Is it true? Slenderman games = lack of originality?

[ShadowShifters]

Isn't that like saying Tim Burton, Joel Schumaker and Chris Nolan have no creativity, 'cos they all directed Batman movies? Should us SM devs all stop trying to make a better mousetrap?

[ShadowShifters]

Slenderman - springing fully-physically formed from the 'something awful' character creation competition back in 2009... with fanfic, Youtube vids and games contributing to the creative process ever since to build the mythos. Batman fans love the Batman franchise, Spiderman fans love Spidey stuff, Slenderman fans love Slendystuff... same deal? Major difference being, Slenderman isn't owned by a giant corporation... he's a public creation kept alive and built by fanpower - a monster made stronger by everyone who contributes. Every new SM piece published weaves another thread into the tapestry; some flawed, some furthering the development in a meaningful way. Where do you feel creativity plays its role in all this?

[ShadowShifters]

I was at one not too distant point, intrigued by the potential for richer development of the character known as (wait for groan) Slenderman - not as a creatively-challenged hack, but as a veteran Creative Director far too old for this kind of thing.

It seemed to me that here was a creature created by millions of tiny pieces of public contribution, not the usual tightly-prescribed corporate-owned creature of Hollywood or DC Comics that we see franchised to all, and yet untouchable by those not licensed to write the next script in the series.

Thousands of creatively minded citizens (albeit at varying levels of skill) have woven a mythos one story, DA image or Youtube clip at a time - this was relatively rare occurrence in fiction history. This was not Harry Potter fanfic - this was fanfic built around a character that arrived on the scene as nothing more than a Photoshopped snapshot, like a baby abandoned on the doorstep with no backstory.

But look at what happened when this previously-happy throng of contributors spawned a game or two on the same theme - the first game released, 'Slenderman', was muffled by its own obscurity; however, some time later we find 'Slender' - and we only find it, probably, through Pewdie-pie-related virality - and that must be enough - surely this example is perfectly-formed? Nothing more can or should be done to further this genre? Henry Ford once made a Model T, surely this is the epitome of automobile design and nothing further need be attempted?

So when my own humble, but earnest and I-thought-carefully-thought-through attempt was submitted to Steam's Greenlight, I was certainly more than a little surprised to see a full 33% of the first 600 comments to be scathing attacks along the lines of 'not another clone - kill it before it breeds'. I was indeed, in my naivety, unprepared for the backlash. Were they right? Where does creativity play its role in all this? I had written what I had thought was missing: story.

I welcome your feedback as an IQ-based antidote to the responses of the broader gaming community thus far - informed, intelligent dissent is welcomed.

[xaqfox]

Disclaimer: I don't know which one was yours and I gave up looking at them after the third or fouth.

I think a lot of the people may have been discouraged after having seen several other Slender games before making it to yours on the randomly sorted Greenlight list. The issue I see and why your other "fan-favorite" examples fall kind of flat is that those different directors all added something new to the story and while yours may very well have, too, most I saw seemed to do nothing but, keeping with your movie examples, change the actors and keep the script the same.

Also, I was a little disappointed to find out that the first one I looked at was not made by the creator of the Slender viral success who I was hoping to reward by supporting a more fleshed out version. After that, it just felt like everyone else was trying to capitalize on his marketing success (luck? who's to say; there are people paid lots of money in attempts to create viral success).

If you had gameplay differences (or a story, which most seemed to lack) perhaps you could have marketed them better by stressing those differences, but I fully understand that it would have been hard to guess that there would be so many other Slenderman Greenlight submissions. If you did those things and I missed it I'm truly sorry that I may potentially be missing out on a great game forever, but maybe those commentors missed it too and were just taking out their frustrations on the last one they saw or possibly on all.

My best recommendation, for what it's worth (and easy to say while drawing a steady salary), would be to wait for the waves of new Greenlight submissions to die down and retry with everything Slenderman downplayed (maybe not even mentioned) to allow the uniqueness to shine, hopefully, before being dismissed as a "clone" by the detractors.

In any regard, I wish you good luck.

[ShadowShifters]

@xaqfox - Thank you for your thoughts, very illuminating, I certainly never saw the haters coming and yes, had my head down working on the game without referring to the other activity going on out there! However, now happy in the fullness of the time that has passed to see that there are those who are for and those who are against, and always will be - the ratio of those looking forward to the game's release is now many more than in the first days after I submitted it here, so in fact the support feels like it's growing. I am putting that down to the haters being more likely to jump on a news item and less likely to keep following something they don't like, while the fans - who ironically may be less aware of new stuff - spread the good word...