Gaming companies put on unearned pedestals

[jamail77]

I am currently playing my 2nd Platinum Games um game and I've started to wonder this about them. Mind you, I can't say for sure until I've played a few more of their games, but I can't help wondering. I know it's ultimately subjective, but still "Are they as great as their fanbase claims they are?" is a question that keeps popping up in my head.

Are there any gaming companies that you think are put on a pedestal they either haven't earned yet or most certainly don't deserve for other reasons? This is not limited to developers; feel free to list publishers you see hailed as gods even though you feel they haven't done anything remarkable yet.

 

[StriderShinryu]

Valve would be my pick. Now, don't get me wrong, I do think they created some good games (even if most of them don't personally resonate with me) but it's been a while since they've really created anything new or interesting themselves. I'd even say it's perhaps not really fair to consider them a developer anymore. Steam is where their head is at right now and where it's been for some time. When anyone else tries to do what Valve does with Steam, though, they often get tarred and feathered for it but with Valve it's okay because, hey, they made those great games a long time ago.

 

[Aesir23]

Bethesda Game Studios. The open world exploration and moddability of their more well known titles are great but that's about it as far as the strengths go. Their games are often broken upon release in ways that shouldn't be acceptable and I've seen other companies get torn apart for the same thing but Bethesda seems somehow exempt from this. A lot of people will find other sources to blame (such as a particular system) even when the problem seems to be on other systems and other companies seem to be perfectly fine working with that system.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

This is hard.

My first thought was Rockstar because they mostly make GTA III over and over with better and better layers of polish, but they have some very talented writers and Red Dead Redemption was amazing.

Then I thought Blizzard because they are the drug kingpin of video gaming, luring people into the WoW skinner-box, but I love Diablo.

I'm gonna go with Square. The glory days of Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, etc. will always be remembered fondly...but what have they done in the past generation that will be remembered fondly by gaming in general 10 years after release?

 

[Casual Shinji]

Well, it's ultimately up to the fans whether they want to put someone up on a pedestal, and who am I to say they're wrong.

But yeah, I really don't get the deal with Platinum. And whenever I hear someone say 'Platinum is the only studio that gets it. They're the best developer currently on the scene.' I am too befuddled to even laugh out loud.

 

[Foolery]

Platinum is mediocre. Not bad, not great. You could swap characters in any of their games, and there would be no real difference. That's how redundant their work is. Raiden could fit into Bayonnetta, and Bayonetta wouldn't be out of place in Metal Gear Rising. I also agree on Valve, they haven't done much aside from a decent game distribution platform, despite how much I enjoyed Portal, L4D, etc.

 

[GundamSentinel]

Bethesda Game Studios. The open world exploration and moddability of their more well known titles are great but that's about it as far as the strengths go. Their games are often broken upon release in ways that shouldn't be acceptable and I've seen other companies get torn apart for the same thing but Bethesda seems somehow exempt from this. A lot of people will find other sources to blame (such as a particular system) even when the problem seems to be on other systems and other companies seem to be perfectly fine working with that system.

Not just that, their games (lately at least) all seem to have awful stories, bad dialogue, worse voice acting, uninteresting characters, game play that I'd hardly even call serviceable. They are amazing at building a world, but atrocious at putting a game in it.

 

[Tyrant_Valvatorez]

Atlus is my pick, yes they make some great games but man do people seem to love to paint them as some sort of Messiah of the game industry. They are very guilty of things a lot of other companies get shit for,like for example reusing the same character designs since the 90's or copy pasting 3D models from Nocturne. I will repeat again the fact that they get away with shit no other publisher would have such as Persona 4 Arena being region locked.

Bottom line they make great games but stop treating them as if they are perfect, especially when they can't even reliably release their own games to Europe. Can I just say as side note every time someone rushes to defend with "they don't have an EU branch!" makes me want to punch something.

 

[Candidus]

Obsidian. They aren't a patch on Black Isle Studios of old, their games are always eye-wateringly hideous to look at and riddled with bugs, both small and game-breaking. Their writing is so-so, their voice work is so-so or worse. Eugh, Obsidian...

 

[Random Fella]

Valve would be my pick. Now, don't get me wrong, I do think they created some good games (even if most of them don't personally resonate with me) but it's been a while since they've really created anything new or interesting themselves. I'd even say it's perhaps not really fair to consider them a developer anymore. Steam is where their head is at right now and where it's been for some time. When anyone else tries to do what Valve does with Steam, though, they often get tarred and feathered for it but with Valve it's okay because, hey, they made those great games a long time ago.

It hasn't been that long since they released DOTA 2, and that's a pretty massive game, that they are still working on in fact.

 

[totheendofsin]

At present Double Fine is looking rather shakey up there.

yes they did make good games but Space base Then there was Broken Age which looks like maybe getting finished 2015 if we're lucky. They're making Massive Chalice and Grim Fandango remake so they must be stretched very thin for a small company with at least 3 games on the go.

I can't see much consumer satisfaction recently and with the fact they had pre-order exclusive content for Costume Quest 2 I don't think they deserve much praise anymore and are starting to be running on past collected good will rather than anything earned recently.

Pretty much, Tim Schafer has been riding the coattails of his past successes for years.

 

[Ieyke]

Bungie springs to mind. They're only famous for a series of mediocre, generic sci-fi FPS's.

Also Blizzard. That last truly great game they made was Diablo 2:Lord Of Destruction, which was a masterpiece.....and then the subsequent 14 years of stuff has been...okay.

Valve would be my pick. Now, don't get me wrong, I do think they created some good games (even if most of them don't personally resonate with me) but it's been a while since they've really created anything new or interesting themselves. I'd even say it's perhaps not really fair to consider them a developer anymore. Steam is where their head is at right now and where it's been for some time. When anyone else tries to do what Valve does with Steam, though, they often get tarred and feathered for it but with Valve it's okay because, hey, they made those great games a long time ago.

Valve's pretty damn great. Don't think they've ever made a game that wasn't great.
It may seem like they're focused on Steam, but they're actually working on Source 2 and alllllll the sequels with 3's in the title that will run on Source 2.

I am currently playing my 2nd Platinum Games um game and I've started to wonder this about them. Mind you, I can't say for sure until I've played a few more of their games, but I can't help wondering.

I've wondered about Platinum. I can't say I've ever actually played one of their games because literally none of them appeal to me, but Platinum IS the resurrected Clover Studios (who made Okami).
Okami is nothing less than a masterpiece, so I can't rule them out offhand.
*shrug*

Bethesda Game Studios. The open world exploration and moddability of their more well known titles are great but that's about it as far as the strengths go. Their games are often broken upon release in ways that shouldn't be acceptable and I've seen other companies get torn apart for the same thing but Bethesda seems somehow exempt from this. A lot of people will find other sources to blame (such as a particular system) even when the problem seems to be on other systems and other companies seem to be perfectly fine working with that system.

If we're real honest, yea, Bethesda's pretty shit. They're good at making huge worlds with lots of shit in them, but they're bad at making fun...and their games all run on a shitty 16 year-old game engine that has been modded, upgraded, renamed, and claimed to be "new" over and over and over and over.
It's either the game engine's limitations or Bethesda sucks at character animations....and game mechanics....and gameplay....and pretty much everything that isn't making huge worlds with lots of shit in them.

 

[VaporWare]

I generally find that most developers/publishers actually earned their pedestals at one point or another...even Electronic Arts used to be a golden child of the medium.

The problem is that in a very important way, companies aren't people. They're made of people. As people change out, the whole culture of the group changes until the EA or Blizzard you knew twenty years ago bears no resemblance whatsoever to the EA or Blizzard of today.

Some of them are even outright zombies...companies like Atari that were once the vanguard of gaming that died outright, but their name was dredged up and bought for entirely different organizations.

I don't really think there are any major industry members who haven't earned at least some of their laurels getting to where they got. Even Phil Fish was doing interesting and worthy things before he completely imploded.

The problem is that they're resting on them, and the laurels of others, instead of continuing to advance the medium in any meaningful way.

 

[Fox12]

Yeah, sorry valve, but you get my vote.

Steam is wonderful, but as for their games? I liked portal, and that's it. The other title were painfully average. Maybe it was just the hype, but none of their games were that impressive outside of portal. The stories were bland or even bad, and I'd seen the game play done better. Not bad, just okay.

 

[L. Declis]

Another one for Valve.

They do some pretty shitty things with Steam, even EA has better customer service, Steam has become a shovelware crap-engine and is slowly absorbing all of PC gaming into it and the last thing they made which wasn't about forcing people into online games was... Portal 2? Which was... Okay.

Not really the messiah everyone thinks they are, in my opinion. But they have a fat bearded man who is rather clever, they occasionally give a discount and the Half-Life 3 joke, so everyone gives them a pass.

I'm gonna go with Square. The glory days of Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, etc. will always be remembered fondly...but what have they done in the past generation that will be remembered fondly by gaming in general 10 years after release?

Wait... People still respect Squares...SquareEn... Square? They have been a running joke among the gaming community ever since Tidus laughed and the game with Final in it's name broke 10 and started making sequels.

It's not so much on a pedastal as knocked off one into a pile of reputational shit.

 

[g7g7g7g7]

I'm voting in Double Fine, more specifically Tim Shafer.

Tim is an industry legend with a reputation for making great games, as a prominent member of the games industry he has the contacts and knowledge to make games through the normal funding routes. The only reason I can see him funding his work with a funding system designed for start-ups is that he is a greedy shit who isn't prepared to pay the price of business. If there was ever a person that deserved to fail in the eyes of his fans and lose all credibility it's him.

I'm on the fence over Roberts Space Industries as well, however many millions they have taken in funding without a penny of the business is pretty ludicrous.

In my opinion if established companies like Double Fine or big names like Chris Roberts want to use Kickstarter they should be forced to trade funding for stock in their company like any other established business that wants investment.

Yeah I know thats a pretty extreme view and there are arguments against it, but none I see that justify industry giants getting almost free investment.

 

[hermes]

Kojima Studios for me.

Most of the Kojima games are pretty impressive from a production standpoint, but they are full of flaws many people disregard as nitpicky. There are fans, and then there are rabid fans, and Kojima games tend to attract a lot of the later, to the point I was convinced Kojima could put crap in the form of a CD, sell it to people, and many would go heads over heels to call it great... Then Ground Zeroes happened, and it proved me right.

And before you deny it, Lords of Shadows is a Kojima game too...

 

[gigastar]

Bethesda. I swear Elder Scrolls popularity comes entirely off the back of its modding community.

While Platinum does generally make things that are good to watch and play, every new release i see from them convinces me that they dont really know how to do anything else.

Square Enix for all the obvious reasons. It remains to be seen if they can redeem themselves after they realised that they can keep doing what people used to love them for.

And Capcom gets venerated by me so long as they put a Monster Hunter outside of Japan every so often. Despite... pretty much everything else.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

Another one for Valve.

They do some pretty shitty things with Steam, even EA has better customer service, Steam has become a shovelware crap-engine and is slowly absorbing all of PC gaming into it and the last thing they made which wasn't about forcing people into online games was... Portal 2? Which was... Okay.

Not really the messiah everyone thinks they are, in my opinion. But they have a fat bearded man who is rather clever, they occasionally give a discount and the Half-Life 3 joke, so everyone gives them a pass.

I'm gonna go with Square. The glory days of Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, etc. will always be remembered fondly...but what have they done in the past generation that will be remembered fondly by gaming in general 10 years after release?

Wait... People still respect Squares...SquareEn... Square? They have been a running joke among the gaming community ever since Tidus laughed and the game with Final in it's name broke 10 and started making sequels.

It's not so much on a pedastal as knocked off one into a pile of reputational shit.

You'd be surprised.

I visit other communities that have large contingents JRPG fans, as well as social circles of real-life friends, and of those who loved Square's output during the SNES/PS1 era, there is this strange, irrational hope that Sqaure will release a great Final Fantasy game again.

EDIT: It's more than a bit sad, really...

 

[Uriel_Hayabusa]

I find PlatinumGames to be highly overpraised. Their games just try so hard to be over-the-top, stylish and hardcore that it usually goes at the expense of polish.