Sun 10 Feb 2008
To make the claim that any game is “the Future of Gaming” is a bold move, I admit, but if you’ve played Valve’s Portal than I’m sure you’ll agree that the industry will (or at least should) head in this direction. Sure, Portal hasn’t made any hardware innovations such as rumble support, online play, or motion/touch controls. Sure, it’s not even a new genre as much as a new spin on several pre-existing genres. It’s true that every element, except for the actual portal game mechanic, has existed in games before. But that, my friends, is not why Portal is the Future of Gaming. It is so because it does offer something which we haven’t seen in the video-game industry in a long time … hope.
With the rising cost of producing non-independent commercial games, developers are simply not willing to take any chances. This isn’t something new of course. In the past, depending on which period we look at on the relatively short video-game time line, nearly every game released was a Super Mario Brothers clone (platformers), a Street Fighter Clone (2D Fighters), a Final Fight clone (Beat-em-up), or a Doom clone (FPS). Sure, those games might not have been the first of their kind, but other companies saw their success and tried to emulate that more than anything else. And, of course, even between those game we’ve been blessed with unique gems, but even those have since been cloned to death.
Video games as a medium is still in its infancy when compared to other mediums such as print and movies. As with movies, video games are likely to reach a point where innovation is nearly impossible and the clone is the norm. Unlike movies, video games will likely only reach this point in a long, long time! Unlike movies, video games are an interactive medium and vary in so many different ways one can interact with them and benefit or be rewarded by them. Movies, however, are limited to being a visual means of story telling.
Portal shows us how far we are from falling into the movie industry’s hole. Taking already established conventions, adding one brilliantly unique game play element, and infusing a surprising amount of quality humor and story-telling could possibly result in my best gaming experience in recent memory! Portal reminded me why I love video games and Valve deserves praise for this! No need to lose hope fellow gamers, the future of gaming is bright and Portal has shown us that this is a good time to be a gamer.
Related posts:
- Towardsmecca turns one!
- Sony drops the ball on 2.40
- Music in Games, who should pay for it?
- The Many Faces of Ken (Street Fighter)
- E3 2008 – Thoughts on the Console-Related Announcements
February 10th, 2008 at 4:00 am
fuck you
February 10th, 2008 at 4:04 am
I completely agree with this article. The asshole who made the first comment should go fuck HIMSELF!
February 10th, 2008 at 8:10 am
i completely agree. innovation will save the gaming industry. the fps, beat-em up and strategy games seem to be clones of each other, and many genres are going stale. with innovative games like kyle gablers world of goo, gish, crimsonland, tower defence (although cloned too pieces) are excellent examples of how the future of gaming success lies within the domain of new ideas.
encouraging indeed. portal is an excellent example of this.
thumbs up =)
February 10th, 2008 at 8:51 am
Such a shame that people don’t research articles like this.
The information in this article is FALSE. Portal is not the first game using the portal game mechanic, as the article implies.
That honour falls to Narbacular Drop, made for free in 2005, by the team that valve hired to do Portal’s mechanics.
shame that pulls out a lot of the argumentation in this article, because it is a nice article, and a good read, and protal does deserve all the attention it can get.
February 10th, 2008 at 9:52 am
I was actually not aware that another game has used the mechanic in the past. Thanks for the heads-up Deadl0ck. You’re right, I should have done more research first!
February 10th, 2008 at 9:58 am
It was a little more than just hiring them to “do Portal’s mechanics” the people at Valve saw their game, liked it, and asked them to come make a new and improved game based on it.
February 10th, 2008 at 10:03 am
oh ffs, they mean to use it in a large scale popular game that-
You know what, bitch and whine if it makes you feel important, wtf ever
February 10th, 2008 at 10:20 am
I lot of the ‘data’ doesn’t seem to have any basis… what proof can you give that video game is still in its infancy and movies and print ads aren’t? I don’t get it.. its like you just said it flat out and that’s it true.
Anyway, nice article. It’s more of a have “have hope” article than something providing facts or data or anything of that sort. An article of optimism for gamers
February 10th, 2008 at 10:48 am
dude, the uh huh guy that posted the first comment is a fuckin 5 yr old i bet, so dont woory bout that ass
February 10th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Portal had this “Cube 2″ feeling to me, so the athmosphere were nice but at least for me nothing groundbreaking. What I really disliked about Portal was, it was too extreme easy to be fun. 80% of the game is a overlong tutorial, and then when the game seem to get interesting…you have allready won the game! WTF? At least the end song was nice.
And Osama, besides whining about the lack of new ideas in the game industry and praising Portal makes your blog post as original as a game from EA Sports.
February 10th, 2008 at 11:13 am
In addition to Narbacular Drop, Prey used a simplified version of the portal system. You couldn’t place the portals where you wanted, but it used the same basic mechanics.
February 10th, 2008 at 11:58 am
“It’s true that every element, except for the actual portal game mechanic, has existed in games before. ”
Much of the portal mechanics already existed,
what portal did was to further tweak that.
The Engine used by unreal tournament (way back in 1999) could support most of what can be doen with portals. Although I do think it couldn’t cope with on-the-fly ‘portals’
What portal does well for me, and other games should try to, is to add the thought and emotion into the game portal does.
Developer commentary on the turrets for instance shows exactly that.
February 10th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
As for evidence video gaming is in its infancy when compared to books or movies, perhaps what the article’s author meant is video games have not been around nearly as long as books or movies.
February 10th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
Of course other games have used some of the basic idea of Portal, however no video game has ever taken it to mainstream, combined it with a good engine, brought to it a good storyline, and awesome humor and then combined it all in a mainstream release.
The difference is that Portal is the first mainstream game to bring a unique game play in some time. Truly, the most famous game for an element is rarely the very first to use the idea. Doom wasn’t the first FPS, but it is credited with mainstreaming the FPS genre because it brought other elements and made a solid FPS. In the same way, Portal wasn’t the first game to use Portals, but it brought other elements in conjunction to the portals that makes an awesome (albeit short, which I don’t mind I don’t have a lot of patience for drawn out games) game.
February 10th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Everyone talks of how fantastic the humor and simplicity of portal is, and don’t get me wrong it’s amazing, but by no means is it new. Monkey Island anyone? Sam and Max? The real problem was the video game console. After the rise of the ps1//ps2 the only games that survived on PC’s were prodominantly shooters and RTS’s because, lets face it, a computer interfaces with those genres in a far superior way than consoles. RTS’s and shooters were never big on wit, they relied more on Juvenalian humor. What portal has done is take the winning formula from those old adventure games and use it to breathe a new life into video games.
February 10th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Portal is quite possibly the past of gaming, which is a very good thing. The game is short and sweet. The game is simple and intuitive. If this is the future of gaming, humanity might just have a comeback.
February 11th, 2008 at 1:18 am
I didn’t really find Portal that innovative. It was refreshing, but in the end it was a simple puzzle game. I felt like I’d done it before. Because I have, those simple silly levels that have been done since the dawn of Puzzle gaming. It would have been better, say, if there was a better setting to it all. A real world setting with only your portal to use.
February 11th, 2008 at 5:17 am
i really enjoyed portal, but it sucks that by the time you get through the “tutorial” the game IS ALREADY FUCKING OVER! way too short, this game should have had a minimum of 100 levels, it would have been a piece of cake (no pun intended) to through a ton of levels in with this. shame on you valve, as it stands, as it was an incredibly fun game it gets my recommendations, but the length i consider it a waste of money.
February 13th, 2008 at 12:13 am
Very nice article. Original ideas. I actually book marked your article.
February 13th, 2008 at 12:46 am
Thank you Bradley
Just checked out your blog http://bradsova.blogspot.com/, very good read!
February 13th, 2008 at 7:50 am
I have to agree with comment 10. Only the last two levels were really challenging. You don’t even get the second portal until halfway through the game. The game doesn’t really pick up and become interesting (in terms of gameplay) until after the false ending. *That* was what I expected the game to be. In the end, Portal was just way too short, and way too easy.
And I wonder if it amounts to a blown chance. As much as I’d like a sequel with longer, more complicated levels, I know the game’s humor and wit probably can’t be reproduced. It would have been better if Portal had been its own game, three or four times longer. I have doubts that a sequel could recapture the atmosphere of Portal. And let’s be honest: it wasn’t just the gameplay that caught our attention. It was a combination of the humor, writing, and gameplay. A sequel may capture one or two of those things, but not all of them.
I hope I’m wrong, of course.
February 14th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
This might be interesting for whoever is still reading this post. http://couplegaming.com/2007/12/24/portal-holiday-greeting-card/
It’s a portal greeting card! Follow the instructions, I find it pretty cool!
February 15th, 2008 at 2:52 am
You should edit your article as per the comments you’ve received. Also, try having more “genuine” ideas and less copy-paste worth blogging.
Oh and I believe *uh huh* is just trying to iterate my message here, however vulgar his methods seem.
February 15th, 2008 at 4:29 am
fuck you
February 15th, 2008 at 8:56 am
Flame on!
February 15th, 2008 at 10:53 am
sorry, I’m new to blogging. Sure thing, I’ll edit my article. As per the idea, as far as I knew it was original. I didn’t read this anywhere else!
February 15th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
I don’t see what everyone is raving about. The guy is right, Portal (even if it wasn’t the very first game to use the idea it is certainly the most well known) is a refreshing experience and good on the developers for, well, developing it.
February 22nd, 2008 at 10:36 pm
You have failed to mention RPGs at all.
February 24th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
thanks for the boring article captain obvious… what’s the next one going to be about. How this new game “Doom” is going to revolutionize the FPS genre. .. You fucking moron get some original ideas instead of re-writing what others have been saying for month twat head
February 24th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
^ Well that was certainly necessary.
February 24th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Deadl0ck: You’re wrong. Look up the game “Prey”, it was the first to utilize portals in this sense. The game first started development in 1998, long before Portal or Narbacular Drop. If you’re going to criticize people for their lack of accurate information, at least make sure your own information is accurate.
February 25th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Valve didnt make portal!!! do your research they just published it.
February 28th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Valve did so develop Portal.
March 2nd, 2008 at 6:39 pm
I disagree with the basis of your article here. What has portal done that is in any way “the future”? All you’ve said here is that portal did something cool with one singular game mechanic and you hope that other games will also do cool things. Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but they do. In recent memory I can think of games such as Super Mario Galaxy, which turned the platform genre upside down (literally!), Black & White which brought the decision of good vs. evil to mainstream gaming, and one in the very near future, Spore.
I think what you mean to say is that you hope for more gimmicky games. I don’t want Portal to be the future of gaming, as that would mean that every game is an exact clone to their predecessors but they all rely on one “unique” factor to make them cool. Sorry, I am hoping for more evolution in gaming than that.
March 29th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Good thread, i like these tips, its looks that i knew just small part.
April 6th, 2008 at 11:46 am
How is everything a clone? You’re basically saying that every game in a genre is nothing more than a clone of whatever game achieved popularity there first — as if none of them advanced or added to things.
The truth is there’s plenty of innovation in gaming. You say “in between there are unique gems”. You’re right. So? Is EVERY GAME supposed to be this grandly unique thing? There’s a reason why so many people bought Halo 3 the day it came out — they really liked the previous game and they wanted more of basically the same thing.
As an industry, video games aren’t doing too poorly. It’s just that the masses keep buying the next platformer, FPS, whatever — so there’s not much need for SOME companies to create something completely new every time.
But at the same time, there are plenty of games that either redefine their genre or take an existing one a step further. Guitar Hero certainly made a splash. Every Final Fantasy game challenges its own series with new changes (sometimes to a fault). The Nintendo Wii has plenty of innovation in hardware design. MMOFPS games are just starting to pop up.
If every other game is a clone then Portal is just an update to the puzzle genre. Puzzle games with some unifying story aren’t new. Sure, they added something that resembles a gun and an FPS view, but it’s not horribly original. They just did it in a way that’s beautifully eccentric. If Portal is the future, though, and other games mimic its style or gameplay, we might get bored of it.
April 8th, 2008 at 1:40 am
wouldn’t it be tight
June 12th, 2008 at 6:48 am
Portal is just a fantastic game and proves without doubt what we have said all along. Simple games are the best. Lets face it with all the gadgets that are out there now what does the biggist selling game involve steal cars, kill people. Lets face portal is sheer joy in computer game form. Bliss
September 27th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Portal Rules!
November 16th, 2008 at 12:36 am
The new Portal on XBLA isn’t worth it if you already played the original tho.