The Evolution of Games?

[kortin]

Now, this has been bugging me for a while. I've recently had several discussions about how games evolve through the genres. For example: Megaman going from a platformer (Megaman) to an RPG (Megaman: Battle Network) or even Metroid going from platformer (Metroid) to a fps-platformer (Metroid Prime) or Legend of Zelda going from an overhead perspective into this third person perspective that we see today in Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword. These three have always been the highlight of said discussions.

Now, I did not play games as much as I do today when Megaman, Metroid, and Zelda were new franchises. When I began playing games more often, Metroid Prime, Megaman: Battle Network, and Zelda: Ocarina of Time were the games of those franchises I played. They were fun, they were enjoyable. I loved these games.

As I grew older, I began to express interest in going back to the roots of these beloved franchises and found myself appalled at how much these games bored me, about how simple they were. I might say I did have quite a bit of expectations that were simply too high for these old games to meet, however, they didn't even keep my attention. I found myself dropping every single one because I could not put up with how boring they simply were.

The core of these discussions appear to be between me being a newer gamer, and them being an older gamer. Many of my friends actually played these games in their prime. They enjoyed the games as I enjoyed the ones I played when I began gaming. I've found myself arguing with them over which of the iterations of the games were best. I've had people claim that the original games are simply much better than the newer ones; that Megaman is SUPPOSED to be a platformer and not an RPG, or that Metroid is supposed to be a platformer and not an fps. In all of these situations I find myself arguing that they're supposed to be the other way around.

What does this actually mean though? Obviously they're both opinions that are rather irrelevant, but what does it mean when someone says that a game is supposed to be a certain way? This is where I call out to you, other Escapists, what makes a game have a certain way it's supposed to be?

(Dear lord, look at the time: 2:30 AM. I do hope this is coherent...)

Edit:

Oh, I seem to have forgotten another question I wish to ask. what are your thoughts on games evolving like this, about games jumping genres, so to speak? Do you support it? Do you disagree with it?

 

[KatelinAlpaca]

I think the largest change I've seen in the gaming industry is a huge shift towards action and/or FPS. This has affected, for example, Resident Evil 5. In my opinion, The Resident Evil title was simply marred by it. I have countless qualms just regarding this game alone.

I believe evolution of games towards modern gaming aspects is good, if it doesn't ruin the entire nature of the series.

 

[Dandark]

Gmae are usaully designed around a certain idea that they build it around. As the above poster said you have resident evil which has become more action focused and has ruined the series in the eyes of many fans.

You also have games that evolved in a more succesful way. However there will always be fans who dislike the new direction it has gone and prefer the older one which is fine since that older game appealed to them more.

Other than games like Call of Duty which will stagnate untill it stops selling well(That is, the end of the world) you have others that often try new things to draw in a bigger target audience such as Bioware games now becoming more action based. This can easily alienate older fans who dislike the new direction and they can easily feel betrayed or abandoned by the developer however trying new things isn't bad.
That's all I feel like writing for now, I may post again when I think about it some more.

 

[Smooth Operator]

It's not so much evolution as it is waves in the ocean, they crash from side to side pushing their way forward and with turn of the wind it all quickly changes, current direction is FPS.

That's mainly because the people between two games of the same name can be completely different, companies don't want to tell you this so you will keep buying their shit but the guys who put their magic touch on game X may be long gone.
With the volatile nature within this industry people burn out quickly and then move on, while we keep waiting at the watering hole with delusion good old times are coming back.

I think the gaming industry has much to learn, they sure have the art of product pushing down but the art of creation is still very chaotic, great concepts that were around decades ago get lost and forgotten so they keep reinventing the wheel that is now rounder on one side but bumpier on the other.
I used to expect games to accumulate and grow, now I know you can only expect them to change... for better or worse.

 

[BENZOOKA]

I might say I did have quite a bit of expectations that were simply too high for these old games to meet, however, they didn't even keep my attention. I found myself dropping every single one because I could not put up with how boring they simply were.

That's a rare kind of opinion to see here. I'd consider myself as an older gamer, with a strong foundation built with Amiga when I was just a kid. I still prefer newer games, the whole evolution aspect seen in gaming and all-in-all improvement and change.
So many people seem to have problems with these themes. Whether it's because they've build a certain standard for a game and don't like any changes to be made, or because of looking through nostalgia[footnote]Nostalgia is not a positive term: Yearning for the past, most often in idealized form, is something to take with a pinch of salt at the very least[/footnote] glasses.

A new game comes. Players want improvements. Then they complain about changes. That's just how it goes, time and time again.

Being a PC gamer for as long I have played games, has got something to do with that I can't think of any long-running series that would have changed drastically their genres, but I can give an example about multiplayer FPS's:

It used to be:
You collect/buy from a few selected weapons, shoot enemies, maybe you've got one simple objective too, like steal/defend flag or plant a bomb. Scoreboard tells how many kills and deaths you have and if your team is winning or not.
Rewards, hooks: Killing enemies (in an impressive fashion), winning, keeping up with the competition, teamplay, getting better.

And it has evolved to (BF 3 for reference):
You have four different classes for different purposes, each have melee and four slots for different weapons, tools and gadgets. There are dozens of different weapons to choose from, and hundreds of different combinations to customize those weapons to your liking. You can change your appearance from about a dozen different camouflage-setups. There are different kind of jeeps, IFV's, tanks, helicopters, jets to operate. Excluding jeeps, you can customize all the others in three different combinable sections. I could go on and on...
Rewards (In addition to previous): You get camouflages, weapons, tools, gadgets, dog tags, ranks... from just getting points or gaining score/frags with a certain vehicle, weapon or class. You get ribbons for doing certain things, and those pile up to medals (that you can show off amongst other things as your dog tag). You get points doing basically anything in any way helpful for your team (and all those pop up on your screen): repairing, fragging, healing, resupplying, capturing... There is a massive amount of data to your use to go over, from amount of kills with a certain jeep to amount of revives, certain weapon's accuracy and fired bullets, how many times you've shot someone who was shooting at your teammate... Basically anything you can think of.

I think the amount of evolution is quite clear with that, so it's safe to say that multiplayer FPS's have evolved in a major way towards a very RPG'ish direction with ranks, customizing, unlocking and all that. And you're constantly rewarded with achievements and other things.

As for the questions: I answered the first one in the beginning (=standards the player has developed for a game)
The other one: I like games to evolve and change. Nowadays the major games could be tagged with a whole bunch of different genres. They're not anymore just "FPS". There might also be RPG, Strategy, Racing, Simulation, Adventure, CO-OP, and so on.

 

[gigastar]

Biology tells us that the key to evolution is diversity.

Therefore to have a true step forward the First Person Shooter needs to lose its dominion in the mainstream market.

Unfortunately the only genre poised to threaten the FPS market is the RPG, not that its bad but i just wish something else was also able to threaten the FPS market.

Maybe fighting games will see a comeback if Capcoms Cross Assault series goes well.

 

[Rheinmetall]

It depends. Personally I simply couldn't play the old Castlevania games. They were unforgiving and I didn't have fun. I didn't have the skills for that kind of game-play. However after Symphony of the Night the series transformed into something else; a 2D action game with rpg elements, map exploration and save points. It became what we call "Metroid-vania", which I found as most positive development.
Recently Castlevania moved to something totally different, Lords of Shadow, a third person action-adventure game that heavily borrows elements from games like Devil May Cry and God of War. It isn't a bad game on its own, but I didn't exactly welcome that change. I felt pretty much alienated from the series.

 

[kortin]

That's a rare kind of opinion to see here. I'd consider myself as an older gamer, with a strong foundation built with Amiga when I was just a kid. I still prefer newer games, the whole evolution aspect seen in gaming and all-in-all improvement and change.
So many people seem to have problems with these themes. Whether it's because they've build a certain standard for a game and don't like any changes to be made, or because of looking through nostalgia[footnote]Nostalgia is not a positive term: Yearning for the past, most often in idealized form, is something to take with a pinch of salt at the very least[/footnote] glasses.

Indeed, I've found quite a few people (including myself at times) allow these nostalgia glasses to cause judgements of newer (relatively) games that aren't exactly fair. Main example being Star Wars: The Old Republic (I just realized how much I could have talked about that). I'm a huge fan of Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2. They are amazing games. Recently Bioware's jump to mmo with the franchise caused me to get quite angry with the company, constantly bashing their decision to make tOR. Now, I never did this beyond my discussions with my friends, but I was quite angry with Bioware.

I've always considered that creating an mmo for a game series was basically digging it's grave. Yes, it allows for more ways to continue the story, but that is it. An mmo is endless. By creating an mmo for the Kights of the Old Republic, they essentially dug the franchise's grave, where it will be laid once the game has run its course. The same thing will happen to WoW as well.

A new game comes. Players want improvements. Then they complain about changes. That's just how it goes, time and time again.

Being a PC gamer for as long I have played games, has got something to do with that I can't think of any long-running series that would have changed drastically their genres, but I can give an example about multiplayer FPS's:

*snipped for space*

I think the amount of evolution is quite clear with that, so it's safe to say that multiplayer FPS's have evolved in a major way towards a very RPG'ish direction with ranks, customizing, unlocking and all that. And you're constantly rewarded with achievements and other things.

Ah, a much more complex example that I hadn't even considered. Multiplayer certainly has evolved more than I originally thought, regardless of how obvious the changes are. I should definitely pay more attention to how games have evolved, I certainly find this subject to be intriguing.

As for the questions: I answered the first one in the beginning (=standards the player has developed for a game)
The other one: I like games to evolve and change. Nowadays the major games could be tagged with a whole bunch of different genres. They're not anymore just "FPS". There might also be RPG, Strategy, Racing, Simulation, Adventure, CO-OP, and so on.

By genre jumping, do you think a game series can be saved, then?

 

[disappointed]

There's basically two relevant starting points for a game:

1) The developer had a dream and did his best to create it with the technology in hand. In this situation, the game will likely move closer to "how it should be" over time.

2) The developer made the best game he could with the technology to hand. In this case, the game is essentially complete on delivery and can only move further away from "how it should be."

What often happens is that a game franchise becomes popular and gets developed with a view to cashing in on said popularity. In that case, developer vision goes by the wayside in favour of design by focus group. (Dr. Mario, Mario Kart, etc.)

It's not obvious if the general fandom for any given game can differentiate between these various scenarios. I'm sure a lot of fan rage is completely misplaced. It's hard, for example, to argue that Star Wars: Episode I was anything other than "how it should be" but it was not what many fans wanted.

GTA is another good example. It started out as a crazy 2D driving/shooting game with some wacky humour and nods to seventies cinema. Latterly it's gained some Sims style character development and a collection of consistently poor mini-games, alongside some increasingly sophisticated in-engine cinematics, while the action gets toned down by a healthy chunk of realism. Again, it's not always what the fans appreciate but it's the same people making it and it's clearly in line with their original vision so is that "how it should be?"

 

[bojackx]

Well I'd say it's all down to personal preference.

If a game does effectively jump to a different genre, you can still expect it to carry a lot of the other parts of the game with it, and if you liked the game because of those things, and prefer the new genre, then you're probably going to like this game more than the predecessor.

Several series' of games I play have changed over the years, usually by lessening the amount of exploration but improving the combat in the game, which is to be expected with linear FPS's currently dominating. I prefer the more recent games to the older ones, but I can see why some people would miss all the exploration.

So it really does just depend on your personal preference, but I wouldn't say that gaming is "evolving" in the sense you're saying. Sure, graphics and storytelling are probably evolving, but a change of genre is hardly evolving.

 

[BENZOOKA]

Indeed, I've found quite a few people (including myself at times) allow these nostalgia glasses to cause judgements of newer (relatively) games that aren't exactly fair. Main example being Star Wars: The Old Republic (I just realized how much I could have talked about that). I'm a huge fan of Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2. They are amazing games. Recently Bioware's jump to mmo with the franchise caused me to get quite angry with the company, constantly bashing their decision to make tOR. Now, I never did this beyond my discussions with my friends, but I was quite angry with Bioware.

I've always considered that creating an mmo for a game series was basically digging it's grave. Yes, it allows for more ways to continue the story, but that is it. An mmo is endless. By creating an mmo for the Kights of the Old Republic, they essentially dug the franchise's grave, where it will be laid once the game has run its course. The same thing will happen to WoW as well.

MMO does indeed kill a series/franchise. I dislike that genre quite much and find no enjoyment from it. I think an immensely popular and worked on product like WoW will last for a long time, but least an MMO for a series destroys any other games being made for the series. I hadn't thought about this before, but something like LOTR would offer great opportunities to make huge games, especially RPG's. Skyrim but in Middle-Earth would be incredible. LOTR Online then again destroys any ideas for that, because it at least creates an illusion of gaining players being a lot more difficult when there already is a massive game for the franchise.

By genre jumping, do you think a game series can be saved, then?

Like I (think I) said before, games nowadays can't be put under only one classic genre. So many games are like huge hybrids, implementing different things from everywhere the gaming sphere. Genre jumping, as a game series changing completely from a genre to another, doesn't really exist in PC gaming, but changing the game system and focusing to a bit more different things is something that clearly makes a series flourish, when done well, because there isn't much point doing the same game over and over again.

The changing and evolving standards are one major factor that changes games. Save games didn't exist always. There was a point when 3D was a new thing. Recent such things would be achievements, co-op possibilities, rankings network, multiple storylines, and so on. It doesn't seem to be so long ago when achievements arrived and were kind of looked down upon, wondered, as well as enjoyed to different extents. Now they're in every game basically. Now people expect there to be achievements, co-op, multiplayer, different storylines, customizing options, physics engine, a special edition of the game... to game types that usually have them. Those kind of, now obvious, additions kind of creep in and evolve the gaming to roughly the same direction.