Reading this article reminded me of the discussion on the latest Podtoid (Aaron Linde Fan Art) concerning the Citizen Kane of games. I generally agreed with Aaron and Jim's opinion that you can't force these things. And likewise, you can't force thematic maturity in games either. It just doesn't work because it isn't honest. You might sell more copies due to short-term publicity, but at the end of the day, society and culture will remember that your emperor has no clothes. Nor can we judge maturity by counting how many sex/rape/child-abuse allusions/scenes a work contains. It's pointless and pretty immature in itself. So I hope developers don't read her article and think, "Hmm good point. We need more sex/rape scenes in our game to make it more mature! That'll really push the industry forward!" I'm not sure if that's what she is suggesting, but I can certainly see people taking it that way.
As Aaron said, the industry needs to just focus on doing a good job, and maturity and impact will come naturally. I completely agree, and there are many good reasons for this. First off, as Jim observed, the creative people working in the industry tend to be young, and thus don't have much experience to share. Why is this? Part of the reason is that the industry has been notorious for poor management and production scheduling, resulting in crunch times that kill any hopes of a work-life balance (ea_spouse, etc.) - not to mention poor quality games. For many older employees with families and children, they've had enough of this and gladly quit the industry. Having said this, the general feeling I get from talking to friends in the industry is that things are getting better. Crunch times are less intense thanks to improved pipelines and alternative business models, so let's hope this trend continues. Happier employees will lead to better games and better employee retention, which will result in more old farts staying in the industry. With all due, very much due, respect.
Another result of perfecting the craft will be more room and time for experimentation. There are many alternative game formats/structures that rarely get attention in the mainstream industry because they are risky. For example, how about short 15-minute narrative-driven games that are meant to be played over and over, offering a different, interesting experience each time? I don't know of any mainstream games like this, and this is for good reason. It's unclear how to go about making such a game in a way that will actually interest people, or be worth anyone's time. But nonetheless, there is the possibility that it could work out very well. If we mastered the art of traditional format games (2 hr+ experiences), then we would have time to explore other formats that are perhaps more suitable for "mature" games.
People like Leigh Alexander, Jonathan Blow, and other members of the gaming community (e.g. Rev Ant) are justified in wanting more from games. And I think generally, developers themselves share that sentiment as well. But it's important to be patient with this young industry - give it time, don't rush it. Let developers perfect the craft of creating immature, B-rate action games that offer little depth and sophistication beyond some lines about how war's bad (mmkay?). Let them perfect those bouncy breast physics so they can earn a little extra cash from teenage boys with disposable allowances. Sophistication, maturity, depth, artistic integrity, and all that overrated nonsense will come in due time.
Recently, there have been plenty of "innovative" games. Fracture's terrain deformation. TimeShift's...well, time shifting. Mirror's Edge's perspective and art style. Portal's portals. Braid's time controls. EndWar's voice commands. All these games have been met with various degrees of success. So what factors make an innovation a success or failure? In short, what's the difference between an innovation and a gimmick?
I think we can all agree that Portal and Mirror's Edge are both pretty different from most games in the first person genre. But why is Portal considered innovative and near-perfect while Mirror's Edge is almost universally considered just a worthwhile rental? Let's examine 3 differences:
1) Format: Portal was a 3 hour, $20 game that you could get as part of a package. Mirror's Edge is a ~6 hour, $60 stand-alone game.
2) Setting: Portal is set in an experimental testing facility. Mirror's Edge is set in an urban environment.
3) Hype: Before release, there were a few videos showing off the portal mechanic that got people pretty curious about the game. Mirror's Edge released plenty of videos showing off the mechanics, along with many of those ESurance commercials.
Let's do a thought experiment. What if Portal had been executed under the same circumstances as ME? Imagine Portal as a $60, ~6 hour game - so about twice as long as it actually is - and it was set in an urban environment. How well would the portal mechanic fare in those circumstances? Could the designers have thought up enough puzzles to make the game last 6 hours? Would the puzzles in Portal even translate well in the urban setting? What technical issues would plague the game due to the setting, such as draw-distance and NPCs? And what if the pre-release marketing had been as extreme? What if half the puzzles were ruined in videos, and GlaDOS's manic-depressive nature was revealed before anyone even played the game?
My argument is that under those circumstances, people would not have liked Portal so much. The $60 price tag would turn people off already, since 6 hours is pretty short for a full-priced game. Furthermore, it would be tough for designers to milk that single mechanic and keep it interesting through out the whole 6 hours. The testing lab environment also allowed the designers to do all sorts of random stuff, like the energy balls, the platforms, and the Companion Cube. It would be a lot tougher to include such things if they had to make sense in the urban setting. And lastly, with all the pre-release marketing, the viral pleasant-surprise factor would be gone.
The fine-line from gimmick to innovation is not crossed by the idea, but rather by the execution. It has to be put in proper context: if the innovation does not produce enough truly novel experiences for a 6-hour game, then you should make it 3 hours. Or even less. Fracture's terrain deformation proved to be interesting for about 30 minutes - the game should've then been 30 minutes long (or just not made at all). Otherwise, players will get bored, and you will waste time. If you make the innovation only a part of the game, then the rest of the game must be exceptional compared to others in the genre. ME's running wasn't enough, so they introduced melee combat and some shooting, both of which were seen as half-assed attempts to fill out a pretty sparse game.
In conclusion, incremental innovation (which all of these are) should be introduced subtly. A single new mechanic will not alone give your game the legs that it needs for long-term success. So you should either scale your game down accordingly (Portal, Braid), or add it to a game that's already strong as-is (HL2's gravity gun, Gears of War's cover system). Since ME's novel mechanic is pretty reliant on its novel controls, I think it should've gone the Portal route and become a smaller game, where every minute spent with it could be made fun and interesting.
we often worry about "a flood of crap" when things become too easy to do. the internet suffers from a flood of crap content so severe that we need advanced technologies like the googles and what not just to swim through it all and dig up the good stuff. but right now, with the recent bombardment of video game releases, i'm feeling the opposite extreme: there are too many good games out there.
there are so many games out there that look amazing - and more are on the way - and i want to experience them all. not only for entertainment, but also for their innovative designs and cutting-edge craftsmanship. but as a phd student, i only have (or should commit) time for one or two. i imagine the average gaming consumer my age with expendable income feels the same way, but is willing to commit even less time.
so, i _want_ to give all these game companies my money, but in order to do so i have to give up $60 a pop and reserve a whole fuckin' weekend to make it worthwhile. no way. not gonna happen. and that's no big deal for me - my life will probably be just fine if i don't play Fallout 3 (but i will be a little sadder). but for Bethesda, that's revenue lost.
how could they get that money? i don't think less games is the answer - no, keep em coming. at a time like this, when the industry is at its most creative, the more the merrier (and i see no reason why publishers would self-regulate like that). but i would like to see the option of shorter experiences. back in the day, a little known publisher named Apogee published little known games like DOOM and Duke Nukem 3D. but $60 for the full game wasn't the only option. you could buy 1/3 or 1/4 of the game - the "shareware version" - for $10-15. so if you didn't want to commit $60 and 20 hours of your life to a game, you could go the shorter route. sure, it's not getting $60. but it's getting $15. and that, last time i checked, is way better than nothing. multiply that by the number of gamers who feel the same way i do and you're looking at...well, i have no clue. but hey, it _could_ be huge!
some would scream, "not every game is a level-based first person shooter that can be split up like that for shareware!" fair enough. but you can sure as hell try. just consider it another design constraint/trade-off. game designers work under all sorts of constraints that result from economic/technical realities (time and money to name a few), so if the constraint of "shareware-ability" can be justified, then you should try adjusting your design accordingly. there is no reason why an RPG like Fallout can't be split into discrete chunks - there are only reasons why it's hard. and if my gut feeling is right, whoever cracks that nut is potentially cracking into a revenue stream that's feeling very over-fucking-whelmed right now.
Destructoid is an independently-run publication forged by our love of video games and the gaming community's need of accountable enthusiast press living the dream since March 16, 2006
