Game genres evolving?

[Teh Karn]

When more free roaming games started to come out, they were all called "GTA clones" because they basically copied GTA's structure. Now it has evolved into its own genre: a free roaming or sandbox open world game. Yet today many games are open world and are no longer called a GTA clone.

Like GTA, I believe Assassin's Creed has started a new stealth genre which I have titled "social stealth". AC and more recently, The Saboteur, have made examples of this. Both being stealth type games, they take place in cities (or public places) where the type of stealth which we are accustomed to (hiding behind things and staying hidden in the shadows) are obsolete. You do missions in a sneaky manner but trying to stay socially acceptable.

So what do you think about this, fellow escapists? Is it just developers copying other games ideas and incorporating it into a long line of copycats? Or are the games we call clones of others starting new genres?

 

[Julianking93]

Metal Gear Solid - Tactical stealth espionage action!

Zelda - Its so awesome, it doesn't fit into a genre. Some call it RPG, some call it action, some call it straight up adventure. Who cares? Its awesome and no game is like it.

 

[b1u3too]

I'd be a little afraid if we didn't start to get more and more duplication and copying in the gaming market *Ehem, talking to the makers of inFamous and Prototype*, and it can go in one of a coupel different ways.

People start enjoying playing the same games with different skins on them, and the industry becomes swollen with GTA-clones and entire swamps of titles with only a few letters difference between them.
Or people wise up and start being pickier about the titles they choose to buy.

Guess which one's more likely? ;P

 

[Teh Karn]

If someone thinks of something really cool and fun and they put it into their game, we had better hope it is copied in numerous other games, that is how the industry betters itself.

But that is why it is called a clone because it feels like the game that started it all. It usually takes a bunch of overlooked clones to make it more unique.

 

[TheNamlessGuy]

DELETED

 

[MiracleOfSound]

No harm in seeing a good mechanic and making your own version of it.

The mechanics from Red Faction need to be implemented in more sandbox games. It feels dated now to see your rockets leave not so much as a scratch on the invincible GTA architecture.

Edit:

Then again, I'm of the opinion that GTA needs a complete overhaul of its antiquated mechanics, but that's a whole other topic I've done to death...

 

[Capachinola]

Most games are not "clones" of other games. And, personally, if I really enjoy a game, and another developer "copies" that game, im not going to be mad at the developer. What they've done is let me play the same game I loved, but in a different game world, with different ideas.

 

[ParadoxBG]

When more free roaming games started to come out, they were all called "GTA clones" because they basically copied GTA's structure. Now it has evolved into its own genre: a free roaming or sandbox open world game. Yet today many games are open world and are no longer called a GTA clone.

Like GTA, I believe Assassin's Creed has started a new stealth genre which I have titled "social stealth". AC and more recently, The Saboteur, have made examples of this. Both being stealth type games, they take place in cities (or public places) where the type of stealth which we are accustomed to (hiding behind things and staying hidden in the shadows) are obsolete. You do missions in a sneaky manner but trying to stay socially acceptable.

So what do you think about this, fellow escapists? Is it just developers copying other games ideas and incorporating it into a long line of copycats? Or are the games we call clones of others starting new genres?

Evolution is a liiiiiieeee!!!!!11one

lol jk of course.

Actually, this is very poignantly correct, and evolution is the perfect word for it, because traits are mixed and passed down, albeit through copycatting rather than sex. Even random innovative ideas work much like their counterparts in biology (mutations) because some are duds and some go on to be picked up by copycatters if they turn out well

I think we should accept it as the natural course of events. Good eye there, person!

 

[NickCaligo42]

I'm not convinced. As I see it, genres don't evolve, they get further and further inbred as game critics continue telling us what to ignore and what to pay attention to and all invariably focus on the same aspects. It says a lot that I can tell you "Brutal Legend is a third-person God-of-War style action-adventure open-world sandbox game with RTS elements" and that basically explains what the ENTIRE game is without you having to pick up and play it. Ten years ago, or even FIVE years ago? NO decent game could be explained like that. Even if you didn't like a specific game or genre you'd be doing a huge injustice solely depending on buzzwords like that to describe any particular game. Why do developers do this? Because the terminology we use is derived from game critics. In and of themselves, critics aren't bad. They fill (or SHOULD fill, depending on your point of view) an essential role in the industry, helping players avoid buying schlock and keeping us informed of new titles, but doesn't anybody here think that game developers ought to have more sophisticated terminology to describe games than the terminology used by reviewers to describe games to people who know NOTHING about them? Yet developers today positively cling to it, hardly daring to venture too far outside the box defined by genre terms. It's less out of the whole "safe and marketable" instinct everybody insists the game publishing world revolves around and more because they just don't KNOW any better because they SUCK at ludology, mostly being a bunch of hypocrites who lucked into their jobs early into the industry's life, found a sweet gig at an unstable company, climbed to the top of the ladder when their bosses all quit, and stayed there.

No, this isn't evolution. This is inbreeding...

 

[BENZOOKA]

Naturally things that work well are ripped off from games to another.

And yes, can't think of many games with a great stealth system.

 

[Pimppeter2]

NickCaligo42 honestly stole the words right out of my mouth. Minus a couple titty jokes

 

[LeonLethality]

Everything is a new idea, really, adding a little bit to the big collective.
And, yes I am aware of all the millions of WW2 games, but they all differed a little from eachother

Nazis of different height to shoot?

OT: there was a time where there was no FPS genre and a lot of games in the beat 'em up genre (where did that go by the way?) so yeah genres change and evolve and sometimes die out it is how it works

 

[AkJay]

Seems to me like all the different genre's are morphing and molding into one genre of game. That genre is:
MMOF/TPSRPGRTS with some flight sims, stealth, and open world parkour.

 

[Beartrucci]

When more free roaming games started to come out, they were all called "GTA clones" because they basically copied GTA's structure. Now it has evolved into its own genre: a free roaming or sandbox open world game. Yet today many games are open world and are no longer called a GTA clone.

Like GTA, I believe Assassin's Creed has started a new stealth genre which I have titled "social stealth". AC and more recently, The Saboteur, have made examples of this. Both being stealth type games, they take place in cities (or public places) where the type of stealth which we are accustomed to (hiding behind things and staying hidden in the shadows) are obsolete. You do missions in a sneaky manner but trying to stay socially acceptable.

So what do you think about this, fellow escapists? Is it just developers copying other games ideas and incorporating it into a long line of copycats? Or are the games we call clones of others starting new genres?

Isn't the stealth in Hitman sorta like the stealth in Assassin's Creed? Except that you wear disguises while still staying in plain sight in Hitman.

 

[Veylon]

I'd say Nick's got it right. Big game companies are businesses, businesses that have a lot to lose should they do anything wrong. And thus, they rarely take the chances that established the genres that so popular today. Civilization was a very daring sort of game to make, so were X-Com and Wolfenstein. But now that the industry has "matured", these sorts of bizarre breakout games are left behind. Can you imagine EA spending $10 million on something like Dwarf Fortress?

 

[Noone From Nowhere]

Very much like biological evolution, it is a slow process that only rarely turns up anything novel, mostly blending traits from one line to another or replicating successful species relatively unchanged and when it does turn up new mutations, most are inviable.

Evolution isn't always about the creation of new species. It isn't strictly about anything, I know, but the forces that drive it are more about preventing species from going extinct. That's just a fact of Nature and technology alike, not as if technology or business weren't just aspects of Nature, anyway.

That's why I'd prefer Intelligent Design to Evolution. In videogame land, should that be so improbable?

 

[Teh Karn]

Can you imagine EA spending $10 million on something like Dwarf Fortress?

Yes. Because EA obviously has lots of money to throw around

Isn't the stealth in Hitman sorta like the stealth in Assassin's Creed? Except that you wear disguises while still staying in plain sight in Hitman.

I totally forgot about the Hitman series. It does work a lot like Assassin's Creed but taking place in more closed off/linear levels.

 

[Axeli]

Zelda - Its so awesome, it doesn't fit into a genre. Some call it RPG, some call it action, some call it straight up adventure. Who cares? Its awesome and no game is like it.

I'm pretty sure it's the most straight example of Action Adventure ever. Hell, it pretty much created the genre.