The 6 Most Ominous Trends in Video Games
polycounter lvl 17
http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-6-most-ominous-trends-in-video-games/
This is a good read, makes you stop and think for a moment where are we headed in this indrusty.
This is a good read, makes you stop and think for a moment where are we headed in this indrusty.
Replies
Awkward.
1) yell, scream and write scathing articles about how everything popular sucks.
2) get over yourself, seek out the games you do like and support them.
But people are too insecure to have different opinions.
We can't stand it when a game is made for someone who isn't us.
We can't accept that the 'mainstream' could possibly be different from us.
We don't have the time to enjoy ourselves when the world still hasn't been told that other peoples' opinions suck!
Hey guys, hey hey hey, that popular thing over there? Total shit. It's ruining everything ever.
Far be it from journalists to devote any time whatsoever to covering games they do like; seeking out experiences that aren't mainstream and writing positive things about them.
No one would care, because everyone knows you get attention by being edgy, snarky, and negative.
Guns help too.
I can see how some can be fine with it, but I do miss the times where I could pick wildly different games in a row over a span of a few years. Remember when your collection was gradually growing with titles like Megaman X, Starfox, Doom2, the first Mario Kart ? (nostalgia aside)
For some reason I am convinced that the equivalent of such quality titles would still sell. Not in a crazy profitable CoD way - but with a development cycle short enough it should totally work. Portal, again, is the best example...
Sigh
http://www.somethingawful.com/d/video-game-article/e3-microsoft-rails.php
I may sound old and out of touch, but I don't like the fact that modern gaming is now epitomized by super-realistic, military murdering simulators. I've no problem with such games existing - I've clocked a fair few hours in Modern Warfare - I just preferred videogames when they were represented by fun,memorable characters in much more imaginitive settings featuring varied, inventive game design. The unquestioning charge towards realism has meant that we've lost a lot of the things that made video games great.
I'm with you Pior - I look back on previous eras with genuine fondness and it's not just nostalgia. There really was a much greater range of games to enjoy a couple of hardware generations ago. I really hope that the idea of 'mid-budget' games can flourish and bring back some of those important elements that seem to have fallen by the wayside in recent years.
when people spout off about how uninteresting games are they are experiencing what statisticians call sampling error: look only at the big flashy retreads and of course games seem like big flashy retreads, only. this article is coming on the heels of E3, where the biggest companies are outmuscling each other with millions of dollars to sell the next big thing, which is last big thing. of course it all looks depressingly samey.
in fact we live in an embarrassingly great time for gaming. i never get enough time to play a tenth of what i'd like. emulators and digital marketplaces curate old games, both from PC and consoles that i missed playing or want to play again, for pennies on the dollar. i'm playing crazy, not-easily-nailed-to-genre games from the eastern bloc, free to play multiplayer asian games if i so care to. steam organizes, automatically downloads, installs, and patches my games on the pc. i can reach back into time or play games that in the "golden age" of pc gaming never would have made it to my computer. indie gaming is giving me weird, experimental, colorful games far more exotic and strange than anything from 15 years ago.
if you are tired of the same games, stop buying the same games. it's like complaining that there's nothing good on a tv without changing the channel.
This guy criticizes shooters for creative bankrupcy while praising a jRPG, probably the strongest contender to the FPS genre in terms of recycled repetitive gameplay. This is because he doesn't want creativity, he wants more of the same shit that he already likes, just like everybody else.
In the late 90s a friend sat me down and made me try to play Zelda: Link to the Past. I got 2 hours in and stopped playing forever, later on giving Pokemon and Smash Bros a chance and being bored by them. I remember being really disappointed in the fact that Nintendo just churned out endless sequels to games I didn't enjoy. But instead of crying about it I went out and bought Deus Ex and Morrowind, I played them and loved them. At the same time people were forecasting the end of single player games because of the incredible success of multiplayer only games like EverQuest, Q3A, and Unreal Tournament.
A decade later people are still forecasting the end of single player games which has still yet to arrive only this time its supposed downfall is going to be social gaming, Nintendo is still churning out things I have absolutely no intention of playing, multiplayer only games still exist but have far from taken over the industry as was predicted, and I'm waiting in anticipation for Skyrim and Human Revolution, single player only games. The industry is still making games I enjoy and I really see no future in which that is going to stop. The only difference is that now the gaming industry has grown to include more people and a much wider variety of games which means there's a lot more of the things in it that I don't like.
And you know what? That's fine. Because I don't have to buy them.
This idea that linear level design, motion sensing tech, or whatever your particular pet peeve is are ruining the gaming industry is a lot like saying gays are ruining marriage. It's doomcrying over the existence of things you don't like. In reality it doesn't mean shit. So long as there is a market for the games you know and love, people will keep making them.
I'm way ahead of you man. I bought Magicka. It was so different, so fun, and so hilarious! Trine was another goodie that I was pleased to find. One type of game I've been itching for is a good space combat and exploration RPG.
This! I couldn't agree more.
The article focuses on the obvious big guys on the game-industry but fails to mention all the indie goodness that is just exploding with creativity! Don't like the same old shit? Expand your horizons!
Limbo, Super Meat Boy, Overgrowth, Amnesia, etc... All great games with seriously awesome design directions! The AAA industry should try and tap into some of that creativity of the indie scene.
It's a shame to see that nowadays games are pretty much boiled down to... this! At least the so called "AAA" titles, but there's a lot more to choose from out there, you just need to know where to look, we can't let ourselves be blinded by the media and what the marketing trow at us.
really annoying how they make everything so blatantly money orientated these days, theres no love loss and everyones waiting to jump on others successes. Creativity is so hard to find and all these sequels really are killing the industry in my mind. By the third or fourth installment I really am not too bothered anymore unless they change it up greatly or are seriously going to end the saga. How come I was more excited over Insomniacs new IP 'Overstrike' than I was by any of the big 3s major announcements or sequel announcements. But then again I guess Im not really their target audience.
Yep, pretty much agreed with all you said there.
Bitter gamers have been playing the "I don't like where stuff is headed" card since the dawn of gaming, it's getting old.
I'd say we're in some fucking fantastic time of gaming, it has never been as broadly accepted and as creative as it is now, the commercial games market is bursting with games, the indie games market (that didn't even exist some time ago) is thriving!
Who cares if there are games out there that people enjoy a lot but you don't, there's always other games for you too!
The mobile market seems to have pockets of genuine creativity happening, its made games development affordable to take a few risks and reap the benefits, only problem is that each game only brings in a very very meager profit when compared with a beast like COD. Hopefully we will see some innovation birthed in these cool little games that will be grown into some full sized games someday.
Wasn't enemy territories a world war 2 shooter, and wasn't the quake series at first a brown mindless shooter, later a scifi military shooter in brown environments.
All those parts of a genre that have earlier been accused of being stale and just repeats, just like this article says now.
I think what is deeply worrying is that the big "industry 3" don't seem to give any place to innovation anymore. Wouldn't it be great if Nintendo was still able to come up with a modern day smash hit like Mario64 or SuperMetroid ? Where is the next big genre defining-game ?
My biggest gripe with it all is that big studios could definitely dedicate small or medium sized teams to such small or medium-sized refreshing projects while still banking on bigger cashcows - but they rarely or never do it, except for Valve.
Loosely quoting Carmack : We are now reaching the biological limits of our game experiences (aka : games look darn good already, and we pretty much reached the limit in terms of graphical and overall sensory fidelity.) So since this question is out of the way now, lets see fresh big games! And what do we get : Modern Warfare3 ....
I am actually very admiring of Nintendo's tradition to stick to stylized, low tech games for so long. Their icons are now so visually locked in low-tech standards, that they could still do gamecube-looking games on the wiiU and no one would have problems with that. Cheaper/easier graphics to produce, more time for gamedesign... genious. An indie team could never make something like Mario Galaxy/Mario64, yet that's the kind of highly polished experience that I am personally craving for. I am afraid this kind of title might disappear completely. The last one for me was Portal1 ad thats getting a bit old already. Maybe Forza3 and Vanquish/Bayonetta too but that's about it...
(Hey by the way, Child of Eden is coming out soon!!)
It's not up to the "industry 3" to innovate, they are console developers first and foremost.
The metroidvania genre has been done and improved on ever since super metroid, mario 64 was a great game when it came out, but we've had many fantastic 3d platformers since then, including psychonauts.
People are also quick to hate on modern first person shooter series, like halo, even though that game series has revolutionized in many areas, gamedesign and how games are played online.
The bottom line is, it's all very personal, which is why the article can never be anything but that.
Much like you love the polished and fantastic experience of mario64 and mgalaxy, I love the polished feeling of for example: bad company 2, or the single player campaign in modern warfare 2.
I could write an article about how nintendo has not been innovating since the snes-times, but that would be me and my opinion, and an opinion does not state a fact.
Nintedo games are popular for the very same reason modern warfare series is: lots of polish and a fantastic experience.
I grew up a pc gamer, I can sit here and whine about how the top of creativity and ideas where at that time, and how we still haven't got a game with the depth of gameplay as XCOM.
So you look forward to child of eden, another person looks forward to halo4, and yet another looks forward to playing some new fun facebook game. Who of these persons feelings are not genuine?
Also didnt BRINK just come out? Which is exactly what was said 'never produced anymore', a game like ET? By the developer of .... ET?
Also even the ridiculously shitty, bad ideas UBISOFT showed looked innovative. They get a bad rap for making a lot of games based in BAD IDEAS, but at least they're still pushing newideas.
I don't remember buying any console based on how maby colours or polygons it could have on screen. I bought systems because the games looked inventive, exciting and memorable. Sure, companies like Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo don't have an obligation to be innovative when it comes to software, but seeing as they are the ones developing the consoles it would be nice to think that they are pushing the limits of what their boxes can do in terms of game design as well as visuals.
Also, on a more general note, I agree that there are a lot of inventive indie games out there, which is great, but I'm just disappointed that there are so few mid to large budgeted games that feature any of this innovation. It's just a little depressing that Nintendo can sell 75+ million copies of Wii Sports but not feel like they could spare a development team to work on the evolution of the types of games that I and many millions of gamers grew up adoring.
I guess maybe my gripe is tied into the fact that the principles of Japanese game design have fallen out of favour as their industry - Nintendo aside - has failed to react to the increased importance placed on realistic visuals. Japanese devs were certainly slow to react to 'next-gen' demands, and this fault was at least partly their own making. At the same time, I think I found games a lot more fun and varied when Japan was the dominant force in development.
Totally off the cuff;
MGS / Siphon Filter / C12 Final resistance / Fear Effect - Action games
Loaded / Future cop LAPD - Isometric stuff
Crash Bandicoot / Spyro / Croc / Sly Cooper (ps2) / Gex / Medievil / Jersey Devil - Fun platformers
Some broad generalizations but you get the point.
Also, i find it incredibly frustrating to read these kind of comments from top game artists, im a fucking scrub and very niave but when i read comments about people complementing the art of games while admitting a game is bland or bad... I guess in the thick of development you lose the means to be objective and never touch the game youre working on, not that id know... im a bum.
It has never been like this, it has always been third party companies who pushed every console to the limit.
Wii sports never actually sold, it is bundled with every wii console, which explains its numbers. Same with wii play, which was bundled with wiimotes.
Wii sports was however by definition one of the most innovative titles from nintendo.
Indie developers make up a very large part of the casual market. Most titles not being innovative in any way, just look at the iphone app market, so it evens up with the big budget market in the same way.
I think the problem was that japan started trying to design their games for the western market and completely missing the point, we always loved their games, but they keep giving us the games we don't want, and keep holding back on translating the games we DO want.
Just look at demon souls, a sleeper hit that wasn't exactly meant to be for the western market, but it was exactly what we wanted.
BTW, don't worry - I'm not entirely jaded. I LOVE the game I'm working on!
I've always thought "hey I'll get around to loading up a few of them when I get bored..." that time is quickly approaching.
For a while thanks to the down economy and publishers and developers in free fall everyone was playing it safe humping the same thing over and over again. When that finally gets old and players start to cry out for new innovative IP we'll finally get around to breaking new ground (and then humping that dry).
So, you're arguing that Nintendo never created innovative or ambitious games for its' systems or are you talking purely from a graphical stand point?
I think you missed the point. I'm not arguing that Wii Sports wasn't innovative, or that it sold that many copies entirely on its own merits. I'm saying that I wished Nintendo would invest some of those billions that the game made into generating ambitious and innovative titles rather than the umpteenth rehash of Mario Kart.
Yeah, it's arguable that they were a little hasty in abandoning the hallmarks of their games in favour of globally popular ones. It's a shame that market forces have limited variety and creativity in top-level games so quickly.
Yeah, just meant pushing the console hardware technically.
But here is the problem, you'll get the same people who argue that shooters are all the same saying that the mario kart series is great, it's rehashes, but they're all fun games.
My issue with Nintendo has always been their low priority on getting more third party developers to their console, and them being scared of online gaming, both hopefully changing now.
There is quite a lot of variety if one looks under the surface, for example, take one of the most heavily oversaturated (not in a bad way) genre: jrpg's. To someone on the outside looking in on them, they'll all look the same.
But the thing is, a great game does not just build on innovation, a great game takes good ideas and polish the hell out of them.
Sam & max was also not a new IP, it built on an existing one.
IP's are required in this world, it helps developers sell new games easier, since they have a playerbase who knows about the ip that they can sell it to.
We got dark forces, jediknight, the x-wing and tiefighter series, and new things like knights of the old republic, these are some of the games.
So it wasn't all bad and rehashes, it was the same IP, but lots of different great games.
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/06/07/dragons-crown-announced-as-vanillawares-next-project-coming-t/
I'm really looking forward to trine 2, and while one could really break it down and say something like "oh its, like lost vikings but with pretty graphics" its still something that works well in contrast with other offerings.
People are buying sequels and not buying original IPs. People are buying games with familiar mechanics, and not original gameplay ideas.
It's a lower risk business model with a bit more of a proven track record.
People here are forgetting that it's the bottom line drives this industry.
Actually, clover studios didn't exactly get much marketing help for their games, most people didn't know about their games even existing.
I'm not sure why you list shadow of the colossus in there, that game did great.
incidentally ICO was very much a spiritual prequel to shadow, but one title that didn't get as much marketing as shadow did.
The codename for sotc was NICO, it played quite alot on being a spiritual sequel in a series, TRICO now under the name as the last guardian being a spiritual sequel to sotc, the style of the games connect quite heavily.
Marketing drives sales.
Agreed. If other forms of media had taught us anything it is that periods of creativity and innovation are followed by periods of stagnation and terrible band reunions.
Customers are not stupid and eventually will get tired of being fed the same thing over and over again. Though I'm not too happy with the number of shooters and gimmicky motion control-based games released this gen (frankly, I'm getting sick of them) I can see that to many people they might seem fresh and new. But as they experience more and more games of this kind they will expect more sophistication from their games. So personally, I'm not too worried.
Speaking of ICO, SOTC, etc. It seems that there is an assumption that such games must make tons of money to be considered succesful. Both ICO and SOTC benefit from extremely minimalistic design choices and as such could be made on a much lower budget than your regular AAA title (though I can't find any proper numbers). If I recall correctly, ICO sold around 650 000 copies; that may not seem like a lot these days but when you consider how simple the game was (reused assets, very few cutscenes, almost no voice acting, basic gameplay mechanics, etc.) it's not half bad.
For starters they would have to get rid of all that Jedi kung-fu bullshit from the prequel trilogy. As long as Lucas is in control, that's pretty much impossible.
It's absolutely true. I love the game Psychonauts because of it's originality, but it wasn't a hit by any means and it took a long time to make any money at all. Making creative games like that is risky business and publishers want to minimize risk.
I was watching Extra Credits the other day and they pointed out that the movie industry have the Oscars that encourages movie studios to put out films that are more about the "art" of film rather than a summer blockbuster designed to fill seats. What does the games industry have? Maybe if they had something like the Oscars, it might encourage publishers to diversify their offerings for that coveted golden idol to show the world that "Hey! We make games that are more than just for selling discs, we make games with artful content!"
Just my two cents worth.
http://www.interactive.org/
IAAS Awards is it. Voted in by the industry. GOTY is a pretty hefty title.
Problem is, what developers like isn't necessarily what mainstream gamers like.
What do you mean? Do you mean to say that you don't like their use of Ataru form in the lightsaber combat scenes? Anakin was a heavier user of Ataru than Obiwan. Obiwan relied more on Soresu, which is what you saw in his final battle against Greivous. Personally, I think the fight choreography was one of the best parts of the sub-par prequels, aside from Yoda flipping around like a freaking pinwheel.
Then I'd say they need some kind of Gamer's Choice Awards. Don't you think?
I kid!
And yes, there are people/studios out there making art games, looking at the core of game design and really trying to take the industry to a new level. But that doesn't mean we can play/enjoy the "summer action blockbusters" any less. Hell, I love some team deathmatch in Modern Warfare as much as I love playing Limbo or Braid.
Games are about having fun and I'm not about to tell anyone their idea of fun is inferior to mine idea of fun.
See there is their problem, they think there is a way to minimize risk. The whole creativity industry is risk. They have been fooled into thinking with these seemingly guaranteed money spinning sequels that it isnt. When the bubble bursts(and it will, or maybe it will just deflate gradually) and they lose alot of money they will start realising that again. If they are not stupid they will then start spreading their bets.