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

Fine, fine. A bit on the subject copy/pasted haphazardly from a different conversation I had months ago with a friend, with no regard for context/grammar because I'm a lazy-ass:

"To be fair, catchy isn't necessarily good. I've heard quite a few songs that are catchy for all the wrong reasons. Back in the 8-bit/16-bit era, sound quality was pretty limited, so composers were pretty much forced to make memorable songs. As sound quality and music budgets increased, so did the composers' ways of expressing themselves through their music. Honestly, which styles you prefer are entirely dependent on taste. Personally, if I had a choice of going back to the 8/16-bit era of music, I'd definitely decline. I mean, I love it and all, but I wouldn't change the current style for the world. :3"

"Also, I may be am definitely biased, but I find that Western composers don't put enough variance into their soundtracks. From what I've heard, they tend to go for that Hollywood "epic" sound, which I find dreadfully boring. IMO, Japanese composers tend to put a lot more effort into their music, with a lot less stagnation. Actually releasing OS Ts for their songs helps, too (nope, definitely not bitter about countries outside of Japan never releasing official soundtracks for their games, no sirree Bob >__>)."

Not gonna post Youtube links to music that nobody will listen to, either. Unless you ask, mind you.

edited 29th May '11 10:17:17 PM by Electivirus

I think your argument basically amounted to Your Mileage May Vary. But I'll point one very important sentence out.

This is pretty much the main backbone of my theory I based this entire thread on*

.

Now as for whether memorable is good or bad...that's difficult to say. I guess it might be possible for a memorable tune to be hated. Haven't heard of one before. And every single example of memorable tunes I know have been great so far.

But part of the problem with modern music could also have to do with Follow the Leader. Large orchestral scores are so overused that it becomes harder for any one of them to stand out.

Or maybe as a person before pointed out. Voice acting ruined modern game's music. In order to hear the voice acting, developers try to make the background music less noticeable or harder to listen to....this also explains why I like Twilight Princess's music more than many other game's music this gen. There's little to no voices.

---

So your real name is Bob...

edited 29th May '11 10:22:17 PM by Signed

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

Being a hypocrite just to post this.

Also, the requisite highly-recommended Extra Credits video focusing on this very subject.

edited 29th May '11 10:25:04 PM by Electivirus

MGS 2's theme song was awesome in full orchestral and even better in in guitar. The 8 bit version? (which I can't find atm) not so much.

So basically, restrictions can lead to really cool art but sometimes the freedom to have a full orchestra leads to art as well.

Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?

Honestly, Signed, I'd tend to say that you're focusing on the wrong sort of 'freedom'. In my experience, games that can be created by a single person or small team will typically be vastly more creative than games that demand lavish production values and massive numbers of people to churn out. I'd argue that it's freedom from Executive Meddling that is important, not limitations in hardware.

Then again, even when Follow the Leader is averted, we still have to deal with Sturgeon'sLaw, so... meh.

You know, for your point about music, back in the 8 bit days there was only ever one kind of music - That video game sound. Now, with the ability to use "real" music, a soundtrack can be rap, jazz, etc, as opposed to the limited type sound it used to have. Sure, there was the rare game that tried to be different with its music (like Streets of Rage), but the majority of video games just used that same kind of music, which is how "VGM" even became a genre style.

Also, I wouldn't really say indie games are any more creative. 70% of them are either 2D sidescrollers or pretentious games (that are usually sidescrollers).

Edit: Replaced percentage with more reasonable number

edited 31st May '11 6:45:05 PM by TravisBickle

Je Suis "Aware"

^Right, and Minecraft, Killing Floor, The Ball, Audiosurf and Monday Night Combat all fit into those two categories perfectly.

edited 31st May '11 6:13:48 PM by RocketDude

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

No, but Super Meat Boy, Braid, Limbo, Linger In Shadow, that PS 3 desert sim game, etc do. Notice how it says 70%, not "all".

Edit: Percentage changed to more realistic one

edited 31st May '11 6:45:37 PM by TravisBickle

Je Suis "Aware"

That's why I was iffy about using the term "music". I think tune woulda fit it better, but since music counts too. Or perhaps sound. The old games are limited in their range of sounds available, hence they need to work harder to make their tunes make up for it.

As for the sidescroller indy games. Look at each of them closely. Many of them have nothing to do with each other beyond "being played on a 2D plane".

In that respect, Indy has been doing better than mainstream. Haven't seen much games like pscyhonauts anymore.

---

Interestingly enough. With respect to this thread, I can safely say that handheld games are doing better than home consoles when it comes to innovation and creativity.

Just look at the latest Final Fantasy games in console and handhelds.

...also the DS let's you get a first'hand' look into figuring out how to tell if a girl is a witch or not. Physically. And it sold better than Zelda. With your touchscreen Can the Wii do that?

edited 31st May '11 7:44:24 PM by Signed

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

Yeah because Psychonauts was a massive commercial flop especially considering the response and expectation.

Games like that don't get made because games like that don't sell, cult audiences and audiences in general are extremely fickle and being a cult hit is a bad thing because it creates inconsistent results which don't generate revenue to keep the company going. Innovation and being creative isn't the only thing which dictates quality, it would be if games were free to make but money doesn't grow on trees and marketability is extremely important in deciding which games will get made.

What limits "innovation and art" is not freedom but the "stakes", in today's gaming world the stakes are a lot higher then they were back in the 80's and 90's. For example imagine a game show where you had to search for a check hidden a room for 3 minutes, which will get people more motivated a ten dollar check or a 100,000 dollar check? And imagine fun competitive games you play with your friends, I bet you would be raging a lot more if that match of Street Fighter you just lost had 10,000 dollars on it. And it's the same for game companies, things which are proven to sell will beat out less secure options when the stakes are much higher, it's more then just taking a risk it's putting millions of dollars on the line.

The reason why things like handhelds and indy developers are doing better is because the "stakes" are lower. Handhelds are much cheaper to develop for and have a wider range of both audiences and mobility, Indy developers are small and have ways of getting money, they can take as long as they want without being confined by tight schedules and competition is of less worry, and even if the game is a failure the indy developer stands to lose much less compared to a big time publisher. If an Indy developer fails he tries to learn what he did wrong and moves on to the next project trying to improve, if a big time developer fails you lose millions and potentially risk hundreds of jobs due to your failure.

The two environments are really different and that contributes more to the success of handhelds and indy, because if the indy guy had a quota to meet for his project and was competing with another co-worker for advancement do you think he'd be making his art game or something safer to net more people?

Your money argument was already mentioned much earlier in the thread, freedom is bloody expensive, the problem with incredibly advanced and photorealistic graphics is that they're far too expensive for today's market. It's too expensive, requires too much manpower, and takes far too long to work on. The end result is a companies being reluctant to try anything new because of how much money they will invest.

And do the games with such advanced graphics that requires a great deal more time and money look all that much better compared to many games made last gen? Nope. Not really.

The PS 2 and Wii is no where near as advanced as the 360 or the PS 3, yet they still has plenty of much nicer games than those two for a fraction of the price...as long as the creators are forced to be creative to make a game aesthetically better.

---

Paradoxically...I'm sort of advocating freedom as well now. Whereas the technologies give freedom. Dropping them for slightly less advanced, yet far cheaper technology offers financial freedom that allows developers to be creative.

edited 31st May '11 9:33:23 PM by Signed

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

No those games have better quality, not graphical power or advancement, Persona 4 is a good game but in terms of graphics it's pretty terrible, all the models are pretty bad at portraying the characters beyond their basic appearance and there's a lot of recyclables and recolors in terms of things like enemies or environments.

I mean seriously if you think P4 is on the same level graphically as FFXIII or Gears 2 then your eyeballs need to be replaced. Some of the games are of better quality yes on the PS 2 and Wii, but don't forget that those have pretty substantial libraries, the majority of which, suck and are forgotten for better games like P4 unless you're saying games like Carnival Games should be judged on par with LBP 2 and God of War 3.

Does that mean games like P4 and Okami are bad? No, but they aren't nearly as successful as FFXIII or Gears 2 regardless of whether or not they were more innovative or aesthetically pleasing, which is already a massive point of YMMV that its worthless as a point to prove anything.

Art matters to artists, innovation matters to innovators, and to most normal people it all means diddly squat the slight balance changes from I Am Death Christ 1 to I Am Death Christ 2 or the inclusion of more symbolism and improvement in the game's unique art style.

Innovation and Art are no longer, and perhaps, never were the deciding factors on whether a game is considered "good" compared to "success"

...You just completely missed my point!

edited 31st May '11 10:17:27 PM by Signed

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

I'd argue that Radiant Historia is prettier than the majority of games with up-to-date graphics. Innovative, too. And it looks like something that could have been made several years ago. But it was made recently by none other than Atlus.

edited 1st Jun '11 12:58:41 AM by feotakahari

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

I really wouldn't say the graphical quality has much to do with the actual processing power, just art design. Here's a direct example, comparing three installments of the same series, that series being Deus Ex.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/232/jcdenton2.jpg/

Look at JC in the first game. He clearly strikes at least something of a memorable, iconic figure. Now look at him in the second.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/40/dx2main20040419235513.jpg/

He has nothing interesting or memorable about him, and his face appears to be made of dough, because of the attempt to go for realism instead of a graphic novel look.

Yet, here is a screenshot of the newest installment in the Deus Ex series.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/30/deuumanrevolutionhengsh.jpg/

The graphical power combined with the design vision of the team combine to make a truly breathing and immersive world and art design. It's about using the power given to you to best fulfill your vision, and certain ideas can only be fully realized with more powerful hardware.

edited 1st Jun '11 1:54:49 AM by TravisBickle

Je Suis "Aware"

...I don't get it. What's so special about the 3rd picture? Is that same guy supposed to be in the 3rd picture or is there something special about it?

It's starting to look like the main problem in this thread is that everyone have different meanings for words that should only have one meaning, for example..."graphics".

edited 1st Jun '11 11:35:16 AM by Ruubickss

Agreed. Graphics as in "impressionist visuals" that impart a feeling or sensation regardless of the image quality or fidelity? Graphics as in the amount of polygons on-screen? Graphics as in "holy voxels, Batman!"? Or some other graphics?

Videogames do not make you a worse person... Than you already are.

I included it because it shows the cyberpunk visual that could only be fully realized with new technology. Look at all the small little details - There's even steam rising from the customer's ramen. All of these immersive things wouldn't have been possible before.

Je Suis "Aware"

I thought I already set up the definitions of words like "graphics" int he beginning of the thread already...guess I forgot to.

As for a rough definition I'm going for...

• Graphics: Ability to cram as many polygons into a single place as you can. Graphics have it's significance, but the significance drops quite steadily as it improves. For example, NES to SNES was signficant for graphics. SNES to the N64 was really significant step forward in terms of graphics too. N64 to Gamecube...not so much. Game Cube to Wii...even less.

Same can be said for the other consoles. PS 1 to PS 2 was much more noticeable than PS 2 to PS 3. Yet the increase in price is the same, or maybe even more as graphical capabilities improve. Imagine a "Noticeable Difference vs. Improvement" graph. The line starts off rather steep, where tiny improvements are really noticeable, but as it goes on, the slope of the line becomes smaller and smaller.

• Aesthetics: The overall visuals of the game. This is what REALLY matters when it comes to looks. A game with shit graphics can look several times nicer than a game with great graphics if done right*
  ^{prime example, Muramasa and Super Mario Galaxy}
  . That is not to say good graphics can't do the same if the developers put the same amount of creativity into their work*
  ^{BioShock and any new Final Fantasy game}
  . The significance graphics play in aesthetics shrinks as technology improves, while the cost remains the same, or even get more expensive.

For an analogy. Think of graphics as different qualities of brushes. And aesthetics as the painting. It's entirely possible to take an old beaten paintbrush and paint something even nicer than an artist painting something with the brand new radioactively power paintbrush...the cost difference between the two is enormous though.

edited 1st Jun '11 5:49:30 PM by Signed

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