Ive noticed while playing though the better part of my 300+ game collection and surfing the net that originality is more or less vanished in the current stage of the digital era. Take the current MMOLRPG''s currently on the market, free or payed software, they either are not any good to play or they have nothing that dungeons and dragons hasn''t already done to death. Take for example legend of mir, i grant you the game itself is brilliant but the customer service is one of the crappiest in any game ever produced by my standard''s. Originality doesn''t enter into it to be honest, it''s tag line for the game is "the three hero''s" wow thats new. Warrior, wizard, taoist meaning; Typical warrior, hard Fighter, cant use magic but user''s a big blade, Wizard, magic but no fighting prowess, taoist, combo of a wiz and warrior with healing skills that to be honest all classes could learn in a more realist world. Now compare that to just about any fantasy game including the acclaimed final fantasy games and any rpg. All most designers do is take a game, strip it of its products names, slightly tweak it and slap a big sticker on it which says; Look at me! I''m brand new but i do what every other RPG on the market dose. I guess some would argue that this isn''t necessarily a bad thing, people would get confused by a completely new way of doing things in games and its good to have something you know how to work when your working though a brand new story line. Wope-de-flaming-do, i would argue that regurgitating final fantasy 1-10, giving it a new name and saying its originally is something no one should be proud of. I am only a student but ive played a shit load of games for a ton of consoles and i plan on making my way to a Nice little design contract in about 5 years where these "rehash designers" are going to be losing there profits to me. Don''t get me wrong, i don''t call everyone who has ever had there hand in game design a tired old hack but its just something ive come to notice while designing my first serious game. All i ask now is the next time you go to buy a "new" game, take a good long look at it and see where your cash is going. A bit of rehashed shit or something that dose deserve a new sticker. Plight o-O

nahh Doom III promises to be very original.

James Simmons
MindEngine Development
http://medev.sourceforge.net

You want originality? Too bad, because originality doesn''t sell, so noone makes original games anymore.

The same thing has happened with movies, television, and music. I happen to believe that it comes in part from the sort of greed that capitalism seems to encourage in such a large system. Of course, the pendulum will eventually swing back, but it may take some time before enough people get to the point of fighting back. For example, many seem to be aware that most movies today are just rehashes of the same old, tired ideas, but they see them anyway (paying astronomical admission prices in the process) because it''s something to do.

Of course, another thing that I think that is dead is "video games." Yes, video games. What we have today are "simulations," with more akin to Star Trek''s holodecks than things like Super Mario Bros. I don''t know about anyone else, but I think it''s absolutely silly that people keep blindly making 3D games, even though we can''t even perceive the 3D on existing displays! Beyond that, graphics and "realism" seem always to take a backseat to gameplay.

Anyway, these are my opinions, so argument with me is silly.

That''s what independent game developpers are for. To bring new original ideas to the gaming world. It is a very slow process since independents have barely any funding. A lot of independent games though are not "original" in your definition but they do define new boundaries.
It is the same in the film industry, independents bring the originality that then hollywood starts to massively copy if it was popular.

Unfortunately, this is the kind of thing that happens when marketing gains an advantage in an industry. I think one of the fundamental problems right now is that publishers and such believe that realism = fun, and they do everything they can to brainwash the public into agreement. Believe it or not, originality often does sell, the problem is that it usually isn''t given a large enough opportunity to do so (because independant game companies usually don''t have near the resources to compete with the big names).

______________________________________________________________
The Phoenix shall arise from the ashes... ThunderHawk -- ¦þ
MySite
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It has been said (forgive me, I don''t remember which writer I am misquoting here) that there is no such thing as a new story, and the same might be argued for games.

The simple fact of the matter is, coming up with something that is original and fun to play can be very difficult. A lot of games derive from physical, confrontational combat (since combat is one of the easier competetive social endeavours to reduce to a numbers game for modelling.) There are only so many original and creative ways combat can be modelled, and I would venture to say that it is nearly impossible to do so without re-hashing something that has already been done. (I use the word nearly as a cowardly qualifier to cover my ass in case someone manages to surprise me. ) This is a problem that will only get worse as more games are produced.

Current trends involve placing a character as a first-person participant in a 3D rendered environment, and giving him/her the ability to perform various actions. Exactly what in the way of actions can one hope to implement that are new and varied; "original"? Most of these FPSes are basically the same game when peripheral irrelevancies such as plot and eye-candy are removed, as the sum of actions a character can perform have finite limitations. The actions of real people, that serve as a model for games, have finite limitations.


You can take any game and reduce it sufficiently that comparisons can be made to at least a dozen other games out there. Presentation of game concepts is one of the few ways in which true innovation can still be established, but in the end no matter how new a game''s presentation (graphics, "atmosphere", theme, all those ethereal concepts that are so hard to grasp), the player is inevitably going to recognize those concepts that are shared with numerous other games, and think on some level, "how unoriginal." Life is unoriginal. There is no new thing under the sun.

That is the fight that today''s game developers are facing, and anyone who passes this off as a trivial problem to be overcome, because of course he is going to be "making my way to a Nice little design contract in about 5 years where these "rehash designers" are going to be losing there profits to me" would do well to think about this.


Josh
vertexnormal AT linuxmail DOT org

Check out Golem at:
My cheapass website

Developers/publishes will stop making/selling "unoriginal", graphics-heavy games when people stop buying them. In other words, never.

-Mike

quote: Original post by Plight Of Anima
Ive noticed while playing though the better part of my 300+ game collection and surfing the net that originality is more or less vanished in the current stage of the digital era.

Take the current MMOLRPG''s currently on the market, free or payed software, they either are not any good to play or they have nothing that dungeons and dragons hasn''t already done to death.

Take for example legend of mir, i grant you the game itself is brilliant but the customer service is one of the crappiest in any game ever produced by my standard''s. Originality doesn''t enter into it to be honest, it''s tag line for the game is "the three hero''s" wow thats new. Warrior, wizard, taoist meaning; Typical warrior, hard Fighter, cant use magic but user''s a big blade, Wizard, magic but no fighting prowess, taoist, combo of a wiz and warrior with healing skills that to be honest all classes could learn in a more realist world.

Now compare that to just about any fantasy game including the acclaimed final fantasy games and any rpg. All most designers do is take a game, strip it of its products names, slightly tweak it and slap a big sticker on it which says; Look at me! I''m brand new but i do what every other RPG on the market dose.

I guess some would argue that this isn''t necessarily a bad thing, people would get confused by a completely new way of doing things in games and its good to have something you know how to work when your working though a brand new story line.

Wope-de-flaming-do, i would argue that regurgitating final fantasy 1-10, giving it a new name and saying its originally is something no one should be proud of.

I am only a student but ive played a shit load of games for a ton of consoles and i plan on making my way to a Nice little design contract in about 5 years where these "rehash designers" are going to be losing there profits to me.

Don''t get me wrong, i don''t call everyone who has ever had there hand in game design a tired old hack but its just something ive come to notice while designing my first serious game.

All i ask now is the next time you go to buy a "new" game, take a good long look at it and see where your cash is going.

A bit of rehashed shit or something that dose deserve a new sticker.

Plight o-O

If you played 300+ games, you must have enjoyed this "rehashed crap" otherwise you wouldn''t have bought any of this "rehashed crap". I don''t know why you are complaining. So what the industry is in this state? You''ve bought 300+ games and will probably buy more so you don''t have room to complain.

Also, you are making a bold statement in saying you can make a better game than all the other game designers. So what, you''re more original than other game designers? That doesn''t mean your game is going to be fun, or sell well. My main point is stop worrying about making a game original, I think making a game fun is more important.

You said, "Take for example legend of mir, i grant you the game itself is brilliant but the customer service is one of the crappiest in any game ever produced by my standard''s." what''s the point of talking about crappy customer service. I''ve never played this game myself, but don''t see any connection with this and good game design. Please clarify.

Creativity is dying. Just check out the latest issue of Game Developer. It really is hard to make a 100% original games. Most games are clones of Star Wars, Rainbow Six, or Quake. And most publishers and studios are cash strapped these days, and thus buy a lisence to games in order to make people buy their games. They make sequels, clones, franchised games, etc., for one reason: Because people will buy it. If people can have a lightsaber and slice others into pieces with it, they will buy it. And if they liked the first game, they will gladly buy the sequel or expansion. And as for clones, many people hear the words "Quake-like gameplay", and go out and buy it.

Scott Simontis
e-mail:ageofscott@comcast.net
AIM:ssimontis

[edited by - sSimontis on September 20, 2003 9:29:01 PM]