Twitter is a wonderful thing. I know some people don’t understand the point of it, but the sheer volume of tweets mean that it’ll spark of ideas at least once or twice a day; and that’s where today’s thoughts comes from. Yesterday he decided to complain about the lack of originality in modern gaming, how there aren’t more games that feel different and original like ICO. I’d like to argue the opposite, there’s plenty of originality if you just know where to look for it. The place to look is of course downloadable games.
Maybe retail games do seem a little samey, shooters are where people seem to level that complaint the most. It’s hard to argue that shooters contain a wide variety of graphical styles and mechanics, I’d say around 75%-90% of games in the genre do seem very similar to each other. I think people would welcome more variety, and I will admit that titles like Brink and Borderlands ( both of which I’d call FPSRPGs) are bringing more of that variety. Of course given the volume that shooters sell in I can understand why developers to seem to converge, everyone wants a piece of the money pie.
Now here’s the tiny rub with the ‘all shooters are the same’ issue. Whilst shooters may be similar, a little known fact is that there are other genres that exist in gaming. As noted above the real place you need to look for the variety in modern gaming is in smaller titles, downloadable or not.
This was something that Tim Schafer touched on at this week’s Develop conference. He made a point that may seem pretty obvious, but does explain the perceived ‘sameyness’ of modern gaming. Publishers don’t want to take a risk on AAA titles, they costs tens of millions of dollars to produce and if they want to make back that money they have to appeal to the largest possible audience. Sadly this normally means appealing to the lowest common denominator, hence the similar stories with space marine protagonists and overly perfect and sexualised female love interests.
However when you’re making a smaller game, there’s obviously much less pressure from publishers. They’ve investing less money in the game, so there’s less to make back and less pressure to conform just to make cold hard cash. Developers are more free to experiment with the title and try new things that they wouldn’t want to risk in an AAA title. In particular if a studio is working on multiple smaller titles there’s no real pressure for any particular title to perform, with only one title in production everything is make or break – another point that Schafer made at Develop.
Whilst we’re likely to see more and more current studios moving to small titles because of the flexibility and reduced financial pressure, there are plenty of studios making these smaller titles that promote original concepts right now. I mean look at what thatgamecompany are doing for a start. We’ve got flOw, Flower and the upcoming Journey. None of these three titles even vaguely resemble anything else currently on the market, even in their aftermath no-one has produced similar titles.
You might say that thatgamecompany is only one developer in a field of hundreds, but look at other titles like Braid and the recently released Limbo. What about last year’s Shadow Complex? Shadow Complex is built on the Unreal Engine, widely regarded as one of the driving forces behind the perceived blandness in the current generation of gaming, and yet I feel it’s a fun stand out game that doesn’t take anything from other games based on Epic’s Engine.
Ok sure, there aren’t a huge amount of games like ICO. That’s what people really seems to want, large retail games that think outside of the box. Then again we’ve had ModNation Racers, Alan Wake and Heavy Rain this year alone, three games which have been praised for trying new concepts.
Of course we do still get absolute gems in the retail market, but the true wealth of originality seems to exist in the smaller games that come from independent developers. Sure they may not all be retail games, but with services like Steam, XBLA and PSN why go through the risk and bother of getting stores to stock your game when you can get a global reach quickly and easily. You’re unlikely to sell as many copies as a boxed game, but on the other hand you get a huge advantage in the long tail.
cc_star
The downloadable arena has a lower barrier to entry, therefore devs and/or pubs can take a punt on something which just won’t fly in the retail space.
the industry has its roots in the indie PC downloadable games where it is still a million times more varied than the XBLA/PSN
The XBLA is making great inroads into this with the Indie Channel and although there is a lot of ‘noise’ on there, there are reportedly some real gems. They’re also perhaps creating Microsoft supporting indie studios of the future.
The PSN is still a different kettle of fish with Sony or other publishers wanting their pound of flesh to bring something to the store, and the minis still haven’t quite hit the mark with the PS3 install-base, as the ports are cheaper elsewhere and the original games are priced (at around £4) just outside of the ‘worth-a-punt’ pricing zone.
Downloads are the future and as such the barriers to entry will continually be being lowered, so the future does look bright for original indie projects – if they can just stay in business long enough to get through the gaming recession & for download stores to increase their stangle-hold on becoming the primary means for accessing games.
In the retail arena, macho games with twice the explosions, twice the action, twice the enemies on screen, twice the polygons still win out – but the core gamer could be a dying bread, as they are the most expensive to develop for but are really part of a non-profit making niche – so who knows what the future will bring
billsmugs
I know a lot of people have said it before, but many of the best games of this generation have been downloads (thatgamecompany and the PIxelJunk series in particular). It’s great that all these interesting concepts and companies, that would probably never have seen the light of day on previous consoles, can now get in on the action through PSN/XBLA.
bunimomike
Completely agree. LS has a good point, though. In most of the major franchises we see very little evolution and expansion and a lot of that is because of the fan-base. Sequels do not want to lose people who enjoyed any prior outings. Thankfully, PSN (as mentioned in each reply) is a wonderful foundation for games like flOw, Flower, Journey, PixelJunk games (to a lesser degree), Braid, etc.
Thinking about it, I’m so genuinely pleased to be able to play games like that as they juxtapose the samey world of FPS efforts. Don’t get me wrong, there are some wonderful FPS games but they always seem to be trying to refine as oppose to strive to new heights.
badgersnapper68
When financial gain is the driver – after all, the likes of Activison and EA are business, there will always be the generic shooter or similar that will be lapped up by the general gaming population. Games like CoD will continue to be made as longs as people want them. But luckily there is still a sizeable number of gamers who are always waiting try something different and fortunately there are small dev companies who are always willing to make something different.
It is ironic though, with all that gaming horse power under the hood of modern consoles, that it is the simple games (that could arguably have been made on a SNES) that are leading the way in terms of innovation and general all round cleverness. You’d think that it is possible for the large companies to use all the grunt to improve other areas of gaming outside of the usual graphical upgrades.
Its true that a huge amount of people love CoD (I only mention this series of games as it is really popular) but maybe, just maybe, if people knew that they had genuine alternatives to the run-of-the-mill stuff then gaming could really “grow”.
Roynaldo
Who is he? (first paragraph)
DeathByNumbers
He is a young male, perhaps 23 or 24, his name is Mark* he lives a busy life and works hard. Outside if work he wants some way of relaxing, something that doesn’t take much effort and he is willing to pay for it.
*that might not be his name..
DrNate86
People moan about how similar everything is, but I think that games are still constantly evolving. Modern Warfare is seen as the bog standard FPS, but this only came about 3 years ago and before that Halo would have been the go to FPS framework. Now we are seeing more games utilising additional powers, like Bioshock and Singularity coming through. You do get the odd by the numbers game, but I think a lot of games do add something new to the mix. Racing games, sports games, even RPGs could all be called samey as well really, they usually follow the same formula. If something works, then I don’t think there is a problem repeating it, it is why sequels continue to be made! While downloadable games do offer more variety, I don’t think variety is dead from the big games either.
badgersnapper68
fair point, but the sad thing is its fear of failure that seems to be dominating the industry. sticking to what you know sells is the way to go it seems. having said that, if somebody is lucky enough to stumble across an innovative and mass market gaming mechanic then we all benefit – I suppose at one point things like Doom where considered innovative.
colmshan1990
EA made a big attempt at changing FPS games, and made a fantastic game, but Mirror’s Edge failed to sell well, and made either little or no profit. :(
There’s no point in complaining about a lack of originality when people apparentely don’t want or appreciate it.
billsmugs
The FPS elements (combat and enemies) where what put me off Mirror’s Edge. The combat (particularly unarmed) was rubbish (in my opinion) and I hate being chased, without being able to see the chasers, so when the guards come after you in the demo that put me off as well.
If it had just been about the free-running aspect, it would have been great. The art style in particular was lovely.
DRCD1
Pheraps you should have had tried the game on easy difficulty, it’s way better/less frustating. But I agree, third person chases are better, specially the ones in Beyond Good And Evil
DRCD1
What if someone tried to make a second person shooter/platformer. The camera would be a bit shaky, and would be the eyes of a NPC (preferebly with unlimited health), who would move in a way so he could always see the player, the player’s movement would relative to the camera, and the shooting would be handled in a manner similar to time crisis, would you buy that game?
tonycawley
no
bunimomike
Isn’t Time Crisis first person?
bunimomike
Sorry. To expand, how would it handle the shooting?
DRCD1
The Player controlled characther (PCC)(the person seen by the NPC camera) would shoot , but the aiming reticule would be controlled as if the game was a light-gun game: the camera is not controlled, but the reticule is. The PCC would then aim at a point in space defined by the aiming crosshair and the first object it hits. A bit like CoD’s Laser Targeting, exept you control the striker and the soldiers laser pointer, not just the soldier. Ok this is way too complicated for me to explain correctly since I’m not fluent in English. But on a second thought, a autoaim system would be better. But I think the innumerous times the camera NPC would obstruct the view and the fact that there are innumerous third person shooters would make this game not worth it.
Also, I only asked if you’d buy it because I forgot where I was going with that comment and I didn’t know how to finish it.
DRCD1
I just remebered: Skate (Game) is 2nd person isn’t it?
gazzagb
I don’t think you can say there isnt any originality anymore. The FPS genre is probably the main genre in todays world. But there is still plenty of originality. Take MAG for instance, 256 players online. That took the FPS concept, and altered it slightly. A few years ago, nearly every console FPS was set in the WW2 era, and then along came COD4, changing FPS’s for the better. There are also plenty of original games on PSN and Live. Flower for example is totally random and unique.
And whenever something ‘different’ comes along, it often gets slated for not being as good as xyz which has set the benchmark. Therefore originality is rarer nowadays, but is still out there.
minerwilly
Cod 4 a change for the better ? 1942 , Battlefield Vietnam , Battlefield 2 and Battlefield 2142 where all out long before CoD4 which compared to those titles was a huge step backwards .
bunimomike
Not sure COD4 changed FPS for the better but it did everything right in the single player campaign. Well, everything right but last more than six hours. :-\
tonycawley
I don’t get why people slate cod so much these days, it’s clearly fashionable to do so, but why? Both mw and mw2 are outstanding games. Ok the story in mw2 is a bit far fetched, but the gameplay is very solid, and the only thing that lets the multiplayer down is underage yanks. Someone Please explain to me what they see as being the faults of Mw and Mw2.
Raen
The story in MW2 wasn’t just far fetched, it was weak and next to non-existent. Nothing about the game engaged me, the sign posting felt poor at best, I wouldn’t say the gameplay was outstanding although the UAV stuff was fun.
I honestly wouldn’t say outstanding. Of course this is based on MW2 as I haven’t played MW.
bunimomike
MW was great fun. Started and finished the single player campaign this weekend just gone. It was way, WAY too short but I knew that going in. However, it was six of the finest hours FPS I’ve played in many a year. They did everything just right. The variety was excellent too. From truly crazy moments to the sniper level with MacMillan or the AC-130 and blowing little glowing enemies to oblivion! However, I think the MW franchise is possible starting to stagnate a touch and the positive words it receives may well be a little unearned. Not without merit but maybe not truly justifiable. Kinda like Titantic or Avatar. Both great films for varying reasons but definitely not top of the class. However, both are top of the “money-made” charts.