MatthewDoyleArt.com Blog

As if my ego needed more stroking -

I received my copy of Who’s Who in America, 2008 Edition yesterday. It is a 2 volume book, both of which are bigger than the LA phone book individually. The reference contains something around 100,000 biographies of those who are considered leaders in their fields of expertise, and includes famous actors, politicians, artists, and business persons. The preface says fewer than 1 in 2,900 Americans are considered for publication each year.

I just so happened to be nominated by someone (whoever you are, thank you!). To my surprise, I was selected for inclusion in this year’s edition, and am now immortalized in print. I’m listed under Visual Arts as a computer graphics designer (close enough). The pages are bible paper thin, with about 20 bios per page in tiny print. Never the less, it is exciting to be recognized. Granted the reference costs something around 200 dollars to purchase, so not alot of your average Americans will ever see its contents, and even fewer of those will ever read my modestly short bio. Regardless, I am honored and proud to display the tomes on my bookshelf.

It never ceases to amaze me how often I hear a fellow game developer embrace the dictum of complacency, with statements such as ‘Innovation doesn’t sell games.’ While it may appear to be true at first glance that consumers do not care about innovation in games, hence the high sales numbers for the myriads of ‘me too’ titles, this is an extremely narrow view. Ask any biologist or evolutionist, and they will inform you that no organism or biological system can be successful without diversity. An organism may even appear to thrive at first, despite a lack of diversity; however, over a greater period of time, that organism’s conformed existence, or lack of innovation as it were, will doom it to extinction. The same is true for our beloved industry, or any industry for that matter. Complacency is a cancer, spread by executives wishing to ride the coat tails of other successes by doing little more than emulating those titles. I am not preaching Armageddon here, but anyone who chooses to ignore the fact that bad things can and do happen (just look at the video game crash of the 80s), or dismisses talk of a possible crash as conspiracy theory, is simply kidding themselves and ignoring history.

The truth is, ‘me too’ games are rarely anywhere near as successful as the originals. Consumers, particularly casual gamers, are always looking for the ‘next best thing’. Nintendo is betting the farm on this philosophy, and has publicly stated such. The Wii’s core revolves around an innovative control mechanism, not souped-up graphics. The Japanese have long been proponents of innovative gameplay. One has only to look at games such as Katamari Damacy, Loco Roco, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, etc. to name but a small few.

In the infinitesimal, cosmic chance that I were ever to run my own studio again, if a developer in my employ were to tell me “Innovation doesn’t sell games.”, I would promptly inform them to change their perspective or change their career. This type of thinking will lead to failure. No matter how tempting it is to simply sit back and copy the successes of others, the true test of our mettle as developers is to come up with something original. And this challenge, as great as it is, if met head on, will save our industry from another big crash.