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.""

Comments

Game Box Design

[NeoTerra]

I think UserFriendly already answered this.

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20021009& mode=classic

He both makes sense and doesn't

[jollyreaper]

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.