I disagree completely. Studies on the evolution of media like television have shown that stories are growing increasingly complex. Video games themselves have increased many-fold in complexity of storytelling and otherwise in the last 20 years. What I would say is true: the Japanese are more interested in story in video games than Americans. Even Americans that appreciate story will often say that video games just aren’t the place for it. They’d rather read a book; extensive story in their games just gets in the way of the gameplay for them. Star Ocean 4 notably catered to this kind of gamer: every scene could be skipped, and in its place was a short text summary describing what happened.
The industry’s full of innovation. It usually doesn’t sell, and dooms whoever tried it to financial ruin. 
The industry is lacking in innovation enthusiastically backed by a publisher who believes in it and is willing to blow millions on the budget to complete and market it at AAA level.
Most mainstream box-published videogames make no profit.
It’s an exceedingly tough industry, with consumers constantly demanding bigger better prettier longer more complicated more more more… and for ever DECREASING prices. Used to be, games cost $60-80… much more than that in today’s dollars, considering inflation. Today you can buy a brand-new iphone game for a buck. The casual games industry just dropped prices pretty much across the board from $20 to under-$10.
Studios are constantly going bankrupt.
The marketing dollars go to back the sure things, the sequels, the familiar comfort zone whose sales can be predicted. You want innovation? Don’t go to GameStop, don’t look only at the titles that marketing dollars shove in your face.
Most erogames now. That’s the point. Different kinds of gameplay were tried and proven not popular enough to be viable: you don’t see many SIMs such as classical Tokimemo nowadays, nor free moving games such as classical *kyuusei series, nor ACTs such as the Baldr series, the rare ones being continuations of past successes (such as the Pia series, Kakyuusei2 [notable exception to that is the MapleColors series], and the Baldr series). Even games with picture interactions such as Dousoukai or Can Can Bunny Premiere (where you could drag and use items in the background) are rare. It’s not that there’s no different gameplay to ADVs, it’s that ADVs have proven to be more successful and popular than most others (with the exception of RPGs).
Anyway, the most innovative systems I’ve come over the past years were XUse’s Sword of Eternity series’ battle system, Escu:de’s ???◊??? battle system, and 0verflow’s * Days series.
Most Indie Developers pull Innovation off right.
To name a few recent innovative games that have sold better than most non-innovative games:
-Plants VS. Zombies
-World of Goo
-Puzzle Quest
-Braid
-Fat Princess
-Castle Crashers
-Little Big Planet
All of them were huge financial successes. 
In fact, the Wii itself is another argument that displays one of the biggest sales in the world
made by Innovation.
Innovation only ruins you when you come up with an innovative (speak: new) concept that plays like crap
or is so bizzare that players cant grasp it.
Wolfenstien was not the first. I’ve played a few games that predated it, but it was the one that first put the genre on the map.
Well right now I think we may be on the cusp of the the 2nd great video game crash. Not as big as the first because markets know that there are games that can make them money and people willing to buy them, but signs are out there that comapnies are making games that shouldn’t be and there’s a lot more crap out there than quality compared to the ratios of the past.
What happened with the first crash was they thought to make games for everyone as, although the term wasn’t around then, casual games. They ended up with lower quality games all around they had mass produced and couldn’t sell. Of course they also had companies trying to produce their own consoles to, which is not the case this time.
That is so true, Jinnai.
The biggest problem is that the market got flooded with a lot of casual games (in the wake of the Wii),
and that publishers realized that they make almost as much money as the AAA titles with those games,
while they only take 1/10 of time and cost to develop.
While this lets the casual industry boom incredibly, its a tough blow for game studios that try to develop epic experiences.
If I was the artist who draws up all this top-notch game art and see Wario Ware outsell my product with minigame-graphics
that look like a 3 year old drew them, I would feel slapped in the face.
No, most indies that you’ve actually heard of pull innovation off right and managed to work that into a marketing strategy. There’s a million indies out there. (Like me!) How innovative we are varies a lot. How much we suck varies a lot too.
Checking out indies is a great place to look to find new innovative concepts! But it’s not a guarantee, and a lot of indies go casual to stay afloat, or just plain crash.
Plants vs Zombies is a Popcap game. Popcap had big layoffs at the start of the year, my friend who worked there is out of a job…
While the actual developer is still doing okay afaik, the partner who took World of Goo to retail went bankrupt.
Fat Princess isn’t even out yet, how can you say it got great sales figures?
One studio that was well known for being innovative within the casual game market was GameLab - and they just went bust.
The company that made ‘Darwinia’, a media darling for innovation a couple of years ago, has reportedly been teetering on the brink of bankruptcy but is so far hanging in by the skin of their teeth.
Which one? There are like six.
To a certain extent I agree with you… but not entirely. It’s the crash of CURRENT THIRD PARTY game developers. For example the various Wii and DS titles that Nintendo makes are quality and creative. When Nintendo releases a new Mario, Metroid, Pokemon, Zelda, etc: you know it will be awesome win. Nintendo themselves, won’t collapse - and to be perfectly honest, Nintendo could probably keep the Wii and DS alive by themselves.
Naturally Sony and Microsoft are so massive, total failure is practically impossible.
The so-called “second party” game developers (Capcom, Konami, Square-Enix, etc) continue to push high budget titles that maintain the standard. Final Fantasy will always be an expensive to produce bling-bling series, and Castlevania will always be what makes Castlevania what it is. What’s failing are those “no name” third parties who made forgettable things like Legend of the Dragon , Chicken Shoot, Star Trek Conquest, and Bratz Party. However since the advent of cheap computing, it doesn’t take much to finance the creation of cheap games: therefore while these losers will die… like roaches, more will take their place in the near future.
I don’t believe the 2nd-party game developers are immune and theoretically even the first-party ones aren’t completely immune (though they will be immune enough to weather the storm). Almost all of those companies make game titles that are outside their traditional ones or push for the broader market share and those games tend to get lumped into the trash of every foregettable third-party developer, even if they are better. If things at the company aren’t in the best shape this might force a merger or buyout. Even big-name companies like Sega and Squaresoft have fallen because of investments they made.
Hardly. The Wii success, like many, many, many successes is due to its aggressive, widespread and innovative… advertisement campaign, and little more.
As far as the Wii and DS goes: Nintendo commands 50% to 75% (depending who’s being asked) of the total profits earned. Everything from revenue, to net income, to operation expenditure is on the rise for Nintendo. Simply put: Nintendo is NOT losing money or seeing a decline. It’s a new golden age for them: and should last for the rest of this year. The same applies to Capcom (just a little under 1 billion dollars this year), Konami (earnings of over 3 billion dollars this year), and Square Enix (1.5 billion dollar profit this year).
2nd party developers always experiment with new titles. The uber popular Devil May Cry was originally an experiment of Bio Hazzard. Godhand was an experiment off Devil May Cry. Rockman Zero was an experiment of Rockman X, which in turn was an experiment of the classical Rockman. Granted not all experiments succeed: Dragon Quest Swords is generally seen as sublime; Guilty Gear 2 isn’t so grand; etc. However these losses are generally offset by the success of the mainstream products… and when one of the experiments succeeds, they’ve got a new cashcow to milk the hell out of - thus the experiments are generally profitable, even when 7 out of 10 fail.
Third parties are the ones suffering and generally making more noise about the “state of the economy” or how Nintendo is being unfair about something… to win some undeserved sympathy I suppose. Not to say the top tier companies are playing fair (they aren’t) or there isn’t favorism (there is): but a collapse of the video game market, that will cripple the likes of Nintendo or the 2nd party juggernauts, just isn’t happening for the foreseeable 2009.
As for SEGA… their collapse is an exception to the rule – like how WoW is king of the undisputed king of MMO. They kept cranking out new hardware, despite the fact they didn’t need new hardware. Had Sega seriously supported the Saturn for 12 or 18 more months, the Dreamcast might have been on a much better platform.
Square’s huge stumble, before being absorbed by Enix, was because they wasted money on retard projects (the first Final Fantasy movie, Square USA, etc) and never imagined there was limits to how far they could go… their own version of the Internet Bubble Burst. Rude awakening for them.
You forgot Pokemon. I’m dead serious. In the dark days of Nintendo’s GameCube era, it was literally the Pokemon monolith that kept them afloat and survive long enough for the Revolution… err… ahem… I mean the Wii.
That will essentially never happen. It is like saying you think there might be a crash in the movie business. Critical mass has been reached, there are simply too many valuable properties for all of them to be obliterated by a tide of filth like happened before.
Even if every motion picture company in Hollywood went broke, there are enough properties out there over the almost century-long history of film that someone would buy up the rights to these old franchises, and be able to raise enough money to start production on continuations. Sequels, remakes of old movies, reboots, whatever, it doesn’t matter. Look at the new Star Trek movie: it essentially relaunched the franchise.
Similarly, when there is a game like New Super Mario Bros. for the DS, there is essentially no way the industry could totally crash. NSMB was released more than three years ago, and still regularly shows up in monthy top ten bestseller lists.
The install base for these consoles is so large, that somebody is going to be able to sell to them. If every company making games went broke, Nintendo is still Nintendo because Miyamoto is still alive. He has the golden touch, and it just is a money-printing machine to have him making games for you. People who own the systems are going to want things to do with those systems, so as companies go out of business, demand for the products of the other companies will naturally go up.
In an economy like this, you would expect to see a lot of consolidation. And there has been. But too many people have too much valuable IP for another full-on crash to happen.
Nonsense
Even if you completely ignore the Wii’s motion controls … and say they have no effect at all (which would be wrong, but I’ll get to that ) the fact still remains Nintendo wanted $250, and Sony wanted $600 to MS’s $400.
Besides, the “ad campaign” you refer to only worked because it played off the innovation angle. There was so much buzz around the machine that all they did was release a trailer, and for like a week, nobody even talked about the MS 360 launch which was less than a month away.
If the Revolution had been a conventional console, that would not have happened. But then, if it had been a conventional console, they would have gotten crushed. The 64 screwed things up for them THAT badly. The GC did better, but if they hadn’t changed the rules of the game, then Microsoft would be in first place right now. No amount of marketing would have changed the fact that the Wii is less powerful than either 360 or PS3, and that would have doomed it.
Plants vs. Zombies? Innovate? What are you smoking? It’s just a highly polished tower defense game.
Braid struggled to make a profit when it came out. I don’t know how it’s doing now, but it’s not a HUGE financial success.
Fat Princess isn’t out yet.
Castle Crashers did sell well, but I wouldn’t say it’s innovative. It’s just a side scroller (basically an advanced version of their Alien Hominid, which was like Metal Slug…)
Little Big Planet was highly praised, but it did not sell that well.
I don’t know how well World of Goo or Puzzle Quest sold to comment on them.
The Wii was successful because it was relatively cheap and targeted at a mainstream audience. Targeting the mainstream audience and having good advertisement will usually lead to success.
Nintendo? Creative games? :lol: The biggest complaint most hardcore gamers have about Nintendo is that they DON’T innovate their games. They just rehash with sequels or make some super casual non-game. But people eat it up anyway. That’s probably the biggest problem for Wii publishers. Nobody really gives a crap about games other than Nintendo’s, even if non-Nintendo games are better.
Just a nitpick, but your definition of second party seems to differ from the commonly accepted one. The way I usually see second party used is an outside studio that works closely under and is published by the company the console is made by. For example, Insomniac.
Capcom, Konami, and Squeenix all publish games on their own, and they make games for multiple platforms, so they would usually be considered third party.
What self proclaimed hardcore gamers want and what actually sells, are two different things. Nintendo devotes itself on what sells: if that pisses of hardcore gamers… oh well. If it pleases hardcore gamers, then all the better. Yet overall, if hardcore gamers whine about Pokemon Gold and Silver getting remakes, but the general customer base is cheering for it: Nintendo won’t lose sleep over the whining.
Nintendo makes creative games. Zelda on the Wii is a mechanically a LOT different from Zelda on the SNES. Each generation of Pokemon, is a lot more complex than the one before it (just ask the Pokemon hackers or try breeding a few IV 31 eggs). Nintendo works on the concept of simplicity and accessibility. Which to date: is working like a champ. If hardcore gamers consider that uncreative - it’s an unfounded position to throw accusations from, because it’s rooted on personal opinion.
For example the addition of Dark and Steel types from Pokemon Generation 1 to Pokemon Generation 2, was a major creative change. Utterly changed the metagame, shifted the balance of domination Psychic type once held, and introduced dozens upon dozens of potential type combos. There’s a wealth of new features. Those who didn’t like Pokemon to begin with, or are superficial in their interest, obviously will see no change and call it a rehash of the same thing.
That’s why I put it in quotes.
You’re right: by raw business definition of the word, companies like those are third-party. But it’s not that simple when it comes to console games. You also need to understand that publishers like Capcom, Konami, and Square Enix are butt buddies with the likes of Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft (a large source of frustration for other companies). The Saturn, PS2, and GameCube proved they’re powerhouses, which can make or break a system. Thus they get “special privileges” other companies don’t get. The programming suite Square Enix receives, is not the same Ingosec Games would get, even if they paid the same price. Square Enix would get more 1st party developer attention, receive more technical tech documents, a direct phone number to the elite hardware guys, etc… not just because they pay more for licensing fees: but because they’re Square-Enix - creators of godlike RPG’s. You’d be a fool to NOT have them on your side.
This creates a tier system somewhat unique to the console market: 1st party would Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft and their children/slave studios (which ordinarily would be the 2nd party). 2nd party are the independent studio’s that have a lot of influence on the 1st party’s overall success; usually the big dogs or old school companies from the 8bit days (Capcom, Konami, Square Enix, Activision Blizzard, EA Games, etc). 3rd party is generally everyone else. 4th party are companies that produce games, but without a seal of approval (yet aren’t software pirates)… companies that operate like Tengen or those Christian game publishers.
If you’re a purist and wanna drop the word “party” and use “tier” instead… no biggie. I’ll let ya slide just this once. 
And that is what I’m saying is quite a possibility, more the latter than the former as the 3 big companies all are supporting their consoles Although Sony is having the hardest time, its not in the same boat as Sega. It also has the larget parent company to bail it out if they have a big flop, though I doubt it’ll do that more than a once or twice.
Squaresoft’s big stumble however is what is far more repeatable. Any 1st or 2nd party developer can get visions of grandure and believe they can fly higher than they can. We see it all the time. We see it especially though at times like this when everyone decides that “hey, if they can do it, so can I”.
The internet bubble had atleast for the US some advantages with new techologies such as high-speed internet and creation of search engines, etc. I don’t see much innovation coming out of these 3rd-party developers that would truly revolutionize the gaming world as the kind of innovation most are looking for - a way to remove the limitation of buttons and futher integrate oneself with the game - cost more money than a 3rd-party developer can afford, unless its some company like Monsanto developing a game, and then they probably wouldn’t know how to do it properly and it’d crash. Thus the gaming bubble I don’t see as serving any real innovative or driving purpose.
A crash like 1983 won’t happen as no crash is ever the same, but to say that there can never be one is like closing your ears about the internet bubble in the 1990s. There is a bubble right now. It may not crash this year or even next year, but most economic bubbles tend to brust, not deflate.
Introversion Software? That is a serious problem of their management, not the market.
Don’t get me wrong— I love Introversion, and I’d like them to make great games for decades. But they have so over-reached themselves. They released their first product, a cult classic, with source to the world. They followed up their Darwinia with 2 weak products— Mutli-darwinia (or whatever their MP version of it was called) and Defcon (“Global Thermo-nuclear War”). All while promising their project, Subversion, which is their “Duke Nukem Forever” project (and consumes LOTS of their resources).
If you are a small company that keeps “expanding” when the money isn’t there, give away your base money streams, and don’t deliver any new MAJOR money streams, it isn’t surprising that you are about to go out of business.
Wasn’t that also the company behind Uplink?