Innovation is BS

After being on this rock for a while, you start to notice some patterns, especially if you tend to do the same thing for a spell and actually open your eyes and pay attention. Some of the cyclical things I've noticed are; clothes, music, gameplay, developers sprouting up, developers shutting down, publishers gobbling up every developer, publishers laying off/shutting down developers, housing market, gas crisis, etc.

One of the big things I notice always comes around is the almighty BUZZWORD(tm). The Buzzword(tm) is the thing that the consciousness latches onto as the most important thing at the time. It may have always been there or was never there at all, but as soon as someone identifies it and it gains momentum, the Buzzword(tm) is all anyone wants to hear or talk about.

Innovation is the bullshit Buzzword(tm) of the moment that everyone wants to hang their hat on. Like 7-10 years ago, it was "gameplay", and before that it was "immersion". My prediction is the next one is "work-play-balance" or some other touchy-feely bullshit like that. Here's the thing about "innovation". In reality, most things that are truely "new" and "innovative" are shunned, because they're generally unfamiliar and broken in some way that alienates people. It's not about INNOVATION, it's about POLISHED ITERATION. If you look at most successful and popular games, they're all iterations and variations on themes. They're generally well-executed in more than one respect and they may push boundaries, but they don't break them. I mean, seriously... I'm looking at all this fawning over some games recently and are they completely "new"??? Are they challenging me in ways I've *never seen before*??? Not really, they're just well executed iterations and hybrids. Fez, Synthesia (or whatever), Flow, Portal, Everyday Shooter, Schizoid, Mario Galaxy, Puzzle Quest, the list goes on and on and they're all hybrids or iterations.


Now, don't get me wrong, I'm okay with iteration. I'd much rather have a polished / well-balanced game than some sloppy scatterbrain thing that's trying too hard to do too much. Plus, half of these people who are "innovating" don't even look at other games, so they have no idea that they're regurgitating something that's already existed. It's like all these kids bobbing their head to pop music grooves (BTW, pop-music encompasses emo rock and other shit, 'cause it's POPular). It's all recycled and iterated upon. If someone would actually look at something "old" they'd realize where a lot of things come from.

Anyway, good game's a good game. All these labels are just for PR and elitists that want to separate themselves or splinter things, like all of the myriad of sub-genres in "electronica". People need to stop making sure they have their Buzzwords(tm) covered and their Metascore checklist marked off and work on making solid and fun interactive experiences.

IGF and GDC 08

Well, I'm off on the road to GDC. This year should be interesting because Axiom Overdrive is up for an IGF award. It's really cool to have someone acknowledge your work, especially since the love comes from a really crap/broken build submitted like 4 months ago. The game has come leaps and bounds in that time, so for them to see the potential back then is great.

With the nomination comes lovely people willing to actually put a mic (email?) in front of you and give a shit what you have to say. That's cool, since I don't have an announcement of starting a new studio, bitching about a game review I didn't like, leaving an old studio, pledging that I won't make crap games anymore, or any of the other completely ridiculous things people get press for nowadays. Seriously, whatever happen to getting press for releasing a game?!? Speaking of, what's with people mentioning that they "might be doing something, someday, that might be remotely interesting, but I can't tell you for the next 2-5 years!??" I mean, I understand press releases for actual up-coming games or something that's actually in development, but a blurb that you're thinking about doing something cool with maybe one bad concept drawing?!!? I don't get it...

(Is this the point where I write - deep breath?)

So yeah, a couple of people give a shit what I have to say. GAMEDEV.NET have an interview up, where I babble, attempting to answer their questions in an interested, yet still printable manner.

I'll also be appearing on G4's Xplay. They've already put up part one of a multi-part piece (or at least it better be), where my interview verbage is mysteriously absent, but you can see me playing Axiom in the b-roll. I assume it's because my interview is being used for the other parts of the coverage. I'll assume that for now, instead of getting really pissed that someone who wasn't even supposed to be in the piece, threw a tantrum and horned-in (even attempting to have me cut out entirely, when told to look for me). But I'm not gonna be bitter, because if some people need to act like that and need to do that kind of thing to get ahead, well good luck with that. I like to live off of the merits of what I do versus shoving others down, at this point in my life...

(oh wait, this is where I say it... DEEP BREATH!)

So... GDC.

Yeah, I can't wait to get into the conferences where everybody bitches about innovation, poor production practices, capturing the customer, "indie" vs. "casual", etc. Last year was interesting because there were solid surprises and the "next gen wars" were just about to happen. Now, a year later, with X360 the undeclared winner, Wii the fan favorite and PS3 wondering WTF happen, it'll be interesting to see if any significant announcements are made. I mean, since there's no more E3 (don't pretend that press-only bullshit is E3... 'cause it's not), GDC is one of the only times the biz can get any concentrated exposure during the year.

We shall see. Check back for the stink.

Not Dead Yet

Now, I know what you must be thinking... "This guy's just fallen off the face of the Earth," or "Well, I guess that's it, no more bitter blog, since he's all happy-slappy with his friggin kiddies." Well, not true. Not that my kids don't make me happy, but that doesn't mean I don't have more bitter diatribes to go off on in this very location, just I've been so busy with so many things.

One of the things is getting read for the GDC. There's a myriad of bullshit going on with my project, but having an unfinished / broken version of your game recognized out of a field of 175+ entrants is nothing to sniff at. I was looking at the game the other day and even though the Team Page on the website lists a ton (okay 12) people, the game has largely been made by 5 full-time members and I'm pretty proud of what's there.

One of the other things taking up my time lately is a new Wii project, of all things. Now, it's not that I inherently have have something against the Wii per se, but I find it to be just like every other Nintendo home platform post-SNES. It's targeted at kids and fanboys who like to wax nostalgic about a bygone Nintendo that they grew up with, and the only products that sell on it really are Nintendo products, because of said fanboys who believe that Nintendo can do no wrong and everyone else is crap. They can't pull their heads out of their asses and realize that Nintendo's been making the same fucking games for the past 20 years, so they better be fucking getting it right!

So, before a bunch of you get your panties in a bunch and say, "fuck that Tony, what game has he done that ever reached the greatness of Mario Galaxy?" Realize I'm mainly bitching that my game making efforts will more than likely be in vein or at least only sell enough to cover the cost of development, because Nintendo fanboys only buy "Big N" games. Don't believe me? Look at sales charts for DS games. Look at sales charts for Wii games, Gamecube games, etc. It's not just a quality issue, it's the "Nintendo factor". Also, I find game making is unfortunately filled with many more obstacles than just coming up with ideas and executing them. Most of my career has been either firefighter and/or fighting the process of making games and narrow-minded people who control the strings.

(deep breath)

So, anyway, yeah... been real busy and all that. In addition to making games at work and the kids keeping the wife and I up (we're talking NEVER more than 30 minutes in a row without dealing with something, 24/7), I'm trying to get my own games and game engine on the go at home. When I do find time, it's interesting... relearning to program, learning a new programming language and seeing my little snippets of code come to life.

Yeah, it may look like fricken Geometry Wars on the surface, but it's not. I wanted to do the "vector thing" long before seeing GeoWars, but unfortunately didn't. So, I'm just using the art I did previously as placeholder, until I swap it out for some other style that's hopefully new and fresh. At the very least not the over-done (yet still cool in some games) GeoWars retro-vector look.

So, Expect more verbage about my side-projects, when I'm not bitchin' about my day job, but in the meantime expect more kibitzing about game dev and especially about the unwashed masses I'm sure I'll encounter at GDC08.