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Nintendo: Innovation is dying

While I don't agree with everything in this article, especially:

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A lot of the games out there are just too long. Of course, there are games, such as 'Halo' or 'Grand Theft Auto,' that are big and expansive. But if you're not interested in spending that time with them, you're not going to play."<snip>

I do agree with:

Most of what you're seeing are not even the first projections of games," he said. "They're just shiny computer graphics. They're things anyone using a computer can do. ... It's how we're going to use the technology that separates us. What we want to do is different – and we're happy with the road we're taking. When you have a Revolution, you're not going to have the same experience as you would with the other home consoles."

Okay - remove the kicking off hype of Nitendos Revolution and focus on the "They're just shiny computer graphics.".
Now anybody who "knows" me here, knows that this is one of my main focus points when ranting about how poor the quality of games have gotten over the last couple of years.
Now hopefull - although I never touch a console - some (large) developers will put innovation back into the industry, and hopefully that this could spread to other parts ... come on CRPGs, Adventuregames, Strategygames, be innovative and epic again,please...pretty please
Think for a second if Revolution main flagship was something innovative and fresh which made a lot of money.... now that could be an incentive for other developers to break the mold. I'm dreaming - I know...

Now I wouldn't hold my breath because from my perspective the industry is darker by the day and because I think this article is simply disguesed hypening of the console (once again), but the core of the article I think hits home, if peeling away the layers.
Games are becoming shiny pieces of graphics and little else. The fun factor is now focusing on fast action and not thoughtprocess, dept and challenges (and no - getting 5 monsters instead of 2 is not a challenge, neither is having the monsters hitting you for double damage).

I havn't made up my mind about this issue yet. I agree that many games today, especially CRPGs, show very low quality. I also think that most games tend to make just a few minor changes to a genre that have existed for quite some time, wich ultimatly results in all games looking and feeling the same.

That there is a lot of crap being produced is obvious imo, but I'm thinking that maybe it always was this way. What I remember from the past are groundbreaking, very fun, well balanced games but the truth is all games weren't like that. Many games were infact crap even then.

There are also a few games today that in my opinion add new elements to their genres although they are quite few, and they don't always get much attention.

Perhaps it is that the innovation have slowed down its pace, but not disappeared. This is imo not suprising, and only partly fault of the gaming industry and the consumers. Sure the industry focus on the wrong things, and the customers reward them for it, but you should also keep in mind that innovation gets more and more difficult the longer games development have existed.

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Regarding challange though I definatly agree with you. Today it seems giving the gamers a challange is something no one is willing to put down a lot of work in.

Pritty graphics and little soul

Personally I would preffer the power that today's systems have to be used in development of the AI and imersiveness of the game. Instead of million poligons of shiny 3d I would choose a hand drawn detailed 2d art with an advanced expert system behind it to sustain an interesting plot with as much choices and smart conversation lines as possible. Give me back my Fallout freedom. Give me back the humour that talented people used to come up with for the most trivial conversations. Give me back characters that I can still remember 5 years after playing the game. And then I would gladly take 60$ from my 300$ monthly income to buy your game. The industry needs shorter productions cycles ? No the industry needs to use all the things that they already know about graphic engines so the production of the game technical "thingy" would be cut down considerably and leave as much time for artists and designers to bring new ideeas and charm to the project. Also, polish the game as close to the perfection as possible. Then I would feel the need to try new games and buy them. Untill then Fallout 2, the Baldur's series, Neverwinter Nights, Arcanum, Planescape Torment, Sanitarium, Grim Fandango, remain wonders of the past, with no forseeable hairs. I pray that there are still people out there who don't consider game creation "just a job". Peace.

@thenenea: It's funny you mention Grim Fangdango, because this 5 year old computer game is the only game I have managed to complete since Warcraft III. Why? Because it was funny, entertaining, and had a story I became interested in. I have tried about 10 different games over the last years, but I simply loose interest too soon.

As I see it, the problem in current computer games is similar to that in mainstream movie industry: the development has focused almost exclusively at visual effects, whereas story and character development has been put aside. Hopefully though this is a plateu in development, and changes will occur in the future.

[QUOTE=Dottie]<snip>
Perhaps it is that the innovation have slowed down its pace, but not disappeared. This is imo not suprising, and only partly fault of the gaming industry and the consumers. Sure the industry focus on the wrong things, and the customers reward them for it, but you should also keep in mind that innovation gets more and more difficult the longer games development have existed.
<snip>
[/QUOTE]

Naturally innovation will slow down so to speak as the "popular" ideas get used out and cliches start. It is like movies, where it takes more and more to suprise a moviegoer and plot twists are hard to spot.

However good movies and books are still written (I would think - haven't read a modern fictional book for a very long time). But it isn't neasecarily the plot and plottwists which are different from movie to movie. It is the utilizing of them.
You can take the hugest cliche in the world and turn it into a very good movie. Take Lord of the Rings movies for instance, now granted when the books came out they were innovative and groundbreaking. But when the movies where made - everybody "knew" what would happen, it had been done before in other movies, in games, books and all that. Yet the movies where generally accepted as being very good movies and adaptiation of the books.
Now this goes to show that you can infact take something which is not innovative (of sorts) and make it different and good.
This is what I feel - amongst other things - is lacking in the gaming industry.
Innovation isn't only thinking up new ideas, but just as much taking old tried ideas and doing something fresh with it.
If I look at most of the RPGs over the last periode of time I've played or read about, there have been many innovative elements in each of them - however when all is disgused behind the notion that graphics and easy, fast actioninfused gameplay is all that counts it will never be more then average.

To show an exampel, then something I feel lack in the gaming industry is an attempt to make the game worlds much more dynamic. Instead of taking the technological advances and simply using them to create more lifelike characters in apperance, then how about taking them and making the characters much more lifelike in behaviour? NPCs are so staggering stupid still, when you think of how much we can do with the technology today.
Hire writers to write the story and characters instead of adding umpteen designers to create a new graphics engine which can render water 5% better. Hire people to dedicate time to making puzzels and quests and challenges and making them fit into the history, and the setting.
This is innovation as well, and it is very innovative when looking at the fluff and "lite" version of games being thrown on the market these days by the "mainstream" established developers.

It's funny you mention Grim Fangdango,

Aye that is funny, since the majority of games I've ever completed are point and click style adventure games - the majority of them by Lucas Arts.

And its not just the humour that keeps me playing until the end - Westwood Studios' Bladerunner is a long time fave and classic because it has an excellent story, well written dialogue and characterization... with grimy 1997 pixelated sprites for the characters.

Graphics can be a very nice addition, but for the past couple years they've been the sole marketing feature... I think Morrowind owes the majority of its success to its graphics, and Oblivion has gamers everywhere drooling over its next-gen graphics; not its promises of realistic NPC schedules, absorbing combat and intriguing quests.

If there is one thing I hate being informed about in a game, is the awesome graphics that are lifelike, you'd think it was real. If I wanted to see a bird with 137 different shades of brown composing its feathers, I would simply look outside and see one. If I wanted to be entertained and engaged, I would attempt to find a good game.

Seriously, games are focusing far more on graphics. As Xandax said, hire writers to make proper puzzles and stories. I am sick of playing through a game, and encountering a code that I have to break to cause millions of dollars worth of damage. Now, if this was real life, the code would be extremely complex. However, in lastest games, there just happens to be a scrap of paper which says, the first 4 sqaure numbers. That is not lifelike.

I remember the classic games, such as Speedball 2. It had pathetic graphics, no gore and fake effects, but it was FUN.

I have played cricket 97', and that was one of the best cricket games. It didn't have good graphics, and when you set your field, you moved around little dots. Now, in cricket 03', when you set your field, you have a pathetic view, just so you can see the graphics. I want to play, not watch.

The industry is simplying reusing old engines, and making them look pretty.

People are wondering why pirating is on the increase, and saying how the computer game companies are failing, but with rubbish like that coming out, who in their right mind would pay $90 for it. We don't want to see stuff, we want to get enjoyment.

I found Baldur's Gate to be a really great RPG. Then, many years later they brought out Baldur's Gate 2, and it looked very similar. The differences were in game play, it was much better organised, it had good dialogue, and had truly challenging quests. I was really happy to see that Bioware had brought out a new game, but had focused on gameplay not graphics. Then they brought out Neverwinter Nights. Look at the graphics they said. Look at the spell effects they said. I want a proper game I said.

Come on game makers, put some effort in to really create a masterpiece.

Haven't lost all hope yet...

Well, I hope Fallout 3 will come as a surprise, even with the grim expectations I have for Bethesda, considering their skill (or lack of) showed in the story and NPC creation in Morrowind. And my hopes are really high from an unexpected source: Bourgeoisie. http://www.innyswiat.pl/?sekcja,18,6 . At least for now, those guys seem to have the story in mind and not the graphics. As for adventure games I've played Still Life, from the creators of Syberia 1 & 2. Not great but works while waiting...

I see it as a (un)natural progression. Fledgling consumer-based entertainment industries are first built by innovators who have interesting ideas. Later, increasing product sophistication means more complex wares, establishing a better chain of distribution, name branding, etc. Finally, once it becomes appararent that there's considerable money to be made, corporations move in, distribution chains turn into monopolies, and the innovators are squeezed out in favor of rote reproductions that satisfy the broadest possible public.

So whenever I read one of these "innovation is lacking in computer games" articles, I have to wonder where the writer has been for the last ten years. What innovative products have they seen? Is it that they've been unaware that innovation fled, years ago, when all the small companies were being gobbled up?

I have to agree there about the graphics. One of my favorite games, still, to this day is an old Sega Genesis, 16-bit graphic game. It's not for the graphics, but simply because of the story and gameplay. Another is the old Eye of the Beholder game. There is just far too much emphasis on graphic's nowaday's. If I wanted to buy something just for appearence, I'd be watching a movie wouldn't I?

Personally when I'm playing a game, I don't want puzzles, and confounding quests. This leads to frustration for me. I use the games as my little outlet for frustration and amusement. I want to run around, bash creatures, and be entertained by amusing character's and plot twists. While new graphics make it more pleasing to look at, it also makes it more expensive for me to actually run the game. It ends up taking years to produce a game nowadays rather than 6 months to a year because of the graphics. Bah, that plot and storyline and everything were done long before the graphics were. If your going to take 2 years on graphics, take 2 years on the plot and character development and such!

I was working as a team with some people in a college around here on starting our own company for producing games. They wanted me as the writer and they would do the programming and graphics. I learned a lot about the business and in just a few months. Most people simply want to be surprised with new graphic's, and everything's been geared towards that. Loud and realistic gunshots, realistic bloodspatter and how bodies fall and what not are the goals in games now. Not plot and such. The other people I was working with rejected, over and over the plots I'd come up with as "too complex". I ended up frustrated and tossed out "well, how about a death match game of people in wheel chairs? They can just roll around and kill each other, simple huh?". They loved it, and summarily got drunk and ignored it. I was disgusted. I'd spent weeks brainstorming on initial character's and basic plots for a few storyline idea's and they get tossed out in favor of THAT?

Cheer up, inovation needs the right people...

... to embrace it and dare to brake the established traditions. Sometimes it takes a while untill people grow comfortable with new ideeas. The other end of the situation is that some groups tend to go way to extreme and forget about common sense rules that were established from a long trial and error process. Still I like to see that the designers of a game tried to give a special "something" to the game and implement something new or something old in a different way - and maybe failed - than made another clone. As an example a game I've tried recently comes to mind: "The Day After - Carribean Crisis" wich is basically a Sudden Strike game with a combination of late WW2 and up to early '60s weapons. So nothing is really new about the engine or even the battles. What is new is that the campaign progression now integrates a turned based part like the Shogun TW series. A nice touch that makes a cheap clone into an enjoyable variation of a classic. And an example for much wealthyer production houses.

@Xandax: Yes, perhaps it is wrong to stare yourself blind on "new ideas" when there are many other parts of games that need to work.

I also think the view that "all is just graphics nowdays, no story anymore" is very RPG centered. In other genres this is imo not much of a problem. Indeed they have other problems, but the quality change is not just a matter of companys trading story for graphics imo.

[QUOTE=Dottie]@Xandax: Yes, perhaps it is wrong to stare yourself blind on "new ideas" when there are many other parts of games that need to work.

I also think the view that "all is just graphics nowdays, no story anymore" is very RPG centered. In other genres this is imo not much of a problem. Indeed they have other problems, but the quality change is not just a matter of companys trading story for graphics imo.[/QUOTE]

Possible, but it is perhaps that my favorite genres are all but dead or stagnated.
Of course if one is into FPS or RTS then the industry might look different, although it is a very long time since I've seen innovation in thoese genres as well, when disregarding the hype surroding the names there ... perhaps Ages of Empires III which I proberly will play.
But then again - FPS has always been about the graphics, so that is likely good news.

[QUOTE=Xandax]
But then again - FPS has always been about the graphics, so that is likely good news. [/QUOTE]

Not necessarily. Imagine my dissapointment when I looked at Doom 3 a while ago, only to discover that they had tried to incorporate some pathetic lame story into my shoot 'em up game.

Innovation is not dead, it's just concentrated to "wrong" things. By this I mean graphics. Who actually are able to enjoy new games? Those, who have money to upgrade their computer every so often, and this is because new ways to improve graphics demand so much more from computers than before. I, for example, am not able to play these new "innovated" games, because my computer (500 MHz, 330 Mb RAM) is not even close to those minimum reguirements which are needed. This is why I think that the new concentration of innovation is "wrong".

Why the situation is this? IMO the main reason is that companies have noticed that games sell well with superb graphics. This and the fact that companies want to get their games to market as fast as they can forces to reduce the time used to making plots, quests and so on. It's enough if the game offers better graphics and better AI than other games. And because players don't demand better plot anymore, developers don't want to sacrifice much time to it. IMO very good example of this is Doom 3. The plot can be described by "Go from place A to place B and kill everything you see". This way developers were able to make very good graphics in that time.

It's also sad that when someone gets very good innovation, soon there is countles of games that have copied this innovation. For example I've seen dozens of "copies" of the game Heroes Of Might And Magic. Same goes with Diablo and many other games. Mostly these games have better graphic, some minor improvements to AI, but nothing else. It's still the same concept. And this also includes new games of the same serie. Again Doom 3 is good example. No improvement to plot, quest and so on. Only better graphics, better AI (and I'm not even sure about that), few new guns and monsters. That's it.

For me it's not the graphics that count, partly because of my not-so-good computer. Fallout -games, Shadow over Riva, ADOM, Counterstrike, MUDs in general and Heroes of Might and Magic -serie (not HoMM 4). Those games have good plot, lots of things to do or some other things that makes them unique, fun to play. IMO these games are/were innovative, in good way.

[QUOTE=fable]I see it as a (un)natural progression. Fledgling consumer-based entertainment industries are first built by innovators who have interesting ideas. Later, increasing product sophistication means more complex wares, establishing a better chain of distribution, name branding, etc. Finally, once it becomes appararent that there's considerable money to be made, corporations move in, distribution chains turn into monopolies, and the innovators are squeezed out in favor of rote reproductions that satisfy the broadest possible public.
[/QUOTE]

So what do you figure the future development will hold? Do you think it will be like TV or movies, where an enormous amount of crap is produced but in this mass, high-quality productions can still be found if you take the time and energy to search for it? Or do you think it will divide into groups targetting different markets, seeing how many people play computer games nowadays? Or something else?

[QUOTE=C Elegans]So what do you figure the future development will hold? Do you think it will be like TV or movies, where an enormous amount of crap is produced but in this mass, high-quality productions can still be found if you take the time and energy to search for it? Or do you think it will divide into groups targetting different markets, seeing how many people play computer games nowadays? Or something else?[/QUOTE]

I'd have to opt for Chioce A, but the high-quality mass productions won't be innovative: they'll do what's been done before, only in a glitzier, more visceral fashion.

On this same note, I was speaking with one of the lead developers at Larian Studios (Divine Divinity) about a year ago. He thought that indepedently made third person RPGs were going to vanish in 3-5 years, because the big name corporations, who pay for the games, want to aim at an ever younger market. He saw them as adding only nominal RPG elements to FPS games in the near future, in order to combine the two audiences and reap more cash.

[QUOTE=fable]I'd have to opt for Chioce A, but the high-quality mass productions won't be innovative: they'll do what's been done before, only in a glitzier, more visceral fashion.

On this same note, I was speaking with one of the lead developers at Larian Studios (Divine Divinity) about a year ago. He thought that indepedently made third person RPGs were going to vanish in 3-5 years, because the big name corporations, who pay for the games, want to aim at an ever younger market. He saw them as adding only nominal RPG elements to FPS games in the near future, in order to combine the two audiences and reap more cash.[/QUOTE]

This does not sound well, but has been my "darkest fears" in terms of computer games for a while.
Guess I now finnaly will stop gaming so much.

I do however still hope that something will arise in the near future (couple of years) and release a non-main stream game (much like when Baldurs Gate hit the market) which then will becom hugely popular, but turn the developers into main stream (like Bioware) and start doing stupid games aswell.

[QUOTE=fable]He thought that indepedently made third person RPGs were going to vanish in 3-5 years, because the big name corporations, who pay for the games, want to aim at an ever younger market. He saw them as adding only nominal RPG elements to FPS games in the near future, in order to combine the two audiences and reap more cash.[/QUOTE]

This is what offerings like Morrowind have done. They have tried to be proper RPGs, yet have they have done it in the first person view. And frankly, I prefer the third person views of games like Baldur's Gate or Diablo. I have nothing against first person, but I don't want to play a run around and whack stuff, and the game is supposedly good because you think that you are doing it.

[QUOTE=dj_venom]This is what offerings like Morrowind have done. They have tried to be proper RPGs, yet have they have done it in the first person view. And frankly, I prefer the third person views of games like Baldur's Gate or Diablo.[/QUOTE]

Just for clarification's sake, both Larian's dev and myself view Morrowind as an RPG, severely lacking in some respects, very generous in others. Diablo, though, is an action title, even in third person. It has only the most basic aspects borrowed from RPGs. I agree, we're likely to see a concentration on FPS games, but the emphasis that we were going for in our conversation was the "shooter" part of "first person shooter." I'll take an RPG over a shooter, anyday, whether in first or third person.