AAA Gaming Has Moved Beyond Me.

[Eclectic Dreck]

While I didn't quite start gaming as early as you (started in the early 90s) I still manage to find at least 3 new AAA releases each year that I thought were worth the money I spent. For me this year is off to a good start with Metal Gear Rising and Bioshock Infinte. I also recently picked up Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (though technically its not a new release)and have enjoyed it very much so far. Also really looking forward to Tales of Xilla and I would say the same for Shin Megami Tensei IV if I had a 3DS.

I wouldn't think Dragon's Dogma would be considered a AAA title to be honest. Same with Dark Souls. That said, given their origins, I suppose it is perfectly possible they had tens of millions of dollars in cash behind them.

Not that that undermines the fact that I adore Dragon's Dogma far more than that game has done anything to reasonably earn.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

I was a 90s kid so the first games I remember playing are Spyro the Dragon and Crash Bandicoot. Those were awesome. But anyway, onto the actual topic. I'll let my recent Steam purchases speak for themselves:

FEZ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .-Indie
Bioshock:Infinite . . . . . . . . . . . -AAA
Surgeon Simulator 2013. . . . -Indie
Mark of the Ninja . . . . . . . . . . . -AA? (high production values + huge dev team make it AAA or AA or whatever in my book)
Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon . . . . -AAA

 

[Skeleon]

When you grow up with games like Dangerous Dave 1, I'd say you probably won't care as much about the graphics as people who grew up expecting a graphical sensation at every turn. I find myself returning to older games again and again, while in regards to new titles I mostly move towards indie games that have either retro, minimalistic or drawn graphics styles. What people usually refer to as AAA titles are not high up on my list; when I eventually get to them, it's usually once they've moved into budget territory anyway. But a lot of AAA titles don't interest me at all and I don't ever play them, true.

 

[Weaver]

i felt the same way about 12 months ago. i sat there and looked at the list of games that were due to be released in the next 12 months and thought "ok i have zero interest in the AAA market for 2012"

that still hasnt really changed for this year either but im hopeful for the list of kickstarters comming.

im also discovering that i dont actually have rose coloured glasses for the most part of the games i used to enjoy thanks to gog.com once i can get passed the initial graphical shock. crusader: no remorse still kicks as much ass as the first day i played it so does wing commander 3

Oh god the crusader games were so good. I think I'm going to go buy them.

 

[shrekfan246]

less hand-holdy (not true, but the tutorials were often printed in the manual instead due to a lack of memory)

I disagree, games back in the day had far more clearly defined save states were far less forgiving. Blame it on the lack of memory for auto saves and generally clumsy save codes, but players weren't guaranteed to finish a game they bought provided they didn't fall asleep or lose interest.

Same goes for the modern adventure game revival. There is simply no way to lose in modern adventure games, the scenes generally hold a certain state until the player drags the right inventory item on the right environment item. Back in the day, if you gave the ant king the gold coin instead of the golden needle, he'd still accept the coin. You'd be screwed 6 hours later when you actually needed that coin, but he would accept it.

That depends entirely on where you're looking and what difficulty you're playing on. You know why Devil May Cry is hard? Because the camera angles were shite and Dante controlled like a stiff wooden board. You know why Devil May Cry 3 was hard? Because the enemies were deadly and would swarm you if you weren't careful.

And the fact that games were still built in the mentality of arcades and only two hours long were high contributors to their insane difficulty levels. Even the Castlevania games are only two or three hours long for a person who knows what they're doing. But when you're a kid and can't beat something, and it doesn't save your game so you have to start over from the beginning every time, you end up sinking hours and hours and hours into one game because what else are you going to play? You've only got three games anyway.

Also, 'logic puzzles' that fucked you over down the line without any indication that you'd be fucked over are a staple of terrible game design, and the fact that it provides a hard 'failure state' for the player doesn't redeem how terrible it is to actually implement that. Go watch some of Yahtzee's old adventure game LPs. Particularly maybe Curse of Enchantia [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGy-A9uVNsw], which had an average review score somewhere around 90% when it first came out -- Though it's certainly got less bullshit deaths, it's pretty much a perfect example of why a whole ton of old adventure games do not hold their own weight still today.

 

[StupidNincompoop]

I also grew up in the 90's, and so i guess that includes me in their target audience (young adults/teens).
Yet i absolutely hate most of the tripe A titles released this generation. This year, unless the big companies do something amazing, i'll likely be getting only one tripe A title for this entire year (GTA V).

Of course, at the same time, the indie scene isn't exaclly amazing either, but it's been producing a lot more titles i've actually been interested in this generation.

 

[Rariow]

I see where you're coming from. I got into gaming in the late 90's (Pokémon Blue was the very first game I ever owned), and the market has definitely changed, even from that era. Thing is, I don't really "get" the whole retro gaming thing. Sure, games back then were awesome. I still love Pokémon Blue, and Mario Bros. 3 is still utterly, fantastically fun. But now? Gaming's a mainstream industry. Sure, AAA might be the biggest part of it, but that doesn't mean that oldschool style games aren't being made. In my humble opinion, these oldschool type games are better than they were in the NES/SNES eras. They've got more technology, experience with making games and a more focused audience to back them up.

I'll fully admit: I'm on a bit of a limited budget, and as such usually play quite few games, mostly the really big AAAs, such as the Mass Effects, the Elder Scrolls, BioShock Infinite... that type of game. But the indie old-school type games that I play I simply find BETTER than older games, through no fault of the older games themselves. The industry's simply developed a better understanding of how to craft a good game, especially in genres as old as platformer or RPG.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

I don't agree, but I can understand the sentiment. It used to be that games were pleasantly simple and each trip to the video store meant coming back with an new gem to polish off over the weekend. Having been born in 1983, my memories of the eighties are a tad hazy. I do remember owning a NES and playing stuff like the Mario-Duck Hunt combo cartridge, and moving on from there. I grew passionate about gaming in the nineties, however. Prior to that, despite having an NES with a metric fuckton of games for it, I was much more of a bookworm. Considering, I don't hold platforming as being anything special, but I do have pleasant memories associated with it.

I really got into the scene with PC gaming. Myst was my first digital addiction and Half-Life became the first title I'd be interested in replaying over and over. From the point of view of pure mechanics, what draws me into gaming is still there. There's still engaging gameplay, and with the average player age progressing, ludonarrative pairings are getting more and more intricate. If you'd told my 1989 self about Uncharted and how I'm purely driven forward thanks to the story (I swear that series feels like a set of controller-based page-turners), 1989-me wouldn't have believed you.

Games have more potential than ever before. What's changing is who is actually tapping into it. It used to be you could depend on Electronic Arts or Sierra to dish out innovative and interesting titles. It used to be Broderbund was a publishing goliath and even took its chance with the Red Orb publishing subset. It used to be that AAA gaming was synonymous with innovation. Not anymore, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Innovation is now the hallmark of indies. AAA studios are too busy surviving and catering to the lowest common denominator to muster the same level of passion as before. Today, you're not supposed to be passionate about games as a whole, they'd like you to be passionate about a *franchise*.

The trick to preventing this from crushing you and making you feel alienated is to pay attention to both sides of the coin. Keep an eye on AAA releases, but also keep up on your favourite indie studios. On occasion, you'll realize that someone managed to slip an innovative mechanic into Generic Brown FPS no. 46, or that an indie is taking pages from the mainstream and re-interpreting them.

Stay on the lookout, OP. Don't get bogged down by the yearly crop of samey releases, you're not their intended target! Considering that, why even care? Why be bothered by this? Let the CoD-craving masses have their fun, knowing there's plenty of avenues for you to have your own.

This isn't exclusive to games, either. Take books, for instance. The best-sellers are inherently going to be crowd-pleasers, and that means tendencies are going to surface. We're saddled with supernatural romances galore and poorly written teenybopper wish-fulfillment vehicles - but that doesn't mean that's all there is to the mainstream.

Plus, if you're seriously desperate, who's going to judge you if you decide that your light reading for the summer's going to be Anna Karenina or The Count of Monte Cristo?

Games are like books. Going back to the classics on occasion can rejuvenate your gaming spirit, if there's such a thing.

So you're fed up? Tired? Boot up your old NES or the Wii's Virtual Console, and have a go at something that's really distant from the current gaming industry. I guarantee you'll come out of the experience feeling renewed and ready to try out what else the AAA market might throw at you - knowing that market operates exactly like the mainstream Genre Fiction deluge that's piling up at your local bookstore.

Nobody's asking you to like it - but keeping an open mind can be useful.

 

[Drake Barrow]

Wow. This has been a supremely rational discussion and exchange of opinions. I haven't seen a single flame post here. You folks were making me wonder where the Internet is today.

OT: I try to focus on whether or not a game is good rather than the production budget or the studio that's putting it out. I grew up with a lot of old systems, both console and PC-wise, but some of the best gaming I had was in the early to mid years of the PC boom. System Shock and Cybermage are still some of the best titles I've ever played.

My barrier on the AAA titles is price point. When it's a choice between your gas budget having enough cushion to support you or buying a shiny new game, that's the cold shower of the gaming life.

 

[ThoughtlessConcept]

I was born in 92, but I've been tired of the AAA space for a few years now, all the games I'm looking forward to right now are either indie or crowdfunded. Shout out to Stonehearth on greenlight.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I'm with you on that. I also grew up with the NES/SNES and what not and I find that most triple A games don't interest me either. It's gotten to the point where I actually HOPE the AAA industry crashes, maybe that'll knock some sense into some of these companies. ...the ones that survive at least.

 

[Signa]

While I didn't quite start gaming as early as you (started in the early 90s) I still manage to find at least 3 new AAA releases each year that I thought were worth the money I spent. For me this year is off to a good start with Metal Gear Rising and Bioshock Infinte. I also recently picked up Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (though technically its not a new release)and have enjoyed it very much so far. Also really looking forward to Tales of Xilla and I would say the same for Shin Megami Tensei IV if I had a 3DS.

I think Bioshock Infinite is a great example of what we are talking about here. Back in my (and the OP's) day, when you wanted to jump on an enemy, you had to actually aim your descent, and then press the attack button yourself. If you fucked it up, you'd most likely get some penalty for it. BSI lets you auto-kill enemies just by aiming at them when you're on the skylines. Simple mechanics like that are becoming prevalent throughout all of games, and it's boooorring. I was neat the first few times, but now every game does auto-kills. Just imagine what Super Mario Bros would have been like in 1986 if you could auto-kill goombas because you were close enough to hit the auto-kill button.

OP: I hear you. I made a thread like this 2 months ago. I included a poll about the state of the industry and tried to word the responses to gauge A/B (passing), C, D, and F grades. I gave it a F, but the D grade response had about 46% of the votes. I don't know if we are just elite snobs around here, but there are a lot of people unhappy with the state of the industry.

 

[TrevHead]

Born in 79 here and I am still enjoying AAAs along with indies and retro games, but that probably still has more to do with the fact that I was a PC only gamer from 2001 to 2011 and only played shmups and retro games from 2009 to 2011.

So now I'm playing catch up with this gens consoles and handhelds, cherry picking all the best from each genre.

 

[Requia]

While I didn't quite start gaming as early as you (started in the early 90s) I still manage to find at least 3 new AAA releases each year that I thought were worth the money I spent. For me this year is off to a good start with Metal Gear Rising and Bioshock Infinte. I also recently picked up Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (though technically its not a new release)and have enjoyed it very much so far. Also really looking forward to Tales of Xilla and I would say the same for Shin Megami Tensei IV if I had a 3DS.

I think Bioshock Infinite is a great example of what we are talking about here. Back in my (and the OP's) day, when you wanted to jump on an enemy, you had to actually aim your descent, and then press the attack button yourself. If you fucked it up, you'd most likely get some penalty for it. BSI lets you auto-kill enemies just by aiming at them when you're on the skylines. Simple mechanics like that are becoming prevalent throughout all of games, and it's boooorring. I was neat the first few times, but now every game does auto-kills. Just imagine what Super Mario Bros would have been like in 1986 if you could auto-kill goombas because you were close enough to hit the auto-kill button.

OP: I hear you. I made a thread like this 2 months ago. I included a poll about the state of the industry and tried to word the responses to gauge A/B (passing), C, D, and F grades. I gave it a F, but the D grade response had about 46% of the votes. I don't know if we are just elite snobs around here, but there are a lot of people unhappy with the state of the industry.

Bioshock is a completely different genre from the platformers where you jump on enemies, in terms of shooter mechanics it works exactly like shooters do, point at the enemy, press button, enemy dies. Unless there was some secret jump on enemies attack in Half Life or Doom I'm not aware of that's hardly dumbing down, and while I've not played it I'm pretty sure I'd have heard about it if Mario Galaxy let you autotarget your jumps.

While I would say the AAA industry is overall making games I can't stand, that has more to do with the genre shifts, in the genres I like AAA is as strong as ever, though there's a drift away from big games to small well done games (not necessarily a bad thing, both have their merits).

The exception here is JRPGs, I have yet to see a JRPG franchise (do they even make non franchise AAA JRPGs anymore?) to come out with games as good as its SNES era predecessors.

 

[Eric the Orange]

BUT, I do take issue with your definition of "triple A". I was looking at the best sellers from last year earlier and in the top 10 there are only 2 shooters. The rest? Assassin's Creed is in there as the only other game that would fit your "triple A" definition. There are two sports games, a dancing game, a minigame collection, a Pokemon game and a Mario platformer. Triple A is more varied than people give it credit for, and it looks a lot like it always has (Nintendo franchises, a couple of hardcore action games, sports games and a couple of mainstream casual releases -remember when Barbie games would routinely show up in the top 10?).

I guess when I hear AAA I think the games with the massive budgets that get hyped up a lot. Like recently there was Bioshock Infinite, Tomb Raider, Dead Space 3 and Far Cry 3.

 

[Eric the Orange]

Stay on the lookout, OP. Don't get bogged down by the yearly crop of samey releases, you're not their intended target! Considering that, why even care? Why be bothered by this? Let the CoD-craving masses have their fun, knowing there's plenty of avenues for you to have your own.

Honestly it really doesn't bother me. I think now is a great time for the kind of games I like, just not from the big name publishers. I was merely musing on the changing times.

 

[Lunar Templar]

yeah, the AAA market hasn't really made much of anything I want since the PS2 over all. But eh, times change what makes money changes, its frustrating, but eh, thats how it is.

Sides, i can still go back and play all those games I loved so I'm not really out anything i miss over all

 

[James Joseph Emerald]

What I miss about the games of old is the sense of wonder and discovery as you figure things out for yourself.

Myst is a great example. You're just dumped on a mysterious island full of strange contraptions and left to your own devices. No mini-maps, no objective markers, no pop-up hints, no support characters telling you where to go or what to do. The sense of satisfaction when you solved everything on your own was immense.
Modern developers seem to overlook that.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Honestly it really doesn't bother me. I think now is a great time for the kind of games I like, just not from the big name publishers. I was merely musing on the changing times.

Welp, times do change. Not to worry, though: counter-culture is always going to be around to try and steer things in the opposite direction. This is mostly why I'm not bothered by always-on DRM, as there's always going to be someone around to stamp their foot and say enough's enough. Say, someone like CD Projekt Red.

Or, you know, the weight of the currently established trends will become too much to bear, the industry's going to start muttering things about collapse *again*, and the model that's being currently established will be altered.

I mean, take microtransactions. It's acceptable in some cases, but publishers are rushing after them and the free-to-play model like it's the proverbial Golden Goose. Eventually, that goose is going to lay its last egg.