305: What They Say

[Xandre]

You know what I want to see more of? Local split-screen. From what I can see, the number of local mulitplayer games is on the down...

Yeah, online gaming is fun 10 vs 10 on some server, but I doubt there will ever be anything, gaming wise, like sitting down with some mates, with a couple of local split-screen games and enough Red Bull to kick-start a guy in a coma. In fact, when I go game hunting, one thing I look for games with local multiplayer. It's also pretty much the reason why I almost always buy second hand PS2 games; the vast majority of really good PS2 games have a split screen available to them. Want proof? Dig out your old titles and see how many of them had split-screen as opposed to today's titles.

In fact, imagine this situation: Need for Speed most wanted, where you and a buddy have a local split-screen and a maximum of 250m between you. Now imagine having to outrun cops doing anything and everything to stop you.

But yeh, I also gotta agree with Ian Cummings here: £50 is way too much for a brand-new console game. Budget companies can release games with similar contents in terms of physical packaging BUT do it for half the price. Given bulk is cheaper, these major game companies print out a whole lot more copies, so in theory, they should be able to sell it for less than what currently charge. I will openly admit that I would be buying a lot more games if the big games were nearer budget prices.

 

[Rienimportant]

Robert Ludwick (Senior Game Engineer for Meteor Games, LLC): Not allowing cross-platform online gaming. Forcing 360 owners to only game online with other 360 owners bolsters Microsoft's case to get more gamers on their platform, but as a whole the industry needs cross-platform gaming.

No. This is a very good thing. Online play with consoles and PC's belong in two seperate areas. the advantage the PC would have over the consoles would completely break the balance scales in half.

And no this is not a PC fanboy rant, this is just pure and simple fact.

Would it really break the balance? I'm assuming you're referring to the difference in controls, because I dunno where else there's a real difference, yes? (Except for I suppose really nice PC's can have way better graphics?)
I can't believe that the PC has that much of an advantage over consoles considering there are people who like to buy controllers that they can plug into their computer. When I talk to my friends who use consoles, they love the controllers and laugh that they would kick my ass if I was using a mouse and keyboard and they had an xbox or ps3 controller.

But I could have a completely different idea of what you're talking about. If I do, please let me know. Otherwise, any response'd be nice. But so yeah personally I think it'd be a great idea to introduce cross-platform gaming so I can play with my friends and we don't have to buy 2 versions of a game.

Something else, I like the idea of slightly cheaper games. It lets me try more games that I'm not so sure about, and games that are kinda old, but still expensive and I would like to play. Otherwise I have to hope Steam makes a sale happen soon.
(Wow wall of text ftw much?)

 

[Grand_Marquis]

"Greg Kasavian (Creative Director, Supergiant Games): The single biggest mistake the industry has made in the last five years is the institution of mass-firings of skilled laborers as a business practice upon the completion of a big project."

This truly is the biggest problem right here. The industry is brain-draining itself with the way it's mistreating its employees. Layoffs are pretty much the norm, which is a major setback when there's no union or guild for the talent to fall back on. It's not like the movie industry where Actors work for SAG and Directors work for the director's guild and crew works for their guild and nobody's concerned that their finishing a movie means ending employment with a releasing company, because they've got a safety net. There's no safety net in the games industry, but devs and publishers treat it like there is, and it's going to be their undoing.

 

[TestSubject4]

Great read, so much to like about all of this. I'd like to know what these guys think about the role modding plays in the industry.

 

[Dastardly]

What They Say

We wanted to know how the videogame industry was doing, so we asked the people who make the games themselves.

Read Full Article

Do more of these! Features like Extra Consideration work well to let us see discussion between some of our favorite "personalities," but that means the breadth of views represented tends to max out at three. If this were to become a more regular thing, we could really hear a lot more!

It doesn't have to be industry personalities, either. It could actually be the views of the Escapist staff. It might be interesting to hear how different people working in the same virtual office disagree, without necessarily having to read through the exchanges (which we can get from Consideration, if you continue that).

 

[Dastardly]

Would it really break the balance? I'm assuming you're referring to the difference in controls, because I dunno where else there's a real difference, yes? (Except for I suppose really nice PC's can have way better graphics?)
I can't believe that the PC has that much of an advantage over consoles considering there are people who like to buy controllers that they can plug into their computer. When I talk to my friends who use consoles, they love the controllers and laugh that they would kick my ass if I was using a mouse and keyboard and they had an xbox or ps3 controller.

But I could have a completely different idea of what you're talking about. If I do, please let me know. Otherwise, any response'd be nice. But so yeah personally I think it'd be a great idea to introduce cross-platform gaming so I can play with my friends and we don't have to buy 2 versions of a game.

Something else, I like the idea of slightly cheaper games. It lets me try more games that I'm not so sure about, and games that are kinda old, but still expensive and I would like to play. Otherwise I have to hope Steam makes a sale happen soon.
(Wow wall of text ftw much?)

I think the difference between consoles and PCs is often the level of control the player has over the game outside of the game. Macros, scripting, hacks, cheats, various performance "enhancers" like these--they're far more available to the PC crowd. But on an even simpler level, PC gamers just tend to have more buttons available. Unless consoles want to start pushing people toward the use of a full keyboard, there are plenty of people who can advantageously customize a keyboard layout to have quicker access to a lot of the game's functions.

Or it could mean that a lot of those functions (to which PC gamers are accustomed) would be removed to make it more "console-friendly." That leads us down the "they're dumbing down games" road.

It's a harder balancing act than it might appear on the surface.

 

[Dhatz]

much worse than not having crossplatform MP is not have all 3 major platforms. I consider every game that doesn't come out on PC a failuire or at least their creators for being afraid of existence on the eternal platform.

 

[Spud of Doom]

You know what I want to see more of? Local split-screen. From what I can see, the number of local mulitplayer games is on the down...

Yeah, online gaming is fun 10 vs 10 on some server, but I doubt there will ever be anything, gaming wise, like sitting down with some mates, with a couple of local split-screen games and enough Red Bull to kick-start a guy in a coma. In fact, when I go game hunting, one thing I look for games with local multiplayer. It's also pretty much the reason why I almost always buy second hand PS2 games; the vast majority of really good PS2 games have a split screen available to them. Want proof? Dig out your old titles and see how many of them had split-screen as opposed to today's titles.

In fact, imagine this situation: Need for Speed most wanted, where you and a buddy have a local split-screen and a maximum of 250m between you. Now imagine having to outrun cops doing anything and everything to stop you.

This is something that has started to really annoy me in recent years. Even racing games are removing split screen. Where's the fun in that? Do they think gamers never share a console now?

 

[josh797]

its great to see stuff like this on the escapist and once again reminds me why i come back time and time again to this website.
as for the article, it was really great to know that the bigwigs in the gaming industry really understand gaming and love it as much as i do. its clear that they love all the stuff gaming can offer from AAA titles down to the tiny indies.

thank god this industry has people that care about it so strongly!

 

[GonzoGamer]

No. This is a very good thing. Online play with consoles and PC's belong in two seperate areas. the advantage the PC would have over the consoles would completely break the balance scales in half.

And no this is not a PC fanboy rant, this is just pure and simple fact.

Judging by the example he made after that, I think he was more referring to play between Xbox and PS3.

Although I don't see why there couldn't be more co-op based cross PC/console play, as with Portal 2.
Competitive play might suffer from the problems you speak of, but co-op not so much.

Yes. I think there's a lot more room for cross platform multiplayer that we think.
Hopefully this would also lead to some standardization of the formats. If games were built the same way for all the platforms they would be much cheaper to produce. We would also have a lot less substandard ports. What might happen with that which could greatly benefit the consumer are third party platforms: I would much rather get a console made by panasonic than MS or Sony.

 

[Sniper430]

This is amazing, hope to see more Escapist

"Robert Ludwick: Lower price points and more piecemeal gameplay. Games like WoW are lengthy to play and many people don't want to spend forever playing one single game. Movies are consumed in smaller chunks and are cheaper to consume. A larger selection of shorter, more affordable games will help."

This quote represents everything I have been saying for the past year. Just saying!

 

[PopcornAvenger]

Robert Ludwick: Lower price points and more piecemeal gameplay. Games like WoW are lengthy to play and many people don't want to spend forever playing one single game. Movies are consumed in smaller chunks and are cheaper to consume. A larger selection of shorter, more affordable games will help

Pure propaganda - or a push for the casual consumer, not gamers. Many titles are getting shorter and shorter, piecemealing the games into nickle-and-dime DLC, and remain just as expensive. Sorry, but I'm not buying this attempt at spin.

Yes, lower prices would be nice, but, really, I can afford an occasional $50 or even $60 dollar game. What irritates me is I'm getting far less for my purchase, either in terms of the game's resources and depth, or gameplay and replayability.

This is an argument for the shovelware that's been hitting all platforms - oh, wait, most of those were expensive, too, weren't they (?)

 

[repeating integers]

ls

In reply to Jon Shafer wondering if 3D could actually have any utility at all in strategy games of it would just be a cheap selling point, imagine if in Homeworld you could actually see what was going on without tons of overlays and moving the camera around for perspective. When the 3DS was announced I was playing Sword of the Stars and thought how useful and convenient it would be if the galaxy map was displayed in 3D. For a more traditional flat board game it would be more of a gimmick but sometimes I forget that board games might be about squares and hexes but computer games are more naturally about circles and spheres. I'm playing Shogun 2 at the moment and would it be strategically useful to quickly see that my Matchlocks don't have a clear line of sight to the enemy? You bet it would.

I have wondered what Homeworld would be like on the DS - one screen for the big radar map, one for the normal screen. Also, *cough* [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/groups/view/Homeworld-fans-group]

OT: This was a great read. I didn't know you were doing this, but I like the idea of asking a load of games developers important questions like these - now if only we could put them in a forum together and have them all talk to each other... maybe we could throw Yahtzee into the mix too.

 

[Cousin_IT]

I'm still waiting for the day the industry as a whole comes round to the idea of merchandising as something other than a few "collectables" thrown into "limited" edition boxsets as an excuse to charge extra for the game.

 

[teh dark]

Robert Ludwick: Modern games can scale back on gameplay thanks to all of the added features, which evens things out.

sooo modern games can scale back on gameplay? funny the reason I buy games is explicity because of the GAMEPLAY.

forgive me for wanting gameplay IN MY GAMES!!!!



(yes that comment realy anoyed me lol)

 

[teh dark]

Robert Ludwick: Modern games can scale back on gameplay thanks to all of the added features, which evens things out.

sooo modern games can scale back on gameplay? funny the reason I buy games is explicity because of the GAMEPLAY.

forgive me for wanting gameplay IN MY GAMES!!!!



(yes that comment realy anoyed me lol)

 

[raankh]

Yup, that explains alot in my opinion.

There's too much business and too little game design floating around in these peoples heads. A good game ought to be a game.

Perhaps it's time to diversify the concept of a "video game"; perhaps we could stop calling things games that don't focus primarily on gameplay. We need some new words, I think.

 

[Bobbity]

This was an interesting read, and it'd be nice to get a little more like it.

 

[PortalThinker113]

You know what I want to see more of? Local split-screen. From what I can see, the number of local mulitplayer games is on the down...

Yeah, online gaming is fun 10 vs 10 on some server, but I doubt there will ever be anything, gaming wise, like sitting down with some mates, with a couple of local split-screen games and enough Red Bull to kick-start a guy in a coma. In fact, when I go game hunting, one thing I look for games with local multiplayer. It's also pretty much the reason why I almost always buy second hand PS2 games; the vast majority of really good PS2 games have a split screen available to them. Want proof? Dig out your old titles and see how many of them had split-screen as opposed to today's titles.

In fact, imagine this situation: Need for Speed most wanted, where you and a buddy have a local split-screen and a maximum of 250m between you. Now imagine having to outrun cops doing anything and everything to stop you.

This about 1000 times over. There are some games that are just begging for local split-screen, but don't have it for some inexplicable reason. Local multiplayer is something that brings friends and loved ones togther, laughing and sharing a truly fun experience, if it is implemented in the right way and used in the right games. It makes me sad to see how little splitscreen seems to be promoted now- I hope more games get back into the splitcreen fun in the future.