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How Does Familiarity Factor into Games?
Toxia
Member UncommonPosts: 1,308
After a leisurely stroll down memory lane with my favorite series of games, Zelda, I come to wonder how Familiarity factors into a games success or even whether or not it is enjoyed by the masses...
I'm a definete fanboy of Zelda...but i've been thinking...Why am I? Is it nostalgia, or something else...
Zelda, bluntly, is very similar to WoW in terms of one thing...it's always the same. In Zelda, you know you are going to different locals to collect weapons and kill baddie bosses, go dungeon crawling, etc, no matter which of them you boot up. You're going to do the same things, with a touch of new flavor added in each time they release a new one.
In WoW, you know each expansion is going to have new sets of gear to grind, new raids/dungeons to do, new mounts to collect maybe, but in the end, it's pretty much the same thing you did last expansion.
Call of Duty, no exception, same game with new flavor and tweaks, new maps, new looks, new campain, etc.
And we eat Every one of them up. These games are some of the biggest sellers in the business.
So, do we as creatures seek Familiarity over something new? Does it stand that, for the VAST majority of us (Determined by the HUGE success of these games), we hate change, even in gaming? That even though we scream "GIVE US NEW AND INNOVATIVE( Re: DIFFERENT) GAMES TO PLAY!' the companies making the billions off of us know better after all?
What do you think?
The Deep Web is sca-ry.
Comments
For me, familiarity is important because it gives you that classic RPG nostalgia/familiarity/comfort-gaming feeling. That said, it's certainly important to also provide something unique and different. My ideal is a fusion that that evokes familiar nostalgia (to get you into the game), but then builds on it and provides new interesting design features.
This is a subject I have given a good deal of thought, as creator of Island Forge (the player-created content, brand-new old-school MMORPG). The game includes classic familiar RPG elements and overall feel, and the gameplay involves exploring, fighting creatures, crafting items, leveling up, yet the character design (health-based experience hybrid) and entire situation (player-created content) provide for a very unique gameplay experience.
There is certainly a place for radical/experimental games, but I'm still a sucker for the old-school.
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