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The Fight for Original Games
PC.IGN is running a piece by Douglass Perry on the Fight for Original Games. In the article, the author examines the trends that have led to a slew of sequels, franchises, and movie industry tie-ins in the gaming industry of late. From the article: "...depending on who you speak with, the videogame industry is either reaching the most impressive convergence of its entire 30-plus year old existence, or it's falling into a never-ending death spiral of sequel-heavy, rehashed, franchise dominated blocks of stinking cheese."
Same for TV - getting and original idea out there if quite difficult. Star trek x 3, CSI x 3, Big brother, clean/decorate my house.
500 channels all showing similar stuff...
Isn't it possible that the gaming industry is going through a normal swing of the pendulum where crappy games come out all in the same genre(s) until the market gets massively oversaturated? And that soon it will swing back as consumers stop buying the junk and become more picky?
I mean, it's been 30 (according to the OP) years, haven't we seen this before?
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
Yeah, that's something new.
Don't blame me, I voted for Durga.
This is a general trend, because we don't complain enough about TV.
It's just forced upon us, dispite what the "dont watch it then" brigade say, TV is supposed to entertain us or would you rather give them free lunches.
1. It's cheap
2. They ignore us
3. We cant be bothered
4. Lowest common demoninator
Related article on Gamespy from Tim Schafer's recent presentation. My favorite quote:
What disturbed him the most was this actual quote from an executive at a large publisher: "This is really great. This is creative. It's too bad people aren't going for creative stuff right now."
You would think that these companies do something like this because they know it's a proven winner title that a lot of people will buy. ie. Final Fantasy. Keep making more as long as people keep buying it and enjoying it. It's the closest thing to a guaranteed sale that the company is going to get.
You take risks when you go for original titles because it could be the next fantastic series or the next absolute bust. It's also harder to keep making games from scratch when you can take your previous version, redo only certain parts of the game engine, and get another money maker game out on the market in a year to keep the customer happy and paychecks flowing for the employees.
As a consumer of video games, as much as I would like to see original titles, I love buying the latest Final Fantasy or Gran Turismo. I want to see, bigger, better versions of those games. I want to play the latest baseball game with the latest team rosters and new ways to play the game. I don't need original titles in order to have fun.
The point where I draw the line is when a company makes a sequel that has barely any change or new innovation (which can be hard in sports games) and just feels like the same game that came out last year. That can get boring quick.
But, since the "Lord of the Rings" are just another franchise, I guess they are crappy too, right? Same with "Godfather", too.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
The peak density of Power Ranger derivatives on TV is only limited by available bandwidth.
When it gets right down to it, what is more important, the game play itself, or whether or the fact that the guys you are shooting look like Klingons or totally "original" aliens in an original universe? Does the name of the universe and what the other characters look like really matter in comparison to designing a game that plays well?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Music. Unless you're new to it, the big bands lack real variety (with rare exceptions). The problem isn't the musicians, it's the way music is chosen and played on the radio. The consumer doesn't have a say in it, even though they're the ones who buy, by definition. The big companies keep buying the independent, bona-fide, mp3 repositories where you can listen or buy indie music with the artists permission.
To learn from our mistakes with music, we need to try out independent software now and then. That's where the unique ideas are. The more people try and buy, the more independent concepts will be "spruced up" for the mainstream by a publisher. After all, who wants to spend $50 on an untested concept?
As for sequels, if the publisher can't describe "What's new and unique with the sequel?" It probably shouldn't be published.
Hmmmm. "Never-ending death spiral ... of stinking cheese." Sounds like a pretty good idea for a game to me!
The consumers do have a say: radio is very heavily ratings-driven.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Now this hasn't stopped new games from comming out. In the past few years we have had very innovative games (Full Spectrum Warrior, Sly Cooper, Pikmin, Katamari Damaci, Viewtiful Joe, and many many other). But it SEEMS like we are drowning in sequels (and to a degree we are) because for ever Katamari Damaci or FSW that comes out, we have *insert_sport_here* 200X, Generic Platformer 3: Now More Extreme, and about 6 other sequels.
This is not to say that sequels don't innovate. Some sequels really do innovate on their predicessor and make great games. But most don't. Most are a forumalic continuation (which can be good (not great) to aweful (why didn't they FIX THAT?)).
Frankly, I blame marketing (that's always fun). When every game out there is supposed to be made more "XTreme" and "Urban", is it any wonder that there are very few Katamari Damacis out there? We even see this ruining perfectly good games. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time was a fantastic game. Great story, movie like presentation, clean and safe for kids. So they decided to make a sequel. Great! I couldn't wait. Then I saw it. Everything is dark and evil. The girl is now wearing cinnamon dental-floss for clothes. The whole atmosphere of the first game is gone replacced with a dark, extreme game. I won't buy it. I probably won't even rent it to play it. If they hadn't done that, I would have bought it.
Or Tony Hawk. Ever since playing THPS2 I've been hooked. The last one I bought (THUG) was a great game. I loved the story in it, it made it more fun to play for me because it wasn't just "random" stuff as much. At the same time, they didn't ruin the game. It was great. So then the sequel came out. I was going to buy it. But guess what, MARKETING got into the mix. So instead of the same (relativly) clean game, we get somemthing that's full of "hip" and "Urban" stuff. There are tons of low-brow jokes, an psycho kid in a wheelchair, and all sorts of other stuff that makes the game look like it came from "Blue Collar TV". Sorry Activision. No cash for you.
And what do we get when there actually IS a great game? Katamari Damachi I only know about because I read many gaming sites. I don't think I've seen any ads in magazines for it. I certanly haven't seen TV ads or flash ads on gaming sites. I only knew it existed because it was an odd little game that got some press for being origional. It wasn't marketed here in the US. Ico was the same. That was a FANTASTIC game, and real art. But it didn't do that well. A few TV commercials might help. Instead we get TV commercials for GTA:SA and THUG2. These little gems hardly ever seem to get any coverage, except as a single review and maybe a number on a top-10 list at the end of the year. In the mean time, stupid sequel 17 to pure formulaic game type 3 from some "me too" company runs tons of ads. I'll put Shenmue in there too. Some people didn't like it, I thought Shenmue 1 and 2 were the closest to movies or life-stories that games have gotten. Those too were pure art. But they got little press. The third (and final) installment is nowhere to be seen (and probably never will be). I'll give Sega credit for trying to keep things going with Shenmue 2 when 1 didn't sell that well, but they won't even finish out the series.
Hard to start new franchises due to cost, stupid marketing execs (witness: BMX: XXX existing), and underpromotion. That's why we get so many sequels and rip-offs.
My 0.02, not spent on crappy games.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I don't mind spending $30 on some interesting little game that I might not like (many indie games on computers are this way), but my console libraries tend to follow the pattern mentioned above (that or I just rent the game and beat it that way). If I have $60 to spend on a new game, that no-name game I've never heard of (thank you, marketing) that looks interesting probably won't get picked up because I feel safer buying something "trustworthy" instead of taking that risk.
Some games (Ribbit King) are priced low ($20 or $25, IIRC) and so I'll give 'em a try and find a little gem (for the money). We need more games like that.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
There are games that are truly great, Mario Party, Mario Tennis, Mario Golf, Mario Kart, Wario Wares, SSM Bros. All of these games present 'original' gameplay that's really fun. But who here would even have given these gems a second look if they didn't have the Mario license slapped onto them?
The game industry is funded and run by people who don't play games. At all. They read reviews and have focus groups with people off the street that play games and then make decisions based off of that data.
Once you know that, the rest makes sense in a strange and depressing way.
To break the routine, you need to find a game developer that motivated to produce fun games instead of make the most money. Personally, I like the games that Introversion has been putting out. Uplink was great, and their new game Darwinia looks pretty cool too from the demo.
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
If you're looking for originality, try some of the low (and no) budget games online. Here are a few I like.
The GameShow!: Daily complete-the-phrase puzzle. Each game lasts a month and has about 100-150 players.
Kingdom of Loathing: Hilarious web based RPG
X-Kings: Turn based strategy game with thousands of players
See my own web based game in the sig...
OddManIn: A Game of guns and game theory.
Software development is never finished for the most part. Games are about developing engines and possibly telling a story. Any engine can be extended.
This really started with Nintendo. Super Mario 1-3 anyone? Even though 2 (US) was based on a completely different engine, no one complains about originality. Maybe Metal Gear Solid (1-3) would be a modern equivalent. Tetris was oringal. It was followed by Dr. Mario and friends.
I also like to play older games, but I'll play a newer version if it exists. I played Pirates (for Nintendo) into the ground. Having played the new PC version, I can safely say I simply like it better and there's no feature that I really miss from the previous game (and it even fixes some of the balance issues...like dividing up the plunder after "accidently" killing off your crew).
Final Fantasy, however, is an exception. While people bemoan lack of originality, anyone who was around when FF7 came out remember the fan boys being upset because it departed from the rest of the series. The newest one isn't even single player like the rest of the series (little known fact: FF6 (FF3 US SNES) could be 2 player). The only thing every game has in common is being an RPG, involving magic, story-driven (rather than open-ended and choice driven) and some guy named Cid.
If I wanted to say there was a lack of originality in games, I would instead say that there's not been a genre-founding game in a while. Mario, Tetris, Wolfenstein, Warcraft, Civilization, Ultima Online, Dragon Warrior, and even GTA (the original) all founded new genres of games. Can anyone name a new genre that's been made in the past 5 years? The only thing I can even come up with is Dance Dance Revolution.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
It really does depend on how you look at it. Yeah, there have been some pretty high-profile failures in gaming. And this is new news... how? No, really. ET for the Atari 2600, anyone? You can throw as many stones as you like at GTA3:SA, Doom 3, Half-Life 2, Halo 2, etc, but they are not failures. And if what you're looking for is seriously novel gameplay and content rather than evolutionary works, Katamari Damaci is only the most high profile of odd new games on the market.
Sure, if all you're looking at is the 15 gazillion platform clones or whatever, things don't look good. But that's a pretty limited perspective. Judging the US movie industry by what Jerry Bruckheimer has given us recently isn't a very useful perspective, either.
Why is originality worth fighting for? A game that is new or different is no more likely to be good than a game that is centuries old.
I think the primary desire for new games comes from the confusion betweens games and stories. Stories are definitely better when they're original. If you're just using a video game as a medium to tell a story, then having it be original will make it a better story...but it still might be a crappy game.
Games should be challenging and interesting. The players should be able to play the game in a different way every time and still have fun. That's what makes a game good. Whether the idea is a new one or not doesn't really matter.
I hate articles like this, most likely written by "young 'uns" who are quick to overlook the past, since they weren't really "part of it".
The game industry has always had lots of sequels. The game industry has always had lots of movie games. And the movie games have almost always sucked.
In fact, it's safe to say that today, we have alot more quality games, and movie games are much more playable today than they were back in the 8bit and 16bit days. MUCH more. Back then, every movie game was a side-scrolling jumper. Every licensed character game was a side-scrolling jumper.
We're much better off today than we were 12 years ago.
Basically the big game companies try to mimic Hollywood here, as seems not the worst move for an entertainment industry.
;)
A few big hits finance all the other flops or average-doing movies - you hang 10 lines in the water to catch the big fish that's somewhere out there.
Rehashing hits with sequels is a cash cow, and since software is always buggy and incomplete, version 2 often is a big step forward even for creative games, like Fallout - Fallout 2 was even greater (Fallout Tactics was pure moneymaking).
Some vendors seem even to live of "version 2"s - like Paradox Software: Europa Universalis 2 (Europe from the Renaissance to the Napoleonic Wars) and Hearts of Iron 2 (WWII) are both excellent upgrades to the original titles - much more deep and interesting. 1st part demonstrates a great concept, players like it, criticize and comment on the forums, and part 2 is guaranteed to be a revised game, incorporating a lot of the constructive criticism they were exposed to, even much better than the original - part 1: the original idea, part 2: its perfection. It could be a lot worse, and is quite a thing for a small publisher to keep up with players' demands (and they are demanding!)! Or The Creative Assembly - Shogun: Total War debuted an exciting real-time 3D battlefield engine, Medieval: Total War combined it with an excellent campaign game with hundreds of units, and Rome: Total War with a much more detailed battle and 3-D engine that starts to rival movies (and is used for portraying ancient battles on TV) with intricate tactical decisions to be made, combined with a terrain-realistic map for planning your campaigns. It gets more exciting with every sequel, and they all have been worth their money!
I hope that we will see some nice independent contributions (from small firms and maybe even open source collaboration), and some of the big firms sinking money on games that are great but not selling well (like games that require you to think instead of pulling triggers or to hack enemies like in a slasher movie).
Even in the world of big movie studios there are some small patches of extraordinary filmcraft flowering among all that trash. Yet even trash is sometimes entertaining: Go Hellboy!
"This game is simply amazing! It's a like a cross between and ."
Sound familiar? I wasn't impressed when game developers starting bragging about how their "creative" game was a combination of Diablo and some other generic title.
Music, movies, books, and games are all based on our understanding of this reality. Everything within our reality and what we have experienced are the only concepts that our minds can understand.
For example, be "creative" and create a new colour and the describe it to me.
Instinctively, you might try to combine one colour with another (ie, purple and red). That's not a _new_ colour though. We can only comprehend colours of which we have experienced (and of which are finite in number), and how could we possibly describe it to another person?
The same idea applies to games. All games must be based on things that we can comprehend (ie, from the reality of which we all share). Although everyone may have different experiences in life and different ideas; after so many years, all possible concepts of reality have been documented or expressed in one form or another. The number of concepts to draw from are finite, and we have quickly exhausted our "creativity". Now, ideas are simply recycled.
If you wanted to develop a "creative" game (ie, something that's never been done before), you would have to following one of these steps:
- exist in a different reality
- increase our understanding of the universe and our reality (or have we peaked?)
- change the laws of physics (new universal laws -> new understanding)
Some easier methods that are possible:
- we're currently limited by the type of interface used for games. How about a major restructing of how we play games, how we manipulate games, or what we play games on. (ie, let's eliminate joysticks, mice, keyboards, and currently available operating systems - what would you use to play a game, and how could the game be played?) Keep in mind that humans primarily use their hands more manipulating things in our reality.. let's eliminate the use of hands for this activity as well.
- find someone ("long lost tribe") who has never conceived of music, literature or video games. Don't teach them our concepts, but rather try to understand how they understand/conceive their own reality. Perhaps it would be the first step in creating a new style of music. This person would not be able to recycle any previous ideas as they have never experienced them before.
This is one reason why I decided to purchase a DS instead of a PSP. The PSP is a fantastic piece of hardware. It's very powerful. But, it's just the same-old, repackaged. The DS has new ideas for interaction, namely the touch screen, the second screen, and the microphone. I'm looking forward to more interesting games that take advantage of those features, instead of yet-another-FPS or shooting/carjacking game (whoopdefreakingdoo).
"Jesus saves, but everyone else in a 10 foot radius takes full damage from the fireball."
I think the main reason we keep seeing sequels and rehashes of old franchises is because games that are truely original tend to not do very well in the marketplace. One of the best games to come out in recent years is Beyond Good and Evil, but because it featured new characters and a new game world rather than a tried and true franchise, it failed miserably in the marketplace.
That said, that doesn't mean that we haven't seen original gameplay ideas surface in recent years. A previous poster mentioned how there are lots of different Mario titles with totally different and often unique gameplay (Mario Kart, Mario Golf, Mario Tennis, etc), most of which are excellent games in their own right but have nothing to do with what Mario represented at first. But would they have sold as well, or even at all without Mario? Probably not.
It is worth noting that every once in a while, a new, original game does succeed, but what invariably happens in such cases is that that concept is then exploited just like all the others.
Intelligent responses welcome, flames will be met with marshmallows.
I guess what annoys the me is Squaresoft releasing a whole bunch of different RPGs, with different themes, different worlds and different characters, then calling them all Final Fantasy. I guess Capcom does the same with Breath of Fire, but they keep patterns going and, all in all, it's such a thoroughly-done series that it's hard to care that the characters from each game will be dumped with little chance of playing a part in the next game, and that, unlike series like Rock Man, you may not see them again. ..Okay so it's not that hard to be annoyed, or enraged by it, but still.
Either way, what the Hell? How old is Douglass? I'm 21 and even I can recall that the NES and Atari days were loaded with games and sequels that weren't worth playing. We have a huge selection now and even while that means more shitty games, even the not-so-hot ones tend to leave the old games (besides the classics) in the dust, they're way cheaper, rentable, you can frickin' download them, and you don't have to blow in the cartridge to play them.
Oh and movie tie-ins? The Atari had ET!
Nostalgic memories can be way too selective.
I am NOT a number! I am a - oh wait, I'm number 761710. Look! 761710!