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Game Genres — Descriptive Or Restrictive?
An opinion piece at Rock, Paper, Shotgun questions whether the way we classify video games limits creativity and innovation in game development. "If the next Modern Warfare introduced dramatically different themes, there would be uproar. Sure, set it on the moon, but make sure I’m a grunt following the NPCs who get to play the game, or I’ll swear at you on the internet." The author suggests that the rise of casual games may in part be attributable to their creators' willingness to break with established themes and blend together different types of play. "There's huge risk to blurring. It makes the game more difficult to market, it defies customers’ expectations, and it requires educating the public. It’s safe to make yet another COD clone, because we all know them and what they do. And they're what we want! But like the child who's never tried a new food, refusing to eat it because it's different leads to a very limited and dull palate."
Yeah, if the next Call of Duty game was a third-person platformer or something there would be an uproar ... BECAUSE IT WOULDN'T BE CALL OF DUTY. It would be some other game with the name slapped on. That has nothing at all to do with genres limiting games. If you make a different game, call it a different name. That way names are actually useful information, y'know? Remember how language is for conveying meaning? Jeez.
Creator Strategy #1: Give people more of what they have demonstrated they want. Reality TV Show Model 7B, Over-Loud Snarky-Catch-Phraseful Hero Summer Popcorn Movie 6A, or the latest Honor Harrington book. It amuses me, you make it, I buy it, you get paid and feed your family. Repeat. It's called "The Entertainment Business," and Joss Whedon is secretly laughing at all of you who are writing deep existential doctoral theses about Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Creator Strategy #2: Come up with something Entirely Brand New That Has Never Been Tried, convince a studio or publisher to invest millions into it, and hope to God someone besides you wants it. It's called "Art," it requires those dicey things "Risk" and "Vision," and lots of perfectly lovely and talented people who practice it are eating their one daily meal of ramen noodles as I write this. If they're lucky, their art catches on, it gets assimilated into The Entertainment Business, and the creator can kick back in preparation for becoming rich and laughing at the nerds earnestly considering writing deep existential doctoral theses about their game/movie/book/new Pez flavor.
If EA releases Tiger Woods Gold 2012 there would be complaints if it was actually a NASCAR simulator?
If the next Modern Warfare was a turn based role playing game there'd be complaints?
No shit, sherlock.
But if the new game isn't given the same damn name and put in the same damn franchise then it can be completely different. If you want it to be "blurring" but within the same main gameplay then give it a name that indicates that and no one (well there will always be someone) will complain
I try new genres every year and can never actually enjoy them all but it is important to try new things. It brought me to Shadows of the Colossus (the most amazing game). You should play it.
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. ~ Plato
Sorry, but this 'lack of innovation' is nothing new. even if you look back to the NES era, a lot of games were just generic shooter/platformer/mascot games. This is still true today, as most games are just clones with a small twist of some other game.
New, untested IP is something you don't see a lot, but it happens. Sony, for example, seems to start each new generation with some new IP, and MS seems to like that as well. Ninetendo tends to stick with established characters whenever possible though, even if it puts them into a new genre.
When I was beta testing DC Universe Online, every new batch of testers to be allowed in had a hand full of people who would invariably complain: "If you don't add X, Y, and Z, you'll never be able to beat WoW!" or "Clicking in your own combo moves is ANNOYING! Where's the auto-attack?"
While DCUO labeled itself as an Action MMO (heavier on the action), that MMO(rpg) label still carried with it some pretty hefty preconceived notions regarding game mechanics and even story progression. It was the basis of a massive amount of discussion which, in my opinion, would have been better used as testing the beta instead of arm-chair developing.
Why are genres restrictive? Adventure, first-person shooter, role-playing, platforming... Those are all extremely broad. They're as broad as genres in movies or novels might be. Just because Hollywood as chosen to restrict sci-fi to alien invasions the last few years doesn't mean the genre itself is limiting. What's limiting is the creativity of the developer.
But then the real problem is that those tired old themes evidently sell. We can harp on how derivative games have become but the fact is that as with Hollywood blockbusters, they sell. It's no secret developers and publishers are risk averse. These games cost a fortune to produce, with their bloated production values, but they're guaranteed to sell. And every couple of years someone takes the plunge and does try something different which turns out to be a big success. And that's inevitably followed by everyone else jumping on the bandwagon. However, the fact is that different and creative isn't always better, especially in gaming where gameplay should always be the core focus.
My fundamental problem with a lot of American gaming is the over-the-top machismo, guy with gun trope. I think it's this obnoxious ego-fueled culture which has inhibited real creativity. Although, Nintendo has been a nice balance to all that. However, I'm convinced that in Japan you'll find far more creative gaming because culturally they're not so fixated on ego. And it's certainly not restricted to gaming, look at popular music.
That said, there is a massive amount of variety out there, probably more than we've ever had before. We do get a lot of gaming from Japan. And indie gaming has dramatically expanded our gaming options.
Any classification system, whether its writing, movies or games is inherently limiting. There have been constant attempts, even by big companies to blend genres. The 'action -rpg' which has more or less replaced the pure RPG of years ago. All of the first person shooter technology folding into action/rpg games. Then there's the whole notions of strategy, grand strategy and so on. Even older games like X-com blended economics, tactical games and a strategic overview (sort of a crappy RTS) with city building. Star wars galaxies glues space shooter onto whatever you want to call the ground combat side of things. Those are more combined genres, it is both A and B just in different places. But something like dawn of war is half RPG half RTS at the same time (Warcraft III did this as well, and to a lesser extent WC2).
None of these classifications in gaming are particularly firm. One could also envision different (presumably better) classification systems. But changing how you define games comes with a huge consumer cost. I think you see more genre innovation in the casual space because 95% of them can fail. If you do that with call of duty, you take a big risk. Consumers have come to expect a particular type of experience, that's why they bought your product, don't mislead them into something else. And creating new IP is both hard and risky.
Hordes of derivative and uninspired entries in the lower half of the market is a given in practically any media market and age. You ignore them, and pay attention to what the top guys are doing. And once upon a time, untested "IP" as you call it was frequently found. I don't know much about the console scene, but I'm sure today, if a game such as, say, Gods arrived, with rarely or never seen ingredients on the level of its "help bonuses" for struggling players, and monsters which avoid firepower and pick objects up, its level of innovation would be regarded as most acceptable, even rather praiseworthy. In its own day, the Bitmaps were criticised for not pushing the boat out as much as other developers of similar levels of talent.
I'm not going to respond about the server thing, just this...
MW2 was not stunning. It was most of the same with a side of the same.
Modern Warfare was truly stunning. MW2 was "just a sequel" Unfortunately, the format changed slightly. The formula didn't produce the same results as the first in my opinion.
That's much the same as Madden 2011, which is just a sequel which changed the format slightly. It's a safe ROI. That's not restrictive, it's business.
They're using their grammar skills there.
RPG hasn't meant RPG in..well..basically forever. Very few games that carry the RPG do so for any other reason than to try and lend credibility to their game. A very long time ago there was a great definition of RPG in a magazine, paraphrasing it went something like "An RPG is a game where you can make choices that have a meaningful and lasting impact on the game world"
Buying a chair doesn't count.
nor does picking whether your character uses a sword or a staff.
From TFA
This unfortunately is also not an RPG, but is what is passed off as one these days. Choosing to go down the left or right hallway isn't much in the way of roleplaying. Roleplaying has basically come to meant that you have stat points or a skill-tree. These unfortunately have nothing to actually do with roleplaying. They're a mechanic often used in a genuine roleplaying game, but roleplaying games exist without them, they don't make the game itself a roleplaying game.
So if we've blurred genres, it may be because we have no idea what they are. Some are a very simple definition "First person shooter", but what if we're not shooting? What if it was a first person melee game?
I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with genre blurring or games belonging to more than one genre. I think genres often simply describe the main gameplay mechanic, except for RPG. RPG gets passed around like a party favour at a biker rally, and garners about as much respect from the game industry.