Games need to reinvent themselves

I just find the video game industry as mostly a whole particular boring these days. Hey what can you say when basically everyone is looking forward to the same game that they just played, with maybe some extra paint added to it (call of duty, every other shooter)!? Where are all the new Ip's, where is all the creativity? this market has just became stale. I was looking back at the frequency that I have bought games, and this might be the least amount of games I have bought in memory. For me there is alot of fatigue on shooters, mostly War shooters. but the genra just doesn't interest me anymore. Yeah Portal 2 was a breath of fresh air, and I enjoy battlefield 3 for a bit, but where shooters have been the mainstay for what the last 10 years, I just get bored easily with them now. To many reboots to many sequels. Create something new and awesome. Sorry I am never going to be interested in Kinnect games. and lately I'm really becoming disappointing in Microsoft and Xbox. I felt like the beginning they were doing a great job, and doing a better job then sony at launch. but now i see that they have mostly ridden the coat tails of bungie and Halo (which im not even a fan of) and alot of people that were developing exclusively in house with Microsoft have left and has had some kind of complaint about how things are handled. It looks like they constrict some of the creativity with their publishers. Hey you ever thought that one of our best developers might get tired of doing the same game over and over again, and maybe we should give them the creative freedom to do something else? they have the skill and talent already shown they can develop something awesome from scratch!? I can say the same for the Gears game. I think Lately Sony has done a good job with there original content. Take for example Heavy Rain, theres nothing like that on xbox. even the wii is getting some exclusive JRPG with last story, and xenoblade chronicles. Honestly I have only bought 1 xbox game in the last year and that was Fifa 12. my other purchases have been on the PC. I feel like microsoft is trying to much appeal to just regular users who want to just watch netflix and mess with kinnect. I think next gen I'm jumping back to sony. hopefully they can make there online system a little more secure.

Play more indie games if you want something different.

I thought this thread was "Games that need to reinvent themselves?", like reboot status. But I guess not.

Yeah, if you're sick of the industry, look elsewhere. It works for the movie industry (if you don't like mainstream dreck, check out indie/foreign films), it works for the music industry (I don't even listen to the radio at this point, and maybe a dozen or so artists on my Zune would get play on a Top 40 station), and it works for the game industry (not a fan of generic first-person-shooters? Try Machinarium or Braid or another interesting indie project).

I grew up with shooters, but going off this list of big fps of there day it gets repetitive as it goes on.

Anyway this list in my eyes represents the biggest fps releases.

-Quake 2 and 3

-Unreal Tournament

-Half-life

-Medal of Honor

-Call Of Duty

-Battlefield 1942

-Halo

-Half-life 2

-Call of duty Sequel

-Halo Sequel

-BioShock

Call of duty Sequel

Halo sequel

-Portal 2

Battlefield sequel

Call of duty sequel

Halo sequel

you see the pattern? my fatigue

The DS has a lot of good stuff you won't find anywhere else. But yeah, if you want new stuff then stop looking towards the mainstream and broaden your horizons. Microsoft is looking towards Kinect and Call of Duty so try to find some titles that didn't sell so well like Lost Odyssey and Alan Wake. Or try out Steam and the DS. Just my opinion though; don't know your financial situation and game preferences.

@VinceNotVance said:

I thought this thread was "Games that need to reinvent themselves?", like reboot status. But I guess not.

Yeah, if you're sick of the industry, look elsewhere. It works for the movie industry (if you don't like mainstream dreck, check out indie/foreign films), it works for the music industry (I don't even listen to the radio at this point, and maybe a dozen or so artists on my Zune would get play on a Top 40 station), and it works for the game industry (not a fan of generic first-person-shooters? Try Machinarium or Braid or another interesting indie project).

I def agree with your point. and in someways I wish it weren't true. I loved braid, and some other indie games and I'm looking forward to playing fez. But the problem with indie games is that they just dont have that huge scope, long lasting replay ability. and most of that is because of resources but I guess back in the day before gaming really blew up to what it was, everything seemed like an indie game most of the time it was fresh new content and was still large in scope. Now with the budgets it takes to build these type of games, publishers are not willing to risk it on new IP. like you said same thing with the movie industry(sequels, countless superhero movies) Music(new artists) now games. I do feel like the PC is making a comeback with steam and all of its new content. so maybe there is hope.

@jrob8604: @CaptainCharisma said:

The DS has a lot of good stuff you won't find anywhere else. But yeah, if you want new stuff then stop looking towards the mainstream and broaden your horizons. Microsoft is looking towards Kinect and Call of Duty so try to find some titles that didn't sell so well like Lost Odyssey and Alan Wake. Or try out Steam and the DS. Just my opinion though; don't know your financial situation and game preferences.

Don't get me wrong I play these titles, I love remedy as a publisher and I think everything they have done is excellent, but that content is just few and far between. Game sales have been decreasing year over year and I think that one of the reason is people aren't seeing wholely new creative projects that are jumping out for people to buy. that's why I think the market has become stale, and I don't think its a good thing for the industry when call of duty sells so many copies when there were only some minor changes from the previous game. People aren't rewarding new IP they are going to what they are used to.

@jrob8604: I know it sucks but that's just the market. People aren't looking for that next big thing. The majority of people want their quick fix and don't want to bothered with change. They want their pretty explosions just like they want their action movies. All you can do is praise the games that deserve it and spread the goodwill through word of mouth. But as soon as your cult favorite becomes popular, they dumb it down. Love Mass Effect and all but that's pretty much what happened to it as the games went on. Catering to new audiences shuns the hardcore ones. Just like the Wii did.

@CaptainCharisma: yes the wii started this whole "casual gamer" thing, and now they are paying for it. The wii didn't have much to offer to the hardcore gamer outside off mario and zelda. and after microsoft and sony saw the sales that the Nintendo was pulling, in came kinnect and playstation move. which for the most part is pretty much garbage. The kinnect might prove pretty cool someday when the technology is better. I bought a wii cause it was so different and new and then sold it after a few months when I saw that it didn't really have much to offer, now I'm thinking about picking one up again just for xenoblade chronichles and last story. It should always be about the games.

I don't have anything to add but I agree.

@jrob8604: As long as those games keep selling like hot cakes then publishers won't have any incentive to tell the developer to reinvent. Wanna blame someone? Blame gamers who keep buying those games year after year. if you are that sick of mainstream games then play more indie games. Either then that you are just churning water.

Meh.

The game industry is a huge business now. Why the hell would they want to reinvent themselves?

I agree. Not much you can do other than vote with your money. Sadly, gamers buy any shit hyped enough. So thats pretty much useless.

IMO the gaming media is part of the problem. They are not objective news sources, they are PR.

Gaming is becoming more and more like coke can production lines with a small pool of "go to" games.

I blame consoles for this. Thankfully, we are getting shit like kickstarter and a thriving indie scene on the pc to make the world a wonderful, happy joyful place again.

Like you, I mainly buy pc games now and don't really bother with many shooters or console games. It seems like strategy games are one of the few genres untainted specifically because they are shit on consoles and generally speaking, better suited for the pc. I'm sure next generation this will change and even games I like e.g. Total War will become dumbed down button awsome press X to win games. Pretty fucking depressing.

@JasonR86: @JasonR86 said:

The game industry is a huge business now. Why the hell would they want to reinvent themselves?

Industry sales are actually down from year to year. maybe that's why!?

@JasonR86:

this is an article of 2011 sales.

Spending on all video-game content in the U.S. reached an estimated $16.3 billion to $16.6 billion, down 2 percent

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/us-video-game-sales-2011-fell-281266

@jrob8604 said:

@JasonR86: @JasonR86 said:

The game industry is a huge business now. Why the hell would they want to reinvent themselves?

Industry sales are actually down from year to year. maybe that's why!?

Where did you get that? Everything that I've heard is that the game industry, specifically for this generation, has seen a huge upswing in sales.

EDIT: I tried to go to the article but it wouldn't load. If it is saying what I'm assuming it is saying (sales are down from the previous year) then my meaning still holds. The point is is that with this generation of consoles sales have been up across the board. So, then, why would publishers and developers do anything differently? The drop in sales could equate to several different things including an over-saturated market or simply that the consoles that are out have gone through their paces. But,with the new generation of systems set to be released, if I were a publisher and developer I wouldn't do much different with those consoles from what I did with the current consoles because sales speak volumes and this generation made publishers and developers very wealthy.

Not really, you just need to branch out. Yeah, there are a million modern combat shooters and games like Halo get loads of sequels and spin offs even, but there are a ton of games nothing like that. Witcher 2, Skyrim, Fez, Portal, Trine, Dead Space, Amnesia, Bastion, Bulletstorm, Cargo!, Dungeons of Dredmor, Legend of Grimrock. These are all great examples of the variety of the industry. I'm fine with where the industry is. Sure there are a few things I'd like to see, but a lot of those are being brought about thanks to Kickstarter.

The idea that there being a large number of "populist" titles means there are no longer other games is ridiculous. We live in a time when games like Two Worlds can exist.

Well you seem to mostly mention first person shooters which are the most stagnant these days out of all the genres. No idea what they could do to reinvent the formula for your basic FPS but I'd gather it would be gimmicks on top of the gameplay. Singularity tried and succeeded partly in adding new elements to the tried and true formula.

Go after innovation. Go play more indie games or go make a game. Quit being on the sidelines and expecting great games to come to you.

@jrob8604: yeah but aren't all the games like Call of Duty the ones that still make the money? if anything those numbers are against your idea.

I'm hoping that Kickstarter works out and makes mid budget games viable again - games that can sell a few hundred thousand copies and be considered successful. That's the range where you'll see interesting things happen, because the games won't need to appeal to everybody in the world just to break even. If the only way to get things back on track is to make PC gamers pay up front for their games, then so be it.

sounds like your problem is more xbox fatigue than game fatigue.

go get yourself a PS3, they are fairly cheap now.

@jrob8604: Your arguments are scrambled and you provide little direction for a possible solution. (Other than declaring that you like exclusive content, which would not counter the other points you raise.)

Also, if you're going to start a thread, please proofread it.

I'm not trying to be a dick, so here are some on-topic suggestions:

Try the Chronicles of Riddick or Condemned games. Syndicate was released not long ago too. Tribes: Ascend might tickle your fancy, hell TF2 is free.

Also, have a look at games that aren't FPS's! You mentioned Heavy Rain, so perhaps try a PS3 game like Valkyria Chronicles or Dark Souls (also on XBox and soon PC) for something different.

As I believe others have said, mainstream games are like mainstream music or movies - people will mindlessly flock to them. If you go out of your way to find gems, you will find them. Also, in order to change popular opinion, you must be popular yourself. (This is not intended as an insult, I'm just saying that the average forum board isn't going to generate the change you (or we) seek.)

@Phatmac said:

Go after innovation. Go play more indie games or go make a game. Quit being on the sidelines and expecting great games to come to you.

While I think this is horribly phrased it's the right mindset. You have to go out and get different games to find new experiences. I know so many people that won't ever experiment - always play only sports games, or only RPG's and won't give anything else a try that it's just depressing. Sometimes you need to leave that comfort zone and try something new to get that rush you haven't felt from playing the same FPS games year after year. I'm not a huge fan of Japanese RPG's but I got Persona 3 and it was really good. Resonance of Fate was a terrific game. Heck, because FFXIII-2 was coming out I bought the widely despised FFXIII and beat that game and it was pretty fun - probably because I don't play that genre too much so I didn't see the flaws as prominently as those who play FF games on a regular basis. At one point I got GRID which was a semi realistic driving game and that was a really interesting and fun experience. Most recently I decided to try and get good at fighting games and Street Fighter x Tekken is really fun especially if you can find a friend to play as your tag partner online.

You just have to open yourself up to other types of games or you'll burn out hard cause innovation doesn't come around every two months in one genre. You have to skip around to keep entertained.

Gaming has matured and maybe it's better this way, this puts the focus squarely on the quality of a game rather than fringe things like unique playstyles or interesting mechanics or fun factor. The reason there is less innovation now is because everything has already been tried -- The good games stuck which is what we have now, the bad games came and went.

Go after innovation. Go play more indie games or go make a game. Quit being on the sidelines and expecting great games to come to you.

• The Binding of Isaac
• Super Meatboy
• Cthulhu Saves The Day
• Breath of Death VII
• Braid
• VVVVVV
• Lone Survivor
• To the Moon
• UnEpic 

• Nier
• Lost Odyssey
• Catherine
• Alan Wake
• Fable
• Demon Souls
• Deadly Premonition
• Lollipop Chainsaw
• Shadows of the Damned
• Hotel Dusk
• Ghost Trick
• 999
• Infinite Space
• Vanquish
• Bayonetta

There's way more variety these days than there was in the NES days when everything was just a platformer. Portal 2 shouldn't even be on that list. Are you lumping in everything in a first person perspective? because there are only 3, and Second Person Perspective would be pretty tough to pull off.

The Portal series and games like Mirror's Edge have been some of the most unique games to come out in a long time, regardless of the perspective (Granted, what made Mirror's Edge unique was the perspective, but whatever).

Skyrim, Dead Space, Portal, Trine 2, Dragon Age Origins, Outland, Shadow Complex, Amnesia, Saints Row the Third, Red Dead Redemption, Fez, Ratchet and Clank, The Witcher 2, QUBE, Professor Layton, Starcraft 2, Gravity Rush, Mirror's Edge, The World Ends With You...

...yeah, the industry definitely doesn't have any variety whatsoever these days.

@egg said:

Gaming has matured and maybe it's better this way, this puts the focus squarely on the quality of a game rather than fringe things like unique playstyles or interesting mechanics or fun factor. The reason there is less innovation now is because everything has already been tried -- The good games stuck which is what we have now, the bad games came and went.

I refuse to believe that gaming has run out of ideas and that everything has been tried. I'm not a game developer at all, but that's just plain bollocks. Hell, the things we have these days are because people kept trying those "fringe things" you don't seem to like. Video games themselves were pretty much a fringe thing for a while, especially outside of arcades.

@Jeust said:

@Phatmac said:

Go after innovation. Go play more indie games or go make a game. Quit being on the sidelines and expecting great games to come to you.

Ditto. There are really great indie games like:

• The Binding of Isaac
• Super Meatboy
• Cthulhu Saves The Day
• Breath of Death VII
• Braid
• VVVVVV
• Lone Survivor
• To the Moon
• UnEpic

Or fully boxed products like:

• Nier
• Lost Odyssey
• Catherine
• Alan Wake
• Fable
• Demon Souls
• Deadly Premonition
• Lollipop Chainsaw
• Shadows of the Damned
• Hotel Dusk
• Ghost Trick
• 999
• Infinite Space
• Vanquish
• Bayonetta

Yes play these, most of them at least do something different. And Indie Games like SMB and the Binding of Isaac actually have a lot of replay ability. Or maybe you can get into an RPG. Or you could get into Bayonetta or Vanquish, games that have mechanics one can hone and get better at. Nothing says out of the ordinary like a witch/ dominatrix that kills angels with various weapons in hand (and feet).

@believer258: I think @egg was being ironic. I doubt he is actually taking a stance against interesting mechanics and fun.

I tend to agree, I feel like I am waiting for the next evolution of games, and I do not think indie games are the answer, I want more scope then they provide and just seem like an interesting side show.

Its hard to explain, there should just be somthing different by now I think.

portal is not a shooter

Oh hooray. I love these kinds of topics, as my answer is always the same, though varying in condescension based on how my day has been.

There are tons of games out there, and chances are if you look hard enough you'll find what you want to find. You can't expect games aimed at getting millions of sales (i.e. most modern First Person Shooters) to be especially daring in their design from what works (i.e. The model established by Call of Duty 4), but there's a ton of indie and niche stuff to fill pretty much whatever void you need filled. That's pretty much the point of the recent kickstarter frenzy, and while that will backfire soon enough, it already has the potential to put out some much needed genre stuff. I put my $15 behind Wasteland 2 because I want to see a game like that get made in 2012.

So my suggestion is, rather than making topics decrying video games as dead and buried, take a look outside of the box and play some twee indie games with art styles or something. Because those are basically the opposite of First Person Shooters.

@Phatmac said:

Go after innovation. Go play more indie games or go make a game. Quit being on the sidelines and expecting great games to come to you.

I'll get right on that, with my unlimited resources...

Sounds like more of a fatigue problem with you. Im fine with what the "industry" is doing. Nothing wrong with sequels. And I fine people who say the industry has to constantly evolve insane. Completely original ideas are pretty rare now days in just about any medium. I dont think the focus should be on "innovation" but quality.

@ jrob8604 this thread is defeating. and I've never been happier with gaming. i can find something whatever my mood. i love both AAA and indie titles. the smaller scope of most indie titles does not bother me one bit. i would take a concise, innovative idea over most drawn-out-for-the-sake-of-longevity games any day. 
 
saying there is a shortage of interesting games out there comes from a place of extreme naivety. your argument is pretty ironic, considering the FPS is your favourite genre. that is probably your biggest problem. and the fact that portal 2 is on your non-innovative list is blasphemic and just... invalidates everything. ahh. 
 
but hey, i do agree that most console titles are pretty redundant, and the small amount of AAA titles doesn't help with this problem of scope. indie pc games are your friends, something i have recently discovered.
 
in closing.. there are way too many amazing experiences that we have come to refer to as games out there. put down your dual needlers and go take a look.