[IGDA_indies] indies and innovation

[Brandon J. Van Every]

Jason Della Rocca
> >
> >Innovation and creativity are what indies do best!
>
> Yes, it should be! Here's an interesting article questioning
> this theory:
> http://www.gametunnel.com/html/section-viewarticle-50.html

The author's opinions on the % of innovative titles in indie-dom vs.
mainstream game production is a bunch of anecdotal hand waving.  My
anecdote is that when I go down to EBX, I almost never see anything in
PC games that I want to buy, let alone that I'd call innovative.  I'm
pretty unconscious of the console space and perhaps more innovation is
going on there, particularly from the Japanese.

I think the notion that "it's really just the casual game market" is
baloney.  He gave some examples of niche indie games that clearly aren't
casual, and I could point to more examples in the wargame segment that
are seriously hardcore.

Although I certainly agree that Indie != Innovative, from where I sit,
indies do more innovation per capita than the mainstream industry does.
I'm sitting as an IGF judge, and I've looked at a lot of titles in
depth, so that's my bias.  I don't know how many titles the author
rigorously goes through in a year.  For IGF 2004 I judged 30 entrants in
depth.  Plus I believe I bought 4 mainstream commercial titles, and
played probably a few more commercial demos.

I don't agree with the "small games lead to limited scope, limited
'content', and hence limited innovation" theory.  There's nothing
stopping game designers from innovating with small titles.  Except of
course one's creativity, or lack of desire to exercise it.  We have
adequate proof that small game != can't innovate.

For instance the author correctly named Gish as a 'truly innovative'
title, and it's certainly a small arcade platformer.  In Gish you
manipulate a blob according to some physics principles, like inertia and
traction.  I also think Strange Adventures In Infinite Space and Oasis
are highly innovative, in that they compress the tropes of various long
boring-assed genres down to 20 minutes of intensely rewarding play.
Currently I call such titles the 'Summary' game genre, because they
summarize much longer titles.

The IGF doesn't just 'market' its Finalists and Winners as innovative.
Rather, games are judged by a large pool of developers in industry.  It
is a baptism by fire.  Although the title for many awards is "Innovation
In Such-And-Such," the scoring is actually Innovation * Execution.  This
is clearly spelled out in the rules, although I understand that nobody's
reading the rules when they look at the IGF endorsement on the back of a
game box.  A game that wins is "a better combination of innovation and
execution than the other contenders."  Or comparable, if you want to
split hairs about woulda coulda shoulda.  Sometimes there isn't a clear
standout and somebody wins by a slim margin.

If a game is merely ok on innovation, but fantastic on execution, it's
possible to win a category.  Especially if other entrants are weak on
innovation that year.  I think that's how Spartan won "Innovation In
Visual Art" in IGF 2004, for instance.  I didn't think the artwork was
terribly innovative, but it was clearly damn well done, (like "10" for
execution).  It was a weak year for artsy fartsy visual art stuff.
Really the only remarkable Finalist was "Anito: Defend A Land Enraged."
It was a CRPG, but used Filippino visual motifs for the entire thing.  I
gave it high marks in innovation for high concept.  The execution in
some places was questionable, and if other judges didn't see fit to give
it sterling execution scores, that would not shock me.  I think it's
reasonable for Spartan to have beaten Anito, but it could have gone the
other way.

Oddly enough, Anito got Innovation In Audio.  It did have some snappy
tunes in it and I did give it decent marks, but I didn't think it was
exceptional.  I think it was also a weak year for Audio innovation.

If the pattern holds, the easiest way to pick up a victory in the IGF
would be to make a title that is highly innovative in either art or
audio.  Most entrants simply aren't attempting it.  In contrast, the
competition for innovative game design is stiff.  For Technical
Excellence it's totally ruthless, as there's no innovation requirement
at all for that category.

I judged all the Finalists in both categories, except for a couple that
didn't run on my machine.  I thought all the awards in the
Web/Downloadable category were reasonable.  (See http://www.igf.com/ for
the winners.)  I'm not entirely convinced about Savage getting the grand
prize for the Open category, but honestly, I didn't play the game much.
Multiplayer FPS isn't my favorite genre, and I was rushing to finish my
judging at the end.  I don't know multiplayer FPS well enough to know
why Savage should be considered innovative; maybe it wasn't so
considered, and made its points on being well done.  I can't point at
another title that clearly should have won the grand prize in that
category, so by that standard, it's a reasonable win.  Games only have
to beat what they're competing against, after all.

So yes, Indie != Innovation, but I think the author sells indies short.


Cheers,                     www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every           Seattle, WA

Taking risk where others will not.