Major console systems like the Nintendo Wii, the Sony Playstation platform and Microsoft’s X-Box 360 all seemed to be suffering from the same affliction that has hit our beloved MMORPG genre of PC games – no or low risk game design. Games like the Grand Theft Auto series are to the console as games like World of Warcraft are to the PC – successful.
But with that success comes suffering for gamers as game companies are unwilling to take huge risks on new ideas or new directions. All game companies seem to do it, take what has worked in the past and re-make it in the future. For the most part, games on any system follow a certain trend of features or game play with a few small, low risk quirks thrown in to separate the game from it’s competitors. The three big console companies are looking to change all that.
Both Microsoft and Nintendo have released light versions of their console game design software intended to help independent game designers prosper. With very low financial risk to the console giants, independent designers are free to use their creative natures to come up with out of the box thinking on console games. The games being made be indies won’t be real big competition for the game giants simply because of the manpower it takes to make a big game like that – but it will give the big guys a chance to see what fans like. They’ll get to see fresh ideas and new ways of thinking and more importantly to them they can find new programmer talent.
What this means for your casual gamer? Well you won’t have the next big thing like Halo or GTA4 coming out of the Indie program but you will have a plethora of cheap, low budget games to choose from that are farther from the norm of your other shoot ‘em up designs. And with any luck this will push the bigger game titles to take more risk in their game designs and hopefully give them fresh ideas and give gamers more variety. Let’s hope other game companies learn from the example the console guys are taking and start taking bigger risks to give us something new.
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