The Best Kept Secret in the Video Gaming World

Graphics aren't as important as they used to be.

I heard recently that Minecraft recently became the second-most played game on Xbox live, which is an incredible achievement. Minecraft's simplistic graphics and sandbox gameplay have proven to be a winning formula. Minecraft is a sort of antithesis to the Michael Bay school of video gaming (see Black Ops or the Modern Warfare series for  reference). I suspect that the success of Minecraft is due at least in part to the slew of repetitive FPS action games we've had for the past few years. With the promise of more miserable COD games on the horizon, Minecraft is quite like a splash of cold water to me.

Will the gaming industry take note? We can pray, anyway. The lesson to be learned from Minecraft is that one can eschew state of the art graphics and still make an extremely fun, addictive video game. My question is this - can developers apply that logic to other genres?

When's the last time you've played a good turn-based rpg? Wouldn't it be reasonably simple to make a turn-based, massive MMO rpg with simple graphics on a console like the 360? Of course it would. At least part of the problem is that it would be a significant risk for a company to invest so much into what amounts to a risky venture. It's simply safer for the big game companies to continue releasing the same video game over and over. Why tinker with a proven seller? Simply make minor tweaks to play, repackage, resell and repeat. Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty come to mind (I'm beginning to think they're my whipping boys). Let's not forget the absolute worst offenders: sports games. At this point, I'm quite convinced that Electronic Arts no longer employs human beings to make their video games and rather employs a complex algorithm that computes player stats and adjusts their game stats accordingly.

We gamers need to demand more from our video games. That means publicly calling out games that fail to meet expectations. But then again, Black Ops 2 will undoubtedly sell four hundred trillion copies, and then Activision and Treyarch or Infinity Ward will get busy repackaging the same shit sandwich they've been selling and go laughing all the way to the bank.

In the end, though, every series lives on borrowed time. Few have proven capable of lasting for time immemorial (curiously, most of them are Nintendo products). My point is that there's a lot of money to be made in anticipating the winds of change. The 360 brings a huge level of exposure to a game like Minecraft (and other arcade titles like Trials Evo, etc.)

K