We had a lovely chat last week about the way persistent online games are evolving—in particular, how innovation is becoming more possible. As the industry moves on to the fresh scavenging grounds of the MOBA genre and MMO players are becoming savvier and discerning about the type of content they want, the way we think about MMOs is changing.
Inertia, nostalgia and confirmation bias all still play their part, of course. It's not difficult to find examples of all of these in large scale discussions of any game, but it seems there is a growing sense that things don't have to be done the way they've always been done. An argument from tradition is, after all, no argument at all.
In the past a major barrier to innovation has been the massive investment and risk involved in releasing an MMO, and once it was loose, keeping the beast fed with a stream of content and features to maintain a healthy playerbase seemed like an impossible task.
Last week I mentioned No Man's Sky as a specific example of how the industry is changing, as it seems to encapsulate many of the current trends while still managing to be fresh and exciting in a way that the stagnant behemoths around it at E3 couldn't compete with. It was made by just a few people who wanted to make something really special, in a time where that has become more possible than ever before.
With no points, levels or specific goals, emphasis on exploration and emergent gameplay, being voxel based with gathering and crafting being core mechanics, No Man's Sky could be considered a Minecraft clone. I do not mean that in a derogatory way at all, I use the term only to make a point. Are you ready for the point? Here is the point.
As we of a certain age are aware, there was a time when every first-person shooter was called a Doom clone, it was fertile new ground for the industry to explore and it took a while for the genre to mature to the point that games could be considered on their own merits. Once we stopped thinking of these games as clones we could start seeing what possibilities existed.
There have been a fair few games labelled Minecraft clones, including Landmark, which is why it's important that No Man's Sky has largely avoided the tag – not because the comparison is offensive, but because it means the game is being considered on its own merit. We look at the game and marvel at what it is and what it could be without resorting to shorthand.
We made it! I got around to talking about Landmark, finally.