Dishonored Developer Claims Industry Lacks Variety and Creativity

Dishonored and Half-Life 2 developer Viktor Antonov argues that there are far too many established IP’s and sequels running the current video game market.

In an interview with Eurogamer, Antonov expressed his disappointment in the direction the market has gone.

“It’s been a poor, poor five years for fiction in the video game industry,” he said. “There have been far too many sequels, and too many established IP’s that have been ruling the market. And a lot of them are war games. And they’re great projects and great entertainment, but there’s a lack of variety today.”

Antonov went on to propose that this new trend does more than just provide gamers with less of a choice when it comes down to deciding what to play.

“So when you step outside of this established genre, people cannot grasp it, or the press tries to find a match,” he said.

Antonov provided and example to help show what exactly this “matching” does to the community.

“We’re doing a historical piece, a retro-futuristic piece, which has pretty much nothing to do with BioShock except for the fact that it doesn’t take place in the far future, but has references to the past,” he said. “So, lack of variety in what’s in the market leads to associations like this.”

These associations, in turn, create a niche gaming genre, which will potentially spawn dozens of copy cat titles. Historical evidence points to the Call of Duty series. Because of its immense popularity, many FPS’s are compared to it. This created a sub genre in the FPS category that could be called “modern day shooters”.

Antonov’s statement follows a slew of E3 2012 controversy due to the vast array of sequels and re-makes presented.