Sunday Thoughts: Innovation
It's been done before.
Published: 13:00, 03/07/2011 by Tuffcub.
6In the infancy of computer gaming programmers were faced with eight colour palettes, one button joysticks and 48k to squeeze an entire game into. Looking back from todays terabyte hard drives and internet enabled phones, the ZX Spectrum is the computing equivalent of a rock on a stick but with these simple tools the most inventive games ever were created. Every title today is a direct ancestor of those early titles.
Spaaaaace.
You may not have heard of Tomohiro Nishikado but he created the shoot ‘em up when a dream about Japanese school children who are waiting for Santa Claus inspired him to create Space Invaders.
Back in the 1980s, programmers took the most basic building blocks and created a new form of entertainment. Like a child with a tub of Lego, their imagination ran riot, whole worlds, or in the case of Elite, entire universes were created in 48k or less.
Software houses (which usually consisted of two chaps in a garage in Sussex) did not have 3D, motion control or anti aliased rendering to hide behind, they had to create something playable, something original and try and avoid colour clash whilst doing so.
As the games industry grew up, technology advanced via the Amiga, Megadrive and PC until we reach today’s powerhouses, the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. We now have 3D, motion control, that bloke from The Office doing a voice over, multiplayer and games designed by movie producers. What we do not have is any new games.
The storage space, memory and processing power of gaming has increased by a factor of millions since the days of the ZX Spectrum but the basic structure of games has remained the same. Strip away the fancy 3D graphics, multiple path upgrade systems and Hollywood cut scenes and we are still playing titles that were designed in the 1980′s.
Killzone 3 is a descendant of Doom on the PC which is a descendant of 3D Monster Maze on the ZX Spectrum 81 which is the child of Maze Wars, a game from 1974 for the Imlac PDS-1. Take the interrogation sections from L.A. Noire, strip away the fancy graphics and you’re left with a classic text adventure.
Was PacMan thinking with Portals?
Some claim that the last innovation in gaming was Populous, the first ‘God’ simulation. When I was at school, back in the 1980s, I spent my lunch hour playing a BBC Micro game which I think was called Settlers. The idea of the game was to manage the resouces of a village and deal with natural disasters including a flood.
I would argue that the last original home video game was created in 1996 when PaRappa the Rapper introduced the world to rhythm action games, a game to be celebrated or vilified depending on your view of the chart domination of Just Dance and Zumba Fitness.
It’s not just me. Peter Molyneux has voiced his concern about the state of the games industry.
“I love new ideas and innovation. I’m trying to think of a more diplomatic way of saying this, but I’m just a little bit bored of doing things the same way in games. While I love all the drama of modern games there is this sameness about it. “
“They’re essentially the same – one’s got a green palette, one’s got a grey palette; you’re shooting and ducking and diving and it just seems almost on the point of being a little bit like Hollywood where they have got into this rut with their action films.”
Have we reached the point where there are no new games, just the same games in new clothes?
I’ll leave you with one last thought: Starhawk is out next year and will feature massive multiplayer space battles. Sometime in 1973 Jim Bowery created a game called Spasim on the PLATO network in which players flew around planets and each other in wire-frame space ships.
It had multiplayer, supporting up to 32 gamers.
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03/07/2011 at 13:07
Member since: Nov 2008
Yes, much like everything in the world there is only so far you can go. The idea well is running dry and even in the movie world we are soon to be seeing the same old stuff with a different skin on it.
Games like Heavy Rain tried hard to break away from the norm, and succeeded in many respects, now if another ‘interactive movie’ were to come along it would then be just seen as Heavy Rain with a different skin.
Saying all that doesnt mean i am bothered by it though, I still love what we have, what is coming and what has passed. More more more!
03/07/2011 at 13:44
Member since: Aug 2009
i agree roy.
we should appreciate what we have, not what we don’t/won’t have.
good article.
03/07/2011 at 13:19
Member since: Feb 2010
Very good read! It’s true, no matter what new game there is now, we already seen it done before, we need some bright spark somewhere out there to come up with a new genre of gaming! But its gonna be a real challenge, I mean most if the newest fancy stuff now is 3d, although I would love to see a serious rts game turned 3d, that would be a blast!
03/07/2011 at 13:43
Member since: Mar 2009
It may be fair to suggest that thatgamecompany are trying harder than anyone else to bring some genuine innovation into gaming while we increasingly become bogged down with sequels, annual updates, reboots and HD upgrades. But they are sadly in the minority as the industry is much more finance driven than it was back in the days of the bedroom coders.
Good shout for Parappa though “I gotta believe!”
03/07/2011 at 14:21
Member since: Aug 2009
I’d say that we’re pretty spoiled to be honest. You’re right in what you say though with regard to innovation, the same happened in music, movies. Someone, Somewhere has always seen it all before.
It seems to me that devs are adding gimmicks and little extras to games rather than truly creating. I know for sure that I prefer to play the early Tony Hawk games than the latter stuff that obviously had more for your money but the early ones had a core of great physics, ideas and gameplay in general.
I’ll always take a core game over gimmicks. As for innovation, PSN has proved infinitely more fruitful than anything on disc. As sesameeseed rightly says, thatgamecompany has proved innovation isn’t dead, nowhere near but it’s definitely getting tougher to create.
Personally I’d like a little more focus from developers, get the core game right then innovate with DLC.
I actually did a little gaming on my old Amstrad 464 CPC+ recently and had every bit as much fun as anything I’ve played on PS3, it made me think … It’s what it’s all about right? Fun?
Really interesting article, Tuffcub and it’s certainly food for thought.
03/07/2011 at 14:25
Member since: Mar 2011
I agree that there are many reused ideas, but it’s the same in all forms of media, and it’s nothing new. Some people insist that all literature is about love, sex or death, in varying forms, and nothing else. Love for something, avoidance of death, you get the picture I’m sure. And people can draw stylistic links between authors like Homer, and the twilight series author, or Tolkien and J.K. Rowling. If one looks at art, from each period in time when a particular style was popular, it was used massively, both Greek and Roman statues of people often included the person standing in such a way that their body was curved to slightly resemble an S, commonly known as an S-curve, and prior to this, the Contrapposto, which is a more relaxed slouched version. These were then both copied in renaissance and modern art. Although, these have been copied by many, there are obvious exceptions and new forms of art, Damien Hurst, or Banksy spring to mind. To me, it seems silly to say that there are no truly new ideas, when there clearly are, flower, for one, is in my mind, one of the only successful uses of sixasis, Noby Noby boy – it’s entirely mad, in what other game are you a sausage with legs that can grow and eat things?
To me it seems wrong to demand that entirely new genres be defined when there are so many variations upon each. In the FPS genre for example, a game like Killzone, feels weighty and entirely different to the light and rapid COD, then a game like Mirrors Edge, or Portal 2 (although not a shooter, is still first person) change the formula entirely.
Yes, we borrow from the past, as we have always done, but it is precisely borrowing that leads onto new development. – Well, in my opinion..
03/07/2011 at 15:14
Member since: Jul 2009
Brilliantly put Sir. Could not have said it better. It is difficult, nigh impossible, to be 100% genuinely revolutionary or unique. There is just too much information and opinion to not be swayed by anything which already exists.
Unique games and inventions will come by way of utilising many different pre-existing ideas and concepts, but in a new mould. And even if something is similar to something else, it still has the ability to be better and MORE enjoyable.
03/07/2011 at 15:35
Member since: Mar 2009
My feelings and response would mirror yours very similarly… Oh the irony!
03/07/2011 at 14:54
Member since: Jan 2010
Perhaps there really is no such thing as an original game anymore, but at least StarHawk rolls of the tongue a little better than Spasim. :)
Besides, the generic gamer _loves_ a lack of originality…. *cue the CoD reference* …. in fact, original IPs are a pretty risky venture in market that really just wants “New Game” to be “Old Game + 1″ with shinier shine and blingier bling.
In terms of the article, I don’t a new game has to define a whole new genre to just to display true innovation, but it’s certainly far more likely to expect evolution in games these days than true revolution. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, I like that we a perfecting gaming slowly rather than trying to reinvent it every year. Just imagine if the airline industry tried to reinvent aviation every few years just to try and keep it fresh ;).
03/07/2011 at 15:04
Member since: Aug 2009
Demons Souls, Not a new game but a new way of playing. Brilliant idea being able to leave messages.
03/07/2011 at 15:26
Member since: May 2010
yeah was a great idea, and it was the first time i had ever seen the blue and red markers which allowed you to jump into someone elses world instantly. The best message i saw on the game was located on blacksmith ed’s bed, it said “sticky white stuff”, classic!
03/07/2011 at 19:35
Member since: Oct 2010
That really was a brilliant idea. At first I thought it wasn’t so clever that they’d limited it to set phrases, but it’s actually far better that way!
03/07/2011 at 15:39
Member since: May 2010
I love new ideas, and I think there is so much more ideas for gaming and films which could be used. Take Enslaved, a new concept on a post apocalyptic world with a really intense story. And every Rockstar game is something completely new most of the time, RDR (i know its not new but oh well) and LA Noire. Or even the Skate series, it took Tony Hawk to the next level i think. Apart from that there seems to be less new ideas and innovation these days, as there are so many gamers out there who will not recognise new IP’s and will automatically disregard them which i think is terrible. The cause of this? well everyone knows the answer to that.
I know people who will say Heavy Rain, Enslaved, Mirrors Egde and Bioshock are “crap” without playing them. The only game they play is blasted Call of Duty or any other FPS which mimics it and bloody FIFA.
03/07/2011 at 15:40
Member since: Nov 2009
ZX spectrum 81 ?????
I think you mean ZX81 as the Spectrum was the successor to that machine
03/07/2011 at 15:46
Member since: Jan 2011
What about Flower? Does that take from any previous game?
03/07/2011 at 19:33
Member since: Jul 2009
Probably not. Thankfully there are smaller game devs that are still looking for new angles. ThatGameCompany is doing a great job with how they want to develop games; the lead designer commenting on how he wants to evoke an emotion so goes to build a game around that. Sure, it might not be the way to go for every developer but what a great way to think out-of-the proverbial box.
Personally (and it’s something I’ve been banging on about for ages) I’d like to see a strong story carry the game from start to end. Let the mechanics of the story influence the mechanics of the game. I know it’d be trickier to develop but oh-so rewarding to the gamer instead of the pigeon-hole genres we see before us.
Tuffcub – great article, fella. Lovely stuff.
04/07/2011 at 17:53
Member since: Dec 2008
Pacman in 3d.