Innovative, Original Games Have No Chance

In interviews with game developers this week, the tone seems to be that innovative, original thought is no longer welcome in the games industry. That definitely seems to be the tone behind IGN's interview with Okami producer Atsushi Inaba, and MTV's interview with Bioshock's Ken Levine (distracting flash site). Atsushi, speaking about the art style in his critically acclaimed but poorly selling adventure game, had this to say about originality in games: "You use the word 'difficult', but I think that it is becoming almost 'impossible' for an original game to succeed financially. This can't be blamed on anyone but it's a simple fact that an original game doesn't appeal to the majority of gamers." Meanwhile Levine, talking mostly about the level of art he's trying to create with the title, had this to say about some of his fellow designers: "Most video game people have read one book and seen one movie in their life, which is 'Lord of the Rings' and 'Aliens' or variations of that. There's great things in that, but you need some variety." While most of the rest of his comments are somewhat mild, he reiterates throughout that they're trying to do something that gamers may not "give a crap" about. What do you think? Has the industry gotten to the point where retreads are all that will sell, or is there still room in the marketplace for original ideas?

Comments

Stop spending millions on them then...

[cliffski]

The problem is that if you need 200 people to make a game, you need to persuade so many committees of finance experts to give you the money that the chances of finding someone who will panic at your idea are stupidly high.
Finding the money for a game that needs 20 people to make is a lot easier and less risky, because even if it's a flop, you aren't taking the whole publisher down with you.
Of course, ideally, you do the whole game yourself, on your own, sticking 100% to the creative vision you had, without needing to persuade *anyone* about the validity of the idea, and taking all of the risk yourself. I've gone many years reading big name industry celebs saying how that's not possible any more, despite the fact that I do it for a living, and I know a fair few others who do so as well.

Of course, if you would rather not make a game at all, than make one on a low budget, then that's a different matter. But personally, if I could make a 'triple a' WW2 FPS clone with 100 people, or an original, inventive 2D budget game on my own, I'd do the latter, even if it will never make me rich.

But generally, he's right, there is a lack of originality in mainstream games (spore is a good exception though).