   GBA: 91% free of Creativity
  I''m depressed. Obviously big gaming companies and publishers are doing such a great job of turning out creative fun games that we in the indie crowd no longer need to.Yay licensing.   Resist everyoneTalk on RavForum(tm)
  It''s true for all games these days, which is a shame. Most games are derivative clones in the usual genres: FPS, RTS, RPG, etc. We need to come up with truly original games, like Warcraft when it was first released. ;  Ravuya:That's business for ya. As horrible as it sounds, the reality is (roughly) this:- Platform manufacturers (Nintendo et al) make their money from licensing off software - most make a loss on the actual hardware.- Platform manufacturers rely on games publishers to sell lots of units so that they earn enough in licensing royalties.- Publishers want to release product that sells lots of units, given the choice between two products they'll always pick the one likely to sell more. After all, they're a business with shareholders to keep happy. (Shareholders are happy when the company makes a *profit*...)- A business makes more profit if it takes less *risk* and spends less to develop its product.- The majorityof the people buying games don't visit GameDev, they don't visit online review sites, they don't even buy paper review magazines. They buy (according to plenty of research, that the publishers are also reading and basing their decisions on) names that they know. i.e. LICENSES and SEQUELS.- If the research says that consumers buy more licenses and sequels, then that equates to less risk for the publisher, and potentially higher profit.- The majority of developers require publishers to pay for the development of the game they're making (usually "advance on royalty"). - Publishers only fund titles they consider to not be "risky".- Which means either the developer has to fund the game almost all the way through to completion themselves (which is why only the larger companies appear to come out with "original" product).Trust me, most people working in games WANT to work on the creative, fun games and have plenty of original ideas. Getting the funding to make tose however is next to impossible for the majority of companies!. It doesn't help that many publishers are already abandoning GBA because they didn't make the returns they were expecting ($$$ again).It happens elsewhere though: Terminator3, Freddy vs Jason, blah-de-blah...EDIT:Just to add - if you want to change the way things are, get vocal and contact PUBLISHERS (many have feedback cards in their games). Until alternative fundind models become more commonplace, developers are fairly powerless to change very much unless they're indies with other day jobs to pay their bills!   [edited by - s1ca on August 18, 2003 7:26:32 PM];quote:Original post by Tron3k  It''s true for all games these days, which is a shame. Most games are derivative clones in the usual genres: FPS, RTS, RPG, etc. We need to come up with truly original games, like Warcraft when it was first released.   Warcraft was not original at all, it was a Dune 2 clone.   Height Map Editor | Eternal Lands | Fast User Directory;  It''s simple business.A company turning out lots of cheap to make licence games and sequels can make a profit because if one fails it''s not as big a loss and there are other to pick up the slack. A company focusing on quality and creativity will only end up making one or two games, and unless those games are *big* sellers (read: Myst or Command & Conquer type of sellers) the company is likely to go into red from piracy just before or after their second game. ;  oh nevermind. I''d just get flamed for stating the obvious. ;  I disapprove of his standard for "original" games. Metroid Prime would be unoriginal by his standard, for example (franchise, sequel). In the other direction, a generic no-name platformer would be original. I disagree with both cases Being part of a franchise doesn''t necessarily mean no innovation. Granted, Lara Croft has been chewing the same damn bubblegum for 4+ games now, but Mario''s big games often change dramatically from one sequel to the next. The Zelda games have gone through at least 3 or 4 engine overhauls, and incorporated a lot of neat new gameplay each time. Panzer Dragoon too. I''m sure there are more examples.I''d say licensed games, sequels, and franchises are capable of being original. And that covers a huge amount of his percentages. Granted, just because they CAN be original doesn''t mean they ARE, but I don''t think it''s as cut and dried as he thinks.   Chris Barry (crbarry at mts.net)My Personal Programming Depot;quote:Original post by 23yrold3yrold  Being part of a franchise doesn''t necessarily mean no innovation. Granted, Lara Croft has been chewing the same damn bubblegum for 4+ games now, but Mario''s big games often change dramatically from one sequel to the next. The Zelda games have gone through at least 3 or 4 engine overhauls,   and incorporated a lot of neat new gameplay each time. Panzer Dragoon too. I''m sure there are more examples.That is because, when Miyamoto sets out to make his next game, he does not deam it "another Zelda Game," or "another Mario game," instead he starts off making the game fun--most of the time without using a franchise until the game IS fun. From what I have heard, he will start game with maybe no more graphics than a couple boxes moving around. If it is not fun at that stage of the game, it will never be fun, no matter how much graphical effects are added. ;quote:Original post by Mithrandir  oh nevermind. I''d just get flamed for stating the obvious.   I''ll say it for you. CONSOLES SUCK! PC''s ROCK!!! WWWOOOOOO!!!!11;  I don''t really see what is so horrible about unoriginality.  I admit, it does suck in some cases (Mario Party, could they run this franchise into the ground any more?) but I generally like big franchise games.  Well...only really Mario and Zelda, and I''ve just gotten into the Pokemon series too.  I actually like to see a lot of games in a series, but that might just be me.  I like to follow a series through, especially if the story continues with the series (like it does with Zelda) 