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Gamers don't want innovation

mmntech

mmntech

Lifer
Gamers don't want innovative games or consoles.

Discuss.


Oh, you want some background? It comes from MatPat's latest Game Theory episode. He's been doing a series on the Wii U and the current state of the industry. Despite all the calls from gamers for more innovative stuff to play, and the praise lavished on these games that do come out, they just don't sell that well. Yet the bland, unimaginative, annual release franchises are showing a trend of growing sales.

Game Theory: Are gamers killing video games?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cxhs-GLE29Q
 
I don't think it's fair to say that the Wii U's failure is indicative that gamers don't want innovation; the original Wii sold like hotcakes and it was innovative compared to the PS3 or Xbox360. You have to consider the cost; gamers generally aren't going to spring for new hardware to play one or two games, they want a good library to choose from. The Wii U has virtually no third-party exclusives and not much in the way of must-have first-party titles. That's not a crisis of innovation, that's no library to support the purchase of a $300 piece of equipment.

That said, the broader point about sequels has some merit. People gravitate towards the familiar, regardless of medium.
 
Atomic Playboy said:
I The Wii U has virtually no third-party exclusives and not much in the way of must-have first-party titles. That's not a crisis of innovation, that's no library to support the purchase of a $300 piece of equipment.
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IMO the Wii U fares better in that regard than the Xbone or PS4, so I don't think that is the issue. It is more of a general robustness as a singular console - the Xbone and PS4 share more and higher quality multiplatform titles.

I also don't think it is really fair to call the Wii U particularly innovative, as the tablet has been basically unused thus far.
 
Dumac said:
IMO the Wii U fares better in that regard than the Xbone or PS4, so I don't think that is the issue. It is more of a general robustness as a singular console - the Xbone and PS4 share more and higher quality multiplatform titles.

I also don't think it is really fair to call the Wii U particularly innovative, as the tablet has been basically unused thus far.
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The number one problem is Nintendo has no clue how to do online gaming. Those are the most popular games around right now.


It's not that gamers don't want or don't buy innovative games. It's that an established game is popular already. People know what they are getting and all their friends already play it. It's an easy sale. Many games that are somehow new have fatal flaws or the developer simply expects too much and writes it off. Look at Square and Tomb Raider. They called it a failure because it didn't sell 5 million. That was highly unrealistic, it sold like 3million or something though. It's easier for gamers to look at a game they play now and say "hey there's a new one coming out" and know they are getting the same basics that they know and love with enough new content to keep them engaged. So it's not that the games don't sell, but people expecting unheard of games to sell 2 million copies in a week are simply being stupid about it.
 
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Haven't watched the video yet, but judging by the success of games like DOTA 2 and Counterstrike: Go, the answer is yes, gamers aren't interested in changeups of a familiar formula. They just want the same game with prettier graphics. That's about it.
 
Rehashing the same game over and over. Now don't get me wrong, I love Zelda and Mario games because they are so fun but we've played them many times before. People complain about games like Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty being the same every year but those were innovative when they came out. We do get innovation, we get great innovative games frequently.
 
I don't necessarily agree. I think that we like innovation and change, but I think we've all heard this phrase before, "change is scary." We don't want to pick up the next Zelda game and find out that it's become a button-mashing, slash fest... oh wait. :biggrin: I think that's one of the reasons why the older Final Fantasy games worked well. They weren't crazy about changing much of the formula. They would present a new story while working in some RPG-related tweaks (how you learn abilities, etc.). As a gamer, you could jump into the game and most likely feel comfortable quickly. To give you an idea, I'm playing in the Wildstar beta, and you should hear all the grumbling about something as simple as character attributes. "What the hell is a Moxie!? Just call it Agility!" *grumble grumble*
 
There is a fine line between innovation and "if it aint broke don't fix it".

Compare US SNES releases of Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy III.

Same exact formula.

But nobody ever complained III was just a rehash or more of the same.

Same exact formula. ENTIRELY different game.

Like picking up two books. They are both made of paper. They both have words and pages. They both have chapters. You start with the first page and read left to right, front to back: ergo same mechanics. They both have some kind of intro, some kind of story, with a climax and conclusion. Both have enemies and heroes. Literally a copy/paste in every form.

So why are they two COMPLETELY differing experiences?

That's how it should be done.

Problem today is "it IS broken so we WILL fix it" is driven by Call of Duty sales numbers envy and it's ruining a lot of other games with the stale, safe, any idiot can pick it up and play for 5 minutes "fix" they apply

See: Square, Capcom, and more.

The casual mouth breathers need to get bored with buying Call of Duty and Temple Run and Angry Birds so sales expectations and market perception can drop back to realistic numbers.

It needs to be OK to sell less than 1 million copies of something again.
 
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define "gamers" to begin with.

I've gamed for a long time but haven't had a console myself in ages.

*edit* NM should have read more.
 
exdeath said:
Compare US SNES releases of Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy III.

Same exact formula.
Click to expand...

I mentioned these two games above, because while they look very similar, they actually have quite a lot of differences between them. The thing is... SquareSoft knew where to experiment and where to let things be. As I said, they still made the game familiar enough that someone that played Final Fantasy II could easily pick up III and enjoy the game without feeling bogged down by foreign mechanics.

When I was driving last week, a game popped into my head for some reason: Brave Fencer Musashi. Most people have probably never heard of this game, but it was an old PlayStation game by SquareSoft. What that brought to my attention was the sheer number of non-Final Fantasy titles on the PlayStation. I mean... we had games like the aforementioned Brave Fencer Musashi, Einhander, Tobal No. 1, Tobal 2, Parasite Eve, Parasite Eve II, SaGa Frontier, SaGa Frontier 2, Ehrgeiz, Xenogears, Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon, Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon II, and Chocobo Racing. It seems like Square's idea of "branching out" is just being a publisher for other studios where they used to create some of their own original ideas (some of those games above weren't created by Square).
 
exdeath said:
Problem today is "it IS broken so we WILL fix it" is driven by Call of Duty sales numbers envy and it's ruining a lot of other games with the stale, safe, any idiot can pick it up and play for 5 minutes "fix" they apply

See: Square, Capcom, and more.

The casual mouth breathers need to get bored with buying Call of Duty and Temple Run and Angry Birds so sales expectations and market perception can drop back to realistic numbers.

It needs to be OK to sell less than 1 million copies of something again.
Click to expand...

I think that applies for most forms of mass media these days. Take a look at Film. It's why Disney can keep pumping out Marvel movies year after year. A lot of critically acclaimed and truly innovative films were box office flops. The Wizard of Oz, Fight Club, Citizen Kane, Brazil, It's a Wonderful Life, Blade Runner.

The problem today is that movies, TV shows, and video games are costing more money then ever to produce. Which means they have to sell more. The price you pay for packing them to the brim with eye candy.

Tomb Raider (2013) is estimated to have cost Square-Enix $100 million to develop. For the sake of simplicity, we'll assume that covers all expenses to make the game, market it, and ship it to the consumer. Best info I found is that GameStop pays between $48-$52 wholesale per game with a MSRP of $60. We'll assume the higher price for the sake of argument.

So in order to break even, Square would need to sell 1.9 million copies of Tomb Raider. At 3.4 million sold at the time they were moaning about it being a bomb, they would have made about $76,800,000. Which seems like a lot except some of that money gets reinvested into new projects. So if you want to keep making $100 million games, you need to be turning profits of at least $200 million.

That's why they stick to safe projects. The entire business model of big budget games revolves around it.
 
Big companies bleed money. Those products cost that much because they allow them to cost that much. Much can be done with much smaller budgets, they just think throwing more money at something makes them inherently better.
 
ImpulsE69 said:
Big companies bleed money. Those products cost that much because they allow them to cost that much. Much can be done with much smaller budgets, they just think throwing more money at something makes them inherently better.
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Sometimes this seems like the case for sure. There are many games that didn't cost anywhere near $100mil but feel like there is more value in it.
 
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exdeath said:
Problem today is "it IS broken so we WILL fix it" is driven by Call of Duty sales numbers envy and it's ruining a lot of other games with the stale, safe, any idiot can pick it up and play for 5 minutes "fix" they apply

See: Square, Capcom, and more.

The casual mouth breathers need to get bored with buying Call of Duty and Temple Run and Angry Birds so sales expectations and market perception can drop back to realistic numbers.
Click to expand...

So no different to how things used to be then.
 
No, I don't want what gaming companies call "innovation" all to often, which is basically change for change's sake, turning beloved franchises into turds.

True innovation - fine
What game companies call innovation, while cranking out crap - not fine
 
Innovate by changing story types, by changing settings, by changing/adjusting elements. Don't innovate by changing the core aspects of a game, as then, you're making another game. I liked Final Fantasy games when innovation meant, better graphics, cutscenes, in-game elements, adding mini-games. I stopped liking them when they moved away from turn-based (a core aspect) and made it more and more twitchy to the point that the incoming one (FF XV) is actually an action game. That is not innovation.
 
mmntech said:
I think that applies for most forms of mass media these days. Take a look at Film. It's why Disney can keep pumping out Marvel movies year after year. A lot of critically acclaimed and truly innovative films were box office flops. The Wizard of Oz, Fight Club, Citizen Kane, Brazil, It's a Wonderful Life, Blade Runner.

The problem today is that movies, TV shows, and video games are costing more money then ever to produce. Which means they have to sell more. The price you pay for packing them to the brim with eye candy.

Tomb Raider (2013) is estimated to have cost Square-Enix $100 million to develop. For the sake of simplicity, we'll assume that covers all expenses to make the game, market it, and ship it to the consumer. Best info I found is that GameStop pays between $48-$52 wholesale per game with a MSRP of $60. We'll assume the higher price for the sake of argument.

So in order to break even, Square would need to sell 1.9 million copies of Tomb Raider. At 3.4 million sold at the time they were moaning about it being a bomb, they would have made about $76,800,000. Which seems like a lot except some of that money gets reinvested into new projects. So if you want to keep making $100 million games, you need to be turning profits of at least $200 million.

That's why they stick to safe projects. The entire business model of big budget games revolves around it.
Click to expand...


That's the thing 10 years ago $100M would have been a world record holder by a factor of a few times. I remember when Shenmue was the world's most expensive game and it was by 4-5 times over the next most expensive game. Now $100M is like nothing.

Somehow development needs to get cheaper. The tools need to get better.
 
i'm having the most fun with gaming in the past few years as i've ever had. as long as they keep putting out fun games, i don't care about what others think is "innovative". wii-u has nothing innovative about it. but i give nintendo kudos for trying something different at least.
 
poofyhairguy said:
Wow, that looks awesome.

I like the Zelda franchise branching out into new things. Heck that Zelda shooting game is easily one of my top 5 Wii games.
Click to expand...

I think it'll really depend on how well they can create a diverse game and use a lot of the universe. For example, the Dynasty Warriors: Gundam games are pretty good because there's a wealth of characters, stories and most importantly, gundams to play as! If it's just going to be Link, that may not be so interesting.
 
purbeast0 said:
i'm having the most fun with gaming in the past few years as i've ever had. as long as they keep putting out fun games, i don't care about what others think is "innovative". wii-u has nothing innovative about it. but i give nintendo kudos for trying something different at least.
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This. Gamers don't want innovative. Gamers simply want games they enjoy to play. People bitching about CoD and Madden seem to miss this point. Quite a lot of people have fun being a "dude bro" shooting terrorists or handing the ball off to their favorite running back on their favorite team.

The only people worried about innovation are the people who are living in the past. No game stands the test of time because it is innovative. It stands the test of time because it was good (or incredibly awful). Innovation is hardly ever done first in a good game. Look at the iPhone. They took all existing technology, in an existing market and made it work (unlike pretty much every other touch phone and every other smart phone before it).
 
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