For me being busy means there's even more pressure for games to be as deep as possible - more hypno-bang for the buck. I realize not everyone - in fact a distinct minority - wants this. But it makes it all the sweeter when a multifaceted gem like, say, Arx Fatalis or Morrowind appears.
It seems to me like most of the current games out there are built (at least the AAA aimed titles) under this assumption. I truly lament the disappearance of side scrolling shooters, and relatively linear adventure games.
I think part of the problem is that most designers seem stuck in the complexity == depth mold of design, and while it may be true that it's easier to obtain depth by layering on complexity, I don't think it's necessary.
Neither Go nor Chess nor Tetris are complex in any way, yet all are ostensibly fantastic games. I think a lot of my problem with the current game landscape is that most design houses have quit trying to distill games to their essence because they can't figure out how to do so and maintain complexity (a failure of the original design, I think). The few cases where they do so, however, tend to be very hit or miss. It's a fine line between boring and repetitive without enough variety, and simple to pick up, difficult to master. I think most big game houses long ago gave up trying to figure out how to end up on the right side (or in fact, anywhere near) that line, and instead tend to focus on the realm of "These X features in these games were good.. let's see if we can meld them all." It's a valid approach to depth, but I don't find it to be a particularly elegant one.
Of the major players still running around out there, I think Nintendo is the closest to this ideal still, but even then it's giving them problems. Sega used to be, but they couldn't come up with compelling enough games to justify their business model, and recently seem to have buckled under to a more traditional model.
And a consequence of that aesthetic choice is that complexity goes out the window, along with ambiguiety, variety in problem-solving, and other open-ended criteria that most of us equate with "originality."
The problem is, more complexity, more unpredictability, more "difference" is not necessarily a winning formula in games.
I have a big problem with most games out today, not because they're not original, but because they've lost touch with what they used to be. I suppose it may be a generation gap of types, really. I grew up with Atari 2600 and Odyssey^2. I was 12 or 14 or something when the Nintendo came out, and could afford to buy a Genesis with cash I made from my first job.
Consequently, I'm a poor audience for today's combination shooter/action/horror/puzzle game. I've simply got too much going on to sit down and devote myself to 2+ hours of gaming experience in one sitting in order to accomplish anything. And, frankly, I'd say that, as much as anything else, is the problem with the current crop of games. It's not so much a lack of originality, as it is a continual layering of yet another layer of complexity upon the previous house of cards. At some point you get a game which has all the conditions and subclauses laid upon a fundamentally good interaction mechanic, but now instead of just walking up and plopping a quarter into Karate Champ, looking at the crib sheet on the glass, memorizing three moves, and going to town until I run out of quarter, I find myself playing Guilty Gear X2 (a great game, really), pausing the thing mid-fight to dig out the list of X special moves my character can do, trying to remember what conditional modifiers are in effect at any given time, and how that influences which direction I do the standard fireball maneuver.
Frankly, I can't just play any game any longer. Everything wants to immerse me, challenge me on all levels, and provide an experience which will help me transcend to the next level. I'd be quite happy to just watch my little MoonBuggy roll across the screen, having to occasionally jump a crater or blast a UFO out of the sky with my only top mounted gun.
What makes you think the target location is Best Buy for this type thing? Assuming it's cheap enough to produce in the first place, I expect these things will wind up in AOL-tryoutesque type boxes near, say, checkout lines in convenience stores, supermarkets, and the like. It's not going to be for selection, but rather a great way for companies to rake in more of the profit on the immediate rental boom of new releases.
DVDs are DVDs. Unlike video tapes, there are no staggered rental/consumer releases by which the movie companies can recoup the "losses" incurred by folks renting instead of buying their own copies of a movie. This directly addresses that fundamental flaw in the DVD model.
In addition, there are some nice marketing ideas to be imagined here. Self-destructing DVD copies of Silence of the Lambs in the Chianti portion of the wine section, anyone?
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For me being busy means there's even more pressure for games to be as deep as possible - more hypno-bang for the buck. I realize not everyone - in fact a distinct minority - wants this. But it makes it all the sweeter when a multifaceted gem like, say, Arx Fatalis or Morrowind appears.
It seems to me like most of the current games out there are built (at least the AAA aimed titles) under this assumption. I truly lament the disappearance of side scrolling shooters, and relatively linear adventure games.
I think part of the problem is that most designers seem stuck in the complexity == depth mold of design, and while it may be true that it's easier to obtain depth by layering on complexity, I don't think it's necessary.
Neither Go nor Chess nor Tetris are complex in any way, yet all are ostensibly fantastic games. I think a lot of my problem with the current game landscape is that most design houses have quit trying to distill games to their essence because they can't figure out how to do so and maintain complexity (a failure of the original design, I think). The few cases where they do so, however, tend to be very hit or miss. It's a fine line between boring and repetitive without enough variety, and simple to pick up, difficult to master. I think most big game houses long ago gave up trying to figure out how to end up on the right side (or in fact, anywhere near) that line, and instead tend to focus on the realm of "These X features in these games were good.. let's see if we can meld them all." It's a valid approach to depth, but I don't find it to be a particularly elegant one.
Of the major players still running around out there, I think Nintendo is the closest to this ideal still, but even then it's giving them problems. Sega used to be, but they couldn't come up with compelling enough games to justify their business model, and recently seem to have buckled under to a more traditional model.
And a consequence of that aesthetic choice is that complexity goes out the window, along with ambiguiety, variety in problem-solving, and other open-ended criteria that most of us equate with "originality."
The problem is, more complexity, more unpredictability, more "difference" is not necessarily a winning formula in games.
I have a big problem with most games out today, not because they're not original, but because they've lost touch with what they used to be. I suppose it may be a generation gap of types, really. I grew up with Atari 2600 and Odyssey^2. I was 12 or 14 or something when the Nintendo came out, and could afford to buy a Genesis with cash I made from my first job.
Consequently, I'm a poor audience for today's combination shooter/action/horror/puzzle game. I've simply got too much going on to sit down and devote myself to 2+ hours of gaming experience in one sitting in order to accomplish anything. And, frankly, I'd say that, as much as anything else, is the problem with the current crop of games. It's not so much a lack of originality, as it is a continual layering of yet another layer of complexity upon the previous house of cards. At some point you get a game which has all the conditions and subclauses laid upon a fundamentally good interaction mechanic, but now instead of just walking up and plopping a quarter into Karate Champ, looking at the crib sheet on the glass, memorizing three moves, and going to town until I run out of quarter, I find myself playing Guilty Gear X2 (a great game, really), pausing the thing mid-fight to dig out the list of X special moves my character can do, trying to remember what conditional modifiers are in effect at any given time, and how that influences which direction I do the standard fireball maneuver.
Frankly, I can't just play any game any longer. Everything wants to immerse me, challenge me on all levels, and provide an experience which will help me transcend to the next level. I'd be quite happy to just watch my little MoonBuggy roll across the screen, having to occasionally jump a crater or blast a UFO out of the sky with my only top mounted gun.
What makes you think the target location is Best Buy for this type thing? Assuming it's cheap enough to produce in the first place, I expect these things will wind up in AOL-tryoutesque type boxes near, say, checkout lines in convenience stores, supermarkets, and the like. It's not going to be for selection, but rather a great way for companies to rake in more of the profit on the immediate rental boom of new releases. DVDs are DVDs. Unlike video tapes, there are no staggered rental/consumer releases by which the movie companies can recoup the "losses" incurred by folks renting instead of buying their own copies of a movie. This directly addresses that fundamental flaw in the DVD model. In addition, there are some nice marketing ideas to be imagined here. Self-destructing DVD copies of Silence of the Lambs in the Chianti portion of the wine section, anyone?