"play it safe" (or where video games seems to go)

Whole article: http://www.idlethumbs.net/display.php?id=240&p=1

So true, yet so terrifing.

 

Some thoughts here:

The processor as it applies to A.I. - Totally agree. However I don't think you can blame all this on the processor. We got some pretty good A.I. on many of the older systems that had much less to work with.

Emphasis on graphics - Don't agree here. As time goes on the cost of creating such visuals goes down. It doesn't mean your game has to look photorealistic, just means that taking the cheesy way out won't cut it any more. For some companies that don't have the huge budgets this means working a bit harder with what you have even if that means (gasp!) extending devleopment time. But still many good games sell well despite having simple graphics.

Just the same as always, the companies with millions of dollars make the "safe" formulaic games, while the smaller companies make the games with all the innovation.

 

know what i find funny tho? Everybody complains about how artist will have to spend more time trying to model more complex things but quite a few artist in the industry I know love this. Most are extreamly tired and anoyed having to work with low polygon counts & having to back and spend time optimising scenes because their is just too many polygons.

Something I think too many people are ignoring regarding next gen is things like xbox Live Arcade. There are many in the industry who are looking forward to expanding on this market & as well using it as a platform to test out new game ideas before trying to turn them into full fledge game concepts.

Also does anybody really ever go back and look at the games that came out on previous systems? No system was overloaded with huge amount of original games (except maybe C64/atari since there was not much before it).

 

Is funny they bitch about it, cuz they weren't going to do that anyways...

I think game hardware isnt the one to blame for, but market in general. If you see other branchs of entertainment like movies and music you'll notice that everyone and their dog is goin the easy-way around with gangsta music, action and sex movies and games that are a combination of both.

Where are the big budget original movies like 2001 A space odissey? and what about innovating rock bands like Queen? if you turn your Tv on MTV you'll see that 90% of the music scene are britney spears wannabes, artificial emo/goth bands and some punk rock dudes at the back.

In movies is the same, you go see one and you got the same crap that before: slow start, action, explosion, cut to sex scene, the bad guy reveals you his evil plans and then somehow the good guy manages to defeat him and keeps the girl. OMG is sooooo clever!

Anyways, with the exception of the Dreamcast I still have to see a console where game developers really broke their butt off to create original content.

Is easier to bitch when you cant prove it, just look at politicians:lol:

 

With the dreamcast it was only sega that worked hard to make orignal content, because it was their last chance in the console industry (they knoew if they did badly that they would leave the console industry). Also don't forget a lot of dreamcast games were also for naomi, so you immediately have a very big market by releasing a game on both, with minimal effort to convert from either

 

Well but at least they did: sony seems to launch a game everytime the planets align. And M$ doesnt get much than that: Halo is a HalfLife ripoff and Rare has recently released their first Xbox only games ever.

Paying for exclusive rights of a game doesnt counts.....

 

I'm hoping that, as with the music and film industries, we'll be seeing some quality, innovative material come from the smaller players as the game industry as a whole continues to grow. Alien Hominid is a good example of such output.

On a related note, it's interesting to note the difference between Nintendo saying "anyone can develop for our new platform" vs Sony saying "only the best of the best will be able to code for our new platform".

 

*bows*
Master, I shall never again forget to bring up the dreamcast as probably the only system in a long time to have a ass load of amazingly original games.

*goes to practice to make sure I never forget*
:banghead:

Isn't Grab by the Goolies Rare's first xbox only game or does everybody still consider it a tech demo? ong:

 

K so I forget that one....

 

Seems to me that outside the GBA offerings (none of which were particularly noteworthy anyway) Rare have been soaking up a lot of money from Microsoft and producing sub-par games; Grabbed by the Ghoulies wasn't exactly ground-breaking, PDZ wasn't a patch on its ancestor, Kameo 360 lacked gameplay, and a re-hash of Conker doesn't really cut it.

How Microsoft are getting their $375 million isn't quite clear to me.

 

i disagree so much. it's all in the hands of the software houses to use the machine capabilities at their best. the snes wasn't supposed to be the right machine for fast, action games and shot'em'up, but in the end it had some of the best.... that was because people put effort in it.

programmers and such seems getting more and more lazy nowadays. if new games will not have great AI and great stories,, it'll just be the developers fault, not the console design. creating smart A.I. requires time and effort, and devs are already saying that they doesn't want to invest money and time in creating it....

 

It must be a ton more right now, considering the resources Microsoft poured into Rare in order to get it productive...

 

You guys have completely forgotten to mention Nintendo. The DS clearly shows their commitment to "not playing it safe" , not to mention games like Animal Crossing or Miyamoto's Pac-Man VS on the GC. The controller is pretty far out, but I don't know about in-order processing. Unfortunately, Nintendo also doesn't "play it safe" with decisions like no HD and no counter-marketing to the "Nintendo is for kids" impression that so many people have. Well anyway, I totally agree with the fact that the 360 is not innovative, but it sure is an upgrade.

I had a minor in film studies in college, and I can tell you that the game market is very similar to the film industry. Tons and tons of "pulp" action movies come out each year in relation to the small number of independent and/or unconventional films that get a release. This ratio seems to have a purpose, like an evolution. The indie films use experimental techniques and the larger studios begin to pick up on this and integrate them as people become more accostumed to them. Likewise, most games run on an old "engine" with new textures etc... Every once in a while, a game comes along and does something totally different. When gamers "in the know" give their support for the game, this clues in the bigger developers that the new technique is a safe bet. Think of it as a system.
So from that perspective, it makes sense that the innovators like Sega and Nintendo have a hard time staying in the game. Microsoft and Sony (to some degree) wait for someone else to take the risk. The 360 is very safe. When I play it, I feel the same way when I upgrade my computer.

 

Kameo is a wonderful game, the gameplay is awesome, but the thing that hurt it was it was so short!

 

I don't think this "lack of innovation" thing is really that big of a deal, and it's far from something new. Have you so soon forgotten the 16-bit era, when the market was flooded with Street Fighter clones? Oh, and what about the countless platformers? I really don't think originality is that big of an issue. I just want to see quality. When I play a platformer game, I don't want RPG elements and complicated stories mixed in. If I want to play an RPG, I don't care about innovative game play, I want a captivating story. If I want to play an FPS, it's obvious that I want to shoot stuff. Don't try to complicate things with "originality." Sure, an original title here and there is always a good thing, but I love going back to the basic structure, the structure that made those genres so good in the first place. Originality and quality are not synonymous.

 

You have to understand that technology doesnt escalates like that. In the times of the snes most consoles didn't had a FPU unit, the drawing was done pixel by pixel and everything was programmed using assembler.

Today AI algorithms are so complex that they wont work in some architectures. Just like the netburst was a complete failure compared to the Athlon one, the X360s G5 is not meant to use complex AI.

That's what I'm always trying to say....

 

we never said the past was any better, we only said that the future doesnt seem promising for innovation.

 

Then that means you missed my point entirely. What I was saying was that innovation SHOULDN'T be a key factor in the videogame market. Sure, it's nice to have, but it shouldn't be the only thing that is concentrated on. I think quality should be more of a focus than innovation and originality, but I'm not saying we shouldn't have all of them. A game doesn't need to be innovative and original to be good.

 

The whole innovation issue is just another topic fanboys use to bitch when they dont like the game. Is like "OMG, teh game is from sony so iz not innovative!" but the irony comes from the fact that almost no games are real innovations, and some of the few that are innovative are, at the same time, boring and not so good at all.

 

you made no sence what so ever.



The game market is dull at the current state, with the cost to make one video game atm.
No one wants to take a risk on something that could spawn a clut following, or make them crash and burn.
Hence why we will have halo 934 and GTA 2034 mars city, and stedy flow of regurgitated over and over again. It is the name that sells.
You can find proof of this via Katamri Damacy, they didnt want to make a squel to that title, but was force to by Namco.
Back during Sega master system, and further back cost to develop was a hell of alot cheaper then to now, hence why the risk could have been taken. Nintendo seems one of the only few left whilling to take that jump, alot of the times it has payed off. Just be prepaired to see steady flow of, Halo's, and killzones, and anything else they can milk the name, for while.