Forget Innovation From The Indies 98
spidweb writes "RPGVault has an article from a long-time indie game author about how people who want innovation in games shouldn't look to the small developers. It is his view that innovation in games will come from big companies, if at all. From the article: 'Indie developers have a real purpose in this world. They make little niche products for markets too small for Activision. They make many new puzzle games for the casual audience. Or, at least, the same old puzzle game again and again. They rewrite Asteroids... because someone has to.'"
"The Indies" ? (Score:1, Insightful)
Guess I need another cup of coffee.
what? (Score:4, Insightful)
What about... (Score:3, Insightful)
Never underestimate the ideas that indie developers can come up with.
Re:what? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What about... (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure there are tons of indie clones but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Nethack (or, originally, Rogue) is made by an independent group and it's one of the most innovative RPGs made in the past two decades. True and groundbreaking innovation doesn't necessarily have to involve technical innovation. Yes, most of the innovation at this point in the industry will be technical, but there is a large amount of game design space left to be mined.
VGA Planets was a hugely innovative 4X game in the BBS era that spawned a number of indie clones, but it itself was produced almost completely by one developer.
A Tale in the Desert is an independent MMRPG with no combat, only a completely new system based on sociology, economics, and politics.
The reason we see less and less innovation in indie games currently isn't because they aren't being made - it's because the studio games being made right now are so good and are taking up so much of our time. I agree with the author that innovation doesn't necessarily make a good game, and the best games out right now, like WoW, are built on other models. But since this works so well, I don't see why studios like EA are more motivated to innovate than independents, who will keep innovating behind the scenes no matter how many Tetris clones are produced.
this can't be reconciled with the facts (Score:5, Insightful)
try the inverse... (Score:4, Insightful)
No innovation by indies?! What utter BS. Seems to me indies have the most potential to innovate since they don't have to convince a room of 70 year old suits how great their wacky ideas are.
What a load (Score:3, Insightful)
Wanted to mod story +1 Funny (Score:4, Insightful)
Then, let's look at the other side of the spectrum: Blizzard/Vivendi and World of Warcraft. Innovation? I don't see it. Sony and Star Wars Galaxies? Yeah, real innovative there. EA sports and the endless rehash of yearly pro sports games? Astounding! (not)
Big companies with big investors do the forumlaic thing because that is what they do best. They execute well in an area already explored and declared "safe" and "profitable" by the small guys who already took the chance and risked it all on "innovation". Why? Because they didn't have near as much to lose as "The Man".
Sure, indie developers do a lot of rehash, too; often it is because they are cutting their teeth and playing it "safe" for their first title or two before they jump in and start work on that "dream game" they have always wanted. They also do a lot of niche games. Nothing wrong with that. Indies are often small, and do smaller projects because that's what they can do to fill out their portfolio. However, that doesn't and shouldn't paint the rest of the independents out there currently working on cool, unique games that ARE truly innovative as being without the very quality they are (and have always been) providing to the industry.
Maybe he is referring to something a little more grandiose, like maybe coming up with a completely new genre. Even still, the vast majority of innovation in that regard has come from independents, not mass corporate powerhouses. There are always exceptions, and I won't say that no megastudio has ever done anything innovative, but it certainly is not the rule.
Sorry, but this indie game developer isn't buying it.
Hah. (Score:4, Insightful)
Before I continue, one of the underlying points Mr. Vogel was trying to make here is definitely true. Independent game developers and studios are by no means a fountain of innovation, and are in my opinion more likely to reproduce a popular model rather than innovate in order to get their foot in the door. That way, their chances of success are much higher, because they've taken something that was already good and at least reproduced - if not improved - it. The big studios don't have to worry too much about money lost to experiments, and are thus more likely to try new things - and damn the consequences of failing to find a niche in the market if they do. Furthermore, he made it very clear that innovation tends to occur gradually, in a sense of evolution, rather than rapid mutation. Most indie studios that are replicating something that's been done before do try to add their own twists to the model - this is what makes them stand out enough for people to pay attention.
However, Mr. Vogel is quite wrong about a few things, too. This is the kind of commentary I'd expect out of a cynical independent ripoff artist in action, really. You know, the kind of person who is too afraid and closed-minded to try anything new, partly because he doesn't want to lose his money or reputation - a sound judgement - and partly because he just doesn't seem to want to try. You can deny all you want that the Exile and Avernum series aren't blatant ripoffs of Ultima - personally, I loved Exile regardless, if only for the story - but they are. Avernum, a polished up Exile, is Ultima in new clothes. This man and his studio have been responsible for very little noteworthy innovation, and well, like they say, Pot, meet Kettle.
Huge innovative leaps on both a technical and gameplay level occur in the field of gaming from time to time, and it's really a 50-50 chance of those innovative leaps coming from a big studio or an independent developer. Just like any creative field, innovation can either occur incrementially, as he implied that it always does, or it can occur massively and with outstanding results. (Sim City, anyone?) Mr. Vogel, who clearly suffers from a serious case of cranial-anal inversion - not to mention chronic defeatism - is satisfied to simply replicate the old time and again, and tells us to get used to it. He tells us that only people with money can afford to make new ideas work. He's dead wrong, but you can't expect a man with no other skills outside of game publishing to care about anything besides money when it comes to games, considering that it's the whole of his livelihood. Just because big titles carry big budgets doesn't mean that new ideas can't take root in the independent side of the playing field. Money isn't really the huge factor here, it's the ideas themselves and who has them.
In other words, nothing to see here. Just near-mindless droning from another cynic with a rather skewed and defeated view of the gaming world. The reality of it is, even if no new and huge genres are going to emerge any time in the near future, significant and more than incremential innovation can, does, and will take place, and it won't just be from the big names. People working for big name studios have more money to throw around - but the big names are only concerned with meeting the status quo, to make ends meet. The independent developers are likely to follow the popular models to get themselves established, or much like Mr. Vogel, they just don't have many good ideas. Big leaps are and have almost always been rare, and it's hard to tell just where they'll come from. Much like Haley's Comet, though, just because you only see it once in a lifetime doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.