What happens when the video game industry runs out of creativity?

[Cramulus]

I was thinking about the widespread lack of creativity in contemporary mainstream cinema.

Apparently, it's a lot easier to market an idea that people already have an emotional attachment to
    than to come up with a new idea.

So Hollywood keeps remixing moments from our childhood. And we keep eating it up like the sugary-candy cereal your mom didn't want you to eat while watching Saturday morning cartoons.

Video games are out of control. These days, successful video games combine the best things about movies and the best things about novels. We're looking at a new form of fiction, and we're in a period of extreme creativity. (tangential thought: I wonder who will be the James Joyce of video games?)

But the creativity will run out one day. And they'll look backwards on previous successful video games and say "That worked. People loved that franchise. Let's just do that again".

I mean, we're seeing it to some degree already. They're re-releasing the original Halo for its 10th anniversary, but DIGITALLY REMASTERED. They seem to re-release Super Mario Brothers every few years. (Before the Wii, anybody remember Super Mario: Lost Levels?) But what will happen when the stuff which is considered original now gets a fresh coat of paint, a fresh perspective?

Will our grandkids play remakes of Skyrim? Will they reboot Solid Snake into a new mid-east narrative? Will Altair and Ezio Auditore and Desmond assassinate JFK? Or will video games have moved beyond controllers and consoles at that point, and that'll be like remaking some outdated IP like Pac Man? (another franchise that refuses to die)

I just wonder what happens when the creativity runs out.  What will the remake of Mass Effect look like? Will RPGs have evolved into something else by then? (it does seem like all the genres are bleeding into each other. FPS's now have experience points and a leveling system, RPGs have become a type of action game. Gone are the days where if you forget to drink water, you die)

Where is this death contraption going, anyway?

[Scribbly]

... do you really think we're in a period of great creativity in the industry?

The vast majority of games pumped out by the system are already remixes of existing franchises. Modern Warfare 3? Skyrim (which is the fifth instalment of its franchise)... I'm trying to think of the last game I bought that wasn't an instalment in an existing series, and I'm having some serious problems.

It was probably an indie game, not a mainstream release. Probably World of Goo. I haven't played that much.

I think that's pretty much the way things are going to keep going. You make something successful. You milk it until it is driven into the ground or you die (or the company goes under).

I'm reminded that most of the games I've heard the most this year about have created massive shitstorms for deviating from what people wanted from their franchises; X-COM the first person shooter and Diablo 3 with the auctionhouse in particular.

Much like any other form of media, ninety per cent of what is put out will be awful. The big companies will cleave largely to what is already successful, and innovation will come from small teams who can take a risk, and those innovations will then be absorbed into the larger industry.

Do you read Extra Punction? Yahtzee is a pretty great critic (even if he does go over the top some times), and his thoughts are revealing, especially in the articles rather than the videos. He rants and raves about how certain elements are now EXPECTED in modern games; things like regenerating health/chest high wall cover in shooters and quick time events for example. These were things that were innovative at one time, but the creativity in them is sucked dry and overused to the point that it actively takes away from the fun and you wind up with every game be a melange of brown, because brown = realism, or similar.

[Elder Iptuous]

isn't there some fundamental difference between games and stories though?
e.g. nobody puts together a jigsaw puzzle complaining that it's exactly like the last one they did, just with a different picture. ("the pieces are even the same shapes!")

a good platformer is a good platformer, regardless of the story.  I've saved that damn princess from the same monster over and over, but i still like the mario franchise games.

to my surprise, i actually really enjoyed the PacMan championship edition DX, too, even though it only has a few differences from the game made decades ago.

i guess the games that blur the lines more are the ones in jeopardy, where it is more of a movie with some gaming attached to it as opposed to the other way around.  in that respect, i would say that, although i used to eat up RPGs like that, they did start to seem uninspiring, and have largely stopped playing them because of that.

interesting to think about.

[Cramulus]

The vast majority of games pumped out by the system are already remixes of existing franchises. Modern Warfare 3? Skyrim (which is the fifth instalment of its franchise)... I'm trying to think of the last game I bought that wasn't an instalment in an existing series, and I'm having some serious problems.

Yeah, each game is an iteration of a previous idea, but they're still breaking into new territory now and then.

Portal, for example, was pretty innovative. I'd never played a "puzzle shooter" like that before.

Braid

Assassins Creed - yes, there are 4 of them, but AC1 was the first time anybody made a historical-fiction/stealth-based-on-crowds game. Definitely new ground.

A few years dated, but Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero were totally fresh takes on video games.

The Wii and Kinect represent radically new interfaces, and that will continue to breathe novelty into the industry.

While developers prefer to build on past successes, I definitely don't get the sense that we're just seeing "more of the same" like I do with cinema.


But what I'm talking about is further down the line -- 20, 30, 40 years from now, will they still be kicking off new franchises? Or will they just keep remixing Mario, Link, and Sonic into new situations? Which franchises will be remixed? will it only be the ones that have 25+ year legacies, or will it be stuff that we came up with now?

Mario and Link will live forever. I wonder which franchises from 2011 will still be around in 50 years?

[Scribbly]

The vast majority of games pumped out by the system are already remixes of existing franchises. Modern Warfare 3? Skyrim (which is the fifth instalment of its franchise)... I'm trying to think of the last game I bought that wasn't an instalment in an existing series, and I'm having some serious problems.

Yeah, each game is an iteration of a previous idea, but they're still breaking into new territory now and then.

Portal, for example, was pretty innovative. I'd never played a "puzzle shooter" like that before.

Braid

Assassins Creed - yes, there are 4 of them, but AC1 was the first time anybody made a historical-fiction/stealth-based-on-crowds game. Definitely new ground.

A few years dated, but Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero were totally fresh takes on video games.

The Wii and Kinect represent radically new interfaces, and that will continue to breathe novelty into the industry.

While developers prefer to build on past successes, I definitely don't get the sense that we're just seeing "more of the same" like I do with cinema.


But what I'm talking about is further down the line -- 20, 30, 40 years from now, will they still be kicking off new franchises? Or will they just keep remixing Mario, Link, and Sonic into new situations? Which franchises will be remixed? will it only be the ones that have 25+ year legacies, or will it be stuff that we came up with now?

Mario and Link will live forever. I wonder which franchises from 2011 will still be around in 50 years?

Hmm.

Well, it is always hard to tell. Sonic celebrated his 20th anniversary this year - my parents bought me the Sonic Generations game with some amusement... I used to adore the Sonic games when I was a kid, and used to hope for a new one every birthday. First christmas present I actually remember... and the new game is pretty fun, too! 

I think the same properties will be rehashed, rebooted, rebranded, relaunched, however you want to put it. I think we'll see new properties too, though.

I should say, I don't think there is no creativity in the industry. Things like Bastion, which totally blew me away as a whole new approach to telling a story with a game.

But I think you might be overestimating how unoriginal the movie industry is, too. It wasn't that long ago that we started to get 'shaky cam' and things like Cloverfield. Modern special effects help to get the impact of things across a lot more than movies fifty years ago, through a mix of sound and camera technology. Some people might hate it, but 3D seems to be persistent, too.

I believe they're rebooting Syndicate next year, too. Now that's a cult classic game series that is coming back totally new. On the other hand, didn't they say they really are done with Gears of War now? So maybe that's a franchise being allowed to die off gracefully... until they decide to reimagine it for new consoles in ten years time.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

It really depends on whether our society continues to stagnate in the pool of corporate profit-seeking or whether it has a reawakening and renaissance. There is no such thing as the "end of creativity"... creativity doesn't "run out". It's only a matter of whether there is room for developing in creative directions, or whether that is too big of a financial risk for anyone to invest in.

An interesting side-effect of this much corporate bloat in our society is the lack of innovation.

[Cain]

The videogame industry has one major, concrete advantage over the movie industry, which should never be forgotten:

A 90-120 minute long video game would suck.

Movies are limited by that as much as they are by the dearth of creativity in the industry at the moment.  No-one is ever going to make, for example, a movie out of Morrowind.  It just ain't gonna happen.  Video games have the enviable advantage that they can go really in depth into a storyline and world building in way that would drive any major studio into the ground.  Even the average television series season would make for a very short game, in the world of RPGs at least (average season = 24 episodes, 3/4 of a hour per episode.  Gameplay for Dragon Age: Origins?  50+ hours, easily).

A really creative person is, IMO, going to want to get in depth and deep with the storyline they are producing.  Movies do not allow for that.  Games still do.  As such, game companies will always be more attractive to such people.  And the more immersive and gripping a storyline, the bigger the potential market for sequels.  So it is in the interests of EA, Ubisoft etc to hire the kind of writers or companies who are going to produce those kind of works.

[Kai]

I think if you really want to see creativity in a particular artform, you have to look on the fringe. Once a particular something has gone mainstream and sold in large quantities it's not original anymore; the innovators are not the same as the middle or even early adopters. In the case of gaming I look at indy developers. Nifflas, for example. He incorporates traditional platforming/adventure gameplay with different physics and a refined aesthetic. I especially like what he has done with Knytt and Knytt Stories, where he combines his aesthetic with world exploration and a silent goal system. Or NightSky, which is an episodic mix of environmental puzzles based on unique physics and again, in that refined aesthetic he does so well.

Then again, even a well grossing game can be a new experience. Minecraft, for example, was and continues to be a new sort of sandbox game experience, because there is literally no bounds on your gameplay within the blocky environment. People like Vechs of the Super Hostile series have made a community around building worlds for other people to play through. And despite most big gaming hits, Minecraft is cheap and accessible from anywhere (infinite downloads) after purchase.

[Golden Applesauce]

The barrier to entry on video games is also much lower than movies - it's closer to books/short stories in that one-man-teams can and do produce / publish great works without external resources like a cast, good location, special effects companies.  (It's pretty obvious if a movie is shot in your backyard, but you can't really tell where someone was when they wrote a book or a game.)

So even if the 'industry' runs out of creativity, there will be always be people who can step in with fresh ideas.

[Kai]

The barrier to entry on video games is also much lower than movies - it's closer to books/short stories in that one-man-teams can and do produce / publish great works without external resources like a cast, good location, special effects companies.  (It's pretty obvious if a movie is shot in your backyard, but you can't really tell where someone was when they wrote a book or a game.)

So even if the 'industry' runs out of creativity, there will be always be people who can step in with fresh ideas.

That's true. In film, people expect a certain level of visual expense, which means paying for actors, locations, props, computer generated effects, etc. If that level doesn't at least match that of the technological standard by the last hit films, it won't do well. Video games can be visually simple, yet if the gameplay and design are good people will still enjoy them.

[Eater of Clowns]

I think the biggest shift we'll see in what these games will look like in the future is that they'll be smaller.  As in, eventually you'll be able to play them on a cell phone or other handheld.  A massive game, the size of Skyrim even.

Digital distrubution is one of the better things to happen to gaming, as it means smaller studios with smaller budgets can still make commercial successes by creating innovative games that are less than $20.  Braid, as you mentioned Cram, is one of the better games of recent memory and it's, what, a $10 download?  $5 or less if you get it on special on Steam?

I think rehashes and remakes will be inevitable - and not always bad.  Re-releasing Halo is pretty lame, but hey, Ocarina of Time just got released on 3D - how awesome is that!?  Maybe we'll see a rise in 3D re-releases.