Quote Originally Posted by Loony BoB View Post
I think they're still capable of being creative, but there is only so much you can do once games are churned out as fast as they are now. You just need to know where to look to find the more creative games. A good example would be Flower, another would be Spore. They might not be as good as one would have liked (in the case of Spore), but they were definitely creative.
Spore is a terrible example actually. The high concept behind it was certainly a creative and ground breaking idea, but the execution was the complete opposite. It played like 5 distinct games that did a poor job of emulating other games that came before in those genres, many of which legitimately did do something creative and innovative.

Anyway, as far as my actual critique of the industry. The short version would be to tell Valve to keep doing what they're doing and to tell everyone else to pay attention to what Valve is doing. Not so much in the development realm because trying to copy Valve's style is a stupid idea. More in how they engage their fan community, constantly strive to improve, and never nickel and dime the fans. When it comes to respecting the people who supported them from Half-Life up to now, no company is really doing it better that I can think of.

But of course I can't leave it there. Check out the latest episode of Extra Creditz over at the Escapist for my feelings on marketing, particularly from EA who they spend the episode talking about.

Activision needs to pull it's head out of it's ass and learn a lesson from the demise of Guitar Hero. This is what they try to do with every successful series they have and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that not only is it a bad long term business strategy, but it's likely to happen in the next few years with COD, and they really can't afford that. Their catalog of high profile IP's isn't so broad or deep that they could survive the demise of their biggest seller. Ironically, they could learn a thing or two from EA who has gotten a lot better at supporting new IP's (despite cancelling a Mirror's Edge sequel for now). Before leaving the topic of Activision though, they should fire Kotick. Sooner rather than later.

And as far as game design, bigger companies really need to pay more attention to the little things because I see a lot of high profile games with downright stupid interface choices. Why do I have to take cover behind an object in the demo I played of Mass Effect 2 before I can vault over it? Why does the original Mass Effect have some of the worst menues ever, going so far as to even be inconsistent about the confirm and cancel buttons on different screens (something I was able to avoid on PC, but how 360 owners put up with it is beyond me).

Continuing with stupid design choices; let's stop including leveling systems in games that really don't need them. I don't appreciate having to level in games which should be based on skill. In fact, I don't really appreciate having to level at all frankly, unless I get some choice in how my skills develop. Otherwise you're just trying to dictate how quickly I should be able to play through a game or when I should be able to get to specific areas. Too often a leveling system is a lazy attempt at changing the pace of the game, or worse, trying to artificially extend it. Any developer using them for either can quit now.

I'll probably be back with more later, but I'll try to be a bit more positive next time. I do think that overall the industry has done and will continue to do some awesome things for the foreseeable future.