Serious We will soon run out of game story ideas.

Hie the Badger

Hie the Badger

The Destroyer
I at one point wanted to make a game based on my beliefs as an artsy expression thing. This was about 8 or so years ago. I'm not going to make a game now and will instead just grump around. Why? Because by this point there are no original ideas in it anymore. I couldn't walk two steps without running into an idea that was already taken and I couldn't find ways to work around them. Even mutilating the :red: out of the actual ideas and points in the game left me with a very dull, samey, boring game idea that looks just like any other fantasy action game out there and I might as well just put on my cat ears and que up for the next final fantasy. Or make a clicker game that heavily implies that you must spend money on it if you ever want to get very far in a reasonable time frame. That's what everyone else is doing.

We are quickly covering all the negative space with ideas to the point where you can't even walk without stepping on someone else's. The money grubbing corporations don't see this yet so they will notice it the hardest when the audience finally starts throwing chairs. Final fantasy doesn't have 20 chapters for the story.

But what do you think?

(I tried 30 different thread ideas this week and this one was chosen by coin flip)
 
You know, one thing I learned when reading that official book on the story behind Minecraft was that particularly in the indie scene, ideas are shared around. I mean, Notch even initially referred to Minecraft as an "Infiniminer clone." And yet Minecraft does feel different from Infiniminer, no?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that my point is, most ideas have already been milled over, but each variation can still feel unique in its own right.
 
Hie said:
I at one point wanted to make a game based on my beliefs as an artsy expression thing. This was about 8 or so years ago. I'm not going to make a game now and will instead just grump around. Why? Because by this point there are no original ideas in it anymore. I couldn't walk two steps without running into an idea that was already taken and I couldn't find ways to work around them. Even mutilating the :red: out of the actual ideas and points in the game left me with a very dull, samey, boring game idea that looks just like any other fantasy action game out there and I might as well just put on my cat ears and que up for the next final fantasy. Or make a clicker game that heavily implies that you must spend money on it if you ever want to get very far in a reasonable time frame. That's what everyone else is doing.

We are quickly covering all the negative space with ideas to the point where you can't even walk without stepping on someone else's. The money grubbing corporations don't see this yet so they will notice it the hardest when the audience finally starts throwing chairs. Final fantasy doesn't have 20 chapters for the story.

But what do you think?
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What do I think? This^
 
Game with a plot? An invention somewhere around the year 2000.
Remember Pokemon Red/Blue? Yeah, I do. Do you remember the story?
Ya, Red beats all 8 gym leaders, destroys team Rocket, saves some people and becomes the Champion. In less than one day (because there's no night in the game).
Remember Mario? He had to save the princess and defeat King Koopa.
Or Zelda? Link had to beat Ganon.
Stories were simple.
 
Making a game that was an "artsy expression" may have been your first mistake. As a gamer I like Action RPGs and won't for the life of me ever play a game that's someones "artistic expression" - unless you're a :red:ing artistic genius and the game is actually a game as well as artistic.

I don't lightly bandy about the word "genius".

There are a lot of ideas - and I mean a metric :red:tonne of ideas - for games that haven't been implemented yet, I've got a literal stockpile here sitting right next to me. The real problem is funds, money, passion, belief, the resources to get these games made.

There's still so many amazing games that we've never played, we just need to make them.
 
You one of them games aren't art people? Any genre can be more than just a simulation where you press buttons. If you haven't seen that you aren't looking deep enough into a game. But I guess that's for the better. We'd have a few less games if more people noticed the currents of certain games.
 
rubeszilla said:
Making a game that was an "artsy expression" may have been your first mistake. As a gamer I like Action RPGs and won't for the life of me ever play a game that's someones "artistic expression" - unless you're a :red:ing artistic genius and the game is actually a game as well as artistic.

I don't lightly bandy about the word "genius".

There are a lot of ideas - and I mean a metric :red:tonne of ideas - for games that haven't been implemented yet, I've got a literal stockpile here sitting right next to me. The real problem is funds, money, passion, belief, the resources to get these games made.

There's still so many amazing games that we've never played, we just need to make them.
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Binding of Isaac, son. Absolutely KICK :red: game, more content and addictive zelda clone action, but the game is an artistic statement about childhood and religion and a bunch of other stuff inspired by the dev's personal home life when he was young.

Videogames can be and indeed ARE art. Another good example recently, bloodborne. Crazy tough, fast paced action RPG, but the world it takes place in is absolutely haunting. I've not experienced a game world as unsettlingly creepy as this one in a very, very long time. It's artistic. I FEEL something in it.
 
I don't give a :red: about "art". I am an artist. I paint, oil paintings, I make music on my synth. I play games too.

I'm not saying video game aren't art, I'm saying: I don't care.

I want to play a game. Binding of Isaac played like any other game I'd played in the 1980s - not to say it wasn't good. Bloodborne was From Software's mediocre transmission from DS1 to DS3.

Games are art, art are games, art reflects life, blah, blah, blah...

At the end of the day Hie believes there aren't any ways to progress to in game design and I have to disagree. If you find that "every thing's been done" then you're not thinking creative enough.

If you want, I could give you a long list of ideas for games that aren't being implemented/thought of right now, but I'd have to charge you :)
 
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If everything else fails, you can always make direct ports of 80's home computer games - a large chunk of modern gamers never knew the joy of head-desking after their latest failed run of Jet Set Willy, Sabrewulf or Alien Highway, and old gamers will love having a chance to replay those classics without having to resort to emulation.

The plot of those games usually came in a booklet, so they could make both "I want to play a game" and "my games need to be novels" happy at the same time. True, this was due to limitation rather than the "stylistic choice" crappy modern games use as an excuse, but it was still good to not have to sit through a five minutes intro to start playing the game.
 
If there are no more game story ideas, then are there no more ideas for TV and movie stories, or literature? Games have very simple plots in comparison to other genres anyway - I've yet to see a "plot" for a game the complexity of more than an episode of a TV sitcom.
 
I'll have to agree. Far Cry 3's plot is good. It doesn't need to be original to be good, and it isn't. I've seen all its parts done elsewhere before. Often it's not about what but how when it comes to stories, no matter the media.

For example, the The Walking Dead game saga by Telltale Games. While I didn't like the railroaded plot the devs advertise as "you choose what happens," the story itself, in all its paths, was quite good. It got me into trying other episodic games.
 
FlakMaster said:
Far Cry 3. That got me thinking more than the usual rubbish on TV.
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Most of praise about Far Cry is graphics, but to have a great plot as well is something of a marvel. Thank you for informing me.
On another note, there may be a reason for games to have a hard time with plot - as an interactive part of story, the game has to keep up with your actions whilst still feeling fresh and not disjointed. Hell, movies and TV take ages to create plots which can be anything from :red: to brilliant, so what do we expect from a game that also requires complex coding, animation or 3D engines and occasionally (multiplayer syncing)?
 
I think it depends on the specific type of media. TV Shows and animations usually have hours of content within months, in comparison to films that can take over 2 years to get just 2 hours. Of course, films are usually more refined and have far less filler content. So, if it's games vs films, it's somewhat on the same page. Games vs TV shows, not so much, with the exception of those episodic games that are more of a game-show hybrid.

Also, Far Cry 3 is one of those rare cases of which (despite its publisher's reputation) a lot about it is good. The graphics were decent, same with the story, and the combat was quite interesting too. Stealth worked in a sense that is still effective, but not stupid Skyrim-level effective, while at the same time you can go guns blazing or chain-stab foes. Overall fun. It's a little on the easy side once you get the signature sniper and LMG, and lacks replayability. Mind you, most games I have the best times on typically lack replayability.
 
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