Game Industry Has Lost Its 'Spark'?

Gamasutra is running a short interview with game designer Chris Crawford. The discussion in the article centers around Crawford's assertion that the games industry is no longer a creative place. "I haven't even seen any new ideas pop up. The industry is so completely inbred that the people working in it aren't even capable of coming up with new ideas anymore. I was appalled, for example, at the recent GDC. I looked over the games at the Independent Games Festival and they all looked completely derivative to me." I'm not sure I agree. What do you think? Is there anything creative left in the games industry, or are we going to be playing Halo 6 and Final Fantasy XVII ten years from now?

Comments

Everything is Derivative..

[CashCarSTAR]

To one degree or another. We all stand on the backs of giants. The reality is, in all genres, there are these people who think that somehow, someway we can achieve something that is not derivative, however, generally speaking these people tend to have huge massive egos and think that the only person who can achieve this is themselves.

But when you focus on what games have similar, you tend to completly miss what makes them unique.

One word:

[MaggieL]

Spore.

Re:One word:

[timster]

I think that's a poor distinction because it isn't relevant. A traditional pinball machine has no win condition (though there is a lose condition, as in most sim games) and players usually attempt to make the highest possible score. If we add a win condition, I contend that it doesn't change the nature of the game or what it should be called.

Next you can tell me that pinball has a mechanic -- you must hit markers to get points, and you lose if the ball falls. This is true, but it is ALSO true of all the games which you are choosing to call "worlds": in the Sims, you must play well to obtain goals.

SimEarth had a win condition and was easy to lose, so I assume you would call it a game. But if we removed the win condition, the gameplay and source of fun would be identical. Why would we reclassify it due to a small change that didn't change the nature of the experience?

I could get behind a statement that a "game" must involve the concepts of success and failure, but this definition doesn't exclude the Sims, or Animal Crossing, or much of anything that's called a game. It would exclude something like Elektroplankton, but I think few people consider that a game anyway.

Who cares what this guy thinks?

[Yahweh Doesn't Exist]

His counter-argument about Nintendo not being innovative with the Wii or DS is that the games industry hasn't been innovative for the last 10 years so why would it change now? Er... okay.

Meanwhile, he wants to sell his books and push his "Storytronics"... geez, the 1970s called and want their cool innovative name back.

I can think of a few

[Bastian]

Katamari Damacy, Uplink, Darwinia, Spore looks interesting. . .

I think that there might be a bit of "time compression" going on in this article. Original games were few and far between 10-20 years ago, too. I certainly remember back in the 8 and 16-bit era when it seemed like every single game put out by anybody for any system ever was a side scroller.

Besides, video gaming's youth is gone. I don't see why it's such a big deal that so many games resemble other games nowadays - it was easy to try new ideas in 1985 when not so many ideas had been tried. I'd like to see the people who whine about lack of originality try to spend some time coming up with a new idea that's good. Maybe folks could try harder, but (1)I seriously doubt that nobody is trying (2)trying to sell a formula that's known to sell is part of business, and it's not going to change. You might as well shake your fist at the sky for raining, it'd be just as useful.

  Of course, an article that says, "Gee, it's really hard to come up with novel games" probably wouldn't sell as well as yet another jaded guy bitching about how things were better in the past. (How original.)

Re:Sore loser

[JackBuckley]

I'd have to agree (without the strong language). If it wasn't _Chris Crawford_ making the comment, the story could have been a troll. Instead it's like listening to your cranky great-uncle complaining about music today. Now if _Wil Wright_ tells us that there is no more creativity in gaming, I'll pay more attention.

I disagree sir

[LD gspot]

His arguements may sway me more if he would answer when asked for examples. MMO's were never done before at one point, the Half-life series seems to be revolutionizing cinematic games, The Total War series created a battle simulator unmatched by anything before or after, Nintendo's standard controller for the Wii wireless and motion sensored, the DS is using a touch screen to enhance game experience, Will Wright is blowing us all away with Spore; Will someone please tell me this guy's definition of innovation? It doesn't happen overnight, it requires work and time, especially when dealing with a time and money consuming, volatile industry such as video game development. As far as I see, the game industry is moving forward all the time. This guy hasn't told me anyhting except that it's not. I can train a parrot to say 'it's not.' Why is it not? Name a game. Name an idea that is absolute shit, name an idea that should have work done on it but people are too scared. Give me examples, thoughts, reasons, but don't sit there and tell me I should listen to you because you spent 4 more years of your time on school than I did. Wait there's more: Donkey Konga, Guitar Hero, Mario 64 changed platformers forever, Zelda games havent been the same since Zelda 64, the Natrual Selection Mod for Half-life-I didn't see any RTS/FPS games before that, nor any that feature 2 different races since. I could go on and on and on about innovation in games. I want to know why these aren't innovations?

High budget

[MisterTea]

The reason why the games industry isn't as creative is because there's too much at stake. Think back to all of the games for the early ATARIs and Commodores which really sucked. All the tons of games which were totally worthless and not even remotely entertaining. For every great creative masterpiece there were tens, even hundreds of games which were just a waste of time. Game companies now aren't willing to bomb ten times to get one great game because a single game can cost in the millions of dollars.

Re:Perhaps...

[Minwee]

"Chris Crawford seems like a person who contributes nothing, but complains a lot."

He has published over a dozen games and written five books on the subject to say nothing of founding the Computer Game Developers' Conference, an event which started in his living room.

When you have contributed as much nothing as he has, then you can complain all you like.