Thread by @Fluttermind

I've been asked to opine on design in modern games. So, here goes:

I think we're in a dangerous place. We've created a massive library of 'best practices' and 'design methodologies' and 'interface standards' that have made everything in AAA smooth and homogenous.
Yuck.

We've engagement metrics for 'how often enemy encounters should appear', 'how high your character should jump relative to his size', 'how far the player should be able to see', 'how long missions should last', 'how often characters should talk' etc.

We effectively have our own 'Save the Cat' playbook and it's doing the same thing to games as that toxic dump has had on movies - especially Open World games. As games cost more to develop it's only going to get worse.

That's partially why we're seeing the accolades pile up for the *stories* of games and the quality of the *acting* rather than the novelty of gameplay or nature of the verbs used (which have only *decreased* since 1976).

Games used to be about all kinds of weird shit: clowns bouncing on see-saws, balloons, loop-the-loop planes, cars with weird axles, being a kid in school (having to attend lessons), being a weird collection of dots filling in areas of a polygonal world etc.

I rarely see a AAA game now where I say: "Ooh! I wonder what the hell that's all about!" And that's by design. You're not supposed to wonder. You're supposed to know. It's the value-proposition. If you don't already know how it's going to play the marketing has 'failed'.

Again, if we look at movies there are things like Parasite which keep you guessing what they are while still being non-experimental and *highly* polished. In our industry, we leave *all* of that weirdness to Indies. Everyone else wants to be Marvel Movie #164: 'Beakerman 12'.

I hate the Marvel Movies. I think they are vacuous, tedious, formulaic nonsense that has sucked all the air out of the entire industry and largely serves up the same lukewarm, sparkly void that modern pop music does. And yet *these* are our aspirational media.

We dare not challenge anything except 'taste' (death by claw-hammer, anyone?) and sexual expectation (My GOD... is that character... GAY?!!!!). This is bad. And our industry remains in a grey limbo until some smaller studio does something radical... and everyone copies it.

So. What do I think of modern AAA? If I see one more fucking gun 1/3rd of the way across the bottom of my screen, I may well scream and throw something. If I see another license largely indistinguishable from its movie source material I shall pick up a book instead.

Next Gen will revolutionise nothing, except the ability to use movie studios' raw CG assets and pretend that is a 'good thing' for everyone. If we want better games we need to vote with our wallets. Looking at the charts we're a long way from that.

Back in 1987, I predicted that engines would become irrelevant and that game-worlds and stories would become the differentiating factor in consumer decision-making. I didn't know how horribly right I was going to be.

So. What have I got to say that is positive? A couple of things:
1) Getting more women in games will be more transformative than any number of polygons.
2) Indies are amazing and becoming moreso as tech improves.
3) I think the appetite for warm sewage *is* diminishing... slowly.

I look forward to the toolsets enabling super-small teams to create weird, beautiful stuff that shines and shows this amazing interactive medium for the starburst of innovation it always has been. Bring on Light in Chorus, Memories of a Broken Dimension etc.

"Make Games Weird Again"

@BluePinStudio1 You asked... :-)

If anyone wonders why diversity is important, *this* is why. While we have the same white, Western, cis-men who love their comics and action movies in charge of the creative direction in games, most AAA games will reflect those values. It's why there're so many 'brotagonists'.

Hire people from theatre. Hire puppeteers. Hire boardgame nerds. Hire romance novelists. Hire people who aren't like you. Make games a source of delight and wonder and *the unexpected*.

That's it. Rant over. I'm off to play a game about avoiding giant fish.