The Experimental Gameplay Project has announced a new competition they are hosting, where people are to create a game in two weeks time. Their site already hosts many such games, where gameplay and innovation are favored over licenses and advertisement. A few that I would suggest immeadiately are Particle Suck and Tower of Goo. Both of these games are entertaining on the surface, as well as providing detailed physics that should intrigue and promote experimentation. On April 1st they are going to announce a theme for this design competition, which will hopefully bring a lot of people out of their holes to make an attempt at it.
Many of the ideas presented on their website are very solid, and it seems that they have a geniune desire to improve the Games industry. They encourage innovation, stating that if a game does not appear to be working in the first two weeks, there is no point in developing it further. The key mechanics and fundamentals need to be in place early for a game to truly shine. A glaring issue does arise, however, as one thinks that they are allowing all of these games for download openly on the site. The thought and consideration of charging for games such as these is rather trivial, as it would have to be a small sum that would only annoy consumers and would not gather much profit for the developer.
The question grows as we think about the games that we are paying money for. Often, there is a lengthy plot which serves to provide hours upon hours of gameplay which are typically associated with the respective value of a game. If a game only provides the player with hours of mindless repetition, however, at what point does the value begin to decline again? The general concern for people today is that the costs for producing games is going through the roof. If a company plans to make any money from a game, they had better find ways to increase the quality of gameplay while keeping costs to a minimum. The concensus amongst those who have grown up with videogames seems to be that many pre-16 bit games were often more fun, and even more innovative, then many games that come out today. Yet prices still continue to soar.
What needs to be done is that gameplay needs to once again return to the forefront of the industry, rather then concerns over franchises. Nintendo has always been at the forefront of this symbiosis, as they have frequently proven their competency at applying franchises to new styles of gameplay. Several examples of such are Mario Party, Tennis, Kart, Metroid Prime, Metroid Pinball, or even within the variations from one Zelda game to the next. The issue is that other companies simply are not careful with what they produce. Games like the Starwars fighting game, or some of the different Sonic the Hedgehog games, where the name/franchise is relied upon to sell the game. The Games Industry needs to recommit itself, and change its objectives, toward producing more quality games that push boundaries, change the ways we interact with the medium, and entertain many generations to come!
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