It's easy to assume videogames are made by overworked, underpaid, pasty geeks who subsist on pizza and soda and are ridden hard by publishers eager to capitalize on market trends and consumer ignorance by releasing the same game over and over again. Actually, most of that is true. With the industry expanding and game budgets on the way to rivaling Hollywood movies, publishers are intent on playing it safe, which explains the glut of me-too shooting games on the Xbox 360 -- if you can't beat 'em, copy 'em. This got us thinking: What if there was a step-by-step guide to crafting a stellar shooter, or at least a shooter that blatantly rips off stellar shooters?
After kissing Cliff Bleszinski's ass and breaking into Infinity Ward using night vision goggles, we've compiled the strategies behind building grim-dark war games for an audience of armchair commandos.
Sure, a whole lot of work goes into developing a game, but coming up with a kick-ass name is arguably one of the most important parts. Equally important: making sure the word "of" is between two nouns. That could make all the difference between selling a million copies and being relegated to the bargain bin.
Another vital step is designing the perfect box art. They say that those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. With war games, repeating the past is necessary, and not just because many war games are retelling WORLD WAR II for the umpteenth time; D-Day is to shooters as Hoth is to Star Wars.
A quick look at the Xbox 360 software library yields some interesting information. Based on statistics made up on the spot for this study, a whopping 75% of Xbox 360 retail releases feature a man holding a gun on the cover. 80% of the time, he's a member of the military. And, perhaps most importantly, those games make a profit 100% of the time.
If you're making a shooter (and 75% of Xbox 360 developers are), remember these key rules to creating box art that we found on an encrypted email intercepted from Treyarch, keepers of the Call of Duty franchise when Infinity Ward is on vacation.
There is more to designing a shooter than kick-ass box art, a killer, if misleading ad campaign (more on that later), and succinct title. Gameplay might not rank as important as graphics in today's visuals-obsessed market, but like nipples on a man it still has to be there. The trifecta of characters, enemies, and levels are the crux of most games, and shooting games are no different.
Characters should embody time-honored archetypes. The protagonist should be the unwilling hero, swept into events bigger than himself and forced to fight for the greater good to save everything. His partners can run the gamut -- one could be a grizzled veteran who lives on the battlefield, another the smarmy cynic always cracking jokes, and of course a leader who holds rules and regulations above all else. ProTip: The leader should be the one you kill off at the end of the first level.
When choosing enemies, developers have free reign and can really flex their creative muscle. With a variety of bad guys to choose from, it's often tough to pick just one. In that case, feel free to combine two distinct enemy types. "Nazi zombies" has already been done, so consider spicing things up. Gamers love shooting terrorists, and aliens are still a hot commodity, so make the antagonists part of a Martian terror cell intent on destroying the planet because of ideological differences: Martians despise the electoral college more than humans do.
And lastly, there's picking the levels your bullet drama plays out in. War-torn villages and shantytowns are nice, but put them on the moon and you're golden. If you're covering World War II (again), be sure to include the invasion of Normandy on D-Day since according to gaming that was the most important part of the entire war. If your game tackles real-world political issues in geographical hotspots, play that up as much as possible. Favelas are basically shit-holes where the poor eke out a miserable existence, but in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 they are awesome places to shoot terrorists and "accidentally" put civilians out of their misery. Afghanistan is tragically proving increasingly dangerous for real-life U.S. troops, but its mountainous terrain is a great place for campers to get a kill streak going.
So, you've finished your dream shooter... or just a shooter modeled after another company's dream shooter that was picked up to fill a gap in a publisher's portfolio. Now, you have to let people know about it.
To ensure maximum consumer penetration, millions of dollars should be dropped on TV spots featuring zero gameplay footage, magazine ads with months-old, out-of-context quotes taken from the same magazines they are featured in, and a series of live-action viral videos. If the game has a modern, realistic bent, consider using beat-boxing terrorists in caves rapping about destroying America ("We da Mujahideen/we come clean/Praisin' Allah with our AKs in ya grill/we's ballahs").
Another good idea is a contest. If your game is called "Twilight of Liberty," the suits in marketing could challenge contestants to send in photos of themselves LARPing in a post-apocalyptic, martial law-run America. The winner would need to be very convincing: building a replica Vault-Tec fallout shelter in your backyard is good, but stocking it with food stolen from convenience stores with illegal weapons you purchased at a gun show is better.
The game just hit shelves. Reviews are pouring in. Super Hardcore Gamer Quarterly called it "A masterpiece of game design... best shooter ever!" Popular website EGN.com declared it the "Game of the Forever." You just received an interview request by a mainstream media outlet that typically refuses to cover anything gaming-related because they are a legitimate news source and don't like to lower themselves to reporting on videogames. Fanboys on various videogame message boards are engaging in vicious flame wars defending or attacking your game even though none of them have actually played it. Analysts are predicting huge sales figures. Your company has already started planning the sequel, which will actually be a prequel.
Time to do it all over again... again.