Game Originality

Bryan Boyer CS/SE Department UW-Platteville [email protected]

Abstract

The concepts of game originality are a vital part of survival and success in the gaming industry. When do you try to ‘wow’ the customer instead of give them more of their favorite titles? There is a fine line between pioneering new software and enhancing existing software for ease of money and time. This paper defines game originality and compares it to evolution through the concepts of chreodes, or paths of probability. Originality is analogous to evolution in the way games have changed and become more advanced. The paper also gives pros and cons of taking the time to develop original software as well as suggestions on process models to include time for originality.

Bryan Boyer 1 SE411 Introduction

Seeking original and successful ideas is among every true game developer’s ultimate dreams and goals. Yet why is it that the video game market is not flooded with original products? The simple answer is that a clone of something already out there or a sequel of a successful game has far better chances of raking in the big bucks. Companies cannot be expected to abandon the brands that have guaranteed a regular income. They need their money as much as gamers want their favorite titles. Thus, a rather abstract idea is drawn in a market wanting original games yet has a majority of its products being similar to another. To try to explain this abstract market, Chris Bateman tied the concepts of chreodes to the evolution of gaming. It is a fairly intangible idea but worth the effort to understanding it.

Chreodes

Definition

“The notion of a chreode, or a pathway of probability, was created by the biologist C.H. Waddington in the 1950s as part of his attempt to find descriptive language to describe the way organisms develop” [1]. While not directly related to organisms, there are many similarities with the gaming market because evolution and probability are not just specific to one field. To help visualize what chreodes are, imagine the evolution of living creatures in a tree of nodes. At the very top are the single-celled organisms. As time moves on, these organisms evolve into a variety of more complex creatures that all have their own branch downwards into a new node. Each of those new nodes repeats the action until it represents the present-day animal kingdom. External factors from the environment shape the evolution of living creatures such that the branching isn’t equal throughout the tree. For example, if there is more food in a particular climate, there will be more types of creatures that expand there. To summarize, each path of branches from top to bottom is a representation of the fields of probability that could be used to express the evolution of a particular creature [1]. A simplistic animal like a worm evolved into something similar to a dead end of evolution because there isn’t much more to evolve to besides soil eating. Meanwhile mammals are a very large part of the tree because there has been room to grow and take advantage of the environment in every way it presents itself.

In terms of gaming

To tie this back in with originality in software, the entire market of gaming can be looked at as a series of chreodes of different genres of games. Apply the tree of nodes idea to gaming and it will hopefully form a good visual representation to work with. A short branch of the tree would be the worm, so to speak, in that there wasn’t room to expand a

Bryan Boyer 2 SE411 game genre further past its original idea, for example: Pac-Man. A larger portion of the tree could be first-person shooters as an example because of constantly having room to grow, as seen in the example later on. The further a game is down the tree, the better its chances are of being original.

Creative Explosion and Money Flaw

Much like the explosion of life past single-celled organisms, gaming was completely original in every aspect at the beginning. With nothing to compare itself to or compete with, every game made was original. From here, each game genre eventually took shape and traversed itself down the tree of chreodes. Like animals growing where the food is, games grow where the money is [1]. Without money, a branch will grow dead and originality won’t have a chance to form past it. So while it is a slow process of money equals originality, it helps explain why companies need to rely on successful sequels to fund new originality in the future. The tricky part is that a lot of companies right now aren’t caring about the future and just want their money, so originality is on the decline. For example, a CEO from EA games was quoted saying that they strive for one original title a year [2]. One per year out of how many games the company produces is a scary number. These large companies that are the base of the gaming industry are unwilling to invest the millions of dollars into gaming projects without knowing what their return will be. So while originality is so important, there is a constant battle to produce it.

Originality

First-Person Shooter Example

To help illustrate a path down the chreode tree of gaming, the following pictures represent the evolution of first-person shooters. Each title was a highly successful and original creation that brought something new to the genre, which further expanded it along the tree. Most likely any avid gamer who views these pictures will have heard of them as a testament to their success. First-person shooters are a perfect example of how changes can be made to previous games to allow for probable success and something new.

Bryan Boyer 3 SE411 Figure 1: Space Invaders (1978) – Introduced the concepts of shooting, dodging, and taking cover.

Figure 2: Battlezone (1980) – The first 3D game that took on the concepts of Space Invaders.

Figure 3: Wolfenstein 3D (1992) – Introduced the concepts of being a human being with weapons to fight hostile things.

Bryan Boyer 4 SE411 Figure 4: Goldeneye 007 (1997) – Introduced better graphics and story to pull the player into a more realistic environment instead of “shoot-em-up.” Also brought in multiplayer.

Figure 5: Oblivion (2006) – While not a genuine “shooter,” this game is a pinnacle of first-person aspects. Also worth noting is other games around this time have very successful online-play that bring players together across the country to shoot each other, a very original aspect that brings replay value.

Extinction in Chreodes

As well as developing and evolving chreodes into original games, events can take place that bring a chreode to an end. These “extinctions” completely change the gaming market as much as the extinction of dinosaurs did to the animal kingdom. For example, the concept of a “continue” let gamers see an entire game as opposed to playing and losing until the game was mastered to see it all. It let any average joe come into a genre and be able to beat a game and any game that didn’t have them was left behind. Another more profound example is the introduction to new hardware technologies. When 3D graphics were first introduced, any 2D game was thrown to the side. They found a place to survive in the handheld market [1] but the gaming market was completely different. Extinctions allow for a creative explosion similar to the beginning of video gaming. All developments are original because there is no other competition or games to clone from.

Bryan Boyer 5 SE411 Someone could call these eras a Golden Age of gaming if it is an extinction as noteworthy as 3D graphics. An important lesson to learn here is that when choosing to deploy a fantastic gaming idea, be wary of any market-changing developments so that a game can be released in the best field. Extinction brings about originality in a new wave – a lack of constraints or need to be like another thing. It gives a freedom to develop [1].

Virtual Boy

Before the wrong idea is given, it is worth mentioning that not every “extinction” is a good thing. For example, Nintendo’s Virtual Boy was a colossal failure [3]. It was a completely original idea, so in regards to this paper it was a success, but in terms of everything else it lacked considerably. There was poor software, games, and hardware that when all three combined marked an early end to a hyped up system [3]. This just goes to show that originality is a risky project that can have an expensive failure which is why it is such a rare commodity today.

Cost of Originality

As previously mentioned, originality is often stunted because of a high cost; however, as with most of this topic there are exceptions. It is arguable that low cost projects by smaller companies are drastically easier to produce and try new ideas with. For instance, ID Software’s Wolfenstein 3D was not a major release but rather a small shareware title that caught the imagination of a large audience [1]. As one of the “pioneers” of the shooter genre, there was a huge amount of originality and success based on the fact that ID Software exploited a new technology of 3D graphics. Most people are familiar with this sort of success because it is seen in the movie industry as well. For example, movies such as the Blair Witch Project, which only cost $35,000 to produce, made $248 million word-wide [4]. If more companies did smaller-scale research projects to invent original ideas, maybe the market would have more originality than it does now. Of course on the other end of the spectrum are games like The Sims by Maxis, which has a high budget and completely dominates its chreode/genre because of how unique it is. In either case, whether it is low budget or high budget, originality has no bounds and should not be disregarded. A developer should try to make it flourish, but only in a financially safe way.

Sequels

Sequels are one of the banes of originality but unfortunately are also one of the tools to creating it. Redesigning an idea to something new can be as valuable as originality itself. Sequels serve as an outlet for late ideas to a specific franchise. If a game was an original entity and made a new branch in the tree of chreodes, sequels polish the path towards something better. A developer cannot let the desire for originality detract from important

Bryan Boyer 6 SE411 aspects of existing games. It’s possible that an original idea can only be thought up after polishing an existing idea to its peak.

The major problem lies with where does a developer stop? Titles like a 10th sports game in a franchise are beyond polishing of any major ideas and are just getting repetitive [2]. If a game brings in more money than its production cost, it’ll be produced and originality be damned. This is one of the major faults of the game market leading to a decline in originality because while it may be successful initially, it could leave a developer at a loss for content later on when their one-hit idea finally dies.

Summary of Originality

There’s a fine line between worthwhile sequels and repetitive money-grabbing games in terms of originality, and it should always be given time for analyzing in the production cycle to see which path a project is on. Developers can’t accurately predict what genre, or chreode, to evolve into something original but the payback for a successful attempt is greater than sequels. There is always room for originality; a developer just has to make sure they are financially secure no matter the outcome. Both the company and the industry benefit from originality because it expands the market to even more choices of genres to produce in. Finally, the best place for originality would be in mainstream games, which are ironically the haven for sequels. So it is the responsibility of the developer, not the player, to try something new when time allows. Otherwise the market could just become a downward spiral of blandness until the next big gaming “extinction.”

Design Suggestions

Originality is closely related to being successful. If a lot of people like a particular product, there is a crowd to push originality onto for the future. The following are a few things that would help increase originality in games as well as overall game-quality. The first part is five general tips for making a successful game by François Laramée [5].

Exploit Setting Consistencies

Make a seamless environment to allow for gamers to get more entranced into a game. If textures are unrealistic and sloppy, a gamer won’t have the experience they would with an incredibly realistic experience. Use resources to find mistakes and bloopers and fix them. It is more towards quality control than testing for bugs so it can sometimes be ignored.

Bryan Boyer 7 SE411 Maintain Focus

Don’t become an overzealous developer and make a million-man cast for an epic story. A simple approach can be followed easier than a confusing one. Also, don’t make the player keep track of trivial, minor details. For example, a game where the player must remember to eat and sleep can seem like a powerfully real experience, but it can also be an annoyance. As was learned before, originality has its limits and needs sequels to polish out additions; a developer shouldn’t overdo it all at once.

Make the Interface Your Friend

While this one is fairly obvious, it’s amazing what some games mix up. Developers should always pick an interface style suitable to the target game genre – one that is simple and efficient. A large overhead for a simple task is never good.

Design Modularly

If you get a killer idea that would be amazingly original halfway through the production of a game – you need to be able to implement it without reworking everything. If a project is modular enough, that addition is a simple add-on instead of a reworking of existing code. Design defensibly and make clearly connected bits of the game. Keep extensibility in mind that can shift and change with relative ease. This allows for originality to flow into a project at any point.

Ditch the Unworkable Clichés

This final tip is the most important one as it is the essence of originality. Every gamer has seen cliché things in games and that very fact makes the game a little bit less original. Sure some features or story lines are common enough to always be included without a thought, but there are a lot of things that could be changed with some thought towards originality. For example, when entire races of evil beings do evil for evil’s sake with no apparent motive or reason to live in a chaos-filled world, where is the creativity in that? If a developer gives them back-story and motive, the game will usually feel more enthralling. In Halo 2, players play as the “bad guys” from their point of view and see why they want to fight the humans [2]. Not only is the story more amazing, but it also it offers more variety in game-play. Another example is aliens always looking humanoid because in entertainment, before CG existed, they were just actors in costume. If some actual time is devoted towards making original aliens, they’ll stand out far more over other aliens from the competition. A final example is every sports game being just like the one before it but with better graphics, one new feature, and a roster update [2]. Developers can do all of these things and still have some success, but think of just how much more there is to be done.

Bryan Boyer 8 SE411 Design Conclusion

After viewing these previous tips, one might ask where there could be time to invest in a software process the resources for originality. In response to that, I think it is important enough to be given a phase by itself before even requirements engineering. Originality can make or break a game, it could redefine the market and how other developers think, it could keep a game genre alive instead of a bland repeat-filled selection, and it is a very important phase in game production.

Figure 6: A redesigned waterfall model with originality in mind.

Bryan Boyer 9 SE411 References

[1] Bateman, Chris. “The Evolution of Games: Originality & Chreodes.” International Game Developers Association. 2003.

[2] www.gamespot.com – A multitude of reviews of different games to better gauge originality in the current market

[3] Falcon, Robert. “The Virtual Failure? A Look Back At the Virtual Boy.” Modojo. March 26 2006. http://www.modojo.com/features/20060326/61/

[4] The Numbers – Box office data, movie stars, idle speculation. http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/1999/BLAIR.php

[5] Laramée, François Dominic. “The Stealth Designer’s Handbook Part 1.” Designers. February 2001.

Bryan Boyer 10 SE411