Gamers DON'T Want Innovation.

[JMac85]

I agree. I don't want innovation, I want refinement. Better for a game to do a few things really well than have a myriad of broken, half-assed, or useless features. I like to hold the WWE games as a perfect example of this. Here Comes the Pain was in my opinion the best wrestling game I've ever played (I heard good things about some WCW game for the N64, but I never played that). Then THQ took a page from EA and started making those damn things every year, adding more and more crap to them. Ooh, wow, manager mode? Woop de freaking doo! How's the actual wrestling? Oh, it's a buggy mess that's a clunky, boring slog. Good thing I stopped caring about actual televised pro wrestling years ago, so I have no reason to want to keep playing these.

 

[StriderShinryu]

I also think people don't really know what they want untill you sell it to them

This is a pretty good point. Good, bad or ugly, marketing is a huge issue. Innovation can sell if it's actually sold, and it needs to be sold. Games like the big regular releases tend to get all the marketing but they're actually the ones that need it the least because many players will already have in their heads that they are going to be buying the newest Game X in Series Y pretty much a year in advance.

 

[Vault101]

I also think people don't really know what they want untill you sell it to them

This is a pretty good point. Good, bad or ugly, marketing is a huge issue. Innovation can sell if it's actually sold, and it needs to be sold. Games like the big regular releases tend to get all the marketing but they're actually the ones that need it the least because many players will already have in their heads that they are going to be buying the newest Game X in Series Y pretty much a year in advance.

yeah...like if we said to gamers "what kind of game do you want?" chances are they wouldn't have said [i/]I want a game..set around like 1912 in a floating city with weird contraptions and theres a plot involving infinite universes and gateways and you have like a girl companion and theres a big bird robot thing...[/i] but they like it....

oh sure it had the Bioshock name on it but it would be exaclty the same as "if you wanted another bioshock game what would you want?" they wouldnt have said that...and going back even further "what yould you like in a first person shooter?"

[i/]I want a shooter set in an underwater dystopia thats an example of Rand's objectivism![/i] I don;t think so

nobody thought star wars was going to work..nobody "wanted" a star wars and arguably star wars worked not ONLY because of Lucas...but thats beside the point

thats why sometimes you just have to trust the creators....

 

[Bad Jim]

The main problm with the WiiU is that it is underpowered. While the Wii was different enough that it could sell despite being underpowered, the WiiU just adds a touchscreen, which is kinda neat but not enough to excuse it's lack of power.

And before anyone brings up "graphics don't matter", I reply "why not stick with your PS3/XB360 that has tons of games?"

Anyone with a DS knows how the second screen generally works. It usually does things like inventory screens. It helps a little, but it just isn't that important.

 

[marioandsonic]

people like to stick with what they know and like

however

I also think people don't really know what they want untill you sell it to them

I agree with this.

Going with me as an example, I didn't really hear about the Saints Row franchise until I saw the Zero Punctuation reviews. I then picked up Saints Row 4 when it came out on a whim, and it may be one of my top 10 games of the last console generation.

 

[Meximagician]

Hi everybody! Long time lurker, first time poster.

One problem I see is that the video uses ABSOLUTE values, when any good statistician will tell you to use RELATIVE values. Using an example from the video:

Mario Party 8 sold: 8 million
Wii sold: 100.9 million
market penetration: 7.93 %

Zelda Windwaker sold: 3 million
GameCube sold: 22 million
market penetration: 13.64 %

I'm just saying you have to compare apples to apples. Also, don't forget that gaming has risen in popularity exponentially. Pong built an empire for Atari, but even including coin-ops, didn't come close to breaking a million units sold.

 

[uknownada]

i was very disappointed with this episode, it was ful of flawed arguments and cherry picking

It's Game Theory. What do you expect?

 

[Some_weirdGuy]

Gamers don't want 'innovation', they want iteration.
They want topical cross-breeding of the latest pop culture element into something they are familiar with. The luck comes from either being the game that already fills that intersection, or quickly making it when you see it coming.

 

[Riverwolf]

As for me, I wish this love affair with indies would die sooner rather than later. Their brand of innovation seems mostly to be about reviving mechanics and looks of old games. I don't see that I need to play a Mario clone when I can play the real thing on a number of devices.

I think that's only a problem when the indie or the media advertises the game as "innovative" when it's just a Mario clone. I certainly wouldn't call Braid a Mario clone at all. Sure, Braid is a platformer, but a slow-paced puzzle-platformer, whereas Mario is a fast-paced action-platformer. But I'm not sure I'd call Braid "innovative" in the same way that Minecraft and Papers, Please are, since none of its mechanics are new themselves, but are used to craft interesting puzzles (as well as attempt, with debatable success, to make an artistic statement: something I don't often see from AAA devs).

Personally, as a person aspiring to be an indie dev, I'm not interested in being "innovative"; rather, I'm interested in making games I want to play, and/or that I think might be fun/interesting to play. None of my current ideas are new genres at all, but use existing genres/mechanics to present an experience or an idea I don't see much, if at all. It's easy to copy Mario (as the glut of platformers in the 80s and 90s shows), but it's quite another to take the run/jump mechanic and use it to create a different experience.

Sonic (and I'm referring to classic Sonic, here) is the exact same genre as Mario, but they're not at all the same experience. However, each new main 2D entry in the classic Mario series (that is, 1, American 2, 3, World, and Yoshi's Island) added new features and mechanics that made each one feel completely unique (with the exception of Super Mario Brothers 2, aka The Lost Levels). The five original main entries in the Sonic franchise, on the other hand (that is, 1, 2, CD, 3, and Knuckles) each add very little to the overall formula beyond a few tweaks and maybe one or two new mechanics, making the games feel VERY similar to each other.

EDIT: By the way, pretty much all the "arguments" in Game Theory are at least half-jokes, if not full-on jokes. There are few exceptions, and I don't think this episode was one of them.

 

[uknownada]

Holy shit that was annoying to listen to. I've never heard of this guy and I wish I could have that back.

Did anyone else notice the screenshot in the beginning called "Valve cries out for innovation in hardware"? Not really an honest screenshot, which makes you wonder how the rest of his material stacks up.

I think there's a lot more factors to this than what he says, for example the core gamer group that grew up and started prioritizing other kind of games.
One of his charts also listed Super Mario Bros, the original NES game, as the highest selling, but neglects to mention that the game came bundled with the console itself and I suspect a lot of the other high selling games did as well.
I'm not a mario kart fan, but I got it bundled with my wii. That's not proof of me wanting to buy it, it's just a complete coincidence because I wanted a black wii an the only one I could get was bundled with it, because the outlet was getting rid of copies.

...In the end I think he's full of shit and that he convinces himself like a conspicary theorist does, whenever he sees indications or signs, he takes them as affirmation and proof of what he's saying.
However, as I've gotten older (hitting 30 in a week), there's a limit on what I can be bothered to put with to have some fun and so now I play a lot of Binding of Isaac and FTL and much less MMO's, shooters and everything else. If I have to play a match of SC2 I groan and have to start thinking about a hundred different things and I just.. can't be arsed.

He called Mario a communist based on his facial features, the Metroid morph ball as unimpressive by comparing the 8 and 16-bit counterparts, "scientifically proved" Pyro was a homosexual male based on what physical traits they "typically" have, and said Mario has a mental condition because the player is able to ditch Yoshi in a pit.

You wonder how his material stacks up? There's a sneak preview.

 

[Riverwolf]

He called Mario a communist based on his facial features, ...

The Mario = Communist joke controversy predates youtube, let alone Game Theory.

Your other examples, however, are great samples of his material. I, personally, enjoy Game Theory, but I would definitely say to Smilomaniac that if those examples don't sound funny, then you're not going to like it. I would, however, recommend their partner show, Game Exchange, by Gaijin Goomba. His analysis of games is meant to actually be informative (though I'm not familiar enough with most of the subjects he brings up to really say whether it's incredibly accurate.)

 

[V8 Ninja]

It's a good thing to note that Mathew Patrick (the creator of the video) has never taken his Game Theory show too seriously, so it's best to take whatever he says with a grain of salt.

However, with that said I think I can point to one specific moment where the video shows its immense flaws. At the 7 minute mark, Mathew Patrick says the following;

The fact of the matter is, innovative games just don't sell.

...While showing a picture of the original Yoshi's Island, a game that, according to the data he showed in the video, sold over 4 million copies. In an industry where only about 1% of all products sell over five million copies [http://imgur.com/a/uhFNd?gallery#RaEsXVW], downplaying a multi-million selling title is a failure in arguing.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

i was very disappointed with this episode, it was ful of flawed arguments and cherry picking

It's Game Theory. What do you expect?

not really previous episodes had significantly more research put into them


even if the theories were silly, they atleast did their homework

 

[Ninmecu]

The main problm with the WiiU is that it is underpowered. While the Wii was different enough that it could sell despite being underpowered, the WiiU just adds a touchscreen, which is kinda neat but not enough to excuse it's lack of power.

And before anyone brings up "graphics don't matter", I reply "why not stick with your PS3/XB360 that has tons of games?"

Anyone with a DS knows how the second screen generally works. It usually does things like inventory screens. It helps a little, but it just isn't that important.

No, no, no no no no no no no no no. No. No. That is NOT the main problem with the Wii U, the main problem with the Wii U is the fact that the wireless pad has a required portion of the machines memory/cpu. That's the issue. It's REQUIRED to make it run, meaning it needs to be programmed around...Because Nintendo says so.

OT: everything I could've said has been said, no point repeating myself. Let's be honest, if the price point of new ip's was lower, we'd likely give them more of a try at launch, rather than doing like I do and buying them up 6, 12 or hell(In my case) 5 years after launch. I was HYPED for Saints Row The Third(and quickly regretted it.) because I got Saints Row 2 for 20 bucks and I've played the SHIT out of it. Hundreds of hours lost because I had a blast. My barrier stopping me from buying games that might be awesome but strike me as a bit iffy, is cost. Simple as. I'd've missed out on Okami, Shadow of the Colossus, Kingdom Hearts, all games I love that I only played because of random happenstance and the price that I found on the cheap. But, I'd argue that's neither here nor there.

 

[JayRPG]

Personally speaking, I kind of want innovation BUT there is a time and place.

What I don't want is innovation in a long established, successful series (E.G Final Fantasy), I would be 100% happier to hear that FFXV was going back to good old turn-based combat than I would be to hear they've come up with a whole new battle system again; I just don't see the point in changing things that don't need to be changed, maybe when sales start waning but that is usually to do with other factors (like story).

I want to see innovation in brand new IPs, that's where it makes sense, if you are releasing a brand new IP you want to bring something to the table that current ones aren't.

The Tales of series hasn't fundamentally changed or innovated in any big way since Tales of Phantasia (the first one) but it's selling more than ever, Xillia was more popular than FFXIII, the first time a Tales game has ever outsold a Final Fantasy, I would be angry if they turned around tomorrow to tell us that Tales of Zestria (the new one being worked on) was switching to an Action RPG with no separate battle fields like Zelda.

The FF10/10-2 remake sold more than lightning returns which does go at least a little of the way to showing that gamers don't want innovation in tried and true, long-standing successful IPs.

TL;DR I want innovation in new IPs but stick to what you know in long running series'

 

[The Random Critic]

On the other hand, it should be pretty well known that just because it is innovative doesn't mean it's good

Me personally, I judge a game by how much I enjoy it

 

[Ratty]

This episode feel phoned in. As others have said he made a few glaring mistakes in his argument, particularly the deceptive use of statistics without accounting for all important factors i. e. the mainstreaming of gaming in the last 5 to 10 years.

 

[The_Echo]

I already commented on the video, so I guess I'll just quote myself here.

I think you've completely ignored the fact that, with each console generation, more people are getting into gaming.

There weren't as many SNES owners as there were PS3/X360 owners, so naturally FFXIII has the potential to sell more than FFVI. (In fact just the PS3 or 360 alone trumps the SNES's sales.)

The games on Gamecube didn't do too hot mainly because it was sharing the same potential consumerbase as the PS2, which CRUSHED it in sales. There weren't as many people on the Gamecube to buy all those games! Coupled with Nintendo being fairly poor at promoting third-party titles, a lot of people just plain didn't KNOW that Eternal Darkness or Beyond Good & Evil were there.

Animal Crossing sits very comfortably in the "niche" department of games. No matter how new and fresh and innovative it was, the kind of game Animal Crossing is isn't going to appeal to a wide swathe of people. Wind Waker's performance is a great example of going "too new," in that the Zelda fanbase at the time bemoaned the drastic change in art direction after the Zelda Gamecube tech demo had shown an aesthetic that was both impressive and true to the style present in previous titles. It's petty, but that's what happened.

This isn't just about sales. Because sales are the result, not the cause. We have to look at the environment around these games. Sales don't just HAPPEN, they're the result of a myriad of factors which need to be taken into account on a case-by-case basis.