There Are No Original Ideas
I’ve been a game designer for a little under 2 years now. I have a lot of ideas. Some of them are good, some of them are bad, some of them are further to the extremes. As I continue making games, I must acknowledge that someone somewhere has had or will have the same idea as me at some point. Sometimes it can be frustrating. There are no original ideas… or quotes. That is all.
Seriously…stop ripping me off.
Put the good ideas into Copernicus but not the bad ones. Just a thought…
I have to think that there is still people out there with original idea’s. The thing is how do you put it into a MMO and have people understand what thay are to do with it. I feel that in the MMO world most of us ( and yes ,me too ) want the new and original .but if we git it ,we don’t understand it. If we don’t understand it we don’t like it. I think it’s more of how do you put the original idea in the game and still have it where it feel’s as if we know it.
And it’s still an original idea even if 10 people come up with it.
Alik Steel
That doesn’t make any sense. If there were no original ideas, we would still be living in the stone age like animals.
Not all ideas are good, but there must of been a point where the idea was original.
Not that I’m inclined to unequivocally agree with such a universal statement, I will say that by and large I do agree.
And that’s why as designers it’s not about the ‘big idea’, but all about implementation, execution, and some iteration thrown in for good measure.
It’s kinda like cooking in that the ingredients don’t change much, it’s more like what you do with them. Good cooks make the simplest stuff taste great via attention to crafting and presentation. And beyond that, when a cook makes something unique (even if it’s the same old ingredients and standard cooking equipment), it catches the eye and imagination of the diner.
So go mix up that same old stuff in interesting ways so that we can go, “Wow! I never thought pancakes could taste this good!”
If it’s something that lots of other people have had and expressed before, then it’s not really an “idea” at all. More like, an observation.
Lots of people have noted that 2 and 2 are 4. If you put 2 and 2 together on your own and realize they are 4, then that’d be an idea… but you really shouldn’t be distressed to discover that one or more of the 6 billion people on the planet have made the same realization.
An original idea is “2+2=5″.
Coming up with an original idea which is also right might be more useful, but probably won’t be (even if it is right) if it’s such an obscure concept that no one else has ever thought of it.
I think a person is better off if they’re able to discover the things that not everyone has already discovered, and then humble enough not to ignore their fellows’ thoughts on the things. Collaboration is awful productive.
Then if it’s something not very many other people have come up with, you might still be able to take sole credit for it anyway.
I agree. There truly are no original ideas. The study of the history of games shows that. You can tie modern gaming systems to any game starting way back 3000 B.C. or earlier. However, it is the implementation of ideas, whether original or not, that makes the difference.
So what you are saying is that you fail?
The whole notion that “there are no original ideas” itself isn’t an original idea, which of course helps prove the point that there are no original ideas.
Barbara Grizzuti Harrison is actually credited with coming up with that quote, and when you Google that phrase in quotes, Nerfbat is the third hit. So Ryan is actually pretty close to the top on this one…he makes the podium and brings home a bronze medal. Yay!
You can relatively say the same thing about music, and yet we keep listening. Chord progressions are worn out, but it’s what you actually DO with the chords and the individual notes that makes them original. This is relative to the concept of no new ideas for games. I don’t know about you, but I would have to say that even thought it’s not entirely original, Spore certainly feels relatively novel to me. It’s kind of a bi-product of Will Wright’s other games, but yet, it still feels very new. There have certainly been games about creating beings, but I’m not so sure if it’s been to this extent, which is what makes it novel.
Maybe I’m entirely wrong, but every once in awhile it still feels as though things are new even if, when you melt them down to their various component metals, they’re still, at their core, the same “games” we’ve been playing forever.
Woe are us?
I’m still going to play ‘em.
I don’t think originality is all that important in games, honestly. Innovation, evolution, and well, fun, are more important. Gamers are fickle. It doesn’t matter who came up with a good idea, it matters who last utilized the idea to bring them the best game.
Take the recently released XBox Live Arcade title “Braid” for example: It borrows elements from various side-scrollers and platformers of earlier years, even making light of itself in some dialogue poking fun at the similarities to Mario. But Braid takes these “stolen” elements and puts its own spin on it, creating an entirely new type of gameplay from the various old ideas. It’s now garnering all sorts of praise from critics and gamers alike about how unique and amazing it is.
I think this is all that matters when it comes to MMOs as well. Borrow what worked, discard what didn’t, and then decide how you can do what did work even better than everyone else. Your originality can come in how you choose to modify these existing elements and move the genre forward.
Yup. Creativity is simply the process of connecting old ideas in ways no one has though of before.
And in MMOs, creativity is simply implementing those ideas, even if someone else thought of it before.
“cheap, fast, good: pick two”. As stated before, MMOs are expensive and agonizingly time consuming by nature. So, all that’s left that we can choose is “good”, and very few games actually achieve this. Because of this, the industry is FORCED to be evolutionary instead of revolutionary.
There are plenty of interesting ideas out there, even if they are not new:
- The level-less MMO
- EvE (Environment vs. Environment)
- Dynamic Content and player actions having a visible impact on the world
- Crafting “invention” system, where you can make blueprints to create completely new items
There, I just listed 4 things in 4 minutes. Any of these would be *new*, if not original.
from the great sages of John, Paul, George and Ringo
“There’s nothing you can know that isn’t known.”
This reminds me of another thread I read somewhere about the Character formula of successful TV series. The premise being that you have a few core characters, with others that are in a supporting role. Over the years you might get temporary focus on a support character, but they most likely never become core characters. Look at the failed shows that deviate from the simple formula.
Or the Seven Basic Plots in writing.
Just remember you are entertaining and you want to keep the user engaged. If the eye candy, features, stories etc do not help you maintain the entertainment and user engagement, then it most likely is not necessary.
There are no Original ideas, just ideas that the fail to fit the establishment.
New ideas will be developed incrementally or outside the industry.
I’m undecided on whether to make a reference to Meno or simply say “Simpsons already did it”.
There will always be original ideas. Originality just isn’t easy or everyday.
trackback
The idea of posting this hackneyed quote on a blog was original!
No seriously, anything you happen to come up with, odds are someone has considered it while actually putting together an MMO.
Obviously it can’t be true that there are *no* original ideas, but anything you can come up with fast someone has thought of before.
- The level-less MMO
The game-less game
- EvE (Environment vs. Environment)
I made a working NWN mod around this concept
- Dynamic Content and player actions having a visible impact on the world
Dark Age of Camelot lets you build up keeps and knock them down. The restrictions for doing it more fully are largely technical.
- Crafting “invention†system, where you can make blueprints to create completely new items
Something everyone hits first in coming up with a crafting system. Implementation is insanely hard and payoff is relatively low, so it doesn’t get done. (Low payoff doesn’t mean bad it just means that the number of people who will care is really small)
And by “The game-less game” I mean specifically second life. No seriously, that’s what it’d look like.
Original ideas in The Agency:
– instantly change classes by swapping gear
– collect NPC henchmen to perform non-real-time services; those henchmen can be captured by enemy NPCs
After more than 500 years of musical composition with only 12 notes, whole musical styles continue to emerge. The notion that MMO design has been completely explored after less than 30 years is plainly ridiculous.
“Odds are…” Correct. Hence my statement that originality just isn’t easy or everyday. But it’s possible, and only a cynic ceases to strive toward that possibility.
I never said that MMO design has been completely explored. I was just complaining about seeing various of my ideas (some we might be using, some we might not be) implemented or otherwise hinted at in other games. I have a bunch of other tricks up my sleeve, sure, but I try to prepare myself for them being done before I can implement them either in Copernicus or a game in the future.
Yeah, I know you didn’t really mean that as an absolute. But when people say it as an absolute, I get the impression they’re giving up. I’m glad to hear you’re not.
I always thought it was cool, though frustrating, how two people can separately come up with the same new idea. When I first started songwriting, I had a song that I was pretty proud of… and then Seven Mary Three came out with “The Water’s Edge”, which was annoyingly similar. It meant my song wasn’t so original anymore, but it was also validating when their song became popular.
And yes, that was a long time ago. Thankfully, that wasn’t the limit of my compositional skills.