7/29/2019 When Did Big Developers Stop Caring? - PSM3
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AA game developers,seemingly, have stoppedcaring. About
originality,about plagiarism, abouttheir place in history.Of
course, we cant look
into their minds to see if this is true,but we can read the
symptoms ofthis development style, as every yearthe worlds biggest
games play it saferand safer.
AAA roughly means a big-budgetgame, costing $30 million or
more,expected to sell multiple millions of copies and its these
games which play safest.Look back at the key games thatestablished
the moderngenres Wolfenstein 3D,Dune
II, Ultima Underworld,DoubleDragon, GTAIII. Then look atthe
games that put esh onthose bones, xed the moderngenres Medal of
Honor,Command & Conquer, The Elder Scrolls
III: Morrowind,Deus Ex, Street FighterII. Its been years since
anythingsignicant has been added to thesegenres. Their successors
Black Ops,Skyrim,BioShock, GTAIV are recognisablythe same
games.
Shooters demonstrate the mostegregious example of genre
stagnation.The rst-person shooter is today what theplatformer was
when I started playingcomputer games an accessible formatwhere the
tropes are so rmly codiedthat you can start playing it, knowing
which buttons to press and what theobjectives are, without a
moments
thought. For a developer to succeed inthis genre, they need to
make a game inwhich no man is left behind. Youll needa familiar UI,
familiar controls, familiarenemy movement, a range of
familiarweapons, a vehicle section, two- or
four-player co-op, online competitivemultiplayer, and youll
probably build thelot in the Unreal Engine 3, which itselfbrings
specic gameplay limitations.
But its not only the menu thatsstagnant its the details too, and
theyrethe easiest things to vary. AAA games usethe same composers,
the same voiceactors and the same tired old plots andsettings.
Skyrims Jeremy Soule has scored
over 70 titles, reliable old Nolan Northnow has over 100 games
listed on hisIMDB page, and how many times haveyou machine-gunned
your way throughmodern or post-modern warzones? Howmany times have
you survived in apost-apocalyptic scarescape? How manyzombies have
you killed?
And when developers really careenough to ght for innovation, it
oftenmakes no difference. The AAA gamesthat dont t, are forced to.
Spec Ops: The
Line walks on ground no other shooterhas dared to tread, but as
lead designer
Cory Davis explained to The Verge, eventhey were forced to
accept a superuous
multiplayer mode by publishers 2K.2K was relentless in making
sure that ithappened, he explained, even at thedetriment of the
overall project andperception of the game no one isplaying it its
another (different)
game rammed onto the disk like acancerous growth.
But maybe we shouldnt blame thedevelopers. Its rare youll meet a
gamedeveloper who doesnt want more fromhis or her own titles, but
games are sobig, and so risky, that the ultimateresponsibility for
getting them made isdown to marketing and publishing. If
themarketing department is going to
spend as much as $100million on advertising andPR, they want
somethingthey can sell easily something familiar andsimple,
something you canrecognise. How about a
scowling white man with a weapon? Howabout a Team Deathmatch
mode?
Maybe we shouldnt expect AAA toexperiment. Where indie
developers canlaser-target niches, AAA games needeveryone with a
console to buy the gamebefore they can prot. Perhaps, then,
theblame lies with us the players whonever reward risks. If you
want a change,its time to take another look at Yakuza, at
Bayonetta, at Spec Ops, atBulletstorm and atall those other
games that tried somethinga little different, even within the
tightconstraints publishers impose, and for us
to reward invention and innovationwherever we see it. n
How about a scowling whiteman with a weapon? How
about Team Deathmatch?
WhEN did bigdEvElopErs
stop cariNg?Dan Griliopoulos lusts for the newand is endlessly
disappointed
A
HEADSH T
UPM158.head.indd 68 9/4/12 4:53 PM
