20 Games Industry Rule Busters – Part 1

1. Double Fine Adventure

 Year: 2012

Setting the Kickstarter standard

Whether you believe in the concept of crowdfunding or not, Double Fine’s $3,336,371 haul significantly excelled its modest $400,000 target and changed the thinking behind traditional development models. Suddenly, the power was in the hands of the fans, and games that might not have been greenlit by publishers in today’s mainstream market found prominence on Kickstarter and other crowdfunding platforms. PC revivals tend to find the most fortune in this landscape, which suggest some limits in terms of its potential – yet the support of Broken Age sends a signal of hope for developers hoping to launch their own modest projects in this fashion, even if the contentious aspect of paying for something before it’s been created is worthy of discussion.

2. Gears Of War’s Cover System

Year: 2006

Solving the third-person shooter genre

Third-person shooters, as well as the associated genres, now have the cover system written into their language because of Gears Of War’s impact on the development community. The 2006 shooter popularised and refined a mechanic borrowed from Kill Switch, before marrying it to the over the shoulder point of view seen in Resident Evil 4, creating something that could be broadly interpreted by other developers depending on the needs of their games’ design. Yet this isn’t just a question of who got there first; Gears brought a technical language to the cover system that has constantly kept the franchise ahead of the pack. Epic really did kick off a new age of the third-person shooter, bringing the genre a real-world logic that it clearly lacked in previous generations. The likes of Grand Theft Auto and Ghost Recon are richer for it.

3. Nintendo ditching E3 conferences

Year: 2013

Speaking directly to a gaming audience

After several poorly-received E3 conferences back-to-back, where muddled Wii U branding messaging led to a confused overall perception of the new home console, Nintendo has forgone the traditional route for revealing upcoming projects and forged its own path. The Direct broadcasts allow Nintendo to create a more specific marketing message for its audience – it could be the best or worst decision it ever makes in terms of impacting the wider market, without a major conference to look forward to, yet Direct allows Nintendo to dominate social media by setting its own timetable.

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