True, that is one thing I cannot believe is being ignored.
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Have we reached the pinnacle of gaming design?
- Thread starter CurseoftheGods
- Start date
True, that is one thing I cannot believe is being ignored.
no, very far from it. I guess most publishers and often devs are just spending way more resources into marketing and graphics in this day and age, and considering the audiences' desires, it really can't be helped unless they are looking to kill their business immediately.
there are of course exceptions, but they are definitely not the norm of things.
there are of course exceptions, but they are definitely not the norm of things.
wanderingprostheyltite
Member
I think it will be different due to input being used. Sony already has Move for its input solution for VR, and designing things around that can open up a lot of possibilities for interaction that provide better immersion than regular motion controlled experiences allow. Eager to see how Valve has designed their controller with VR in mind.
I find it interesting that many companies tried to avoid motion controls back in the day. I saw Move to being a really cool thing that could innovate in ways, expanding on what Wii did. But I see most opting for the controller.
However, as ridiculous as those two examples are, if that were possible - in keeping of the Shenmue-esque type of interaction - it would be a first.
As a developer, I'm going to say yes, but with a caveat...
We survive catering to the tastes of 5-40 year olds, male almost by default. That inherently limits the type of product most developers can make if they want to stay in business, unless they have money to burn to develop an art project that will most likely make no money. Even then, you're still catering to the instant gratification of a zero-tolerance gamer who might turn your game off at any given moment.
I feel as if I've been consistently catering to the lowest common denominator for more than half of my career and let me be the first to say that does have an impact on your design sensibilities. You don't take as many risks as you'd like because you know (through experience) that most gamers will get frustrated and stop playing, even if you're trying to convey a complex idea that might blossom into something more meaningful.
That being said, I still enjoy making games and trying to reach for new ideas that haven't been done before.
We survive catering to the tastes of 5-40 year olds, male almost by default. That inherently limits the type of product most developers can make if they want to stay in business, unless they have money to burn to develop an art project that will most likely make no money. Even then, you're still catering to the instant gratification of a zero-tolerance gamer who might turn your game off at any given moment.
I feel as if I've been consistently catering to the lowest common denominator for more than half of my career and let me be the first to say that does have an impact on your design sensibilities. You don't take as many risks as you'd like because you know (through experience) that most gamers will get frustrated and stop playing, even if you're trying to convey a complex idea that might blossom into something more meaningful.
That being said, I still enjoy making games and trying to reach for new ideas that haven't been done before.
shadowsdarknes
Member
What do you think gaming will be like 50 years from now?
wanderingprostheyltite
Member
^ Yeah that's disheartening to read. This is why I wish we had a modern day Richard Garriott with stacks of cash that could fund whatever the hell they wanted to outside of the traditional publisher/dev system. Granted, Garriott was developing games that were arguably significantly cheaper to make than modern ones, but the point stands he took risks with the level of interaction he allowed and how that affected all the underlying systems in the games. His type are obviously rare in this industry which is unfortunate.
Bacon_Boss
Member
I don't think so. I always feel like consoles put a ceiling on game design because most companies wanted to enter as many homes as possible. With the sizable bump in power of this current gen, companies will get to do more without being totally hamstrung by ancient(relatively) hardware. Occulus will help too.
No way. Problem is though that a lot of innovating games are very risky to make and sell since people attach themselves to familiar concepts (I am guilty of this as well) and because it's entirely probable that your "innovation" sucks, so you won't see too much fast progression in the game industry.
Trying to cater to spefic audiences is also a dead end. The Atari age put up with so much catering to the core audience that it dig dug itself into a land fill. Everyone looks at Super Mario Bros as a game that saved the industry. Not every game needs to be innovative, but there is a point where we need to change the game before the other team catches onto your plays.
I agree with this- revolutionary games being made depends on developer creativity, financial situation allowing for risk-taking, etc. It's pretty rare (and getting rarer given diminishing returns) that some amazing new game REQUIRES the level of hardware that it was released on.
This post is the nuttiest thing I've read on GAF in a while, haha.
King Tubby
Member
Peter Molyneux' pitches are getting more and more bizarre.
JimmyRustler
Member
Yes, more or less. There will still be games with new features released and everything but I do not see anyone releasing anything that groundbreakingly different than anything before it like Mario 64 being released ever again.
akachan ningen
Member
Reading this thread title made me say HA out loud. People are looking at me.
BigTnaples
Todd Howard's Secret GAF Account
No. Not even close.
As technology improves, new ideas will come, or old ideas that were previously not doable will become realized. There''s pleanty of room for innovation in gaming.
Some have mentioned it but VR can (will...) completely change how games are done. Design will get a full on reboot I feel.
That said - the best place right now to get refreshing game design aspects is indie. Things that we know work are done to death by AAA. Indie games can introduce some new concepts and elements that can be so refreshing. Regrettably they can be one trick ponies and quickly be tiresome, but not always.
That said - the best place right now to get refreshing game design aspects is indie. Things that we know work are done to death by AAA. Indie games can introduce some new concepts and elements that can be so refreshing. Regrettably they can be one trick ponies and quickly be tiresome, but not always.
Night_Trekker
Member
No. There is no such possible thing.
We may be reaching the point of diminishing returns on the importance of graphical quality, though. Your average GAF poster might not agree, but I'm not sure about everyone else.
This is a good post and you should feel good about it. Even when people trash you for it.
We may be reaching the point of diminishing returns on the importance of graphical quality, though. Your average GAF poster might not agree, but I'm not sure about everyone else.
This is a good post and you should feel good about it. Even when people trash you for it.
If large sized bosses and multi-stage fights in boss battles are what makes a game amazing and revolutionary, then XV is more than a decade late to the party.
And honestly nothing we've been shown looks revolutionary or new and inventive. It's got pretty graphics though, but the gameplay appears shallow.
Huh? That game didn't even reach the foot of the mountain...
Aside from which generation a pinnacle was hit, I do agree that gaming is less of a niche. This makes me think of an excerpt of an article featuring Shuei Yoshida (it's from another thread - in keeping with this discussion)
Omnii-chan
Member
Absolutely not, it's just companies not wanting to take risks on formulas which already rake in money.
No Man's Sky is a great example of gaming potential to evolve and that is why it has been one of the most focussed on indie games by media in the last 8 months or so. Here's hoping it delivers.
No Man's Sky is a great example of gaming potential to evolve and that is why it has been one of the most focussed on indie games by media in the last 8 months or so. Here's hoping it delivers.
CrustyBritches
Gold Member
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I often dream about what the next echelon of games looks and plays like. It's fragmented at this point, but getting there.
OrlanisWorks
Banned
Developing more humanistic AI and utilizing it would be the next great step in my mind.
We will have many many more milestones in the future.
We will have many many more milestones in the future.
Yes, because it's a silly idea. Chess is more or less a perfect game and has been for hundreds of years with relatively little change. Mechanics do not age the way you appear to believe.
And?
Suggesting that newer is inherently better is simply wrong-headed, full-stop.
It's like when people were all "color is inherently better than monochrome!" No, that's a stylistic choice. In The Wizard of Oz, a monochromatic color scheme worked together with color to tell a very specific story. The great "Good Night & Good Luck" was great precisely because of its invocation of black and white, which helped sell a period piece about film in a different way.
Likewise, in games, people have argued for the death of certain great mechanics, like, say, health kits, purely because regenerating health is newer. Regenerating health has a very specific purpose (it's great in games built around the idea of quick, cover-based firefights and score-attack stuff like Bulletstorm).
Health kits have a specific purpose too: Wolfenstein: The New Order has this wonderful moment in Chapter 8 that only works because there's no regenerating health. The player sees a health kit mere feet away, but can't reach it as they are dying--if player health regenerated, that moment would have felt invalid, but because players need healthkits to heal, it becomes a tantalizing object just out of reach.
Additionally, health kit systems work to encourage exploration, map control, strafing, and other various elements that regenerating health systems simply do not allow.
Arguing that newer is inherently better is, quite simply, the single worst position you could take.
"New" isn't important. "Good" is. If you wish to support bad games simply because of your chronological snobbiness, fine, you're more than welcome to be wrong, but don't get your wrong all up in my business, okay?
I don't believe that suggesting that we have explored every major form human interaction (dialog, controlling vehicles, various forms of armed combat, management, cooking, etc) could possibly be considered snobbish, much less objectionable in any possible sense.
Is there something so monstrous about suggesting that we've covered most human behaviors that I must be stopped at all costs? Or are you just making petty complaints because you feel butthurt I thought you might be making a fallacious claim?
By all means, point them out if you are capable of doing so. I suspect, however, that you are not.
I like how you attempt to denigrate my perspective by suggesting it's an opinion. For what it's worth, anything anyone says is their opinion. Acting as if someone's opinion somehow makes it less valid is patently absurd.
You saying something stupid and me calling you out on it doesn't give you a justification for trying (and failing miserably, I might add) to insult me.
If you're so worried about looking bad, don't worry, I'm not trying to help shape that impression. You're doing a great job of that yourself.
Schwarzbier
Member
NHL15 shows us just how far gaming still has to come.
Could have something to do with EA though.
Could have something to do with EA though.
Yea, if OP thinks current games are the pinnacle of what can be done in gaming, thank fucking god for VR coming... lol
TheDarkBites
Banned
For the last number of years, we haven't seen *too* much in the ways of innovation. I really don't think we'll get many AAA publishers pumping money into neat ideas because, frankly, they play things safely nowadays.
New ideas are going to come from indies, and bigger budget new ideas will come from people with the brass to put some money behind a neat idea, who also happen to be higher up at publishing studios. Crowdfunding is nice and all, but it's going to stop with how often people get burned when they shell out the money.
At this point, revolutionary ideas are things big publishers don't seem interested in.
It depends on what you see as game design. In terms of genres or play styles, we kind of reached that at the beginning of the snes era. Since then we've just seen different combinations. A number of games felt new due to new rendering tech, and in that sense VR will probably be the next setting where we get a 'defining classic'. But in terms of game design, I think the revival period we're going through with the Indies shows that we reached the proverbial peak.
It depends on input and feedback. unless you can bring something new to that, the answer is yes; we have reached an overall design plateau where variations in existing limitations is all there is left. But that's just normal progression.
VR is a peripheral extension, so I don't considered it 'new' design. There have been and will be other options like tactile-feedback, that feedback vest simulating temperature and hit detection, home-printed smells was used to market perfumes, voice control, non-linear AI/NPC interactions, procedural generation, etc.
But I hope that isn't looked at as a limitation. It's just the nature of gaming. You can look at examples in art, building, etc. as having the same concept of finite parameters then it all depends on the use of those parameters. With gaming, the input and feedback are the parameters.
VR is a peripheral extension, so I don't considered it 'new' design. There have been and will be other options like tactile-feedback, that feedback vest simulating temperature and hit detection, home-printed smells was used to market perfumes, voice control, non-linear AI/NPC interactions, procedural generation, etc.
But I hope that isn't looked at as a limitation. It's just the nature of gaming. You can look at examples in art, building, etc. as having the same concept of finite parameters then it all depends on the use of those parameters. With gaming, the input and feedback are the parameters.
Stereogatari
Banned
The level design, puzzles and platforming of 90s Tomb Raider with modern graphics would be revolutionary in my eyes.
We've reached a pinnacle of shit by forgetting our roots.
We've reached a pinnacle of shit by forgetting our roots.
I think it's just begun. We're limited by our current technology, but there's so much more that can be done when we have better and more intelligent systems for simulation on all levels.
Now, it's a semantic issue as well. If you have a relatively strict definition of "gaming" that would separate it from other potential VR experiences, then maybe that definition needs to be explicitly stated so generational comparisons can begin. Or maybe it needs to be limited to a more narrow and easily distinguished set of genres and styles within gaming?
I see true VR, however long it will take, as the next "revolution" in gaming (taken broadly).
Now, it's a semantic issue as well. If you have a relatively strict definition of "gaming" that would separate it from other potential VR experiences, then maybe that definition needs to be explicitly stated so generational comparisons can begin. Or maybe it needs to be limited to a more narrow and easily distinguished set of genres and styles within gaming?
I see true VR, however long it will take, as the next "revolution" in gaming (taken broadly).
Just because you can't think of anything, doesn't mean that, amongst all the developers working out there, one of them won't dream up the next big thing. What's knocking around in your head after five minutes thought won't match the limit of a whole industry full of very smart people's creative potential. That's like me saying 'I can't think what the next big consumer product is, that's it, there will be nothing new ever!'.
While all of those games you list were in development, others were still reiterating the same old stuff elsewhere.
Armored Core: Verdict Day's Unacs have the best AI I've ever seen. You can customize(with really deep customization) an AI to fight for you in pvp battles, I've made some that can take on more than one human player and win by itself, and I've been beaten by a few. Personally I feel like AI's are either held back by being too numerous or held back by the developer not wanting the game to be too hard.
Pinko Marx
Banned
This is as silly as asking if we've seen the pinnacle of the novel, or the movie, or the painting, or the song, or any creative medium ever.
KojiKnight
Member
dingdingding.... In a world where games are getting easier (as a whole), better AI would make it harder and thus less 'rewarding' for their AAA masterpieces.
Fallout-NL
Member
Indeed.
It's why I'm so happy I decided to get into Dark Souls. Breath of fresh air that.
(so my answer to the OP is: no, of course not. Question is whether budgets will ever be allocated to doing that, since making money is still more of a priority than achieving some creative pinnacle. I have high hopes for VR providing some sort of breakthrough or at least an incentive to push further.)
Well, both film and videogames are constrained by technical limitations more than other media. Which is why (at least up until a certain point) you could trace a pretty definite path of progression. Admittedly, by the money involved and catering to the lowest denominator both have plateaued somewhat, or it seems that way at least. But I think it was true for a while there.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Not even close.
Think harder!
Fortunately, there are millions of other people thinking too!
Think harder!
Fortunately, there are millions of other people thinking too!
Nope, not even close as game design can change depending on platform or input device so there is a lot to come in the future.
Now the comparison to the big blockbuster games then yes they will hit somewhat of a peak now and have less to offer. But this has always been the case apart from a few stand out games which will crop up again. I don't think they will be as mainstream though due to probably smaller marketing campaigns,tougher competition and general appeal. That said No Mans Sky, The Witness and such have a big following and interest but the devs also have all the time in the world to work on the games and aren't limited to a market/release window and even those games won't hit gamers expectations.
I don't think any developer or designer is lazy in the industry, everyone I've known wants to always push the boundaries or try something new it is how they have fun with their job. But the risk is usually too great when a few $10s millions are riding on a product and with studios getting ever larger and more expensive to run the risks become even greater. The games themselves have also become more complex as the scale and level of graphics grow which often means more resources need to be invested into certain game design.
Add to that focus testing, mass appeal of game titles, larger scope and more to test often means design gets stunted.
Now the comparison to the big blockbuster games then yes they will hit somewhat of a peak now and have less to offer. But this has always been the case apart from a few stand out games which will crop up again. I don't think they will be as mainstream though due to probably smaller marketing campaigns,tougher competition and general appeal. That said No Mans Sky, The Witness and such have a big following and interest but the devs also have all the time in the world to work on the games and aren't limited to a market/release window and even those games won't hit gamers expectations.
I don't think any developer or designer is lazy in the industry, everyone I've known wants to always push the boundaries or try something new it is how they have fun with their job. But the risk is usually too great when a few $10s millions are riding on a product and with studios getting ever larger and more expensive to run the risks become even greater. The games themselves have also become more complex as the scale and level of graphics grow which often means more resources need to be invested into certain game design.
Add to that focus testing, mass appeal of game titles, larger scope and more to test often means design gets stunted.
Nihil novi. A term applied to books movies, paintings and song quite often.
I don't think that's completely true, you still have stuff that's truly new like Minecraft coming in every once in awhile. I also believe that a lot of mechanics were born when 3d became mainstream.
True, if you think about it, we've had Unreal Tournament bots that have been able to kick peoples asses for quite awhile now.
