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Been thinking a bit lately and getting ideas from posts and what people I know have been saying about a few things within the gaming industry. Missing genres was something that came up. Are there any? Ok allow me to explain in more detail so you fully understand what I mean. Today's games industry is very large and growing larger and larger all the time, we have various consoles and thousands possibly millions of games to choose from. All of these games can be catogrised into genres such as action, adventure, sport, racing, First person shooter etc. These can probably be broken down more into other categories as well. But is there any genres that have been missed out?
Well take the sports genre first, If we a go a step down we can see that it is only really the most popular sports that have games about them, such as Football, rugby, cricket, boxing, tennis, golf, American football, Ice hockey, wrestling etc and also games based on big events such as the winter and summer olympics. There are a lot more sports some of which could make pretty decent games. I am struggling to think of sports and I am sure there are some that should be mentioned here but are left out. I think that sports like volleyball (beach or normal), shinty, karate, kick boxing, swimming, badminton, other martial arts, etc could make decent games that would apeal to some people.
I can see though why there aren't games based on these sports, they aren't hugely popular or everyones cup of tea so to speak so the developer is taking a risk as they may not sell enough to break even or make a small profit which in turn isn't good business so they don't do it. The games that have games based upon them are usually worldwide sports with a huge fan base and are likely to sell well if they are decent enough. In other words unless they know the game they are making will appeal to people and also as long as they can make the game good and playable, if they can't then they will not make it - not worth it money wise.
So what else is missing, One thing I think we are missing is comedy, sure some games have funny parts or scenes but have you ever played a game that continued the theme of being funny the whole way through? I have no idea how something like this would work or what the story the game could have but maybe having a game designed to be funny could turn out quite well. Of course there are things some find funny that others wont or things that may be funny but also not intended for young children, I guess an idea would have to be well thought out before to make sure the game will actually apeal to some. These days some films are getting closer and closer to being similar in a way to the development of films, with actors providing voices, story writers writing the story of the game, directors providing knowledge and help on adding little touches to make it even more special. MGS2 is close to a film, not just with the number of cut scenes but the whole story line to it all, so is there a possibility of comedy writers from films being involved with the development of games? Is such a thing a possibility for the future?
One thing I think we miss out on is mixing genres. For example I think GTA3 could have been even better if when you are using a weapon it moves into a First Person Shooter view, I know it did for a few of the weapons but it should have been for them all and should have been improved. A few games already do something like this with things like driving vehicles in some levels of first person shooters. But I think that the idea could be improved a lot to make these games better. One day it may well be that the only way to make games different enough and decent is to mix up the genres.
I was thinking on my own idea for a game. It kind of has a mixed genre theme to it all. You begin as a rookie cop driving around the city responding to calls through the radio, then depending on how well you do you can become promoted to various positions in the police force or even on to the FBI or C.I.A. As you move higher up the ranks you are involved in more adventurous cases that could take a while to solve. So you could go from things like catching small time crooks and family disturbances to fighting drug lords and their small armies to tracking down mass murderers.
The game would be a mixture of driving, First person shooter and action adventure. Probably a bit similar to GTA3 but more advanced to allow you into all the buildings and be able to go about an everyday life that constantly changes to match what has happend in the game. I think that there is not enough genres left to explore so we can only improve the ones we are used too. I think the next step is to combine the genres and make the best out of the knowledge of the other genres that the developers already have.
I don't know how well this would work or if people would like it, obviously it needs more thought as to the whole story and all the options as to what can and can't happen but I think the basic idea could work out quite well. We will end up with a point were we are just making games on the same genres time and time again with no new variety of games appearing, one solution is to mix the genres to pro-long the life and create some very special games by using the best ideas from other games. Obviously there are limitations on what developers can do, there are limits on what they can and can't include (Mostly due to disk space available) but could we see (In future consoles?) developers mixing genres, maybe adding something extra to games making some of the games we play at present seem very poor.
As I was writing this I thought of something else which I may as well include here aswell. What my thought was about was about making your own games and the fall of bedroom programmers.
I remember when I was young my dad used to have a computer that we played games on, every month he bought a magazine which had about 3-4 pages of code that if you took the time to enter and compile then you could play the game that the code created. Some of them where quite good as the standard of games at that time wasn't very high and games were quite easy to create.
These days very few consoles even allow you to create your own games, Obviously you can do it on a PC, I think the only one that allows it is the PS2 and the Linux version of the PS2. But with the way the games industry has grown todays games are of a very high standard and to create your own game to match any of these is almost impossible and to type in pre-written code from a developer could take days even weeks as there are millions of lines of code in most games.
So I thought maybe this is something that could be worked on a little for the future to make it easier for everyone to make their own games. I know a lot of people who are interested in it that study things like games technology or computer science at uni but would like more practice on their own doing it for a particular console. So what do you think? Should console developers have an option for us to be able to design decent games ourselfs? Maybe release software with the console that you can use if you want to try make your own or ignore if you don't.
I think it could be a good idea as there are more and more people who want to get into the industry to make games and with competition so high only the good ones will get in, practice and experience is the best and sometimes the only way to get better.
Well take the sports genre first, If we a go a step down we can see that it is only really the most popular sports that have games about them, such as Football, rugby, cricket, boxing, tennis, golf, American football, Ice hockey, wrestling etc and also games based on big events such as the winter and summer olympics. There are a lot more sports some of which could make pretty decent games. I am struggling to think of sports and I am sure there are some that should be mentioned here but are left out. I think that sports like volleyball (beach or normal), shinty, karate, kick boxing, swimming, badminton, other martial arts, etc could make decent games that would apeal to some people.
I can see though why there aren't games based on these sports, they aren't hugely popular or everyones cup of tea so to speak so the developer is taking a risk as they may not sell enough to break even or make a small profit which in turn isn't good business so they don't do it. The games that have games based upon them are usually worldwide sports with a huge fan base and are likely to sell well if they are decent enough. In other words unless they know the game they are making will appeal to people and also as long as they can make the game good and playable, if they can't then they will not make it - not worth it money wise.
So what else is missing, One thing I think we are missing is comedy, sure some games have funny parts or scenes but have you ever played a game that continued the theme of being funny the whole way through? I have no idea how something like this would work or what the story the game could have but maybe having a game designed to be funny could turn out quite well. Of course there are things some find funny that others wont or things that may be funny but also not intended for young children, I guess an idea would have to be well thought out before to make sure the game will actually apeal to some. These days some films are getting closer and closer to being similar in a way to the development of films, with actors providing voices, story writers writing the story of the game, directors providing knowledge and help on adding little touches to make it even more special. MGS2 is close to a film, not just with the number of cut scenes but the whole story line to it all, so is there a possibility of comedy writers from films being involved with the development of games? Is such a thing a possibility for the future?
One thing I think we miss out on is mixing genres. For example I think GTA3 could have been even better if when you are using a weapon it moves into a First Person Shooter view, I know it did for a few of the weapons but it should have been for them all and should have been improved. A few games already do something like this with things like driving vehicles in some levels of first person shooters. But I think that the idea could be improved a lot to make these games better. One day it may well be that the only way to make games different enough and decent is to mix up the genres.
I was thinking on my own idea for a game. It kind of has a mixed genre theme to it all. You begin as a rookie cop driving around the city responding to calls through the radio, then depending on how well you do you can become promoted to various positions in the police force or even on to the FBI or C.I.A. As you move higher up the ranks you are involved in more adventurous cases that could take a while to solve. So you could go from things like catching small time crooks and family disturbances to fighting drug lords and their small armies to tracking down mass murderers.
The game would be a mixture of driving, First person shooter and action adventure. Probably a bit similar to GTA3 but more advanced to allow you into all the buildings and be able to go about an everyday life that constantly changes to match what has happend in the game. I think that there is not enough genres left to explore so we can only improve the ones we are used too. I think the next step is to combine the genres and make the best out of the knowledge of the other genres that the developers already have.
I don't know how well this would work or if people would like it, obviously it needs more thought as to the whole story and all the options as to what can and can't happen but I think the basic idea could work out quite well. We will end up with a point were we are just making games on the same genres time and time again with no new variety of games appearing, one solution is to mix the genres to pro-long the life and create some very special games by using the best ideas from other games. Obviously there are limitations on what developers can do, there are limits on what they can and can't include (Mostly due to disk space available) but could we see (In future consoles?) developers mixing genres, maybe adding something extra to games making some of the games we play at present seem very poor.
As I was writing this I thought of something else which I may as well include here aswell. What my thought was about was about making your own games and the fall of bedroom programmers.
I remember when I was young my dad used to have a computer that we played games on, every month he bought a magazine which had about 3-4 pages of code that if you took the time to enter and compile then you could play the game that the code created. Some of them where quite good as the standard of games at that time wasn't very high and games were quite easy to create.
These days very few consoles even allow you to create your own games, Obviously you can do it on a PC, I think the only one that allows it is the PS2 and the Linux version of the PS2. But with the way the games industry has grown todays games are of a very high standard and to create your own game to match any of these is almost impossible and to type in pre-written code from a developer could take days even weeks as there are millions of lines of code in most games.
So I thought maybe this is something that could be worked on a little for the future to make it easier for everyone to make their own games. I know a lot of people who are interested in it that study things like games technology or computer science at uni but would like more practice on their own doing it for a particular console. So what do you think? Should console developers have an option for us to be able to design decent games ourselfs? Maybe release software with the console that you can use if you want to try make your own or ignore if you don't.
I think it could be a good idea as there are more and more people who want to get into the industry to make games and with competition so high only the good ones will get in, practice and experience is the best and sometimes the only way to get better.
First off I'll let you know, this is just a sympathy reply because no one else has yet replied to your topic ;-)
Secondly I'll address the comedy thing in games. I have played a game which is funny pretty much throughout. Conkers Bad Fur Day. Yes, it may be childish toilet humour for the most part, but it was still funny. Also, though I haven't played them, some of the older point and click games are supposed to be very funny throughout too. I don't think it is possible to 'create' a comedy genre... simply because you always have to base the game on something... for example Conker was a platform game that was also very comic. You can't just go out and say I'll make a comedy game, you need to base it on something, whether it be driving, platforming, shooting, whatever, to give the game substance, and for something for the player to actually do while they are laughing...
Next to the issue of untapped genres... well, I'm not going to rule out new genres, but certainly new ones are increasingly hard to find. But they are around. Pokemon Snap. While the prospect of taking photos may not sound too exciting, it was a new idea. As was that game where you spoke to Pikachu through a microphone... again, maybe not hugely exciting, but new ideas nonetheless. But I certainly believe that we will always be creating new sub-genres. For example, The original Grand Theft Auto was (I think...) the first free roaming driving game in that you could explore the whole city. There were no check points to drive through, no other cars to race against, just you, loads of cars, and objectives that you could choose to complete or not complete. It was very open ended. Another sub genre (well, it's yet to be seen I suppose, but hey) is Metroid Prime, which Nintendo call a 'First Person Adventure'. Not a first person shooter. Oh no. A first person adventure. And there are new sub genres in RPGs being discovered (and rediscovered) such as the card collecting games where instead of your own character or group gaining experience and battling, you collect cards and battle with them. Also, the 'classic' D&D (AKA Beardy) RPGs have been rediscovered, initially with Baldurs Gate, and now with more games such as Neverwinter Nights, and Morrowind. Luigi's Mansion again, is almost a new genre. What category do you put that into? And Super Monkey Ball. To an extent it is a puzzle game, but it as much about your reactions, seeing when your monkey is about to fall and having the skill to carrect it without overcorrecting and sending the monkey falling off the other side of the ledge.
And now to the bedroom coders stuff. Of course as technology moves on and now at an increasinly fast rate it becomes harder and harder for the outsider who only does it as a hobby and not as a job to keep up with the technology. Now it is practically impossible for one person and their computer to code a new game. But PC games do cater for people who want to be creative. Half-Life came packaged with the Worldcraft program which the developers used to create the game, and allowed people to create their own levels, mods, and pretty much alter anything in the game. Most other PC games have a core of enthusiasts who sooner or later create a downloadable package for people to use to create new levels on their games. Some of the newer RPGs are now also including level and world editors so the player can create their own worlds.
But on a console this is going to be very difficult. For a start, on a console you have only your controller. No keyboard to type in code or edit an items properties. Also storage is an issue. Without a hard-drive or writable CDs/DVDs where do you store your creation? Memory cards certainly aren't big enough to store a whole game. However there are ways forward. One thing that did interest me immensely was a Nintendo game on GameCube. It was a Donkey Kong game (and there was a lot of fuss about 'Nintendo taking the DK license away from Rare') but infact it is a game based on the original Donkey Kong arcade game. And on the GameCube you can create levels of the classic DK arcade game, I assume using basic tools, and then the game can be downloaded to your Game Boy Advance. Unfortunately it will only be stored until you turn the GBA off, but hopefully we'll see some kind of empty cart that could be used to put your creations onto and store them permanantly (or until you want to erase them). This is an interesting step for Nintendo, and while you may think 'oh it's a really old arcade game, surely they can come up with something newer for us to make levels for' it still shows promise.
So, while it seems it has become impossible for anyone to create a (modern age) videogame in their bedroom nowadays, there is still hope for practice with level editors, mods, and now some of these ideas seem to be filtering down to the consoles too. There is also a package to create pretty much any game you want in 3D using the DarkBasic program on the PC, which I have seen on SR, and although I have never used it, it does look quite promising and interesting, and now also has an add on pack DarkMatter which apparently includes thousands of premade items (I assume this means potential enemies for FPS, cars for racing games, maybe some premade game engines too). This could be a handy tool as well, as it means you don't need to know a whole load of code to make your own games.
But as ever making a game is going to take a hell of a lot of effort, especially if you are on your own. But it does seem developers are realising that gamers want to be creative too, make their own levels, worlds, even games. Lets hope they can make it a bit easier for those of us who want to.
Hmm, I seem to have written an essay, almost as long as your original topic... :D
I'll stop there then...
Secondly I'll address the comedy thing in games. I have played a game which is funny pretty much throughout. Conkers Bad Fur Day. Yes, it may be childish toilet humour for the most part, but it was still funny. Also, though I haven't played them, some of the older point and click games are supposed to be very funny throughout too. I don't think it is possible to 'create' a comedy genre... simply because you always have to base the game on something... for example Conker was a platform game that was also very comic. You can't just go out and say I'll make a comedy game, you need to base it on something, whether it be driving, platforming, shooting, whatever, to give the game substance, and for something for the player to actually do while they are laughing...
Next to the issue of untapped genres... well, I'm not going to rule out new genres, but certainly new ones are increasingly hard to find. But they are around. Pokemon Snap. While the prospect of taking photos may not sound too exciting, it was a new idea. As was that game where you spoke to Pikachu through a microphone... again, maybe not hugely exciting, but new ideas nonetheless. But I certainly believe that we will always be creating new sub-genres. For example, The original Grand Theft Auto was (I think...) the first free roaming driving game in that you could explore the whole city. There were no check points to drive through, no other cars to race against, just you, loads of cars, and objectives that you could choose to complete or not complete. It was very open ended. Another sub genre (well, it's yet to be seen I suppose, but hey) is Metroid Prime, which Nintendo call a 'First Person Adventure'. Not a first person shooter. Oh no. A first person adventure. And there are new sub genres in RPGs being discovered (and rediscovered) such as the card collecting games where instead of your own character or group gaining experience and battling, you collect cards and battle with them. Also, the 'classic' D&D (AKA Beardy) RPGs have been rediscovered, initially with Baldurs Gate, and now with more games such as Neverwinter Nights, and Morrowind. Luigi's Mansion again, is almost a new genre. What category do you put that into? And Super Monkey Ball. To an extent it is a puzzle game, but it as much about your reactions, seeing when your monkey is about to fall and having the skill to carrect it without overcorrecting and sending the monkey falling off the other side of the ledge.
And now to the bedroom coders stuff. Of course as technology moves on and now at an increasinly fast rate it becomes harder and harder for the outsider who only does it as a hobby and not as a job to keep up with the technology. Now it is practically impossible for one person and their computer to code a new game. But PC games do cater for people who want to be creative. Half-Life came packaged with the Worldcraft program which the developers used to create the game, and allowed people to create their own levels, mods, and pretty much alter anything in the game. Most other PC games have a core of enthusiasts who sooner or later create a downloadable package for people to use to create new levels on their games. Some of the newer RPGs are now also including level and world editors so the player can create their own worlds.
But on a console this is going to be very difficult. For a start, on a console you have only your controller. No keyboard to type in code or edit an items properties. Also storage is an issue. Without a hard-drive or writable CDs/DVDs where do you store your creation? Memory cards certainly aren't big enough to store a whole game. However there are ways forward. One thing that did interest me immensely was a Nintendo game on GameCube. It was a Donkey Kong game (and there was a lot of fuss about 'Nintendo taking the DK license away from Rare') but infact it is a game based on the original Donkey Kong arcade game. And on the GameCube you can create levels of the classic DK arcade game, I assume using basic tools, and then the game can be downloaded to your Game Boy Advance. Unfortunately it will only be stored until you turn the GBA off, but hopefully we'll see some kind of empty cart that could be used to put your creations onto and store them permanantly (or until you want to erase them). This is an interesting step for Nintendo, and while you may think 'oh it's a really old arcade game, surely they can come up with something newer for us to make levels for' it still shows promise.
So, while it seems it has become impossible for anyone to create a (modern age) videogame in their bedroom nowadays, there is still hope for practice with level editors, mods, and now some of these ideas seem to be filtering down to the consoles too. There is also a package to create pretty much any game you want in 3D using the DarkBasic program on the PC, which I have seen on SR, and although I have never used it, it does look quite promising and interesting, and now also has an add on pack DarkMatter which apparently includes thousands of premade items (I assume this means potential enemies for FPS, cars for racing games, maybe some premade game engines too). This could be a handy tool as well, as it means you don't need to know a whole load of code to make your own games.
But as ever making a game is going to take a hell of a lot of effort, especially if you are on your own. But it does seem developers are realising that gamers want to be creative too, make their own levels, worlds, even games. Lets hope they can make it a bit easier for those of us who want to.
Hmm, I seem to have written an essay, almost as long as your original topic... :D
I'll stop there then...
Been thinking a bit lately and getting ideas from posts and what people I know have been saying about a few things within the gaming industry. Missing genres was something that came up. Are there any? Ok allow me to explain in more detail so you fully understand what I mean. Today's games industry is very large and growing larger and larger all the time, we have various consoles and thousands possibly millions of games to choose from. All of these games can be catogrised into genres such as action, adventure, sport, racing, First person shooter etc. These can probably be broken down more into other categories as well. But is there any genres that have been missed out?
Well take the sports genre first, If we a go a step down we can see that it is only really the most popular sports that have games about them, such as Football, rugby, cricket, boxing, tennis, golf, American football, Ice hockey, wrestling etc and also games based on big events such as the winter and summer olympics. There are a lot more sports some of which could make pretty decent games. I am struggling to think of sports and I am sure there are some that should be mentioned here but are left out. I think that sports like volleyball (beach or normal), shinty, karate, kick boxing, swimming, badminton, other martial arts, etc could make decent games that would apeal to some people.
I can see though why there aren't games based on these sports, they aren't hugely popular or everyones cup of tea so to speak so the developer is taking a risk as they may not sell enough to break even or make a small profit which in turn isn't good business so they don't do it. The games that have games based upon them are usually worldwide sports with a huge fan base and are likely to sell well if they are decent enough. In other words unless they know the game they are making will appeal to people and also as long as they can make the game good and playable, if they can't then they will not make it - not worth it money wise.
So what else is missing, One thing I think we are missing is comedy, sure some games have funny parts or scenes but have you ever played a game that continued the theme of being funny the whole way through? I have no idea how something like this would work or what the story the game could have but maybe having a game designed to be funny could turn out quite well. Of course there are things some find funny that others wont or things that may be funny but also not intended for young children, I guess an idea would have to be well thought out before to make sure the game will actually apeal to some. These days some films are getting closer and closer to being similar in a way to the development of films, with actors providing voices, story writers writing the story of the game, directors providing knowledge and help on adding little touches to make it even more special. MGS2 is close to a film, not just with the number of cut scenes but the whole story line to it all, so is there a possibility of comedy writers from films being involved with the development of games? Is such a thing a possibility for the future?
One thing I think we miss out on is mixing genres. For example I think GTA3 could have been even better if when you are using a weapon it moves into a First Person Shooter view, I know it did for a few of the weapons but it should have been for them all and should have been improved. A few games already do something like this with things like driving vehicles in some levels of first person shooters. But I think that the idea could be improved a lot to make these games better. One day it may well be that the only way to make games different enough and decent is to mix up the genres.
I was thinking on my own idea for a game. It kind of has a mixed genre theme to it all. You begin as a rookie cop driving around the city responding to calls through the radio, then depending on how well you do you can become promoted to various positions in the police force or even on to the FBI or C.I.A. As you move higher up the ranks you are involved in more adventurous cases that could take a while to solve. So you could go from things like catching small time crooks and family disturbances to fighting drug lords and their small armies to tracking down mass murderers.
The game would be a mixture of driving, First person shooter and action adventure. Probably a bit similar to GTA3 but more advanced to allow you into all the buildings and be able to go about an everyday life that constantly changes to match what has happend in the game. I think that there is not enough genres left to explore so we can only improve the ones we are used too. I think the next step is to combine the genres and make the best out of the knowledge of the other genres that the developers already have.
I don't know how well this would work or if people would like it, obviously it needs more thought as to the whole story and all the options as to what can and can't happen but I think the basic idea could work out quite well. We will end up with a point were we are just making games on the same genres time and time again with no new variety of games appearing, one solution is to mix the genres to pro-long the life and create some very special games by using the best ideas from other games. Obviously there are limitations on what developers can do, there are limits on what they can and can't include (Mostly due to disk space available) but could we see (In future consoles?) developers mixing genres, maybe adding something extra to games making some of the games we play at present seem very poor.
As I was writing this I thought of something else which I may as well include here aswell. What my thought was about was about making your own games and the fall of bedroom programmers.
I remember when I was young my dad used to have a computer that we played games on, every month he bought a magazine which had about 3-4 pages of code that if you took the time to enter and compile then you could play the game that the code created. Some of them where quite good as the standard of games at that time wasn't very high and games were quite easy to create.
These days very few consoles even allow you to create your own games, Obviously you can do it on a PC, I think the only one that allows it is the PS2 and the Linux version of the PS2. But with the way the games industry has grown todays games are of a very high standard and to create your own game to match any of these is almost impossible and to type in pre-written code from a developer could take days even weeks as there are millions of lines of code in most games.
So I thought maybe this is something that could be worked on a little for the future to make it easier for everyone to make their own games. I know a lot of people who are interested in it that study things like games technology or computer science at uni but would like more practice on their own doing it for a particular console. So what do you think? Should console developers have an option for us to be able to design decent games ourselfs? Maybe release software with the console that you can use if you want to try make your own or ignore if you don't.
I think it could be a good idea as there are more and more people who want to get into the industry to make games and with competition so high only the good ones will get in, practice and experience is the best and sometimes the only way to get better.
Well take the sports genre first, If we a go a step down we can see that it is only really the most popular sports that have games about them, such as Football, rugby, cricket, boxing, tennis, golf, American football, Ice hockey, wrestling etc and also games based on big events such as the winter and summer olympics. There are a lot more sports some of which could make pretty decent games. I am struggling to think of sports and I am sure there are some that should be mentioned here but are left out. I think that sports like volleyball (beach or normal), shinty, karate, kick boxing, swimming, badminton, other martial arts, etc could make decent games that would apeal to some people.
I can see though why there aren't games based on these sports, they aren't hugely popular or everyones cup of tea so to speak so the developer is taking a risk as they may not sell enough to break even or make a small profit which in turn isn't good business so they don't do it. The games that have games based upon them are usually worldwide sports with a huge fan base and are likely to sell well if they are decent enough. In other words unless they know the game they are making will appeal to people and also as long as they can make the game good and playable, if they can't then they will not make it - not worth it money wise.
So what else is missing, One thing I think we are missing is comedy, sure some games have funny parts or scenes but have you ever played a game that continued the theme of being funny the whole way through? I have no idea how something like this would work or what the story the game could have but maybe having a game designed to be funny could turn out quite well. Of course there are things some find funny that others wont or things that may be funny but also not intended for young children, I guess an idea would have to be well thought out before to make sure the game will actually apeal to some. These days some films are getting closer and closer to being similar in a way to the development of films, with actors providing voices, story writers writing the story of the game, directors providing knowledge and help on adding little touches to make it even more special. MGS2 is close to a film, not just with the number of cut scenes but the whole story line to it all, so is there a possibility of comedy writers from films being involved with the development of games? Is such a thing a possibility for the future?
One thing I think we miss out on is mixing genres. For example I think GTA3 could have been even better if when you are using a weapon it moves into a First Person Shooter view, I know it did for a few of the weapons but it should have been for them all and should have been improved. A few games already do something like this with things like driving vehicles in some levels of first person shooters. But I think that the idea could be improved a lot to make these games better. One day it may well be that the only way to make games different enough and decent is to mix up the genres.
I was thinking on my own idea for a game. It kind of has a mixed genre theme to it all. You begin as a rookie cop driving around the city responding to calls through the radio, then depending on how well you do you can become promoted to various positions in the police force or even on to the FBI or C.I.A. As you move higher up the ranks you are involved in more adventurous cases that could take a while to solve. So you could go from things like catching small time crooks and family disturbances to fighting drug lords and their small armies to tracking down mass murderers.
The game would be a mixture of driving, First person shooter and action adventure. Probably a bit similar to GTA3 but more advanced to allow you into all the buildings and be able to go about an everyday life that constantly changes to match what has happend in the game. I think that there is not enough genres left to explore so we can only improve the ones we are used too. I think the next step is to combine the genres and make the best out of the knowledge of the other genres that the developers already have.
I don't know how well this would work or if people would like it, obviously it needs more thought as to the whole story and all the options as to what can and can't happen but I think the basic idea could work out quite well. We will end up with a point were we are just making games on the same genres time and time again with no new variety of games appearing, one solution is to mix the genres to pro-long the life and create some very special games by using the best ideas from other games. Obviously there are limitations on what developers can do, there are limits on what they can and can't include (Mostly due to disk space available) but could we see (In future consoles?) developers mixing genres, maybe adding something extra to games making some of the games we play at present seem very poor.
As I was writing this I thought of something else which I may as well include here aswell. What my thought was about was about making your own games and the fall of bedroom programmers.
I remember when I was young my dad used to have a computer that we played games on, every month he bought a magazine which had about 3-4 pages of code that if you took the time to enter and compile then you could play the game that the code created. Some of them where quite good as the standard of games at that time wasn't very high and games were quite easy to create.
These days very few consoles even allow you to create your own games, Obviously you can do it on a PC, I think the only one that allows it is the PS2 and the Linux version of the PS2. But with the way the games industry has grown todays games are of a very high standard and to create your own game to match any of these is almost impossible and to type in pre-written code from a developer could take days even weeks as there are millions of lines of code in most games.
So I thought maybe this is something that could be worked on a little for the future to make it easier for everyone to make their own games. I know a lot of people who are interested in it that study things like games technology or computer science at uni but would like more practice on their own doing it for a particular console. So what do you think? Should console developers have an option for us to be able to design decent games ourselfs? Maybe release software with the console that you can use if you want to try make your own or ignore if you don't.
I think it could be a good idea as there are more and more people who want to get into the industry to make games and with competition so high only the good ones will get in, practice and experience is the best and sometimes the only way to get better.