I was reading the usual complaints about lack of innovation in MMORPG games, where most are essentially clones of the EQ formula. I couldn’t help but rant a bit.

Do not make the mistake of underestimating the general public’s lack of desire for innovation. If the game is TRULY interesting to players, even with very poor marketing it WILL become successful. It will take longer, it will still only sell half as much as it could have, but it WILL. Recent examples are Katamari Damacy or the European re-release of ICO.

The fact is, most _players_ don’t care about innovation. I am loving every minute of Quake 4 even though it is nearly identical to its predecessor in gameplay terms. To them (us?), innovation in healthy doses is simply a good addition to the appeal of the game, but the game needs to be good, fun and interesting in and of itself. Oh, and too much innovation will hurt, because they won’t be able to understand WTF is the game about, and will be reluctant to pay to find out. Additionally, more innovation usually means the developer has to find out what works and what doesn’t all while developing the game, and the game’s quality usually suffers. This is why so many sequels are in fact much better, more fun and polished than the original.

In MMORPGs, the players themselves are even less interested in innovation, because while you play a game for months or years, the value of innovation is only significant during the first week or two. Along the same lines, companies can’t afford to steer too much off the known path because losses in an MMORPG can amount to 10x as much as in a single-player game.