Third Generation

What’s wrong with you guys? How we have a quick and dirty Blog and still dead trousers (for all non-germans, this doesn’t make any sense but I couldn’t resist). Go on an Blog already!

I just saw this on Kotaku. Someone is writing a “Game Journal” of the Zelda Series. He is blogging exactly what happens as he plays every Zelda game. I did almost the same (I skipped Zelda II and the portables and didn’t blog about it) and I found it interesting that it has inspired him to similar thougts about hold-school game design as me.

Recently, some guy on Kotaku initiated a game club – a book club but for games. Players get together, decide on a game, play it simultaniously and discuss it afterwards. I find this game journal idea very interesting. Check this guy out! Seeing players exibit this level of details in their reflections about a game made me think.

Games aren’t really made for this. Yet, they should be. Thinking further I divided game history into generations.
Generation 1 are the old games like Pac Man or Tetris. There were no genres, games were considered complicated toys. There were no “gamers”. On the other hand, people who paid for game development didn’t really care about the content. The game designers were the programmers and they had no clue what they were doing but they were free to experiment. They just hacked away until something cool came out. There was not even real play testing. The games vary between brilliant and utterly rubbish. It’s difficult to analyse those games because most of the game experience was created by accident and heavily limited by the technology. There is rarely an intention behind it.

Generation 2 is what we just went trough. People relized that you can do money with games and started milking them for what it’s worth. Games are not just toys but rather entertaiment for the young. A lot of money is being put into games and so there is huge control about the content of the game. However, key factors which decide on the content are financial. We have a lot of sequels. Very well defined genres and stereotypes. Almost no new developments. Game Designers are programmers, business people and guys from other industries (movies). Because of all the money, there is a rise of the story content in games so high quality assets like FMV cutscenes can be easily used – that way production value is easier demonstrated. It difficult to talk about those games because the reason for their existence is to sell and show off, not convey any kind of message or question. Just like candy is not really food. It’s hard to be a candy gourmet.

But now, at the end of generation 2, there is a well established community of “gamers” who really care a lot about the content of the game. Games also are starting to break through into mainstream. Finally, we have “pure” game designers doing their games – people who grew up plaing games. In generation 3, we need to add the audience as the key factor in the decisions about content. As people start appriciate game play, it need to be the at the top position within a budget. We need games, which offer unique gaming experiences. We need games people can talk about. On the other hand, we need to cut costs in development. Moving more to experimental visual styles and less emphasis on story is the way to do it.

Gen3 games are games like Wario Ware, Brain Age, Katamari Damashi, Shadow of the Colossus, Fahrenheit, REZ. Each of them is offering a totally different gaming expierience, innovative but refined (!!!) gameplay and often comes in a unique and effective visual style.

Recent Gen2 games is stuff like Twilight Princess, Final Fantasy 12, Gears of War. Awsome games but nothing more.

What do you think?