Innovation is Overrated

I'm a game developer, and I used to frequent several game forums that I had read before I entered the game industry. One of the common topics in game forums has to do with innovation in games. Both bemoaning the lack of innovation in major games and celebrating small indie games that innovate SOMETHING for God's sake!

Personally I don't think game mechanic innovation is usually all that necessary. Give me a well-executed polished, by the numbers, game almost any time. The core design still needs to be solid, and if innovations have been made that your game has completely ignored, I might take issue. But overall give me Halo2 before Indigo Prophecy any day. I'd rather see a game that executes fully on all of its goals and manages to create a fun experience than see something that I haven't seen before but is done poorly.

This isn't a topic reserved for game enthusiasts, game professionals also fall into the innovate or die trap. It happens all the time where there are a ton of "shoot for the sky" feature requests, and not enough attention is being paid to the core gameplay.

This is not to say that innovation is bad, I think innovation can be fantastic, especially when well executed. I just think it's overrated. I'd much rather see execution than innovation.