The Evolution Of Games 50
Thanks to Reality Panic for pointing to a new IGDA-hosted article comparing evolutionary biology to the organic process of videogame creation. The author compares the Cambrian era, an "early period of developmental simplicity for organisms", to the '70s and early '80s for games, with both containing "...a number of... oddities with few or no modern descendants". He goes on to liken the possible wiping out of the dinosaurs with "the impact of a giant meteor" to "...the arrival of the Sony PlayStation... [marking] a mass extinction of 2D games", and concludes by suggesting that, like the evolution of fauna and flora, "...periodic outbreaks of originality, and the corresponding extinction of certain game genres, are useful to drive the form forward, but the conservative intervals between these events are what serve to sustain."
2D games (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:2D games (Score:1)
Of course they're not dead. That's bullshit. It's not that 3D games are better then 2D ones, they're just different. Many 2D games have great gameplay experience that can't be reproduced in 3D at all.
One great game I played (to the end of it's 100 levels) was Koules [www.ucw.cz].
. Haven't tried the multiplayer mode yet.Re:2D games (Score:2)
Such as?
As a graphic programmer I find that really hard to believe since a 3D rendering engine can perfectly "simulate" the same 2D view.
Great gameplay doesn't completely depend on the camera view (though it may be influenced by it)
Oh the opinion game. (Score:2)
My parents and my grandparents both love Tetris. They've even been known to play a classic 2D Mario game or two. My mom was even decent at some of the old 2D platformers.
I couldn't imagine giving grandpa a game that required 3D movement. My mom would get the hang of a couple, but not many. A 3D game that confined itself to 2D for all intents and purposes would work. Crack-attack is one such game that I play with in Lin
Re:2D games (Score:1)
However, when games are given a 3d engine, everyone instantly makes the game into a 3-d world. Thus you lose out on 2-d gameplay.
How often do you see 3-d engine used to render a 2-d game? Super Mario World turns into a completely different gameplay style when it went to a 3-d engine. 3d engines in general change the gameplay, adds that '3rd' dimension that we expect.
Even 2-d fighters in 3-d engine (virtual fighter?) encorporate "sidestep" features giving another dimension of movement.
Gameplay is dire
Re:2D games (Score:2, Informative)
Re:2D games (Score:3, Interesting)
It's an approach that has a lot of aesthetic appeal, because art designer knows exactly what camera angle their art will be viewed at, and can do a better job optimizing for that angle/distance.
On
Re:2D games (Score:4, Interesting)
Not to mention most of the other features of current 3D cards, such as lighting, shaders, etc, although the impact of that sort of thing isn't explored much in 2D.
It's an approach that has a lot of aesthetic appeal, because art designer knows exactly what camera angle their art will be viewed at, and can do a better job optimizing for that angle/distance.
It also offers the developer better control of what's displayed on screen at any one time (in other words, there's a definite limit to how much is visible at once in a 2D game, whereas once the user has control of the camera or the camera adjusts to the user's viewpoint, you lose some or all control of how much may be drawn on screen at once). In 3D space you spend a lot of time designing to keep the user from being able to get to a point at which they may see too far, so that the polygon count is within a reasonable range. Of course, with newer engines and more powerful computers this has become less and less an issue, but it still is kept in mind by good level designers.
On the other hand, there's more changed in the transition from pixels to polygons than just an added dimension. Pixels are discrete, blocky, integer-based objects, while polygon meshes exist in approximately continuous space. When playing a pixel-based plaform game, if the game is designed properly, you can tell exactly when the character is standing on the platform and when they've walked one pixel too far. I don't think any polygon-based platform game yet created has had that level of exact precision. A friend of mine even suggested voxels would be a good idea in platform games for this very reason.
Good collision detection and a fixed camera view can fix a lot of the issues with platforms, though. Many of those issues come from camera angles that may distort the viewpoint or may leave the character in the way (in 3rd person views). Maybe it would be too costly to get pixel-level collision detection from polygon-based graphics, but it could be a good excuse to get designers to shy away from their need to force players to utilize pixel-level accuracy in their jumps.
Voxels are good when you have time to do the render, have a lot of space (and more importantly volume) to render, and so on, but with all current 3D cards being optimized for polygon rendering, I don't think you're going to see voxel engines taking off in gaming (though there are a handful of them out there).
Re:2D games (Score:1)
It's not that I don't like 3D, the game I play most is still Quake3.
Re:2D games (Score:2)
Re:2D games (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't like to be rude, but... (Score:1, Troll)
Sorry.
Re:I don't like to be rude, but... (Score:1)
Atari Crash (Score:5, Informative)
You are right, this article is a big, steaming pile.
Gaming is at a Nexus. (Score:5, Interesting)
Think about it, back in the day you had single screen games. Everything took place on a single screen, and you had to move your sprites around to make a game happen in different and unique ways. Nobody would accuse PacMan being anything like Space Invaders but they each left you in control of a single sprite on a single screen. Eventually clones of nearly every good game happened, but it was new so it was overlooked.
Then came systems that could actually SCROLL their screens. You had Mario hopping around, you had 9,000 games that required moving right and beating up the bad guys (i.e. Double Dragon, Batman) and you had some zooming space ships. Zelda came along and was different, but before long that was coppied. So now we have scrolling games.
Eventually came true 3D. We are on a convergence. A big convergence. No longer is coding an engine from the ground up for each game a substainable buisness model, or even necessary. Compare Alice to Quake III. I would say they were remarkably different. Alice is a platformer, Quake III is a first person shooter. They both run on the same core engine.
Right now there are different 3D engines for different types of games, but there's becoming less of a reason to seperate engines between game types. It wont be long until one engine can be a first person shooter, a platformer, and a racing or flying game. I would venture to say it's already possible, Conkers Bad Fur day for example embraces all of these elements at one part of the game or another.
The reason this is percieved is the better 3D engines get, the more games are going to look alike reguardless of what core type it is.
As computers/consoles become more powerfull, have more RAM, and the engines become more refined the blurrier the line between game types becomes. I don't necessarily see this as a bad thing. Sure, not every game has to be 3D, but we've crossed the threshold of the 3D age and theirs no going back.
The main difference I see between a racing game and a platformer? The racing game uses less detailed polygons because at high speeds it doesn't matter which leaves more memory for bigger worlds. A platformer moves slower and doesn't need as big of a world so more power is put into fine details.
How long will it be until a game comes out were the main character is able to interact with the environment on a platformer level, jump in a vehicle (or on a mount) and drive through the same world at high speeds with great detail? I can't put my finger on a particular example at the moment, but I'm sure it's already happened. Halo seems like a good example for now, UT2K4 is supposed to be simular.
Innovations not dead, reinventing the wheel on a regular basis is. Personally I'm hoping for incremental engine upgrades. Wouldn't it be nice if the UT2K3 engine would work with the game code from the orginal UT? I wouldn't mind the better rendering on the old game. Wouldn't it also be nice, if for some reason you haven't upgraded your game library for a year or so, then someone gives you a nice shiney new flight simulator for Christmas. You put the game in, decide it sucks, but all of the sudden since you got a game with an updated engine all your old games suddenly look better?
The day is coming. This convergence is a GOOD thing. Don't bitch about an empty gas tank when somebody GIVES you a car.
Seemless transition (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Gaming is at a Nexus. (Score:1)
But if you look at it from an engine perspective, there are different requirements to make each one possible, especially with the limitations of the hardware at that time. Just
Re:Gaming is at a Nexus. (Score:2)
Re:Gaming is at a Nexus. (Score:2, Insightful)
That's really just a matter of getting the tools in the hands of model designers. As it is, the game will treat the model as a series of mathematic expressions, and curves are just another level of math to deal with on the software and hardware fronts (and every curve is u
BTW: MOD PARENT UP this guy knows his stuff (Score:1)
I don't see where we disagreed all that much, we're just looking down the road from slightly different vantage points.
Re:BTW: MOD PARENT UP this guy knows his stuff (Score:1)
Re:Gaming is at a Nexus. (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, convergence of technology is good. When engines and tools become flexible enough that each developer need not spend time in pre-game phase (read: GK3 po [gamasutra.com]
Artistic convergence. (Score:2)
I'm going to back that up now.
A game/idea that is mimicked is a good game/idea.
Copy cats usually introduce SOME originality.
The new originality on the original concept can improve upon the original concept, or hurt it.
If it improves upon it the original artist can utilize it.
If it drags it down, it can be dismissed.
The original artist observes his own work, and the work of the copy cats, creates a new work with the results of everything combined in mind.
Dare I
Re:Artistic convergence. (Score:1)
That's just it. It creates better FPS games. The market of games gets dwindled down into supa-fine FPSs, RTSs, RPGs, driving games, and sports games, and never expands. The only restrictions consoles place on games is that they support output through either audio or video (or both), and that they take input. Yet we have these insanely restrictive genres to choose from. (Man, it's hard trying to explain something that doesn't e
Creationist Gaming (Score:3, Funny)
Dinosaur (Score:2, Funny)
Seems fair, seeing as the dinosaur was most likely the Sega Saturn.
Re:Dinosaur (Score:1)
game / human evolution convergence (Score:1)
When we are able to break out of the flat monitor into true 3d and immersion, the direction of games will suddenly shoot off in a whole new direction because of the new aspects this presentation.
VR has had a stigma for a while because it was introduced when the technology wasn't anywhere near ready. When the time comes that the technology is GOOD, games, application, society as a whole will change in ways I can't possibly predict. But it
Re:game / human evolution convergence (Score:1)
Summary and critique (long) (Score:4, Interesting)
In computer gaming, it's usually hardware breakthrus that open up new niches, with sequels and genre-copycats filling the between-times. Bateman argues that even the incremental improvements of sequels and copycats have the potential to open up new niches. Examples cited: Wolfenstein 3D, Sims, Gauntlet.
Critiques:
Food to an animal is much like money to a game
Most niches are based on a particular food-source, so a better analogy might be that food-sources are like player-motivations: The Sims appeals to different motives than Doom. Both are effective in extracting money/calories, but via different food-sources/motives.
[In the early days] Games were unconstrained by preconceptions, and so explored all manner of directions, only learning the hard way what would prove profitable, and what wouldn't.
The creativity in games in the early 80s was due to low entry-barriers and huge consumer demand for novelty. Most were crap, but the few that weren't made millions, and inspired imitators.
This reconstruction turned out to be bogus-- the spines were on its back.
Compare the success of the genre exemplified by Taito's 1978 Space Invaders (albiet not the first shooter) which by the 1990's had evolved into the first person shooter and had codified the genre into a streamlined, simplistic game structure making it the fish of the games world.
I think this analogy is valid.
In retrospect, it's easy to see that land was begging to be exploited, but fish were shackled to water for breathing. By analogy, FPSes are shackled to point-and-shoot, and the land begging to be exploited is the whole realm of human interactions seen in movies and books. But where the first breakthru will occur isn't obvious yet.
Games are designed - why should they show the same slow rate of change (albeit on the faster scale of decades)?
Bateman misses a useful perspective-- the conservatism of sexual selection in evolution. Most creatures are constrained by hardwired sexual stereotypes to avoid mates that don't fit the stereotype, so innovators are effectively punished for their daring. This is less true for consumers, who are hungry for novelty, but applies to game-companies, who hope to minimise risk.
(It could also be applied to consumers' demand for state-of-the-art graphics, I guess.)
By working within the existing chreodes, we have a mechanism for introducing elements of originality with some confidence that they will still appeal to a significant proportion of the market.
A big difference between games and species is that game designers can experiment cheaply on a small scale and then, when they find something promising, seek funding for a more expensive commercial release. So promoting innovation requires promoting those cheap, small-scale experiments.
Namco/Bally Midway's Pac-Man (1980) typified the arrangement, with a series of ever-more challenging mazes facing the player
(The maze didn't change!)
The lesson here, perhaps, is that publishers looking to be at the forefront of change in the industry should occasionally step outside of their existing brand chreodes and gamble on new design or technology, becau
Re:Summary and critique (long) (Score:1)
Re:Summary and critique (long) (Score:1)
Ms. Pacman
Re:Summary and critique (long) (Score:1)
Could have sworn it happenind in regular PacMan. Time to crack out the MAME roms once more
Re:Summary and critique (long) (Score:2, Interesting)
This can only succeed if a publisher has unusually good instincts.
I think there's also another example in the games industry that shows there really doesn't have to be a lot of risk involved (and it really points to a larger trend). Valve has shown that they can make use of the risks others have taken and make money off of that. TF was the biggest mod for Quake, so
Hasn't this been done already? (Score:1)
-Kyle Orland
The Video Game Ombudsman [blogspot.com]
PS1 did not kill off the dinosaurs (Score:3, Interesting)
But what Dinosaur lovers like Mr. Bateman have missed is that while marketing and financial planners love conservatism, video game players DESPISE it. That's why a gaming magazine has to apologize for recommending a game that is more of the same--because there is no market on earth that values change and novelty as much as video game players! Which is why, ironically, the risk averse nature of video game production has caused the vast majority of new commercial video game projects to lose money! Every developer tries to remake last year's best selling game, and act surprised when no one wants to buy their almost-but-not-quite-as-good-as-Doom-3 video game.
So very many games spend so much money on gorgeous graphics and production value that they have no hope of getting that money back without being on the top 10 list of video game sales. To cite the lack of originality as proof that originality is not needed is ignoring the fact that so many video game companies have been really bad at making money lately.
Yet the age of dinosaurs is ending. Cell phone games, PDA games, Game Boy Advance, and even web-based games are the new mass extinction event. It can be cheap to make video games again. Despite the Game Cube not doing so hot, Nintendo is still one of the most profitable video game companies because its so damn easy to make money selling 2D game boy advance games that cost many orders of magnitude less to write than home console/PC games.
RE: Game Boy Advance Games (Score:2)
At least the game library expands rapidly with games STILL worth playing.
Re: Game Boy Advance Games (Score:2)
Re: Game Boy Advance Games (Score:1)
Re: Game Boy Advance Games (Score:1)
As "There is no silver bullet" points out, increased complexity means more bugs, money and development time, no matter wha
he bends reality into his own crappy metaphor (Score:1)
Most telling is the part about "Gauntlet" and "pump n play" opening up the arcades to the masses.
Truth is, arcades peaked in about 1983, and it's been all downhill since then (except very recently, when DDR has helped a little). Some people argue that the "continue" function killed the popularity of games, some say the novelty of video games si
Re:he bends reality into his own crappy metaphor (Score:1)
What killed the fighting games IMHO was the more and more complicated control schemes (ki, wargods). Early fighting games were si
Re:he bends reality into his own crappy metaphor (Score:1)
What killed them for me was simply that the local arcades did not have Tekken 4 or Soul Calibur 2, and the Tekken/2/3 and Soul Blade/Calibur games were set to 'kill player instantly on 4th round' because any other setting would mean that any good player could beat the game on 1 play in a couple minutes
Re:he bends reality into his own crappy metaphor (Score:1)
If there is a sticker with the vending com
Re:he bends reality into his own crappy metaphor (Score:1)
Re:he bends reality into his own crappy metaphor (Score:1)
The amount of girls I see playing DDR aren't that many more than I saw playing mortal kombat/street fighter way back then. Granted I don't go to arcades as much I used to. I don't think DDR is the type of game that will draw girls into an arcade that wouldn't have gone in the past. Even if it does, it d