The Pitfalls of Tradition: The Decline of the JRPG
Thu, February 10, 2011 at 10:39 PM The origins of the fledgling medium of interactive gaming lie steeped in tradition. Close ties to technological development have inspired great change in a short span of years, but most games even today are still rooted in a core of rules and concepts formed many years ago.
When you consider that video games are, essentially, highly evolved forms of old-world entertainment, such as card and board games, this is understandable. Modern interactive games might be technologically wondrous, but they’re still based on rules and systems like any other traditional game. As such, it’s easy to understand the temptation to stick with what works and resist change simply for the sake of it.
This traditionalism has, in many ways, served the industry well. Years of honing concepts, evolving ideas, and developing genres has led to a steady trend upward in quality across nearly every facet of game development. It’s this evolution from early ideas, this adherence to what works, that has allowed video games to come so far in such a short time.
It is vital to point out that the key concept here is evolution, not stagnation.