next »

[moi]

Fight the fight yo. And don' be snitchin'.

[skaldicpoet9]

It's always mechanics mechanics mechanics!  I've had it up to my head with new mechanics! 

Oh no, I wasn't saying that every game that is created has to have new mechanics. Just refine the ones we already have and perhaps add a little something new to the table at times. I actually think some of the best games are amalgamations of other games and not necessarily new constructs. What a lot of developers need to do is just realize that they are essentially borrowing from other games but that they have a certain amount of artistic license to alter things as they see fit. I think the goal is to create something new yet familiar at the same time.

[Seth]

I was mostly responding to Titch and his sentiment that middleware wouldn't be good because it wouldn't allow very good creation of new mechanics.  In my opinion it would be great specifically because it would allow people who are not very concerned with mechanics and would rather use gameplay as a language rather than as something that is an end in itself.  To me a "unique experience" has little to do with the gameplay mechanics, and more to do with the sum of the game.  One game about being a ninja is too often too similar to another game about being a ninja despite how different the mechanics may be.

Not that I have anything against gameplay oriented games, really, but I feel like we see game developers focus on innovation in that area and we don't get to see much innovation in other areas.

[skaldicpoet9]

True, there are many differing avenues that a competent designer can take a player down rather then just focusing on the gameplay alone. Crafting a memorable game requires much more then adding some type of new gameplay gimmick that the player may only find amusing for a short time. Looking at some games it is apparent that they were built from the gameplay up rather than from the narrative or characters on up. Often times it seems as if the characters in a game are just afterthoughts and that their inclusion in the game is merely to flesh out an already shallow environment.

I would love to see the writing in games take on some of the techniques that a good novelist uses in crafting believable characters. Not only is the main character fleshed out but so are the supporting characters. A good writer may not include these back stories in the game but they serve to give the writer a better understanding of how a particular character would act in a situation. Now if the writing in games could use this same technique (which I am sure some do, Bioshock for one has some pretty compelling characters within the game) then I believe that the narrative would benefit immensely.

[Melly]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and just recommend keeping it real.

Word brother.

[skaldicpoet9]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and just recommend keeping it real.

Word brother.

What am I missing here?

[Chris Whitman]

The reason games nowadays are largely unmemorable and made from a template isn't because nobody knows how to make games that are good: it's because largely the marketing department holds the reins, and what they want is whatever they know will sell.

The relative costs of producing a commercial game breed mediocrity intentionally. The marketing department doesn't even care about creating something people will like, all they want is their ten million dollars doubled: that's it. That means producing something that is guaranteed to sell a given number of units. More would be nice, but they simply can't afford to take risks with that kind of money, so they'll settle on certainty of sales over genuine quality. This is not a secret.

So it isn't like mainstream games aren't artistic because the people involved don't know how to make it happen. The bottom line is that it isn't really hard to make art. Anyone can do it. It isn't like 'art' is some elusive animal lurking in the mountains of Montana that is only occasionally captured on video by some yokel. Go to any art show in Vancouver and you will see tons of fantastically inventive little paintings or songs or sculptures or whatever. The key is being inspired and crafting something with genuine care without falling into compromise.

If you want to 'fix' mainstream games, fix capitalism. In the meantime, if you want to make good games, you can already do that, because you already know what you like and want to see. The trick is keeping it real and not becoming beholden to a bunch of suits who demand 2n (where n is a positive integer) breasts before the first ten minutes of play.

[skaldicpoet9]

Of course. I wasn't merely trying to say that it is possible to make something that has more depth then what is currently being produced. It is obvious that the majority of games follow the design philosophy that what makes the most money is best. However, I think that if games were more memorable and had a greater degree of care put into them that they would sell more then they do now.

Take the Wii for example. It has the capability of taking games to a place that they rarely go which is immersing the player not only in story and characters but in the gameplay itself through action. Obviously, the Wii hasn't reached that point. Nintendo is interested in pumping out numerous party games that make a quick buck. Now, if Nintendo made, say, Metroid Prime utilize headtracking, the balance board (for movement or some better yet some sort of 360 degree type mat)and the Wii-mote in unison we would see a completely new level of game that would be bordering on virtual reality. I think the biggest issue would be the amount of money it would take to manufacture a game like that and how much the game would be sold for. I don't have a doubt that people would go crazy over it though. Look at the success of Rock Band, it is a fully interactive experience and is priced somewhat high but it still sells like hotcakes.

Unfortunately, you are one-hundred percent right. The suits control the mainstream game market and if they don't see something as viable then often times they don't follow through with genuinely new ideas. The thing is though I feel it is completely possible to make games that have these features and still turn a substantial, if not greater, profit then they already do.

[Laremere]

The Wii is making Nintendo all sorts of money.  They are making games at very low costs that sell well to the casual market because they are so new to the scene that they don't really care all much about the quality that so many of the gamers have grown to expect.  Nintendo has made to very good games for the Wii, Super Mario Galaxy (and though not really for the Wii)legend of Zelda TP.  When your a business, and you poured tons of money into a few great games, and then you can make a game for a fraction of the cost and it sells even half as good, it is a no-brainier.  Hopefully there will be a push from the casual market as they start to get tired of the same constant games to make more original games.

[Titch]

The casual market will never tire of shovel ware. As far as I'm concerned Nintendo can have their new market because it means I get to play games with my friends more often. I know all the 'Hardcore' gamers are complaining but to be honest I haven't really noticed a substantial drop in the number of titles they are putting out under the main IP's of Mario,Zelda and Metroid. There has been a drought recently, but there have been before and there will be again.

The bottom line is this. The core gamers are still the money makers in the games industry. The big titles that dropped in the last two years where nearly all targeted at the score audience (Halo, Gears, CoD4). Nintendo isn't going to stop making games targeted at the 'hard core' because as everyone agrees. They like money, and established IP's are guaranteed money, hell they don't even have to be that original as long as it's charming and fun.

[nihilocrat]

words

Exactly. Games in the industry are a business. Businesses, more often than not, actually don't like to take risks. They like to make what they know will sell.

Take Blizzard: they let other MMOs test out new gameplay (public quests, RvR from WAR) and then implement a better version of it. Taking risks is for other companies to do.

[Chris Whitman]

But the original question was kind of a 'how do we make good games?' thing based on the fact that a lot of next gen games are admittedly crappy.

My point was:

A. The industry in general promotes mediocrity.
B. It isn't going to get any better.
C. We're already pretty sure we know how to make good games.
D. Let's do that.

I just don't see what the issue is.

[skaldicpoet9]

I just don't see what the issue is.

The issue is just because the industry promotes mediocrity doesn't mean that it has to follow that precedent. If a developer came along and created something that looked everything else look like crap then it would create a new precedent. I think that if someone came along and did something amazing that was also successful it would promote more quality product and less crap.

[brog]

It's been done plenty of times though.  Tons of great and successful games have come from the industry - Fallout, Starcraft, Half Life; I could sit here naming them all day.
They didn't create a new precedent of games that aren't crap.  Instead they just spawned hundreds of mediocre imitators.  People imitate the superficial aspects, rather than imitating the level of quality.

[skaldicpoet9]

Yes, that is very true but to be fair those games were already imitations of other games and they all had their flaws as well. Obviously the truth is that there will always be utter crap being spawned from any industry whether it be music, games, movies etc...However, I feel that if something really different came out then there wouldn't be as much crap as we deal with on a regular basis. Look at what happened when Super Mario Bros. first came out, yes there were the imitators that cashed in on the platformer concept but there were also others that took the concept and created a new experience off of it. Games like Mega Man, Sonic and others were able to take the concept and run with it. I think this was due to the fact that the mechanics were so new and had yet to be fully explored. Nowadays on the other hand there really isn't much that is coming out that takes any particular genre in a new direction. Not since System Shock and Dues Ex has there been significant strides in the FPS genre and the same can be said for other genres as well.

The bottom line is I believe when something truly innovative or new comes out it provides a framework for other developers to discover what is possible within this new concept rather than perpetuating the same old conventions.