Also explains the sequelitis of the video game industry: while new ideas/IP can succeed, it's a risk. People really want more of what they know. Consider a random platformer, or the exact same game reskinned as Super Mario.
That’s why they first experiment and develop a lot of game ideas looking for the most fun mechanics. Then after something is shaping up into a great game, they look at the IP catalogue and see what skin to put on top.
Edit: In general, but not 100% of the time. The Zelda team is mostly consistently the Zelda team and does set out with intent to make the next Zelda game, for example.
I think you undersell this comment: it’s far more than a tangent.
Nintendo and Bandai the only companies I’ve worked with who I’ve Consistently heard the term “fun” discussed at the executive suite level, or a level below. Back in the Ken Kutaragi days at Playstation (SCEI in those days) this was true as well.
Hasbro seems to value playfulness, but in my more limited experience The higher up the chain the less relevant it was. Could be that the execs took it as a given?
Never came up in any AAA titles I talked with folks about at the companies (but big disclaimer: I never worked on one!)
You don’t have to be Marvin Acme, but “fun” seems like a pretty basic value, while objectives like “engagement” I’d see as a consequence,not a primary goal. I think understanding this is what has made Nintendo so successful for decades, and has allowed them to survive flops.
Also, very interesting to hear your experience with the other companies.
As a kid, I always marveled about video games. The wizardry behind it was always fascinating to me. And Nintendo elevated video games to an art form.
Decades later, I finally built my own basic video game, and I finally unraveled the mysteries behind it all. It's like you finally saw the true structure of the The Matrix in its coded form. And you said to yourself, there is no spoon.
However, Nintendo has always done a phenomenal job in reinventing their franchises - sometimes to the dismay of fans of that franchise. For example, take the 3D Mario games. They have continually reinvented the series, from Mario 64, to Mario Sunshine, to Mario Galaxy, to Mario Odyssey.
Or take Zelda. Breath of the Wild is a massive departure from the traditional Zelda formula.
An example where they've reinvented to fans' dismay has been Paper Mario. After Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door, fans just wanted more of the same formula. Unfortunately, they've often take the series in a direction that long time fans don't appreciate.
Why would you rebrand Starcraft if the players only want a reskinned version of Starcraft 1? There’s probably not much new you can invent by trying a totally new RTS anyway.
We don’t reinvent football for example. Reinventing it would get rid of the whole industry around the watching of football.
“Battle royale” is simply a recent development because up until recently we barely had any 3D shooters which had maps huge enough to allow for this style of play.
Particularly since the movie Battle Royale had a mechanic that filled the same role (sectors of the island were declared off limits to force students to encounter each other.) Not quite the same implementation, but I think basically the same idea.
Multiplayer Bomberman had this back in the 90's! I loved that game in high school.
But yeah, combining it with putting 50 people in a FPS deathmatch came much later. In video games a whole lot of innovation is combining a few ideas that already existed somewhere else. Well, not just in video games, really....
It's often surprising how long it can take for things to become mainstream. The first Battle Royale mod dates from 2013. And Planetside supported hundreds of players in a single match back in 2003.