Author Topic: Innovation: Gaming's Snake Oil  (Read 12187 times)

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Lambonius

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Innovation: Gaming's Snake Oil
« on: March 18, 2013, 10:44:44 PM »
I stole the thread title from this Jimquisition episode because I couldn't think of a better one that would do justice to the concept.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/7005-Innovation-Gamings-Snake-Oil

Everyone should watch this video, because this guy fucking nails it when it comes to what I view as a big problem in gaming today.  And though he doesn't mention it specifically, I firmly believe that this was the main thing that killed adventure games (and certainly Sierra) the first time around.  Thank you, Roberta and Ken Williams--enjoy those moneybags.

So what do you guys think?  Can we apply Jim's logic to adventure games?  I certainly see the "innovation for innovation's sake, at the expense of quality" argument applying very directly to disasters like King's Quest 7, King's Quest 8, and pretty much everything Telltale has ever produced.
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Klytos

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Re: Innovation: Gaming's Snake Oil
« Reply #1 on: March 18, 2013, 11:21:16 PM »
Was KQ7 a disaster? I thought the Disneyesque look was a good move, and very appropriate for the Kings Quest series. But I think we've gone over this before. Many many times!

And I disagree useless innovation was the reason Sierra died. I think the broadening of computers from a specialist devise to a white good was the main reason. Adventure games are for thinkers, and a particular part of the computing landscape.

I think innovation is a good thing if it's for a reason. Innovation for the sake of it isn't innovation at all, it's change for change sake. I think the move to the mouse icon based interface was a good innovation, it made use of new technologies and really brought Sierra'a games to a larger audience. Take 3D though, the move to 3D graphics in adventure games was a flop, because there was no real reason for doing it and it took away from the story.
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Lambonius

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Re: Innovation: Gaming's Snake Oil
« Reply #2 on: March 18, 2013, 11:31:30 PM »
Well, we can debate the aesthetics of KQ7 elsewhere (and have!)--I was thinking more in terms of moving from a non-intrusive hidden GUI, to a GUI that takes up a third of the screen, the removal of interactivity in favor of a "simplified interface," the removal of the ability to make multiple save states (added in a later release), the chapter system (again, an arguable one.)  I think several of those would qualify as innovation for innovation's sake without any real useful purpose.  :)

I would argue that the idea of innovation without purpose is at least part of what contributed to many of Sierra's greatest flops, if not the death of the company--insomuch as the poorly designed flops helped spur the somewhat short-sighted business decisions that led to its eventual collapse.  But you're right--the changing computer landscape was a HUGE factor.  Not discounting that at all.

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Lambonius

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Re: Innovation: Gaming's Snake Oil
« Reply #3 on: March 18, 2013, 11:37:03 PM »
I really liked the points made in the video about the idea that a lack of innovation is often seen as a negative factor that damages a game's critical reputation, and that that is a real shame.  I very much agree with that.  There's something to be said for the old "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" axiom, as well as the idea that it's better to do what you're already doing REALLY WELL, than to try to innovate and have the final product be mediocre.
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Myrddin Starfari

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Re: Innovation: Gaming's Snake Oil
« Reply #4 on: March 19, 2013, 02:18:19 AM »
he lost me at the 'my opinion is the only one that matters.' line.
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Blackthorne

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Re: Innovation: Gaming's Snake Oil
« Reply #5 on: March 19, 2013, 06:41:24 AM »
Ahem.   Re: Sierra vs. Innovation - to wit - I submit Phantasmagoria and Gabriel Knight II and III.



Bt
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Re: Innovation: Gaming's Snake Oil
« Reply #6 on: March 19, 2013, 06:56:49 AM »
Ahem.   Re: Sierra vs. Innovation - to wit - I submit Phantasmagoria and Gabriel Knight II and III.

I submit KQ1, KQ5 and QFG1 EGA in support of innovation.
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Blackthorne

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Re: Innovation: Gaming's Snake Oil
« Reply #7 on: March 19, 2013, 08:07:02 AM »
Ahem.   Re: Sierra vs. Innovation - to wit - I submit Phantasmagoria and Gabriel Knight II and III.

I submit KQ1, KQ5 and QFG1 EGA in support of innovation.

Exactly - but not innovation JUST for innovations sake - that is the point of the video, if you had watched it.  Those games used innovation to enhance the storytelling and actual gameplay.  The FMV distasters like Phantasmagoria were just them playing around with FMV because they could, and the technology really did a disservice to the gameplay and story telling.  GK2 and Phantasmagoria would have been much better if made like a "traditional" Sierra Game - hand painted backgrounds and animations.


Bt
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Lambonius

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Re: Innovation: Gaming's Snake Oil
« Reply #8 on: March 19, 2013, 08:34:33 AM »
he lost me at the 'my opinion is the only one that matters.' line.

It's called humor.  ;)  That's the general tone of the series, and what makes it brilliant.
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Blackthorne

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Re: Innovation: Gaming's Snake Oil
« Reply #9 on: March 19, 2013, 08:35:52 AM »
he lost me at the 'my opinion is the only one that matters.' line.

It's called humor.  ;)  That's the general tone of the series, and what makes it brilliant.

Yeah, he's being satirical with that line - he knows it's a blowhard line.  He's making a joke at the expense of people who DO think like that.


Bt
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Lambonius

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Re: Innovation: Gaming's Snake Oil
« Reply #10 on: March 19, 2013, 08:45:07 AM »
Ahem.   Re: Sierra vs. Innovation - to wit - I submit Phantasmagoria and Gabriel Knight II and III.

I submit KQ1, KQ5 and QFG1 EGA in support of innovation.

Exactly - but not innovation JUST for innovations sake - that is the point of the video, if you had watched it.  Those games used innovation to enhance the storytelling and actual gameplay.  The FMV distasters like Phantasmagoria were just them playing around with FMV because they could, and the technology really did a disservice to the gameplay and story telling.  GK2 and Phantasmagoria would have been much better if made like a "traditional" Sierra Game - hand painted backgrounds and animations.


Bt

Yeah, exactly.  There's a blatant, functional reason why KQ1 was different than the adventure games that came before, because looking at static images or text sucks, and doesn't do nearly as much to immerse the player in the  world and story as being able to actually move around and interact with things visually does.

With KQ5, again, there's a really GOOD reason to go from 16 colors to 256 color hand-painted VGA backgrounds.  It improves the player's connection with the story immensely.  The point and click interface, while arguably limiting, all but eliminates the problems, from both a gameplay and development standpoint, of the parser interface, while still allowing for a broad amount of interactivity and depth in the way the player interacts with the world.

Hero's Quest was just lightning in a bottle--enough said.  ;)  But seriously, you had a very specific set of development goals--the character progression and action of an RPG, and the storytelling and puzzle solving of an adventure game, and they pulled it off marvelously.  It was innovative, but it was purposeful, and done with restraint.  And I think even more importantly, people probably went back and asked themselves, "is this game GOOD?  Does the addition of RPG elements make the game MORE FUN TO PLAY?"  And the answer was, obviously, yes.

Can we honestly say the same for the innovations in the games Steve mentioned?  Or in KQ7 & 8?  I really don't think we can.
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Myrddin Starfari

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Re: Innovation: Gaming's Snake Oil
« Reply #11 on: March 19, 2013, 06:55:21 PM »
I'll have to look again now, if I can stand the sarcastic wit  ::) to see if there was any mention of changes in the market.  I know what I like changes, not entirely but its there.
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Goatmeal

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Re: Innovation: Gaming's Snake Oil
« Reply #12 on: March 19, 2013, 08:06:39 PM »
he lost me at the 'my opinion is the only one that matters.' line.

When you stand before the Jimquisition, you would do well to heed his wisdom...

"I didn't expect a kind of English Jimquisition..."
     "NOooo-BODY expects the English Jimquisition!"   >:(

Myrddin Starfari

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Re: Innovation: Gaming's Snake Oil
« Reply #13 on: March 19, 2013, 08:17:06 PM »
I automatically ignore people who state things like that on principle. I couldn't tell it was sarcasam or satire cause of the overload of the same.  Personally I think there was probably too much satire/sarcasm in there for any of it to be taken seriously.
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MusicallyInspired

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Re: Innovation: Gaming's Snake Oil
« Reply #14 on: March 19, 2013, 09:46:02 PM »
I've come to realize myself that the way things have seemed to go most of the time is that one man's innovation is another man's degradation. Some view the move to P&C with the mouse as innovative, while I know for a fact that there are others (though, less) that consider it devolution because it's not as versatile. My dad is one of them. Yet, I know that he would not have the time or patience nowadays to play a parser adventure game anymore.

But I definitely see the sacrifice for a wider market view here. Innovation has always sacrificed something, even if it was only sacrificing simply the way things have always been done before. That in itself can most of the time be enough for people to call it sacrifice. Even the move from straight text adventures sacrificed something; the art of a writer's ability to describe a scene and paint scenes in your imagination. We've replaced it with someone else's personal exact perception of that description (a description of which, we usually will not ever see, except maybe in a small narrator box, and nowadays we rarely have even that). It was definitely innovative to be able to see somebody's actual vision of a scene and requires us to think less (or imagine less, to the glass-half-empties out there), but we did sacrifice one artform for another. I guess the main issue is, is that new artform worth sacrificing the older one in every case?

Sierra sacrificed the beauty of the imagination's power to replace blocky 320x200 pixels with a full real-life resolution piece of imagery. Our mind's fill in the blanks when there isn't enough actual detail. Anyway, they sacrificed it for the innovation of having higher resolution graphics with more detail. Even less of our imagination doing the work. The decision to move to Disney-style cel-shaded animation changed the whole atmosphere. The fact that the animation wasn't done well adds as an unnecessary detriment to the "degradation factor" as I'll call it. If the animation was done better it could very well have been a better game....oh yeah, and if they had time to actually finish the game properly.

Speaking of which. did the earlier KQ games have the problem of shipping before running out of time? I tend to think not near as much, if any. Each game felt complete and perfect (if a little feature-deprived....and by that I mean unintentional dead ends were left in the game) and didn't give any sense that whole sections, sequences, or story blocks were completely cut from the game altogether. And that would probably be due to all the extra "innovation" they added to that wasn't there before. Then again, I don't think KQ5 suffered from this when innovating up from KQ4. Maybe there's a critical mass where it all starts to break down eventually? Is that what we're living in/settling with now I wonder. Or maybe it's like you say where they stopped innovating to further the vision and just started innovating for the sake of it. Personally, I think that if you've lost the drive, passion, and vision to do something REALLY well where you KNOW that it's good and don't have to hope that it's good, then you should stop doing it.

Just some random wonderings...good topic, this.