Creativity Part Two

And so we take a second look at that wonderful word creativity. My last creativity blog just tried to define what it is so its time for a new discussion point. After goin on about what creativity is i started looking at how it gets used and is required within the creative industry, and especially that of video games.

The words creativity and original do not go hand in hand in this day and age. Nearly every game is basically the same, I mean when was the last time you played something that wasnt an FPS or RPG, when was the last time you played something that didnt involve guns and shooting people or futuristic environments? not to say that no one is creative and is just instead stealing each others ideas but you get the point. So where is creativity's place in game if its not about making something original and new?

Well most of the time games are about setting the bar, with the same ideas as their predecessors being used but looked at in different perspectives and used in different ways to up that bar. Better storytelling, better graphics etc etc, a story isnt original but creating one that can better the previous requires creativity, and that where it can come in for the games industry. That and games can sometime act as inspiration for bigger and better ideas, adding new storylines and characters, weaving in new plots, this is someone using creativity and finding imaginative ways to add to and already exsisting idea in order to improve on it. Once again, creativity in the games industry involves setting the bar.

So to get involved with the creative industry what do you need to do? Well i remember Mike once said about how many a people will model ninja soldiers or whatever with the aspiration of being the next Tekken artist and so on, and send them to companies. Like the majority of them they will be put in the 'filing cabinet' AKA the bin, but someone who models their pet dog will probably get person sitting down and looking at it.

This is beacuse when it comes to creativity what companies and game are looking for isnt originality because originality is a spin off of predecessing ideas, but more the uncommon and imaginative. Imagination is whats needed to fuel games, afterall ever game out there is someones brain child right? In terms of what ive said theres loads of games with ninjas and all that in them but things like dogs and cats arent really used in games (except for NPC's and Nintendogs for the DS) so to model something like that doesnt show you abilities to model a good looking but generic ninja warrior but your imagination to go for whats uncommon and can be seen as creative and original, and i think this what kind of creativeness the games industry is after.