Gamasutra Expert blogs: From defending Nights to the cost of innovation

In highlights from Gamasutra's Expert Blogs, industry notables write about diverse topics, including a defense for Nights' rerelease, the cost of innovation, music performance rights for games, and more. In our weekly Best of Expert Blogs column, we showcase notable pieces of writing from members of the game development community who maintain Expert Blogs on Gamasutra. Member Blogs -- also highlighted weekly -- can be maintained by any registered Gamasutra user, while the invitation-only Expert Blogs are written by development professionals with a wealth of experience to share. We hope that both sections can provide useful and interesting viewpoints on our industry. For more information about the blogs, check out the latest official posting guidelines. Here are the top blogs for the week: This Week's Standout Expert Blogs In defense of Nights... (Christian Nutt) So, Nights has finally been rereleased on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and we're hearing that it's not all it was cracked up to be 16 years ago. Here's one Gamasutra editor's take. The power of choices (Randy OConnor) It's been suggested that true games give the player rather than the designer power over emotion. But Randy O'Connor argues that that's not true. The cost of innovation (Timo Heinapurola) There has been a lot of talk about a lack of innovation in the gaming industry. Timo Heinapurola thinks it's important to look at the facts of funding large titles, and let innovation happen on a smaller scale to then trickle down to mainstream titles. Some experiments in pathfinding + AI (Tyler Glaiel) Tyler Glaiel has been experimenting with this special AI pathfinding thing for a while now, and finally decided to merge it into a game. It's a very simple type of AI with a lot of emergent behaviors built into it Marching, music and money: Performance rights and video games (Brian Schmidt) Brian Schmidt discusses how, as a game developer or publisher, a better understanding of music performance rights can put more money in everyone's pocket. This is the first in a series on music rights and the game industry.