Is anyone doing something different? Has everything been done?

FoxEye

FoxEye

FoxEye

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Silly thread title is silly.

But I was just listening the Ecco the Dolphin soundtrack, and wondering, "Where are the people making genuinely different games? Experimental stuff that hasn't been done before?"

I've got a ton of games on my "to-do" list, and I'm putting off playing any of them, because mostly I know they'll be variations on a theme of something I've played before. That doesn't mean they'll be bad games, of course.

But damn, the 90s were a great time to be a young gamer. The big-name studios hadn't settled into a comfortable rut, making the same games over and over. The word "indie" wasn't synonymous with "retro remakes".

Feel free to list some modern games that are totally different to everything else out there. I'm basically just fatigued by the experience of playing something and thinking, "Yeah, this is just like X from 15 years ago, only prettier."

I should probably say that the last game I played was Prey, which perfectly encapsulates this feeling.
 
I think the problem is that there are no "new genres" for you.

The early 80's/90's was great as we saw a LOT of experimentation, developers pushing the envelope. How do we fit all this into 16k of RAM :D

Now, we "have it all".

I guess you are no longer a "whipper snapper". I am nearly 40 and mostly read about games more than I play them.

I still love the industry and it has gave me years of happiness but there is only so many times you can play an FPS without thinking... "Meh".. even if it is the best FPS ever.
 
VR, until this is cracked at a sensible price at 4k with refresh rates to match... it's not going to change.
 
Gimpymoo said:
I think the problem is that there are no "new genres" for you.

The early 80's/90's was great as we saw a LOT of experimentation, developers pushing the envelope. How do we fit all this into 16k of RAM :D

Now, we "have it all".

I guess you are no longer a "whipper snapper". I am nearly 40 and mostly read about games more than I play them.

I still love the industry and it has gave me years of happiness but there is only so many times you can play an FPS without thinking... "Meh".. even if it is the best FPS ever.
Click to expand...
Are there a finite amount of genres? Are there a finite amount of experiences within those genres?

Are there a limited number of substantially different experiences, and once you've seen them all that's it?

Or are we mostly asking for (and getting) a plethora of similar experiences, because that's what's popular and what sells best?
 
Gimpymoo said:
I think the problem is that there are no "new genres" for you.

The early 80's/90's was great as we saw a LOT of experimentation, developers pushing the envelope. How do we fit all this into 16k of RAM :D

Now, we "have it all".

I guess you are no longer a "whipper snapper". I am nearly 40 and mostly read about games more than I play them.

I still love the industry and it has gave me years of happiness but there is only so many times you can play an FPS without thinking... "Meh".. even if it is the best FPS ever.
Click to expand...

QFT, in the same boat which is why these days i tend to play older games.
 
SPG said:
VR, until this is cracked at a sensible price at 4k with refresh rates to match... it's not going to change.
Click to expand...

What this man said. I bought a rift last week, and it's transformed gaming for me. A lot of it is gimmicky, but it totally transforms games such as racing sims / flight sims. Blatting round VR Spa in a formula A in Project Cars 2 is like gaming rediscovered!
 
Amnesia, Stanley Parable, FTL, That Dragon Cancer, Her Story, Papers Please, Thomas Was Alone, Brothers, Dark Souls, Darkest Dungeon, Alien Isolation, Fez, Antichamber, Fortnite / PUBG, INSIDE, a Way Out, Minit, The Sexy Brutale, Firewatch.....

All this decade, all bring something new, most are excellent. There are loads more like them.

We're in the golden age of indie video games, and there's so much innovation and quality. The AAA market is mostly garbage (some exceptions , of course), but leave that for the masses.
 
As above if you look indie there's a lot of experimentation going on. Triple AAA though is not the place to look for something unique as they are just playing the numbers game for their shareholders.
 
all you need to think about is big studios need mega money.they cant gamble.the are so huge they need to make the profit or they gone.so you have to just farm out games yearly. rearly good games used to take 3-5 years to make.now its pushed through in a year. you wont cant expect any of them to create masterpieces in 1 year.

if you want something interesting try out the box look at things you wouldnt normally touch.there are lots of people doing interesting things.
 
Perhaps its because in the past, the devs were limited more by hardware than ideas. Now we have all the hardware, all the grand ideas have already been made into games, and I cant see that having a 4x improvement in processing power is going to make much difference to what kind of games are able to be made in the future so its just going to go on less jaggies instead.
 
XCOM 2

If there are any other games like it, please let me know so I can play them when I'm finished. Totally different to all the games I normally play, but brilliant, and better in some ways.
 
The more different something is the less you have to benchmark its likely success against.
If hundreds of people are going to spend 2 to 5 years making something that will cost many millions of pounds, you want to have confidence that what you are doing will make money. Playing it safe.
The smaller the production the more scope for difference, and that is where you will find the different things. Don't expect it from the epics.
It's the same in the film industry.
 
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