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Forums - Gaming Discussion - What's with the obsession about 'innovation'?

 

Do you want innovation all the time?

Yes 18 22.78%
 
No 15 18.99%
 
Don't care as long as it is good 46 58.23%
 
Total:79
Ka-pi96 said:

Does innovation automatically make things better? No!
Can things be good without innovation? Yes!


Importance is placed on innovation because even fun formulas become boring when repeated endlessly. Think if the every Mario game up to this point was exactly the same as the first: No additional items to create puzzles, no overworld/map, no mini-bosses, no ghost houses, no triple jump, backflip, no Yoshi, no 3D, no red coins, no stars, no rail/moving levels, no moving platforms. As early as "Lost Levels", Nintendo brought some new things to the table. Without innovation, SMB3 would not be possible, "World 1&2" would not be possible, 64 and "3D World" would not be possible. The "Galaxy" and "Sunshine" games are just straight out the window with a baseball bat without innovation. All of that innovation is within one franchise (that people often complain is stale and dated). 

Now, imagine if every franchise used the same mechanics, gameplay, level design, etc. as the series that same before it. We would all be playing Pong... Scratch that! Pong added angles to the direction you shot the "ball", depending on where it struck your "paddle"! We would all be playing "Table Tennis".

Was the game fun? Yes. Is it still fun? Yes. Would I still play videogames regularly if all we had to play was "Table Tennis"? Probably not. An overly dramatic history lesson, I have to admit - and I'm sure there were games that preceeded "Table Tennis - but my point is that you are partially correct. Games that do little or nothing new can still be fun, especially if we haven't had that exact experience in a while (i.e. retro titles). Innovation is neccessary, however, to keep the same old ideas feeling fresh.

Not only is innovation neccessary for the industry, it's also great for gamers! Think about the first time you played "Tetris, Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Metroid, Wolfenstein 3D, Starfox, Goldeneye, Final Fantasy VII, Virtua Fighter, GTA 3, Halo, Morrowind, Mario Galaxy, Portal, etc. It's a breath of fresh air to play something completely new (Portal, Wolfenstein 3D, Mario 64), or even a new and trendsetting take on something old (Goldeneye, Halo, Metal Gear Solid, Mario Kart). All of those games occupy special places in my heart, places that aren't accessible to titles that take a "...don't fix it mentality". 

A fun, competant game, is something I will always respect, and titles like "Mario Kart 8" and "DK: Tropical Freeze" make up a big part of my library. It's the innovative and big new ideas that hit the industry every so often that keep me coming back, keep me laying down my dollar on new consoles in anitcipation of what new, hitherto unthought of pleasures that are going to await me during this generation... ones that didn't exist during the last one. 



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For some games I love, the studios better stay away with "innovations"!

I do not say innovating is bad, but it doesn't really decide the quality of a game. An innovative game can be as good or as bad as an game based on a tested concept.

And the tested concept doesn't turn bad, only because it was already used in past games. This can especially lead to bad decisions, that turn a working gaming franchise into a mess. Would I want that Monster Hunter get more accessible by reducing the number of weapons (or make weapon working more in the same way so it is easier to learn) or to add a visible health bar to monsters? No, I don't want such changes. Would I want that oldschool RPGs drop the number of stats that can be influenced by the player or switch from turn-based to real-time to make it more accessible? No, I still want my oldschool RPGs with a lot of stats where I can research for hours if it is better for one of my characters if I increase STR or DEX.



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I don't really care for token innovation (doing it just for the sake of it) or if it's poorly thought out. Like nintendo controllers. Every generation, they change it and it doesn't make any sense why. I don't mind change/innovation but it needs to improve or change something for the better.



when you read between the lines the obsessions actually about having something to complain about on a game/system you don't like.

As evidenced by the defense response kicking in if you question a game/franchise/platform they like in the same manner.



Innovation can mean a lot of things but i think its very misinterpreted lately



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Innovation is such a rare phenomenon that it's a wonder why people complain all the time.



Ka-pi96 said:

I regularly see people complaining about consoles or games lacking innovation. But why are people so obsessed about things being innovative?

Does innovation automatically make things better? No!
Can things be good without innovation? Yes!

Forget about whether something is innovative or not. It's a game, is it fun? That's what should matter!

What do you think? Do you just enjoy games for what they are, or do you demand innovation constantly? Why?

Of course not, but a lack of innovation can never make things better... on a technical standpoint stagnation will keep things exactly the same forever whereas for us the gamers, stagnation can only make things slowly worse because humans crave new experience. A game may be brilliant, best game ever material but if you have played 20 games that have similar gameplay before it it will not seem as good.

Obviously I am using extreme examples here as it is impossible for a game to have no innovation at all... and certainly for a time most people are happy playing very similar games but with a new story or new characters, but eventually they get bored. I think I get bored of specific types of game relatively quickly in a way, I suspect it is because I play the individual games themselves to death. (so for example I buy Mario Kart and play it almost exclusively for a few months, then I am not interested in buying another similar game for years, and probably won't even play any racing game for months)



To justify a new generation.