BioWare: Videogame Industry Releases "Too Many Games"

[Tom Goldman]

BioWare: Videogame Industry Releases "Too Many Games"

One of BioWare's co-founders is finding it hard to keep up with with everything worth playing these days.

The worst part about growing up is that you inevitably will have less time to play videogames. I'm still mourning the loss of my 8 hour Chrono Trigger [http://www.amazon.com/Chrono-Trigger-Nintendo-DS/dp/B001E27DLM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1290883883&sr=8-1] sessions that were only possible when school let out for the summer. It's even worse when you're BioWare's Ray Muzyka and you actually have to play everything just to stay current with what the videogame industry is producing.

When Develop asked Muzyka what disappointed him the most about the industry today, he flipped things around and said that it was bad that the industry is so good. "There's too many games released today," Muzyka replied. "It's very, very busy, it makes it very hard as a player to keep up."

"For us, we have to play our games, play competitor's games, play other relevant games, and play the handful of games we just really want to play more of and finish," he continued. "I try and play two-or three hours a night, but that's hard and it's not enough."

I couldn't agree more. The industry is really being hard on everybody in the way that it's putting out too many games that are worth playing. We now not only have major console releases to follow, but smaller (and sometimes not-so-small) handheld titles to juggle along with purely digital games on XBLA/PSN and cellphones. If the industry were to release another platform with even more first and third-party content, I just don't know what I'd do.

On the other hand, what does Muzyka like most about the industry? "All the great games," he says. Very diplomatic. Fellow BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuk feels the same way, adding: "There's not really too much repetition; there's just a lot of really good experiences." So why do these two want to release a game [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/conferences/gdc2010/7304-Hands-On-Star-Wars-The-Old-Republic] that threatens to suck up even more of our time? How very cruel.

Source: Develop [http://www.develop-online.net/features/1063/FAQ-Muzyka-Zeschuk]

Permalink

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

Sounds like a cocaine dealer complaining about the other guys flooding the market. He just doesn't want to deal with the cheep stuff (which, in a slight twist of irony, tends to come from EA) that tends to make up a good portion of the market.

 

[Irridium]

Yeah, releasing less games would be good.

A prime example would be the amount of titles pushed to Spring of 2011. Seriously, just too much.

 

[xyrafhoan]

I agree, there's so many great games to play and I still only own a Wii, PS2 (building up a backlog of games I missed when I didn't have money), a DS, and a PSP alongside my PC. The PC and DS alone take up innumerable hours that I just don't know where I'll find the time to finish all the games I've bought.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

I'll say, I actually agree with one of these "Bioware: Talking out My Ass" topics...My backlog is never getting played/replayed at this rate.

And I'm about to get a PSP, so add EVEN MORE to the list.

PSP

Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines
Persona 1*, 3*
Disgaea 1*, 2*
Final Fantasy Tactics*
Jeanne D'Arc* (sp?)

PS1 games to be played on PSP

Final Fantasy 7*, 8*, 9*
Alundra
Wild ARMs 1*, 2*
Grandia*

PS1 games to be played on PS3

Chrono Cross*
Legend of Mana*
SaGa Frontier 2*

PS3

3
Nier
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
Atelier Rorona*
Trine

360

Monkey Island Remakes

PC

Recettear*
Morrowind*
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic
Sam & Max Season 1*, Season 2*
Tales of Monkey Island 1-5*

DS

Dragon Quest 5*, 9*
Chrono Trigger*
Professor Layton 2, 3

Wii

Okami*

Gamecube

Tales of Symphonia*
Skies of Arcadia*

PS2

Wild ARMs 3* (There is a tragic story here, involving me quitting the game at the final boss years ago due to a power outage on it's final form. Never went back. Too angry.)
Grandia 2*
Tales of the Abyss*
Persona 3: FES*
Beyond Good & Evil

 

[Sporky111]

I actually agree. You know what would solve it? Releasing games more evenly throughout the year. That way we don't have a foot-long list of major releases around this time of year, and a scarce list of anything of note the rest of the year.

And I think less games would benefit. If developers are in less of a rush to put out more games, they can put more time into making the games great. We have a lot of good already, but a lot of games seem to be suffering from oversights associated with rushing a game out (New Vegas, anyone?). Quality over quantity, and maybe some time down the line we'll even have a price drop in games.

 

[BlueberryMUNCH]

Yeah I agree, I mean, with the releases of New Vegas, Need for Speed, Call Of Duty, Assassins Creed and whatever else I missed out, it's like *brainfrazzle*.

Hrr. Less games would be delicious.

 

[toquio3]

they should release games less often by working on them longer. then the good games would be awesome and the crappy games would be playable.

 

[Something Amyss]

So he likes all the great games, but he can't keep up with the games released? Stop playing bad games.

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

Eh, not really. The problem is that most of the games worth playing are released in a very tight timeframe.

There were, like, 5 games I absolutely had to play this autumn. Hell, this November, probably.

At other times of the year, though, we have close to nothing new at the shelves.

I'll say, I actually agree with one of these "Bioware: Talking out My Ass" topics...

You sure don't like BioWare, Onyx.

 

[Jandau]

Being a PC gamer, I don't really have much of a problem. A silver lining to being screwed over by all the console-only games...

 

[Rakun Man]

I actually agree. You know what would solve it? Releasing games more evenly throughout the year. That way we don't have a foot-long list of major releases around this time of year, and a scarce list of anything of note the rest of the year.

Yes. This would help a lot. Seriously, bunch of kids are off the summer, doing nothing. And there is maybe one or two games released in March. Then from the time school starts to the time school ends there is a bunch released. With a huge plethora in the months of October and November. In perfect time for Christmas true, but also in perfect time for finals.

Of course, this means that the patient can buy October/November games in like June, when they have more time to play them, and they are probably cheaper too!

Too many games, too little time. Even I had enough money to catch 'em all buy all of them, I would have nearly enough time.

 

[Something Amyss]

"playing" bad games is different from BUYING bad games. once you buy you validate that its good. however demos are on their way OUT and reviews are sketchy at best so customers are flooded with bad games instead of good. it really comes down to the question "what makes a good game". with all this influx we are heading back into the 1980s video game crash.

buy a bad game, give the developer an excuse to do the same shit again. look at crash and sonic.

So don't keep biting on the same line?

Seriously? What;s the phrase? "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

More like industry releases to much crap, the industry is to focused on very short term dev cycles to get crap out to fast and very under done, just look at Bioshock, FO3,New vegas,Dragon Age and these are jsut the top sellers and they are pretty tainted by the process....

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

I'll say, I actually agree with one of these "Bioware: Talking out My Ass" topics...

You sure don't like BioWare, Onyx.

That's not quite it. I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE Dragon Age, Mass Effect 1, Jade Empire, and KOTOR 1.

I hate what pricks they are, saying that FF13 isn't an RPG, when Mass Effect 2 is a bloody shooter with minimal amounts of team customization and shallow-as-a-toilet combat. And now it looks like they're doing to Dragon Age 2 what they did with Mass Effect 2, trimming too much fat off, and leaving it bare-bones.

Inventory management was a pain in Mass Effect 1, yes, but only because everything you killed dropped something, and you had a relatively low item capacity. A little tweaking would have made it an non-issue. Trim the fat, Bioware, don't melt it down to the bone.

 

[Guy32]

Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines

I would't bother with bloodlines unless you can find it for under $5. They focused on all the wrong gameplay aspects, and going back to Altair feels like a very large step back.

 

[Fumbleumble]

This coming from a company with 4 on the go atm... way more concurrent products than any other dev I've heard of... Not even bethesda has this much on the go.. and I think Blizzard are about the same.

Bioware are just becoming more of a joke everytime they open their mouths.

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

I'll say, I actually agree with one of these "Bioware: Talking out My Ass" topics...

You sure don't like BioWare, Onyx.

That's not quite it. I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE Dragon Age, Mass Effect 1, Jade Empire, and KOTOR 1.

I hate what pricks they are, saying that FF13 isn't an RPG, when Mass Effect 2 is a bloody shooter with minimal amounts of team customization and shallow-as-a-toilet combat. And now it looks like they're doing to Dragon Age 2 what they did with Mass Effect 2, trimming too much fat off, and leaving it bare-bones.

Inventory management was a pain in Mass Effect 1, yes, but only because everything you killed dropped something, and you had a relatively low item capacity. A little tweaking would have made it an non-issue, saying, being able to examine the items on drop, before adding them to the inventory. Trim the fat, Bioware, don't melt it down to the bone.

Well, I'm not really an RPG enthusiast, so I think everything that happened to Mass Effect 2 improved it greatly... but I see where you're coming from.

Still... you're angry at them about those JRPG and FF comments, aren't you? Yeah, those were pretty immature, but you should probably let those go. Just saying.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

I've haven't come across many "great" games recently. Most of the popular titles are let downs, and they could use a lot more time in development since they come out being trashed with bugs and glitches. BioWare's games are that much better. But maybe it is just my taste in games or something...