Are Video Games Creative Anymore?
It is an oft-heard complaint, but it bears repeating for as long as it remains valid: the vast majority of today’s video games are merely not as creative as those made during the Golden Age of Gaming, when a single programmer can become a millionaire due to technical skill and imagination. Compare a title like Pitfall! to any number of today’s “platform scrollers” and it is obvious that aside from vastly improved graphics, modern-day entries in this genre suffer from a very bad case of derivative game play.
How did this happen? How did the industry lose sight of imaginative game play and focus instead on graphics? To be sure, it is inevitable that titles should be so derivative because most of the basics have been covered: there are only so many ways to do a platform scroller or first-person shooter. Isometric views, overhead bird’s eye views – they’ve all been done. There are only so many ways to present the adventure and represent its characters. Fine. But taken as a whole, the catalog of contemporary gaming seems sorely lacking.
This is due to the demands of big business, as corporations spend multiple millions to develop one single title, the stakes are so high that risk-tolerance is low to non-existent. Thankfully, there is a vigorously thriving independent gaming scene, relegated mostly to “puzzlers” and so-called casual gaming titles that are simple enough in concept but can offer many hours of amusement.
Though addictive enough in their own rights, these games can also be easily walked away from, the equivalent of a Microsoft Solitaire. Titles like Crayon, Flower, Osmos, World of Goo, and And Yet It Moves provide mental stimulation in entirely novel ways.
Mobile gaming is another arena for independent creators to dabble in the most imaginative ideas without fear of corporate disproval. Actually, this segment of the gaming market is expected to grow and dominate industry trends in another five to ten years with improved connectivity, promising to usher in a new Golden Age of Gaming.
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