Well, I wasn't aiming those comments at anyone in particular, lol, just so you know.
It's just that I, personally, have come to define innovation broadly.
I credit DMA as coming up with one of the biggest innovation implementations this generations. (I recall thinking at the end of the 32/64-bit era that DMA was a company that Nintendo should buy) I've recently become convinced by Cliffy B. (when I sat in on an E3 panel) who's making Gears of War for the X360 that innovation can happen in small things too, the example he used was the Halo loading screen. For Halo, I also think the infinite lives thing is ingenious because it removed the difficulty restriction that's kept lots of casual gamers from enjoying FPS's. And of course, I don't like Perfect Dark Zero but I wonder if there could be something there with a switching of first and third person viewpoints... perhaps the Metroid Prime series would've been a better example to use. I really loved Pac-Pix because, well, my ugly demented pac-mans rocked. And as much as Baiten Kaitos sucked, I'm wondering as to how breaking down the fourth wall with the player as a "spirit" that the main character consults on important decisions...I'm wondering if there's something to be mined in that. Also, though I have to suppress the gag reflex whenever I think of modern-day Final Fantasies, I wonder as to how exactly their new battle system will work out.
Also, you absolutely CANNOT rule out Will Wright because he's one of the few people who has accomplished the near-impossible: he's figured out a way to tell romance and interpersonal relationship stories in videogames. The Sims is ASTOUNDING because of this, other games tell stories about conflict, The Sims tells stories about love, jealousy, hate, friendship, responsibility, and addiction, plus much more. Spore will tell the story of our entire universe! Statistics are usually made up, but at an E3 panel I heard one of the speakers say that 90% of the stories teenage girls tell each other are romances. This is why Sims and Nintendogs have made inroads into the female demographic, these are relationship based games that SHOW these elements, not tell them (like RPGs). Also, Second Life is experimenting with a compeltely player-run environment in which personality and individual panache is what you're measured by, and where EVERYTHING is player-designed, such that players can engage in any sort of activity they wish to if they can program it in, or go browsing in virtual shopping malls. I actually hate Second Life, but it has to be acknowledged: the game actually has virtual hookers...who make real life money by selling in-game cash ! (another thing Second Life tracks is the exchange rate between in-game currency and real world money; Linden Labs makes money by running these conversions of this instead of hiding them like other MMORPGs).
Not to mention I know so little of European or Korean/Chinese developers. The next MMORPG I'm looking at trying is from one of the Scandinavian countries because their world is built upon socio-political dynamics, seems to lack combat (or at least de-emphasize it heavily), and tie the players into a community in a world that must be maintained and where they collectively devote resources to dynamically expanding it. Korean companies have struck upon a free-game-but-buy-uber-or-decorative-items model that makes them the big bucks and still feels free-to-play and relaxing: games like GunBound for example, and these games reel in youthful demographics that are much-desired by advertisers. Heck, I played NEOPETS at one time! NEOPETS!
... I personally believe that innovation takes place in so many places, big and small, bit-by-bit or all-at-once, successful or unsuccessful, that to claim that one entity is more innovative than another is to subconsciously discount all the other sources of innovation we have, and to make yourself blind to all the little innovations and contributions that make up games.
~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com 
Topic: Is Nintendo Right? (Read 7153 times)
