Idea Inventing a whole new genre

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Gedor Games

Guest
Is this even possible? I mean I guess it must be but it is seems really hard to do, to make a game that is not a rpg, fps, rts, TD, shooter, point and click games or any other genre but to invent a whole new genre would be cool.
So has anyone ever tried that and what was the result? I know that I have but all the things that I think of are just ideas that already exists.
 
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Aura

Guest
It's really difficult to create a "new" genre that doesn't have a property similar to the existing known genres IMO. It also depends on the perspective that you look at your game from. It might be a new genre when looking from your perspective and it might be a known genre when looking at it from somebody else's.

The first step that I feel is the beginning of the creation of a new genre is making the game have enough potential to inspire others. It is very easy to create an unique game. But it would be called a new genre only if there are a large number of games of the same type. Otherwise it would be labelled as an "unique game" and not as a "game of a new genre".

TLDR: It's far more complicated than making a game that is not of an existing genre. (But it might not be depending on the context of vision.) Mass and wide popularity of an idea/type/mechanics makes a new genre IMO.
 

RangerX

Member
I think we pretty much reached saturation nowadays with terms/words used to classify games. So in this regard, no you not "create a new genre" by those means.
You can probably create a game that feels fresh and innovative. Music exist since a long while, all the terms are there already to classify it --- and yet you still can compose interesting stuff!
 
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zendraw

Guest
you dont invent, it happens. and it happens out of necessety if necesery, and for there to be a chance of necesety to be there you need a vision. imagine you broke out of prison, everything you will do to reach freedom will be of necessety, cus you wont know what you will need to get out, the only thing you will have is the vision of freedom. new things happen cus you dont know them. if you know what your going to make, it will never be new. creativity comes when its needed, and its needed when you dont know, if you know, there is no need for it. a wise man once sayd, 'I know that i dont know.' google it.

Edit: Im not sayn theres a formula to it. but you can have an understanding for it.
 

chance

predictably random
Forum Staff
Moderator
I think we pretty much reached saturation nowadays with terms/words used to classify games.
Wish this would happen to heavy metal music. Seems like every new group playing off-tempo atonal chords is considered a new genre.

Hard to do in the gaming world. However, you can create new gameplay mechanics, and new player perspectives. You can surprise players with something they haven't seen before. Plenty of room for innovation there.
 

K3fka

Member
Echoing what the others are saying, don't set out with the goal of creating a new genre, because that's really hard. Typically things happen differently anyway. Take the FPS genre for example: The earliest games were probably just considered to be Action, Shooter, etc. and only later when more of these games started being created did it really come to be recognized as a genre in its own right.

Definitions of genres are completely arbitrary anyway, so don't worry too much about it.
 

chance

predictably random
Forum Staff
Moderator
Definitions of genres are completely arbitrary anyway, so don't worry too much about it.
I wouldn't go that far. But I agree there's plenty of overlap between some genres.

But other genres are fairly well defined, even through they are very broad. For example, sports games, role-playing / adventure, simulations, are fairly distinct. But I agree there are many sub-genres where the definition may seem arbitrary. And there's plenty of games that use elements of multiple genres.

Some people call platformers a genre. Whereas others would say that's just a format, such as top-down, first person, etc. Because platformers can be shooters, exploration games, fighting games, etc.
 
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Dengar

Guest
sure its possible. for awhile I was working on a new genre, I called it mmsmsrpg. mass multiplayer short message service role playing game. ok maybe not new, just newly combined genres for a new effect. it was a text rpg played through text messages on your phone.

so just sit down and ask yourself, "what would be kool" and then see if someone else has done it. and if they have done it then ask yourself "how can I do it better"
 
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Heat4Life

Guest
Inventing a whole new Genre eh? Well I Invented a Genre called "Heat" where you everything is Heated with Gunshots or something like that lol.
 
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ConsolCWBY

Guest
So has anyone ever tried that and what was the result? I know that I have but all the things that I think of are just ideas that already exists.
You know, it's funny. Some of the first games were created by attempting a simple simulation of an existing idea: Space War, Pong, racing, etc. None of these were new, but the idea of simulating them on a computer was. The genres which exist today haven't changed much since the 1970s and 1980s - only the mechanics are a little different. If you compare Donkey Kong to Mario Bros, you will find it is an evolution of attempting new mechanics to replace old ones - sometimes more intuitive mechanics - which drive innovation even in today's games. To create a genre from whole cloth is a backwards way of thinking most times. Instead, think of it this way: Take something you like and apply it in an original manner, in an unexpected way. Over time, it may become a new 'sub'-genre and if given enough time someone somewhere will apply it in such a way as to make a new 'genre'. Another example: No one created the FPS by just thinking of it one day - ID didn't even create the first one. They took ideas others had come up with before and used it in an original way and a professional manner which became an industry standard for a time. Compare Wolf3D (1991) to Glooper 3D (1983) and you can begin to see what I'm talking about (especially since Castle Wolfenstein came out by MUSE software around the same time as glooper - interesting considering Romero's background I would say!). :)

(EDIT: I should explain the last part better - Glooper was a 3D version of Pac-Man, and John Romero of ID stated he was a fan of the original MUSE Wolfenstein. When you compare the level similarities of both Glooper & Wolf3D (both are essentially mazes while MUSE's game is not) it should be easy to extrapolate that the first "modern" FPS is a combination of the 2 existing ideas - implemented in a new way. Romero stated he wanted to remake Glooper when he was at Softdisk(? I forgot the company's name lol) and then stated when Wolfenstein came out that he never heard of the game (which was 1992 with CGW I think, hard to remember which mag it was). Even if the latter is true - it is still an interesting 'coincidence'.)
 
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Gedor Games

Guest
Speaking of genres, does anyone know when TD games became popular? Growing up in the 80 and 90ths I never saw or heard of this genre, When people talked about TD games I did not know what type of games they were talking about until I saw Plant vs Zombies which was the first of those games I saw. It feels like that genre was something that was created in this millenium but I honestly dont know.
 
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Aura

Guest
@Gedor Games: Top down is not a genre. It is a video game perspective. While many people confuse it with a genre, you should keep in mind that perspectives and genres are two different things. That is why it isn't a part of the Wikipedia's handly list of genres.

The top down perspective became famous mainly due to its usage in RPGs and simulation games. The term was not as well known as it is today in the 80s or 90s, so your query is understandable.

...wait, are you talking about Tower Defense games? I must have misunderstood then. ^^"
 
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Aura

Guest
Challenge genre is a good idea You should finish the game within --:-- hours
That's a bad idea. Apart from having nothing to do with creating a new genre, it restricts the developer to a deadline. And that's disastrous when you're trying to understand how the core mechanics of a specific genre work. You're basically forcing the developer to stick to a deadline -- in that case, focus on the genre is greatly disturbed.
 

chance

predictably random
Forum Staff
Moderator
Speaking of genres, does anyone know when TD games became popular? Growing up in the 80 and 90ths I never saw or heard of this genre...
From what I've read, some people consider Rampart (1990's) to be the first modern tower defense game -- or at least influenced the creation of that genre. It was basically an attack and defend game. But it used the idea of placing cannons in fixed locations. And players could gain more cannons based on their gameplay success.
 
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zendraw

Guest
i aways thought warcraft map makers made the first tower defence games.
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
FPSes were called "Doom clones" for quite some time until they became ubiquitous enough to be considered a genre. Later we got Portal, Quantum Conundrum and The Witness, and suddenly we got First Person Puzzle games; using conventions and game mechanics from FPS games but for puzzle purposes with little to no combat. And then Dear Eshter, Layers Of Fear, Everybody's Gone To The Rapture and some other games introduced us to Walking Simulators, FPS games with almost no focus on gameplay and exclusively on storytelling using the first-person perspective to (hopefully) make you feel more engaged in the story. Genres don't pop up in a vacuum, breaking completely new ground... they organically grow from existing genres, then pop out into their own sphere once their bubble has gotten big enough.
 
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zircher

Guest
True, true. You basically have to innovate your way into a new genre. If you make too far of a leap, you run into adoption problems and even basic questions such as "Is it even a game?" That's not to say that you shouldn't try, but you mentally have to prepare yourself for resistance and perhaps have to live with the 'art game' tag. Commercial success and people making clones of your game is one way a genre develops. But, that part is usually beyond our control.
 
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zendraw

Guest
zircher, sadly thats kinda true and a great demotivator for experimenting and creativity. basically you need to have established fanbase or a back income to loosen up. and now that i think about it, it seems to me this is the reason genres today are kinda stuck in the well known. and i think theres a big dose of truth in it cus i doubt devs no matter wether they work for big company or are indie are that much uncreative. at the most modern games combine 2-3 ganres like 90% of FPS games have some sort of rpg element in them.

so i dont think like some1 above mentioned that we reached some peak where no more ganres can be made, but weve reached a point where devs are affraid to experiment cus too much is on the line. especially aaa`s or w/e.
 

Roa

Member
I think @Carnivius hit the nail on the head. you don't really create a genre and there is no real deffinition to a genre. It's a reflection of a previous title into the industry. It can be as broad as Jrpg or FPS or as specific as minecraft clones and flappybirds. A genre is just how we define something that revolutionized the industry with new ideas and a budding market. I think it may be easier than people think. You just need a little bit of ingenuity, novelty, and a stroke of luck that it catches on.
 
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L0v3

Guest
Here's a new genre.

"Skadoodledolf" - The genre is about 4 dimensional platforming where you specifically use the I key to dance with zombies in a wii style minigame, except in VR, in order to progress to the final boss which is always a cakemonster.

Genres are nothing but labels used to describe common reoccuring elements in a game, so that a general audience would have an idea of what the gameplay is. Games should never be made around genres, but instead genres should be used as terms to describe them. As with any description it can be generic or specific, such as 2D, Platformer, Walking Simulator, Roguelike, Open-World.

Nothing is saturated. There's still and endless sea of possibilities. Figure out a gameplay mechanic you wanna create, and if it becomes popular and succesful enough, then instead of describing it, it would be easier to label it, and thus create a genre.

On the topic of unique games, yes the most generic genres are all but used. This all comes down to the interface really. Not the game interface, but the controllers, the screens, the keyboard, mouse etc. It's this that defines the limitations of your game. Mark Brown did a excellent video on this here:


If you wanna invent a completely new genre, perhaps invent a new control method for playing that genre, such as the new and exciting virtual reality which is upon the horizon. Allowing the player to move around and interact with the world as the player themselves on a whole new level instead of using an xbox controller, upons up alot more possibilities of what you can create.
 
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Galladhan

Guest
From what I've read, some people consider Rampart (1990's) to be the first modern tower defense game -- or at least influenced the creation of that genre. It was basically an attack and defend game. But it used the idea of placing cannons in fixed locations. And players could gain more cannons based on their gameplay success.
Yep, lot of people consider Rampart as the "father of Tower Defense games" (and they're probably right).
Some others (for example Gamasutra, here: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6251/gems_in_the_rough_yesterdays_.php?print=1) cite Bokosuka Wars by Koei (1983) as some sort of "reverse Tower Defense game".
I've never played these 2 games, actually, so i take for good what i've read around.
I used to play Beach Head for Commodore 64 (1983), though, and i would consider it kinda an ancestor too, cause you had to conquer an enemy base using ships and tanks (but yeh, it would be another "reverse tower defence game").
But there are probably games which anticipated the genre even before (i can't think of any, at the moment, but i'm not a huge fan of TD games).
 
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zircher

Guest
Sorry, @blacklemon, I didn't mean to to be a downer. To put a positive spin on that... To me, having a day job is freedom from things like being a starving artist. [I was offered a paying game dev gig once, but being married with children, I chose programming business software over games as a career. ] It's a slower pace, but I can be as creative as I want since I don't have my mortgage riding on the outcome. As a designer, that allows bedroom coders to take design risks that others probably wont. My creed has always been to make the games that I want. Sometimes that leads to a success, but it also means I can explore failure, accept challenges, abandon projects, and contribute to the community as desired. It works for me and if I define a new genre in gaming, I'll probably be just as surprised as any one else. :)
 
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zendraw

Guest
@zircher no need to be sorry, i appriciate your comment, it makes for a good reality check and thats better then floatin in fantasies.
 
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zircher

Guest
Was going to post this in another thread, but it might get more traction here...

Just wondering if you could flip the game telling a story and instead have a story telling engine and to advance you have to solve puzzles and win mini-games. The kicker is that you don't have linear play where you finish the mini-game and the story continues. Instead there are branching paths that are dictated by your actions in the game part of the story. The net result is you don't have Press A to betray and Press B to render aid. You have to actually do that in some form of game play. Make the sacrifice? Solve the puzzle or smash it? Chose your exit from the maze, etc. Are they any examples of that out there in the wild that I might have missed?
 
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zendraw

Guest
the only game that comes to my mind is Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines. in it you do quests andyou are rewarded mostly with experience points that you spend on various abilities stats etc, that are game defining, now when you do the quests you can either get bonus points or less points depending how you approach it, and how you approach it depends on your skills. for instance you can fight your way throu and you get 2 points. you can finish it with stealth and you get 3 points or you can finish it by dialogue and you get like 4 points or the reward is that there is no danger of dying. also these approaches have subapproaches like you can shoot your way throu, or you can use a melee weapon or unarmed, for the dialogue you can intimidate or saduce or persuade, and for stealth you can hack computers n stuff. there are also different endings depending on what choises youve made. overall everything you do matters. in dialogue 90% of the times what lines you choose to respond with matter. also there are like5-6 classes which further make the gameplay more diverce.
 
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ConsolCWBY

Guest
Just wondering if you could flip the game telling a story and instead have a story telling engine and to advance you have to solve puzzles and win mini-games.
An old man is working on an exciting concept - one of my fave devs of all time, Chris Crawford. He's been working on this for nearly 25 years - autonomous agents creating a "story-space". His 1980s book on computer game design is hidden on his site. A great read, imho as a fanboy!
EDIT: I take that back, the e-book is no longer there! Shame... :(
 
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zircher

Guest
I heard about that project. I would not dare to attempt something like that. I was thinking more like a visual novel with gaming bits for determining the branching paths.
 
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ConsolCWBY

Guest
I was thinking more like a visual novel with gaming bits for determining the branching paths.
I just re-read your post, and you did mention puzzles and mini-games. I'm a bit thick at times. Definately that would be interesting - a kind of Cinemare meets VN. I truly think any idea outside the 'normal' box of "place cut-scene here" is a good thing. I remember Wing Commander used a node tree to handle plot points based on whether a player won the majority of missions within a sector. Pretty sad branching this way (outside of dialog trees) didn't become more complex and dynamic outside of a few games. I think the current thought is open world = non-linear plotting. But I don't know... Many people think the creation of plot first then character is the way stories are constructed. But I agree with Orson Scott Card when he said Character and motivation will direct and develop plots. It's interesting, because one could think of it as a simulationist approach. For games, just off the top of my head, it may be possible to meld the two together using 2-dimensional "floating" nodes. As the PC would be playing the game, the potentiality of encountering any one node could be checked for inclusion of a new sub-plot. Again, it's more b.s. than actual design, but it's fascinating to think about. (i gotta be more clear in my reading comprehension next time!) :)

Non-Linear Links:
https://eis-blog.soe.ucsc.edu/2009/...cting-the-varieties-of-nonlinear-experiences/
http://scalar.usc.edu/works/interac...-methods-in-video-games/linear-and-non-linear
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
They also did a split-screen-IRL paintball episode at some point that's pretty cool, and tested how many banana peels are needed to make an IRL go-kart slip. Immersion is probably the best Rooster Teeth show ever. x3
 
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Colonjack

Guest
I think if VR ever truly takes off then we might see a new genre appear. New genres of anything often come around with a change in technology look at electronica type music, the move to 3D in video games. There could never have been a MMORPG without the internet for another example.

Take a better man than me to guess what it would be though.
 

RangerX

Member
I think if VR ever truly takes off then we might see a new genre appear. New genres of anything often come around with a change in technology look at electronica type music, the move to 3D in video games. There could never have been a MMORPG without the internet for another example.

Take a better man than me to guess what it would be though.
Well, there's nothing in virtual reality that cannot be done in 3D. Besides, virtual reality is 3D graphics anyways.
 

NazGhuL

NazTaiL
We oftenly talk about this, my friends and I. What is the next big thing? I truly believe that the last game who changed gaming is Minecraft.(Like some others one did it in the past, wolfenstein/doom, Mario, etc) What's next? I think that the next game that will be innovative, fresh new and big is a game who will find out how to exploit Virtual Reality at its best. Not just FPS VR of minecraft VR. Virtual Reality is the future. What can be done with VR that 2d/3d can't. What will make players play hundreds of hours. What will make other studios copy them. Someone, somewhere has the idea. (Clearly not me...well, for now!)
 
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zendraw

Guest
i highly doubt vr is the future. virtual games just arent that fun when your soaked in sweat, real life games yes but virtual games, no. id say theyr the biggest fail in virtual gaming. and i emphasise on virtual.
 

RangerX

Member
VR games won't change much things and the reason why is pure logic.
Passing from 2D to 3D was an evident change because there's been a full new axis to work with, this was an evident and major change. Now VR is just a change in your viewpoint. Its the same 3D games with 3D graphics, its just that you are the cam and isolated by the helmet. There's nothing new to work with. ALL vr games are 3D games and therefore you can play a simple 3D version of them. What MIGHT revolutionise gaming again is when new types of input and interactions will be possible. Per example, mind control. Sensitivity (can be a sensor suit or anything that would make you "feel" that virtual object). Odor, etc.

I don't think we are much close of any gaming revolution and I would love to be surprised. I just think its not realistic to think it will happen soon or that VR alone is the futur. It logically is not.
 

RangerX

Member
VR is not about realism or something stupid. Its just a view point. A position from which you play which is just as much valid as playing on a couch, playing a controller, a touch screen, on an arcade machine, etc. The view point where you stand and the tool you use to control the game doesn't matter. Its not what should make the game fun or not. And nothing is "meant to be", we just have different ways of playing and it will get more diverse in the futur and that's fine.

I for one would love a game directly fed to my brain. I suspect its far away in the futur but just imagine, no screen needed, no controller, my MIND plays the game and I see the game world perfectly 'cause it can't be any more direct feed than that!
 

NazGhuL

NazTaiL
I do much prefer to go out to do sport instead of sweating in front of my tv... But VR, for me, is really the helmet more than the controller. Play a game, sit on the couch(or chair) with keyboard and mouse or a classic controller with VR google. The view is the immersion. In combo with the sound of course. (Need to say here that I love retro gaming, 2D game etc...). The game that will shake the world is a game that will target the new generations first. There is a lot of young kids around raise on the I-want-it-now world. Instant access to verything in one click. Kids born in the 2000's are less impressionable than the kids back in the 1990's.(so are kids born in the 80's vs 90's). VR is the new thing. 3d was 'cooler' than 2d.(Not always better game, but it was cooler) Then came the 3d card (My first was a diamond monster 3d 4mb). In the past 15 years they never stop to do more realistic graphic. Now it's really awesome. What's next? I mean if you got a badass 4k monitor on your room with a GTX 1080. You are really up to date. What is cooler? VR. Like it or not, it's here to stay. Find out what game can suck the best that VR can give and you'll mark history. (Like some of the pionners who create new things in the past). (For the brain controlled game...maybe someday.)
 

RangerX

Member
I've seen VR tests where people walk around in a ball to simulate roaming in the game, and even flying like a bird on a city, with wind slamming through your face!

If VR is just a point of view, then it would be much more pathetic than i imagined, because I imagine a good VR a game will be like what you said, and maybe like SAO's VR helmet simulator
I say you're mixing things. Let me illustrate:

3D game + Exercice game played with the Wii board = Still a 3D game. Its just that you change the tool you're using to control the game (in the example here, the board instead of the controller).
VR game + You ball thing you described = Still a VR game. Its just that you change the tool you're using to control the game.

The Wii board, the controller or that ball doesn't make the game something else than what it is. And this is where I go back to my point. What's virtual reality is that helmet on your head, the fact you are immersed in a 3D game by that point of view (being in the helmet cut from the world.
 
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ParodyKnaveBob

Guest
Although kind of the opposite of building onto a defense post, I can't help but think of an official variation on the board game Battleship when posed with the question of earlier and earlier tower defense games:

Each player starts with five ships placed where one wants, as usual.
However, each player in turn calls five shots instead of one -- as long as that player still has five ships.
EDIT: Iirc, the targeted player then declares how many hits and misses (but not which ones were hits vs. misses).
Lose a ship to enemy fire? All right, now you're down to four ships able to fire four shots on your turn.
You'd better be skilled at tracking down the enemy, or else you won't have much of a fleet left to defend itself.
Fun stuff. $:^ ]

Meanwhile, upon the OP posing the question/challenge of inventing a whole new genre, my mind went into that automatic "answer the question with something" mode, and I came up with (what I believe to be) a pretty cool concept I've never seen before. Sure, it springboards off some other things that have already been done, but whatever: "The thing that has been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun." After all, where do you think turn-based -- and even real-time -- strategy top-down games would be without chess, or even checkers? If you go read the historical accounts of the influence "Space Invaders"' carried in its heyday, you can check off practically every descriptor for Call of Duty as you go. Etc. As for my concept I've never seen before, maybe I'll get to work on it someday, hmmmm. $:^ J

Regards,
Bob
 
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zendraw

Guest
from what i can see about games, games are about interaction and not feel or sense or w/e. yes from the interaction there will be feel and you will sense things but that comes after the interaction, adding it prematurely doesnt add anything to the game but it hinders the game, its in the way. and i dont think making a new, more complex or w/e controller will advance gaming, complex gameplay doesnt equal complex controll. take super mario for instance, things can get very complex and complicated but you have like 4 buttons.
and what i think about the ganre, its simply what you are interacting with that defines it. in RTS you interact with an army, in racing games you interact with speed etc.
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
I think VR won't really be a big hit until proper VR visors becomes cheap enough that 'everyone' can afford them. Genre-wise... we haven't really seen that much completely new stuff, IMO. There seems to be a new type of "immersive simulator" genre slowly emerging where you pick up and use various objects in a way that wouldn't be possible with a mouse interface (because you'd only have one hand), but I'm not sure how big it'd be once VR becomes commonplace.
 
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McWolke

Guest
I don't think that VR will bring up (m)any new genres. Also motion controllers won't bring new genres.
Nintendos Wii didn't create any new Genres, did it? It just changed the way how the existing genres were played. Instead of pressing A you have to slash/swing to attack, but the Game itself is the same.
neither did Kinect or Eye Toy.
Smartphones also didn't create any new Genres, they just revived old ones, like arcade games, because they fit perfecly for casual play.
VR will only bring exploration/story/walking-simulator games to a new level and will help action games to be more intense, but that won't make them new genres.
Most (or probably all of them) genres were created for the classic gamepad/Keyboard+Mouse and were then ported for other hardware.
Even Guitar Hero/Rockband/Dance games are just Rhythm games with special controllers. So new Hardware != new Genre.
At least that's what i think.
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
Smartphones also didn't create any new Genres, they just revived old ones, like arcade games, because they fit perfecly for casual play.
I don't recall flappy bird clones or idle games being very existent before the mobile market showed up :p
Not to mention games like Uplink and Pokemon GO where you need to move spatially IRL in order to progress through the game.

The problem with motion controls is exactly that they're being squished into existing genres, replacing a solution that has worked for decades with one that sometimes doesn't work at all.

One interesting challenge with VR is that it's not possible to limit camera perspectives (without compromising the experience, at least), so anything in the game needs to be rendered just in case the player looks at it. (Contrast e.g. Dark Souls where there's a limit to the angle you can look up using the binoculars or the bow)
 
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