The problem with games like Spore and No Man's Sky is not that they were 'risky', but that they were anticipated with the promise of being interactive but completely failed to deliver the interactive experience that was wanted. The games didn't have much gameplay, just canned 'rail-like' experiences in boring, repetitive environments. They pretended to innovate and produced the same old crap people already had.
But this all reminds me of another problem with modern game development. I have a certain deep love for tile-based, low-resolution old-school games. But most people seem to think that's entirely an artifact of nostalgia, rather than the fact that the world is simple and predictable in a way that maps beautifully to the control scheme. The world is not realistic, it's a grid. You control the world using buttons. That's a good relationship.
But every modern game comes out trying to pander to my nostalgia, and ultimately falls flat because what I want is a clean mapping, not some silly pretense of playing an old game again.
Too many cooks in the kitchen, and nobody cares what food is supposed to taste like anymore. They just know it needs "more ingredients."
But this all reminds me of another problem with modern game development. I have a certain deep love for tile-based, low-resolution old-school games. But most people seem to think that's entirely an artifact of nostalgia, rather than the fact that the world is simple and predictable in a way that maps beautifully to the control scheme. The world is not realistic, it's a grid. You control the world using buttons. That's a good relationship.
But every modern game comes out trying to pander to my nostalgia, and ultimately falls flat because what I want is a clean mapping, not some silly pretense of playing an old game again.
Too many cooks in the kitchen, and nobody cares what food is supposed to taste like anymore. They just know it needs "more ingredients."