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1. The Greatest Innovations of the Decade
   

   Player Chronicle -- Posted on Dec 16 2009

   Dead Pixels
   12-16-09
   By Ryan M. Eft
   
   With an assist from John Bisignano
   
   Games themselves are only part of the equation of what made the gaming boom this past decade. A lot of the best games released would not have been that remarkable if it weren’t for the innovations they either pioneered or built upon. Within the past ten years, some bits of gaming we thought would live forever have either gone by the wayside or been irrevocably altered by the passing of time and the advancement of new tech. At the same time, things have been brought into the fold that we wouldn’t have imagined before. Which of these were gimmicks and which will last?
   
   The first thing we can universally agree on is that any change to accepted formulas will always be controversial. There are still people who despise the idea of open-world gaming. However, the innovations I’ve selected here are the ones I think have contributed to gaming in ways none but the most entrenched of grouches can deny.
   
   Online
   No, online play wasn’t created during this decade. But that was when it came into its own. In 2000, the custom was still to try and gather your friends together in one room to enjoy multiplayer. Gamers were getting older, and when you’ve got to worry about a job or kids or whatnot, that just becomes impossible. Perhaps that spurred the evolution and spread of online gaming, which finally became accessible to everyone. MMOs like Everquest and World of Warcraft completely obliterated the old standards and made sure online gaming was here to stay.
   
   User-Created Content
   Sure, Little Big Planet brought the prevalence of building your own games to the forefront. But it had been building under the surface for a while. For a while, these sorts of activities were limited to computer geeks who were way smarter than the rest of us. Recently, though, games like LBP and the spreading of map creators and other easily accessible mod tools have ensured this will be one of the defining characteristics of gaming from here on out.
   
   DLC
   Sure, some companies use DLC to artificially make money off content that should have been included in a game’s basic package. But thankfully the good of downloading outweighs the bad. It means that some games are never really over, and more importantly it opens doors to smaller games that would never succeed on retail shelves. It can even help us reconnect with gaming’s past. From Steam to Xbox Live, downloading has gone from a fringe activity to an essential part of gaming.
   
   Voice-Acting
   Thanks to games like Final Fantasy X and Metal Gear Solid 2, voice-acting went from a luxury in games to a necessity. Many of the decade’s most powerful stories wouldn’t have had nearly the impact they did without it.
   
   Open-World Gaming
   You can love or hate the Grand Theft Auto series, but it has had more impact on modern gaming than any other series this decade. Even games like The Legend of Zelda, which pioneered non-linearity in gaming’s formative days, always ended up at one destination, leading you along a complicated-but-visible path. The advent of true open-world games blew a hole in that, and their domination continues now and likely forever.
   
   Music Games
   Yeah, I know. They’re overplayed and overproduced. But really, that has more to do with the companies making them than with the games themselves. They’ve had the impact of making games a go-to medium, as record companies rely on them to stay afloat. They’ve also resulted in a huge spread of party gaming. You decide whether that’s a good thing.
   
   Motion-Controls
   Right now you’re thinking “But the Wii didn’t even come close to realizing its revolutionary potential”. You may be right. But I’m thinking of the future. What Nintendo played around with, other companies are taking and running with. Could this be the true start of virtual reality? We’ll have to wait and see, but it isn’t outside the realm of imagination.
   
   Story-Telling
   Not every innovation consists of new technology. The ability of games to tell a story jumped ahead by leaps and bounds. Emotionally involving tales had been spun in the world of RPGs for a while, but only this decade did it become dominant. Final Fantasy X, Bioshock, Braid and others introduced new levels of storytelling depth to gaming, a trend that will likely continue for some time.
   
   Realism
   And I’m not referring to blood and guns. Until relatively recently, a real setting portrayed in a game was exceedingly rare, and those settings were never exactly true-to-life when they did show up. The Grand Theft Auto series pioneered the idea of realistic locations, then games like Assassin’s Creed took it a step further. Rockstar’s Red Dead redemption is slated to continue the trend in 2010.
   
   Accessibility
   Those who consider themselves “hardcore” can whine about this one all they want, but the facts are undeniable: gaming becoming available and understandable to the masses may prove to be the most important thing that has ever happened to the medium. Where it will take us has yet to be seen, but we’re going to have to go along for the ride. However, this very accessibility had helped make gaming in general less an object of fear and derision and more a common recreational activity. I can’t help but see that as a good thing.

   
   

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