Well it seems that one of the trueisms about the gaming industry is that good games get a sequel and great games get sequelled to bits. This pattern is potentially killing the gaming industry according to EA big cheese John Riccitiello. In a WSJ interview he said that people are getting bored with sequels and games that are getting harder to play. He doesn’t want to kill the sequel, but rather make sure that it’s adding something more innovative to the original. This seems to be inline with Job’s recent edict to Disney that there would be no more direct-to-disc sequels of Disney movies once the current projects are finished.
But wait… hold the iPhone… aren’t games supposed to be the greatest thing for the generation that is going through school right now? Can’t they teach just about anything? Aren’t they engaging with all the multimedia candy that they can deliver? Aren’t… can’t… huh?? Ahhhh! Riccitiello says that games are in danger of losing out to the latest cell phone or networking site like Facebook. Wait… does that mean people actually want to have original content in their interactions with world? stay in touch with people that they know?
I think what EA and others should do if they are truly worried is make some manner of easy to access community around their games – like they have done already with EA online, but connect it to other points on the ‘net other than just through their games. That way, the games can travel into Facebook or whatever is next. Games should also be trying to provide “real fantasy” as well ala Guitar Hero where one can be the rock star and be extensible in terms of base content (ala Quake levels) as with GH, all players really want is new music – unless there are new consoles, control schemes or technologies to be included. Something like a worldwide tennis match on Wii would really rock…
Games should remember to allow the players to explore new challenges and take on risks that they would not otherwise be able to in order to succeed. Because eventually the sports games will be as real as they can be given the hardware, but the gameplay will still suffer because graphics sell boxes… Only so many jumping courier missions are possible before players start looking for better stories. So what happens when these two elements – game play and story come together? Well you get a great new game that becomes stale again as it’s formula is abused and diluted.
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