Complacency is an easy thing to catch and a harder thing to shake.
The next time you’re strolling through a video game retailer like GameStop or Best Buy, I encourage you to pause for a moment and take in your surroundings. Really look up and down the aisles at the current crop of both previous and next-gen titles available to the average gamer. Most look at this kind of thing often but never really see. If you were to take a moment, you’d probably notice something very wrong with this situation.
I’m referring to the variety (or rather lack thereof) regarding titles. Sure there are literarily hundreds of games to choose from (or even tens of thousands if you throw in online outlets like eBay, Amazon and more). But the types of games you can get your hands on are quite limited. First you’ll notice that throwing a rock with your eyes closed will likely result in knocking an FPS off the shelf. That’s a given. Your second option will be the inevitable sports title. Either NBA this or MLB that. Finally, if you don’t like any of those, you can always snatch up the obligatory racing game. In-between these cracks is where the majority of the rest fall. Those gems that are truly great, but will never get top billing because they don’t have the words “ Call of Duty ” printed on the label. Will there ever come a point when the industry stops shoving the same three genres down our throats?
2015 could be that year, as new advancements on the horizon in both the hardware and software fields seem to suggest so. Finally!
Take Gearbox Software president Randy Pitchford’s recent comments, for example. According to him, it’s only those within the industry itself (and their ability to step outside their comfort zone) that can violently shove technology and design forward in the progressive manner that’s truly needed:
“The oldest problem our species has faced is that we can’t realize and manifest everything that we can imagine as quickly as we can imagine it. So the only solution to that problem is to make choices. And to pick one thing and abandon another. And that can be difficult if there’s a part of our minds that loves the thing that must be abandoned and is afraid of the new frontier that should be embraced. But progress demands that we look forward. And the biggest and most exciting things that we’re going to do be doing in interactive entertainment in the future are things that we can’t even conceive of today. And we’ll never get there unless we actually are comfortable taking some risks and trying things we haven’t done before.”
I’m optimistic about the future and what it holds for gaming. There are new frontiers to be explored (I’m using my Captain Jean-Luc Picard voice here), and I truly believe we could be on the brink of breaking out into something new and innovative. At least that’s my hope. I’m not so naive to think we won’t be plagued by similar issues moving forward, as I understand the shooter/sports/race trifecta is popular because people spend money on these three more than anything else. What that means is consumers will have to make a concerted effort on their parts to broaden their own periphery and start spending money on genres they wouldn’t normally venture into.
What’s the worst that could happen? Some Madden fans decide they like MMOs and platformers too? Shocking! We simply can’t have that now, can we?