How Serious Is the Problem?

Opinions vary on the seriousness of this problem. Two wholly subjective matters control the debate: How creative is the industry, and how creative should it be? The industry's own terminology demonstrates its dearth of creativity: We all know that a "first-person shooter" requires the player to blast bad guys as he navigates a complex 3D environment, collects weapons and ammunition, and solves puzzles. In the same fashion, we have other tightly defined genres: side scrollers, adventures, role-playing games, wargames, simulators, and so on. There are also some standard variations on these games: The addition of an external story makes a "story side scroller" or a "story puzzle game." There are also crosses between genres, yielding role-playing wargames, strategy shooters, and so on. These techniques have been with us for years. Back in 1983, my game Excalibur was an unconventional strategy game with a real-time wargame built into it.

Oddly, the terminology has shown more variability than the actual content itself. "Hand-eye coordination" games became "skill and action" games, which later were termed "twitch" games. Through all these changes in aliases, the gameplay has remained unchanged: Such games require fast reactions from the player.

Younger readers may have difficulty appreciating just how little things have changed over the decades; the latest crop of games always seems so new and fresh. Let me frog-march you on a walk down memory lane as we fondly recall a single genre of game: the side scroller. It all started in 1981 with an arcade game called Space Panic. The player, pursued by nasty little space aliens, ran up and down ladders, digging holes in the floor into which the aliens fell. This was quickly followed by Apple Panic, which was a straightforward copy of the original, and Donkey Kong, which added sloping platforms, the ability to jump over the oncoming barrels, and some other ways to die. The success of Donkey Kong led to a sequel featuring the hero, Mario. There then followed a whole series of "Mario" games. Throughout it all, the basic gameplay remained unchanged. There were, of course, plenty of embellishments on the basic concept: more dangers to overcome, more complex challenges, and more levels. The biggest improvement came with the addition of side scrolling, extending the playfield over a much larger area. As I write this in 2003, Mario is still in business, still making money, and his games are still recognizable as a direct descendent of the original Space Panic game of 20 years ago.

Or consider the venerable old role-playing game. It all started with the paper game Dungeons & Dragons in the mid-1970s. A computer version called Moria quickly appeared on the networked educational computer system Plato; a few years later, a direct copy of Moria appeared for Apple II under the title Wizardry. At about the same time, a slightly different version of Dungeons & Dragons appeared for the Apple II with the title Ultima. Both Wizardry and Ultima were big successes. The marketing people for Ultima, undiscouraged by trivial semantic considerations, followed up the game with Ultima II, III, IV, and so on; I don't know what the final count of "ultimate" games will be. Throughout this endless parade of games, there were few substantial changes in the design; for the most part, each game added a few new complications and substantial cosmetic improvements. There were plenty of competitors, too, but they all slavishly toed the basic D&D line: Build the strength of your character; accumulate wealth, weapons, armor, spells, and other goodies; kill flocks of mindless monsters; wander varied terrains; etc., etc., etc.

The more insecure members of the games industry defend themselves by pointing to the movies. After all, they argue, Hollywood has its own time-worn genres, too. Why blame the games biz for a problem that besets all entertainment?

Hollywood's use of the term "genre," however, is considerably more elastic. Sure, we have "action," "drama," "horror," "sci-fi," "comedy," and "family," but within these broad categories lies far more diversity than anything in the games biz. Is Men In Black a sci-fi movie or a comedy? Does M.A.S.H. fall into the war category, the drama category, or the comedy category? And into what categories do we place such works as Koyaanisqatsi?

How did the games industry get itself into this pickle? Some industry observers claim that this is the sad but inevitable result of the maturation of the games industry. When we were younger, and budgets were smaller, publishers could afford to take a big chance on a product. Nowadays, however, with budgets running into the millions of dollars, a producer cannot take a big chance on an unconventional design. Look at Hollywood, they say; Hollywood grinds out an endless stream of me-too movies because that's the only way to make money.

To which I say: balderdash and folderol! The games industry is wise to look to Hollywood for guidance in the difficult task of managing an industry; we just haven't paid attention to how Hollywood really works. The first lesson we can learn is to have some guts. Hollywood producers have long known that sometimes you just have to take a chance. And when they do take a chance, they don't stint; where the games industry blanches at the thought of risking $3 million on a game, Hollywood girds its loins and spends $100 million. And it's not as if the risks they take are safe bets look at Heaven's Gate or Waterworld, two big-budget flops. These guys know how to play for high stakes. These games guys just can't match the nerves of steel common in their Hollywood counterparts.

Some people will claim that Hollywood bets on talent, not scripts, and a big star can make any movie a success. Therefore, the story goes, Hollywood isn't really that gutsy; they just place their bets using a different logic. But superstars don't guarantee success: Waterworld and Heaven's Gate boasted two of the biggest stars of their day. The backers of these movies knew perfectly well the risks that they were taking. Moreover, the games industry still hasn't learned to bet on talent: Will Wright's The Sims had a difficult time making it through Electronic Arts; even though it was the work of a man who is arguably the best game designer in the world, EA just didn't have confidence in it and was shocked when the game was such a success. So I have been told by several EA insiders.