“We get too much crap for not being innovative”, says DICE

The only company with any shred of innovation left is Sony. Everyone else gave up years ago.

“We get too much crap for not being innovative”

What a coincidence, so do we.

^^ That is a bold statement. The fact is, as Troedsson says, they are innovating within their genre.

Everyone is.

If you look at FPS’s today say, their very different to the the FPS’s of ten years ago. Though to. Someone not interested in that type of game, it will look the same regardless.

If the genere or market becomes over saturated, it becomes hard to spot the inovation. The game experiences begin to blend in with each other, and esp as the over all market quality within said genere evens out, it becomes hard to stand out.

I can spot little difference each year in the football games. But I wouldn’t call them inovative. Samething applys, I think, to most generes.

Scumbag gamer:

Complains when developers aren’t innovating (see: Call of Duty).
Complains when developers change from existing formula (see: Diablo).

@1 Because rehashing game design templates stolen tooth and nail from Nintendo is so innovative.

When Sony shines, they shine, but my god, 2012 is most definitely not one of their defining years, that’s for sure.

All the developer, publisher and manufacturers constantly innovate – Nintendo, Sony. Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft, you name it. Innovation is an iterative process. It doesn’t occur in broad strokes.

EA innovates plenty – social gaming with Auto-Log, character / story influence in Mass Effect, etc. etc.. The problem with EA isn’t a lack of innovative persay. Its with the homogenisation of their game design. By doing that, they’re falling back into the same trap in the early 2000 that made people so bored of their games in the first.

@5 Nobody ever complained about Diablo changing from established formula. They complained about draconian DRM and lazy design.

I don’t see how DICE are innovating in any true sense. They’re doing the same thing they’ve always done, and they’re actually going backwards in some areas.

Battlefield 2 had the commander function which was actually aimed at creating some form of coordination on the map. That’s not there anymore.

If you look at a game like Planetside and Planetside 2 in comparison, it looks like child’s play. Why cap it at 64 players? That’s barely half a company of soldiers.

There’s a big difference between simply advancing tech, and actually advancing design, and I think the latter trumps the former by a huge margin.

I don’t see innovation as a goal in itself, either. Ultimately the goal should be to make fun, interesting games. Fortifying your tech only fortifies the fun if you have the right people, with the right ideas working with it.

@6

Lol ya, cos Mario Kart 9 and Mario [insert whatever bullshit he's doing now] is the pinnacle of innovative game design.

“There’s a big difference between simply advancing tech, and actually advancing design, and I think the latter trumps the former by a huge margin.”

^This^

@8 Yeah, because those are the only game Nintendo has released recently, amirite?

Like I said, they all shine, when they actuslly bother. Right now, they’re all being a tad lazy, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist at all.

People like you are funny. Taking one sentence out of context, making a snarky remark, and not actually discussing the topic in any real sense whatsoever.

@5: Apologist. The developer is required to make games that the publisher believes will be popular, and sell. That’s their prerogative. The player’s is to buy the games that they feel they want to play. There’s no room for judging the decision making of players in the way you’re doing, in that process.

Whatever they want, they buy, and if it’s not offered, they just go somewhere else.

@7 “If you look at a game like Planetside and Planetside 2 in comparison, it looks like child’s play. Why cap it at 64 players? That’s barely half a company of soldiers.”

Probably because the majority of servers already have problems running 64 players, it would be un-playable with more.

With equal ping (~25 ms) I almost need a full clip to kill someone on a 64 players server compared to 2-3 bullets on a 24-32 players server.

@12 So maybe stop focusing on making things look pretty when they go boom, and innovate your way out of that instead?

Planetside 2 doesn’t have any problems supporting it, and that was never DICEs explanation for capping it at 64.

” and we do take care of IPs that have been out there.” So… How are you taking care of Mirrors Edge?

Too right they do! And they are being innovative!. Battlefield 3 is way better than any other shooter out there. Thank you DICE!

Diablo 3 is just fine to where it is right now.

As for BF3, I see some innovation behind it; however, the moment DICE revealed its sequel on a 2-year interval, everything will be lost.

Nah, they get too much compliments for being shit.

Gl hf innovating in the Modern shooter genre.

CoD is “innovating” by turning a “Modern Warfare” game into sci-fi fast paced quake gaming (which is stupid).

DICE is innovating by improving the looks and feel of what you do while playing the same thing. Whining on DICE for not innovating Battlefield is like whining on EA Sports for not innovating the FIFA games more. It’s a solid concept and it follows a certain “recipe”.
All you can do is make the experience better, by adding small details and making it FEEL better.

@3 I agree…I’m a huge DICE supporter…there’s plenty of innovation believe it or not, even if games are very similar…the only game I can say is a true lack of innovation is the MW2 to MW3…there was absolutely no innovation there…aside from that most games have some form of innovation aside from the sports genre although Madden 13 this year has a buttload of changes…I’m pretty happy with the game industry at the moment, plus it’s hard to innovate drastically all the time when a console generation has gone on as long as this one has…so we’ll see what they give us when the new consoles come out