Gaming isn’t dead. But creativity is. You’ve probably noticed that modern Triple
A gaming is filled with the rehashing of old material. From Remasters to Remakes to Reboots, and
constantly getting sequels. And even with those sequels they just keep
on re-releasing old content from their previous games. Originality, Talent, and Genuine Care are
all extinct in the Triple A space right now. But, a lot of individuals love to spout off
the “Rose Tinted Glasses” or “It’s just Nostalgia” arguments whenever you bring
up the decline of Triple A video games over the last 10 years. But, you’ll often notice that those arguments
are usually made by the same people that love to fawn over the New Shiny thing. You know who I’m talking about. The Consoomers who have to have the latest
thing, play the latest game, and ingest whatever garbage these corporations put out. They love to say things like “That game
is so old bro” “Oh my god the Graphics are so dated” “What? No battlepass or dripfeed content? I’ll get bored with that in a month!” And you’d think that people don’t say
that last comment, but when Elden Ring and Hogwarts Legacy started losing it’s playercount
on steam these dorks were treating it as if the game was dead. Saying things like “see if it isn’t a
live game it dies” as if it’s a bad thing that some games can eventually come to an
end. And I know a lot of you know exactly the type
of people I’m describing here, you’ve probably met a few of them unfortunately. And again, also unfortunately, they are the
target audience at large. The current generation of Gamers that are
hype beasts, blinded by the next honeymoon phase, constantly defending the corporations
who at the end of the day, only sees them as a titty to milk. But let’s get into the meat and potatoes
of the video. Creativity is dead. Now you don’t have to take my word for it. According to researchers at the University
of William and Marry, Creative Scores (measured by what’s called The Torrance Test) have
been steadily declining since the late ‘90’s and we’re now in the middle of what these
researchers are calling a “creativity crisis” due to overstimulation and the lack of boredom. Because yes, boredom has long been recognized
as the key ingredient for imagination. Boredom leads to daydreaming, which leads
to creating a simulation in our mind, then figuring out a way to execute that vision. And this line of thinking has lead to some
of the most influential games of all time. For example, the idea for Pokemon came about
when Satoshi Tajiri revisited his childhood hometown as an adult. As a child in the 1970’s Satoshi spent hours
exploring the rivers and forests and catching bugs. But 20 years later those same rivers and forests
had been replaced with numerous homes and both commercial and office buildings. Satoshi thought about all the kids who were
unable to explore that same nature and collect it’s mysterious creatures like he had. And he paired these thoughts with his own
love of arcade games, and this lead to the initial idea and concept for creating Pokemon. Or I think about the Story-Telling of the
Souls Series inspired by Miyazaki’s childhood, where he used to read books beyond his own
comprehension where he only understood maybe half of the words and he had to fill in the
story gaps with his imagination. Miyazaki wants the player to use their imagination
to fill in the gaps and piece together the puzzle pieces that he intentionally left behind. Hell even the Souls games multiplayer mechanics
were inspired by Miyazaki’s own personal experience. He notes several instances of driving up a
snowy road as cars ahead began slipping back and were then pushed uphill by other people
in the area. And as Miyazaki was unable to give his thanks
before they left the area, he wondered whether the last person in the line at the bottom
of the hill made it to their destination as he was unlikely to ever meet them again. And this gave birth to the very impactful
silent cooperation of the Souls games. These two creators inspired by real life experiences
that took the time to ruminate about how to replicate these experiences inside of video
games, and changed gaming forever. Of course, these aren’t the only two examples
of creativity in gaming. There are in fact many examples of genius
in the industry that has given us unforgettable experiences throughout the years. Through either the gameplay or the narrative
or hopefully both. But you don’t need some researcher at a
college to tell you that creativity is dead. All you need to do is take a step back and
really take a look at the entertainment industry. The best games of this year for example, so
far are Remakes. Dead Space, Resident Evil 4, System Shock. All good games, but they’re not original,
and in fact aside from graphics, are in some ways even downgrades. Not always, but definitely some. But most Triple A games completely lack any
creative touch, and it leaves the games to feel a bit soulless. Very corporate. I’m not going to pretend that Video Games
haven’t always been about making money, the same as any other entertainment industry. But there has been a fundamental lack of creativity
in every single category of the Triple A industry today. Outside of that, smaller studios like Double
A’s and indies are still producing solid products, somewhat. Keeping creativity alive with games like Shadows
of Doubt or BattleBit or Hades or Tunic, there are good games being developed by creative
individuals. But Triple A man… woo… man is it bad. So, what’s the cause for this lack of creativity? Corporate Interference in the creative process? Trend Chasing? Obsessing over Realism? Or focusing on all the wrong things? I would say all of these are the culprit. But one thing that I often never see being
brought up. Is the genuine lack of talent at these Studios. I know. I know. Armchair game dev here. Hello, nice to meet you. But I think it’s important to realize that
most of the studios we grew up respecting and loving aren’t the same studios at all. It’s like the Ship of Theseus’. If you replace every part of a ship one by
one until none of the original parts remain, is it still the same ship? And if not, at what point does it become another
ship? Arkane of 2012 is not Arkane of 2023. Bungie, Blizzard, Bioware, Obsidian, Konami,
these studios have largely had most of their parts replaced one by one and are not the
same studios we once knew. Which is to be expected. People move on, retire, or even move up to
corporate positions rather than stay in the trenches engrossed in the actual development
process. And the results speak for themselves. Somehow the animations and lip-syncing of
Assassin’s Creed was better in 2010 than it is in 2020. The quest design and writing of New Vegas,
a game made in 18 months with 70 devs, outclasses Fallout 4’s writing and quest design at
every single turn. And Bethesda claims that Fallout 4 took 7
years to develop with over a hundred developers. Or we take a look at examples like Gotham
Knights, which is not developed by Rocksteady, but obviously was trying to repeat the success
of Rocksteady’s Arkham Series. And despite being 7 years apart, Batman Arkham
Knight outclasses Gotham Knights in every single category. From the writing, to the gameplay, to the
world and art design, to the sound design. All of it. Then you take a look at what Rocksteady is
making now, and holy shit how is this the same people behind this? Well, Ship of Theseus. It’s not the same people behind this. Now, even if the corporate overlords pushed
Rocksteady to create this game, I think that the 2015 studio would have delivered something
better than whatever the hell this is. A similar thing happened with Arkane and Redfall
where 70% of the development studio that were there for Prey 2017 were no longer at the
studio for Redfall. So Redfall feels like baby’s first video
game project for a reason. The examples could go on and on. However, one of the largest examples of incompetence
on both the part of Activision and the developers is at the Call of Duty studios. 13 years ago Treyarch, the creators of the
Black Ops games had roughly 200 developers in 2010. And they delivered back-to-back the greatest
CoD games of all time filled to the brim with content between Multiplayer and Zombies, and
masterfully told campaign narratives. All developed in under 2 years each. But in 2023, the latest Modern Warfare 2 was
worked on for 3 years by 11 different studios totaling to 3000 developers. And has delivered on a fraction of the content
as these older Call of Duty titles. And most of the content that they put out
is reskins of that content developed by the old development teams. The Campaign narrative chops are nowhere near
as good as the 2009 Modern Warfare 2, and there are more bugs and glitches than can
even be quantified at this point. Is it too many cooks in the kitchen? Genuine incompetence? Lack of direction and too much interference
from corporate? Again, all of the above. But 3000 Devs with 3 years, versus 200 devs
with 2 years. If that doesn’t show you incompetence at
every level including the ground level devs in those studios today, I don’t know what
will. And while we’re talking about quality in
Call of Duty, I just want to highlight Zombies. When we take a look at Black Ops Cold War
Zombies compared to Black Ops 2 Zombies, it’s a joke. Not that Cold War zombies can’t be fun,
but think of the maps in Cold War and their easter eggs, versus the likes of Mob of The
Dead, Buried, Origins. Maps with Easter Eggs that are lightyears
ahead of Cold War in terms of creativity, immersion, level design, and an art and graphical
style so much more impressive than Cold War zombies. How the fuck have zombies regressed so far
to this generic Mobile Game feeling horde mode. It’s so frustrating. But probably the saddest area to see lose
creativity is in the writing and storytelling of Video Game narratives and dialogue. Bow to your QUEEN. Yeah okay that is something I do now. I do magic, talk to sentient cuffs, kill jacked
up beasts, you know what. I don’t have to love it, I have to pay my
student loans. Amen. What the fuck is this piece of shit? Now I know this isn’t just a gaming problem,
all media’s writing has tanked off a cliff so hard. But Video Games are a unique storytelling
medium. There are certain stories that can only be
experienced inside of a video game. And I think the best example of that is Bioshock. There is no way to deliver that narrative
in a movie or TV show. Not that you couldn’t make a movie or TV
show with Rapture as the setting, but that specific story could not be translated to
TV. Because one of the biggest parts about the
“Twist” in the story highlights that gamers mindlessly follow objectives, and “obey”
whatever an NPC asks of them. Tying in with the “A man chooses, a slave
obeys” idea. The player realizes that they’ve been a
slave both narratively, and almost in a 4th wall breaking kind of way. Narratives like that again, can only exist
in Video Games. These thought provoking pieces of art that
dig deep because they require a player to be in control. But with the obsession of realism, games have
essentially become movies. If you remove the player, the stories would
still be able to be told in any other media. And their narratives don’t go much deeper
than “Violence breeds more violence” or “face our fears” not inherently bad concepts,
but so many times it's extremely surface level and again can be experienced in any medium. Give me more games like Bioshock, Dark Souls,
Firewatch, Portal 2, Undertale, The Masquerade Bloodlines, New Vegas, Disco Elysium. Games that take advantage of the fact that
they’re video games, and tell their narratives in a way that capitalizes on the strengths
that that gives them. And what makes this “creativity drought”
even worse is the gamers who have no standards. Gamers that are so easily entertained. You could make a game about two dudes playing
hopscotch, make it look ultra realistic, throw in some Marvel dialogue about the struggles
of hopscotching as a man, and boom. Masterpiece for normies. These same gamers would then go on to defend
the publishers and developers as if they work at the studios. Saying that game development is so hard and
gamers are so unaware of the challenges, and while that can be definitely true, you don’t
have to be a game developer to see situations like 3000 devs with 3 years versus 200 devs
with 2 years and say, yeah something is definitely fucked up here. But again, gamers have no standards. Or should I say, they have the wrong standards. They want Large Empty Open Worlds, Ultra Realistic
Graphics and Facial Animations, and will fawn over some of the most generic Marvel-Tier
storytelling in existence. They will hype up gameplay that was surpassed
by studios over 10 years ago. Bend over when a company demands money for
their progression systems. Cheerlead for them when they ship a broken
game and say “it just launched they’re working on it.” And willfully spend hundreds on cash shop
items because “I just like to look cool” This is Modern Gaming. The Death of Creativity. Talent is extinct. Genuine care belongs to bygone days. And gamers have zero standards.
