You know games have came a long way from where they used to be. More variety and better made games are the key to moving forward. There are a few select developers that refuse to embrace the word CHANGE.
To start with I have to go after the developer that everyone seems to think is the God of game developing. Bungie. Before 1999 Bungie had a track record of creating different and new games. Titles like Marathon and Myth. Then a Ps2 game called Oni. All decent enough games for the time they here released. Then in 1999 Bungie announced the next project they would release, Halo. Since then variety has been scarce. Halo 2 followed in November of 2004. Then Halo 3 in September of 2007. So now 2 years later what game is Bungie releasing? Halo3:ODST. An expansion if you will, of the original Halo 3 title. Then on an unannounced date they will release another Halo game. Halo:Reach. Now let me just say that I like the Halo games. I understand where the fun and addictiveness of the franchise come into play. As much as people don’t want to admit it, there are very few things that separate the Halo franchise from any other mundane FPS.
Speaking of mundane FPS. That brings me to Infinity Ward. The only games that Infinity Ward has ever created is the Call of Duty games. WOW! For a developer to gain so much reputation, there track record for games seems to be pretty slim. Once again I see nothing wrong with the CoD games. I’m just saying that Infinity Ward has this reputation as a great game developer. How do you gauge the ability of a developer if the games they make are all, for the most part the same game with a new face?
Criterion Games. That’s right as much as I love the Burnout games they follow the same fate as the other developers mentioned in this post. The thing that separates them from other developers is that they have created a wide variety of games and created a game software that has been used in well known games, like GTA series. On June 10th it was announced that Criterion Games will be developing the next Need for Speed game. Now I move into edgy territory for some people. Square Enix.
Now you have to understand that Square Enix is a bit of a different story that all the rest of the developers mentioned. They have created several different games. Everything from Star Ocean to Odin Sphere. The problem I have with Square is simple, Final Fantasy. Did you know there are 28 different FF games? WOW! That seems to be just as stupid as you can get. I will say that I thought the FF games seem to be awesome all the way through FF9. Then something happened. Well, they just started to suck. Now I’m not sure where they went wrong, but I bet it has something to do with the fact that you could shit in a box and sell it as FF and it would sale a million copies in the first week. Here is an idea. How about you go a whole year and don’t release a FF game?
I guess the point I’m making is the game industry is a ripe place for ideas and a drawing board for things that you can’t see anywhere else. So why waste it doing the same damn games every year? Take a chance create a new IP and see what happens. You might just get your next Final Fantasy or Halo. You will never know till you stop working on what got you here to begin with.
