High expectations by gamers discourage developers to innovate, says Ubisoft’s Jade Raymond

By: Muhammad Qasim Hassan

  |   August 15th, 2012   |  

Uncategorized

It is not uncommon to hear how the lack of innovation in the gaming industry is limiting the options for gamers in recent years.

Almost every time the issue has been touched, the blamed has gone to the developers for not trying out new things and instead offering similar experience.

The managing director of Ubisoft Toronto Jade Raymond however feels differently. According to her, developers are hesitant to innovate mainly because the audience is not very forgiving to anything that falls short of perfection.

Sharing her thoughts with Official Xbox Magazine UK in a recent interview, Raymond asserted that the developers are sticking to ideas that are already proven to sell because the gamers are not ready to make any comprises on quality. This ends up creating a huge risk for developers as going for creativity has a possibility of taking its toll on their business.

“One of the things I see that’s different [about the industry today] is that our audience expects perfection,” Raymond said. “Before, there were only, say, 2 million people playing games–they were real fans and they were playing every game. They were willing to forgive bugs, and try things that weren’t as much fun because they were different. Now, there are 30 million people buying and they only buy the top five. They expect perfection. I think that growing up with everything being so good, so easy to use, there are certain expectations.”

She explained that that the huge expectations prevailing in the market is curbing innovation. The developers constantly dwell in the fear that what If the new ideas that they come up with is rejected by the 30 million gamers. It is a risk that both the developers and publishers are not willing to take.

The ubiquity of first-person shooters has brought a lot of criticism to companies as such Electronic Arts (EA) and Activision. Analysts have been raising fingers at franchises such as Battlefield and Call of Duty for sticking to a similar formula. According to them, such games are harming the industry by depriving gamers of fresh and unique experience and instead loading shelves with the same old stale experience.

Quantic Dream boss David Cage and Tekken boss Katsuhiro Harada have also acknowledged the significance of innovation in the industry and spoken about the requirement of continuing the process. Cage had gone as far as stating that games would eventually die without new ideas, while Harada suggested that a one-console future could help in encouraging and motivating developers to innovate.

While the analysts and people advocating innovation seem to be making a valid point, it is not surprising to see the makers of franchises such as Call of Duty and Battlefield is ignoring the warnings. These tried and tested ideas are selling in record numbers and bringing in huge profits, thus giving them very little reason to deviate from the existing formula.