There’s a reason Coca-Cola has kept it a secret your formula during all these years, and despite their efforts, nothing has prevented hundreds of brands from emerging around the globe trying to offer a similar product.
With the formula for create the perfect game practically the same thing has happened, but the difference within this industry is that the great secret already occupies tutorials, conferences, books and thousands of GB of documentation throughout the internet. And with it, the video game industry has become a Turkish soap opera factory.
The formula for success
Of all the fashions in the world of entertainment today, one of the ones that fascinates me the most is that of turkish soap operas. Not even in my most surreal dreams would I have imagined that a series -many!- from the Middle East could end up reaping the best audience data on Spanish television.
Even my parents, who have always rejected the Latin American telenovela format -although for some reason one of my first memories is singing the “you are my life“Crystal, something is wrong there- they have ended up hooked on not one, but several similar series.
But where do so many come from? turkish soap operas? What is its success due to? And above all, why do they all look the same? Because as in Coca-Cola or the video game world, when something is successful, the rest soon try copy the formula.
In the first place, they are projects with large budgets that are far from the daily format to which television in our country was accustomed. Unlike Cristal, without going any further, they are weekly broadcast series that in Turkey they are broadcast in prime time and feature some of the best actors in the country.
Beyond that, they all continue the same formula in which tragedy and love prevail, outdoor recordings, non-verbal language, close-ups that are recreated in silences and reflections, suggesting more than showing to avoid censorship, tunes with the typical music of the country…
The actors change and the stories change, but the pillars of how they should be done are established and shared between all the series so that aiming for success and achieving it is as easy as possible. There are no creative risks or formats that go beyond the marked dotted line, and that is why it is easy to find comments that ensure that all turkish soap operas are the same.
The games like Turkish soap operas
I’m not a fan or follower of Turkish series -although I admit I enjoy a bit besieging my mother-in-law with questions every time we go to her house and she happens to be watching one- so criticism of how that formula is repeated ad nauseam from one to the other they do not affect me particularly.
The “lately all games are the same“That we read and listen more and more hard does hurt me a little more. That original ideas continue to emerge from the hand of independent developments continues to save the ballot, but even there all that glitters is not gold and also affects, even if it is of glancing, the same sentence.
The formulas that turn genres into fashions, that repeat the same types of enemies, the same icons in an open world or identical monetization and retention strategies. With all creative talent that is spread around the world, Blizzard Bet on a Warcraft Clash Royale and swap Overwatch 2 loot boxes for a battle pass.
There is no room for innovation because, on the one hand, we have already lived through all these experiments and after decades following different paths, the industry has settled on what is now considered standard, and on the other hand, they are developments with such a huge budget that taking risks is not in anyone’s plans.
Los games that are excel sheets in which it is marked what it must have to aim for success, from Anthem to Marvel’s Avengers, they are still not a guarantee of success, but it is the closest formula to Coca-Cola that, those who are not or have said secret, can reach .
Think of the formula Telltale Gamesin that of Quantic Dream, or in all the years that have passed until the arrival of an Elden Ring whose open world is not a copy of GTA or Breath of the Wild. Remember all the games that, devoured thinking there was no better formula, have passed before our eyes like a marathon of Turkish novels under the watchful eye of my parents.
The bitter face of the democratization of development
And with that same idea but another path we come to independent development and what, unfortunately, is also repeated there. Gaia free me from demonizing the democratization of the development world, we already know how easy it is to fall into the classism of Plato’s aristocracy despite having good intentions, but talking about how democracy is the least bad of the government formulas also implies recognizing that, despite all its benefits, not always perfect.
That the world of development today has that collection of tutorials, graphic engines, conferences, essays, design books and thousands of GB of documentation throughout the internet, will always be considered an achievement of our industry for those of us who advocate for a freer and more transparent sector. But none of this can cover that, despite all its benefits, not a perfect formula.
Having tools with which to face a technical, artistic or design block means that those who could end up stuck and abandon the path have a thread to pull from, but also that they will all end up reaching the same destination by replicating aesthetics, mechanics and, of course, what not, also errors.
Other physics, other mechanics, another sword blow and another parry that are not the copy of the copy of another pixelated Souls with protagonists corrupted by the darkness of an ancient evil. Another way to reach the player and make him feel that what he has before him is something never seen.
Because before another Soulsborne roguelike there can always be an Inscryption, despite the success of a Guitar Hero there is always room to praise a Rhythm Paradise, and although everyone wants their own open world full of icons, players will continue to appreciate the value of a Sea of Thieves.
There is a part of the industry that is still far from wanting to be a Turkish soap opera factory. Let’s support it and elevate it with all our strength and enthusiasm because, if we let the usual win, we will miss her very much.
