Games Industry Must “Innovate or Die”, Says David Cage
By Tim Colwill on July 6, 2012 at 12:44 pm
“It’s great that you can shoot at monsters, and that’s great and it will always be there and it will always be successful,” said David Cage, “but at the same time, what about giving the choice to people? Give them different options. So if they like that they find it, but if they want something deeper and interactive, they can find that too.” Cage is the head of Quantic Dream, the company behind Heavy Rain and the newly-revealed Beyond: Two Souls, games that are known for trying new and different things – if not necessarily being best-sellers.
“This industry will die if it doesn’t try more to be innovative and to come up with new ideas and to talk a bit more – not necessarily serious, but deeper things at some point.” Cage’s comments echo those of Warren Spector, who explained to games.on.net recently that “There are too few games out there, I think, that live up to the promise of what games can be. Because we insist on making them more like movies, or we insist on making them vehicles for creative designers to show how creative they are.”
Source: Games Industry International
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Nice work captain obvious. Of course gaming has to innovate. And since when has it stopped? If the industry didn’t innovate we’d still be playing pong. Innovation hasn’t stopped, it’s simply slowed as the industry gets older. And I’m not talking about tech wise, just game mechanics. It just sounds like this bloke has a chip on his shoulder because people still like playing shooters.
mindsnare,
Except in the case of Call of Duty which is more or less the same than all it’s predecessors. There is very little innovation. They churn out the same product and people buy it in droves for some strange reason.
Who else is sick of the overuse of the word innovation in the games industry ?
hardly innovative is it spooler
I don’t know, this is kinda hypocritical given the massive leap they made with omicron then the massive backpeddling they did with farenheit. Even Heavy rain was little more than a quicktime event driven choose your own adventure.
As far as innovation go they are definitely not the leaders, although kudos for trying to do something a little different and actually trying to have a decent story (although again omicron destroyed the other two games for originality)
But I do agree, COD has lost it’s way with what it was doing in the first 2 games, a lot of the games out there are cookie cutter games just pumped out to please the widest demographic.
This didn’t work in hollywood’s favour, why does the games industry think it will work better a second time around?
psychosmiley,
The thing with Call Of Duty, and everything that EA does, for instance, is the difference between people who want to make money, as in a business, and people who are in the industry for the love of gaming. I also don’t have any idea why COD, etc, keep selling so well. I do know I can’t be bothered with it in the slightest.
You can say this all you like, but the money says the complete opposite. Biggest money makers are sequels that barely change any features, and movie/tv show tie ins that are little more than a skinned platformer game.
Innovation IS important, but a lack of it wont kill the games industry, a studio perhaps, but not the industry.
Innovation in the games industry means “releasing unfinished work and then charging for DLC”
I miss big old cardboard boxes, with games that were actually finished and DLC that was called an “update” and was free. Innovate some of that!
The problem with modern games is they have forgotten how to be games. Since when was grinding for X hours to achieve Y piece of gear a game? What happened to besting your old high scores. Now success in a game is measured by time spent playing the game, not by the mastery of the game.
Yep, guy whose company spends its time making the modern equivalent of Dragon’s Lair (from 1983) with prettier graphics tells the gaming industry it needs to ‘innovate.’ Yep, I put lots of credence in this man’s words. Next thing they should do is Pong with prettier graphics, now that’s innovation!
That is rich coming from a guy who made an interactive movie with wooden voice acting and a hot and cold script; I want to LOVE his games but if the gameplay demos make me cringe then where is the hope for the full features.
There is plenty of innovation in the gaming industry there just is not in the blockbusters (but when is there ever in ANY industry)…