Conventional thinking in video games

[xefaros]

In a world where the Hero can slash through countless enemies and successfully reach his waypoint...Ah sound like a movie

Anyway lemme start over and reach my point

With the release of Antichamber i noticed that any and most games has reached a formula that either don't want to change or don't risk changing it, a story driven point A to B backed up by a tutorial or even a NPC holding your hand pointing at the enemy and the trophy behind him all driven by simply reason.

Puzzle and sandbox games had tackled best the unconventional thinking on games but without making it into the mainstream or even making a new genre.Where even Scifi games don't even attempt to innovate even if they have free reign on that area

Games like minecraft(beta) Gmod Portal DayZ that see commercial success today became popular by players alone and seems they crave for strange games to intrigue them but none coming from the industry where critics would simply find them confusing and slap a 3/10 on them and throw it on the bin just until a player explain them what is up with it

Bottomline:Is it possible for a game with unconventional thinking to come from the current triple-A industry and how?

Here have a video

Spoiler

 

[felbot]

it could come from them, if they actually made a game like anti chamber, i highly doubt ea would ever release a game like that though, and if they did they would probably just slap some gore in it along with some ak-47's.

 

[xefaros]

it could come from them, if they actually made a game like anti chamber, i highly doubt ea would ever release a game like that though, and if they did they would probably just slap some gore in it along with some ak-47's.

Thats my point exactly.Are we bound to search for indies or some company would overstep their comfort zone and try something different like portal which was published by a major company

Seeing that antichamber got 1 million funding as a simple mod for the Unreal engine along with the above said games it shows people want search the unconventional

 

[Pulse]

Imagine if minecraft was released AS a mainstream game, on shelves, in stores by a big name publisher...

I think it would instantly have gotten a massive amount of butthurt. People complaining about terrible graphics and aesthetics, complete lack of story or direction, how it expects us to enjoy the novelty of poor renditions of better games and the laziness of the game in general.

Or even day z...there's not that much to do once you figure the basics of survival. If it was a "proper game" I would expect people to be lamenting permanent character death, poor animation, lack of variety in enemies, lack of any long term game etc as major downfalls.

The lure of a novel quirky indie game with a bit of a buzz works. We put up with below par mechanics or are more forgiving because it's an indie game (at least in the beginning). We aren't picking up a game shoved in our faces "HEY THIS WILL BE AWESOME" we're discovering a lesser known game and discovering how it works.

 

[Lilani]

In a world where the Hero can slash through countless enemies and successfully reach his waypoint...Ah sound like a movie

Anyway lemme start over and reach my point

With the release of Antichamber i noticed that any and most games has reached a formula that either don't want to change or don't risk changing it, a story driven point A to B backed up by a tutorial or even a NPC holding your hand pointing at the enemy and the trophy behind him all driven by simply reason.

Puzzle and sandbox games had tackled best the unconventional thinking on games but without making it into the mainstream or even making a new genre.Where even Scifi games don't even attempt to innovate even if they have free reign on that area

Games like minecraft(beta) Gmod Portal DayZ that see commercial success today became popular by players alone and seems they crave for strange games to intrigue them but none coming from the industry where critics would simply find them confusing and slap a 3/10 on them and throw it on the bin just until a player explain them what is up with it

Bottomline:Is it possible for a game with unconventional thinking to come from the current triple-A industry and how?

I'm seeing two different concepts muddled here. At the beginning you seem to be saying games that have elements tied together by tutorials and narrative elements aren't unconventional. Then you say what you want is "quirky" games. Bastion is a game that has plenty of tutorials and a fairly linear narrative, and I would call it a very unique experience. Same with Mirror's Edge, Braid, and Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Tutorials and a clear or linear narrative don't make games conventional when used properly.

Also, Gmod and Portal are made by a AAA developer. Valve may have an unusual power structure, but that doesn't by any means make them small or indie. And all of those games you listed (Gmod, Portal, and DayZ) all received outstanding ratings and critical acclaim. I don't feel like you've made this problem up, but if you're going to provide examples you're going to have to find some more truthful ones. And I also hope you're not falling into the trap that just because they all didn't get 10/10 scores that somehow is equivalent to giving them 3/10 scores.

 

[axlryder]

none coming from the industry where critics would simply find them confusing and slap a 3/10 on them and throw it on the bin just until a player explain them what is up with it

I find this line to be unnecessarily insulting and off base. Yes, you have your reviewers who might malign a game undeservedly so on occasion, but players too often might miss a game's beauty the first time. Little indie titles that receive heaps of critical praise while still garnering very poor sales. Other times a company does a poor job of conveying what makes its game so great in the first place. That doesn't mean critics can't and won't appreciate innovation or creativity. Antichamber, for instance, currently holds an 88 on metacritic.

At the end of the day, a lot of gamers won't appreciate a game for its subtle or unconventional genius. Often the biggest breakout indie hits are games that can be enjoyed on a more simplistic or conventional level (minecraft is a lego simulator, DayZ is a zambie survival game and hardly that creative I might add), and those games still don't hit the sales numbers of some popular triple A franchises that are sold at 4 times the price (though they often don't have the same marketing budget either). What's more, despite all our whining, we have expectations of triple A titles that we simply don't have of indie games.

Ultimately, I doubt a big triple A studio would risk something truly unconventional, but then those games are very rare even within the indie crowd, as even the more "creative" indie games are often firmly rooted in traditional game trappings. That said, triple A publishers often publish games that are, well, unique in some way, so I don't think it's fair to write off everything a major publisher is putting out as "recycled trash" or something similarly damning.

 

[Cheesepower5]

How in the hell is DayZ a unique or quirky concept? Hyper-realistic shooter # 16502378546912 meets zombie shooter # 56482648964. Real feckin' original.

 

[Deverfro]

Unconventional game design is rare. And I don;t think it will come from the mainstream gaming world, simply because big companies don't want to invest in a huge risk. Independent developers can afford to take those risks because they need to get their names out there, and the can afford to. Studios like GrassHopper Manufacture have produced some mainstream, weird success over the years with games like Killer 7, But once that unconventional method works, then it gets adopted by the mainstream, because its seen as a success.

Its all about trends. Nothing wrong with conventional gameplay, but its always fun to find something thats new and different!

 

[Palademon]

Well I want this game in my pants.

Makes me think I'd like to see more games with their own internalised rules, that you'd have to learn, getting yourself into a much different behaviour and adding depth to the world.
That may be possible for Triple-A companies to release, as I imagine it would make for good RPGs or games with a message, but it would still be their more occasional experiment type deal instead of a constant thing.