Our latest Question of the Week asked our audience of game professionals, referencing one of the more controversial Gamasutra articles in recent memory:
"What examples of innovation (in design, business, or other areas) do you think disprove the notion that the game industry is not evolving as quickly as it should be? Or is Chris Crawford right?"
With this in mind, our professional game developer respondents expressed their thoughts on the current state of innovation in the video game industry, and Chris Crawford's eye-opening rhetoric. Personnel from companies such as Harmonix, Obsidian, Crystal Dynamics, NCSoft, and many more gave some varied and excellent insights and opinions - particularly interesting sections are highlighted in bold.
Chris
Crawford is right, but at the same time, the game industry is evolving
through experimental game design. Independent game developers, like
myself, are part of the game industry, whether bloated suits like it or
not. We (independents) are the ones who are doing the
experimental game designs online. And our games are played! Ed Averett,
the creator of K.C. Munchkin once said "The Internet solves
the biggest roadblock to game designers, which is distribution." It is
through the Internet where our experimental games are being distributed
to gamers.
-Trevor Cuthbertson, N.R. Computronics Ltd
In
the area of immersive, emotionally-powerful storytelling, progress has
been painfully slow. The notion that computer-based interactive
entertainment must be a "game" and must adhere to
specific game genres has diminished what could otherwise be a lucrative
branch of entertainment that would attract a new audience. I
believe there is a massive audience out there waiting for the
experience of being “inside” something like a television series or
movie. Call this new form of entertainment a maximally
immersive story world sim, where it's never shoved in your face that
this is, after all, only a game. And where great minds work to make
NPCs as seemingly alive and affecting as possible. In order to achieve
this new form of computer-based entertainment, there must be the will
to do it, and there must be a willingness to include professional
storytellers and dramatists in the design process. Whoever achieves
this first will become wealthy and will go down in history as the
person who started a new renaissance in storytelling and the next
evolution of drama.
-Randy Littlejohn
Of course Chris Crawford is right! But does it matter?
Yes, the verbs in games have solidified and remained the same for some
time. Games. The word reminds me of sports. Which incidentally also
share a lot of the verbs we use to describe rules and actions in our
games: jump, shoot, run etc. Are anybody complaining about the
development of sports being stale or non-existent? I am all for
innovation, it is dawning on me that innovation for innovation's sake
just might not be the holy grail this industry should be chasing.
Perhaps this is what games are?
-Marque Pierre Sondergaard, Heroes Team
I
think Chris is right that we've gone through a long period of "me too"
products. However, it seems to me there is a breath of fresh air coming
from several directions. The Nintendo DS is fostering some
very innovative (and successful) games. Microsoft's Live Arcade
business model has created a channel for smaller,
lower-development-cost games to be marketed profitably at much lower
price points. And the Wii controller promises revolutionary new game
UI.
-Michael Dornbrook, Harmonix Music Systems
I
don't think it's a matter of evolving as quickly as it should. This
industry has matured. Just like the movie industry, our industry now
churns out mainstream products that appeal to the widest possible
audience, with only one thing in mind: revenue.
When
consoles hit the market in the mid / late ‘80s, it killed originality
and risk taking. Nintendo's "seal of approval" meant that only games
that were good enough (read: mainstream) would make it to market.
Becoming a developer was prohibitively expensive and time consuming.
Since consoles are closed systems and home computers were merrily PCs
running Windows, bedroom coding died overnight. Ironically, it sounds
like Nintendo is trying to reverse this trend by making Wii cheaper to
develop for. Still, an individual can't just pick up a Wii dev
kit and start hacking away. Although I applaud Chris' initiative, in
the end, it all boils down to money. This industry will never go back
to its roots as it has become too big a business.
And
even if a publisher does take a risk and puts something original out,
you can bet that it will get zero to no marketing thereby sealing its
fate. Chris' product (because that's really what it is) will target
developers in order to make money. And round and round we go... Where's
the love...?
-Anonymous
First
of all, who decides how quickly the industry "should be" evolving or
innovating? That's an entirely subjective measurement. Along the same
lines, who decides what is innovative? The industry has no objective
standard for innovation so again it falls down to personal belief.
To answer the spirit of the question, there are several recent games
that demonstrated innovation in various categories:
-Emotional Innovation: Shadow of the Colossus .
Rather than the mixture of triumph and relief from frustration you find
with most games, Shadow added elements of sadness and loss. You felt
bad for the poor beast you just killed as well as a sense of victory.
-Level Design Innovation: Psychonauts and Shadow of the Colossus . Shadow's mechanic of turning the level itself into the boss battle was genius and incredibly engaging. Psychonauts
presented its levels as internal mindscapes, allowing for truly unique
and fun experiences exemplified by the milkman, disco and Napoleon
levels.
-Mini-game Innovation: Warioware and Brian Age both innovated on the pace of gameplay giving us entire games made up of very short mini-games.
-Story Innovation: KOTOR2 's
character influence system gave your interactions with party members
new meaning. Interacting with characters in the world became more than
just a method to dispense quests. Your influence with them would change
who they were as a character as well as eventually turning them into
Jedi if you chose.
-Experience Innovation: Earth and Beyond
was the first 3D MMO to award experience for more than killing
monsters. Players could level up their characters by exploration and
trade.
-Interface Innovation: The Nintendo DS touchscreen and
stylus are huge innovations resulting in some truly unique gameplay
experiences. Trauma Center and Big Brain Academy are just two examples of how this mechanic is currently being used.
I
think the major failing with Mr. Crawford's argument is that he is
looking for revolution in the game industry and masking that desire by
calling for innovation, which is present. If Mr. Crawford is
seeking revolution, I'd invite him to apply for a job in the industry
and demonstrate what he is looking for through actual work rather than
commenting safely from the sidelines.
-Brian Heins, Obsidian Entertainment
I
respect Chris Crawford. I admire the work he's doing on storytronics a
great deal, but is innovation dead? I don't know about that. Part of me
wants to agree, militantly, but part of me disagrees to the same
amount. The risk-averse atmosphere of our publishers is certainly
killing our success and the lack of original titles is making the
market bored, but is innovation really dead? No. Innovative titles
still happen, as rare as they are. It's not the end of the world, yet. Ask
me again in 10 years, though - if we haven't found a way for our
industry to take more risks and release more games that don't rely on
tried-and-true formulas, we really will be at the end of our reign.
-Adam Maxwell, NetDevil
Games
have evolved just as fast as the technology that is driving them. Not
only that, but games are creeping into more common everyday aspects of
life. Some surgeons limber up playing games, the military is using them
as training aids. C'mon! People have to keep in mind the industry is
roughly only 30 years old (marked by the mainstream playing actual
video games, not pinball). The average age of a gamer is 29 for a
reason. His logic is flawed. Is every movie released today filmed
digitally, with CGI effects, and in 3D? Thankfully, no. And thankfully,
games only need about 6 or 7 verbs to get the job done. Hey, if a
limited lexicon worked for the cavemen, it should surely work for his
descendents.
-J Kelly, Sea Cow Games
Chris Crawford is somewhere in la-la-land. His statement that game innovation is dead is downright wrong. Look at games like Loco Roco, Brain Training, Eye-toy, Nintendogs, Spore, Guitar Hero.
That's just some of the more high profile titles. Sure, the majority of
games are not trying for innovation but for good, solid craftsmanship.
Is that a bad thing? People have favorite movie styles, book genres,
music themes, food ingredients... Why not the same with games?
-Soeren Lund, Deadline Games
Nintendo
seems to be the only one really innovating at the moment. It's taking
the risks, so hopefully it'll reap the rewards. So what is Chris
Crawford doing, I mean besides complaining?
-Anonymous
The game industry's artistic depth has been evolving steadily, but its
artistic breadth has advanced much more slowly, in fits that are few
and far between. The game industry explores gamers' favorite subject
matters in great depth: for example, no other art form explores spatial
combat action more thoroughly. The action-gamer is quick to draw distinctions between Quake, God of War and Resident Evil,
since – even though all three games consist mainly of killing and
avoiding being killed in a 3D spatial environment – the action-gamer is
a connoisseur, and appreciates the different approaches these three
games take in exploring this subject matter. Chris Crawford is not
interested in spatial combat. No amount of innovation applied to
deepening and splintering the spatial combat genres (of which our
industry has many) will get Chris interested in these kinds of games;
for this we need a new genre independent of spatial combat (or military
strategy like X-Com: UFO Defense, or resource management like The Sims,
or any of the many existing genres the game industry can rightfully be
proud of expressing so well). Since the game industry almost never
really funds genre-creating experiments that end in noble failure, it
also usually fails to evolve in artistic breadth with successful,
compelling and truly new genres.
Should
the game industry keep enriching and splintering existing genres with
depth-oriented innovation? Absolutely; our sizable audience really
appreciates these kinds of interactive aesthetics. Should the game
industry expend significantly more time and money experimenting with
new genres of interactive art, and thereby inspire non-gamers like
Chris? Absolutely, and I applaud Mr. Crawford for doing just that.
-Nathan Frost, Crystal Dynamics
I
can't think of anything that fundamentally contradicts Chris's point,
actually. I am working in the world of MMOs now, because I think the
chance for breakthrough is highest in this genre. The design goals here
are fundamentally different from what they have been for most of the
history of computer games development.
When
we get to the point where players can actively share a variety of rich,
interesting story experiences with each other, online, in real time,
generated by their in-game activities, perhaps we'll have come up with
something fresh at that point. I remain a firm believer that
most "player storytellers" are not particularly good at it, and that we
need to find a way to expand the narrative experience in a game to a
level of professionalism that we are just beginning to understand on
the visual and spatial side in the medium.
Most of the efforts
along these lines continue to be either radically amateur, or
fundamentally misguided by too much reliance upon the construction
principles for narrative in non-games media. There is perhaps one
company out there that "gets" this, but they do so only within the
confines of a single-player game. The real ambition is to figure out
how to embroider narrative expectations into something like an MMO, in
a form that feeds effectively into the dynamics of an ongoing social
gamelife. No one has even started on this project, yet.
-Steven Wartofsky, NCSoft
Seems
like as long as I can remember, I have heard this. And not just about
games either; television, movies, music, even books and plays before
them. How does lack of innovation account for games like Katamari Damacy, Brain Age, or Guitar Freaks? I cite these as example because they also happen to be smash hits, but there are others like Shadow of the Colossus, Prince of Persia, and the upcoming Spore.
To say that games today are mere rehashes flies in the face of the very
history of innovation, which has always been about synthesis of new
ideas from the ashes of the old. I think if anything, we have simply
developed an impatience for continuing innovation in healthy steps, a
knee-jerk reaction to short-term trends, and an inability to detect
innovation when it actually exists. I can tell you from the trenches
that, due to competition and community, innovation is alive and well
today.
-Robert Martin, Amaze Entertainment
There are examples, of course, like Katamari, Guitar Hero, Loco Rocco, Spore...
But they are few, much less than one would expect from an industry
based on innovation as the primary drive. He has a point - a strong one
- and I must agree that I would like to see far more in terms of
experimentation than what's actually available or under development.
-Henrique Olifiers, Jagex Ltd.
The
Wii controller and the touchpad/stylus setup for the DS are both
examples of new control schemes that are expanding the ways we play
games. The DDR pad and the Guitar Hero controller are more focused examples. Games that stand out in my mind for innovation include Guitar Hero, Nintendogs, and of course Spore.
I also believe there's a lot of life left in the existing types of
games. We're not just rehashing old content. We're innovating and
improving on it. Games that come to mind as excellent in that regard
include Oblivion, Shadow of the Colossus, World of Warcraft, and Civilization IV.
From my point of view as an AI engineer, this is a very exciting time
to work in the industry. AI is getting better every year. This may not
be as obvious because the AI is sort of behind the scenes, but the
improvements are there and they're very real. If you compare the
intelligence in a modern strategy game to what we got in, say, the
original Warcraft, it's just amazing.
-Kevin Dill, Blue Fang Games
It seems a bit presumptuous to believe that any industry should be evolving at some particular rate.
I should think that the game industry is in virtually the same state as
many other maturing industries, with larger companies consolidating
their position and looking more for acquisition than innovative
research and development, and with smaller companies fighting for shelf
space and taking chances to try to stand out from the crowd. Other
similar industries are in exactly the same state (e.g., digital audio
and video production, traditional gaming industry (non-computer),
etc.). Having said all this, I would think that the evolution (indeed,
revolution) of the game industry will be its migration towards and
through the next paradigm shift, when performance makes an order of
magnitude change. It is the innovation in these areas (e.g., physics
processors and AI processors), if anywhere, that is most likely to
drive the next shift in the industry.
-Todd Morin, VideoMagic Technologies
If
I wanted to talk to other people in an interactive storytelling
environment I'd play D&D. But then again, perhaps Mr. Crawford
would classify D&D as a victim of 're-branding' within the video
game industry. Or I could be sporty and play a game like Counter-Strike
that has a thriving competitive community with teams across the globe
talking to each other over voice communication software like Ventrilo,
discussing strategy and making friends/enemies over the Internet. Mr.
Crawford says that interactive storytelling translates into meandering
along in a social environment without an established plotline, and then
proceeds to lambaste a game like World of Warcraft, that has some of the most fulfilling social interaction provided by a game and
offers up game mechanics that have enchanted gamers from China to the
US to Europe. In this game, the players become the citizens of the
world, and can choose to role-play accordingly. My question to Mr. Crawford is: What's so innovative about Storytronics that we haven't seen in a good D&D game?
-Ryan Daly, Filament Studios
What
Chris was primarily doing in that interview was advertising his new
engine and business model. The aim of this advertisement was to touch
on the occasional indie developer who feels the same sort of
revolutionary spark and might want to create content with Storytronics.
If you take him too seriously you're bound to be infuriated, because
there are plenty of innovative projects going on in the industry and
the indie scene. Cloud, Play With Fire, Braid, Nintendogs, Trauma Center: Under The Knife;
plenty of games are innovating with pure gameplay. As for interactive
storytelling, Crawford's monolith isn't the only project, I'm aware of
at least one AAA studio that's exploring social play for the next-gen,
and there are at least four independent projects going on that attack
the problem from different angles, one of which I'm fortunate to be
directly involved with. Crawford calls for revolution over evolution,
storyplay over gameplay, interactivity over immersion. Evolution
happens in punctuated jumps that look like revolutions, good storyplay
requires mechanical framing that can still be called a "game", and
immersion, while not the soul of a system, is still an important part
of the experience, especially if you want your story engine to see mass
success. Storytronics will certainly foster interesting experiments and
perhaps masterworks, but it's not the whole story.
-Patrick Dugan, True Vacuum
I was
at the talk when Chris Crawford said the games industry is dead. I
originally became interested in the industry because of Chris Crawford on Game Design
(a fantastic read by the way). However, I now believe Chris Crawford is
blind to the realities of the industry. There is innovation everywhere
these days, just look at some of the games being developed on Gamedev!
The number of games being created that are innovative in some facet or
another is astounding. Now I know the argument can be made that there
is nothing groundbreaking, or truly innovative coming out now or in the
past few years, but here's the thing. We, as an art form, are
young; younger than any other art form by years and years. Did painting
ever endure 10 year spans of little or no innovation? Has music ever
been stagnant for a period of years or even centuries? I believe so.
In comparison, we are the most innovative art form on the history of
the planet. Within a 20 year span, the state of both the art and the
industry has transformed dramatically, to the point that someone
involved with it 20 years ago, may not recognize it today (Chris
Crawford).
-Derek Ehrman, Full Sail
As
much as I would like to disagree, there is a lot he says that I feel is
right. However, as much as I respect Mr. Crawford, I can't help but
feel that that primary goal of that interview was to be a "commercial"
for Storytronics. Unfortunately, I think his comparisons to the movie
industry were way off too.
Currently, the game industry is
running parallel to the movie industry in the way it markets and the
types of projects it pushes. Hollywood is constantly putting out the
"same ole, same ole". Many production houses simply are not willing to
put forth the kind of money it would take to make certain movies that
fall outside the norm. It is the independent houses that get these
movies made.
The game industry is running the same way. They feel the risk is too
great to spend on development of a game, just for it to end up losing
the company money. In the end, it is still a business and companies do
not operate too well when they lose money. So they lower the overall
risk by doing what has been proven to sell. I think it is very telling
in how he refers to interactive storytelling as being this great thing,
when he says it has been worked on for 14 years and they have yet to
have anything that really works. Unless I am misunderstanding exactly
what the goal of his project is, it feels like he is trying to recreate
the wheel as a way to be "innovative". After all, video games are
inherently "interactive stories". Now most stories are far from being
Hemmingway in quality, hell, not even King quality, but they try.
Unfortunately,
as long as people continue to buy these re-hashed games, the business
mind of game companies are going to follow the money. In the end, it is
not the lack of ideas, but rather the company "money men" who veto and
form those original ideas into something more mainstream and normal. Besides, with people like Will Wright out there doing their thing, I don't see how anyone can say that "nothing" is being done.
-Anonymous
On
the whole, I would agree with Chris. But there have been a few
outstanding exceptions that I'm sure are being pointed to by everyone
responding: Spore; Oblivion. And that's about all that comes to mind, currently. We all know the problem.
We need investors to fund the game, and investors are interested in a
sure thing - based on previous successful formulae - and getting their
investment back with interest. There just isn't any money in genre-breaking, which leads to a fetid industrial cesspool.
-Travis Lackey
Innovation
isn't dead, but it isn't exactly thriving either.. The monster
publishers have grown a bit conservative. Sequelitis. Let's cure
ourselves of this, please. New ideas with excellent follow-through is
the only way out of the rut created by repetitive iterations in game
design.
I
don't think the problem is a lack of innovation. Certainly, innovation
is around. But the market is already massive, and that push towards
wider audiences has shifted the flow of money in the direction of the
familiar and easily accessible, which is ultimately the least
innovative.
On
the hardware side of things, gaming has maybe never been more
innovative. It is incredible how many progressive and difficult
problems are being tackled with the newest hardware solutions. This
almost forces innovation as software people must try new things and use
hardware in different ways than they have previously. Almost. Often the
first software for new hardware is of the mindset "Well, let's see how
these new devices handle our old IP."
Perhaps
the most important contributor to progressively more innovative game
development will be the increasingly versatile nature of the new
consoles. The coming generation of consoles will be a monumental leap
forward in gaming.
-Anonymous
In my opinion, Mr.Crawford seems to have mixed up innovation and
revolution. As for revolution, I almost agree but am still not sure
because of the Nintendo Wii. As for innovation, I would like to ask Mr
Crawford where should I put Indigo Prophecy, Half-Life 2 (for physics gameplay), Katamari Damacy, Spore, Assassin's Creed (for interaction with environment), Shadow of the Colossus, Civilization 4 (I think it is pretty innovative even though it is a sequel). Yes, Call of Duty
is just another shooter, but has anyone experienced being WWII solder
in such an immersive manner before? Isn't it an innovation by all
means?
-Taras Korol, Abducted Artists
Chris
Crawford is absolutely right! The industry has been this way for the
last 10 years at least!! The ONLY area of gaming that has seen
substantial improvement, which isn't necessarily the same as
innovation, is graphics and many "new" games are even missing the boat
here as well. I suppose one could argue that music and voice have also
improved, but again, improvement isn't necessarily innovation. The
gameplay experience has pretty much seen no innovation for a long time
now. An RTS game today plays almost exactly like RTS games of the early
‘90s, simulation and adventure games are virtually non-existent today,
FPS games don't play any different, the RPG formula hasn't changed, and
arcade/fighter games are as arcade as they've ever been – they all just
have new/better graphics! Anyone who argues that innovation has
been happening needs to understand that innovation is more than just
doing one little thing a little different. Innovation is making the
entire gameplay experience more satisfying for experienced gamers and
more accessible and enjoyable to new gamers. AI, difficulty settings,
damage modeling, inventory controls, story telling, even interfaces are
all areas that aren't seeing much innovation, and there are undoubtedly
others. So yeah, Chris Crawford hit the nail on the head.
-John Gwynn
I've
been following Chris Crawford for a while now and have an adequate
grasp on what he is trying to say here. You have to understand where he
is coming from when he makes bold claims of an industry completely
devoid of anything new or fresh. Of course, as this QofW will surely
confirm, we have had what most game players and developers would
consider innovation. Most responses will probably bring up Katamari
and Nintendo, and rightfully so in your context, but Chris is talking
about a different kind of innovation here, a different context, and I
think miscommunication is occurring because of it. I'm not sure
why he didn't explain it in his interview or the GDC rant but Mr.
Crawford has written in the past about play spaces and how they are
more varied than usually taken advantage of. Almost all 'games', as we
know them, remain entirely in a spatial play space. Moving, throwing,
and grabbing along x-, y-, and sometimes z-axes pretty much sums up the
industry right now.
Chris
Crawford has taken up the challenge of developing play within the
emotional space, which is so foreign to the current concept of a 'game'
that he has had to completely break away from any association with the
game culture.
There
are no spatial x-, y-, z-axes in a emotional play space, instead being
replaced with axes such as love, fear, and trust, and instead of moving
through just one system of coordinates at will, there is a separate
system for each character that refers to every other character that is
'navigated' though a dialogue with said characters. This is only an
emotional space, one of many other types of play spaces that are just
waiting to be experimented with. Chris Crawford was one of the first
and is still one of the only people to even attempt such a venture.
This
is the type of innovation Crawford calls out for and although his
methods of education may be incendiary, it cannot be denied that this
is an exciting new front with possibilities no one has even thought of
yet.
-Jacob Gahn
There
is tons of innovations in the industry, that's not a problem. Sure it's
going really slow but I think Crawford's argumentation is flawed. The
game industry does have a lot in common with Hollywood; there
is big budget production, hit or miss successes. There is tons of
awards for both of them and the video game industry does not lack in
encouragement for the independent developers. We even have our own
legends, like Steven Spielberg or David Lynch in Hollywood. The game
industry sure ain't as mature as the film industry but it's not as old
either.
I see so much people involved in making the industry
better, the IGDA, the GDC, the Montreal Game Summit and all the others
shows I don't even know of. Crawford is really trying to pigeon-hole
the whole industry into a small bucket but it smells too much like a
marketing plan for his story-telling machinery.
With Nintendo's Wii and DS, with mobile games and Microsoft's Live
Anywhere, there is a lot of new stuff even though most of the
productions are remakes of older game. But that's just another point we
got in common with Hollywood : they love remaking old films! And it
works.
So comparison with Hollywood is not a strong argument in my mind. The game industry is exactly the same as any industry. And
by the way, I don't see the story-telling industry evolving fast
either. Anyway, in my mind, that's still just a niche in the game
industry that is not more or less worthy than anything else.
We all need to have an open mind and some respect for every innovation
that can be tried. Interactive story-telling is not different and
there's no reason to try to place it apart from the rest. By the way, I
wonder why Crawford is still participating in gaming conferences and
round tables if he thinks he doesn't have anything to do with the game
industry anymore?
-Kevin Trepanier, Gameloft Montréal
He's
right. Aside from the business and creative angles of this issue, part
of the problem is the technology we have to work with. At the
moment, creating any sort of meaningful content requires an enormous
effort from a team of people. This is partly due to the
software/content creation tools currently at our disposal. The nature
of C++ requires a programmer to describe things in excruciating detail
in order to get anything meaningful on screen. Building a character
animation requires an artist to detail bones, movement etc., which
takes too much time. The hardware we have to work on doesn't help
either: nice graphics, but not much CPU muscle we could use for general
programming issues. It seems as an industry we are cutting down trees with blunt saws.
We
need to invest more in tools and techniques that reduce development
time and relieve developers from mundane tasks (how many times do we
have to write database code?) so we can get to work on the things that
attracted us to this industry. As an industry we need take time to
sharpen the saw.
-Amonn Phillip, Nokia
Think
about other industries, for example the movie industry. Other than new
special effects, there is not a lot of innovation that comes to the
mainstream audience. Also the music industry changes a lot but doesn't
really have a big net gain in innovation, every succeeding generation
is a counter-culture of the previous. If you think about these
industries, change may take years.
But gaming is one of the few industries that can bring innovation to
the mainstream. After all, what's the point of innovating if no one
sees it? Think about all the innovative music sub-genres that
few people listen to. Rehashed movie-based games aren't the ones going
to the top-selling list, it's games like Nintendogs and Brain Age.
That's what's so great about this industry, the innovative titles
aren't some unknown game winning first prize at some unknown game
festival, they are games that your mom would know.
-Mayuran Thurairatnam, Avocado Overboard
I
don't agree with everything Chris Crawford says but it should be clear
to most developers that there is a lot of truth to what he says about
the lack of innovation in the game industry today. The biggest
vacuum of innovation is in gameplay design. When you break down the
average mainstream video game into it's core gameplay components
(stripping away the "garnish" like story, cutscenes, dialogue trees,
fancy graphics, 7.1 audio, AI etc...) videogames basically boil down to
the same standard FPS shooter, strategy, RPG or platform game we've
been playing for the last 20 years. The vast majority of
games adhere to one of these molds and may claim innovation in the form
of slight variations on a basic component of the genre blueprint. A lot
of these games have even less gameplay depth than their predecessors.
Not only do most games base themselves on one of these basic blueprints
but on every project I've worked on, designers lend themselves to
pilfering design concepts from other high-profile games. Leading to
directives like: "We're going to make this game Halo for the PS2" or "This week we're going to implement the control scheme from Half-Life 2, the control scheme from Zelda
didn't work out." even if these design concepts don't fit within the
context of the game. What this amounts to is a lot of cookie-cutter
games that all look very similar (how many games at E3 had giant crabs
or a first person perspective of a big gun or an MMO world full of
elves and dwarves?). Gameplay is definitely not evolving at the same
rate technical innovations are evolving.
-Anonymous
Chris Crawford takes up a very important point about the industry, that
we're in fact producing sequels on a conveyor belt, and that every
"new" title is a copy of a copy. But in the same time, he fails to see
the small innovations that are being carefully embedded into each new
game.
Yes,
we're evolving slowly, where the main sales point for each new game is
the "improved graphics", and not "improved gameplay". We need to take a
step away from that and realize that the game industry needs risk
takers, and not a statistically correct formula for producing good
sales. During GDC '05 Will Wright spoke about player created
content, and noted that player stories will always be more powerful
than scripted stories we try to tell the players. I find this very
important and the more we allow the gamers to make their own choices,
and allow them a much broader interaction within the game itself, the
more they'll feel immersed in the actual gameplay experience. Warren
Spector summed up my point with excellence when he said in a recent
interview: "The key for me is not to preplan every step of the player's
experience. Putting players on rails, even if it does result in an
emotionally compelling experience, seems like kind of a waste of time.
To my mind, if we can offer players a choice, if we can let
players make a decision, we should always do so. And then we have an
obligation to show players the consequences of their choices and
decisions. The game should unfold differently depending on how you
play, how you solve problems."
Finally,
I would like to point out that Chris Crawford isn't really creating a
game here. He himself states that it's misleading to refer to it as a
game, and that the kind of people who like games will most likely not
enjoy his "interactive storytelling". Hence, his complaints about the
game industry as large, seems like misdirected, because he hasn't taken
part of the industry for over a decade, and will most likely not take
another part in it ever again.
-Anonymous
Both statements are true.
Let us recall that there is an extremely large "game" industry that
does not, as radical as this sounds, use computers, but in some cases
ships very large numbers of copies. For example, the Dutch translation
of The Settlers of Catan shipped a half-million copies, and this was after German and several other versions were available.
These strategy games are not exploited for computer use, yet represent
enormous amounts of innovation and evolution in the complete game
industry, as witness evolution in the Spiele des Jahres winners over
the past decade. There is a very large 'Eurogame' industry that
produces multi-player family strategy games (more sophisticated than
e.g. Risk; for computers we need a bit of hardware innovation
so four or six can play cheaply with private screens in the same room)
with straightforward rules, play times of 1-2 hours, non-controversial
themes, and demanding strategies... that would be available as models
for gameplay. Those models are not being exploited much in the computer
game industry, though note www.gametableonline.com. Tom Vasel and I are
just completing two books (Contemporary Perspectives in Game Design
with study problems is about to appear from Third Millennium) on
related design issues. Similarly, while there are many military combat
computer games, the impact of the board wargame design field on
computer game design texts is rather limited. Thus, there is a great
deal of evolution and innovation, but Crawford is arguably right that
his segment of the game industry (computers) is less innovative.
-George Phillies, WPI
Around
1995, when the industry realized the existence of the "casual" player,
the format of games changed radically. The long, hard and obscure games
of the ‘80s were replaced by much more accessible, shorter and easier
titles. Ten years later, we have 2 billion television viewers, 1
billion Internet users but only 1-200 million gamers. More than ever, gaming as a media is threatened: it can no longer pretend to be the ultimate electronic entertainment.
For
that reason, the format of the games is going to undergo another
radical change to address the hundreds of millions of non-gamers. Games
which require a commitment of tens of hours will no longer be the
dominant form. Instead, new gamers will turn to games that allow
shorter sessions, or that are coupled with a strong social experience.
In
fact, this shift has already started. The proof? The Internet policy of
the console manufacturers enabling developers to publish smaller games
easily, web-based game portals that reach millions with simple
concepts, MMOSG (social games) which address new audiences, mobile
gaming, the many new forms of multiplayer gaming. All of this
contributes to a complete renewal of the game media. There is a strong,
tangible effort to create a new gaming paradigm.
-Jerome Cukier, www.gamethink.net
Konami's Bemani series evolved music games past Simon. Dance Dance Revolution takes a simplified approach to dance steps and makes it into an aerobic exercise that's actually fun. Beatmania and Beatmania IIDX
show how a sequence mini-keyboard can be fun and super-challenging. As
for the evolution of gaming? Sequels are made when they sell well, and
stop when they sell poorly. Selling well means it's pleasing the target
audience. All that means is that the industry is too slow evolving for
Mr. Crawford and his peers. I actually think that games are getting a
bit derivative. However, Chris Crawford is being overly
pessimistic. It's almost like breaking the sound barrier. If you
believe it can't be done, it won't be done.
- Robert Gauss, US Army Developmental Test Command
He is right in regards to most big budget games. Innovation
tends to be the exception that is tacked on to a proven formula. I'd
say the funds given over to blue sky research (and the expectation that
they must return something) form the main limitations to innovation. The
idea that Crawford brought forward, of Hollywood 's wide spreading of
funds to generally promote innovation, is a model that would greatly
benefit the industry. With more money now flowing in and more rehashing
of old ideas being done, it seems this will be a natural progression.
-Anonymous
I would disagree on his use of Hollywood as an example of innovation in story telling. One
could parallel distinct similarities between Hollywood studios and game
studios throwing money at the next sequel/sure thing and passing on the
risky/different. More often than not, it takes someone out of the
mainstream to attempt what hasn't been done. The majority of
what's holding back the industry is how the gamer interacts with the
game. Wii is a small step in the right direction but more has to be put
into how a gamer interacts. Immersion should be the next frontier to
conquer. Some of what Mr. Crawford said is right and I feel the
industry is close to being able to make significant changes with
innovations that will allow new levels of interaction with games as
well as increases the AI. Until then it's still a joystick/keyboard and
a TV/monitor.
-Matthew Barry