Googleshng: Our final topic of the night concerns the degree to which RPG developers copy each other. It's a plainly observable fact that whenever a popular RPG comes along, everyone in the world starts aping the main gimmicks. Thoughts?

Bartkusa: Imitation is the downfall of the industry. However, it's a sad fact of how it works.

Susan: I'm sick of it, but frankly it's a good way to be commercially viable and most companies aren't willing to run the risk of making something too revolutionary.

Zack: Legend of Dragoon = BAD.

Susan: Beyond the Beyond = ALSO BAD.

Brian: Put more time and money in to your games, you bastards! No one wants a simple spinoff.

Googleshng: Legend of Dragoon takes things to a bit of an extreme, but the number of clichés found in the genre is staggering.

Bartkusa: Production costs are too high now for people to take risks. Console development kits, hiring a whole art crew, licensing a graphics engine or taking the time to do it yourself.... These things add up, and indie gaming is well on its way to the graveyard.

Googleshng: Well that simply isn't true, Bart. People take huge risks here and there, usually without a lot of hits to fall back on either.

Susan: Commercially viable indie gaming that is.

Zack: Nothing against Atlus--since I love them to death (BUY DISGAEA!)--but they do a lot of risk taking. Look at how bad Hoshigami and Rhapsody were.

Brian: Rhapsody was great, though. It just wasn't worth 40-50 dollars.

Bartkusa: How big were they, as phenomena? How many copies went out the door? The best-sellers in the gaming industry are practically all franchises, sequels, or licensed games. All three are decreased-risk concepts.

Zack: True. It doesn't take any innovation to sell ten million copies of a new Zelda game.

Googleshng: The best sellers yes, but not all games are best sellers, which is my point.

Bartkusa: I'm just saying imitation is a necessity in a risk-moderated business like game publishing. Maybe it's a tangential point....

Googleshng: Most risks are taken by new players on the field. Take Koudelka, for example. It's your big-name publishers, Sony for example, that push out most of the cookie-cutter games.

Drethelin: The problem is that to make a good game nowadays requires far more money than it did. An innovation is a very big risk, whereas Ultima was made by a couple guys for practically nothing.

Brian: However, after a name is established, it's easy to ride on it for a while. Examples: Army Men, Tomb Raider, Crash Bandicoot.

Zack: Tomb Raider is the devil.

Googleshng: The way innovation is handled by the press also seems to go against this line of thinking. Look at all the positive press Square got when they announced FF10's sphere grid system.

Susan: Innovation is good.

Drethelin: Definitely, but sometimes, if something ain't broke, you shouldn't try and fix it.

Googleshng: I suppose the point most of us here are making though is that once a game is proven to work, the world at large is going to suck the concept dry as soon as possible, with innovation coming only when there's no impact left?

Zack: It could theoretically be argued that all RPGs are simply a rip-off of either Phantasy Star or Dragon Quest.

Susan: Pretty much.

Bartkusa: Borrowing the ideas of your forbearers isn't always copycatism. Look at Symphony of the Night. It took the basic format of Super Metroid (just ignore that these aren't RPGs) and polished it to the extreme. Is there a line to be drawn somewhere in what you do with the game concepts you've borrowed?

Googleshng: Well, not all no. Koudelka comes to mind.

Brian: Yeah. After all, consumers have proved their gullibility time and time again, so why not?

Bartkusa: Dragon Quest and Phantasy Star both set the conventions of the genre, but we've come a LONG way in production values.

Zack: Production values, yes. But has anything really at the base of RPGs changed significantly in twenty years? And graphics don't count.

Brian: Why don't you identify that base for us?

Susan: Combat remains largely the same.

Googleshng: And storylines, settings, interface designs...

Susan: "Select menu item."

Brian: No, combat doesn't. Action RPGs, Tactical RPGs, and your average FF-style system. Innovations for each of these genres keep the combat alive and fresh, so they're changing more than you realize.

Zack: Changing cosmetically.

Googleshng: Name me one innovation made to traditional turn based combat that really stuck, Brian.

Bartkusa: Active Time Battle?

Googleshng: Well there is that, but that never really got past Square's stuff.

Susan: Well, the thing is, RPGs are branching into sub-genres, but within these sub-genres, the combat is almost exactly the same, except for a few small differences game-to-game.

Zack: ATB lived for a long time, yes, but its golden era is pretty much over.

Bartkusa: Combo attacks? Job classes?

Bartkusa: Scratch the jobs: I forgot FF1, of all games.

Googleshng: Characters with different classes have always been in there.

Zack: Seriously, if you strip down every graphical, audio, plot, character, and minor tweak to the mechanics of any given RPG, it's comparable to DQ.

Googleshng: In any case though, we seem to be drawing to a close here. Does anyone have any parting thoughts on anything we've discussed here tonight?

Zack: I like cheese :D

Brian: I ate potato chips. My teeth are no longer clean.

Bartkusa: I thought my roommate was leaving town this weekend.

Susan: Mmm. Pasta.

Googleshng: Myself, I'd just like to say RPGs should lighten up, characters should wear more clothes, and while the average RPG developer is constantly copying the notes of others, they don't innovate with their own stuff either.

Googleshng: Join us again next week, when we'll discuss three more topics with a new panel of guests.