Greg Costikyan"The revolution didn't begin with Pong, and the game explosion isn't limited to digital media." Greg Costikyan looks at the evolution of game design innovation, and where you think the next evolution in games will come from.
Issue 42 - The Revolution Began With Paper
- Thread starter The Escapist Staff
- Start date
Original Comment by: Duncan
http://ghostsinthegame.blogspot.com/
We are truly a gaming culture. Perhaps even a gaming species. Games have always existed, in one form or another, to teach and hone skills, or just to entertain. This was a fabulous look at the history of gaming over the last couple of centuries. It's amazing that so many people don't realize how deep games go, and yet they probably know how to play at least a dozen different board and card games.
http://ghostsinthegame.blogspot.com/
We are truly a gaming culture. Perhaps even a gaming species. Games have always existed, in one form or another, to teach and hone skills, or just to entertain. This was a fabulous look at the history of gaming over the last couple of centuries. It's amazing that so many people don't realize how deep games go, and yet they probably know how to play at least a dozen different board and card games.
Original Comment by: Escaping Reality
I find the author's presumption that big budgets are antithetical to experimentation to be a bit shaky. For instance the two most prominent and promising innovations in games this year come from the Nintendo Revolution and EA Spore. Both of those products *required* millions of dollars of R+D to make happen.
Small budgets are mostly incompatible with cutting edge innovation, particularly with video games. Not to say it doesn't happen, but the innovations that breed market growth tend to be costly AND risky. Niche products (say war gaming, or something like Galactic Civ 2) do not tend to be innovative at all, but rather iterative improvements or variations to existing products.
I find the author's presumption that big budgets are antithetical to experimentation to be a bit shaky. For instance the two most prominent and promising innovations in games this year come from the Nintendo Revolution and EA Spore. Both of those products *required* millions of dollars of R+D to make happen.
Small budgets are mostly incompatible with cutting edge innovation, particularly with video games. Not to say it doesn't happen, but the innovations that breed market growth tend to be costly AND risky. Niche products (say war gaming, or something like Galactic Civ 2) do not tend to be innovative at all, but rather iterative improvements or variations to existing products.
Original Comment by: Sean Barrett
http://silverspaceship.com/
the earliest version of Colossal Cave predates D&D's release
This is probably false. Incorrectly propogated comments about the Mammoth Cave exploration in 1972 apparently led to some people attributing Wood's version of Adventure to that year, but there is no actual evidence that this is the case. Some things (like Wikipedia's current article) say 1975. Given that (a) Crowther says it was influenced by D&D, (b) the narrative style (second-person present) is identical to tradition dungeonmastering narrative style, and (c) D&D was released in 1974, it seems safe to assume that Crowther isn't incorrect in his recollection.
http://silverspaceship.com/
the earliest version of Colossal Cave predates D&D's release
This is probably false. Incorrectly propogated comments about the Mammoth Cave exploration in 1972 apparently led to some people attributing Wood's version of Adventure to that year, but there is no actual evidence that this is the case. Some things (like Wikipedia's current article) say 1975. Given that (a) Crowther says it was influenced by D&D, (b) the narrative style (second-person present) is identical to tradition dungeonmastering narrative style, and (c) D&D was released in 1974, it seems safe to assume that Crowther isn't incorrect in his recollection.
Original Comment by: Patrick
http://www.kingludic.blogspot.com
Well done Greg, a very informative article on a long history I was, until now, only partially familiar with.
I'd like to politely disagree with "Escaping Reality", first I think your assesment of Spore and the Revolution are a bit off, both in terms of their being the sole benchmarks of innovation and the nature of their innovation. Spore's key innovation does indeed cost a lot of money to implement, but I'd argue (to great derision I suspect) that the gameplay Spore provides is very specific to a particular taste, and is only indicative of the future of game development in terms of its approach to procedural content and rapid prototyping. The Revolution's key innovation is a non-gamer friendly controller (it looks like a TV remote) with 3D pointing, tilt, pitch and yaw sensors. Implemint a prototype could have been done for less than a million dollars, and the initial idea only took imagination and guts. Obviously engineering, manufacturing, distributing and promoting the launch of a major console is a very expensive proposition, but thats not the crux of the innovation, just the follow through.
On the other hand, I'd like to point you to a handful of products on the indie scene that are extremely innovative, and will likely see release in '06. Utopia is a politically oriented social simulation game about ideology, Braid is a platformer that hinges on manipulating timespace, Fireball is a quirky puzzle/platformer that hinges on a yet unexplored mechanic of thermal dynamics, Cloud is a game based on manipulating clouds, the Storytron engine and anything made with it will attempt to provide robustly interactive storyworlds with a crisp sense of interface and agency... anyone want to throw anything else in?
All of these products are being developed on extremely low budgets, often without immediate compensation, not only is this phenomena real, but the nature of the AAA buisiness model actively removes any such exploration of new play mechanics, much less the murky waters of social dynamics and dramatic play. Cost implies a negative feedback loop that deters much more than refinement. Often in niche markets there is a similar pattern or refinement, but at smaller scales with lower budgets and revenues. There is a difference between niche and indie. Niche appeals to a specific market. Indie appeals to a market that doesn't know what its missing.
http://www.kingludic.blogspot.com
Well done Greg, a very informative article on a long history I was, until now, only partially familiar with.
I'd like to politely disagree with "Escaping Reality", first I think your assesment of Spore and the Revolution are a bit off, both in terms of their being the sole benchmarks of innovation and the nature of their innovation. Spore's key innovation does indeed cost a lot of money to implement, but I'd argue (to great derision I suspect) that the gameplay Spore provides is very specific to a particular taste, and is only indicative of the future of game development in terms of its approach to procedural content and rapid prototyping. The Revolution's key innovation is a non-gamer friendly controller (it looks like a TV remote) with 3D pointing, tilt, pitch and yaw sensors. Implemint a prototype could have been done for less than a million dollars, and the initial idea only took imagination and guts. Obviously engineering, manufacturing, distributing and promoting the launch of a major console is a very expensive proposition, but thats not the crux of the innovation, just the follow through.
On the other hand, I'd like to point you to a handful of products on the indie scene that are extremely innovative, and will likely see release in '06. Utopia is a politically oriented social simulation game about ideology, Braid is a platformer that hinges on manipulating timespace, Fireball is a quirky puzzle/platformer that hinges on a yet unexplored mechanic of thermal dynamics, Cloud is a game based on manipulating clouds, the Storytron engine and anything made with it will attempt to provide robustly interactive storyworlds with a crisp sense of interface and agency... anyone want to throw anything else in?
All of these products are being developed on extremely low budgets, often without immediate compensation, not only is this phenomena real, but the nature of the AAA buisiness model actively removes any such exploration of new play mechanics, much less the murky waters of social dynamics and dramatic play. Cost implies a negative feedback loop that deters much more than refinement. Often in niche markets there is a similar pattern or refinement, but at smaller scales with lower budgets and revenues. There is a difference between niche and indie. Niche appeals to a specific market. Indie appeals to a market that doesn't know what its missing.
Original Comment by: Escaping Reality
I really dig the history lesson of this article. Very well researched and very well written. The conclusion just doesn't seem to fit...it seems more like a 'manifesto' of leaping logic
I suppose we will agree to disagree, Patrick. I saw a demo of Spore last year and it really gripped me. I didn't care for the Sims at all but Spore looks to be amazing. What really amazed me was how the non-gamers in the crowd were gaping and wowing at it then trading thoughts of anticipation and ideas of utilization afterward. Wright mentioned that they had made over 100 prototypes to date for that game, and that must have been expensive as hell, particularly given the wide range of talent they found to work on it.
I'm sure you would be correct in assuming that one could implement a revolution controller prototype for less than a million bucks, but you conveniently ignore the fact that for every successful commercial prototype there are usually many aborted prototypes, each equally as expensive on average. It is romantic to assume that all it took was an engineer with imagination and guts, but it is also far from reality.
I guess the real conundrum that faces small game 'artists' is that the meaning of art is subjective and ageless art is rarely hailed by the popular culture of the time. The unfortunate situation is compounded in computer games by the high rate of obsoletion due to technological aging. Is there a burgeoning market waiting for those low-budget indie games? If there is then it is a relatively small one and is probably comprised mainly of HR folks from the AAA studios
I really dig the history lesson of this article. Very well researched and very well written. The conclusion just doesn't seem to fit...it seems more like a 'manifesto' of leaping logic
I suppose we will agree to disagree, Patrick. I saw a demo of Spore last year and it really gripped me. I didn't care for the Sims at all but Spore looks to be amazing. What really amazed me was how the non-gamers in the crowd were gaping and wowing at it then trading thoughts of anticipation and ideas of utilization afterward. Wright mentioned that they had made over 100 prototypes to date for that game, and that must have been expensive as hell, particularly given the wide range of talent they found to work on it.
I'm sure you would be correct in assuming that one could implement a revolution controller prototype for less than a million bucks, but you conveniently ignore the fact that for every successful commercial prototype there are usually many aborted prototypes, each equally as expensive on average. It is romantic to assume that all it took was an engineer with imagination and guts, but it is also far from reality.
I guess the real conundrum that faces small game 'artists' is that the meaning of art is subjective and ageless art is rarely hailed by the popular culture of the time. The unfortunate situation is compounded in computer games by the high rate of obsoletion due to technological aging. Is there a burgeoning market waiting for those low-budget indie games? If there is then it is a relatively small one and is probably comprised mainly of HR folks from the AAA studios
Original Comment by: Patrick
http://www.kingludic.blogspot.com
Its not so much a question of these small-budget art games seeing great returns on their own (I'd be happy to make rent and groceries), its a question of testing new forms of gameplay on low scales and THEN extrapolating to higher budget production in the second and third generation. Thats how new genre kings are crowned. Thats how innovation happens. Whats sick is that this is a technology driven entertianment industry that spends very little on R&D, which is vital to its long term health, and so its upon the little guys to innovate at the margins, not only for closed circuit self-satisfaction, but for the long term survival and growth of the industry.
For instance, dramatic interaction has HUGE market potential, I'm talking about tripling the current market of steady gamers, and doubling it if you include the casual market. When is the last time you saw a 100 or 200% profit margin on anything in this industry? But there are a handful of hard problems associated with that, depending on what scale you approach, and fortunately at least one of them has been solved in the last two years. That solution didn't come from AAA funding, it came from individual imagination and hard work, and the history of the industry will look back on that with respect. Now, AAA funding could do wonders to refine that and maybe solve some of the other hard problems, like dynamic content creation, and I suspect if the first generation of such products does halfway decent, you'll see AAA productions within the next few years that refine the new ground broken, and those products are going to sell in the millions more frequently than the traditional hardcore-catered play that gets mass produced today.
I suspect you've seen lots of abortive attempts in your time, and I respect that, I'm still young and have only seen two or three, so I've still got hope for fathering something new.
http://www.kingludic.blogspot.com
Its not so much a question of these small-budget art games seeing great returns on their own (I'd be happy to make rent and groceries), its a question of testing new forms of gameplay on low scales and THEN extrapolating to higher budget production in the second and third generation. Thats how new genre kings are crowned. Thats how innovation happens. Whats sick is that this is a technology driven entertianment industry that spends very little on R&D, which is vital to its long term health, and so its upon the little guys to innovate at the margins, not only for closed circuit self-satisfaction, but for the long term survival and growth of the industry.
For instance, dramatic interaction has HUGE market potential, I'm talking about tripling the current market of steady gamers, and doubling it if you include the casual market. When is the last time you saw a 100 or 200% profit margin on anything in this industry? But there are a handful of hard problems associated with that, depending on what scale you approach, and fortunately at least one of them has been solved in the last two years. That solution didn't come from AAA funding, it came from individual imagination and hard work, and the history of the industry will look back on that with respect. Now, AAA funding could do wonders to refine that and maybe solve some of the other hard problems, like dynamic content creation, and I suspect if the first generation of such products does halfway decent, you'll see AAA productions within the next few years that refine the new ground broken, and those products are going to sell in the millions more frequently than the traditional hardcore-catered play that gets mass produced today.
I suspect you've seen lots of abortive attempts in your time, and I respect that, I'm still young and have only seen two or three, so I've still got hope for fathering something new.