10-20-2009, 12:07 PM
I was also thinking that when it comes to popular music, art usually isn't the point - entertainment is. That is, the musician isn't trying to do something new and exciting in the field of his art, he's trying to entertain his audience. For a lot of music, this means you can dance to it or sing to it. Familiarity is actually an important part of it. Groups that are known for being very good on a technical level rarely make top 10 hits because that's not what audiences are looking for.
You could possibly apply this to current MMO design as well. The people love WOW, so game companies keep trying to give them more WOW. I, however, feel like MMO PvP is the dawn of rock and roll and I'm having a hard time convincing anyone that, no, the kids will love this stuff, and the first one to produce it and get it out there is going to be big. Huge. Bigger than Elvis! It's not the technical expertise of the thing that starts a new trend -- rock and roll didn't become popular because it was "artsy". It was just a new flavor, and it turned out people liked it even better than the previous flavor.
You could possibly apply this to current MMO design as well. The people love WOW, so game companies keep trying to give them more WOW. I, however, feel like MMO PvP is the dawn of rock and roll and I'm having a hard time convincing anyone that, no, the kids will love this stuff, and the first one to produce it and get it out there is going to be big. Huge. Bigger than Elvis! It's not the technical expertise of the thing that starts a new trend -- rock and roll didn't become popular because it was "artsy". It was just a new flavor, and it turned out people liked it even better than the previous flavor.