Recent discussions have gotten me thinking about the classic marketing strategy where a company releases its product first, and therefore becomes the best in the minds of its initial consumers who are uncapable of taking an objective stance and weighing options on their own.
If you look at history, however, the case is usually quite the opposite. Someone has an idea, they create it, and then someone else finds a way to improve on the original and makes their own version. If we see this all the time, why do people still refuse to take a step back and look at things objectively?
Keep reading—if you’re going to dish out Haterade, you might as well be educated.
Ford was not the first automotive company created, but they did things differently and better, and that put them on top for a lot of years. Then the 1950’s rolled around, and a man named Deming was ignored by the auto industry in America, so he took his ideas on quality control to the still-recovering Japanese economy.
Quality control in a culture that thrives on perfecting whatever they do? What a concept! We all know what happened next. The “drug-induced years” of American automaking ensued and the nation who brought about the mass-produced auto-carriage is suddenly dead last in the race.
Cars not your thing? What about soft drinks? Coca-cola is widely considered the first “cola” in America, and as such retains a nearly equal marketshare with Pepsi, despite Pepsi winning repeated blind taste tests. You know the Coke Polar bears? All the little Coke collectible crap/memorabilia? That’s Coke knowing that they need to remind people of the nostalgia of their brand to keep them drinking it. Is either Coke or Pepsi a bad product? Absolutely not—both are great products, slightly different. Some people do prefer the taste of Coke (legitimately).
Here’s something to make you think about your cola differently the next time you drink it—Coca-cola was originally “Pemberton’s French Wine Coca” when it was released, an alcoholic beverage containing cocaine that was inspired by similar European beverages. It didn’t become the cola beverage we know today until decades later following America’s alcohol prohibition.
So what does this have to do with video games?
I’m fascinated by gamer behavior. How often have you been browsing a thread and read some comment to the effect of, “This game is crap, I won’t even play the game. It’s just a clone/ripoff/copy of (insert whatever game title here).” People, it’s got to stop, not for my sake, for your own.
It’s not just that you sound un-educated or ignorant, it’s that you’re blinded by hype and marketing. Let me pick on a game where I’ve noticed this often: World of Warcraft.
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Man this is one article that could go on and on and on and on and on.
Go into the wow directory and find the intro movies, if you find the movie were they open the instance to lich king, you can really get a nerdgasm when the horde attacks lich kings minions
There is one completely original IP I can think of, Noby Noby Boy
I was wondering when you’d write this…
good article. understand though that a game must be different enough that it is worth purchasing it.
btw, how’s coh and cov going? I played trhat like 3 years back, and I’m wonderingif I should pick it up again or just wait for champions online…
Sad to thing about, but the originality in the industry is running dry..
Think about Mario, he is an Italian spaghetti-loving plumber, when he eat mushrooms he grows big, and spits out fireballs in contact with flowers, and he uses green tubes to travel.
Now it’s considered original if the main character even has a mustache, it’s sad.
The really creative and different games created recently is looked upon as stupid.
As mentioned above, Noby Noby was something special, but people think the developers were high on.. something, just because it doesn’t make sense, and is different…
I think it’s sad that you have to be a indie developer to think creative, because the big guys cannot take a chance. But now should be the perfect time to get crazy, since it doesn’t necessarily need disc distribution, just online release (Noby Noby Boy).
In these times, with the industry sh*tting money, and online distribution, the gaming industry should be crowded with creative innovations!
I want the good ol’ times back!
Highly enjoyed CoH/CoV, and there are some plans in the works for another expansion soon that look fairly interesting. I’ve got a request in for a beta key for Champions Online (which looks like it will be interesting), so I’m guessing its their way of competing.
Thanks for your comments. I realize the article was long, but I wanted to make sure people realized I wasn’t just stabbing in the dark on this. Noby Noby Boy is pretty original. Katamari Damachi was as well. Both weird games.
I think a lot of the issue is that we have so many more games being released than we did back in the Mario days, not to mention that consumer opinions have changed since then. Being weird was the normal back in the late 70’s/early 80’s, the plot didn’t need to make sense. With more realistic graphics I think people now want more realistic story lines. I could be wrong, just a guess, though.
That may be a part of the issue, yes.
I think also, since the Mario days, the gaming genres have been defined a lot more. Back in the days, they were still no boundaries to the platform genre, and not so many rules applied. But now, if someone makes a platformer, 90% of the time, they follow the “rules”. You have to collect buttloads of this, and buttloads of that, and maybe jump occasionally, that is todays definition of the platforming genre in a nutshell.
The problem with today’s gaming industry, is that it takes to much time and resources to make a game (with exception of internet releases). Due to the amount of time and money it takes, no one can afford a flop, and therefor not taking a chance with a creative and innovative idea.
Some people try, but the consumer sure do send out wrong signals. Valkyria Chronicles is a brilliant game, being creative (in today’s standards) with it’s gameplay mechanic, but also had a good storyline. But no-one bought the damn thing, what signals does that send? For once Sega makes something good, and it flops.
As for the storylines vs realistic graphics. I don’t see why developers go for realism in all their games, I am tired of fps after fps trying to have the best graphics. Why not use the consoles horsepowers on just higher polycounts and better animations? I mean, I would love to see what Naughty Dog could do with the Jak and Daxter franchise on the PS3 graphically, the same gameplay and such from the PS2 games, and just bump up the texture resolutions, poly count, and scale? They already have a good storyline there, and far from realistic.
But I may just be a part of a small group who prefer creative storylines over realistic GTA crap.
This may not make a lot of sense (03:19AM in this region), but that is what I think of the problem now, it’s not something we can solve over night. Although we could change the trend, by supporting games like Valkryia Chronicles, Brütal Legend, Jak, Noby Noby Boy and so on, and stop worshiping Crysis, Farcry and such. Don’t get me wrong, they are all good games, but they are not creative in any way, and the gaming industry should be the most creative business out there!
(whoops, way too long comment there…)
@Viking: Yeah, I agree with you on 90% of that. My only disagreement is Far Cry – sure, it’s a shooter, and yes, they tried really hard to push the visual count. The AI is sometimes borderline zombie and other times superhero, but what they introduced with the traps and other creative ways to eliminate enemies (as opposed to run – shoot – take cover – shoot), to me put the franchise into a little bit better light than other shooters, like Crysis or Killzone.
Another thing to keep in mind is what I call the Beatles syndrome. It’s easy to be great when you’re one of the first ones on the scene. No doubt they were a great band and very talented, but you hear people trying to hype new bands as “the next Beatles” and that is simply ridiculous. Times are far different today than they were in 1964. The next big music revolution was the internet, but as for genre or style, we’re still a ways off.
To equate, sure Super Mario Bros. was more innovative than Jill of the Jungle or some of the other games for the Amiga/Atari/Colecovision(sp?), but there still weren’t a ton of titles out there.