BioWare Co-Founder: RPGs Are Becoming "Less Relevant"

[JMeganSnow]

Imma translate this article for ya:

The game-playing and -buying percentage of the population has swelled *enormously* in recent years. The cost of making games has ALSO swelled enormously in recent years. While a large percentage of old-school gamers who played back when they had to completely rewrite their config.sys and autoexec.bat files in order to run a game were interested in complex, tricky, bug-filled read-a-thons called "RPG's", this *percentage* has decreased now that computers themselves can easily be used by people who have no clue what a config or autoexec file is. THOSE people are not as interested in playing a complex, tricky, bug-filled read-a-thon.

In order to make money on our increasingly expensive games, we have to make them appeal to THOSE people. Ergo, the complex, tricky, bug-filled read-a-thon is out. We're going to have to design some actual fun gameplay now.

 

[balberoy]

Bye Bye EA and Bioware. Hope you all loose your jobs and have to live on the streets for showing the middlefinger to your fans.

Forgive my bluntness but...what the hell is wrong with you? You want thousands, if not tens of thousands of people and their families to have their lives destroyed simply because Bioware is taking a different approach from what they did a decade ago? Stop being a selfish ass.

Also, people SERIOUSLY need to read the article a little more thoroughly. Not once does he say that RPG's as a genre are less relevant. What he is saying is that old-style conventions of RPG's like insane stats-building and whatnot are less important than crafting a great story.

Also...is nobody paying attention to how Mass Effect 3 is almost drowning in RPG elements relative to Mass Effect 2? People complained there weren't enough stats, Bioware brought them back. People complained that the choices don't have enough consequences, so Bioware is going all-out in the finale. People complained that the combat needed improvement, so Bioware improved the combat. And people are yelling at them for doing EXACTLY what they asked for in the first place!

Okay just for you I try be more precise.

If Bioware don't want that RPG fans buy their game, gratz, they did it, cause they made no RPG since DA:O. So if Bioware sells no games, they won't have a job in the future, it's just a logical next step.

Next one is your defense of Mass Effect 3. Sorry to crush your world, but even Mass Effect 1 is no RPG. Just to have a story doesn't mean it's a RPG. It just means it has a story, nothing more and nothing less.

And now they add more shooter mechanics to the allready present shooter mechanic. So where is any RPG element added? Nowhere, but why should they, it was no RPG from the starting point.

 

[bakan]

Imma translate this article for ya:

The game-playing and -buying percentage of the population has swelled *enormously* in recent years. The cost of making games has ALSO swelled enormously in recent years. While a large percentage of old-school gamers who played back when they had to completely rewrite their config.sys and autoexec.bat files in order to run a game were interested in complex, tricky, bug-filled read-a-thons called "RPG's", this *percentage* has decreased now that computers themselves can easily be used by people who have no clue what a config or autoexec file is. THOSE people are not as interested in playing a complex, tricky, bug-filled read-a-thon.

In order to make money on our increasingly expensive games, we have to make them appeal to THOSE people. Ergo, the complex, tricky, bug-filled read-a-thon is out. We're going to have to design some actual fun gameplay now.

I hope you don't mean what you just wrote...

 

[Animyr]

Care to rephrase that, Bioware?

 

[Baresark]

Well, it's not less relevant if you like them. It's still very relevant. Bioware has not done an especially good job in that department lately because they have been telling RPG fans to fuck off.

I mean... I'm not especially invested in anything they are doing anymore, to be honest. Stop making RPG's, that's cool. There are plenty of developers out there that want to cater to people like me. I don't need Bioware RPG's, and neither does the industry.

 

[Levethian]

"With genres blending, core RPG's are getting lost"

So presumably the core-variants of every genre are 'getting lost'.

 

[KAPTAINmORGANnWo4life]

I think it is irrelevant to say that a genre is becoming irrelevant. Look to the Eastern nation and they will show you just how irrelevant the RPG genre is. The western taste of things has always been different in the east. This is why there is a sub genre within the genre known as JRPG. Come on Bioware pull your head out of your ass you are not reinventing any genre you are just making a hybrid of shit that is popular in the east to apply to a mass audience. I'm sure the EA mentality is now a virus of Bioware.

Was ist das östliche nation sprechen sie von? Ihre nachricht wurde etwa so verständlich wie Englisch als diese.

 

[JeanLuc761]

Okay just for you I try be more precise.

If Bioware don't want that RPG fans buy their game, gratz, they did it, cause they made no RPG since DA:O. So if Bioware sells no games, they won't have a job in the future, it's just a logical next step.

Next one is your defense of Mass Effect 3. Sorry to crush your world, but even Mass Effect 1 is no RPG. Just to have a story doesn't mean it's a RPG. It just means it has a story, nothing more and nothing less.

And now they add more shooter mechanics to the allready present shooter mechanic. So where is any RPG element added? Nowhere, but why should they, it was no RPG from the starting point.

Right, because people will stop buying Bioware games if they stop making RPG's. Sense, this does not make it.

As for Mass Effect, what on earth defines an RPG to you? Mass Effect 1 (and 2, to a lesser extent), allow the player to make choices that affect the story and world around them, as well as traditional elements like stats and inventory to alter play-styles and customize their characters.

If the Mass Effect trilogy ISN'T an Action RPG series (which it always has been), I'll eat my hat.

 

[mwnrnc]

Imma translate this article for ya:

The game-playing and -buying percentage of the population has swelled *enormously* in recent years. The cost of making games has ALSO swelled enormously in recent years. While a large percentage of old-school gamers who played back when they had to completely rewrite their config.sys and autoexec.bat files in order to run a game were interested in complex, tricky, bug-filled read-a-thons called "RPG's", this *percentage* has decreased now that computers themselves can easily be used by people who have no clue what a config or autoexec file is. THOSE people are not as interested in playing a complex, tricky, bug-filled read-a-thon.

In order to make money on our increasingly expensive games, we have to make them appeal to THOSE people. Ergo, the complex, tricky, bug-filled read-a-thon is out. We're going to have to design some actual fun gameplay now.

I agree. While I enjoyed old school RPGs, I realize that not everyone did and I think the gameplay was a large reason why. Hitting the "attack" button and watching your character empty a clip into an enemy is not as fun as controlling your character and doing that yourself. The combat was never the most fun part of an RPG. I'm all for bringing in more fun combat while keeping the fun parts of the core RPG experience intact. I am worried BioWare and others may bungle that, however.

 

[JMeganSnow]

Imma translate this article for ya:

The game-playing and -buying percentage of the population has swelled *enormously* in recent years. The cost of making games has ALSO swelled enormously in recent years. While a large percentage of old-school gamers who played back when they had to completely rewrite their config.sys and autoexec.bat files in order to run a game were interested in complex, tricky, bug-filled read-a-thons called "RPG's", this *percentage* has decreased now that computers themselves can easily be used by people who have no clue what a config or autoexec file is. THOSE people are not as interested in playing a complex, tricky, bug-filled read-a-thon.

In order to make money on our increasingly expensive games, we have to make them appeal to THOSE people. Ergo, the complex, tricky, bug-filled read-a-thon is out. We're going to have to design some actual fun gameplay now.

I hope you don't mean what you just wrote...

I've been encouraging Bioware to design some fun gameplay for years--as well as improve the "RPG" aspects of their games. They've been focused more on gameplay recently, which I consider to be a good thing, because the actual gameplay aspects of most of their games REALLY SUCK.

That isn't to say that I don't think the story aspect of their games can use some improvement and fine-tuning. It can. I'd like to see them explore new territory and find new ways of blending story and gameplay. I'd like to see them experiment with new systems that allow the player to make meaningful-feeling choices and feel themselves as a driver behind an awesome story. That'd all be great.

But at the end of the day, they're not a charity. They have to make money in order to stay in existence. If that means they have to mostly stick with the main chance and don't get to do as much cool experimental stuff as I'd like, so be it. A game that's not as cool as it could be is much better than no game at all.

 

[Alar]

No. No no no, no, no. No no. No.

This is definitely wrong... I'm sorry, but I don't think the RPG will ever become irrelevant. Fans love them, people will continue to love them, and there will be new people who will love them in the future.

 

[Whateveralot]

I always figured that "Role Playing Game" is a vague term, because in every game where you control a character, you play that role. Obviously in a lot of games it's a lot less deep then "RPG"'s, but it's still quite much direct control over a character. As much as they're giving you. The fact that they're giving you more control over the character, puts you further into that role, but there's not significant border from RPG games and other genres.

But that's only the term "RPG" becoming less relevant, not actual RPG-gameplay elements.

 

[genericusername64]

Bioware, don't act like you've stayed true to the rpg formula. The last few years, you've made action games, and not very good ones at that.
Also, Skyrim

 

[balberoy]

Okay just for you I try be more precise.

If Bioware don't want that RPG fans buy their game, gratz, they did it, cause they made no RPG since DA:O. So if Bioware sells no games, they won't have a job in the future, it's just a logical next step.

Next one is your defense of Mass Effect 3. Sorry to crush your world, but even Mass Effect 1 is no RPG. Just to have a story doesn't mean it's a RPG. It just means it has a story, nothing more and nothing less.

And now they add more shooter mechanics to the allready present shooter mechanic. So where is any RPG element added? Nowhere, but why should they, it was no RPG from the starting point.

Right, because people will stop buying Bioware games if they stop making RPG's. Sense, this does not make it.

As for Mass Effect, what on earth defines an RPG to you? Mass Effect 1 (and 2, to a lesser extent), allow the player to make choices that affect the story and world around them, as well as traditional elements like stats and inventory to alter play-styles and customize their characters.

If the Mass Effect trilogy ISN'T an Action RPG series (which it always has been), I'll eat my hat.

No but they will loose their core demographic, the gamers that bought Bioware games since years like me. And I as a customer am not pleased, so I buy no more games from then. And so in my point of view they can just go wherever they want.

Mass Effect is no RPG... then as a matter of fact Deus Ex would be a RPG as well.
And if a good story would make a RPG a lot of games, were RPG's. Just think for Bioshock. You find plasmids and use them as "magic" even with a mana of sort.

Bioware themself defined in a way what makes an RPG, with Baldus Gate for example. Or just look at Planescape tournement.

Mass Effect is a Shooter with a very good story and heavy influences form RPG's. But you take direct controle of your Char. You run into the Action and fire the weapon yourself. Thats no RPG.

Just like Dragon Age II for me is no RPG, it's a Hack'n'Slash game. You run into 5 dungeons, wich all look the same, except the barrel changes its corner, wich seems very "odd". Next time enemies "spawn" in a random corner and you run into a horde of enemies swinging your sword, magic, bow, etc. like a madman and after everything splattered into a smoke of red blood you take a new weapon from the enemy...
Doesn't seem like a RPG to me. It has a again a "good" (or like some old fans say "retarded story) and thats that.

A RPG is defined by the gameflow, the mechanics they use to make you feel or controle the char.

Of course good RPG's have a nice compelling story, but the same can be said for a good book or any really good game.

What EA/Bioware does is combine a very good story with Shooter / Hack'n'Slash mechanics. So they get all the 10 year old to play their games. Wich would otherwise play Painkiller or sort of.

Just look how the enemies "explode" in DA II. It's purely to get the attantion of some underage who say "BLOOOOOOOOD GOOOOOOREEEE", mindless buttonmasher is what I think.

 

[ciasteczkowyp]

This sentence will be truthfully shown in bioware's memorpoger, and that's specifically why I'm not gonna even bother buying it. (Am I right Yahtzee?)

 

[Versuvius]

As a gamer, with several friends who are gamers, who love games like NWN, dragon age:O, oblivion, morrowind etc. I call the co-founder of bioware out on his bullshit statement. I will not be told what is relevent and what isn't when im the one buying their fucking products. Or indeed, may well not be buying them.

 

[Ian Caronia]

"It's funny because the RPG in the context of the current world is - well, it's not specifically irrelevant, but it's becoming less relevant in and of itself," he continued. "It's more a function of, 'Hey, this game has a great story.' For us, [it's] having that emotion but also having other great features like combat and persistence of character progression and stuff."

So let me get this straight: The company that's supposedly been making RPGs thus far and for as long as its been in existence has a founder that thinks RPGs are on the road to being irrelevant.
...My brain hurts just thinking about that.

It really puts things like how a Bioware exec for Dragon Age 2 said "Call of Duty is an RPG because you put points into things" into perspective, especially considering said company's co-founder (of what is meant to be an RPG company, if you might've forgotten) said "...For us, having that emotion but also having other great features like combat and persistence of character progression and stuff."

Bioware is run and operated by individuals who can't even talk like adults.
"An RPG is like a thing that has points and stuff." -Bioware

After Mass Effect 3, I have a feeling a LOT of people are gonna be done with Bioware. Many were done with them after Dragon Age 2.
Trust me, the day this "RPG company" finally shows its true colors (as if this didn't) is the day they finally release the title they've wanted to for so long:
"Call of Duty: Totes RPG Stuff"

Spoiler: Because I hate the stupid, I picked apart what he said to get at his ignorance (towards RPGs and games in general)

"RPGs are and always have been our bread and butter, our heart is there, but at the same time I think - well, we had the RPG panel breakfast at GDC yesterday - and what was interesting about that was that we had the conversation about 'what is an RPG,' and it's a blend."

It's not a "blend". "RPG" is a genre, a type of game. A game is classified as such depending on the tropes involved, its overall gameplay style, and how its narrative progresses. This is why people who think "All games are RPGs" are ignorant to the context in which "RPG" is used when classifying a game.
_A "blend" is a genre mixer wherein tropes and gameplay styles of different games are combined to form a cohesive whole. That's why it's called that. Because it blends things.
...Do I need to bring out the blender to show you, or do you have it without the visual aid?

"The genres are blending right now, you're getting lots and lots of progression and RPG elements in shooters - online persistence and so on."
Firstly: Online "persistence". What persistence? What about it? What are you trying to say? Sticking with playing online? Playing online for a long time is the same as playing an RPG? Because, let me tell yah, there's more to an RPG than just playing a single game for several hours.

Considering his very descriptive "and so on" after making only a single point, I can assume that he thinks online play is a staple of the RPG.
...It is not. I won't even go into that. Just look at RPGs that have nothing to do with playing online. It's pretty self explanatory.
_Also, online persistence has nothing to do with and is nothing like an RPG by itself. If a group of friends decided to pretend to be actual soldiers in a war zone, taking on fake personalities and making up back-stories or relationships between their created characters while playing online, then you'd have an RPG session...but only to those playing like that.
_Online gaming is online gaming, and the majority are too busy trying to frag the next guy or steal a flag to make up stories with their friends.
If a group of people go do some Paintball, are they playing an RPG? No. Why?
BECAUSE THERE'S NO ROLE PLAYING INVOLVED!

Then again, to reiterate, this is coming from a company that thinks Call of Duty is an RPG because you put "points into things".

"It's funny because the RPG in the context of the current world is - well, it's not specifically irrelevant, but it's becoming less relevant in and of itself," he continued. "It's more a function of, 'Hey, this game has a great story.' For us, [it's] having that emotion but also having other great features like combat and persistence of character progression and stuff."

Again with the dialect of a fourteen year old, despite being a co-founder in the middle of an interview that's going to be seen by the entirety of the gaming community.
That aside:

The way he spoke implies that RPGs don't have combat and character progression. Firstly, a side note:
Again with the "persistence" thing. Character progression is obviously persistent because it has "progression". If it didn't, it wouldn't be called "character progression" (aka "character evolution" or "character development"). I'd make that famous quote from the Princess Bride here, but I know full well this guy knows what that word means. He just has an extremely limited vocabulary.
Great stuff for a co-founder of a major company. Might as well be forced to count using his fingers...

Back to the original point:
RPGs, more often than not, have combat. Saying/Implying they don't is just ignorance. Also, RPGs are known to have more character progression than any other genre of gaming, mainly due to their focus being on story and character development. Implying they don't is, well, you get the idea.
...And I have no idea what the hell "and stuff" is, but I'll assume he was stopping himself just short of saying, "...And trying to make our games as closely related to the biggest selling genres in the industry today while letting our fanboys defend us, saying we still know plenty about making RPGs."

In conclusion, Bioware has fully been sucked into the black hole of EA and clearly knows nothing about keeping good PR, not letting its executives make themselves look like fools, and especially knows nothing about the RPG genre.

 

[Enrathi]

BioWare has gotten so wrapped up in how to appeal to mass audiences that they forgot what makes RPGs good.

There was a time when developers made games that appealed to themselves and anyone else who'd like it. And anyone who didn't like it just wasn't part of the audience. They made games more for themselves.

Now it is just "How to we appeal to "

It's less about games and more about marketing.

Hit the nail on the head I think. Don't get me wrong I love Bioware and the original Mass Effect is my favorite game, but it really does seem like in trying to branch out and reach the general audience they've had to make some sacrifices to the traditional RPG format.

It's good for them to be critical and commercial mainstream successes, but it'd be nice to see a return to form for the classic RPGs of yore.
There's a reason Baldur's Gate is still such a fondly remembered series, because it still holds up to this day. So there's definitely a market for RPGs, just not quite as large.

I'd hate to see the genre disappear completely, or be morphed into something beyond recognition.

I'm not disagreeing with either of you, but I also feel I should point out that Baldur's Gate didn't cost millions to make. They could do more niche stuff when it wasn't as much a risk as it is now.

But that's why indies have stepped forward in recent years. Breath of Death 7 and Cthulhu Saves the World are great games I had a lot of fun with and ran me a total of $4.

I still love ME, DA, FO...it's just that they've moved away from their niche markets due to financial reasons and while I'd love to see some classic RPGs like they used to make, I enjoy what developers make now and understand why they've changed.

 

[spectrenihlus]

I think we are all asking the wrong question.

"What exactly is an rpg?"

Or rather what do you consider to be an "RPG"?