AAA Games Have Stopped Innovating

[FPLOON]

AAA games have stopped innovating because it seems that Nintendo is not on Team AAA like back in the day... and that's not including indies being defined by the amount of As it doesn't have in comparison to the games that have all the As because money is the only true divide between the As, anyway... Besides, when they do, it's either overlooked and/or are associated with how "bad" the game was to even try to do said "innovation" again, but better from more than just from a business perspective...

Anyway, I feel like the As should only be used for quality reasons, like gameplay and in-game mechanics, instead of quantity reasons, like budgets and graphics... Once that distinction becomes the norm, then the idea of AAA gaming not innovating, let alone stopped innovating, would be a myth more busted than those myths on Mythbusters...

 

[Llarys]

But has the Video Game industry (after the crash) ever truly innovated, in terms of their consoles, outside of Nintendo's awkward Wiggle and Waggle years?

Everything, from the NES to the SNES. From the N64 to the Gamecube. From the Xbox to the 360. From the PS1 to the 2 to the 3 to the 4. It's always been the same thing: pump more power into the console using the latest technology, wow people with how much greater everything looks, ?????, profit. The jump from NES to SNES? Wowwie zowwie. The jump from N64 to Gamecube? Pretty cool. PS1 to PS2? Amazing. But with each generation, it costs more and gives a weaker return. And we've finally hit what looks like the "dried up well" point. They can pump as much money as they can into boosting the consoles' specs, but you'll never get blood from a stone.

And the industry has no fucking idea what to do, because it's been what they've done for neigh on 30 years.


That said, this might actually be a good thing for the games industry. Once everyone realizes that consoles, themselves, cannot improve without exorbitant costs (or allowing the tech to advance for a couple decades and allowing the prices to become reasonable), we might finally see lateral competition, instead of this vertical specs race. Instead of "how high can we reach?" they will try for "how much can we get out of what we got?" Maybe we'll finally get 60 FPS gaming on consoles as the norm, instead of the exception. New IPs. Other forms of lateral competition. Etc.

I mean, either that or they'll continue trying to build up until their tower of "costs more than it returns" and their already shaky base will collapse underneath their bloated ego. "The Great Console Gaming Crash of 20XX" has a good ring to it.

 

[OptionalBoss]

First, a question. What is it that you would consider an innovation in video games?
It's very easy for us to point to the Wii an' say,"Look! It was different! Innovation!", but I feel like the sentiment is a little disingenuous if considered in hindsight(as opposed to in the present).

Video games are a kind of physical activity. In order to play, someone must manipulate an object in 3-D space. Because this its nature, video games involve a heavy amount of spacial thinking, like in sports. People start with little league, and as they continue to better understand how to manipulate themselves and a ball(I guess), they grow better at the game. Fighting games easily mimic this experience.

In soccer(sorry, Football) there is no narrative beyond the trivial.
I am a warrior of the Astral Confederacy. I have been sent by my Lord High Commander Yatz-yoben as part of the tenants of my bond servitude. My duty is to transfer precious Soul Orbs into the Great Gates of Ending Space, a mission that will take me through the farthest reaches of the known galaxy, smuggling my contraband thru powerful Vasto class Dreadnaughts.
It's possible to dream up a story like that while playing, unfortunately none of it will have much to do with kicking a football past a goal keeper.

So, that being said, is it that you expect video games to innovate strictly for storytelling's sake?

I'm a visual artist but like yourself, I have a difficult time progressing through a game if I don't have a proper context.
To be honest, I would love Football even more if it worked more like my silly tale above.(Although, I think if we lived in a Universe like the one above, we'd all have very different opinions on everything.)
Even still, I have a deep respect for improvements in the "intuitive-ness" video games have achieved, especially in this and the last generation. Look, we got Dark Souls, StarCraft 2, Metal Gear Solid V; we got Dead Rising, Bayonetta, the Uncharted series; we got the Arkham games, the Battlefield series, and even if you hate it, we got the precedent made by Modern Warefare.
Video games are becoming better to control, and more responsive to the subtleties we want.
When it comes to games like Halo or COD, major improvements per iteration come in the form of enhancements or tweaks to a player's ability to play the game. This is a form of progress when it comes to manipulating 3-D space, but it's a hard progression to quantify. In fact, it's usually only "felt" when you return to older installments or different brands within a genre.
For example, play Street Fighter 4 then play Killer Instinct, and you should feel the difference between the two games.

Anyway, we shouldn't think this a small issue, because making games feel like an extension of your body is a very difficult task.

So, in light of this, we can ask a new question. How much control and/or "innovation" do we need for a game to engage well?
Consider Metal Gear Solid V, a game whose control is so well crafted, you easily forget you are holding a controller. And yet, its a game marred by an unsatisfying plot.
Or consider Undertale, a charmingly written scenario that easily sweeps you off your feet, but whose visuals and scope leave a little to be desired.

Could a game with Undertale's plot and characters be made with MGSV's visuals and gameplay? Could a game with MGSV's gameplay be made with Undertales visuals and scope? Which could you imagine being more successful?

 

[ThatOtherGirl]

The real innovations of the last 5 years in games are on the development side. That is to say that the additional power of hardware and new and better tools available allows for games to be made better and easier. The key here is that game companies need to learn restraint and stop trying to maximize the system anymore and start using the tools they have to make actually good and focused games. It is far easier and cheaper today to make a game that could have been made on the x360, but AAA producer and developers are busy trying to make games that use every ounce of power so they waste money on things that don't matter.

Thus the AAA industry at large has failed to reap any of the benefits of the last few years of innovation while smaller studios have been able to release truly great games that would have been impossible for them to create even a few years ago.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

No innovation? But, pray, do tell, has one tried the latest Need for speed "reboot?" They innovated that to an always online requirement for a full priced, once great single player racing game, put less cars in and less customisation for high end cars...if that isn't innovating an IP into the ground so hard it loses all identity, i don't know what else is. The carving up of games to sell to the consumer in individual nuggets is pretty good innovation in a business sense.
Then let's not forget that Payday 2 developers innovated all their fanbase away with shiny, attractive micrtransactions. You're just not looking hard enough, Yahtzee!
Also...what if the new industry innovation is that...there is no innovation?? Badum! *waves hands about slowly and mysteriously in a jazz-hand manner*

 

[lord canti]

Honestly at this point I think we need to refocus on refining games again. Lets worry about innovation when we can have a solid year of stable game releases. Also, games in genera; are just not innovative any more including indie games.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Innovating is expensive. And (relatively) technically hard to do. We have been getting more and more games being released with crippling and sometimes breaking bugs. If they can't release a basic game free of flaws, what chance do they have with an innovative mechanic?

 

[Darth_Payn]

"...the train that it turned out had chocolate biscuits instead of wheels and whose rails led directly into the vagina of a diseased apatosaurus."

That is pure poetry, sir. Jolly well done!

 

[CaitSeith]

NES -> SNES just meant better graphics and longer games.

May I stick my hand into my monitor, make it travel through the Internet until it comes out of yours, grab you by your head and smash your face against your keyboard? No? Damn lack of innovation!

Now seriously, Street Fighter II couldn't have been done in the NES. The cartridges were too small and the system too limited to contain and process all combos and fast paced action in efficient manner (not to mention it doesn't have enough buttons). Entire genres were created or improved in gameplay (like action-JRPGs) in the SNES era. Battery powered save systems became mainstream too. That was a huge improvement from the password based.

 

[Fox12]

I suppose there are hidden gems of innovation here and there, like the nemesis system in Shadow of Mordor, but they're kind of the exception to the rule aren't they...

Isn't that the point, though? The innovators are always the minority. The suits just mock them for their ideas, then immediately play follow the leader when things work out. I've seen plenty innovation over the years.

Nintendo innovated with the wii. Bethesda innovated with open world games. Mass Effect hugely innovated the industry with choice in games. From Software completely rewrote the entire video game rule book with Dark Souls, and now Bloodborne.

I mean, if you expect massive, industry wide innovation every year or so then yeah, you're going to be disappointed. That doesn't mean that there aren't creative individuals doing innovative work in the medium. Games are way better then they've ever been. The only thing that stopped innovating are the graphics, and I can live without them.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Unfortunately there's some issues that seem to be in the way.

1: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. The basic, winning formula is there, and it get them money to stay afloat at least.

2: What? Are we expecting them to throw out their bread and butter formula and bring in French Toast, and Maple Syrup?

2a: A lot of games don't make huge innovations, but they make some. They may not be throwing away bread and butter for french toast, and syrup, but we're getting maybe some jam instead of butter now and then.
If you play, lets say, the first Dynasty Warriors, and Dynasty Warriors 8, you'll see it's come a long way. Yeah, the core is the same, but that's what people enjoy about it, IMO. Still, one would pretty much have to be spoiled to see that they don't change the game in new directions that are hit, and miss.
I'm sure Assassin's Creed has grown their product while trying to stay true to the core formula as have many other games, including sports games, but it sounds like people want a drastic change.
Expecting drastic changes is kinda dumb. It can very well go the way of New Coke.

Expecting new IPs, spinoffs, a change of lead character, etc. however, is reasonable. Hopefully the company has made enough money to diversify their portfolio of games.

Are we talking hardware? Hardware has seen innovation, but what do you want? A massive leap into ... what exactly? VR? We haven't figured that out. Holodecks? Wishful thinking.
Unfortunately hardware growth is kind of at a limit all around. What's growing is getting out there, but it's not yet affordable, and is still really rough.

 

[Alek The Great]

Loved Arkham Knight, don't think it "failed miserably" at all.

I actually really enjoyed Arkham Knight as well, but felt the Batmobile was handled terribly. It was alright for driving around and some of the riddler puzzles/races with it were ok, but the tank battles completely destroyed the pacing for me and while I never got bored of the incredibly satisfying hand to hand combat I absolutely loathed some of the tank battles towards the end including the side quests because they'd get so drawn out and boring. So when I said "failed miserably" I was aiming it at Rocksteady adding the batmobile just for the sake of innovation. On the other hand, there was the tag team combat which was more of an evolution but I guess you could call it innovation which I absolutely loved. I really wish there were more tag team scenarios in the game rather than tank battles.

I'm glad to also hear positive things about Rise of the Tomb Raider as the previous title was a pleasant surprise for me and I was hoping the sequel would turn out ok. Might pick it up soon.

I agree with you that it's easy to be cynical and say that AAA games nowadays are terrible, but it wasn't too long ago in the previous console generation that everyone was complaining about gray/brown shooters and lack of originality and that console cycle we got some real gems as well (one of my favourites being the Bioshock series).

 

[MonsterCrit]

Once your development budget exceeds 1 million. Risk is something you try to avoid so you don't do anything unless you can show proof that it will generate or create sales. Hence why most AAA's blow their budget on graphics. Graphics make purdy screen shots and video trailers.

 

[Sam Billin]

The Souls series and Bloodbourne stand out to me as the most representative of innovation. I's been a while since mainstream gaming has seen a series that handles telling its story like those, or even the level of difficulty or accessibility. The online content and multiplayer are way off from what they could have been, and frankly what was expected. It also in a way was designed to be beaten as a group; with secrets, storylines, and basically the entire DLC campaign either outright hidden or impossibly obtuse to be discovered by a single player. I think the continued success of the series really does go to show that gamers do enjoy something outside of the usual.

 

[1981]

Something I've been wondering for a while: why are game developers constantly reinventing the wheel? If indie devs had access to proper tools we wouldn't have this problem. Would it be possible for a AAA studio to release a game as a set of API's once they're done milking it? Kinda like modding except it wouldn't feel any more derivative than using RPG Maker or any other software.

Dear Esther and DayZ started out as mods and you could say that both of them invented a genre.

 

[EMWISE94]

Haven't played a AAA game in a while so I can't personally say that I'd want innovation, though from what I've seen and heard from news outlets and the gaming community at large is that the AAA industry really needs to stop putting out buggy and/or broken products. This isn't even a problem unique to the AAA side of gaming, the indie side suffers from this a fair amount as well but I feel the pressure should be higher for the AAA big boys club because as Yahtzee stated, they're the face of gaming at the moment and if the poster boys of the industry are slipping, the ignorant mainstream public are gonna assume that the entire industry is slipping up.

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

Nope, not seeing any need to replace my Gamecube and PS2, both with stacks of fantastic games that I'll never get around to playing.

whose rails led directly into the vagina of a diseased apatosaurus.

Pretty sure reptilian anatomy doesn't work that way. Or does that just make the analogy even more profound?

Tempted as I was to mention that Apatosaurs would have had a cloaca and not a vagina, ultimately we don't actually know how dinosaur genitals would have worked. Sure its likely that they had similar means of reproduction to lizards and birds, their closest relatives, but since something as huge and cumbersome as an Apatosaur would have had trouble with the "cloacal kiss" that their still-extant cousins use then we can't say for sure how the dinos did the dirty.

This is probably the most thinking about dino-sex many have you have ever done. Well, except for that guy posting underneath me. They know what they did.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I don't know... I'm having fun? Is that enough?

Yes, even in this vile, putrid, incestuous, unholy console generation we are in now, I'm still having fun and AAA games are still entertaining me about as much as they were the previous three. The only thing that's changed really is me and my lack of youthful enthusiasm making things seem less rosey then they once were.

Maybe this 'innovation' is also one of the many things that are subjective, because I can't think of too many instances in gaming that truly made me stand up and take notice at how much gaming has improved gameplay wise. Certainly not enough to count one every three years for the past 15 years or so. Games moving from 2D to 3D, dual analog stick control, and Shadow of the Colossus, Resident Evil 4, and ironically Assassin's Creed are the only ones I can really think of.

I've had plenty of games these past three years amaze me, not because they were the next step in gaming technology, but simply because they were amazing games. That's still the measuring stick I'm using for my opinion on the games industry.