Task 20

Well amidst the chaos and hostile workload that I've been juggling with (And dropping, I can't help but feel), I've fallen behind on the whole blogging business. Actually I've fallen really behind.

However that's no problem, for I have my magic pen of wonder and a mind of imagination ready, there's nothing I can't blog about now! Bring it on, do your worst, backlogged topics! Hit it!

Task twenty - Creativity.

To me, creativity is a big thing; someone of my generation might even refer to it as 'heeawge'. I seem to get it mixed up with originality a lot.

If originality is to do something that nobody else has done before, creativity is presenting matter, whether it be ideas or a game setting or what have you, in a way which shows imagination and a lot of thought. Sometimes the two terms cross over, as creative inspiration may result in something completely new and original.

The dictionary is good with words, in fact it knows them all. I very much like the definition of creativity, which is:

"the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination"

...Which sounds very important for the games industry because things there are starting to seem a little linear and, well... Boring. Creativity is the spark that's needed to create new games that will sell excellently. If a player's played every game, give her the opportunity to engage in something either completely new, or something that contains so many new ideas that it's fresh enjoyable. That's what creativity'll do. Hoohah.

The only problem with it is thinking it up in the first place. Being creative isn't nearly as easy as it seems, often it's impossible to think up a brand new idea from scratch, and one ends up using an idea they've been incubating for a long while.

Fortunately though, when the right sort of people come together, creativity does happen. Only a few weeks ago a group of us from Game Art Design were thinking up a ridiculous game idea to suggest to Acclaim. From nothing, we worked out something new and interesting, without making it over-complex. Then we decided not to let Acclaim see, because we didn't think they deserved it. Funny, that - it's so hard to think of a crappy game. (Makes me wonder how developers do it over and over).

A lack of creativity is a painful thing. While publishers demand by-the-book games in order to secure a profit (Though I'm not sure how long that's going to last), it's always the developers who break through this thought barrier and do something crazy and new that prosper. It's so depressing to see X-Million dollars wasted, when it could have been spent to make something that really is good.

Increasingly, I feel that there's no excuse for a bad game. In fact, it's unforgivable!

Well that's my two shillings on creativity. Until next time!