Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Size Does Matter

Posted by Zonk on from the when-it-comes-to-innovation dept.

Gamespot has a piece up discussing the relative dangers of innovation for large developers. Should an EA be more willing to innovate than, say, The Behemoth? From the article: "We want to make sure that all of the franchise businesses have the right level of innovation inside them and I think that we have been guilty of not doing that historically in certain areas of the business ... So a focus for us right now is, how do we get new, innovative features that take the existing franchises and move them forward in interesting ways? And then I think what you'll see is a couple of--you know a couple might be the wrong term--but some very focused bets at doing really innovative and different things.'" The second part in a two-part series, with part one still available.

1 of 21 comments (clear)

  1. Mass Appeal? by Chaffar · · Score: 2, Informative
    That focus on mass appeal wasn't the only departure from the development method Scandizzo grew familiar with at Blizzard.

    Well actually Blizzard DOES focus on mass appeal, albeit not as "massive" as the one EA targets...

    IMHO, Blizzard isn't really an "innovator" in games, their talent is in simplifying complex games as much as possible and spending a lot of time balancing the different teams/races/characters to make sure that online/replay value is maximized.

    I mean, Diablo didn't really "innovate", and I find it pretty funny to watch a guy play the game, 'cause all he does is hammer the left/right mouse button repeatedly, with the occasional F1->F8 slamming. Yet I spent MONTHS playing.

    Conclusion: Focus on the QUALITY of your title, it'll sell itself, instead of focusing on stupid buzzwords such as "innovation".