play nowby Moritz Eggert
play nowPerhaps we do live in the golden age of gaming. But there are some hints that there is a certain status quo that has been reached in the designs that is never questioned, and that there is very little happening that is innovative.
The most sure tell sign for this is the huge current flood of remakes of old games. Be it Valley Games reissuing classics like "Hannibal" or "Titan", be it Fantasy Flight with their remakes of "Fury of Dracula", "Warrior Knights", "Britannia" and soon some of the old EON games like Dune and Cosmic Encounter, there really is a strong longing of going back to the roots, of revisiting the classics that shaped the genre. There is no doubt that the list of really influential games of the 20th century won't be that long, really. One can be sure that games like "Acquire", "Cosmic Encounter", "We the People" and "Settlers of Catan" will be among them. The rest would be either improvements of these designs or simply variations, endless variations of the same. I don't mean that this is a bad thing. There are many great games that have simply been improvements on existing ideas. Also there is something to be said about bringing a game up-to-date by reissuing it, improving the rules and the game components without essentially changing a lot, simply making it available again.
When we voted on the Game Podcast Awards we also wanted a category "most innovative mechanic". We actually had to look very hard to find games with new mechanics, and to be honest, even though "Space Dealer" has certainly deserved that award with the most unusual mechanic, there have been other games before that that used timers for simultaneous play. The game mechanics are actually pretty straightforward and comparable to many other games. One could say the same about the dice rolling mechanics of "Yspahan", even though it is a very good game.
But now think of the old EON games - think of a game like "Cosmic Encounter" that introduced variable player powers for the first time. That was quite a step, wasn't it? Games like that don't come along that often, perhaps even only every 10 years or so. When Charles Roberts founded the wargame genre, he basically defined the basic "I go/combat phase/you go/combat phase" sequence that was not changed in the hundreds of wargames that followed. He defined a genre.
I think part of our current situation in which there are many, many good games but very few innovative games has to do with the fact that games have become increasingly popular, and will perhaps also increase to do so. This is comparable to the film business. Since the upcoming of the "blockbuster" concept we have seen a dearth of sequels and remakes of already successful films that was unheard of before. The problematic side of this argument is that nowadays the film business is striving hard to actually survive with falling cinema ticket sales, and they have decided to play it safe and become even less innovative because of that. The blockbusters of recent years have nearly all been remakes or sequels, that's a fact.
So I have to say I worry a little about the gaming business. What we need is constant innovation to be healthy. We have to invent new game genres, totally new game experiences, new mechanics to keep our momentum going, like in the 70's and 80's when nearly every week a game came out that redefined the genre. Remember "Magic the Gathering"? Remember "Dungeons and Dragons"? Like them or not, these 2 games were innovations that defined whole sub genres, which is quite an achievement.
I'm not so sure if we need the umpteenth abstract game about trading in the Mediterranean. I'm not so sure if we need another game where you put pawns in regions to gain majorities. There are already a lot of good games out there who do just that, why bother?
But what I am sure about is that gaming ideas are not at an end, they have just begun to thrive. The period of innovation is not over, I think. So let the golden age of gaming continue - as long as the hobby grows, innovation will come. I hope.
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