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General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Pure Innovation Is Highly Overrated
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<blockquote data-quote="lewpuls" data-source="post: 7722923" data-attributes="member: 30518"><p>Some people have identified an attitude nowadays called "the cult of the new". Something is necessarily better because it's new, in this view. New is often equated with "innovative", rightly or wrongly (I think wrongly). Certainly, makers of general-market retail products seem to think "new" means more sales, so they tout "new taste", "new design", etc. on their boxes, even when they've made no practical changes.</p><p></p><p></p><p>As some of you, I think quality is more important, and I don't care whether something is new or old, innovative or not, what I care about is how well it works.</p><p></p><p></p><p>"Unlike what you are saying, innovation is not personal. You have a nifty but wrong or at least incomplete quote about it, but the actual definition from the OED: a new method, idea, product, etc." In games, at least, innovation is very personal, because by objective standards virtually nothing is innovative ("nothing new under the sun"), that is, there is no pure innovation. But any particular aspect of a game can be innovative from the point of view of an individual player's experience (that is, a subjective viewpoint). And it's much easier to be subjectively innovative through combinations of things, than to find a single pure innovation.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Of course, as with many discussions about games, an awful lot gets confused in semantics. Heck, people cannot even agree on a definition of "game". Did you know that one of the most well-known game design books, "Rules of Play", spends eighty pages on trying to define "game", and ends up with something that (by authors' own admission) leaves out RPGs and simply doesn't concern itself with puzzles?</p><p></p><p></p><p>I agree that you need to understand the whys when you create a new product. On the other hand, my experience of teaching video game design to college students, is that many of them think that what they like, is what everyone likes, and so they want to make something like their favorite game only "more" of it. Which is a way to a poor design, if it's practical at all. (Often they choose a AAA game they cannot possibly make themselves, as their ideal.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="lewpuls, post: 7722923, member: 30518"] Some people have identified an attitude nowadays called "the cult of the new". Something is necessarily better because it's new, in this view. New is often equated with "innovative", rightly or wrongly (I think wrongly). Certainly, makers of general-market retail products seem to think "new" means more sales, so they tout "new taste", "new design", etc. on their boxes, even when they've made no practical changes. As some of you, I think quality is more important, and I don't care whether something is new or old, innovative or not, what I care about is how well it works. "Unlike what you are saying, innovation is not personal. You have a nifty but wrong or at least incomplete quote about it, but the actual definition from the OED: a new method, idea, product, etc." In games, at least, innovation is very personal, because by objective standards virtually nothing is innovative ("nothing new under the sun"), that is, there is no pure innovation. But any particular aspect of a game can be innovative from the point of view of an individual player's experience (that is, a subjective viewpoint). And it's much easier to be subjectively innovative through combinations of things, than to find a single pure innovation. Of course, as with many discussions about games, an awful lot gets confused in semantics. Heck, people cannot even agree on a definition of "game". Did you know that one of the most well-known game design books, "Rules of Play", spends eighty pages on trying to define "game", and ends up with something that (by authors' own admission) leaves out RPGs and simply doesn't concern itself with puzzles? I agree that you need to understand the whys when you create a new product. On the other hand, my experience of teaching video game design to college students, is that many of them think that what they like, is what everyone likes, and so they want to make something like their favorite game only "more" of it. Which is a way to a poor design, if it's practical at all. (Often they choose a AAA game they cannot possibly make themselves, as their ideal.) [/QUOTE]
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