Is Creative Entertainment dead?

[Zonehunter1]

I hate how all entertainment is lacking in creativity. Take video games for example. The top selling games of last year were all sequels. That means that creative games that are new to the market do not stand a chance in our mainstream thought of the video game market. Psyconauts for example was an incredible game but no one bought it. Why? because it had not established itself in the market. That's why we are having more sequels of games than new creative licenses. Hopefully the next Age of Gaming will bring back the spark of creativity.

Your thoughts on the topic?

[renegade]

if a game developing compeny makes a shit load of mony of a sertain game, why risk it with a new game, when you can make a sequel out of it?

mony kills creativity.

its the lack of mony that fources us to be creative.

[Zonehunter1]

I think it has more to do with the fact of what the current trend in video gaming is.
Killing, blood, gore, language are the mainstays of the market.
Why make a nonviolent game like Katamari Damacy when you know it has no chance of being a big seller?
If you think back to the beginning of video gaming, there was no set market. it was do the game that you always wanted to exist.
This is where the current market should go, and not follow a set path of marketing.

[Balain]

Actually what I've heard from some game designers is that it is in fact money. They will have an idea for a game and bring it to producer. The producer looks at it and says "Oh that isn't like any other of our games that make money. We don't want to take that on and risk it not selling." So all you get is the same type of game being developed from these companies. At least here in North Americia. These developers with new game ideas can't go out on their own to make the game. Well they can try but it costs millions to make games now. Not like the old days when you or you and a couple guys could program a game. Now it it takes teams of programs and artists.

There is a site called Home of the Under Dogs (http://www.the-underdogs.org/) they try to bring really good games that didn't make it big to light to try and battle this a little bit.

[Zonehunter1]

Isn't it more of a download site for Abandonware?

[Balain]

That's what it started out as. they actually have reviews and such from recent games. I don't remember everything they said about themselves now. Been awhile but in their FAQ or about them page they talk about what they want to do type thing

[hapacheese]

There are two factors at play here. In an industry such as the game industry, it takes two to tango.

1) Consumers simply aren't interested: If gamers were interested on a scale large enough for companies to be able to stay financially solvent and still create those types of games, you bet your donuts they would.

2) Game companies have to stay alive: Do you expect a company to willingly make business decisions that will lose them millions of dollars?


Every designer/developer (well, almost every) wants to create something new and exciting. They want to have an impact on the entertainment industry. However, there is no point in doing so if you will cause the company you work for or own to collapse, leaving tens or hundreds of people unemployed.

However, the trick is in finding the balance between marketability and creativity. Developers have, and continue to, strike this balance on occasion. Games such as Star Wars: KOTOR, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, and so on and so forth all took fairly standard game genres/concepts and added great sparks of creativity and quality.