gamespy article on innovation i do. I am entering a game dev competition and one of my university staff advised to do something 2d and novelty. While these types of games are good for a laugh they have no impact and take the industry nowhere. good games come from deliberation, hardwork and a good perspective. if you go to a competition showcase and everyone wants to play the neat 2d game which hasnt been done before - that means nothing. Your at a games event and there is alot of excitement in the air. When the game is translated into a bedroom environment the fun/thrill could be lost. I was also told that the experts would only spend 5-10 minutes playing your game. A game idea could be the most amazing thing since sliced bread but requires about 30 minutes for the player to realize this. Anyway, that was just some of my thoughts. Thank You.

I agree with the report!

I disagree with your statement that 2D games take the industry nowhere, I would play a 2D game over the most cutting edge 3D game anyday if it was good, you don't need blinding graphics to get people enticed, everyone is different and the notion that graphics make the game is nonsense!

creating a game is about enticing the user to form a 'habit', for example, a 2D puzzle game could be so simple that it's so addictive because of that simplicity! e.g. Tetris!

A game may look really spectacular and 'initially' entice the user to play, but what 'keeps' the user playing time after time if all it has is good graphics? like a relationship, your initially enticed by someones looks after that it's all down to 'personality' lol

I would suggest you listen to the advice of your university, as you state they will only play it for about 5-10 minutes anyway! so create a 'simple' yet ADDICTIVE game that is enjoyable to play!

ARG!
As soon as I saw the words "Half-Life 2" in the non-innovative games list, I just wanted to puke. sorry. :(

Do I agree with that article? Not completely.

I do find game and movie industry comparisons quite laughable. Especialy considering the game industry more closely mirrors the recording industry...but that is for another discussion.

But finding simple 2D games "good for a laugh" is one of the most arrogantly shortsighted and nieve comments I've ever seen on this board...back to gamedesign 101 with you! :P

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Original post by destron ARG! As soon as I saw the words "Half-Life 2" in the non-innovative games list, I just wanted to puke. sorry. :(

Agreed. Particularly since he went on to say, "Half Life 2 is just a polished version of Half Life". Even if that were true, Half Life was so incredibly innovative that it has still rarely been bettered, nine years later. It remains in my top five games of all time. So, who cares if the sequel wasn't innovative? It's a sequel, duh. (And anyway I happen to think it was deeply innovative, despite being a sequel).

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2d and novelty ... have no impact and take the industry nowhere.

Um...

Buh...

Wha....?

Pffgh....

What the heck are you talking about?

I agree with the article, including the fact that HL2 is not innovative. The people moaning that they love HL2, and therefore it must be innovative, have completely missed the point of the article. HL2 (and HL1) is a first person shooter set in a futiristic sci-fi world where you collect guns and use them to shoot people and aliens, advancing through a series of levels tied together with scripted cinema sequences. Just like a billion other games. But that doesn't mean it's bad; it's still a really good game.

I also think some people may be misinterpreting what you said. The important part of "2D and novelty" was the word "novelty", and yes, those games are often only good for a laugh. However, if you're a single person or a small team trying to win a gamedev contest, it probably is your best chance of winning. Gamedev contests usually are not about whether or not the game would sell as a AAA title in retail stores to a mainstream audience. They are about whether a somewhat jaded panel of developer/judges who are tired of the current genres will be entertained and surprised by your work for the ten minutes they play it.

And really, just being "a laugh", or a quick diversion, is not so bad. In fact, being unique and immediately accessible is probably one of the best things you really can accomplish if you are a solo dev with a short time frame. You can't create a standard genre game that can compete with the retail companies. Your other main option is to try to focus on a niche that is also mainly targeted by solo devs and small teams, like card games or puzzle games. It depends on what your goal is. But a clever, short, "throwaway" game that is fun for 30 minutes and then forgotten about is going to be much better to have on your website and portfolio then a gigantic but unfinished and uninteresting MMORPG. People will be impressed that you created a game that actually entertained them, even if it was only for a short time. They will not really care that you are yet another solo dev struggling to create your vision of some other enormous idea meant to compete with the retail games. In fact, if they are jaded enough to be complaining about innovation, they will probably be jaded enough to be positive that you will never finish your massive idea on your own.

But yes, at the same time, some low-budget 2D novelty games do get commercial success, especially as downloadable content on consoles becomes more mainstream. Geometry Wars on XBox360 and Flow on PS3 are good examples. But if you are expecting novelty to catapult you onto the consoles, there are a million other novel, innovative, but ultimately thrown away games out there that would like to talk to you.

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Original post by makeshiftwings I agree with the article, including the fact that HL2 is not innovative. The people moaning that they love HL2, and therefore it must be innovative, have completely missed the point of the article. HL2 (and HL1) is a first person shooter set in a futiristic sci-fi world where you collect guns and use them to shoot people and aliens, advancing through a series of levels tied together with scripted cinema sequences. Just like a billion other games. But that doesn't mean it's bad; it's still a really good game.

Sorry, but I really can't agree with you. The idea is same, with "collecting guns and using them to shoot people and aliens", but that's true with pretty much any FPS. You completely missed the fact that HL2 had an advanced physics system, advance facial animation (each model has 40 or so muscles in their face), as well as a unique storyline, not to mention awesome AI (e.g. your allies can't trap you in a corner lol). I had never played a game as real and as captivating as HL2. Sure, there are other games (FPS's specifically) more innovative now, such as Gears of War and Resistance: Fall of Man; but for it's time, HL2 was really good. I think the article writer failed to examine the fact that HL2 is almost three years old; of course it can't completely compete with games today, but I think it's almost timeless.

I'm in partial agreement with the article. I tend to agree that implementing crazy new ideas just for the sake of being novel is usually not a good thing. My main argument against the article however is their use of the word "innovation" - the author implies that everyone has the same definition of innovation but I beg to differ. There's a reason why "innovation" and "novel" are two different words [smile].

I've been studying up on the basics of business lately, and in one of the lessons there was a good definition of innovation: innovation consists of a good idea plus the exploitation of that idea. In other words, innovation consists not just of the novel idea itself but the ability for you to capitalise on the idea with a working implementation. Without the ability to exploit, you don't have innovation but just a novel idea.

(Note: I'm not that happy with the use of the word "exploitation" as I feel it has too strong a negative connontation, but that's what the lesson used so I'm going to go with it for now).

In all the games listed where the "innovation" wasn't a good thing, the emphasis in both the development and marketing was on the novelty of the idea, i.e. "Here's a game with a crazy new game dynamic you've never seen before! Huzzah!". So you get games like Black and White, where the game trumpets all the amazing differences from standard games; new methods of interaction, creature A.I., and so on. However there wasn't much focus on the exploitation - how to implement all those new features in a workable way so it ties together into a great game. Hence you end up with a total mess.

Whereas in all great games, the focus is firmly on the exploitation: how well all the components pull together to make the game great. This is as it should be, as even if the idea isn't that great it's the implementation as a total package that makes the game. The new novel ideas don't act as the be all and end all but servants to the experience of the game.

This is why I'm wary of anything that markets itself as being radically novel, as there's a danger they've lost sight that a great novel game needs to be a game first and novel second.

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Original post by destron ARG! As soon as I saw the words "Half-Life 2" in the non-innovative games list, I just wanted to puke. sorry. :(

I stopped reading right there, too. It's got exactly the type of innovation he is talking about.

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Original post by destron Quote: Original post by makeshiftwings I agree with the article, including the fact that HL2 is not innovative. The people moaning that they love HL2, and therefore it must be innovative, have completely missed the point of the article. HL2 (and HL1) is a first person shooter set in a futiristic sci-fi world where you collect guns and use them to shoot people and aliens, advancing through a series of levels tied together with scripted cinema sequences. Just like a billion other games. But that doesn't mean it's bad; it's still a really good game. Sorry, but I really can't agree with you. The idea is same, with "collecting guns and using them to shoot people and aliens", but that's true with pretty much any FPS. You completely missed the fact that HL2 had an advanced physics system, advance facial animation (each model has 40 or so muscles in their face), as well as a unique storyline, not to mention awesome AI (e.g. your allies can't trap you in a corner lol). I had never played a game as real and as captivating as HL2. Sure, there are other games (FPS's specifically) more innovative now, such as Gears of War and Resistance: Fall of Man; but for it's time, HL2 was really good. I think the article writer failed to examine the fact that HL2 is almost three years old; of course it can't completely compete with games today, but I think it's almost timeless.

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Original post by Ezbez Quote: Original post by destron ARG! As soon as I saw the words "Half-Life 2" in the non-innovative games list, I just wanted to puke. sorry. :( I stopped reading right there, too. It's got exactly the type of innovation he is talking about.

I still think you both missed the point. The author (and I) are NOT saying that Half Life 2 is bad. We are both saying it is good. We are saying that it is good despite the fact that it is, at its base, Yet Another Game Where You Get Guns And Shoot Aliens. It has good graphics and physics? That's not what people mean when they say they want something innovative. In fact, it's the exact opposite. The standard line is usually, "I wish games would stop caring about things like graphics and physics and instead do something INNOVATIVE!" If you're redefining the word innovative to mean "good", then you're missing the point that he's trying to make. People don't mean "good" when they whine about a lack of innovation, and they certainly do not mean better graphics or facial animation. They mean that they want off-the-wall ideas and original mechanics and bizarrely obscure settings.

And HL2 does not have "exactly the type of innovation" that he is talking about in the first part. It has the type he is talking about in the second part, where he is saying, to sum up, "Obscure settings and genre-busting are not that important; what makes a game good is small innovations within a tried and true formula, like the ones in Half Life 2, which are good." I'm guessing you didn't actually stop reading, unless you were reading the whole thing backwards.