It doesn't take too much thought to rattle off a bunch of upcoming GTA clones. 50 Cent: Bulletproof. Scarface. True Crime 2. Marc Ecko (though that one might actually be cool). Saint's Row. The Incredible Hulk. Companies have obviously picked up on the fact that something about Grand Theft Auto sells, and have been selling their creative souls trying to mimic the success of that franchise. Yet each redundant hash of the "Sandbox genre" has failed to approach the millions of sales (though some have admittedly sold well) that GTA III, Vice City, and San Andreas achieved. <
>Why? <
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>Because they aren't understanding what made GTA III a compelling game to begin with. <
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>Depravity Doesn't Sell. Sleeping with hookers and killing them, or beating down grannies with a baseball bat wasn't what made GTA a great game, yet some companies have latched on to that angle of moral depravity. "Bad guys sell," think the Armani-donning big whigs, causing the spawn of a whole slew of trite anti-hero protagonists. Manhunt? Disappointing. Nick Kang? Dull, but the Activision did make cash with True Crime selling, 603,000 units in November 2002--yet still falling far short of GTA sales. If depravity was the cornerstone of success, The Guy Game should have been the best-selling game of 2004--but its Girls-Gone-Wild antics got old before the game even hit the shelves. <
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>Sandbox Doesn't Sell, GTA Clones Do. Probably the greatest misconception, developers have been all leaping onto the bandwagon and bludgeoning the long-dead horse known as "Sandbox gameplay." The reason why people are buying up GTA doppelgangers is not because it's Sandbox, but simply because they are obvious GTA clones. Sandbox doesn't have to mean driving a car, then getting out to shoot people--yet the word has been so greatly simplified that when people hear it they expect another GTA. Aren't some RPGs to a degree Sandboxes, a world to explore, travel and battle? <
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>Sandboxes don't necessarily sell, but GTA clones do--and there seems to be a false sense of equivalence attached to the two words. Driv3r. The Getaway: Black Monday. And even Jak 3--it's almost obligatory these days to have GTA elements under the guise of "Sandbox." It's similar to how developers feel obligated to have "physics" in games ...which in 99% of games, just means barrels that roll. (Unfortunately, this sense of obligation for ragdolls and physics is partially due to game media fawning over such trivialities ...no rolling toilet paper in bathrooms in Doom 3? Unacceptable!) <
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>GTA-clones have always been missing something that makes them fall short, both in sales and gameplay. Have any of them games seen the runaway success of GTA, or surpassed it? Indeed a lot of those games have been very successful--The Getaway sold 200,000 in its debut week in the UK, and was one of the best selling games of 2003. But no company has enjoyed success to the degree that Rockstar has enjoyed with its lucrative franchise. <
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>Far-reaching Consequences<
>What makes GTA III/VC/SA so special? It isn't the depravity, and Sandbox is only a small part. The reason is what I call the "multiple tiers of interactivity" (TM). What I mean by that is in GTA, your actions have multiple levels of consequences that make the world feel real--more real than any of the contrived clones. <
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>Take a normally
ainless action in games: shooting pedestrians. In most games you kill an innocent bystander, the game recognizes it by a penalty, points, or death, and that's it. The superficial consequence means users aren't compelled to keep killing civilians, because it gets old quick. <
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>Killing civilians is far more entertaining in GTA, not because of the depravity, but because of the multi-layered consequences. <
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>1) Kill civilian.<
>2) Surrounding people scream in terror.<
>3) Ambulance comes and scraps the corpse from the ground. <
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>Because the game deeply fleshes out the consequences of killing a pedastrian, it entices gamers to keep going farther until they hit the end of that interactivity. <
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>Let's look at another example: cop killing. Killing cops is nothing knew in games, or even in GTA for that matter (GTA 1 and 2 both had it)--but killing cops is fun because of the far-reaching impact is has in gameplay--again, not the depravity. <
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>1) Run over a pedestrian in your car.<
>2) Get a police star, cops start chasing after you.<
>3) Cops set up road blocks, road spikes.<
>4) FBI start rolling in Lincoln--er, Washingtons with M16s in hand.<
>5) Police Helicopters rush in, sniping at you with a rifle.<
>6) National guards surround you with truckloads of troops and tanks. <
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>By contrast, killing cops in Mafia (released about the same time as GTA III, with similar "Sandbox" elements) is far less eventful. <
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>1) Go over the speed limit, fail to stop at a red light (annoying!)<
>2) Police chase after you.<
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>In Mafia, you either hide or keep killing cops, and the tiers of interactivity end there. Hence cop-killing is boring in Mafia, whereas in GTA III that is one of the main sources of entertainment. <
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>GTA-clones these days have consistently failed to pick up on the depth of interactivity that Grand Theft Auto offered. Killing cops in True Crime just isn't the same as in GTA for that reason. Both are morally reprehensible, both are "Sandboxes." But GTA takes interactivity to the next level--and that is why GTA III was such a ground
eaking game. <
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>Nothing Has Changed<
>It's the little things past the core mechanics that make a game great. In Raiden it's the little pieces from the exploding ships than spray out and hit the ground. In Fallout it's non-essential side quests and titles you receive (don't get too intimate with those cows). Despite the constant changes in trends of the latest, hottest genres, what makes a game compelling has remained the same. Developers can churn out their clones all they want, but in the end it's about
inging that extra step of immersion to gamers.<
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>-GP- <i></i>