Should games be punished for lack of originality?

[Onyx Oblivion]

I try not to buy unoriginal games.

Ahhh, Mirror's Edge. I paid $60 for you, just because you were original. Sure, you were short, but damn were you original.

 

[archvile93]

I usually don't mind unoriginal games, but even I draw the line at the same game with different textures.

 

[Amnestic]

I always enjoy when you post.

Regarding the official Madden complaint "lol rostur update duh" - has anyone constantly whining about that actually played a football game on a computer or video game console? There's a very easy way to see how much really get improved between iterations. Play the newer version, then play the one from two or three seasons ago.

Regarding Dynasty Warriors, I can't think of many IPs that have changed so drastically from their initial games.

Was going to write an addendum but you quoted me so I'll put it here.

The main question I pose to *scrolls up* Brotherofwill is thus: if Dante's Inferno was instead branded God of War: Judaeo-Christian Edition, would you care so much about lack of innovation or would you be praising the new God of War game for all its awesome QTE and hack 'n' slash action?

 

[maninahat]

It ain't the company's fault, plain and simple. If you want them to stop with the generic, unimaginative shooters, then take it up with the entire gaming community who continue to buy them in their millions. They are only supplying a demand, and they can't help it if the community demands nothing more than the same shit over and over again (but with enhanced graphics).

 

[Fappy]

I always enjoy when you post.

Regarding the official Madden complaint "lol rostur update duh" - has anyone constantly whining about that actually played a football game on a computer or video game console? There's a very easy way to see how much really get improved between iterations. Play the newer version, then play the one from two or three seasons ago.

Regarding Dynasty Warriors, I can't think of many IPs that have changed so drastically from their initial games.

Was going to write an addendum but you quoted me so I'll put it here.

The main question I pose to *scrolls up* Brotherofwill is thus: if Dante's Inferno was instead branded God of War: Judaeo-Christian Edition, would you care so much about lack of innovation or would you be praising the new God of War game for all its awesome QTE and hack 'n' slash action?

I would be confused when you start shooting laser crosses at things.

 

[Toriver]

I think it depends on the overall quality of the game produced.

There's a right way and a wrong way to borrow mechanics from other games. Take DI's predecessors in this past month, Bayonetta and Darksiders. Bayonetta was largely seen as taking a lot from Devil May Cry, and Darksiders was seen to have "ripped off" Legend of Zelda/God of War (especially Zelda - but hey, Zelda for Xbox/PS3... I'll take it!) Anyway, Bayonetta was forgiven for firstly, having DMC's creator at its helm, and secondly, having fantastic gameplay, being able to take the DMC formula and add uniqueness to it. Likewise, while there was less original about Darksiders than Bayonetta, the combination of mechanics swiped from Zelda and God of War were brought together in a way that produced a very enjoyable final product. These games borrowed in the "right" way and were rewarded for it with decently high reviews and sales.

The biggest culprits of games that do it the "wrong" way that I can think of are movie tie-in games and the numerous Pokemon copies on the market. With the movie tie-ins... well, some movies just should not be made into games in the first place, but don't make it a freaking copy of some other popular game. With the Pokemon clones, when what you are is so obvious that you have your various creatures on your box art and your name even looks like a copy of the name of the game you're cloning, it shows that you know less about designing games than deftly maneuvering around copyright law. They have only been lucky that their game hasn't sold well or Nintendo would have sued them into the unemployment line within a few weeks of the game's release.

So I say, originality should still be a factor, but if the game is still quite well made and especially if it has made improvements or fixed errors in the game mechanic it's borrowing, the game shouldn't be punished for it. In fact, I would welcome such moves if they do make improvements to them. Then perhaps the original developers can learn from those games when developing sequels to the original games.

 

[Wutaiflea]

I can cope with unoriginal themes as long as the implementation is nice or they make some kind of improvement upon them, but otherwise, I'm the first to cry "rip off" at all manner of things.

Great as it would be to punish game designers (and film and TV producers for that matter) for their lack of originality, creativity and plagiarism go hand in hand, and always have done.

 

[AWAR]

Yes, by pirating them MWHAHAHAHAHAHA!

 

[userwhoquitthesite]

Yes, yes we've all heard of Dante's Inferno at this point. I played the demo and looked at some video reviews and honestly I'm shocked: How could they so blatantly rip off another game?

The double jump, the gore, the combos and combat. The big endbosses with QTEs thrown in, the provocative female breasts... the list goes on and on. It's not like they simply copied some stuff, it's more like they just ransacked the design documents and copy-pasted them.

Yeah, at this point haters will probably be like: "It's still a good game".
My question is: what's the point? Why not make a game that atleast uses a unique combination of generic features from other games (kind of like ME2), thus creating atleast some sort of identity?

I'm tired of rip-offs and I'm glad that people are slamming the game with less than average reviews. What we need now are some fresh ideas and confident developers that follow their own noses for a change. Anyone that has played games like ICO, SotC, Portal or Banjo Kazooie knows that interesting art design + original ideas that developers weren't afraid to cut out can go a long way to improve and carry a game. They also tend to be the games that you remember the longest. We need games with personality. We need more games that are made by lone, visionary developers instead of big design teams.

So what do you think?

What exactly are you claiming it to be a ripoff of?
And by the by, your evidence sucks. Shit-tons of games have double jumps, gore has been a major component of gaming since Mortal Kombat first had twelve ribcages fly out of one human body, almost all combat games attempt to introduce a combo system, and combat is, well, combat. QTE and tits are so ubiquitous that you can find them in kids games nowadays. Now if you were just saying how sick you were of the flood of games based on The Divine Comedy, that's one thing and I'd support you. But as such you haven't given anything to support yourself.

Whats worse is you contradict your own argument! You list all these generic elements from games and say how bad Dante's Inferno is (not that I disagree, of course) because of them, then turn around and say mass effect is awesome because of its generic pieces. I'd also like to point out that SotC is only really visually different from ICO, Portal is just a Half-Life 2 mod (albeit a cool one), and Banjo-Kazooie, as epic and wonderful and awesome as it was really just took Mario 64, repainted it, and added a few extra features. Its just that the extra experience POLISHED the 3d platformer style and so it was more fun then its first incarnation.

But yes, Dante's Inferno sucks. Burn it, Bayonetta, and the rest!

 

[CheckD3]

At least the concept of the story mode is original, gameplay may have been ripped, but it means that there's a good chance the controls will flow well and fans of the God of War series can jump right in and play, so maybe that's why they did that, to help fans of the actual God of War out. Probably not, but it's a good excuse

And the story is unique, sure it's another being traveling through myths and such (or ideas based off of stories), but how many games have you travel to Hell for the entire game (Kratos's visits are different) and make Hell the setting? Plus there's a chance the story itself is unique.

And it's really hard as others have said to break new ground in video games. People go with what they know is safe most of the time rather than jump into new things. These people are idiots, but they make up a large portion of the VG industry consumer base, so they please them. As said in ZP Tabula Rasa review, devolopers and designers are trying to please the masses rather than a group of gamers and the result is mediocrety. Plus, why would some people take chances on something that could fail (like Wet has apperantly) than go with something that is known to work.

 

[beemoh]

Because we a/ haven't all played God Of War, and b/ might prefer the aesthetics of Dante over those of God?

 

[Brotherofwill]

Was going to write an addendum but you quoted me so I'll put it here.

The main question I pose to *scrolls up* Brotherofwill is thus: if Dante's Inferno was instead branded God of War: Judaeo-Christian Edition, would you care so much about lack of innovation or would you be praising the new God of War game for all its awesome QTE and hack 'n' slash action?

If this was a God of War title I'd be really dissapointed and I mean really, really dissapointed, but this is kind of beside the point.

I think there's quite a noticable difference here between creating a game and then creating a similar sequel to creating a game that rips off someone else's ideas. I'm not one of those people that are completely opposed to sequels. If I enjoy a concept then I'll likely enjoy the next iteration too, but in order for that sequel to work the foundation has to be strong and fleshed out.

I prefer it most when games have their own concepts, feel and gameplay variations and then have sort of semi-sequels that don't necessarily continue the characters but continue the type and athmosphere of the game. FF and Ico/SotC/Last Guardian are the sorts of games I'm talking about here.

There's something like a creative property that developers produce when making a game and shamelessly ripping one is is just...low.

 

[rockingnic]

What's wrong with being unoriginal? Some of the most fun games are not that original. Even some games that are original just suck. I think originality is more for polish than anything else, unless it's the games mechanics but it's extremely hard to make an original game mechanic that's actually good now-a-days.

 

[Jandau]

Originality is shaky ground, so I'll just put out a few thoughts I have on that matter.

Anything is original if you haven't seen it before.

Everything has been done before so very few things are truly original.

Original doesn't equal good.

In games, Fun is more important than originality.

Even if something is not too original, it can still be well crafted and good. Just because something has been done before doesn't mean it shouldn't be done again, only better (kinda like sex).

Taking unoriginal elements and rearanging them can produce an original result.

EDIT: That being said, I won't be playing DI because the douches didn't make a PC version and I dislike butchering literary works for brand recognition...

 

[Brotherofwill]

What exactly are you claiming it to be a ripoff of?
And by the by, your evidence sucks. Shit-tons of games have double jumps, gore has been a major component of gaming since Mortal Kombat first had twelve ribcages fly out of one human body, almost all combat games attempt to introduce a combo system, and combat is, well, combat. QTE and tits are so ubiquitous that you can find them in kids games nowadays. Now if you were just saying how sick you were of the flood of games based on The Divine Comedy, that's one thing and I'd support you. But as such you haven't given anything to support yourself.

Whats worse is you contradict your own argument! You list all these generic elements from games and say how bad Dante's Inferno is (not that I disagree, of course) because of them, then turn around and say mass effect is awesome because of its generic pieces. I'd also like to point out that SotC is only really visually different from ICO, Portal is just a Half-Life 2 mod (albeit a cool one), and Banjo-Kazooie, as epic and wonderful and awesome as it was really just took Mario 64, repainted it, and added a few extra features. Its just that the extra experience POLISHED the 3d platformer style and so it was more fun then its first incarnation.

But yes, Dante's Inferno sucks. Burn it, Bayonetta, and the rest!

Well my main claim is coming after playing both. Sorry if I haven't made my comparisons very extensive, I figured most people tried both or atleast looked at some footage. If you can't see the similarities, then I don't know... It's really not so much that the same elements are present but the way they are implemented.

As for the double jump: Look at it!

Spoiler: Krato's jump

They are practically the same! Okay I have no idea what that kitten video was or why it came up when I searched gow double jump.

As for the contradiction: When did I say Mass Effect is awesome? I said that it was able to take elements and sort of find it's own identity by combining them a bit uniquely (a bit is streched here). In fact I was really dissapointed by ME2 because it discarded original ideas from the first and just copied popular elements. It's definetly worse than the first in my opinion.

 

[Amnestic]

If this was a God of War title I'd be really dissapointed and I mean really, really dissapointed, but this is kind of beside the point.

Okay, why would you be disappointed?

I prefer it most when games have their own concepts, feel and gameplay variations and then have sort of semi-sequels that don't necessarily continue the characters but continue the type and athmosphere of the game. FF and Ico/SotC/Last Guardian are the sorts of games I'm talking about here.

Define concept. Story? Gameplay? Graphical style? Music? Emotive tone? Narrative?

There's something like a creative property that developers produce when making a game and shamelessly ripping one is is just...low.

So, as far as I can tell, your primary beef is that Dante's Inferno doesn't have the God of War label attached to it.

 

[SantoUno]

Of course not, if we did we would run out of game ideas in the next year or so.

All this hate on DI is bullshit, hate the game for what it is, not for what it seems to rip off.

 

[JEBWrench]

All this talk about God of War in an originality thread. Wasn't God of War just Devil May Cry with a brawny dude? (And yes, we can go back for generations in this genre. )

 

[Plurralbles]

they already are, they are not on my shelf. As for the global population punishing them, that's something you need to do person by person.

 

[oppp7]

Because original games don't sell as well as the big corporations want them too, just look at ICO, SotC, Okami, Beyond good and evil. Do they sell as well as Halo and CoD? No. Why? Because the vast majority of gamers are a bunch of drooling, homophobic idiots who just like to kill things. Sorry if that offended anyone but the games industry is a business, and like a business, does not like to take risks.

Some people prefer multiplayer. This does not make them idiots.
I do think originality should be heavily considered when deciding if a game is good or not, but some games can take a concept and improve upon it or mix them with other ideas to make a better project, such as what Blizzard does.