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Original post by Anonymous Poster Another difficulty that I don't think was mentioned is the UI.

Agreed, big point here. Without a uniform UI, you've upped the learning curve dramatically. Yet a lot of these genre intensive games resist having a generic UI because UI is so closely tied to gameplay-- what you click or see controls what you can or cannot do.

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And I think that's the greatest problem. When I or my friends pick up a game, we are usually looking for a particular experience roughly defined by a genre. When I pick up an FPS, I don't necessarily want to be bothered with cultivating my character; I just want to shoot things. When I pick up an RPG, I want to raise my character and not be bothered with the actual fighting myself.

There's still the standing problem of how these games distinguish themselves in a crowded market. A friend who reads the industry mags rampantly was observing an increasing trend of adding stats / character development to games that traditionally don't have it: Boxing games, racing games, or thief/sneaker games are all starting to get RPG-style stats for some reason.

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Movies are fairly genre tied. You can tell a romantic comedy from a thriller from an action movie from a mystery just from the trailer.

Yes, point taken, and I don't see genre going away, it's incredibly useful. My point was more about broadening. It seems that in an increasingly competitive marketplace both movies and games need to diversify appeal, and that movies have been doing this (think Spiderman as the latest example).

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For example, I have a problem with Steven King movies. If I don't know they're based on a King novel, I get watching them and see that they're in a realistic setting. Then, a third of the way through, he brings in spiritual aspects. Throws off my groove. They tend to be good, but they aren't what I expect so I tend not to fully enjoy them the first time.

I think the M. Knight Shalayman movies are like this, as well, which is why people seem to love or hate them. Funny enough, the Matrix was like this for me, because I don't watch TV-- so I never saw an add, and thought it was going to be some Hackers-style movie. I was very pleasantly surprised to get a SF movie.

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Original post by Wavinator Great insight. I just thought of a follow-up question: What genre is the Sims, or Grand Theft Auto? What makes something its own genre?

Well, I would say that something becomes its own genre once the games imitating it achive wide market appeal.

The Sims, was a sim game but it has been so succesful that its becoming its own genre or sub-genre if you like. This can be seen with the appearence of imitations, there a already a handful games that are varations of the sims two that I've head of are "singles", and "living in new york" and the number sims will only grow. To be honest I'm surpised that there are more out yet. Now that I think about I'd be really curious to find out why the big publishers haven't back more sims projects. If anyone knows any insider information on this I'd love to hear it.

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There's still the standing problem of how these games distinguish themselves in a crowded market. A friend who reads the industry mags rampantly was observing an increasing trend of adding stats / character development to games that traditionally don't have it: Boxing games, racing games, or thief/sneaker games are all starting to get RPG-style stats for some reason.

I think this because developers are realizing how much tailoring the game experince appeals to players. Being able to adjust the gameplay to your game style makes that game that much more enjoyable, as is the ability customize the appearence of your avatar.

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There's merit to expanding the audience, but only a fraction of that audience makes it into game developing. You're ignoring the fact that, as games become more corporate, developers are increasingly saddled with control of content going to marketing. You don't blow $30 million on a guess or fanboy's fantasy.

Now wait a second...you started this thread suggesting that gamers were the reason games are so genre tied as they likely would not accept the introduction of new and/or different gameplay concepts to thier choice form of gameing genre.

So obviously expanding the gameing audiance is an issue of merit.

But then you go on to say that only a fraction of those casual gamers makes it into the industry...

Now isn't that ignoreing the fact that the remaining majority of developers are/were typicaly hardcore gamers, pooled from the very same audiance you earlier suggested were the problem to begin with?

I'm not ignoreing the well established influance of marketing...but I just don't see what marketing has to do with long established game developer hireing practices.

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Let me challenge this loner geek stereotype, because it's garbage: From my perspective inside the game industry several years ago, the average game developer was married or getting married, many were buying homes and not a few had complicated lives. I think you're insulting a fasionable straw man.

Um...I never brought up marrage or owning a home...And sense when does that have anything to do with your film choices of inspiration or the fiction you read...or even how complicated your life is?

As I said before...you reap what you sow.

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Original post by MSW I'm not ignoreing the well established influance of marketing...but I just don't see what marketing has to do with long established game developer hireing practices.

Marketers survey what gamers say they want, then, through control of the purse strings, direct developers to create one thing or another. Game designers, in my experience, want to be creative and want to try innovative things. But they often don't get the greenlight from the people with money, especially if the budget is huge.

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Um...I never brought up marrage or owning a home...And sense when does that have anything to do with your film choices of inspiration or the fiction you read...or even how complicated your life is?

This was in response to this statement:

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And that is the main problem...you have video game developers useing pulp action movies as a model for how to shape thier stories...You have developers whom seem oblivious to novelised fiction outside of the sci-fi/fantasy bookstore section...And as insulting as this sounds, you have developers pushing for complexity in games as they lack it in thier own lives.

(emphasis added)

Did you mean something else, because by your recent response I now don't know where you were going with this.

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Original post by Wavinator Quote: It was observed on a different thread that when you combine genres, you don't get the union of the fanbases; you get the intersection. A racing strategy game won't get racers and strategists; it'll get racing strategists. Movies, with the "tune out" option, can attract the union. A chick flick with a few really bitchin' car chases will get sappy weepers and action fans, and the snack booth will benefit because they'll be leaving the theatre in turns. Games don't have that luxury. Unless you build it in. This is a good, if damnably annoying [smile], point. Technology limits and development budget wastage aside, if you build something that has depth in multiple genres, you'll need the "skip this, I'm bored, I don't like this stuff" button.

I think that's key - embed multiple genres, but let the player pick how they want to play. In Natural Selection, a mod for Half-Life which combines FPS action with RTS team command, a player can opt out of being a commander if they don't want to play the RTS stuff. They simply turn down the offer.

The trick is providing both styles of gameplay, letting the player switch between them at will, and keeping both challenging. For example, an empire-building game in which you both control troop movements and command individual battles could easily have a system of AI "generals" who can execute your battles or move your troops for you. Could the player automate the whole game? Sure, but then they wasted $40 on a movie.

This quote looks at it from another perspective (it talks about adventure games / puzzles)

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From http://www.ministryofpeace.com/if-review/reviews/20010518.html In the spirit of time travel, let's jump back about 400 years, to the time of Shakespeare. But not our Shakespeare -- this Shakespeare lives in an England where theater audiences are mad about juggling acts. Day after day, the Globe is witness to trio after trio of balls, pins and torches being flung into the air. But the audiences didn't want to see just juggling; they wanted the juggling folded into a little story. Enter Shakespeare, who soars to fame on the strength of "Romeo and Juliet", in which a pair of young people fall in love at a masked ball (the chief entertainment there: juggling), but then the boy's friend and the girl's cousin get into a ill-fated juggling contest and it all goes downhill from there. Now Shakespeare decides he might like to try writing a history, perhaps something involving King Henry V... yes, a piece tracing his evolution from carousing prince to the inspirational leader of his countrymen in a great victory over the French. But he can't just tell that story -- where's the juggling? If there's no juggling, it's not a real play! So the first act ends up foregrounding a bunch of jugglers at the bar while Falstaff and Prince Hal talk in the background, and proceeds to the point where the jugglers accompanying the army are told that the English have won the battle... and the audience response is tepid because while the historical stuff is interesting, the juggling isn't as accomplished as that in in RITO AND IMITA. Shakespeare is left to mutter to himself about the constraints of the medium. Similarly, it's clear that in LOST NEW YORK, deMause's heart is in the geographical and historical material. Virtually all the prose is extremely deft, but never is the writing more alive, more joyous, than when you die and the author gets to tell you another wacky story about a long-dead mayor; never are the quips funnier than when they're playing off the geography of the city (try going east from the City Hall area in 1880, or north into Hell's Kitchen later on.) The fact that the game begins with a slideshow and ends with a bibliography is another indication of where the author's interests lie. Hint: it's not in fiddling around with hairpins and stopwatches. But because this was written in 1996, the author felt obliged to fill it with juggl-- I mean, puzzles. And these are mostly not very good, being chiefly of the type where you're wandering around and find a fishing pole, which you take because, well, it's implemented; later on you find a stream, and go fishing because, well, that must be what the pole's for; you catch a fish and, when you cut it open to cook it, a key falls out. What was the key doing in the fish? Well, one of the conventions of the genre at the time was that you weren't supposed to ask questions like that. That's not actually a puzzle from LOST NEW YORK, but many similar ones abound.

substitute juggling for combat oriented gameplay.. and you have the Final Fantasy games.
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Not only that, but how do you make a "love affair" part of the gameplay? Is it a matter of selecting the right things to say? Is it choosing when to kiss the girl? (If so, then the player could just keep trying to kiss them and then reload). Is it a matter of increasing your character's self-confidence and making them more interesting by not sitting in their room all the time? Is it about raising a baby, sex before marriage OR marriage-before-sex?, making compromises and taking turns, choosing the wall-paper and decorations. Getting on well with your parents-in-law?

Ie. I think it might be easier (AI issues aside) to do a game about a relationship than it would be to do a game about "the chase".

[Edited by - Ketchaval on June 6, 2005 8:51:46 AM]

I've also wondered why the genre's were so narrow and stuck to their guns so tightly. Once a nice feature was designed, it seemed that if it fit into the genre, everyone would keep using it with a different name, basically meaning genre's and games can only get better; or so one would think. I, somehow am beginning to become bored of gaming as I've yet to see something new. I could go buy a new FPS, but I've already played 10 other ones with 1-10 less features.

I realize it is more difficult for a developer to make multiple genres on the game because it makes many more things to focus on. I certainly wouldn't mind waiting the few extra months to get out a great game, because that's what developers should be there for, to get out a game people will enjoy, not to get it out without truly putting thought into it.

I find that before I begin writing any sort of design idea, I'll think about it at least a week. Do I want to waste my time by writing this down? Is it worth it? Once started, is this interesting and different enough to keep me pursuing this? I'm not saying my ways are perfect, but I really wish developers would put more ideas into their games, instead of sticking to that genre.

In reference to the Matrix, I'd be rather bored just having the martial arts, I'd need the story, not necissarily love, as well as the gunplay. I recently just beat Jade Empire for XBox. I found myself a little bored with the fighting styles because it was about 5 attacks per style and I got tired of seeing these animations over and over. But what kept me playing was to see how it ended. I think many people can fight through boredness to achieve a goal, such as seeing the ending. Hopefully, more developers can place many of these goals in their game to keep people interested.

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Original post by superpig The trick is providing both styles of gameplay, letting the player switch between them at will, and keeping both challenging. For example, an empire-building game in which you both control troop movements and command individual battles could easily have a system of AI "generals" who can execute your battles or move your troops for you.

Behold the Total War series. It has a turn-based strategic section, and when a battle begins you're taken to a real time tactical section.

You can, at the beginning of the game, choose to let an AI take over your strategy, while you just fight out the battles. You can also choose to let the battles be resolved numerically, thus sticking to the board strategy. Of course, you can also play both. This appeals to the union of the genre fanbases.

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Are gamers more strictly segregated into genre camps than movie goers? Is it the case that the average player really only plays one type of game? If so, why?

Yeep, just look at sports games/genres: football, soccer, basketball, how much more narrow can ya get and these games cost the same price as GTA. Although don't get me wrong, sports games obviously have high replayability and then there are the multiplayer aspects too.
I think the consumer actually demands such narrowness tho(sometimes), Madden sales might(would) slip if you had to pick/create a player and keep track of his needs/wants a la The Sims, drive to the stadium and finally play football.

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Here's a side question: Indie developers will increasingly not be able to keep up with the graphics firepower of mainstream games. So if genre is so strictly segregated among players, how will indies distinguish themselves. I can't imagine a doomed future of making nothing but Bejeweled clones (not knocking those, they make money, but does this mean that the window for complex games is closing?)

Not at all. Indie developers make themselves known by making FUN games and by getting into a uncommon NICHE. As in, we make games that are so fun that the graphics don't have to be as top notch as the big guys. If I make a 3d shooter that is actually really fun, has an awesome multiplayer, good gameplay overall, it won't matter too much if the lighting is dynamic or if the models are 10000 tris each. Rather I want to say that there are still many gamers that base what they like on what is fun. About the NICHE, if an indie game is of a genre that there are very fiew of, or is put where there are very few games, it very well could be successful. For example, edu-tainment and gambing games are far and few. If one was made that served well its purpose, it could be successful. Also, putting games where games usually don't belong but there are gamers also works. I read an article of Diana Gruber's that said She had her games playing on airplane seats. If her game is the only one there, and we know there are people on planes who want to play games, then her game will get played.

Point is, Indie developers as far as I know will always have an audience, as long as they do the right things to get it.