Innovation is dead.

[Black Hydra]

I recently read an article over at gamedev.net about genre addicts. While some people may disagree with his comparing of genre addicts or so-called 'hardcore' gamers with drug addicts I think he makes several excellent points.

One of these is simply that the hardcore gamers are looking for there fix. They can't be bothered learning to like a new type of 'drug' and that this is why some often excellent, innovative titles are commercial failures because people simply can't invest the time getting to learn them.

While this may be less a problem with casual gamers, it is a fact that people seek out the familiar games they are used to.

Here's the paradox. Without huge budgets, innovation is one tool that we indie's can manipulate to separate us from the crowd. Now as you can see from my above comments, few of us use it because (A) Innovation is much harder than rethinking old genre's (B) Innovation is risky.

A later part of the article explains how some people (Peter Molyneux(sp?) was the example provided) can mask innovation under a familiar genre.

This has got me thinking. Perhaps the key to using innovation is not to make clone games of hit genre's, but instead to mask innovative qualities under the familiarity of an old genre. No I'm not talking about games like Gish (which could be broken down to its essence as a platformer) simply because this game displays its unique qualities very quickly and therefore is very hard to get used to (I quit/uninstalled the demo 3 times before I could beat the second level).

So here's my thought. Maybe if someone could design an innovative game by having it start under the guise of a familiar genre. This would mean that most people used to that genre would quickly adapt to it. Then later, once they are used to the game you can start introducing the innovation that separates you from the crowd.

Gish for example. You could begin the game without requiring all of the physics based stuff that makes it so innovative, then slowly introduce more and more of those controls until players can get used to it. See as it is now, the game introduces all these things right away, forcing you to work to learn all of the controls.

I don't know how this would effect the whole trial-ware model as this would take progression and time that most people can't package into your demo.

This is just a thought, but I figured considering that some of the smartest people of game development reside here, perhaps we can find a way to break the annoying paradox that "If a game is too innovative nobody will learn to play it, but if it isn't then it will have trouble competing with the AAA giants of that genre."

There are of course different routes (like preying on genres that are established but not consumed by AAA products) that be successful.

I'm just trying to find a way that you could release games that separate you from the crowd but don't scare away customers.

Any thoughts?

[bill]

the key is incremental innovation. Just enough to stand out and be notice, but not enough that it requires an excessive learning curve for the consumer. Look at something like MaxPayne, it sold 7 million units because it was a standard 3rd person shooter with this little thing that nobody had ever seen before: "Bullettime"

[HairyTroll]

So here's my thought. Maybe if someone could design an innovative game by having it start under the guise of a familiar genre. This would mean that most people used to that genre would quickly adapt to it. Then later, once they are used to the game you can start introducing the innovation that separates you from the crowd.

I don't know how this would effect the whole trial-ware model as this would take progression and time that most people can't package into your demo.

What game are you then selling? Are you selling (a) your generic "match-3 puzzle" game, or (b) your "3D scrolling shooter, mutiplayer deathmatch match-3 puzzle" game?

If you are pushing (a), then you compete with all the other match-3's out there. If you are pushing (b) then you are trying to convince people to buy into the genre you have just created.

[Abscissa]

That's a very good idea. It goes along well with the idea I've read in various places (Such as here and here), and completely agree with, about learning being an intergral part of a good game. It also reminds me of some of the points given in another article I read (can't remember where) on "why players are runing MMO's" or something like that...

I'll definitely be keeping that in mind.

[Black Hydra]

The technique Peter Molyneux (sp?) was that he said his game Fable was the best RPG game around.

He put a lot of focus into it being an RPG, however, the attention it drew once people started playing it was all of its uniqueness.

Now I doubt this method would work for us indies who have hardly the resources to put a press 'spin' on a game release, but it can get you started.

The idea I present is a little different. Perhaps if your game started out as a more run-of-the-mill game from a specific genre, got players to like it, then introduced the aspects that separate it from the crowd, you could get people to like it enough to love it. See if the first impression of the game is difficulty and resistance, they won't continue. But if the first impression is ease and familiarity, then when you start bringing in new concepts players will more easily deal with them.

Any other thoughts?

[Coyote]

I completely and absolutely agree.

People desire new experiences. But they crave familiarity. You MUST give them both. You don't give them the first, and you bore them. You don't give them the latter, and they'll be too uncomfortable to enjoy your game for what it is.

There are some other weird ways around it, though. For example, I think part of the reason the Sims succeeded so well was that it was somewhat unfamiliar gameplay, but couched in an everyday, commonplace analogy that everyone instantly understood and felt comfortable with.

The early arcade games (well, the SUCCESSFUL ones) were pretty much exclusively sports analogs. People didn't get the videogame thing, but they understood tennis or otherwise knocking a ball around, so that level of familiarity eased them into trying to control glowing phosphors on a screen with a rotating knob. Later, when people became used to that idea, game companies were able to push the boundaries a little bit. Asteroids succeeded spectacularly where Computer Space had failed almost as spectacularly.

Just like everything else in the world - it's hard to get people to volunteer to leave their comfort zone. It's far easier to lead them out gradually.

[Savant]

Look at something like MaxPayne, it sold 7 million units because it was a standard 3rd person shooter with this little thing that nobody had ever seen before: "Bullettime"

Max Payne had a lot more going for it than just the bullet time. A quick list would be:

A hook - the bullet time
A character - Max
A theme - film noir, graphic novel

It didn't even innovate on tech, really. It just had the necessary hooks to make what they had, interesting. That's all it really takes.

[Anthony Flack]

Still, I would guess that genre addicts make up a tiny minority of the people in the world (okay, to discount the starving Africans, let's say the people with computers).

And for the vast majority of people, these genre conventions are exactly what has put them off videogames. Because they don't understand them.

Let's say your game is a FPS. The FPS addict will approach your game with a large set of assumptions, and your game had better damn well meet all of them. But these assumptions are also what allows him to jump in and be playing this complicated game almost immediately. Without these assumptions, the player would be hopelessly confused, and would give up before the fun starts. And of course, the average person when confronted with a FPS is hopelessly confused, and does give up before the fun starts (if they even try at all).

But what if your game entices with a simple "click the mouse to begin", followed by a simple "move the cursor"... and it's already starting to get fun! And everything else is introduced carefully, one thing after the anther, with the fun level being scrupulously maintained at all times.

Sound like a casual game to you? Why? Why can't all games start like that?

Of course, it's partly because it's really hard to do. Although you find that most hit console games at least make a fairly good attempt at it. But I think we still depend on standard gaming assumptions more than we like to admit.

[Raptisoft]

Is this like when innovation was dead in '84, '87, '90, '93, '96, '98, '00, and '03?

[mahlzeit]

I think Chris Crawford said that you should limit yourself to one innovation per game, otherwise it becomes too much for people to handle. Sounds reasonable.

[Abscissa]

I think Chris Crawford said that you should limit yourself to one innovation per game, otherwise it becomes too much for people to handle. Sounds reasonable.

I don't totally agree with that.

First, that basically amounts to promoting making highly-derivitive games. A "derivitive" game is essentially "It's just like X, but with a twist!". That "twist" constitutes your one innovation. Hence, only one innovation and you're just being derivitive, hence: bad idea.

Second, Chris Crawford is from the mainstream industry. They need to push far more copies than we do to pull a profit, so they're always trying/needing to dumb things down.

Third, how much innovation a game can handle depends completely on how it presents the innovation. If it plops you into the middle of it and says "have fun!", or has a long-winded tutorial mode, than you're not going to be able to pack in much innovation without losing players - you'll get that one innovation and that's it. But if you do a good job of teaching-as-you-go and introducing new concepts as the game progresses, then you'll be able to do much more.

[Hiro_Antagonist]

I think it could be argued that most large commercial games use principles of 'incremental innovation'. Very few high-dollar commercial releases are raw gameplay clones with no innovation what-so-ever.

Sometimes the innovation is the genre/setting of the game.

Sometimes it's the set of unique subsystems to that game.

Sometimes it's mixing in 'RPG' elements into the game. (I DO think Gran Turismo was 'innovative' for racing games.)

Sometimes, just doing a set of 'cloned' mechanics with great production values and a smooth gameplay experience is innovation. Because, hey, for whatever reason, nobody had done that before and it is offering something new to customers.

Now, I'm not saying that most commercial games are innovative in the way that, say, Darwinia is. They clearly aren't. But most commercial games I play have some degree of innovation to them, and if we step outside of our snobby indie shoes and look at innovation as a gray scale, I think we'd find there's less gray between indie games and commercial games than we pretend.

I think many people here usually just get caught up in drawing some arbitrary line between 'their' games (commercial) and 'our' games (indie), and pretend like that line is somehow meaningful or absolute, and that 'they' are derivitive, while 'we' are somehow innovative.

-Hiro_Antagonist

[Night Elf]

I think many people here usually just get caught up in drawing some arbitrary line between 'their' games (commercial) and 'our' games (indie), and pretend like that line is somehow meaningful or absolute, and that 'they' are derivitive, while 'we' are somehow innovative.

That's true. And in fact, the reallity of indie games makes it clear that that line (when talking about innovation) doesn't exist: Many, many indie games are plain clones of previous games. (How many Arkanoid clones are out there? I would bet there are more Arkanoid clones than FPSs...) I believe innovative games are as much an exception among indie games as they are among commercial games.