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Establishing A Beachhead In A Crowded Genre
simoniker writes "How do you make a game that will stand apart from countless similar titles? Harmonix designer Chris Canfield (Guitar Hero II) thinks he knows, and is talking about it in a new editorial, 'Establishing A Beachhead In A Crowded Genre'. He comments that one of the key things you can do is to 'Gut key elements of the design': "Examples of this in your genre might include: sniper rifles in an FPS, powerslides in a racing game, minigames in a Wii title, healing crates, bosses, rocket jumps, or any other big or small element. Of course, the really good features shouldn't be the only ones on the chopping block. Not only will this free up time in the schedule that would otherwise be occupied by been-done features, but it creates space for genuinely new solutions and makes producers very, very happy.""
I think UserFriendly already answered this.
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http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20021009
You lack the imagination to create something new so enter a genre already done to death, you remove key elements of what made games in this genre popular in the first place and then despite lacking the imagination to break new ground you are going to somehow replace these key elements with genuinely new features? What is this? Modders on brain steroids?
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
How about making the games longer with original content? Yay look another FPS where the single player is 5 hours. Oh look RPG #4567 where the quests are the same except the blue slime is now red! Yes Football game 2020 where you can now hear players fart (and smell them!).
Seriously when was the last time there was a FPS with a really good in-depth story? Deus Ex is the only thing that really comes to mind. The last epic RPG was really BG2.
In summary how to get your game noticed? Make a really good game.
We're going to try something no one has ever done before, and that's why it's going to work.
Unfortunately, that only works in the Matrix too. If something is been done to the death, it probably means it at least started out as a good idea. There's no reason to assume whatever you come up to replace it is goign to be better than a good idea.
Do one of the following:
1. Do something new (example: Guitar Hero)
2. Take something old, and do it RIGHT (example: Half-Life or Deus Ex in their days)
The devil is in the details of course, but the basic idea is true for almost any industry, but is particularly visible to people like us in the IT and gaming industries.
There's an old deal with the devil story about a man who sells his soul to be able to play guitar like Eric Clapton. He picks up a guitar and behold, he's just like Clapton. He has dreams of fame and goes to a record producer and the guy is amazed. "Wow, you sound just like Clapton! Now how does your own style sound?" And then the guy realizes how the devil screwed him, he couldn't sound like anyone but Clapton. That's nice but the world already has one Clapton, there's no need for another.
That's the problem companies run into when they enter a crowded genre and try to emulate one of the leaders. The best they could hope for is to be as good as the original. But if you've already played the original, where's there to hold your interest in the knock-off? You could just play the original through again and save yourself $50.
So there's certainly some wisdom in not trying to do the same thing everyone else is doing. There's only a few companies out there that can do the same thing as everyone else and slap enough polish on it to make it better. In fact, Blizzard is the only one that comes to mind. Look at any of the other groundbreaking innovative major success games and you'll note the words "groundbreaking" and "innovative" in the description.
Where the guy here makes no sense is he says he's going to go into a mined out genre, remove the elements that make the genre interesting that have been done before, then replace them with what, exactly? Talk is cheap and ideas are a dime a dozen. I've got plenty of ideas for really great twists on 3D games that have never been seen before. I'm sure everyone reading this article has a half-dozen ideas sitting in the back of their brains, too. But there's a world of difference between coming up with an idea and getting it made. Show us how it's done.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I bet you all the other Tennis and Golfing games on the Wii have all those features he said you don't need, yet they all include the nifty/novel feature Nintendo added to the genre with their Wiimote. (Yes, I know that there are some other swing a stick in front of a sensor golf games...)
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Looking back, the REALLY successful games were usually sequels,
add-ons that played off the success of the previous title's fanbase.
Sure, they add new bells and whistles, but the game itself is a re-pop.
I don't have a list of truly "innovative" titles to compare against,
but I'd guess that the sequels probably sell more copies overall.
Most gamers seem to want more of the same, with shiny new skins.
Case in point, EA sells the same game every year. And they're fine with that.
If there was a Sim City 5, I probably would have bought it...
He DID remove something from the early games though... in Sim City 4, if you didn't have any roads your people aren't happy like in Sim City 1... all rails everywhere and doughnut cities...
Actually no not really, Castle Wolfenstein 3d although later than Ultima Underworld (and technically subpar compared to it) was unique
so was Ultima 7, Myst also was unique, The Sims didnt have a prequel up until the mid eighties when the little computer people project was the first of its kind.
Zelda had no real predecessor except maybe for Temple of Asphai (but both titles were in development parallely)
Mule, Seven Cities of Gold, Simcity (the original), Pirates, etc...
the list of innovative highly successful games is very long, the main problem is, the chances
are way higher nowadays if you do something innovative, that it already is covered, than they used to be 15 years ago.
I believe Unreal Tournament 2003 tried out the "no sniper rifles" concept. Result: the game flopped like a dying carp, and sniper rifles were reintroduced in UT2004.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
"Case in point, EA sells the same game every year. And they're fine with that."
9 out of 10 piratebayers agree with you.
Uh, the Matrix isn't original. Read Neuromancer and watch Ghost in the Shell. If you were trying to be sarcastic you did a poor job, otherwise you're just confused.
David Gould
main(i){putchar(340056100>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<< 6)&&main(++i);}
+0 Meh
Why not have a FPS where players can gather resources and then implement them into support structures/weapons/upgrades. This would borrow some RTS ideas and put in in the FPS landscape. So instead of capturing the same bases every single time, or camping some hopeless spawn, you could go and gather resources for your team. (Rather than being repetitive fixed location objects as in most RTS, they'd be stuff like different valued "coins" that spawn randomly on the map.) When a team gathers X amount of resources, they'd get be able to chose a vehicle spawn, weapons upgrades, or perhaps their engie could build a support bunker which acts as a spawn point or something else useful. Also give other actions besides kills a respectable score bonus, so assists/repairs, etc. actually count for something. Also change the dynamic, say you catch an unarmed/unwary/outmanned opponent(3 vs 1 in close quarters) - instead of just killing him you could make him a prisoner and your team gets a time based score bonus for each prisoner alive in captivity. (There would be some options for escaping as well.) Other scores for rescues, etc. Basically you'd want something that would change the dynamic beyond the "boom headshot!" mentality yet still maintain some semblance of what's fun in FPS.
UT2003 did have a sniper rifle, they just re-skinned it to look cooler.
While I hate sequelitis, there seems to be a good rule of thumb out there.
"A sequal's sales will reflect the previous game's quality"
If you knock out a fast or cheap sequel to a great game, you're going to get great sales... on that one sequel. If you then turn around and make a really great sequel next, that sequel's sales will suffer from the impression left behind by the previous game.
In other words, quality is rewarded more often than we think, just not right away.
And maybe somewhere I'm just not yet ready to blame gamers for the floods of sequels and genre games.
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