The stagnation of annual games and why it should encourage innovation

So, here is a hypothetical. Your name is James. You own one of the two current generation consoles. What two games are you likely to own? If you’re from the UK chances are it’s Call of Duty and Fifa, If you’re from USA chances are it’s Call of Duty and Madden, and if you’re from, erm, Canada? I guess? It’s probably NHL. Regardless, the point is that you can typically guess the games that the majority of people own on console because they are the games released on yearly basis.

There are two things to take away from this. The first is that these are the games the make the most money and hence are more likely to be owned. The second thing is that these games are the most accessible in that they are sports games, and a cookie cutter FPS. They are very easy to pick up and enjoy immediately, thanks in no small part to the emphasis of multiplayer.

Because these games are accessible and hence quite formulaic in nature, it makes them difficult to reinvent on a yearly basis. Both games are approaching their graphical limit, the sports games specifically are close to adopting every aspect of their respective sports, and ultimately they are becoming predictable each in year. Most people will have recognised this and as many people will look at it with a negative outlook – these games and their approach to releases are stagnating creativity and enjoyment of games in general.

I however have a slightly more optimistic outlook. With every form of media and art we are faced with walls. These walls represent the limit of a certain approach, and rather than give up and accept this is as far as a medium can be taken, these walls are overcome.  In art in may represent a new movement being adopted, a new approach to the subject or form, and that is what i believe will happen with these mainstream games.  So rather than look at the abundance of annual games as the ‘dawn of the casual gamer’ or any other such overdramatic reaction, look at it instead as the precipice of innovation, where all games are adapting and making new. Who knows, it could lead to almost unthinkable prospect of BETTER GAMES!!

Conor M.