Innovation is Highly Overrated in Game Design

This is a three-year-old screencast from my course "Learning Game Design, Part 1"

[I've since addressed this again in "The Futility of Striving for a Great Innovation" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=902jtgyYtwI
Sooner or later I'll finish one about Surprise in Games, because it's really surprise that players want, not innovation.]

Here is the text of the slides, though there is more in the presentation, of course:

How often is “innovation” fun?
The “cult of the new” is very strong in this century
But how does innovation contribute to enjoyment in a game?  Mainly by “surprise”
Yet something that’s not innovative to an “expert”, is to a novice

Most people play games to enjoy them, and innovation isn’t important to that
Think of all the video game sequels that sell so very well
Recent check of “most anticipated” game list in PC Gamer showed 12 out of 13 were sequels
One man’s innovation is another’s ho hum/old hat
Stratego example

Tim Sweeney (Epic Games founder) in Gamasutra Interview 2009:
“That's kind of a common pattern in everything I do. One minute I'm completely on my own and I think, "Wow, I'm a genius, I can't believe this idea nobody else had!" And then you look at the references on it, and it turns out that a hundred other people have done the same things in the 1980s. And then you look, and you get your additional ideas from those. Between invention and stealing, you come up with a really good combination of ideas.”

Combinations and Models
Good combinations may not be purely innovative, but are often brand new even though each element is not
Further, many games are models of some reality.  Then a good model is what makes a game good, not innovative mechanics or other elements
Make good combinations, make good models

Learning Game Design, Part I: https://www.udemy.com/draft/786564/?couponCode=1LGD39