck can they say that when they aren't even anywhere near release date yet?
I think Half-Life 2 will be successful not purely on its name. Half-Life had no name to begin with, and the company that made it had no prior history. That was their first game, and it became one of the most successful games in history. They've had time to learn from their mistakes and do cool new things in this game.
Halo 2 I know nothing about. I have no interest in it since it will probably be an Xbox-only title, so perhaps someone here who finds Xbox interesting can give us some insight on the potential technical innovations for that game.
GTA: San Andreas. How can you make a statement one way or the other on this one at this point in time? They have yet to release any actual information on the game yet. We haven't seen any screenshots or feature lists or anything. If they're knocking the possibility of innovation based purely upon its name, then let's take a trip down memory lane and remember the differences between GTA and GTA2.. then GTA2 and GTA3 (clearly the biggest difference), then GTA3 to Vice City (not really a huge difference technically, but I think the gameplay was much improved and it was even more fun than GTA3 for most people). Anyway, the point is that without any information about what GTA:SA will be like, you have no room to knock it at all. They may have expanded this game to be a fucking huge region instead of a single city.
I think that Doom 3 doesn't really fall into the catagory of the other games.
1) Doom 3 is retro. The last Doom game came out while I was still in high school.
2) Doom 3 is a significant advance over the last sequel. It's not just new levels.
Saying Doom 3 is just a sequel is like saying Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was just a sequel. There's no comparison.
Still, I think that companies will start coming out with more creative games soon. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised of LARPing became the next big thing, and games that are offshoots of RPGs became bigger, such as the White-Wolf titles, only with more roleplay.
"The ratio of original titles to sequels is dropping dramatically," said Ryoichi Hasegawa,
"We have to think very carefully about the type of audience we're reaching with our games," Andrew House,
These two quotes sum it up perfectly.
It's not that new, original, refreshing mechanics of gameplay aren't -- it's that they're not what's marketable. By far, the largest chunk of the gaming public is that which loves sports games, racing games, FPS's, and traditional RPGs.
Games like those can only deviate from their core gameplay so much before they stop appealing to that chunk. Furthermore, it's not just about mechanics, but style. Except for RPGs, nitty-gritty "realism" is what dominates; just look at Need for Speed, Project Gotham, Unreal Tournament, Halo, Madden. That style dominates and will continue to dominate until a large-scale shift in gaming culture happens, something on the scale of the transition from 2D SNES cuteness to grim-and-cool 3D PlayStation.
What of titles like Pikmin, Fusion Frenzy, Cubivore, or that one game where you go down tunnels and match up music with what's written on the walls? Marginalized, utterly marginalized. They are all fantastic games -- and had they come out during the golden age, the '70s and '80s, when game mechanics were just beginning to be explored and there were very few established norms, they might have become classics.
The coolest voice ever.
I don't know about you, but the reason I bought the XBox was for Halo.
Morrowind to a lesser degree, as well.
You know, video games are going the same way as radio -- more and more of the same crap, over and over and over again. No one wants to give anything new a chance, even though there's plenty of new stuff out there. The only difference is, I don't know that there's been much of a change in the corporate ownership structure in the video game industry like there has been in radio (i.e. the ClearChannel takeover). But then again, I suppose there wasn't much in the way of diversity in video game companies to start with, was there?
::Sigh::...if only companies weren't so damn risk-averse, maybe society could progress a bit.
The saddest thing about it is, if there were ever a new game that did what, say, Legend of Zelda did back in the 80's, the company that put it out could make zillions. It's not like they'd lose much putting out crappy stuff meanwhile, either.
How To Get Humans To Mars
Recently I just picked up Disgaea for PS2. I read a few reviews on it, and PA seemed enthralled by it, but I couldn't justify the full $50 GameStop insisted I pay. I mulled it for months, and finally decided why not and included it in a stack of games I bought.
I seriously regret having put it off for months.
The story, though fairly basic, is sometimes downright hilarious. There were three times where I seriously had to contain myself, and throughout the rest of the plot there are many of chuckles. A lot of things are simply said in the dialogue that really came out of left field. And it all comes through with great anime style, and quality voice acting. This is akin to the "Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail" of tactical RPGs.
There's a lot of hidden things to explore. The demon senate concept is amusing to say the least, though I haven't managed to persuade any senators by force yet. The item world is ridiculous, and turns the game into a FF Tactics meets Dungeon Crawl concept since its always different, and I end up with all sorts of crazy items if I survive.
And the core game itself? Pretty good. I'm 9 chapters in after about 30 hours, and have a feeling it'll be 60 hours before I just beat the core game -- but they're going by as fast as they did for the original FF Tactics. Nevermind the fact the game supposedly has a ton of different endings, and that I could spend forever leveling up to level 9999, getting all sorts of insane items and ridiculous looking attacks, etc.
Yet, good luck finding it. 14 stores and one had two in stock. I'm sure this was a low-volume venture by Atlus here in the states. I've thoroughly enjoyed it, but most folks haven't even heard of it. Which is a shame.
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If they didn't have to risk $50 a pop on a new and innovative title they might not like. This is why genres are so important [and frustrating] in the publishing industry. Both the consumer and publisher want a known commodity. Grand Theft Tony Hawk Pro Simmer 12 will always get the greenlight quicker than something people haven't tried before.
I think that's why web-delivered games are getting to be a lot like the independent film scene. They cost much less to produce and distribute than console or PC-specific games so developers and designers can experiment more. Also, consumers expect more risks.
For example, in the console market people will buy up racing & football sequels where the only changes are new stats and color schemes. On the other hand, sites that offer only "look I made a clone of that other game but in FLASH" fare tend not to do well.
A game does not have to be "new and different" to be good. If it ain't broke don't fix it.
I think that certain sequels like Grand Tursimo 3, Soul Calibur II, GTA3 etc. are better than many of the so called creative games.
Not to mention that many sequels are very new and diffrent and have very little in common with the previous titles other than the name.
Games are currently outdoing the movie industry in sales....so games are dead, long live games.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
I don't think the lack of creativity is a problem. I mean, sure, we've seen a lot of sequels lately, but also some really creative games. Paging through the reviews in my most recent EGM reveals Ninja Gaiden, Eye Toy: Groove, Breakdown, and a hole ton of other creative games. About half of the games were sequels, which is a bit much, but nothing to freak out about. Also, recently, we've seen a TON of really innovative games, and we're beginning to see sequels to them. Splinter Cell comes to mind, along with Wario Ware. GTA3 was exceptionally inovative, too. Thing is, with a lot of innovative games, nobody buys them. I love Animal Crossing, and its in a genre by itself, but it didn't sell too well, and Nintendo certainly promoted it a lot. That's not much motivation for companies to make innovative, fresh games, now is it?
There is a *ton* of interesting, original and cheap independent games out there. The small indy developers are the only ones that can afford to take risks on originality in games.
So before you complain about the lack of originality in games, open your sodding eyes for once and look past the big publishers.
This just in: the CPU industry is going to die unless they make round chips instead of the square ones. More details after the news @ 11.
Your categories are super broad, which helps. If I read it correctly, games like:
all platformers (Ratchet & Clank, etc.)
all sports games (SSX Tricky, etc.)
all strategy games (Civilization, Dominions 2, etc.)
all flight sims
all real time strategy (Warcraft, Age of Empries, etc.)
all CRPG's (Morrowind, Star Wars KOTOR)
all MMOG's (Everquest, etc.)
all fit into your "third person" category.
These games are even genre spanning like Thief, System Shock, etc.
That's quite a bit of diversity which gets all glommed over in your category system.
And why were the predecessors popular? Because they offered what people liked. Half-Life grew in popularity not because of hype but because of how fun it was. Same with Doom, and the GTA series.
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Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
in Nintendo...
seriously, we need Nintendo to start making up games again - just like back in the day...
wait a minute...
Actually, now that I think about it, the whole concept behind an Italian plumber and his brother fighting an evil turtle with spikes (ok, its a
"Koopa") to save Toadstools (mushrooms) and a really hot cartoon chick of a princess really by eating fireplants and shooting fireballs, and sprouting a racoons tail and ears to fly does make me wonder what they were doing when they came up with that concept....
(Of course, then again you have to wonder about the Ninja Turtles, Sonic [a flying fox?, a superfast hedgehog?], Power Rangers, etc... Pokemon I can kinda understand, as uhm, they're kinda a pet thing...)
Try not to let life get in the way of living.
'The gaming industry will shrink unless we start to see new games'.
*drawing his sword*
I DUB THEE SIR FUCKING OF THE OBVIOUS!
This is not 100% true. Midway's trying to break away from the mold this year- check out their upcoming titles. The Suffering just came out- yes, the survival horror genre is a bit tired, but this one is at least trying to differentiate itself by being more action-oriented, having a branching plotline, other characters to interact with, meaningful decisions to make, etc.
:). But, seriously, it is a new IP with a completely new idea and (especially) a completely new play mechanic. There is no other game out there that plays like Telekenisis (the primary weapon in this game) plays. The closest thing I've seen is HL2's "magnet gun", but that is more of an engine show-off gimmick than an actual gameplay element.
Ballers is coming up soon- I've played it, and I can say it's like no other game I've really played before- like the previews keep saying, it plays like a fighting game/basketball hybrid of some sort.
And, last but certainly not least- coming up later in the year is Psi-Ops, which (ahem) is going to be fantastic
Anyway, point being it makes me sad to see this constant claim of no innovation in the industry when I feel like there are people out there trying to innovate. It's not their faul that, at the end of the day, innovation may not actually be what the public wants!
Nothing to see here.
Duke Nukem Forever is at least just as close to come out as some of these... :)
To do list for Windows
This thread dates from 1989 and contains the phrase "Imminent death of net predicted" at least 6 times, with the first one appearing not long after the creation of Usenet. "Imminent death of net predicted" had a long and possible proud run.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Enjoy some context (not intended as a criticism). Part of the reason is demographic trends and part of the reason is financial. The ideas in the article seem to support a shift to creativity as discussed in an article with some game industry experts last year.
Yeah, cause Japan isn't guilty of churning out sequels...
Mario
Zelda
Metroid
Sonic
Street Fighter
King Of Fighters
Pokemon (hell this year they are just re-releasing Red/Blue!)
Final Fantasy
Metal Gear
I could go on, but the point stands. And I'm tired of typing for today. Silly AC.
And you, sir, can shell out $50 for a copy of "Stick up your Ass (Platinum Edition)."
What you talk about is people, probably like yourself, who cast their opinions on people (vocally) based on what they play. Sadly, you and people like you are full of shit.
Tokimeki Memorial and Sentimental Grafitti are more like your "Never Been Laid: 2003" than Sakura Wars is. Never played those but then I don't care to.
Sakura wars plays out more like an anime than a relationship sim. Unforunately people like you short circuit the thinking process and judge the game without experience (I think they call that predjudice, you might be familiar with the concept.)
This is another reason creativity and diversity in games is stunted in the US and Europe. People simply refuse to consider things outside your average blood and guts action games, RPGs, Sports, Racing, and Puzzle games.
I could think of many others. There are some that have another reason (for example many rythum games don't do too well in the US), but many were just great games that didn't do to well. I think a big part of the problem is that many parents buy games. So why risk their $50 or $60 on something the kid might not like when they know the kid has GTA3 or NBA 2k3 or some other game and they can just buy the sequel and the kid will almost certainly like it (even though it might not be that great).
There are many games out there, and many are fun. But personally I don't buy very many games (innovative or not). There are games that I've played and then thought "I wish I bought that", but I'm not going to because I've already beat the game. But far Far FAR more often the game wasn't that good (or terrible) or it was just short. I can't afford to take the chance to buy games. If games were $30, I would buy more, but a $60 for a new game you've got to be kidding me if you think I'll buy any games that look interesting. I think this is proven by the fact that I have about 5x as many GB/GBA games as most other consoles. Losing $25 or $30 on a game that looked fun (FF: Tactics was nice, but just not for me) isn't so bad. But if the games cost more, I wouldn't buy very many.
Sequels aren't always bad. Some are very innovative or really improve things (think GTA3 vs GTA2). As you can see above I'm eargly awaiting the sequels to many games. The problem is that some games get a sequel. Then they get another and another and before you know it you're on volume 10 of about the same thing. (Final Fantasy games don't count because each one is different, they're not true sequels (except X-2, which is almost "non-sequel" in it's own right)).
The end result of all this (and I think moving away from the razor blade model of video games would REALLY help) is that we get mostly sequels and remakes/collections and such.
I can't afford to take risks on innovative games. Of those above, I own Animal Crossing (because I rented it and got addicted to it and bought it) and Pikmin (because it looked fun and I trust Miyamoto). It's too risky.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
What, you never found the town portal scrolls in Grim Fandango? They really help in the final battle against the Infected Kerrigan.
Freedom: "I won't!"
Readers might find this study of games on the GBA interesting. It has its flaws (discussed in the article itself, as well as further in the comments) but shows that at least one platform is a huge magnet for sequel/rehash/ports, namely the GBA. I suspect, but haven't investigated for specifics, that other platforms since the Atari 2600 (or thereabouts) are similar.
To tie it into a "shrinking market" angle, I think that the size of the GBA installed base says that, at least at some level, there is a huge sector of the public willing to eat crap and call it great. Judging from the ongoing poor level of quality in all other media for as long as anyone can remember, it seems that this sector of the public is here permanently and thus there will always be a huge market for drivel. Oh well.
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
As someone that just left the game industry for the second time - this time 'cause I got tired of looking for a job that didn't require a minimum of 80 hour weeks working on either a n-th generation sequel or a game that tried to differentiate itself through pushing the gore / splatter level:
The problem is with the people FUNDING the game industry. The independent shops are being swallowed by companies that have made loads of cash getting away with pumping out sequels that have only minor engine improvements. This sucks, but worked for a while in a few profitable genres. Many companies that tried to push it died after too many generations (I used to work at Accolade, that's part of what killed them...)
Unfortunately, people that funds games look at this seeming no-risk model, and refuse to fund anything that doesn't look like the same. They all want you to license an existing engine, and make a game that can be described in a single sentence as {profitable game A } crossed with {profitable game B.}
If you don't follow this model, you don't get funds.
As a related point, there are WAY too many companies in the industry for the amount of shelf space available, and the big players BUY shelf space, so its nearly impossible to compete anyway without cutting a deal with an existing major distributor. Want to do that? Guess what, you have to change your game to follow the same model as everyone else.
In the mean time, the EA's and Sony's of the world are pushing their developers harder and harder - they've currently got a surplus of available headcounts to replace all the burnt out ones with...
The industry needs more "angel" funders. But in this economy...
Consider that men have been going to bars, drinking too much and going home with ugly women for thousands of years. (The oldest known human recipe is a Mesopotamian recipe for beer) Obviously humans can do what they like indefinately, even if they regret it the next morning.
Big publishers go through several steps when launching a new title. They do market analysis, competitive product comparisons, greenlight sessions, profit and loss statements and so on. Basically, lots and lots of paperwork that mostly tries to compare the new product against already existing titles. It's easier that way.
How do most game concepts start? "Super Killer Frenzy Shooter is a cross between Quarter-Life 3 and ReallyFarOutCry, with an RTS component based on..." Even game developers are constantly comparing games to other games by saying this is a little of that, and a little of this, or just like game X but with feature Y. I can only imagine that other creative industries do the same (movies come to mind.)
This is not just the way big publishers do business. A lot of pitches I've seen from smaller developers include how they are different or better than a list of already released games. Mostly popular games.
Most game companies are out to make money. Usually so they can continue to make games and not end up on the dole. So, we tend to look at what is popular and selling. It's very risky, especially with the game development budgets these days, to try something brand new. It still happens, it just doesn't happen as much as the early 8-bit days when it was literally one guy in the garage doing all the design, coding and art. Unless you look at the shareware, PDA and demo scenes where small teams and individuals are still making games there.
Sequels are popular with publishers because a) they tend to cost less to develop since you can use assets/engines/design from the first game, b) if the first game was popular, the sequel _usually_ sells well unless it's a bad game, c) you can get more press since you don't have to sell the magazines on a completely brand new concept that they are not sure will appeal to their market and d) you find it easier to get "buy-in" from your internal sales and marketing staff when dealing with a known property.
I don't think the games industry is non-creative, but we've definitely matured and tend to take less risks overall. Sequels and derivitive products are a way of reducing that risk.
The basic problem is the one we discovered in the early days of virtual reality - no matter how good the graphics get, all you can really do in there is move around, shoot stuff, point at stuff, and select things from menus.
Isn't the reason there's more sequels that there's more games?
Like, the number of new games showing up is constant, but besides them, more sequels appear?
I wouldn't be too surprised. Creativity not waning, but not growing either, market growing seriously, gap between market growth and available creativity filled with sequels. Nothing to really worry about.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
When was the last time that hollywood didn't go for a remake or a further installment of a previously successful franchise?
...
Those of us in the real world are getting a lot more milage from watching euro films and the like. At least they have story tellers willing to be an original voice
what the gaming industry needs is a genre-defining game. something that breaks open a whole new gaming motif like doom and sim city and warcraft did.
IIRC, it was Dune2 and not warcraft that did the genre-defining in the area of RTS. Dune2 was a single-player RTS and I remember being blown away by the game. I believe that soon afterward Command & Conquer came out (made by Westwood, the people who produced Dune2), and Warcraft close to that. I could be wrong - is anyone here motivated enough to look up the release dates?
Magnatune: Quality (DRM-free) MP3/FLAC/
sex games havent been explored much, a little in the past on some amigas by hackers etc... but nothing major, perhaps because they are scared to be in that industry, but they can always use a subsidery to hide in.
Specific porn people might enchance their Dvd interactiveness to the max, or make some PC based game, but nothing massive.
But most games are based on some real life event, unless its a puzzle wierd game like tetris.
So until we develop some insane AI that thinks like a 12 year old, we are doing still the normal thing, 'simming' real life with art.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I agree. Theres little innovation now in the Action, Racing or Sports genres - but the RPG genre allows for alot more creativity.
Heck, flying around in a helicopter dodging gunshots gains a whole new meaning when your doing it to plant bombs on a building to lower property prices to help out Avery.
There's an increasingly strong consensus in the games industry that there should be a narrative that goes hand-in-hand with what your doing - I think this will help creativity.
Some sequels represent a rehashing of an old idea with newer technology, sometimes to disasterous effect (Deus Ex: Invisible War, anyone?). Other times, a sequel is a good way for the developer to further flesh out the story, improving upon the previous game and still telling a very compelling story (Max Payne 2).
...oh, wait. LucasArts cancelled that so that they could devote more time and energy to inane and purile Star Wars franchise rehashes.
Still other times you have a "sequel" to something that is so old, that the developers can't help but reimagine it for the current technology, and you have what looks to be a very promising title, such as with the upcoming Sam & Max game...
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Compare that to Warcraft 3, the antithesis of a revolutionary game
Are you trolling here? While WC3 obviously implemented many RTS standards, I would hardly call it the antithesis of revolutionary. The game introduced the concept of Heros - special units that gained levels with battle experience. The various abilities they gained, the items they could purchase and use, the fact that they could be "rebuilt" once they died... these are very innovative concepts for an RTS. And since Heros were given so much power, one was obligated to use them which made them an integral part of the game. RTS is a pretty standard genre at this point, but I would argue that WC3 is a solid, creative implementation.
Magnatune: Quality (DRM-free) MP3/FLAC/
Half-Life 2 is a terrible example of that. If it had been a game no-one had heard of but had the same graphics engine and gameplay mechanics there would be almost as much hype and hoopla around it, I can guarantee that.
I wholeheartedly agree that there nearly isn't enough creativity in the video-game industry. Because it is a mass entertainment medium, the incentive to give the creative people real creative freedom is severely lacking. But also, because video-games are such a mass entertainment media, the laws of market apply to it, i.e. more often than not, a bad game will flop, and a good game will sell, sequel or no sequel. Like with movies. This is what recently happened with, say, Deus Ex 2, which had a lot of hype going for it and a huge fanbase but (even though I loved it) most people didn't like it and it flopped, even though it was a sequel to one of the most critically acclaimed games of the past decade.
That said, there are several other things to take into account.
First of all, what matters in a game isn't the title as much as the gameplay mechanics. In a movie or a book, a sequel implies a lot of things : same characters, same genre, same universe... Of course there are lots of unconventional sequels out there, but in a videogame what is appealing is the gameplay (in the broader sense, i.e. gaming experience, graphics, etc.) more than the characters or the story. Look at a game like The Legend of Zelda : The wind Waker. It's, what, the tenth sequel to one of the most successful franchises in videogame history? And yet wasn't that a very ballsy game? The Wind Waker was a very innovative game in more than one way. A very creative game, no matter how much of a sequel it was. Sams with an other hit console game like Prince of Persia : The Sands of Time. An other adaptation of an old school 2D game into a 3D masterpiece. Boooring you say? No, because even though it's a sequel, there are tons of creativity jammed into it. The gameplay mechanics, the famed rewind, the animation, the level design... The point here is that because videogames rely so much on gameplay mechanics, a sequel is far from meaning an uninnovative or non-creative game.
Very far from it.
The main problem with the videogame industry isn't that there isn't creativity, it's that there is no incentive to give the creative people the creative freedom they require -- much like Hollywood. As long as boring, unimaginative sequels will sell, why should execs look further than boring, unimaginative sequels? I only wish that there was a 'creativity crisis' in the video-game industry. Those things force the people with the big $$$ to take chances, to crop the useless fat out. Look at what happened with television : HBO proved with The Sopranos that a quality TV series could actually make money. Now we see all kinds of great shows pop up all around the place like Six Feet Under, K Street, but not just on cable, with The Shield, CSI, and many more like The Wire, Dead Like Me, and more I'm forgetting. Only a few years back the only reason I kept a TV was out of habit, for DVDs and the occasional documentary or Star Trek. Now I find myself cancelling dates (yes, I can get dates) to watch a great TV show. The problem with the videogame industry is that a good videogame takes a lot of money, and a lot of skills. The time when you could program a game on your Amiga in your bedroom while your brother drew the sprites and made a bad MIDI soundtrack for it is long gone. Once again, why is HL so good? Because they've been working at it since the first one came out! And because Valve hired some of the best programmers they could find! That's what, six/seven years of development and with very talented people. I can only imagine how much money has been invested in this project. And it paid off! The game is fantastic, even before it came out. It's got the best graphical engine anyone has ever seen (John C
Remember that dark brown page with black symbols on it? That thing was hard enough to read even when you have the real copy right in your hands. A friend of my father actually transcribed the whole thing onto graph paper just so he wouldn't have to squint at it in the future. Now that is dedication.
because of the push for 1st person shooters and gorgeous rendered graphics, IMO.
I am in my mid 30s. Most of the games I loved as a teenager are on MAME but don't allow for progression/devlopment - unless you play the sequal, of course.
Precious few computer games of recent memory really engaged me for more than a few days. They were, in no particular order:
1) Civilization II (the king of them all) and III
2) DungeonMaster (a close second from the Amiga, which hit the PC way too late)
3) Ultima III and IV (now I'm really showing my age...).
4) Diablo II and the expansion pack
5) Starcraft and Warcraft III
6) Myst and Siberia
7) uMoria (DOS and GUI).
IMO, these games were either truly innovative or so improved on their predecessor to merit BUYING the game and reccomending it to my friends.
also, IMO arcarde games were moved faster into obscurity by the fact that they focused to heavily on the street fighter genre. This is not to say that street fighter was not a great game because it was, but as time went by these were all I saw in the arcades.
Similarly, when I go into the computer stores today to buy games, I see a clear focus on the 1st person rendered/shooter types to the extent that they appear to be crowding out ideas for other games. Unreal is great fun if your reflexes are great, but snipers picking me off from God-know where just takes the fun out of it for me. Maybe this is the criticism that the article had in mind about few truly innovative game ideas.
Don't get me wrong, there's a lot to be said for gorgeous 3d rendered graphics and visual realism, but that should be the foundation, not the substance of a game.
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uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
Look around...
Why is music repetitive, cliche, formulaic?
Why are motions picture even worse... special effects fodder? Mindless, action packed fantasies, design scientifically to appeal to the male and pimply... in the never ending quest to suck dollars out of young people's pockets.
If anything... the games genre is even more clearly designed to go after that young male demographic, with a second wave of assault aimed at male adults (namely violent games that include some degree of sexually explicit content.)
What has always been at the bottom of human experience is the compelling story, the deep and moving experience, a chance to go, do, be something you might never get the chance of doing or being in this life. A great game, has to first be a compelling story... it has to have a context, which is artful, involving, absorbing. It has to create a viable universe that allows people to discover themselves newly, heroic, or antiheroic. There will always be new and compelling paradigms for human interaction.
One could combine existing game categories creating comletely new game types... one could come up with a new game genre all-together... The interactive novel, you press a button, and suddenly you're part of an interactive, compelling universe, a story driven by actions, choices, and an author's intent. A story that is complex. subtle, mysterious, that demands that you be smart, show finesse, and strength... Or maybe one could create a game which is a puzzle, where a team of players has to take elements, visual, linguistic (programmable code?), or alternately perceptual (music, motion, magic.) And combine them, related them, assemble them into a whole, a creation, a unique solution to the puzzle space. Then in an arena, teams compete, either for the love and appreciation of the spectators, or for some kind of game points... It took only a few seconds to invent something unique... A bright person could spin ideas out all day long... this isn't magic.
People... it's a wide open universe, you can do anything y'damn well please. The limitation of guaranteed profit (the worst kind of fallacy), or get in quick, get out quick, hit and run, sloppy. greedy half-assed attempts to shakedown the lusers, is it's own resolution. In the end, people will just walk away shaking their heads and find something else to do with their time and money.
It's not hard to create something unique. It's not hard to create something compelling and beautiful. It is however impossible to create anything that satisfies the bakers and beancounters, when the first contraint, is to make money without risk...
One more reason, to give people who aren't bound by the profit motive, the tools and space to create new and unique play environments.
Genda
click-clack, front and back. I'm not moving this car otherwise.
Damn, I wish these people would stop crying wolf for once. The gaming industry has doomed for over a decade and now, oh my gosh! It might shrink! Ok, lets break it down for the doomsayer-- Every market goes through phases, which are normally driven by what sells. If FPSs sell in the gaming industry, guess what you'll be seeing a lot of????? GASP! First Person Freakin Shooters!!! Eventially people will get tired of FPS. A new cycle begins. Something else sells. I mean think about it logically, do you think they would continue to make it if people weren't buying???
Come on, people, let's pull out heads out of our short term asses and realize:
-The Gaming Industry isn't doomed
-PC Gaming will not die out because of console competition
-The industry goes through cycles and there's no shortage of creativity
Oh yeah-- We'll be running out of oil in 25 years too.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Nintendo's seemingly endless investment in Pokemon games.
*Phew* I was afraid this was another russian joke...
In russian the game plays YOU!
http://seanism.com/
..just like everything else in business, and it will change when it NEEDS TO. People complain about Microsoft as well for similar reasons. These companies are businesses and will change when it makes a difference in their bank accounts. And that's the bottom line.
:)
Why would you try something new when you're guaranteed to make money on a FPS? They'll try new things when sales dip. As far as I knew, the gaming industry is at an all-time high. Why try and fix that?! Obviously I'm not undermining innovation, but come on, does the music industry lack creativity? NO! But that doesn't mean the creative stuff is on the top 40 every week. They play that shit cause it brings in the dollars. When the same music starts to get tired, they bring in some fresh legs.
Why would Microsoft fix all the bugs in their code when it won't affect the bottom line? What are people going to use instead, Linux? Please. You trying to say Microsoft doesn't think it would be a 'good idea' to fix their bugs? Of course they know, but they've got more profitable things to worry about. (Like X-Box
None of these companies are out there for good will. They're not stupid, and they definitely know the best use for their money. It's just amazing how many articles and posts are about these sorts of things.
Acar
www.PenguinMagic.com
At the IGDA awards, three games were given "Game Innovation Spotlights": the EyeToy, Viewtiful Joe, and WarioWare Inc. All three of these seem quite novel and worthy of the attention.
At the Experimental Gameplay Workshop, both indies and mainstream games were shown. On the indie front, this year's Indie Game Jam games (full disclosure: I co-run this event); Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates; and Zoesis' The Demon and the Princess. On the commercial front, the creator of Namco's Katamari Damashii spoke about and demoed the game ("Was it difficult to convince Namco to let you do this game?" "Of course." was even funnier with the long pause for translation between question and answer); we had presentations about WarioWare and about the explorations of time as a game mechanic (specifically in Prince of Persia, Max Payne 1 & 2, and Viewtiful Joe).
(There were a few more presentations about more academic "games": Ken Perlin's work on natural-language-programming for kids, "Haptic Battle Pong", and I forget what else, as I was developing a fever during the 3-hour EGW.)
The winner of the Indie Games Festival's web downloadable grand prize, Oasis, is a fairly original and creative game (full disclosure: I did contract work for Oasis' developers on a different project), and since this is announced at essentially the same ceremony as the IGDA awards it has a fairly significant cachet.
So I think the Reuters reporters just didn't go to the right events at the GDC.
The story itself has plenty of debatable claims. Are gamers, as the article claims, getting more conservative, or are publishers just getting extremely conservative and releasing more sequels and focusing their marketing dollars there? Hint: nobody debates the truth of the latter.
Why does the gaming industry need a new revolution?
Warcraft III was evolutionary enough to be entertaining. It developed the notion of 'heros gaining experience' for realtime strategy games and all the aspects that went with that. It improved upon the AI. It introduced multi-angle 3d to realtime strategy as far as I know.
Besides, how often has the publishing industry put out 'a new type of book.' Npt too often.
But unless there's some benefit or call for a 'revolutionary' type of game, 'evolutionary' improvements can keep things entertaining for a decade.
Besides, the advantage of 'sequel' games is that people can pick them up quickly and play them with their friends without a huge learning curve. They just need to learn the particulars of the current game. Too much 'revolution' kills the market because it takes too long for many people to learn to play the new game. This means fewer multi-player games, removing a big incentive for folks to buy and a particular game.
I used to test games for Turbo Graphix. I kept telling them they should focus their efforts of making one or two good multi-player games.
With the possible exception of bomber man, and dungeon explorer, they never did.
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It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
The way I see it the video game industry is analgous to the movie industry or music industry in general. In fact, we can group all of these under the heading "Entertainment Industry".
I will use the movie industry as an example and I believe the analogy will become fairly self evident. In the early phases of film making the director had to struggle with many technical issues as the art form was in it's infancy. Low light shots, grey balance, film processing, sound editing and duplication were enormous technical and logistical hurdles. As the technology of this artform became more complex, people involved became specialized in their particular niche of the process. The technical resources are now available to the director without the complete, in depth knowlege of each process. The director is free to focus on his particular job: making the best movie possible. (Please note, I'm not in the entertainment industry, I'm just hoping to make a point here)
A video game, without question, is a form of art and entertainment. I believe that the industry is still in a developing phase. In the beginning, the person programming the game WAS the director. Typically they concieved the game, developed, programmed and had the challenge of overcoming all technical and creative issues. (Relatively few creative issues, I might add [think: pong]).
Now the indusrty is seeing it's split of fields. People are now only responsible for texture mapping 3-d models. Other people work on physics engines. We have been seeing the specialization of technical fields within this industry. My arguement is that this specialization allows for greater creative freedom by those whose job it is to just "make great games".
Lastly, I think there have been a lot of crap games recently, but let's look at why that is. Well, why is it such a high percentage of early movies made are now considered classics? Well, they were good movies, but why? Because the people who made them were professionals and it was expensive to make a movie back then, so they took it seriously. Today, anybody with a DV Camcorder and iMovie can make a film, but how much of the stuff thats churned out is actually worth watching? It's the same with video games, the development and distribution costs of game making has dropped dramatically and the technology to produce games is now as easy as getting a developers kit and a PC.
Any discussion of the current state (or future) of the gaming industry without at least a footnote to the entertainment industries history, I think, is somewhat lacking perspective. I believe the industry is in an acceptable place, given its relatively short history.
Sequels are chosen because they're safer and more prone to make money. PC game publishers are worried because piracy is eating into sales so badly. Consoles are a little safer, particularly the Gamecube.
It's the great unspoken truth that Slashdot won't admit. Rampant game piracy is a problem. Look at all the stupid copy protection we have to go through. It is still insane to expect people to have to put in a game CD every time they play, but publishers make the development teams put them in.
He claimed that the RIAA is claiming that piracy is hurting sales, and then pointed out that their hand-wringing was contradicted by their continued success.
Be that as it may, I believe the grandparent's skepticism is well-founded. "Piracy" (what a terrible term) has -- according to pretty much every study that wasn't commissioned by payments from the major labels (and even a few that were) -- either a negligible or positive affect on sales.
I've never understood Slashdot's reasoning for this.
Well, first of all, -2 points for assuming that all of Slashdot has a single opinion on anything.
If you've never understood the reasoning behind people arguing that sharing a product also being sold doesn't automatically hurt sales, you are apparently unfamiliar with the concept of "advertising". You've also never read any of Janis Ian's or Cory Doctorow's essays on the matter -- two people in a position to actually be able to compare their sales figures before and after.
If you choose to remain ignorant of arguments being presented by either side, that's really not "Slashdot"'s problem.
Let's see how long it takes this post to get modded -1, Troll (although it isn't intended as such).
I don't think the games industry as a whole is in trouble right now, nor do I think there's a lack of innovation. I think last year's big success story in this department was probably the Eye-Toy. If there seems to be less innovation than there was in the late 80s, early 90s, this is largely because there was, quite simply, more that hadn't been done back then. Admittedly, there are some areas where the industry is perhaps overly focussed on sequels and remakes, with Gamecube titles being perhaps the most notable (Mario Sunshine, Resident Evil, Ikaruga, Mario Kart Double Dash, Rogue Squadron 2/3, Zelda etc - although the excellent Eternal Darkness is an honourable exception).
However, while I believe that the last year has been a generally successful one for the games industry and I don't see any reason why the next year shouldn't also be a good one, I do think there is one area of the industry that's in serious danger of fading away. The major console-players will all survive for another generation (trying to predict further ahead than this is foolish), but (and this is where I get modded down), the PC gaming market is in serious trouble.
We're now in the mid-point of the current console cycle. In fact, we're now possibly over half way through it. And yet, while the PC had firmly established itself as the technically dominant platform by this point in the last two console cycles (SNES/Megadrive(Genesis) and PS1/N64), this time around, it just hasn't. Most major PC titles have also appeared on at least one of the major consoles, with the direction of the port varying. Technically, the PC *is* capable of better (more on this later), but developers have been too lazy, too worried about losing money from console ports, or too afraid of technical innovation to unleash this.
I was thoroughly depressed when Call of Duty scooped all the Game of the Year awards last year. Why? It wasn't a bad game... pretty atmospheric and probably the best implementation of its genre to date. But... it used an engine that's now years old and, to be frank, absolutely butt-ugly and it did nothing whatsoever to push back the boundaries of PC gaming (which I think a Game of the Year title should have to). Let's face it... consoles can "do" the Quake 3 engine. They've been able to do it for years and if there isn't a console port of Call of Duty already, then it won't be for technical reasons. If the PC hasn't established its technical dominance, with a good range of games considerably prettier than anything the current console generation can do before the next generation of consoles start appearing, then I think it's finished as a mainstream gaming platform.
If this all sounds a bit bleak... well... it is. But do I think there's hope? Maybe a slight hope. I've been absolutely knocked off my feet by the Farcry demo (will be buying the full game as soon as I get paid this month). I have no doubt that this game's engine goes way beyond anything that any of the current consoles could realistically impersonate. Problem is, it's just one game. Sad though it is to say, if PC gaming is ever to regain its old prestige, developers are going to need to spend the next couple of years focussed on graphics over gameplay (not that I think there's been a particular focus on gameplay on the PC recently). They need, for the love of God, to stop licensing the Quake 3 engine because it's easy to build a quick and dirty game on it and they need to start trying to push back the frontiers a little.
Finally, massively multiplayer comes to GTA. The bad guys are played by players in South Central LA and Medellin, Columbia. You can do actual drug deals in the GTA world. "Live in your world - deal in ours". Now with fully encrypted voice chat.
The first soap opera video game. Online, but requires only occasional dialup, because the pace is so slow. Includes in-game shopping. Astrology option included.
Try to do Karl Rove's job, manipulating the electorate to get Republicans elected. High-scorers win internships at the Heritage Foundation.
Get in touch with your inner sniper. Comes with a light gun that emulates a full-sized sniper rifle. Choice of M-40A1, Dragunov, or H&K G3. A press of a single key turns the game into Deer Hunter, in case right-wing parents come in the room. Includes NRA membership application and one-year subscription to Guns and Ammo.
Tropico for the Islamic world. You're the dictator. Get too oppressive, and there's a revolt. Lighten up too much, and the religious fanatics overthrow you. Can you develop nuclear weapons before the US catches on?
Why just gamble? Run your own online casino. Take bets, pay off bets, make or lose money. All transactions are fully anonymous and are routed through servers in the Bahamas. A Donald Trump popup gives you advice. Screw up, and he bellows "You're Fired", and your machine shuts down.
Now, buy Baby Think It Over, the doll that teaches you how to care for a baby, at a low, low affordable price. Screams when hungry. Screams when diaper needs to be changed. Screams at threshold of pain if treated roughly. Can't be turned off. Uses special disposable single-use diapers, available wherever toys are sold.
Thumpa, thumpa, thumpa, all night long. Set a few sliders, twist a few mix pads, and out comes original house music. Upload your songs to peer-to-peer networks. Subwoofer optional.
They didn't drop the over head perspective. It was one of the perspectives you could choose. It wasn't very good, though, since you can see more when looking forward.
-no broken link
Hmmm... judging by some new titles, game developers too think that guts are the way to go. Lots of 'em, and as realistic as possible.
Don't tell me our kids aren't going to be semi-deranged from the combination of video-games, TV, internet and school environment as they stand at present.
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
laugh out loud argument? most people will not claim that file-sharing is advertising - you're right, that is laughable. instead, the point being made is that an argument against file sharing is that it ABSOLUTELY hurts sales, no question about it. the point about advertising is giving out free samples can encourage sales of a product. it is not necessary to then necessary to immediately assume that file-sharing is the cause of the declining sales. there is no question that sales have declined - that is a fact - but the cause of the decline is questionable. before file-sharing is blamed across the board, other possible causes must be examined, such as: -the "crappy quality" of most RIAA music out there. yes, there is "interesting" stuff being produced on the indie labels, but that is not what you find at best buy, nor is it what you hear on Clear Channel stations. it is generally accepted (at least among my family, among my friends, and in the opinions i have heard and read) that there is declining variety and innovation in mainstream music today. -the price of cd's. i refuse to pay $14.99 for any cd. i consider the RIAA and its record labels to be price-gouging the consumers. i know the RIAA has gotten in trouble before for price fixing. i do not believe that the prices of cd's are not artificially inflated. taken together, these two factors would lead you to believe that people are less willing to shell out as much money as the RIAA wants them to for crappy music. also, ove rhte past several years there has been all this talk about the economy going down the shitter - wouldn't this also just make people more reluctant to pay that much for a cd? and while file-sharing in this situation is probably only aiding these people by giving them a way out - i can still get this music even when i don't want to pay that much for it - consider another situation: consider a healthy economy and cheaper cd prices. so there's a cd for $10.99 that i think i want. i download a few of the songs, and i enjoy them, so i go buy the cd because it's only $10.99 and i'm making good money. if there's no file-sharing, then i'll probably go buy the cd anyway, because it's only $10.99 and i'm making good money. but there's also a case where file-sharing helps in a bad economy with high cd prices (like now). there's a cd i think i want, and it's $14.99. so i download a few of the songs to see if i like them. if they are total crap, then i've just saved myself $14.99 - and that's $14.99 that i can go spend on another cd instead, should i find one i want. if the downloaded songs turn out to be good, then personally, i will go out and buy the album. maybe too many people won't do this. but a few years ago dave matthews band released "busted stuff" which was little more than an official release of "the lillywhite sessions" which had been only available through file-sharing before that. if everything the RIAA tells you is true, then that release should have flopped. but instead it debuted at number 1. file-sharing can help. my last point is that too many people hate the RIAA and refuse to buy cd's to spite them. some people make the argument that if you don't buy a cd, you're hurting the artist. but the truth is, artists don't make as much money as they should off each indivual album - they make pennies. there needs to be massive reform in the entire recording industry, and we need to see greater rights for the artists at the expense of recording studies. actors have a union to protect against the movie studios, why can't musicians have the same sort of thing?
The maker of TA, Chris Taylor, has confirmed his new company Gas Powered Games (Makers of the Dungeon Siege series) will be making the unofficial sequel his first ground-breaking RTS. To be published by EA Games too.
How many have actually tried to develop a simple game? Compared to developing other end-user applications it is very difficult.
Even with access to a good high-level API, such as Managed DirectX, or a complete game engine, it is still very hard to get into the technologies behind the games. I remeber the first time I was writing a very simple game where the chararcter could walk around in a simple limited 3D world. I quickly gave up trying to get shadows working, and basic things such as gravity or collision detection was more difficult than I would've imagined. The easiest thing was actually the AI of the computer opponents.
What the gaming industry needs are simple tools and standards for creating games. Sure, there are a number of APIs and game engines available, but none is simple enough for a an average programmer to start with.
The problem with piracy in the gaming industry is also a problem. But I think the solution would be something like iTunes for games. And they have to get alot more cheaper. But that would come naturally when it becomes easier to develop games
My favorite DOS game was The Incredible Machine, which was a puzzle game where you had to solve a problem by placing balloons, fans, motors, conveyor belts, and other components in order to have a working machine.
:)
Sadly, I've never seen a 3D version.
And people still cry out for a 3D version of Leisure Suit Larry
Yes, this laugh-out-loud argument is something I've seen posted over and over.
It's not that laugh-out-loud. Take yourself out of the Clear Channel pop crap music section for, ohh about ten seconds. There's a whole world of tens of thousands of _great_, _original_ bands that you would never hear about, or be able to find the cd of if it weren't for file sharing. This holds true immensly for the underground scene. Let's enter this world for a moment.
I listen to dozens of bands from Europe and Japan that I would never have heard of if it wasn't for file sharing. They don't tour here. Their EP's and LP's arent distributed in the US at all; if we're lucky we might get 100 or so pressings that are quickly snatched up and resold on Ebay for 50 times their original price. In these cases, we have no other choice but to rely on our friends overseas to rip the albums and let us download them. Period.
Now, say one of those bands were to decide to tour in North America one summer. All of the fans would show up, pay $5 at the door, then buy every piece of vinyl and cotton that we could get our hands on. I'd easily blow $100 at a show if one of my favourite bands from Spain actually played a show in North America. (Hell, I'd spend $3k to fly over there and see them if I had that kind of money.) Multiply this by about 4 or 5 thousand.
Now, if it wasn't for file sharing, they wouldn't make a single dime from a tour over here, and would be lucky to draw a dozen people at a gig.
I think that more than makes up for "stealing" their work.
Underground and DIY artists and labels THRIVE on file sharing. The entire scene has literally EXPLODED in the past 4 years because of free advertising tools such as the internet and file sharing networks.
I've been in several bands that've cut albums. We put all our shit out for free on certain file sharing networks. Why? Because we play for the love of music, not for money. Download our shit, if you like us come to our next show; that's all we ask. Did we lose money? Nope. We made more and drew more at shows than we would have ever hoped to.
The plain fact is that kids aren't going to throw down their hard earned money on a band they've never heard, or don't know if they'll even like. They download it to try it out, and if they like it, you can bet damn well that those same kids are going to save up to have the real thing. Vorbis and MP3s can't touch the viceral qualities of a vinyl.
Those same kids are going to show up and pay at the door for every show you play, and buy every shirt and sticker and patch you sell. That's the truth. Of course if you suck, you won't be getting anything, but you're not losing any money either; chances are they wouldn't have bought your album in the first place.
As for the rest of the world: Clear Channel and your pop artists can fuck off; anyone who is stupid enough to pay for that shit should be shot.
The kids who download radio music and never buy the cd aren't music lovers. They would have never bought that cd in the first place, wouldn't have ever gone to a single concert, or bought a single piece of merch, period. For them mp3s are like a custom radio station that always plays what they want to hear. (and would be hearing for free anyway, so I don't see how it's stealing at all...) The labels and the RIAA are fooling themselves if they think otherwise.
It also goes without saying that major label artists as a whole make nothing from store sales of albums. That money goes straight to the label, the RIAA, and the publishers. Pop artists and bands make money from TOURING and MERCH sales. Most of them actually have to buy their CDs and merch back from the label and publisher to sell it at a show; it's pathetic really. It's sad but true that a band can put out a platinum *selling* album and end up in debt when it's all over, so don't for one second try to say that they're losing money from file sharing. It's not the bands losing money, it's the labels and the publishers
If you look at game companies, instead of the entire industry, you'll see that it makes a lot of sense to focus their limited resources on producing sequals to top selling games. This is common in most (all?) entertainment industries. They'll make incremental improvements, focus heavily on tweaking gameplay, adding features, enhancing graphics, and then take the money, the internal experience, and the code libraries to their next innovative idea. As soon as people started getting tired of playing Half-Life 4: Half and Half and Halfed again... they'll be an opening for an innovative and interesting game. Now of course, some other company without a franchise like HF2 may come along and shake things up, but again, it's less risky to target and existing market.
It takes a lot of money to make a commercially successful game, and most investors don't want to invest in "starving artists" with just and idea and no real solid plan for financial return.
They have to pay for Animal Crossing and Pikmin somehow.
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Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
It was from 199? (before 1998) and it had no heroes and only small diversity in the teams. But the building and the order system were revolutionary, I'd say.
There were 2 switches for unit behaviour, that could be set per unit, directly, via a group selection or as a default for new units from a specific factory.
The first was aggression: always shoot, only shoot back, do never shoot and the second was allowed path deviance: break orders whenever aggression triggered, stray only lightly from the path, stay on orders no matter what.
That was perfect in my opinion, since you could easily create guards, patrols, offensive patrols and suicide missions without the need for any "pre-fab"-stances.
These stances also applied to non-combat units, since you had a multitude of construction vehicles, that were all able to interact with one another, automatically.
Set a constructor to shoot-all, and it will repair anything damaged and harvest any resource it sees along its patrol. Set path straying to light and it would only repair standing units and buildings, set it to liberal and it would follow damaged units until they are fully repaired, then returning to the next path vertex. And all would aid in construction buildings automatically.
Now imagine you do this with 20 construction aircrafts, that patrol your base, repair all buildings, repair all defense units, aid in all construction projects and harvesting minor resource thingies along the way.
Imagine another thing: you could set the aircraft factory with a predefined guard route and the stance behaviour, then assign some construction units to "guard" that factory. They will then aid in all construction projects this factory starts and will heal the factory if it gets damaged. Since there are 20 units helping, it churns out aircrafts extremely quick. All these go on an offensive patrol directly or meandering into enemy territory, sweeping anything away they see en-route. All this, while you concentrate on the main tank/battleship attack, resource expansion or a stealth operation behind the enemy.
This is automation and that's what I expect from todays games. Westwoods "Dune2 Battle for Arrakis" had essentially created the genre, but you had to click and command each and every unit on its own. Wasted mouse and brain of the avid gamer in less than 3 hours, but it was still a great game. Command & Conquer added a central build interface, unit grouping, hotkeys. Starcraft made this more RPG-like with clear values for each aspect of the units and allowed the first automations. "Attack ground" for a rapidly growing hydralisk army bred from 10 or more hatches was devastating against all but the most skillful micromanagers, since it used the most valuable resource in a realtime-strategy game - human attention.
Warcraft3 went leaps and bounds backwards. This game needs such a minute attention to details, micromanagement on all occasions, even special units to care and feed for and even an inventory to fill properly. Come on, I wouldn't consider this "strategic" anymore. Strategy is a concentration on overall goals, resource management, unit mix and attack plans. Warcraft is more like a tactical element on a smaller scale. If you like it that way, no problem. But it wasn't revolutionary on any aspects. It just consumed too much attention with no chance of recovery.
Strategic games shouldn't give the player the feeling of a trained hamster in a wheel. Recurring and trivial clicky-tasks should be assigned to some of the units in the game. "Repair all buildings damaged in the last whatever-storm" shouldn't involve more than 3 clicks. Let the player decide how much micromanagement he'd like to use. And through that, you not only make the game fun to play with, you also create possibilities for more discoveries and "real" skill & experience increase for the player as they find new ways to let the units interact. That way, you can win the game with less-than-perfect hand-eye-coordination since you don't compare click speed but some kind of "leadership"-qualities. At least it does not become a boring clickfest...
If you do believe that there is no creativity in games just import.
For example, try out Katamari Damashii.
It is a new PS2 game from namco and you roll a ball over objects to get bigger and bigger because god destroyed all the stars and you have to get them back.
It has a memorable soundtrack also.
Here is the link
You would be surprised.
If you want to break into the industry, the easiest way to do it is to create a mod for a game. That gets you something on your resume, and an actual prototype you can show around to people. Even if it's not the genre you want to do, it will show any potential employers that (a) you know what you're doing, and (b) that you've got some innovative ideas. (Assuming the mod is any good.) And most importantly, (c) that you can follow through and actually finish something.
One finished product is worth 10 works in progress any day.
I think the biggest problem in this case is the publishers who shy away from risks.
I want to give two examples:
Arx Fatalis and the Gothic series. Both excellent games but both had the biggest problem to find good publishers in the united states, because they were not walkin on proven tracks.
They belong to the most interesting and best games released in the recent years but game publishers were unwilling to pick up the already finished games and sell them to the US to fair conditions for the producers. Because they were no shooters and no clickfests.
I think that most people that love GTA3 and GTA3:VC have never extensively played the original GTA. Therefore they didn't miss the motorbikes or multiplayer in GTA3. They also don't realize that Liberty City, Vice City, and San Adreas were packed into the original GTA. They don't realize that the original GTA was a 3D game with open-ended "sandbox" gameplay.
These same people slam GTA3:VC for being too derivative.
Then you have the people that have been with the series since the original GTA. These types miss the multiplayer, but generally agree that GTA3:VC is the best GTA game so far. Each game has mostly improved upon the previous games, with a few notable exceptions such as multiplayer.
I would buy another GTA, as long as enough new quality content was added, and additional gameplay improvements were made. In other words, as long as the improvement made between GTA3 and GTA3:VC is made for the next GTA game... I will buy it.
Don't get me wrong though. I am always on the outlook for new revolutionary games. My current favorite game is Puzzle Pirates, which runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux. It combines Ultima Online, Tetris, Puzzle Fighter, Bejeweled, and Pirates of the Caribean into one fun game.
Maybe not as revolutionary as some games, but it is revolutionary enough in my book.
... and much more discriminating. Compare you're young gamer self to how you view games now. When you were a kid you didn't care so much about reviews of games (unless you had a magazine subscription) you just wanted to play and experience every genre type of the games that you liked in existence. Thats how it was for me. Back in the day it was 1) Action / Beat-em-ups 2) Fighting games 2) RPG's and 3) shooters like Gradius, R-Type, etc. (Not first person shooters).
And to tell you the truth that hasn't changed in all these years I still like games from those categories/genres. I have expanded my gaming to included PC gaming, RTS and online FPS like Quake/unreal. But the gameplay/genre could still be boiled down to 5-6 genres you can count on your fingers.
There's a few problems and realities that the industry has to face:
1) Games and gaming are $!@# expensive (Esp for teens/kids who don't have rich parents) which limits the size of the market who can afford them. Look at what happened when Nintendo dropped their Gamecube to $99 they sold 2.5 million more! Thats nothing to sneeze at you just increased your market by 15-20% with a single price cut. I believe games themselves could reach a much wider audience if they didn't cost so much to produce and retail for over $40US ($60-70$CDN).
2) The older you become the more discriminating and jaded you get with the more games you play. It's unavoidable, the novelty loss gets worse with time, it becomes harder and harder to wow a seasoned gamer. Your nostalgic 'old favorites' from when you were a kid look like a pile of crap nowadays, with the rare few old games that are as your nostalgic mind remembers them.
3) Game rentals, I'm sorry but game renting negates almost any reason for anyone to purchase a game. The publishers and companies are just F'n dumb I swear! Available game rentals should be DEMOS of the game, not the complete thing. How moronic it is when you can buy and finish a game on 4-7$ weekend rental at blockbuster then fork out $40-50 for a brand new singleplayer game that once finished sits on the shelf and collects dust, thats over 500% savings at least for the same gaming experience!
Gaming industry has to wake up and realize that games are consumed differently them movies. It's not like the movie industry where you release to the theatres first and then make DVD/VHS versions available later, and you can consume movies much faster then you can consume games due to their short length of usually 1-2hrs. Rented games are available usually the day they are released, which totally negates any reason to buy them, after you've already played them! It's very simple economics really. Thats what has been the norm all throughout these years in thh industry, you can rent any game and finish it in a weekend rental for %500 less then actually buying the game.
I've come up with several ideas for games which I would LOVE to play. They, of course, contain derivations at the lowest level, (for any computer game designer there are only two choices in only two categories; 3d/2d, (Doom vs Pac Man) and realist/iconic. (GTA vs Tic Tac Toe). You can jump/slide between degrees within both categories, and mix and match as you please. In the truest sense, of course, there is only 2d and iconic, as the screen is flat and points of light can only be representational. --I've yet to see a game where pixels are actually thought of as pixels. Sound is also a layer I consider to be largely under-exploited as a challenge/reward mechanism.
In any case, I certainly have game concepts which could be enormously enjoyable.
And guess what? I'm not the only guy with good ideas. Not by a long shot. I know a couple of game designers who cry, "There ARE cool new game concepts! Lots of them! It's just that they don't get any production and promotion money because financiers are too conservative!"
Money people would rather invest in a tried and proven concept than gamble on a new idea. New ideas come from weird people who don't fit in and who it is hard for people to overcome their self-protective herd mentality in order to listen to. This is self-evident. Financiers don't care about advancing the medium; they care about making their money back! If they cared about advancing the medium, they'd be Art and Design people. Not Money people.
Anyway, I don't really care. Computer games are a flimsy distraction from the much more vital and rewarding game of Life.
-FL
Maxis has produced seven expansion packs for The Sims, and they have all sold extremely well. Some of the expansion packs have implemented ideas we had while developing the game, but didn't have time to put into the original product (like visiting town, socializing and shopping in Hot Date, or the pets in Unleashed).
In fact, a separate product from Maxis called SimsVille was cancled, largely because The Sims Hot Date expansion pack was able to realize many of the important new features that distinguished SimsVille from the original Sims.
The Sims expansion packs and objects are fundamentally different than typical monolithic game mods. They are modular components that plug together synergistically, not exclusive universes that you can only play one at a time. You can combine Sims downloads all together at once and play with them all like a big pile of legos, but you can only play one DOOM WAD at a time.
But the official expansion packs from Maxis are only one measure of success. More importantly, the players themselves have produced orders of magnitude more downloadable objects, skins and other content, than Maxis has produced.
The Sims is a flexible enough platform that supports other games and activities at many different levels: socializing, building, storytelling, crafting skins and objects, programming tools and behaviors, etc.
There has been an exciting Renaissance of original creative player produced content for The Sims. Player created content is the reason The Sims continues to sell so well after four years.
The Ultimate Sims List links to more than 3600 active Sims fan sites, where you can download an uncountable and growing number of objects, skins and decorations.
Player created content is where all the original creative action is happening with The Sims these days. Tools like The Sims Transmogrifier and RugOMatic enable players to create their own content. Players have figured out how to program the objects and written independent behavior programming tools like IFFPencil2.
One creative player called SimSlice has taken object programming much further than anyone at Maxis expected, by developing Slice City: a game within the game, like a little lilliputian version of SimCity! Other players are even creating add-ons to the Slice City add-on: making buildings, parks, landmarks, seaports and marinas to plug into Slice City!
I've made a video demonstration of RugOMatic and Slice City, that shows how to create rugs for The Sims by dragging and dropping pictures and text, and then set them on fire and kill people with the Slice City disaster menu!
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
Add a Tonya Harding and her "friends" and you may be onto something here....
A three hour movie about dwarves and elves filmed in New Zealand with Elvish subtitles, Aragorn saying things like "Not idly do the leaves of Lorien fall," and so many convoluted back stories and places with strange names that many people who saw the first two still had no idea what the hell was going on. "The blood of Numenor is all but spent"...wha?
They expected some success but I'm sure not on the level it achieved. LOTR was a popular book but not THAT popular--it was always a geek thing. Once again, Slashdotters assume their niche opinions represent the majority.
I'm a man in my fifties who started playing videogames when my then 8-year-old daughter first got a Sony PS1. She played Insomniac's Spiro the Dragon and its sequels for a few years after that, and we still play them from time to time some four years later.
When Insomniac released Ratchet & Clank for the PS2, we purchased and enjoyed that as well. Why? Because all of Insomniac's games have offbeat stories and a terrific sense of humor. However, the sequel, Ratchet & Clank Going Commando is a distinctly inferior game to the original. Why? Because the emphasis was on adding more weapons, more explosions, more of all of that, with a lot less emphasis on writing a clever, humorous story.
About a year ago we happened to pick up a copy of Final Fantasy X. Neither of us had played an FF game, though we had rented Kingdom Hearts and didn't like it very much. FF-X was a revelation. Here was a game with a complex story and attractive characters with whom one could empathize. It was also a game where the female characters were not simply bimbos in skimpy outfits. The heroine, Yuna, is brave, intelligent and, in particular, modest, and I felt no qualms about her being a role model for my daughter.
When the sequel to FF-X was released, what happened? Yuna's kimono was replaced by the usual skimpy outfit, and the two other main female characters were equally sexualized. No doubt they'd heard from their marketing department that they couldn't expect to sell their games to that all-important young male demographic if they weren't sexier.
The problem I see in the gaming industry is not an overemphasis on sequels, since well-made sequels can be just as entertaining as the originals (cf. Spiro I-II-III). It's the attempt to make every game appeal to the supposed prototypical gamer: a young man in his early twenties who only wants to pretend to drive fast cars, shoot lots of people, and fuck bimbos (GTA, anybody?). Reading comments about gaming on Slashdot could often lead one to believe this stereotype isn't that far from the truth. The games that get discussed are almost always in the Doom/Quake genre; role-playing games like FF or The Sims get short shrift.
Now, of course, FF games have their share of violence as well, but the gameplay is more like chess. In fact, I prefer the turn-based approach in FFX to the real-time approach in FF7 or FFX-2, because a lot of the skill in FFX is deciding which characters, skills and defenses you need in particular settings, not mindless button bashing.
But, when all is said and done, what counts most with us is the STORY, not how many weapons I can deploy, or how many ways I can crash a car, or how many ways I can slash an opponent's throat. I see games as a natural progression from movies, replacing passive viewing with active participation. We didn't like FFX-2 less than FFX because of any of the gameplay elements that usually get discussed on Slashdot. We didn't like it as much because the story was rather lame.
Of course, to have good stories means you need good writers, not good programmers or graphic artists. Unfortunately, I see little evidence that the gaming industry thinks that writing matters, because, in their view, why spend money on writing when the target audience of 14-29 year-old males just wants more sex and violence?