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A Plea For Game Devs To Aim Higher
A recent article written by Mike Acton of Insomniac Games challenges video game developers to broaden their ambitions and fight to get back to their rebellious roots. Quoting:
"[W]hy is it that game developers are beginning to drown in a culture of fear, or more specifically, a fear of change? Is it because the gaming world has gone too corporate and is no longer exclusive to small teams of genius misfits and creative underdogs? Is it because the demographics of game players—once made up almost exclusively of teen boys—has widened to include nearly everyone from 5-50? There are people who would deny that it’s fear of change that keeps them where they are. There are those that are content with the status quo because they believe that they have a formula 'that works' and there’s no good reason to risk a major change when they already successful with what they’re doing. ... Game developers are, at their heart, futurists and this is what they need to do now—put themselves ahead of the times so that they can surpass the stale leadership and old models that are holding them back"
It's not about sales. It's about innovation growing stale in triple-A game development. Developers and publishers don't want to take risks anymore so you'll see more copying of ideas being done than innovating for themselves. It is the indie market where the real innovation is being done these days.
The reason for this is simple though. Many indies work on their games as part of a hobby or on relatively small budgets, where taking a risk is a choice they can make all by themselves. A game developer that works on a $100 million+ title can't afford to take risks because that scares away investors. Investors don't want risk. They want profit.
Yes, it's the same problem as the film industry: Increased budgets means more money is at risk, meaning you're only allowed to play it safe.
When you're playing with your own money, you can do whatever you want, either in independent films or independent games, and only need to sell to customers, who desire innovation and fun. If you need to finance your project externally, you need to sell your not-yet-started project to your prospective backers, who desire monetary returns with reduced risks.
No. He's saying the evidence of stagnation is when you walk past the PC games at E3 and you cannot tell them apart because they're all soldiers running around with guns.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
But to be fair a lot of the "GTA style" games isn't about actually doing the missions but just seriously fucking off. One of my absolute favorite games is Just Cause II, which if you have never played it brings "just fucking off" to the height of crazy. You have this crazy hookshot grapple hook thing that lets you do crazy shit like tie a bad guy to the bumper of a chopper and use him for a fricking wrecking ball, tie two cars together while going 100 miles an hour on top of a third, totally crazy shit. Frankly I quit giving a shit about the story after like the third mission because I was having too much fun going nuts to really care.
If anyone here watches Zero Punctuation old Yahtzee pointed something out that is really wrong that I hadn't even noticed before. He said basically "we are awash in a sea of brown chest high walls surrounded by thick neck marine types" and frankly he is dead on! Too many of these developers seem to forget that ultimately its a game and games are supposed to be fun not a dragging your ass around while following the numbers snoozefest. I swear if I see one more WWII shooter or one more game featuring thick neck marines with convenient chest high walls I'm gonna scream!
Ultimately it wouldn't be so bad if games ripped off one another if they just did like Just Cause II and remembered that games are supposed to be fun. If they would have made the game in ANY way realistic it would have been the uber suck. After playing Stalker I already know how I would do in a real war, very very badly. So how about make it fun! Give me AI that is a challenge without obvious cheating, like how EA shooters will have grunts that can instantly spot you even when you are behind cover and snipe you from 1000 yards away with a pistol while taking more rounds than the T-800, give me something to shoot other than the same damned weapons everybody else has, like the sneaky crossbow in NOLF II, or even the "angry kitty" bomb! Who cares if that "would never happen in real life" because it ISN'T REAL LIFE it is a fricking game!
You don't have to give us five legged kittens riding purple ponies devs, just quit rehashing the same old shit, okay?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.