Are "game design" courses ruining games?

[Deshin]

A little debate I was having with a couple of friends. Are games feeling samey because of the increasing number of "game design" courses and the unis churning out hundreds of qualified "game designers" every year?

Allow me to elaborate: Back in ye olden days of gaming you didn't really have "game designers", you had "programmers" who made games. You'd get one guy or a small team tasked with making the game who had the vision and the idea of the final product and they'd go out and hire progam development teams to make the game for them. They'd explain to them how they wanted the player to interact with the characters and the world and the kind of feel they were going for. These days not so much though, they're being churned out like mindless drones so when they get to a company they're told to make a combat/shooting/whatever segment and they immediately initiate copypasta #183 of whatever they studied in their course.

I can't comment for games pre 1995 because that's when I really started playing games on the PS1, but the PS1 had a HUGE library and I can't recall games ever feeling samey. These days the current gen churns out games that I look at and instantly realise what game and when the whole thing is ripping off. This isn't about "innovation" or "originality" or other stuff like that, I'm talking on a pure programming level the games feel the same because they're being created using the exact same programming methods.

Thoughts?

 

[Danzaivar]

Game Development courses teach you how to program with graphics libraries, how to do specular effects, how to take input from a control, how to output/distort sound and so on. It's not "first person shooter" class and "rpg class" and stuff, LOL.

Games are the same because executives don't want to take risks with multi-million dollar investments, so they want games similar to successful ones already out there.

I did get a laugh at the idea for say Elder Scrolls 5, some games developer just copy-pasting his coursework from uni and calling that his game.

 

[Robyrt]

Er, there were "game designers" back in the 90s too, and there are "programmer-designers" today (Braid for instance).

The bigger driving force in lack of originality is the rising cost of game development. It's very difficult for a single person with a vision to translate that into a modern game, where in the 80s it was very feasible. If your dream is a AAA game, you'll need a significant investment and an enormous amount of risk, to the point where you're way more likely to pay all your employees on time if you're making something with minor differences from the current hot genre.

 

[TyrantGanado]

Do film making courses ruin films?

Since I am, myself, on such a game design course, this may be slightly biased, but I get the impression it takes a certain person with a passion for games to actually stick to it. There are the people on the course who want to just make the next Halo but with zombiepirateninjarobots (and such people will no doubt fail to gain any whack in the industry. Or at least I hope) but there are also the types who appreciate games and want to learn the techniques used to make them so they're better qualified for actually doing the job they hope to get. Sort of like someone doing a management to degree to fast track on promotions, for lack of a better analogy.

As for the samey-ness that's more to do with adversity to risk-taking. Games have become big, so companies know they can make money and the best way to make more money is to sell people things they like. The Kotick Strategy, if you will. (Original, I know ) Followers of this strategy are the ones at the tops of the companies who want to make more money, meaning originality is sacrificed for a safer financial investment. Same reason there are so many chick flicks...they make a fuckton of money so they keep getting made. Same story with samey games, really.

 

[Dastardly]

Thoughts?

It unfortunately just makes far more financial sense to re-use an existing engine than to essentially "reinvent the wheel." What that means, however, is that everything will have wheels. There are also more games being released at a time now, so we're NOTICING the overlap more, but it's always been there.

A ton of folks take these courses and set about the task of designing an A+++ game right away, just like folks studying composition or painting due. They want to craft a masterpiece and coast. It's just the natural instinct of someone who was inspired to LEARN this craft because of a masterpiece they once experienced. The problem is that getting to that point requires years, and countless iterations of trial-and-error... and we're seeing mostly the "error" at this stage. Call it "growing pains."

The only 'shortcut' to that masterpiece is just to copy one that's already out there. It's a lot less messy and risky, so people tend toward this--especially the people fronting the money for the project. Don't try to sell your weird melty clock picture, just copy the Mona Lisa! So really, these classes are only a bad thing if they give students the impression that they'll be STARTING their careers as expert designers, with no regard for the immense financial pressure these projects carry.

From a design/originality perspective, I think these classes can be a good thing if taught well. Some of the BEST and most ORIGINAL writers out there, for instance, will tell you that they had their first real breakthroughs when they STOPPED trying to have breakthroughs. The wrote according to some of the same old formulas and tropes their professors kept pushing, finally realizing these were meant as exercises to develop the chops and a healthy amount of perspective, so they could find which side of the "envelope" they wanted to "push" and how--you've got to be pretty damn familiar with the existing envelope first.

Innovation doesn't come from complete freedom. Creativity is a reaction to limits, not liberties. Really think about this: EVERY invention that mankind has ever produced was only created because someone came up against a limitation and couldn't find a work-around.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

You'd get one guy or a small team tasked with making the game who had the vision and the idea of the final product and they'd go out and hire progam development teams to make the game for them.

I think this is a problem in gaming. I think game developing for the most part lacks that "visionary" in the "director's chair." I think it's much better to have 1 or a some group of people leading the game's vision kinda like Hideo Kojima (you may not like him but games do need more of a personal touch) and the creators at Platinum games (if I'm not mistaken, they pretty much create everything about the game and then outsource the programming of the game). I think game creation has to move more towards movie making where you are excited about the movie because of the director or the writer, this very rarely happens nowadays in gaming. Allowing game directors to be more well known will also move some of the power from the publisher to the game developers.

I also agree with everyone else that it's more of an issue with publishers wanting the game to appeal to as many people as possible. In summary, I don't think it's because of game schools teaching the same things that gaming is lacking originality but because most games don't have a vision that is lead by one or a few people, which is the direct result of the publishers wanting every game to have a lot of mass appeal. I'm also sure this happens a lot as well: big publisher sees this game is making lots of $$$ so they tell developer X to make a game like so they could have a piece of that money pie. Then, developer X doesn't have the opportunity to make the game they want to make.

 

[TPiddy]

Well, to be honest, a lot of games are using the same parts, like the Source engine, Unreal 3 engine, Havok physics engine. There's a lot of code re-use going on now, which is easier for devs, but it does mean that games could play out similarly. This is not a drawback however, as the creativity has to come from the design and not the programming.

Creating solid programming engines and licensing them out makes the established studios more money, while helping newcomers get into the field by taking care of a big chunk of the problem for them. Case in point, Saints Row 2. It used Havok physics and Bink Video, but still put out a better product than the big guns at Rockstar North.

 

[Deshin]

Game Development courses teach you how to program with graphics libraries, how to do specular effects, how to take input from a control, how to output/distort sound and so on. It's not "first person shooter" class and "rpg class" and stuff, LOL.

Which is exactly why they all feel the same, because a lot of people make the same types of effects and the game "feels" the same, I know it's not fps class and rpg class, but I'm saying when they're brought in to do a game like an fps they already draw on knowledge of pre-existing fps games. Oh and nice touch on the caps locked lol.

For me it feels more a case of, for example, writing classes. People want to learn to be great writers so they go to these classes, then people hire the writers and they work for them based on what they need doing. This is good. Then they bring out (FOR EXAMPLE) "fantasy writing classes" and introduce long standing cliches and memes (elves in the woods, dwarves in the mountains, etc) and so every fantasy writer is a carbon copy. (example: Dragon Age used so many cliches it's beyond a joke) Does anyone else see the oxymoron in the phrase "typical fantasy"?

That's what games boil down to these days, memes and cliches, and I just feel pumping out "qualified designers" who are taught these memes as gospel only perpetuates the samey feeling in games. The perfect example is that one picture (could someone find it for me please?) which shows side by side shots of MW2, Killzone and MoH and they all look identical. To me it feels a case of people told to do, for example, animations for "the player just got shot" and they instinctively react with "we should have blood splatter effects on the screen and it should get progressively hazier indicating death is imminent, oh and have his pulse audible too" when asked why "that's just the way we all do it" because they were taught that way.

 

[The Rockerfly]

le snip

I disagree, since the industry is now much larger, games consoles are more mainstream and games are much more expensive to produce, there is a lot more risk involved

For example Modern warfare 2 cost $40-$50 million to produce (see article below). This means that the company spent that much money on making a game that should be profitable.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/nov/18/business/fi-ct-duty18

Every shareholder has a decision of "Yes" or "no" when a game idea comes through. Since the original Modern Warfare sold a lot, more than massive titles such as Grand Theft Auto 4 and Halo 3 (see sales figures below)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Duty_4:_Modern_Warfare#Sales

So what the share holders do is find out what their target market consumer likes best and add more into it. Like making a chocolate cake more chocolatey. These games require a lot of money, especially on things such as; advertising, development, copyright, obtaining information from the target market and all the jobs within the business (such as accountants and human resources). This is the problem that comes from big companies and high definition games is that they cost a shit load to make. So they make something they know the market will like.

A games company could take a leap of faith and create a game sell amazingly well such as guitar hero (originally, not the sequels) or they could create an innovating game that the industry doesn't want, isn't ready for and sells badly like Ico. This creates an element of risk that many of the share holders do not want because games are so expensive to make, arty and innovating games are much higher risk.

This risk factor isn't applied so heavily to a game that is "generic" because many consumers do not want to play games that could turn out to be terrible and want something they safely know will be fun. That is why you see so many fps's on the 360, many Wii bowling/family game clones and sports games on all 3 major consoles. These are games guaranteed to sell well but will never do anything to the industry and chances are, will not be played much after the next instalment because they have shown to sell well in the past.

However what I don't think that Microsoft, Sony and a lot of 3rd party game companies realise is that some gamers want ideas that are "new" and "fresh" or more commonly known as "Innovation"

Take the Wii for example, many thought that it was going to sell badly because they thought the market weren't ready for motion controls. Look at the sales figures now

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_game_consoles_%28seventh_generation%29#Sales_standings

The Wii has almost internationally got the sales of the ps3 and the xbox combined. This is why both Sony and Microsoft have made the Move and Kinect respectively.

To summarise, I wouldn't blame it on the people who design the games, blame it on the share holders. They're the ones saying "no!" to innovating games because they don't want to risk losing money if the game happens to be a flop and would rather a generic fps that is guaranteed to make a profit

Do you see what I mean?

 

[Hazzaslagga]

Do film making courses ruin films?

Since I am, myself, on such a game design course, this may be slightly biased, but I get the impression it takes a certain person with a passion for games to actually stick to it. There are the people on the course who want to just make the next Halo but with zombiepirateninjarobots (and such people will no doubt fail to gain any whack in the industry. Or at least I hope) but there are also the types who appreciate games and want to learn the techniques used to make them so they're better qualified for actually doing the job they hope to get. Sort of like someone doing a management to degree to fast track on promotions, for lack of a better analogy.
games, really.

what's the course like. I'm considering doing a game design/programming course. either that or normal computing/programing or astrophysics.

 

[BelfastSpartan]

I think before hand it was more pushing the boundaries as gaming was relativley new and everyone was learning and trying to find the best way to do things with the new technology available so things were different.

Now though technology isn't really advancing and evolving, more just getting better......for example more powerful in smaller packages but not really doing anything new.

So because of this I think many companies have found their money making niche.........all games are made using versions of the same engines with slight changes, so once a company has found a way to use a pre-made enginge and make it appeal to many people and thus sell lot's of games they are unlikely to change that formula.

Look at halo/cod they all run essentially exactly the same it's just a different paint, weapon skins, story, etc

Yet they have a massive fan base who continue to buy their games.

So if it's not broken don't fix it seems to be the reason games these days are very samey!

 

[Danzaivar]

That's what games boil down to these days, memes and cliches, and I just feel pumping out "qualified designers" who are taught these memes as gospel only perpetuates the samey feeling in games. The perfect example is that one picture (could someone find it for me please?) which shows side by side shots of MW2, Killzone and MoH and they all look identical. To me it feels a case of people told to do, for example, animations for "the player just got shot" and they instinctively react with "we should have blood splatter effects on the screen and it should get progressively hazier indicating death is imminent, oh and have his pulse audible too" when asked why "that's just the way we all do it" because they were taught that way.

Games are just getting more realistic, so "realistic" effects will pop up in more and more games. It sounds like you have a problem with that style of game more than anything.

And at no point in any games lecture have I heard "To show you're low on health, make the screen red and add a heartbeat". They're not flipping taught stuff like that! They do it because it works and has showed up elsewhere, it's not a topic covered in these lessons you seem to imagine them taking.

- - -

Edit: I think I see where there may be some confusion here. I'm talking effects from a programming point of view, as in "Theres a light source and here's a corner, let's cast a shadow and then blur it slightly". You're thinking of effects as in "Health lost effect" or "Underwater effect". Totally different things. Your problem seems to be the tropes that gaming uses; not stuff taught in the classroom.

 

[TyrantGanado]

what's the course like. I'm considering doing a game design/programming course. either that or normal computing/programing or astrophysics.

My course itself is a bit haphazard due to being "Game Design and Production Management" but my university is well known for its games related courses and such like, especially the programming ones. So I'd say give it a shot if you fancy going for it.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

I think that programmers experimenting with game code is the best way to make a computer game. The whole idea that you can make a great new game with a design document or just by throwing new content at an existing game is a pile of shit but unfortunately it seems that many games are too expensive and hard to manage to do it any other way. The whole point of game design courses is to prepare people to work in these conditions so if the universities are doing their job properly they are training designers to work this way.

 

[Deshin]

Games are just getting more realistic, so "realistic" effects will pop up in more and more games. It sounds like you have a problem with that style of game more than anything.

And at no point in any games lecture have I heard "To show you're low on health, make the screen red and add a heartbeat". They're not flipping taught stuff like that! They do it because it works and has showed up elsewhere, it's not a topic covered in these lessons you seem to imagine them taking.

Realistic? Are you kidding me? There is nothing realistic about anything I mentioned. For one if you get shot the blood goes outwards and would splatter someone *else* in the face, not spurt outwards them boomerang in midair and come back and hit you in the face. Second you would not hear your own pulse any more than you normally would, it's just typical for hollywood to have those scenes of "time slowing down accompanied by a pulse", and then turning around behind a corner and regenerating your health back to full.

You missed the multiple "for examples" I had strewn through my sentences and think I'm attacking a specific style of game, it was an EXAMPLE. I could have mentioned action games with (the exact same every time) one-hit kill-finishers on fantasy creaures. (Gow of War, Dante's Inferno, Lords of Shadow to name a few off the top of my head)

And I never said they were taught that stuff word for word, but the fact it's such a commonly perpetuated gaming meme has to come from somewhere and I'm pretty sure it's not the publisher who sends them a memo going "make the game do so and so at certain times"

 

[Dr. HeatSync]

Yeah, game development courses ruin games, just like how being taught how to write ruins novels.

As a person who's had experience on two game design courses (one in college, and now advanced onto a course at university) the statement that they 'ruin games' is irksome.

I shall tell you now that you are taught how to design and develop professionally, how to research, plan and develop your ideas, and work out how to get it in the game engine. You need a portfolio of this work to even be looked at by a developer. This is coming from the concept art/modelling side btw, not the programming side, but that doesn't make it any less relevant I feel.

You'd get one guy or a small team tasked with making the game who had the vision and the idea of the final product and they'd go out and hire progam development teams to make the game for them. They'd explain to them how they wanted the player to interact with the characters and the world and the kind of feel they were going for.

The whole 'explain how they want the player to interact with stuff' IS the designers job. That programmer isn't just the programmer, he's the designer too. They work out how the weapons, perks and whatnot are going to work and be balanced and in intricate detail, and remember that its a team effort; this is all discussed to get a wider range of opinions and possibilities.

Sometimes the worst thing that can happen is the game being led by an auteur, someone who 'has a vision' and while in some cases this is all well and dandy, in others the lack of teamwork on the design part becomes apparent because only one guy thought of nearly everything in his project (Metroid: Other M). It is difficult to blend everything together, let alone ask a bunch of teams do it all while you use a conductors baton. This is what gets your alien rip offs I think, apart from a lack of knowledge of popular media and how to innovate.

You probably know that writing/designing art for a game is vastly different to films and other medias, because games need to give out useful information incredibly quickly (form, silhouette, how recognisable the characters are at a distance, etc) and telling stories in games doesn't work like in films, and its still quite unexplored ground.

Now you'd be correct, there would be people who copypasta the only method they know as a complete grunt would. These aren't the people who'll advance further, its the people who really study games intricately, know what mechanics mean and suggest to players. They know what makes a good map layout, a good character, a good environment and can work as a team to make something spectacular, and one of the few ways to get the skills you would need is by attending a course that teaches you how to work in the games industry. Thats what I think.

 

[Danzaivar]

You missed the multiple "for examples" I had strewn through my sentences and think I'm attacking a specific style of game, it was an EXAMPLE. I could have mentioned action games with (the exact same every time) one-hit kill-finishers on fantasy creaures. (Gow of War, Dante's Inferno, Lords of Shadow to name a few off the top of my head)

And I never said they were taught that stuff word for word, but the fact it's such a commonly perpetuated gaming meme has to come from somewhere and I'm pretty sure it's not the publisher who sends them a memo going "make the game do so and so at certain times"

Hoped to get my edit out before you replied, but I'll put it here too

--

Edit: I think I see where there may be some confusion here. I'm talking effects from a programming point of view, as in "Theres a light source and here's a corner, let's cast a shadow and then blur it slightly". You're thinking of effects as in "Health lost effect" or "Underwater effect". Totally different things. Your problem seems to be the tropes that gaming uses; not stuff taught in the classroom.

--

One hit kill finisher? Regenerating health? Blood in your own face? Tropes. NOT taught in the classroom.

I mean, you're "pretty sure" that it's not a memo from the publisher. I'm damned well certain that it's not the courses telling them to do this stuff. To be honest the publishers saying to do it could be happening, so people feel familiar with it. Or it could just be that these people are sick of their jobs, making games isn't as fun as they thought so they're just playing "follow the leader" rather than innovating.

 

[Deshin]

I think that programmers experimenting with game code is the best way to make a computer game. The whole idea that you can make a great new game with a design document or just by throwing new content at an existing game is a pile of shit but unfortunately it seems that many games are too expensive and hard to manage to do it any other way. The whole point of game design courses is to prepare people to work in these conditions so if the universities are doing their job properly they are training designers to work this way.

Thank you, you get exatly what I'm trying to say. I'm in a programming course (and soon a bachelor's) and I see it first hand even there. The absolute best teacher I ever had in programming taught us everything and nothing at the same time. The first week we didn't even touch a computer, he explained stuff like "imagine you're going to buy groceries, what would you do step by step?" when we did start on programming he'd teach us how stuff works then ask us to make specific programs (actual PRACTICAL programs we'd be asked to make in an industry, like a program for a parking garage, etc) and we would figure it out ourselves how to make it all work and all of us would have different coding and methods but with the same end result.

The following year's teacher just used to teach us the cookie cutter methods of doing so and so program and then tell us to do the program about 2-3 times. The programs were also did nothing but execute the specific code we were taught. Then the teacher would ***** if the coding was different to hers even though it still worked perfectly fine (sometimes even better because it allowed for practical expansion) but it wasn't "100%" like hers. And that's what you get from large scale courses, people being taught "templates" rather than the whole essence of their craft.

"When you specialise you breed in weakness" and all that jazz.

 

[Scott Guthrie]

i can relate to the whole games being samey these days, we do need some new exiting different games not just the same shit being re released.

but game design courses aren't responsible for this (one of my friends takes one) but it is simply the fault of developers releasing the same kinds of games, because mindless twelve year olds spend their parents money on them

 

[Brazilianpeanutwar]

I'd like to think i'll bring some originality to my work if i ever do get the chance to design videogames,I've been told numerous times by my tutors that i tend to go my own way with my ideas instead of following the path i've been given in college and i'm quite proud of that :]

(I still listen to them i'm not stupid lol )