Ben Gonshaw: Digital Media Theorist & Game Design Consultant
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REPEAT AD NAUSEUM

8th September 2004

The games we are making are merely prettier, more refined versions of the ones we were making 25 years ago.  There might be fancier graphics and you may hear more accurate sound.  You might have finer controls and more solidity in the game world, but what does this amount to?  Many years spent perfecting one simple concept.  2D fighting games from the likes of Capcom or SNK are the epitome of honing to achieve unattainable perfection.  Sega’s Virtua Tennis is a virtuoso version of Pong and Doom 3 is Wolfenstein with bells and whistles.

Many new games have been heralded as the next leap forward, Half Life 2 is the current media favourite, but physics and DX9 graphic engines in themselves do not represent any real progression in terms of content.  Whatever clever variation is conceived, no matter what subtle twisting of convention may occur, or what application of new technology, the end result is never vastly different from the works of a quarter century ago.  In Half Life 2, it moves, you shoot it, end of story.  Over the course of gaming’s history there have been changes and improvements.  The representation of the player and their point of view have changed, from third person to first person.  The world that the shoot mechanic exists within has expanded, as have the tools that allow the user to traverse the levels.  We have progressed from moving left and right on a single screen in early eighties games, to moving in two dimensions on a scrolling screen in the early nineties.  Today we employ vehicles and explorable destructable game spaces, with the ability to move freely in three dimensions.  Where are the real gains when the premise is the same, the emotion is the same and the player’s action remains essentially the same?  Dodge, aim and shoot.  The expanded possibilities enabled by technology have barely been thought about when it comes to content.

JAN 2006 UPDATE: People are still talking about the need for it to happen and are vainly trying to address the issue.

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