Consoles aren't "opened enough for the players to express their creativity," says ShootMania dev

Nadeo Live's Anne Blondel-Jouin has told Eurogamer the reason there aren't many progressive first-person shooters on the market, is because shooters are no longer about competition.

According to the TrackMania and ShootMania developer, current-generation shooters are "competing against movies," with their graphic quality by focusing on entertainment instead of skills.

"This isn't going to be nice for console makers, but it's because consoles are giving so many opportunities to tell stories, and to be triple-A, monster games, that you had to have a lot of stuff to beat the competition all the time," said Blondel-Jouin.

"So, it was not about skills any more. I'm not saying that you're not skilled when you're playing such games, but it was more that they were competing against movies, so they had to put up all of the nice stuff, all of the production values, and it kept growing and growing and growing. And the consoles were enabling that.

"People kind of forgot a little bit about what FPS was all about at the beginning. I wouldn't say it's because of them [consoles], but it's one explanation, that the consoles were competing against movies and other forms of entertainment - that they had to entertain people rather than go back to the pure skills of playing."

Blondel-Jouin said ShootMania wants to refine what titles such as Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament started, and the studio feels it's the right time to bring games similar to these back to market.

"We are in a transition year, as you know, so we're all waiting for next consoles to get out," Blondel-Jouin said. "We don't know when they will be out, but we know they're coming. There's a tendency in the games industry when they know that's happening that people are returning, massively, to PC games.

"We also looked at what was on the market, in terms of a pure skilled FPS, and I have to say that they used to have a lot of them, but they are quite old right now, and people are looking for some freshness. It's about being in the right place at the right time, and we are lucky enough to be there.

"So far we feel we cannot go on consoles, because we feel that they're not opened enough for the players to express their creativity, or the game the way we want it to be enjoyed.

"But if the next ones are more open, maybe - we don't know."

Shootmania Storm, an online FPS, will allow players to create, edit and share maps. The PC exclusive is expected to launch later this year.