This is what innovation looks like in big-budget video games

Indie games don’t sell as many copies as big-budget titles, though not necessarily because they’re lower-quality. In general, indie game development starts with a handicap: a limited market. They are, mostly, experiences made for niche audiences. AAA games — think Call of Duty, Halo, Battlefield, Destiny — are made for everyone, an audience that’s been intensely researched over decades of action-movie box-office sales and Black Friday marketing campaigns. AAA consultants know exactly which games sell the best, where they sell the most, how much the mainstream audience wants to think and what their boundaries are. This approach to creation contributes to the flood of sequels and first-person shooters in our game libraries, now and into the foreseeable future. Sony and Microsoft’s showcases at E3 2015 were soaked in sequels and remakes, leading some fans to question the creative status of the industry as a whole. But, the AAA industry does innovate — in its own, small way.

AAA’s focus on mainstream appeal and major money keeps the video game industry churning in the public eye, which is a good thing as gaming strives to be taken seriously as a form of entertainment and art. However, AAA is not too big to fail. It needs to innovate, as much as it can, to stay relevant. It needs to take risks; it needs to offer players new experiences, even if these take place in familiar worlds. Innovation in the AAA space looks dramatically different than anything in the indie realm — because it has to, in the name of the industry’s bottom line.

Four games shown off at E3 2015 clearly demonstrate the delicate balance of innovation and familiarity required in sustained AAA development: Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, and Horizon: Zero Dawn and ReCore.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Mirror’s Edge Catalyst both build off of a familiar sci-fi premise: In the future, society is controlled by a fear-mongering, murderous and inhumane government, and the protagonist fights against the system in the name of justice. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is a dark exploration of the war between cybernetically enhanced people and organic-only humans, taking world-building cues from dystopian sci-fi classics Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Transmetropolitan and Neuromancer. Players can slaughter their way through claustrophobic, metal-soaked cities or sneak around, only killing when necessary.

Innovation in the AAA space doesn’t always mean “different.” Sometimes, it just means “more.”

In a hands-off demo at E3, Deus Ex developers emphasized a variety of new gadgets and weapons available to protagonist Adam Jensen in the new game. According to Square Enix’s market analysts, this is what dedicated Deus Ex players want: New toys, bigger worlds and more moves. No major changes, no big shake-ups. Deus Ex consistently offers a cool universe, a badass protagonist and a beloved sci-fi franchise, and many players are happy to play within its walls over and over again. Mankind Divided is on track to be a serious, action-heavy, technologically fabulous game about our dystopian future. Yes, again. Innovation in the AAA space doesn’t always mean “different.” Sometimes, it just means “more.”

Mirror’s Edge Catalyst approaches sci-fi dystopia from a drastically different vantage point. First of all, the game world is bright white, compared with the dreary yellows and browns of Deus Ex. Second, Catalyst highlights one woman, Faith, as the player’s only weapon against a corrupt government — and Faith truly is the only weapon that players need. She’s a parkour and hand-to-hand-combat master, and she soars through a stark white city by sliding, climbing and leaping around rooftops and alleyways. In an alpha build I played at E3, Mirror’s Edge Catalyst felt buttery smooth and Faith’s universe seemed free and open, even in a limited demo space.

Mirror’s Edge represents a different kind of innovation than Deus Ex — Catalyst needs to play better than the original Mirror’s Edge in order to retain the series’ cult-like status, so DICE is focused on making the controls and movements work well. Plus, with the robust AI capabilities of current-gen consoles, Catalyst can be bigger and offer more replay value than its predecessor. These are wonderful additions to revive a nearly forgotten franchise, even though, at first glance, the tweaks don’t look like major additions. Much like timing a jump from the top of one rooftop to the next, it’s all about subtlety here.

It’s easier to spot something that looks like AAA “innovation” in original IPs, even when two new games offer nearly the same storyline. Horizon: Zero Dawn and ReCore share a conceit: Robots vastly outnumber humans in a post-apocalyptic Earth steeped in a mysterious past. Again, extremely different vibes emanate from each of these titles. Horizon is billed as a realistic, large game featuring weapon-based combat, stealth, crafting and explosive boss battles. It looks beautiful so far and that’s a big part of the battle for a new IP. Even if the story doesn’t live up to expectations, as some players fear, this could be the birth of a fresh franchise — the lifeblood of the AAA industry.

Even though it’s also a new IP, ReCore carries more history than Horizon simply because it comes from Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune. Its universe mirrors Horizon‘s, though things are more cartoonish. Instead of massive, dinosaur-like machines, ReCore features dog-like robots and metal creatures with rounded, friendly edges, even for the baddies. As Inafune said in our interview with him at E3, ReCore offers something familiar for longtime video game fans: “As some people may know, I really love robots. Pretty much all of my games have some type of robots in them.” ReCore may be a new game, but it carries immediately recognizable themes. It’s like a fuzzy blanket of familiarity wrapped around a tiny ball of novelty.

This is innovation, AAA-style. It’s a balance of familiarity and newness; safety and risk. Even new games, the ones that we want to call “innovative,” feature recognizable and accessible aspects for the mainstream market. These games have to appeal to a mass audience, meaning that once something works, large developers are slower to change and publishers are less inclined to try something new. This has led to yearly, multi-million-dollar franchises such as Call of Duty and Battlefield — but even these titles suffer when they don’t innovate enough. Sales of Call of Duty have fallen for the past three years, though the franchise still dominates the gaming industry. For now.

Besides, to anyone who claims that the video game industry is devoid of creativity or new experiences: You’re not looking hard enough. The indie scene — or whatever you want to call titles made by small teams with little traditional funding — is bursting with fresh ideas and creative, exciting games. These aren’t all 16-bit nostalgia bombs or harsh experiments in social commentary, either. Complaints about over-saturation on video game distribution hubs like the App Store or Steam may be valid, but it’s difficult to despair a lack of new games and a glut of new games in the same breath. Dig a little deeper. But, however creative the indie industry may be, it can’t support the entire multi-billion-dollar gaming market on its own.

Today, there are more games than ever for players to enjoy, from indie to AAA. As the indie scene creates weird, subtle and soul-shattering experiences, big-budget developers tweak the formula that works in order to keep the industry afloat. And, in the process, all of these studios create games that excite, entertain and soothe players for years on end, even if they repeatedly offer the same experience with a different skin, map or gadget. This is how it works, until the market — meaning, everyone — dictates otherwise.

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‘Quiplash,’ a streaming party game for 10,000 people

Most people haven’t hosted a party for 10,000 guests (the bathroom situation alone is daunting), but thanks to the internet and Jackbox Games, that’s now a super-easy, low-mess situation. Quiplash is the newest game from Jackbox — makers of You Don’t Know Jack and Fibbage — and it boasts a pretty cool feature: Just one person needs to own the game for up to 10,000 people to play in a single round. This is a game built for streaming.

Here’s how it works: One person fires up the game and a unique code appears on his or her screen. Anyone who wants to play heads to jackbox.tv on any internet-connected device, types in the code and viola. You don’t need extra controllers or anything, and Quiplash is available now on Xbox One, PC, Mac, PlayStation 3 and PS4 for $10. This means that streamers can go live with the code and invite basically all of their Twitch viewers to join in on the fun. It’s rather unlikely that anyone will actually play a Quiplash game with 10,000 people, but it’s nice knowing the option is there. Previous Jackbox games allowed players to share codes in the same way, though only for up to 100 people at a time. Maybe this ridiculous, 10,000-player humor game will help lead to a more globalized, connected and compassionate world or something.

As for gameplay, Quiplash requires three to eight “core” players, while everyone else is the voting “audience.” The core players go head-to-head, two people at a time, with a prompt and a blank slate. The game offers something like, “An inventive way to get rid of head lice,” and two players type in whatever they think will score them the most votes from the audience (probably something funny). The more votes you get, the better your score. Securing all of the available votes results in a “quiplash,” which basically means that you’re the raddest quipper in town.

“Our goal is to keep making party games that everyone — and maybe someday, literally everyone — can play simply by pulling out their phones,” Jackbox Editorial Director Steve Heinrich writes on the PlayStation Blog. “We’re planning more and more of this in our future games, but for now, we hope our first stab at this feature in Quiplash is a successful first stab, without anyone getting hurt. It’s not that kind of stab.”

Back in January, ye olde Joystiq crew played Fibbage live on a stream with Heinrich himself. Check out how this no-controller, online-party-game thing works in the archive below.

Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds, Internet, HD

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The 1998 ‘Battlezone’ remake is getting remastered

The trends of remaking and remastering classic games just kicked into overdrive. Rebellion (best known for its Sniper Elite games) has revealed that it’s developing not just a virtual reality version of the original Battlezone, but a refresh of the 1998 Battlezone title for PCs — yes, it’s a remake getting a remaster. It’s too soon to know what this new version will entail, although it’ll probably be fun if it maintains the ‘original’ mix of tank-based action, real-time strategy and an alternate-history space race. Let’s just hope that someone doesn’t try to re-do the remaster a decade from now… that would be a bit much.

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Source: Rebellion

Diet-based ‘video game’ claims to make you thinner

We know that Pavlovian conditioning can make you do all sorts of crazy things, so could it be used to make us all a bit healthier? Psychologists from the universities of Exeter and Cardiff believe that it’s possible after building a “computer game” that, essentially, trains you to steer clear of bad food. Unfortunately, the game itself is just a flashcard routine where players are asked to push a button when they’re shown salad and hold off when they see cookies. If we’re honest, the bad guys in the food and drink industry still have the upper hand, just look at Cool Spot, the 1993 platformer that was a giant ad for 7 Up.

The study asked 41 people to spend four, 10 minute sessions playing the game online while keeping a food diary. According to the results, participants wound up losing a “small but significant” amount of weight and laid-off for the bad stuff for the following six months. Meanwhile, a control group of 42 adults played the same game, but with images of non-food items, and saw no such change in their eating pattern.

Of course, it’s hard to say that we should all rush out and buy The Vanishing of Ethan Carter’s Waistline on the basis of this one study alone. After all, people normally do behave slightly better when they’re keeping a food diary, and may not have wanted to let the side down by putting on weight. Still, project lead Dr. Natalie Lawrence feels that there’s some potential for this sort of research and funding has been secured for more testing. In the mean time, we’re running down to Gamestop to pre-order Saints Rowing Machine and Diet Ex: Mankind Divided.

[Image Credit: Getty]

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Via: Hot Hardware

Source: University of Exeter

Recommended Reading: Roku’s plan to take on Apple, Amazon and Google

Recommended Reading highlights the best long-form writing on technology and more in print and on the web. Some weeks, you’ll also find short reviews of books that we think are worth your time. We hope you enjoy the read.

TV Wars: Inside Roku’s Plan to Beat Apple, Amazon and Google
by Jared Newman
Fast Company

Ever wonder how a smaller company like Roku can keep pace in the streaming war against the likes of Amazon, Apple and Google? Fast Company takes a look at all the ways Roku is keeping pace, what makes its version of streaming video unique and why the company’s survival is important.

[Image credit: James Looker/T3 Magazine via Getty Images]

Filed under: Misc, HD

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Recommended Reading: Roku’s plan to take on Apple, Amazon and Google

Recommended Reading highlights the best long-form writing on technology and more in print and on the web. Some weeks, you’ll also find short reviews of books that we think are worth your time. We hope you enjoy the read.

TV Wars: Inside Roku’s Plan to Beat Apple, Amazon and Google
by Jared Newman
Fast Company

Ever wonder how a smaller company like Roku can keep pace in the streaming war against the likes of Amazon, Apple and Google? Fast Company takes a look at all the ways Roku is keeping pace, what makes its version of streaming video unique and why the company’s survival is important.

[Image credit: James Looker/T3 Magazine via Getty Images]

Filed under: Misc, HD

Comments