Game design is plagued by game designers with no influences

[Anapan]

I've been reading through Daniel Cook's Blog recently and he's got some very interesting things to say about this subject. He's the guy who made the sprites for Tyrian, and has been in the gaming industry for many years. He's currently the Chief Creative Officer at Spry Fox - The guys who developed the excellent phone/tablet game Triple Town (which recently got completely ripped off as Yeti Town).

http://www.lostgarden.com/2011/11/plagi ... hoice.html

[MrPopo]

the golden days of 2-4 buttons are pretty much long gone.

You mean the golden days of every single keyboard key having a function as well as many of the shifted keys having a function?

[Erik_Twice]

I mean think about it. Nintendo released a trailer of a game set in the "Mushroom Kingdom"......how long till all the "what kind of mushrooms have THEY been consuming" jokes start popping up?

Food for thought: Back in 1980 the game to beat was Pac Man. Not Defender, not Centipede, Pac Man. Think about how that game is regarded now.

And another thing, where do you guys think game designers should look for influence?

Life. I'm not being facetious, I think life has more ideas than anything else, and since you are surrounded by it everyday, a little bit of observation goes a long way. If you only take influences from other things, the good stuff that gets to you will come through a filter, and that's bad. You need to understand life to see there's a filter and see works from eye level instead of some magical force far above your reach.

Have to say, I can name more places where you shouldn't look for influence than places you should. That says a lot about me

If anything the latter method is better because you are looking at something that didn't work, you are breaking down and finding out why it didn't work and then you turn it into the piece of greatness that you thought it should have been.

Exactly. I find understanding good things is much harder than understanding the bad. Since everything looks smooth it's easy to take it for granted and not realize the difficult process of getting there. Often people think that ideas are everything and forget about the skills or development neccesary so they can only do something superficially similar.

If you read closely you will notice many critics only understand what's bad, not what is good. Very few understand good and bad and I have yet to see any that understand mediocre, all seem to use shortcuts to get there. And yes, there are many who don't understand anything, but since praising is easy and socially accepted, it works out for them.

but there is also a lot of bad ideas which either get ignored or also used because to the person making it is all good because it is Final Fantasy 7.

Society also makes it difficult to understand bad things in otherwise good works. Once something achieves "classic" status, people will skin you alive if you dare not to praise it. Disney, Citizen Kane, Portal...All those things aren't perfect yet any criticism is inmediatedly shut down to keep the status quo.

i think also we are looking at an industry where most of the people who go into it are going in with the intention to be a video game designer, peter molyneux for example pretty much stumbled into the business by accident and then he had a go at making a game and ended up making populous which became a smash hit, at least I think that is how the story goes, either way he wasn't the typical video game fan or computer geek, this could be why his ideas always come off as being a bit off the wall or strange, either way a lot of what he does seems to be of his own creation and though process, this may explain why he gets so excited over his work.

Very smart comment and totally true.


It's unfortunate that we praise many of these things. We praise Zynga, who plagiarize and steal, by saying how it's "the future" of gaming. We praise Family Guy for recognizing a popular show made eighty years ago and putting it on screen. We are praising staleness, and videogames are worse than other industries in that regard.

[ZeroAX]

We praise Zynga,

Who the fuck praises Zynga?

[Erik_Twice]

Who the fuck praises Zynga?

The industry. All these people who think they are the future of gaming. "Analysts" and "experts". Other companies.

[ZeroAX]

Who the fuck praises Zynga?

The industry. All these people who think they are the future of gaming. "Analysts" and "experts". Other companies.

and of course analysts will praise them. More bubbles = huge profits for them.

[dsheinem]

http://www.igf.com/index.html

^^^The list on the far right of 10+ years suggests a very different state of innovation and inspiration

Also see many of our thoughts here: http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... ilit=indie

Note that this is not a thread about the industry itself, but about game designers and influences.

The more I read this thread, the more convinced I am that these threads are essentially one and the same. Even after reading the discussion so far, I just do not and cannot remotely see a current games industry that is stagnating or lacking for innovation, imagination, or unique influences.

For example, let's take something as "mainstream" as the Spike Video Game Awards, a venue in which a lot of very popular games get honored, despite many of them being sequels, trope-filled slogs, safe bets, etc. Even in that list of nominees you get plenty of games that reflect on influences beyond those listed elsewhere in this thread. Starting from 2003, I see games nominated that drew storytelling inspiration/influence from interesting places that aren't well worn ideas in the industry:

-Vice City and San Adreas
-Freedom Fighters
-Far Cry 1 and 2
-City of Heroes
-Donkey Konga
-Katamari Damacy
-FEAR
-Jade Empire
-Nintendogs
-Lumines
-Meteos
-Indigo Prophecy
-Resistance
-Loco Roco
-Elektroplankton
-Prey
-Bully
-God Hand
-Brain Age
-Okami
-Guitar Hero
-BioShock
-Assassin's Creed
-Audiosurf
-Braid
-World of Goo
-Pixeljunk Eden
-Little Big Planet
-Patapon
-Brutal Legend
-MadWorld
-Flower
-Osmos
-Limbo
-Heavy Rain
-Kirby's Epic Yarn
-Child of Eden
-Minecraft

We can certainly quibble about the novelty of a few of these and what new ideas they brought to gaming and/or their genre...but the point is that this a VERY mainstream awards show and that even though it ignores many many games that are innovative and reflect new influences (games that didn't make the cut for this particular awards show), it STILL suggests that there's no lack of new influences and ideas in gaming.

I also get that the discussion about gameplay mechanics in games is a different discussion, but given the proliferation of new control schemes to become popularized in the past five years (e.g. motion, voice, touch screen, stylus, etc.), I do not see an argument AT ALL that there's a lack of imagination or inspiration here, either. Hell, many folks on this board spend time lamenting these innovations, so the argument is fairly moot. Many of the games above use traditional gameplay mecahnics with new storytelling ideas, and there are games that do the reverse - but there is a deluge of games in the past decade that do BOTH.

tldr: Stop bitching about the lack of innovation, fresh influences, general staleness, etc. in contemporary gaming design. It is demonstrably not true.

[Erik_Twice]

The more I read this thread, the more convinced I am that these threads are essentially one and the same. Even after reading the discussion so far, I just do not and cannot remotely see a current games industry that is stagnating or lacking for innovation, imagination, or unique influences.

It's not the industry, it's about the designers.

For each game you can quote me as having unique influences, I can name you three that have the influences noted above, and they will be bigger, more mainstream titles. In fact, I contend that most of your list has quite obvious influences or directly rip-off other titles as is the case with Guitar Hero and Donkey Konga, which are Guitar Freaks and Taiko no Tatsujin under another name down to the smallest wrinkles.

And note that it's not just about having influences or not, it's about being to abstract them and get the good out of it. I would also contend many games on your list fail at this level by taking the mistakes or just not offering nothing the original influences didn't do better. Mafia comes to mind as an example of bad, generic influences.


I'm not asking for everything to look like a Sid Meier's game and stuff like Team Fortress 2 is very good use of influences in my book even if it's not revolutionary or innovative at all, which are different concepts. In fact, I wouldn't say being innovative is important at all! Being evolutionary is great, but being bland and generic isn't. I simply do not want a rehash of old concepts.


And note that this situation isn't neccesarily new, tough I contend it's stronger now and will get stronger as time goes on.

[dsheinem]

The more I read this thread, the more convinced I am that these threads are essentially one and the same. Even after reading the discussion so far, I just do not and cannot remotely see a current games industry that is stagnating or lacking for innovation, imagination, or unique influences.

It's not the industry, it's about the designers.

..who design the games that make the industry so "stale" and "horrible". I get the focus is different, but many of the arguments in both thread are essentially the same.

For each game you can quote me as having unique influences, I can name you three that have the influences noted above, and they will be bigger, more mainstream titles.

That's pretty much true of all media ever, including the early days of video games which basically took basic concepts of gaming off screen and translated them on screen.

In fact, I contend that most of your list has quite obvious influences or directly rip-off other titles as is the case with Guitar Hero and Donkey Konga, which are Guitar Freaks and Taiko no Tatsujin under another name down to the smallest wrinkles.

Again, the list is far from definitive in that it is only representative of games noted by a very mainstream awards show. Part of my point was that even this list of mainstream games - which ignores most of the innovation and new designs/influence found in the broader gaming sprctrum (especially indie titles) still has a lot of what people are lamenting as missing from (or "plaguing") the industry.

And note that it's not just about having influences or not, it's about being to abstract them and get the good out of it.

Can you give me some examples of what you mean, both in video games and other media?

In fact, I wouldn't say being innovative is important at all... Being evolutionary is great, but being bland and generic isn't. I simply do not want a rehash of old concepts.

I read this as a lot of contradiction, and as very counter to the points raised by the OP, so again some clarification or examples might help me see your point here.

And note that this situation isn't neccesarily new, tough I contend it's stronger now and will get stronger as time goes on.

Maybe I am missing your point, but I've argued before and will continue to argue that there has probably never been more variety of games, gameplay mechanics, influences, etc. than there are right now.


Are you essentially upset that trope-ridden genre games which foreground effects/graphics over creative ideas are the games that sell so well? This is historically true of pretty much every form of entertainment ever, so why wouldn't it be true for games?

[Mucx]

Wait, wait, wait... I remember the 90's being chastised for a million platformers and mario kart clones.

Some fickle memories here I feel.