I Loled, especially seeing as other people in the industry are saying the opposite, with less titles being released due to the focus on AAA quality productions. On top of that when I look at the library for the last generation, both in terms of PC games and what was coming out for the PS-2 it seemed a bit bigger and more varied to me. Of course then again, I think it was because more games of the sort I like were actually being released.
Also the problem with the game industy is that I think they don't bother to listen to, or take the community seriously. Nor do they properly employ beta-testers and the like anymore. While the problem was definatly present "last gen" it's gotten substantially worse.
If the industry paid attention people do tell developers what other companies are doing, and at the very least this can focus what they should be looking at, given their current game projects.
I'll also say that I think there is too much focus on the industry overall, and ironically at the same time trying to emulate what other companies seem to be selling, rather than developing your own ideas... as ironic and contridictory as it sounds.
When I talk about Beta-Testers, the issue as I see it is that today Beta Tests are treated like free previews, and handed out as pre-order incentives and the like. By the time most testers get involved, the game content itself is already "set" in the minds of the developers, and they really don't care about bug hunting anymore unless it's something absolutly game shattering (and even if it is, they tend to ignore it, and figure they can patch it later). I think we see games like "New Vegas" released in sorry states due to the sorry state of beta testing. You can tell a lot about how seriously certain companies take their testing through the quality of the games.
I used to be a really good Beta Tester, but I've gotten somewhat demoralized because it seems that when testing an MMORPG you can find a bug (like a place where someone can get perma-stuck) and have it ignored to the point of staying in the game months after release. Not to mention cases where you can have literally dozens of testers sending feedback that something doesn't work, is unbalanced, or just lessens the game experience, and there is little if any noticible tweaking at all even if the game is taken down 20 to 30 times before release.
Some of the most ridiculous game balance issues in MMORPGs were things spotted by testers months before release, and were never addressed.
What's more the whole "free preview" mentality leads to a lot of people playing these games approaching it from the perspective of wanting a leg up on the competition when the game launches rather than things being fair. You see opposition to points made about game balance issues, the nature of bugs, and similar things from players who want to exploit those things after release. After all if it say takes them a month to fix something that gives you a decisive advantage and which they can't track, you can stay ahead for years in a competitive game based on that leg up. Ever notice that a lot of the longest running and most successful MMORPG guilds, and the most dominant PVPers tend to be former beta testers, even after people long since should have caught up on the learning curve?
The point here being that I think developers should spend more time dealing with their actual communities, rather than playing games made by other companies. I've venture a guess that Bioware devs would benefit more from putting that 2-3 hours of general gaming into surfing their own forums so they can find ways to you know... improve the game based on what the people playing it are saying.
Also the problem with the game industy is that I think they don't bother to listen to, or take the community seriously. Nor do they properly employ beta-testers and the like anymore. While the problem was definatly present "last gen" it's gotten substantially worse.
If the industry paid attention people do tell developers what other companies are doing, and at the very least this can focus what they should be looking at, given their current game projects.
I'll also say that I think there is too much focus on the industry overall, and ironically at the same time trying to emulate what other companies seem to be selling, rather than developing your own ideas... as ironic and contridictory as it sounds.
When I talk about Beta-Testers, the issue as I see it is that today Beta Tests are treated like free previews, and handed out as pre-order incentives and the like. By the time most testers get involved, the game content itself is already "set" in the minds of the developers, and they really don't care about bug hunting anymore unless it's something absolutly game shattering (and even if it is, they tend to ignore it, and figure they can patch it later). I think we see games like "New Vegas" released in sorry states due to the sorry state of beta testing. You can tell a lot about how seriously certain companies take their testing through the quality of the games.
I used to be a really good Beta Tester, but I've gotten somewhat demoralized because it seems that when testing an MMORPG you can find a bug (like a place where someone can get perma-stuck) and have it ignored to the point of staying in the game months after release. Not to mention cases where you can have literally dozens of testers sending feedback that something doesn't work, is unbalanced, or just lessens the game experience, and there is little if any noticible tweaking at all even if the game is taken down 20 to 30 times before release.
Some of the most ridiculous game balance issues in MMORPGs were things spotted by testers months before release, and were never addressed.
What's more the whole "free preview" mentality leads to a lot of people playing these games approaching it from the perspective of wanting a leg up on the competition when the game launches rather than things being fair. You see opposition to points made about game balance issues, the nature of bugs, and similar things from players who want to exploit those things after release. After all if it say takes them a month to fix something that gives you a decisive advantage and which they can't track, you can stay ahead for years in a competitive game based on that leg up. Ever notice that a lot of the longest running and most successful MMORPG guilds, and the most dominant PVPers tend to be former beta testers, even after people long since should have caught up on the learning curve?
The point here being that I think developers should spend more time dealing with their actual communities, rather than playing games made by other companies. I've venture a guess that Bioware devs would benefit more from putting that 2-3 hours of general gaming into surfing their own forums so they can find ways to you know... improve the game based on what the people playing it are saying.
