I really liked what you said Cat. "Innovation" is a word that can be overused as a sales tool, but it's actually really hard to create a genuinely innovative idea from scratch, otherwise it would be happening all the time.
And refinement is the journey to perfection. Building on ideas or concepts is just as rewarding and produces great games too. Doom was hardly the first FPS to exist, but it refined many ideas into a solid and satisfying gameplay loop. Even Breat of the Wild, despite deviating significantly from what used to be the standard Zelda template, was actually refining a lot of ideas from the original NES Legend of Zelda.
Innovation can be the starting point, but refinement is good thing too.
When I saw this article the first thing that came to mind was Death Stranding and I am happy to see you touched on it. The first game was innovative and I loved it for what it was and can see with refinement how much bigger and move inclusive it has become. Great work!
You make a lot of good points in this article. As for individual games, it is true that innovation doesn’t actually increase the quality of the game itself. Just because a mechanic or system is new, it doesn’t mean it is fun. And fun is the end goal.
However I think this misses the mark on why we innovate, not just as game developers but as humans.
We innovate to push boundaries, to explore the unexplored and to incite change. Trying something new often leads to failure. But sometimes, it can lead to great change.
The benefit of innovation is not always in the game itself, but the fact that we as a culture are trying new things, which pushes the whole industry forward, imbuing us with a collective experience of trial and error.
These unfun games (although unfun) should be viewed with a sense of respect as they tried to pave the way, and failed.
As to refinement, you are absolutely right it’s incredibly important. To be as fun as possible, every game needs to be refined to its extent.
I just don’t think it should be a binary between innovation/refinement. Both are important in their own ways.
LOVED this and love your distinction between innovation and refinement. I feel like the web and app design world could learn a lot from that.
You’re totally right too, especially I think with sequels. For example, I play God of War, I understand the mechanics and how to play. I pick up Ragnarok and I don’t want to have to learn a whole new way to play, I just want it to be the same but better. Like your Death Stranding example.
Unpopular opinion, I think Pokémon has done refinement really well over the years. Probably to the detriment of innovation perhaps, but they’ve tried different stuff and sometimes it’s stuck, sometimes it hasn’t, but it feels like they listen and make those refined changes.
I'm a software engineer and I can definitely say that my customers don't always want innovation, or at least they say they want innovation yet actually just want what their competitors have.
For example, I used to work at a digital agency just making e-shop websites for our customers. After years of building them you see how similar they are in function (different designs of course) because the public needs to instinctively understand how to use it - otherwise they wouldn't spend money on it. That's the crux of user experience (UX). If every e-shop innovated and worked differently, no one would actually use them.
It will be similar with games to a point, they are easier to jump into if they are based on concepts you've seen before in some form.
I really liked what you said Cat. "Innovation" is a word that can be overused as a sales tool, but it's actually really hard to create a genuinely innovative idea from scratch, otherwise it would be happening all the time.
And refinement is the journey to perfection. Building on ideas or concepts is just as rewarding and produces great games too. Doom was hardly the first FPS to exist, but it refined many ideas into a solid and satisfying gameplay loop. Even Breat of the Wild, despite deviating significantly from what used to be the standard Zelda template, was actually refining a lot of ideas from the original NES Legend of Zelda.
Innovation can be the starting point, but refinement is good thing too.
When I saw this article the first thing that came to mind was Death Stranding and I am happy to see you touched on it. The first game was innovative and I loved it for what it was and can see with refinement how much bigger and move inclusive it has become. Great work!
You make a lot of good points in this article. As for individual games, it is true that innovation doesn’t actually increase the quality of the game itself. Just because a mechanic or system is new, it doesn’t mean it is fun. And fun is the end goal.
However I think this misses the mark on why we innovate, not just as game developers but as humans.
We innovate to push boundaries, to explore the unexplored and to incite change. Trying something new often leads to failure. But sometimes, it can lead to great change.
The benefit of innovation is not always in the game itself, but the fact that we as a culture are trying new things, which pushes the whole industry forward, imbuing us with a collective experience of trial and error.
These unfun games (although unfun) should be viewed with a sense of respect as they tried to pave the way, and failed.
As to refinement, you are absolutely right it’s incredibly important. To be as fun as possible, every game needs to be refined to its extent.
I just don’t think it should be a binary between innovation/refinement. Both are important in their own ways.
LOVED this and love your distinction between innovation and refinement. I feel like the web and app design world could learn a lot from that.
You’re totally right too, especially I think with sequels. For example, I play God of War, I understand the mechanics and how to play. I pick up Ragnarok and I don’t want to have to learn a whole new way to play, I just want it to be the same but better. Like your Death Stranding example.
Unpopular opinion, I think Pokémon has done refinement really well over the years. Probably to the detriment of innovation perhaps, but they’ve tried different stuff and sometimes it’s stuck, sometimes it hasn’t, but it feels like they listen and make those refined changes.
I'm a software engineer and I can definitely say that my customers don't always want innovation, or at least they say they want innovation yet actually just want what their competitors have.
For example, I used to work at a digital agency just making e-shop websites for our customers. After years of building them you see how similar they are in function (different designs of course) because the public needs to instinctively understand how to use it - otherwise they wouldn't spend money on it. That's the crux of user experience (UX). If every e-shop innovated and worked differently, no one would actually use them.
It will be similar with games to a point, they are easier to jump into if they are based on concepts you've seen before in some form.