Don’t let the title of this article, or editorial I guess, fool you. I am an avid gamer (Check my Raptr for proof) and I have been for the last 16 years and will continue to be until I die. I first picked up a SNES controller when I was 3 and the first game I played was Spiderman. I actually remember my Aunt, unwrapping the brand new SNES from its cling film and box and the cartridge being inserted. The 2D side scroller was amazing for me, at the time. Now I live in a world where if a game doesn’t feature 300 enemies on the screen, overwhelming screen flashes and a cliché plot, it’s not considered enjoyable.

This article isn’t to argue that video games are boring, and a waste of time. It’s more so to get people thinking about what ideas are used far too often and still expected to grab top dollar. Keep and open mind, and enjoy this insightful look at gaming and innovation as a whole.

Your princess is in another castle…

Let me start my article off with a classic; Mario. Appearing first off in “Donkey Kong” in 1981 his game play was simple and character development, zilch. You guided him up an angled level jumping barrels and trying to free Pauline (Yes, it isn’t Peach) from the evil clutches of Donkey Kong. Within a year the title had shipped 60,000 units and made 180 million dollars for Nintendo. In its second year of circulation it amassed another 100 million dollars for the now ecstatic Nintendo.

Mario has gone on to appear in something like two hundred games, made millions of dollars, and caught more stars than there is in the sky. But is it enough in this modern day? Gaming is growing more and more extreme. Titles like Heavy Rain basically encourage you to live someone else’s life and carry out tasks instead of furthering your own and partaking in your own. Modern Warfare 2, Halo 3, Medal of Honor, what do they all have in common? Clichéd yet well received story lines with over the top character emphasis and development you would expect to see in a soap opera on TV not something you could be paying one hundred dollars for.

Modern Warfare 2 has been out less than a year and is already the most successful release in the history of entertainment. Millions of copies shipped, millions of kids pleased and some very rich top men at Activision rubbing their hands together and contemplating how they’re going to spend all their money. Is it that games have gotten more advanced, developed and are worthy of the money, or is it that we have seen the same ideas and features used so many times that we’re now jaded to innovation and exciting features that are actually worth our hard earned dollars?

The Call of Duty Effect

When Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare launched in 2007 it was heralded as bringing new fresh innovative game play to and otherwise overused, overworked and bland setting. We were taken out of the ever familiar World War 2 theatre and launched into a new world of in your face grab you by the balls action. The story line was new, the locations were brilliant and it’s honestly one of the best titles this decade. 3 years later, and nothing has changed. Every game to follow it has the same features. Call of Duty: World at War just introduced new perks, new guns and new attachments and didn’t further the series at all. Then Modern Warfare 2 came out and in my opinion went backwards. The game essentially listened to the community, and the road of solid game play was ripped up and the pavers of over indulgence and fan service replaced a once great and innovative road.

Now every game feels the need to have some levelling up/unlocks/rewards system even when it isn’t needed. Command and Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight had a levelling system. A damn RTS had features that an FPS introduced, what the hell is that? You had to level up to unlock new units, powers and goodies to unleash in other modes. How is a rewards system like COD4 even applicable to a game like C&C in which you’re meant to build your base and make whatever units you want, not work to unlock them before you even get the chance to use them. Think of this simple motto; “I jump therefore I am.”. Mario didn’t need features like this because the goal was clear cut and simple. Maybe this levelling up system and having to unlock stuff is a thin veil to cover the shallow game play and features or lack of. It’s old and stale now.

The media is partly to blame for this and we can’t shy away from that fact. I was reading Australian Game Informer #5 and it was an article by a favorite writer of mine; Matt Bertz. He was writing a preview for the upcoming Crysis 2 (Successor to the amazing Crysis) and mentioned how the enemies will now “flank you” while others keep the pressure on you. Wow big deal. It seems that if you can mention enemies flanking you that is a pretty big improvement these days. So many terms are overused in game development; “exciting” or my personal favourite “exhilarating”. Game companies as well play a large part by repeating recycled terms and telling us the same stuff every game they make. Sequel to sequel, franchise to franchise, so are the days of our lives. We get told that this game is going to feature innovative game play and never seen before AI technology only to find it’s as simple as the original title and has even more copy/paste features.

I sense a great disturbance in the force…

Of course with time comes development and eventually publishers and developers alike click onto certain markets and realise when things have stopped trending and are now drifting into the zone of “boring”. Games like Little Big Planet, World of Goo and even titles we never saw coming like Trials HD, bring the freshness back to otherwise what will over time become a stale market. As gaming becomes more and more mainstream, and more and more campaigns like the “Pick up and Play” trend mature gaming will become more and more new, fresh and original.

New fun titles like Borderlands and the huge boom in the support of titles in the form of post Downloadable Content is setting the trend for developers to test the water with their title then please the fans with content after the game has launched and if it’s really worth the time and money.

I commend all the independent artists out there producing new content and features for games, as it seems the bigger corporations don’t see the freshness in video games anymore and only smell the fresh and crisp scent of money. What thoughts do you have on this subject? Do you think the gaming content is ruled by trend and as such has no room to grow, or do you believe people are just running out of creativity?