What constitutes a good innovation vs. a gimmick?

[StaceyPowers]

@Shagger pointed out on another thread that when developers promise "innovations," they often are selling something more like gimmicks to try and get cash. So, what makes for a quality innovation versus a gimmick?

[The Blackangel]

Something new that gamers weren't expecting. Something wholly original. It takes innovation to think outside the box an make a product from that perspective.

[Family sedan]

Maybe an item that is really useful, but hasn't been done yet.

[m76]

A gimmick is something that is different for the sake of being different, without being better.

Here is a list of good innovations:

• Ragdoll physics
• Geometry instancing
• Soft body physics
• mouselook
• per-pixel shading

And here are things that masquarade as innovation but are actually either regressive or no better than what we had before

• Weapon wheels
• checkpoint based saves
• time savers
• replacing XP with an imaginary name and pretending it is not XP
• battle royale
• centralized multiplayer
• transmog
• lootboxes
• in-game purchases

Edited May 31, 2021 by m76

[Empire]

Often gimmicks are innovative ideas which aren't brought to their full potential.

Many consider L.A. Noire's main interrogation mechanic gimmicky and disappointing. I can see their concerns, it isn't as intuitive as it needs to be which causes frustration. The 'three-pronged' approach (one of which has ridiculously random responses) is an example of this innovative idea hitting a bit of a road block.

If Rockstar build on what Team Bondi created I think we could get something truly innovative. At the moment, yep, it's a bit gimmicky. But they get all the points for trying to move things forward.

[Withywarlock]

My answer is two-fold. I think it's as you say: it's when it's good. The question then becomes, what's the difference between a bad and a good innovation, or can an innovation perceived as bad be made to be good?

The other response I have is is it necessary? Do you really need me to play this game with motion controls? Is this means of progression required versus more conventional means? Do you have to use combat calculations that aren't based on D&D which, y'know, work? And can you get away with it if turns out to be cumbersome? If you can, great, it'll be looked back on in 5-15 years as a good idea that more games should do. If not, you won't be able to live it down.

[Shagger]

10 hours ago, m76 said:

A gimmick is something that is different for the sake of being different, without being better.

Here is a list of good innovations:

• Ragdoll physics
• Geometry instancing
• Soft body physics
• mouselook
• per-pixel shading

And here are things that masquarade as innovation but are actually either regressive or no better than what we had before

• Weapon wheels
• checkpoint based saves
• time savers
• replacing XP with an imaginary name and pretending it is not XP
• battle royale
• centralized multiplayer
• transmog
• lootboxes
• in-game purchases

 

I'm sure I'm with you on those. Checkpoint saves are a simple convenience that allows the player to not loose an insane amount of progress while immersed in a game, thus in a state where it can be very easy to forget to save. And weapon wheels I see as a quick, cleaver and convenient way of switching weapons without having to use more immersion breaking and clumsy menus, especially on console where hot-keying is often not possible or convenient to implement.

[m76]

39 minutes ago, Shagger said:

 

I'm sure I'm with you on those. Checkpoint saves are a simple convenience that allows the player to not loose an insane amount of progress while immersed in a game, thus in a state where it can be very easy to forget to save. And weapon wheels I see as a quick, cleaver and convenient way of switching weapons without having to use more immersion breaking and clumsy menus, especially on console where hot-keying is often not possible or convenient to implement.

I think you are talking about autosave points in games that have a normal save game system. That's good, I have no problem with that, it's a convenient feature.

Checkpoint based save systems however are a clear regression over regular saving. The real reason they exist is not your convenience. They exist because it is really hard to save a game state with everything involved and loading it back flawlessly, so deadlines and lazy developers invented checkpoint saves where they only save the game in a void when nothing is really going on in the game world or at least when they expect nothing to go on. They are ripe for exploiting and bugs. For example in Far Cry3 you can just dash past enemies to some checkpoints and if you load it back after crossing it every enemy nearby will be defeated because the developers only expected the player to reach it by killing the enemies.  FarCry3 has one of the weakest checkpoint save systems, demonstrating all conceivable problems. But even the ones that work without flaws or bugs are a step back from being able to save the game state at any point.

As for the weapon wheel, it's finnicky and takes much longer than selecting a weapon by the mousewheel or pressing 1-9 on the keyboard. That is a much quicker and bulletproof system. With weapon wheels it's very easy to slip one slot and select the wrong weapon, meaning having to bring the menu back up again. It's especially problematic in games that do not pause while you are fiddling with the nth submenu of the weapon/item wheel. Of course on a console there is often no other way, but I don'T want to see another weapon wheel on PC ever again.

Edited May 31, 2021 by m76

[The Blackangel]

I personally don't see lootboxes and in-game purchases as gimmicks. I see them as greed features that devs try to sneak in to milk as much money out of us as they can. To me gimmicks are goofy things that became a fad. Like if games started featuring characters doing the TikTok dance. If that happens however, I will never buy another game again, unless it's an old cartridge system game.

[killamch89]

Something that adds a new dimension to the gameplay mechanics of a particular series that completely changes the way that game feels and in the process, separates it from other games in the earlier series as well as others in its genre.

[HolisticStorm]

I think that in order for something to be considered "innovative," it has to have a lasting impact on a genre or on gaming in general. In this day and age, that seems to be happening less and less. I feel that newer games are more and more cookie-cutter based on what types of games are guaranteed to sell. Most of the innovation seems to happen in the Indie realm.

[Heatman]

On 5/30/2021 at 12:56 AM, StaceyPowers said:

@Shagger pointed out on another thread that when developers promise "innovations," they often are selling something more like gimmicks to try and get cash. So, what makes for a quality innovation versus a gimmick?

I'm of the belief that in the end they are all after money and care less about delivering exactly what they had promised.