Develop 2010: InstantAction CEO Louis Castle surprised by the lack of fresh ideas in development
The 2010 Develop Conference opened today with a call for greater originality, fresher ideas, and a braver approach to game design.
Louis Castle, the CEO of InstantAction, made the call in a keynote address entitled ‘Traditional Games Breaking Into Social Networks’ – where the game design veteran revealed his surprise after surveying the E3 show floor last month.
”I was at E3 and I couldn’t believe how few new [original] projects have been started,” said Castle, speaking in a busy conference hall at the Metropole Hotel.
He said that the only title that struck him as taking a fresh approach was BulletStorm – a score-driven FPS title developed by People Can Fly.
Castle, who began his career in the early eighties, observed that the game business today has developed into a hit-driven business, where big brands dominate, and awareness of the biggest IPs is crucial for survival.
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The conference, now in is fifth year, begins today with the Evolve track – a string of panels, speaker sessions and lectures that are each focused on the social and mobile spaces.
Publishers do not want innovation. They say they want innovation, but they don't.
They want comfort, familiarity and something that's easy to shift in large numbers. It's all about money at the end of the day: the familiar is understandable, quantifiable (the really important bit), and easier to sell to a market (or so the marketing department would have you believe).
Innovation is risky, and this is now a risk-averse industry in too many ways.
