Yeah, it’s cool that video games are looking more and more realistic. It offers more immersion, provided the gameplay is top-notch.
However, has anyone noticed that gaming and movies now seem to share a very disturbing similarity? Very often, the bigger the budget, the less amount of innovation and originality there is to be found.
In other words, as gaming is officially mainstream now, if you’re going to produce a product for the masses, it – apparently by default – has to take fewer risks. You have to give the people what they want, which is, more often than not, faster and dumber. It’s why the movies that tend to break box office records are the big summer blockbusters that are all flash and no substance.
Well, what are we seeing in gaming today?
If you want new and fresh, you really can’t turn to AAA big-budget productions
Not really, anyway. I mean, I suppose you could refer to the likes of Heavy Rain as a “big-budget AAA production” but obviously, there aren’t many such examples. On the other side, you’ve got Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Assassin’s Creed, Battlefield, etc. I’m not saying none of these games offer decent stories, nor am I saying that such games aren’t good. In fact, one of the biggest differences between movies and games remains intact: The highest-rated games often tend to top sales charts; the same can’t really be said of highly rated films.
The point is that publishers don’t want to risk $50 million and more on an untried, unproven formula. You can’t really blame them, either. If you were head of those corporations, you wouldn’t take such a tremendous risk, and neither would I. If you’re going to invest that kind of money, you need to be convinced of a return. The only way that can happen is if you give the consumers exactly what they want without straying from the formula.
Hence, the smaller the budget, the more likely you’ll see developers taking risks. That’s when we see innovation and originality, even if it falls flat due to a lack of resources and talent.
The indie movie scene and the indie game scene…
They’re getting awfully similar, now that the indie explosion has happened in the gaming industry. If you want something you’ve never seen before, if you want to see artists experimenting with new ideas, you really need to embrace lower-budget productions. In these, the publishers don’t stand to lose anywhere near as much, so they’re more willing to take a risk. Of course, many times, the publishers and the developers are the same people.
Again, I don’t want to imply that all indie games and all indie movies are great, or that they’re all better than the bigger-budget creations. That’s a rash generalization and obviously, it isn’t true. But if you look at what’s coming down the pike for both movies and games, can you really point to a huge-budget, high-profile production in either industry that is going to push the bounds of artistic creativity and originality? Because I can’t. Such projects exist in both industries but they’re not likely to break any records.
The bigger it is, the dumber it is?
Sad, but perhaps true. I’ll still get a kick of out games like GTA and AC, sure. So will others. You’ll also get some really great content because the companies in charge can afford to hire top-tier talent. At the same time, I like the diversity and risk-taking we see on the small-budget side. We see more flops and failures, but that’s to be expected. However, does anyone else remember a very different time in the history of games…?
There was a time when everyone would swear that gaming would never mirror movies in such a way. I hoped it would never happen but now, I think it has.
