It has been often lamented that the current generation of video games lack innovative game play, instead offering the same-old-same-old with constantly improving graphics. The reason for this is clear, with games becoming more and more expensive and thus fewer and fewer actually make profits, publishers are looking for sure bets. As a result, innovation (other than slow iterative change) is viewed as an unnecessary risk. No publisher is going to throw million$ at some crazy new idea that might not work.
Yet it should be clear that for games need to innovate. Who wants to play the same old game. If we want the consumer to part with their money, we need to offer them something that they can’t get elsewhere.
Yet all is not lost.
There is a venue for pure, raw innovation in games, and it completely bypasses the mainstream game industry. I am referring to Flash Games.
Flash games allow small teams, or even individuals, to produce small games. These quick and low budget games can be made around whatever crazy idea that someone comes up with. Virtually anything is possible in terms of game play or subject matter.
Granted, a lot of them suck. But that’s not the point. To have innovation, you need to experiment. When you experiment, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. What’s important is that game designers are free to try, free to experiment, without millions of dollars and the fates of companies hanging on their successes. Equally important is getting the public to play them. A game without players isn’t a game.
Ultimately, the public is the best and only judge of fun. Some games will rise to the top of the pile, others will quickly be forgotten. This is as it should be. Failed game ideas are not failures for the industry. They say in science that there is no failed experiment, for “failures” teach us what doesn’t work. The only real failures, in game design, are games that are killed before making it to market.
