Creativity: The ignored son of Video Games

[SkullCap]

Okay, let's be honest how many here enjoy playing WW2 games? I enjoy the occasional blasting away of Nazis, but I can't get into fighting the Nazis over, over, over, over, over, *hits record* again. I really can't get into war games to begin with. WHY? Because its the same thing. The same goes for sports games. I can grab my roommates football, tennis racket, or golf club and use them.

What I can't do is play an instrument that will warp me to a temple, or use a lazer rifle to splatter alien hordes, or go swing a blade around like a swarm of bees are after me while I deal with the legions of hell spawn in some semi-medieval/futuristic/steam punk world.

What am I getting at? I'm just saying as of right now, video games have forgotten to take their middle child 'Creativity' to the park on several occasions. Go back in time if you can and look at some of the cartridge games you used to play or have seen. Who are your heroes? Who are your villains? What's the games setting? You'll be surprised to see a Entourage of creative ideas and characters ranging from humanoids, cartoons, or anthropomorphic creatures.

Concerning video games now? The same song and dance. Now I'm not saying that creativity is gone from video games, but its been usually brushed aside for the same thing again and again. I'm seeing less creativity in my beloved video games. No personality, no distinct characters, and nothing to set them apart from the rest by much to begin with. Awhile back I came across the Game Overthinker who many may know as MovieBob on the Escapist. In fact I owe Bob for introducing me to the Escapist.

He, like me has a surprisingly similar feeling towards video games. Not a lot of Escapists know about the Game Overthinker for some reason so here's a link that you should check out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhzyOzItDnc&feature=PlayList&p=A96B030DD843BBF7&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=8

Afterwards share your thoughts about creativity in video games.

NO bitching about MW2 this isn't a bash at the game or any other title for that matter, however, if you want to talk trash then send me a personal message so I don't have to report you for getting off-topic. Thank you.

 

[Kermi]

Every time people do something new and exciting people shit on it - Brutal Legend despite being awesome did fairly poorly at retail. I can't name another person on my friendslist who have played a Katamari game. But they buy the same Nazi-slaughtering games, racing games, fighting games and rehashed sports titles over and over again.

I'd love to see more creativity and variety - it's why I'm planning to buy Heavy Rain even though it's basically a choose-your-own-adventure movie with quick time events. But at the same time I plan to buy Bioshock 2, Halo: Reach, and whatever Call of Duty games get churned out in the future.
Because I know I'll get a return of entertainment on those investments.

 

[Triforceformer]

Brutal Legend may as well be named most creative game of the year in a pointless games awards show on the internet when compared to everything else this year. I was going to say most creative game of the decade, but then I remembered Psychonauts.

 

[Spiner909]

I take this line right from Calvin and Hobbes.

"Because creativity doesn't sell."

 

[Spiner909]

Creativity?

I think thats what disgruntled gamers use as a scapegoat when developers do something they don't like.

There is exactly one metric fuckton (or cubic buttload, if you need the conversion) of creativity in the gaming industry. But people look in the wrong places. We look to EA and Activision for our gaming entertainment, then complain why they arent "original" or "creative".

Try looking for games that aren't hyped to shit.
Try playing some indie games, or games by smaller developers.
There is plenty of creativity out there
And it's not like you can't play older games.

Take the Oddworld games. Abe's Odyssey, Stranger's Wrath.... someone was high when they came up with these games.

Give them a try, and see if "creativity" is really what's lacking.

Sorry, but the Oddworld games were terrible. Creativity often goes too far, spoiling the game.

 

[KeefJM]

As much as it pains me to say this, creativity does not sell. With the cost of developing current gen games being as high as it is no company wants to risk a loss.

This is basically the same reason you see so many sequels.

 

[Kermi]

Sorry, but the Oddworld games were terrible. Creativity often goes too far, spoiling the game.

Really? I thought Munch's Oddysee was fantastic. Beautiful world, good humour, challenging gameplay. The only thing that kind of sucked was the combat, but it was kind of supposed to.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

The bottom line is creativity is expensive and most of a developer's budget goes towards rendering current generation graphics for there to be anything left for any creative new ideas.
Also creativity represents a risk, which it seems most developers/publishers aren't willing to take, despite the fact that they could afford it.

 

[F1REST0RM]

Because it's risky for gamers. Much as "games are art" hippies (to borrow a term from Yahtzee) like to hype them up, a lot of creative games can be crap. World War 2 games may be derivative and unremarkable as hell, but they're generally at least good mindless fun, and a safer way to spend $50/60.

I go see Brutal Legend on a shelf, and I have no knowledge of the game because let's assume I'm not a hardcore gamer that posts on game forums and reads web sites. It looks...interesting, but I've never played a game like that before, and I have no reliable way of knowing if it's going to be fun, while at the same time over here there's Modern Warfare 2 and Uncharted 2 that may again be quite unoriginal but I know at least should be fun at a basic level, because everyone else has the original games.

That's the basic mindset of your average gaming consumer. Toss in a recession, generally stretched budgets, and even if we can strictly afford it, we don't want to accidentally waste our hard-earned money on it. The risk isn't justified. It's just compounded on the PC where you can't even trade in games. (Though admittedly PC gamers tend to be more hardcore as well.)

You do get some original games breaking through, and these are the ones that provide the basis for trends of unoriginality (success leads to more success), but like in the music industry those succeed out of a mixture of luck, corporate backing, and more luck, and as such it doesn't happen often.

Games are still a business at the end of the day.

 

[BenzSmoke]

Humans are drawn to what seems familiar to them. This means, in the gaming world, generic action titles like Halo will make more money at the end of the day then say... games like Psychonauts.

Speaking of originial games: http://winterbottomgame.com/

 

[minoes]

Humans are drawn to what seems familiar to them. This means, in the gaming world, generic action titles like Halo will make more money at the end of the day then say... games like Psychonauts.

Speaking of originial games: http://winterbottomgame.com/

Actually, Halo once was more creative than Psychonauts.

Edit: Gameplay wise, in every other aspect Halo was pretty uninspired.