Creativity

[Illiandri2]

The other day while I was watching an episode of zero punctuation, Yatzhee makes a good point that creativity in the gaming industry is pretty stifled. Taking some time to think, and enjoy the lovable DOW 2 vs SC2 talk, I can see where he coming from. Original IPs in 2008 were few and far between with the future not being so bright either. Brutal Legend looks sweet.... can't think of any other right now. It seems to me that the gaming industry is treading over the same ground so many time that I am suprised that anything grows.

Another grief with me is that the vast majority of games is about you being the good guy on a mission to save (insert excuse) or given the choice to do good or bad. What happened to concept that you are a bad guy with the sole purpose of causing mayhem and grief. The only titles I can think of are GTA, Manhunt & Overlord with 2 being made by the same company. I would love strategy where you are an evil overlord sending slaves to their death. A bit like an entire game devoted to Chaos.

The final grief is with the names. Every other game has a number at the end of the title. I mean how hard could it be to come up with a new name? For example instead of DOW2 we could have Midday of War or Apex of War or Fires of War. What is this Groundhog day to experience the dawn every single time? Common, Homeworld 2? I mean they reached the homeworld so wouldn't it be better if it was called Homeworld : Bringing Sajjuk to Bear or Hiigarian legacy? I understand the need for numbers as to let the 8 year old mentally challenged children of syphilitic lepers understand it is a sequel rather than an expansion. [EDIT in case the 8 year old are among us concerning the last part of the post] :jester:

What are other peoples thoughts on this matter?

[Tempe]

Changing the name of a game will have no effect on gameplay in any way, so I don't care if it has a number on the end.

[BmB]

Ludologist have killed it. ^

[Mac_Bug]

Original IP is hard because the industry has settled itself into genres, it has championed games as genre defining and the standard to beat, it has ample examples of successes to attempt to emulate and it's getting to be more of a cut throat business. Unlike the movie industry, you don't really have thousands upon thousands of designers and producers freely pitching ideas and scripts to studio execs, in fact even if company A rejects your idea, they own the concept and you can't just take it to company B. You can take a book and turn it into a blockbuster movie, but same thing can't be said about movies turning into games, or vice versa. Gone are the days where couple guys with a good idea can cook up a game in their garage - today's triple A titles have to be done up by entrepreneurs as they cost millions, and I think what you will see is a return of innovation on the hand held side as both entrepreneurs and amateur designers alike are attracted to this fast growing gaming sector.

As for your desire to be an evil genius, there happens to be a game called just that.

[Rotlung]

Choice is a keyword now. Perhaps people prefer games with flexibility, as opposed to always being good or bad. If you really want to be the bad guy, don't forget Dungeon Keeper, despite that being rather old ;)

[konfeta]

+1 to Evil Genius and the Dungeon Keeper series. You *must* play them.

[Octopus Rex]

Just a small point: films and books concentrate heavily on the protagonist being the good guy too, it's not something that is specific to games. Getting the audience to empathise with a bad guy is generally harder than with good guy, but can be done. My point is that I wouldn't level that as a specific criticism against games alone, and does not demonstrate a lack of creativity specific to the gaming industry, it's more of a cultural leaning/preference.

[Illiandri2]

Evil Genius had a lot of promise when I first played it but an annoying crashing bug that escorted me throughout my trip through computers has seriously put me off. Dungeon Keeper lacks any crysis like graphics and as such will not look at it (seriously, I will look at it). I am aware that the indie market is the forefront of innovation in todays world but still can one not get gun between the teeth depressed with the lack of imaginative thinking among major titles today? I mean Red Alert : Revenge of the Anime was a bit imaginative in its units and story by having thrown out restraint from the window of the ISS

[fuggles]

Major titles tend to be sequels as they are safe bests to throw money at, in regards to financial return. However, Little Big Planet springs to mind for an exception to this rule.

Games are just too expensive to take risks on and if you look back at gaming history, most of the classics of creativity are in the fantastic pile of 'legendary game that no-one bought, but everyone looks back on fondly'. Go to the good old games website and buy giants or outcast or sacrifice.

Although, let's flip this coin - why get depressed about the major titles? The indie scene has never been better with a lot indie games getting commercials release - Something like World of Goo or crayon physics deluxe or Cave Story. They are generally free (bonus!) and in a lot of cases look and sound superb (aquaria!). Plus there's more of them than you will ever play.

[Starfisher]

I do have to agree with the sequel numbering thing. I mean books have managed to avoid using numbers in their titles to indicate sequels since the creation of the printing press, but here we are staring at SC2 DOW2 HW2 2 2 2 2 blah. I wonder if it's a result of games being made by programmers used to releasing versions with the build number attached. People routinely talk about version numbers when referring to COH, to differentiate between patches. Better than talking about COH: Nerfed Wehrmacht and COH: Allied Blobs, I guess.

[Synthmon]

I think what we're looking at right now, as in 2009, and not what came in 2007 and 2008, is more diverse games rather than diverse IP. While there's a whole slush of stuff that are basically guaranteed runs - take SC2 which basically does nothing new at all, but probably perfects what's already been done - we still see a lot of stuff utilizing new physics, new breakthroughs and so on. I'm out on a limb now, but is it not possible that this ties very much in with what's going on at the hardware scene too? When 3D graphics really started breaking through, that's when all the new worlds were crafted and a lot of focus was put on the beauty of the world you played in. I'm not going into specifics but it's just something I thought of. The people who make the games are, as you say, programmers for the most part, and they'll probably be pretty dependent on what's already possible/done tech-wise rather than developing something entirely new for the sake of a vision.

Starfisher: Although I think most would understand what I mean if I said CoH: Patch of Balance.

[TheWickedGerman]

Starfisher: Although I think most would understand what I mean if I said CoH: Patch of Balance.

How to name the next patch? CoH: Another Patch of Balance? Balance Patch reloaded?

And the next patch? CoH: Oh no! More Patches!

[Gorb]

The thing with the numbering system is, well, it makes sense. Yes, it's a bit boring, but it's better than "Quake: The Next One Where All You Do Is Kill Stuff Like In The Previous Game, Now With Better Graphics". Which is what it'd come down to, with the amount of sequels some games get. And yeah, it's also easier to say "Quake 5" than the (admittedly overexaggerated) name I made up for the game above. I suppose that's just preference, based on how lazy you are. The lazy people like something like "Quake 5", it's easier to type and remember (and thus will appeal to a wider market), while "Quake: The Next One Where All You Do Is Kill Stuff Like In The Previous Game, Now With Better Graphics" is a bit of a mouthful.

[Giant Moth]

I sometimes try to look at familiarities between the movie industry and the games industry. In many ways they are familiar. When they first arrived, they weren't too popular, and it took a generation or two before the movie-watching phenomena had catched on, a bit like these days. You won't see that many people aged 40-50+ that are hardcore gamers, but the kids that grew up 10-20 years ago, during the rise of the video games, they are starting to catch up. When we're all old and gnarly, I bet games will be as natural to the young generation as it is to the old.

The same can be said about finance. When the first movies came out, they weren't multi-million projects. Remember all those old horrible Hollywood movies? SPACE ATTACK, MARS INVADERS, MONSTERS FROM DEEP SPACE! The movie industry pumped those out on weekly basis when it was at it's finest. But as technology developed, techniques and standards were raised, and so were the costs. The same as games has gone through.

Question is, at what stage did movies differ from games? While we have "safe-card" titles such as the multitude of American Pie movies and I know what you did last X, and so forth, there are plenty of one-shot titles in the movie industry. Even though while very succesfull, many never make a second one. The story is spent, and usually not iterrated around anymore, even though you could.

Perhaps it is the nature of movies that makes it much harder to repeat a concept, but it seems to be posible with blockbuster titles as mentioned above, and even such things as more Lord of the Rings movies would no doubt generate incredible revenues. Yet new titles, new concepts and new stories are constantly being put out. And while the Game Industry certainly does too, it has become a known fact that publishers and developers would rather put down money into making another Halo-themed game, rather than coming up with a new Sci-Fi IP. So what is the difference I wonder?

[Surrealitycheck]

It is also worth saying that if a game is successful the first time round, most studios are going to make another - it's simply good sense. As time goes on, most studios will find their "successful" ip and stick to it.

[Zwebbie]

Well, that's what you get when you've development costs in the tens of millions. Publishers would rather have you make a sure-to-sell sequel than a risky new IP. It's about time for development costs to go down, because it's hardly worth the investment these days.

Of course, part of the problem is that there isn't a whole lot of 'celebrity' going on. The average gamer doesn't have a clue that Company of Heroes is by the same people that gave them hours of fun with Dawn of War and they've got to build a reputation with every single game.


Starfisher: Although I think most would understand what I mean if I said CoH: Patch of Balance.
Glorious vCoH 1.71 :D ?

[Illiandri2]

@ Giant Moth

This means that at some point in the future we can experience remakes of older games such as Day of the Tentacle with full 3d rendered graphics of absolute beauty but with half the story. :jester:


If it a version of the same game there is no problem. My gripe is that they slap a number on the original title and that is it. IMHO DOW 2 : Reckoning of the Blood Ravens sounds better to me than just DOW 2.

Another problem I have is that most games in an attempt to become "realistic" have indeed adopted a dogshit brown shading. For Christmas I got GTA 4, GOW and L4D. The only one that had some frakking variety in the colours was L4D. GTA 4 and GOW were very monotonous in the colour scheme (except for times square in GTA 4). Where are the games that have somewhat funkier colour scheme that shows that the makers actually sat down and said : "Lets put some colour" that simply copy pasting real life. If I wanted to loot and destroy in shades of dogshit brown I didn't have to buy GTA 4 but simply go down to Athens during the troubles.

Should realism stand in the way of creativity?

[l337raceryo]

http://vimeo.com/2739375

[The5thElephant]

I think an interesting question is at what point can you no longer number your game without sounding ridiculous? I think Final Fantasy is the only series that has managed to do so because they use the roman numeral method and people are used to their being lots of FF games. A lot of people played Final Fantasy VII as their first.

[BmB]

I'm sorry 5th, the moment they made a sequel to a sequel it became ridiculous.

FF ten two, seriously?

[TheWickedGerman]

Errm, XII means not ten two, its meaning twelve. XII = 12

Or did you mean something else?

[l337raceryo]

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/6/6c/FFX-2_box.jpg

[TheWickedGerman]

Oh- missed that somehow sorry. Is there no FFXII?

[l337raceryo]

http://ps2.psu.com/media/final-fantasy-xii/final-fantasy-12-boxart.jpg

[TheWickedGerman]

Now i´m confused. Thank you very much.

[Methuselath]

If I recall, and mind, I haven't played any FF games since FF6, didn't new numerals meant a new world. Hence a FFX-2 would mean that it's set on the same world as FFX or something...

/me is also confused

[Octopus Rex]

Yes, it is confusing. That's why BmB said it was ridiculous. I think it was something to do with X being thought of as not very good, so they re-did it or made a sequel to it to make up for it or something. Not sure on that though.

They're doing the same thing with COD4. There's soon to be COD4:2. However, I think they are actually scrapping the "4" and just going with COD:Modern Warfare 2 which is sensible.

[l337raceryo]

Actually FFX-2 have, arguably, the best combat system of all the FF. Too bad it's bit odd playing a game that's essentially catering to Idol fans.

[Demonic Spoon]

I think people are imagining the lack of creativity in modern games. They're no less creative than they always have been. In fact, I'd argue that there's more creativity in many cases.

[Ammon Ra]

Sequels and alphanumerical enumeration of games is fine up to a specific non-definitive point. For example: after quake 4 & Doom 3, ID seems to be putting quite a bit of effort into the Rage universe. Also quake wars.

Similarly for the unreal series of games: unreal, unreal tournament, unreal 2, unreal 2k3/2k4, unreal 3. At this point they spread out and created Gears of War 1 &2, which look like unreal 3 if you look in the right places, but is a different universe.

Both games are a case of creating more game universes in the most certain scenario where their next enumerated sequel will not sell very well.

Dow 2 is only the second game (excluding expansions) in the dow series, as is starcraft. DOW is a relatively recent new IP, but starcraft was existed for so long without a sequel due to the insane culture that became entrenched around the game for so long.

Another lengthy gameverse is that of command and conquer, which received "new blood" with Generals. The red alert series, despite being under the C&C label (100% marketting) and the original having extremely clear liaisons with the tiberium universe is sort of it's own gameverse. Similarly for Generals, and the almost certain Generals 2.0 that undoubtedlywill come around some day. each individual series only has 3 games in each one (tiberium wars = 3, RA3, generals =1)

Another example is all the sports games that get new editions each year, and all the need for speed games, of which there are probably half a dozen so far. Lets not forget the countless incarnations of Mario, Link, all which lack alphanumerical enumeration.

Putting the number after the title of the game is probably the clearest way to tell people that the game is a sequel.

[Paladin]

I really couldn't care less whether a game is a "new IP" or not. Seriously, who cares? Setting is just setting. It's fluff. What matters is whether the gameplay is creative.

[hermanJnr.]

I just wish they'd stop naming games "X of Y", it's getting extremely tiresome now.

Off the top of my head -

Gears of War
Medal of Honour
Call of Duty
Soldier of Fortune
Dawn of War
True Crime (Streets of L.A.)
Company of Heroes
STALKER - Shadow of Chernobyl

Etc. etc.

FEAR 2 is officially going to be called "FEAR of Alma"...then we have "Duke of Nukem:Forever", "Assassin of (The) Creed 2", "Half-of-Life Episode 3" Unreal of Tournament 4" and "Battle of Field 3" to look forward to :rant:

It never used to bother me, but just lately it's been extremely annoying for some reason xD

:p