'A lot of franchises out there don't take this seriously', says DICE general manager
The FPS genre must constantly innovate and evolve or risk losing interest from customers, DICE’s Karl Magnus Troedsson has said.
Speaking to Edge, the studio’s general manager said that not enough developers were taking this seriously with their franchises, despite the high demands placed on them by customers.
He added that developers needed to make sure they not only challenged themselves on gameplay, but on creating an entirely new experience for players.
“The FPS is a very hardcore genre, and the hardcore crowd of the FPS is probably bigger than some other genres," said Troedsson.
"And that crowd has extremely high demands on what the games are and how they develop. If they don't see some kind of new, if not revolutionary then at least evolutionary, step of rendering in every game they will start to lose interest. And I think that is what's happening.
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“Because a lot of franchises out there don't take this seriously; to actually make sure that we don't just challenge ourselves on the gameplay aspect, or perhaps some other area like distribution method, but also how it feels, how it looks and how it sounds.”
Troedsson also admitted that the modern setting, seen in a number of current shooters on the market, was growing stale, and that developers would begin to jump over to a new theme.
He warned however that it would be cheap for developers to claim just changing a game’s setting was innovation in itself.
"I think we're going to start seeing people moving away from the modern setting, because every now and again settings or themes start to get stale and then everyone jumps over," he said.
"But it's a bit cheap to just say, 'Okay, we're going to switch and go back in time or into the future and that will be innovation'. It will definitely drive the franchise forward for whatever game, but it's not true innovation, it's more a thematic change that has a perceived value to the gamers out there.
"But as a developer you can only make so many games in one particular era, and then you personally start to get a bit bored with it."
Coming from the developers who have transformed their venerable franchise into a Call of Duty clone? Yeah, OK Karl...
What a bunch of hypocritical and uninformed bs that is. Look at any of the AAA FPS titles out there and rendering, graphics, sound isn't what they are lacking. They have all those in spades. What they are lacking is innovation as far as storyline, innovation in gameplay and just making their games fun. Anyone can go around and follow a storyline and shoot things. That's easy. Now making that experience enjoyable and fresh is the hard thing. The fact that Karl totes innovation and at the same time is making the BF series into a bastardized version of CoD is dumb. Everything he says developers shouldn't be working on is EXACTLY what developers should be working on. Just goes to show how out of touch he is with the player base. How about starting at the basics again. If you create a Teamwork Based Game, make sure the game has ALL the teamwork based tools it needs. Such as one of the most basic tools, in game VOIP. Try starting there Karl.
I think that Dayz has scared a lot o developers. To try and stay relevant they come up with this conjecture - not sure that these developers will be able to come up with a solution to their decline staying on console?
Straight 2 the Point= f..k the team work,clans and any other bs.What the real FPS gamer is look -*KING* 4 is the SOLO CHALLENGE!!!Make a game when every>1< can compete with each and other 2 reach ONE goal : KING OF *REAL SYKO* STRAIGHT 2 YOUR SHITTY FACE MASSACRE.Thats could be a true satisfaction for players like ^ MOJO ^ and obviously MUA. YOU WANTS SOME MORE IDEAS ??? CONTACT ME. THANK YOU.
What he hasnt said is this: the FPS genre is inherently limited by the game mechanics. The combination of shooting and story makes each game an action movie in game form, which stretches to action-thriller and related genres. But good luck trying to extend the story form into other arenas.
It requires changes on both sides - game and story - to attempt a new genre, and that brings risk, see LA Noire, et al. But it can be done, and I'm looking forward to whatever new forms he comes up with ;-)
a lot of silly comments from confused people here
he mentioned something here that underlined developer reality and consumer reality. you guys are funny not noticing he's letting you know you're being tricked into a false sense of innovation which is quite clear to them.
he's saying its time you silly people get real innovation
I think he has not played Shootmania yet, give it a try and the you'll see how FPS can evolve into something fun and new
He's right, and he's wrong. He's right in that the genre needs innovation, and that changing the setting isn't enough, but he's wrong in that first of all, DICE is one of the leading companies of releasing the same game every year. When you take a look at their track record, they stopped releasing new sutff when they released the first Battlefield. With the single exception of Mirrors Edge. I also think with "looks" he means more polygons, more realistic visuals, instead of focusing on making it nice to look at. Like, video game visuals are like haute couture, looking stunning, but often totally impractical. They should aim at still looking good 5 year, 10 years, heck, 20 years later. Like some clothing. Jeans or T-Shirts will never be "out", while most people would use what you see on todays runways as cleaning cloth, maybe reuse the fabric to make their own appereal.
