Is it restrictions, and not freedom, that breeds innovation and art?

This could also apply to plays and films as well.

• By restrictions*
  ^{or limitations}
  , I'm referring to lack of the ability to create realistically identifiable objects and the inability to afford or include any sound beyond 8-bit stuff. Prime example? Gameboy or old school nintendo era games.

• By freedom, I'm referring to being able to create 3D images so advanced and realistic that it will fool the average person into thinking they're watching a live-action movie. Regarding sounds, the ability to have massive orchestras, realistic sounds, etc. Prime example? Current Gen Consoles and P Cs.

Back in the old days, where graphics are gameboy level and music is nothing but those 8-bit noises, it is completely impossible to make a game realistic or believable, and due to the limitations, you're pretty much restricted to how many things you can put on the screen at once. And the tunes you can do are basically crap.

• To solve the Graphics problem. Developers are forced to be creative to make their game work. Look at Silent Hill 's iconic fog. The main reason they included that fog is not because of atmosphere, but because the PS back then couldn't handle loading so many things at once, so they use the fog as an excuse for why there are so little things in your screen. And because of the inability to make realistic characters in the retro era, developers needed a way to make their games recognizable and pleasing to the eyes.

Nowadays, with the technology to make everything photorealistic, many developers*

stopped being creative about their visuals. They no longer have to worry about their characters looking like 16 colored squares bunched together. They no longer have to creatively work around their graphical limitations. Worst of all, the majority of game developers wrongly equate graphics with visuals.*

^{graphics is only meant to aid visuals, but in terms of priority, aesthetics and visuals is more important than graphics 100% of the time}

• Music is more obvious. The tunes you can play on retro consoles quite frankly sucks. It's limited compared to what you can do with actual bands and radios. Because of this, developers are forced to go out of their way to make memorable tunes that we all know and love. For example, Zelda's music, Pollyanna from Mother, and Contra!

Nowadays, while lots of great music can still be made in video games, like in...quite a lot of Square Enix RP Gs, most of them just aren't as memorable as the ones I listed. In terms of scale, video game music is comparable to MOVIES, thanks to the use of large orchestras and such. But because of this freedom, developers are too confident at making a music good, they no longer have to worry about limitations and thus no longer have to flex their creativity muscle to make their music good enough to bypass the limitations.

---

Now there are some important games that I must make note of.

Cave Story: This game is pretty modern. But it is also a prime example of what I'm trying to get at. Graphically, it's crap. But visually, anyone who plays it will agree it's still a really pretty and memorable game. Musically, it's just one man and whatever he uses to produce sounds with. Yet listen to this.

Bio Shock: Musically...it's uncreative. It's "music" is just including a few old school songs here and there. But visually, it's terrific. I make note of this game because it is important to know that as much as I railed against HD graphics*

, in the right hands, those graphics can be used to make incredible looking games as well...they just need to be creative with them...and stop making repetitive drivel like Medal Of Call Of Warfare.

Muramasa The Demon Blade:This game is a Wii exclusive, yet it still manages to be more visually pleasing than nearly all PS 3 and Xbox360 games despite it's graphical limitations*

. I make note of this game because I want to hammer in the point that graphic does not equal to good visuals.

edited 23rd May '11 1:12:11 PM by Signed

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

Gameplay wise Bioshock is uncreative as well, being a mash of System Shock and (bad) parts of Half Life (story presentation).

Not sure if Gameplay applies to this thread though...were creative and innovative gameplay bred due to the limitations of technologies back then?

Plus if I talk about Bio Shock's gameplay, I'll just end up bitching about those fucking Vita Chambers and lack of finales.

PS-is my opening post far too long for the average troper to bother reading?

edited 23rd May '11 1:11:08 PM by Signed

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

I believe it is a mixture that encourages innovation

He who fights bronies should see to itthat he himself does not become a brony. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, Pinkie Pie gazes Also

What do you mean by mixture?

---

Oh yeah, I wanted to add an extra point.

Do you think game companies should impose technical restrictions on their employees when they first start developing games? Force them to work with less than what the company has to offer? Force them to work around their limitations?

And only after proving that they have what it takes, THEN occasionally*

remove those limitations, yet still keep a close eye on them?

edited 23rd May '11 1:20:19 PM by Signed

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

Heres the problem.

Freedom isn't cheap. Having crazy ass graphics requires a massive budget and a huge team. Publishers dont like taking risks when that much money is involved. Therefore, they are less innovative.

Indie games are making all the new innovation nowadays.

Massive "AAA" games just copy whats popular.

Restrictions encourage creativity. More freedom allows you to implement your ideas.

He who fights bronies should see to itthat he himself does not become a brony. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, Pinkie Pie gazes Also

^^ I wanted to add that as well...but do you want a wall of text to become a fortress of text?

^ True. But it's so rare to see developers make full use of them since they're afraid to take risks due to how expensive they are. Not to mention, many are too pre-occupied with making their games have as little visible polygons as possible by shoving as many of them together as possible.

Add that to the fact that many game makers are quite frankly, overwhelmed with all the possbility that they don't know what to do with them.

edited 23rd May '11 1:25:28 PM by Signed

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

Thats the problem. We expect super stellar graphics and huge budgets nowadays that no one is allowed to take risks.

We are in a huge creativity slump right now, and its hurting the industry big time.

It is within artists' capabilities to do the same things they did when they were restricted, and to do them better. They have only to put their minds to it. (Extra Credits made a good argument for this, although I can't seem to locate it at the moment—they compared the 8-bit version of the Final Fantasy theme with the same music as played by an orchestra.)

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

Depends on the creator, the project, and so on.

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

By the way, AAA is the worst term ever :p

It Just Bugs Me

I agree, I use it in quotations because I hate the term.

But the thing about restrictions is that it forces the artist to try to circumvent them. While it's entirely possible for an artist to do the exact same thing if all those limitations are gone, sometimes, having too much freedom will overwhelm the artists. Not to mention, the cash argument mentioned before.

---

And as I said in the beginning, this applies to other things too, such as films.

Look at the new and old King Kong. While the new King Kong film have a more "realistic" ape, we all know everything is done in CG. CG, CG, and CG. And we know that. Yet while everyone is well aware that the old King Kong is also special effects, I can appreciate it a lot more, for me anyways.

Without today's technologies, the filmakers had to do a LOT of creative tricks in order to make a giant ape. Sometimes it's a costume. Sometimes they have to build an actual giant ape. And when you see Kong's hand and the actor in the same scene, it's stop motion pictures, with the actress herself being forced to slowly move and freeze for each frame. So while the old one is not as realistic, theres a lot more work and creativity put into it. And for that, I found the old King Kong film more enjoyable. The new one just feels like another CG monster film.

For a modern example where advanced technology is used along with creativity. Lord Of The Rings makes great use of modern technology while being creative. Those Hobbits are all actual normal sized actors, no computers. For that movie, they use a lot of forced perspective and specialized sets to make it look like Frodo is really tiny when next to Gandalf.

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

Restrictions force one guy to craft up character designs with his extremely limited drawing abilities and conjure up only very basic frameworks of stories for them, and create memorable but technically-limited music on a synthesizer. Freedom allows the legions of fans of this guy's product to go crazy with tons of fanart and fanfiction as well as create a boatload of remixes in every musical style imaginable.

Yep, sounds about right.

I don't know if King Kong is a good example, CG Kong seemed far more alive to me than claymation Kong since he was able to express far more emotion in the face thanks to the large CG budget.

If I remember correctly, that's when they used the puppet hand, so there was no stop motion, she just had to be in the puppet hand. But that's neither here nor there

edited 23rd May '11 4:39:36 PM by NULLcHiLD27

It's funny, both of those, LOTR and King Kong were made by the same people.

He who fights bronies should see to itthat he himself does not become a brony. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, Pinkie Pie gazes Also

No idea why LOTR was so much better then. The funny thing is, all those creative techniques, all those hard work in LOTR was done just so us the audience will never notice them.

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Oh, and I should also add...while Nostalgia Filter is definately a factor in this thread, I can assure those who might bring it up that my appreciation for those retro games and music has nothing to do with Nostalgia.

Why? Because I only learned about Mother a few months ago. And after listening to it once, Pollyanna is already my favourite music of all time. And I never played the REALLY old Zelda games whose music I linked to in my opening post.

So for me, Nostalgia have next to no impact in my view on those old works. They're just more creative and memorable because they are. And not because of Nostalgia...

...granted, Pollyanna induced nostalgic feelings even though I never heard it before...no idea what's up with that.

edited 23rd May '11 4:43:19 PM by Signed

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

I used to say I'm not nostalgic for half of the old games I play, but I'm not sure that's accurate. While I've no specific memories of, say, Metal Storm or Chrono Trigger, games I never played in my youth, I may well feel nostalgic for the style that these games embody.

That said, Pollyanna makes me feel nostalgic too, though maybe it's because it was in Super Smash Bros Melee.

It Just Bugs Me

Never played SSB as well...

My first time hearing that tune was watching NakaTeleeli's*

LP of Touhou Mother. Didn't know what Mother was. And when I first heard Pollyanna, it just felt...so...nostalgic...

This is why I'm positive that Nostalgia Filter has no effect in my argument, for me atleast. Because I have nothing to be nostalgic towards. I spent a great majority of my younger years TRYING to beat Wily's castle in Rock Man 1, 2, and 3*

...so I didn't have much time for other games.

...speaking of old games, I should find Chrono Trigger in an emulator or something since I hear way too much about it.

edited 23rd May '11 5:00:43 PM by Signed

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

I'd say both the King Kong remake and Lord Of The Rings were awesome lord of the rings slightly more so though. Have you watched the king kong remake recently? You'd be surprised how much retake you may have missed. (yes, I know this is slightly off topic, but I think it is relevant to the topic being discussed. )

He who fights bronies should see to itthat he himself does not become a brony. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, Pinkie Pie gazes Also

It's...slightly close enough to the topic. Because my opening post was far too long, I didn't include the reason why I made this thread in video games.

The basic reason is, despite this thread applying to ALL creative mediums, it's video games I have the most examples of. With films, it's basically...King Kong old vs. new.

Hence why the thread is so video game centric, because I'm more familiar with this medium.

The main point of this thread is to address the popular notion that "freedom is always awesome, and freedom allows infinite artistic expression!", when according to my theory, it is "freedom" that's caused the slump in creativity and innovations nowadays.

Mainly thanks to giving creators far too many choices to choose from. Freedom being too damn expensive. And freedom causing creators to focus on the wrong things*

.

So...why does Pollyanna induce nostalgia even though I never heard it before?

edited 23rd May '11 5:06:41 PM by Signed

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

Creative ideas often come from using tools in unplanned ways when the easy way is blocked off. Minimalism can only get one so far before they stagnate though. Silent Hill's Fog, that worked for silent hill's benefit. For games like Super Man 64 or Buck Bumble? Not in the slightest. Newer games like Jet Force Gemini mostly were fog less, except in areas where fog added to the atmosphere, like swamps after rain. A useful tool, but just a tool, nothing revolutionary.

Stretching around limitations did lead to interesting stuff like Cubivore, and Cell Damage, but many were determined to animate traditionally, no matter how bad it looked. Final Fantasy VII and Golden Eye did nothing to make up for graphics and they remain two of the fondest remembered games. Cubivore and Cell Damage may have been interesting, but no one remembers them and they were only interesting in how they got around what couldn't be animated. Graphics generally do not lead to gameplay innovation and neither does sound. Golden Eye had destroyable environments, Final Fantasy VII gave RPG fans limit breaks, and those would have happened no matter what the games looked like.

Modified Ura-nage, Torture Rack

What about Hot Pursuit? The cars are rendered with attention to detail (they even bothered to texture the undersides, I think), the graphical capabilities allow the Motion Blur to obscure the beautiful scenery and the musical selection is perhaps the best out of the post-Underground games (having Pendulum, deadmau5 and Klaxons in the same playlist was perhaps the best music-related choice made by EA).

I have to agree with Cider, because all of those don't necessarily make Hot Pursuit a good game, nor do they relate to the gameplay of it.

"Hipsters: the most dangerous gang in the US." - Pacific Mackerel

That's why I was mostly talking about sounds and visuals.

I'm not sure if gameplay can even apply to this topic, so I never mentioned it. Have any cool and innovative gameplay features been created as a result of trying to get around technological limitations?

edited 23rd May '11 5:15:42 PM by Signed

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."