Gaming dying etc etc

[Twilight_guy]

If you don't like gaming and think every game series sucks... please, leave. You clearly aren't enjoying it and the community doesn't enjoy you (or anyone) complaining. People change and so do their interests, games are simply a hobby and it may be time for you to get a new hobby if you don't like it. Simple as that. Maybe later you can come back when things change a bit.

 

[Vault101]

Indie games may be mostly nothing but cute cartoony/retro throwback graphics and some "quriky" mechanic but don't discount the entire genre because of that.

most people do that for AAA instead "its all COD clones"

and yeah..I addmitted my perceptions of the genre may have been...skewed somwhat

[quote/]i]YOU[/i] don't like 'indie' games, good for you!
.[/quote]
I never said I was right or that my reasoning even made any sense

The sequels to these games don't exist yet. They can fail. And if Call of Duty fails, all the IPs which were altered to be more like Call of Duty will die with it, because people won't want to stop buying Call of Duty just to buy "Call of Duty in Space".
.

so basically thats just an odd way of saying trends come and go

 

[Joccaren]

I still don;t get what your trying to say....you can;t tell somone their personal experiences are wrong

He's not. He basically just said that you've listed games, no real experiences from them though, which serves to point out that yeah, you remember the name, but were they necessarily that memorable a game if you're not even going to talk about what's so amazingly memorable about it?
Basically, anyone can name names. He wasn't asking for names, he was asking for the memorable experiences.

OT: Yeah... I'm kinda with you, kinda not. AAA games these days are mostly meh. More of a problem in the last 2-3 years than before though IMO, though that also comes partially down to release schedules for good games generally being 3+ years apart so they can actually put some work into the games, rather than just rushing out the next title as a cash grab like so many other series these days =/
Indie games though are generally good. Loving FTL, Dwarf Fortress, Minecraft was fun and I'm getting back into it again now that I've got more things to build, and really I'm enjoying mods for games a lot more than I'm enjoying the games themselves most of the time. The AAA scene has been rather boring so far, but over the next couple of years it'll probably pick up a little. Bioshock Infinite looks interesting, Star Citizen looks good, Project Eternity and that new Torment game look interesting, and DA3 MIGHT be good, but given Bioware's recent track record I'm not holding my breathe. So long as they don't try to actionify everything that comes out and turn it into an interactive movie, I'll be fine, and there're more than a few games coming out in the next couple of years that I'll be surprised if they do that with.

 

[gamernerdtg2]

To answer to your question,what kills good franchises is that their development studios stop being independent and being bought by big publishers.
When a big publisher buys an independent developer studio,expect the game series this studio was making to at least change in the best scenario,or totally die in the worst case scenario.

Konami bought Hudson Soft at a time where they had 2 games in the making,preparing them to be 3DS launch titles,and one of them was a Bomberman game. From the moment Konami bought that studio,they forced it to stop the work in the games they where making,and start making a Facebook game. After 6 months when the Facebook game was finished,Konami fired all employees of Hudson Soft and practically killed the Bomberman franchise.

EA bought Bioware,and as a result we had Dragon Age 2 which was the worst game of the series,and the transformation of Mass Effect from an RPG to a cover based shooter. They bought Crysis and transformed its single player to a shallow linear game,and its multiplayer to be more like Call of Duty,and thus uninteresting. They bought Maxis and they turned Sim City to a shorter game with always online DRM that kills any interest players might had for the game. They bought DICE,and they turned Battlefield from a strategic based war simulator to a more arcade-y and game-y game that isn't realistic at all,and doesn't require strategy,in hopes of stealing fans from Call of Duty.

Microsoft bought Rare,and Perfect Dark turned from a revolutionary shooter franchise to an over-simplified mediocre piece of poo,and then they decided that Rare should only make Kinect games. Conker and Perfect Dark franchises died.

As you can see,when a developer studio gets bought by a publisher,it is almost 100% certain that the main focus and gameplay of a series will change,and most times this change ends up being negative.

On the other hand,independent studios show that as time passes their game series becomes better instead of worse.
Witcher 2 fixed lots of mistakes from Witcher 1,and most initial mistakes of Witcher 2 got fixed by patches,while developers acknowledged the problems of Witcher 2 and promised to fix them for Witcher 3.

Mojang is keep making changes to Minecraft that makes it a better game instead of worse.
Croteam made Serious Sam 3,a really good game for the series that stays true to the gameplay formula of the series while feeling fresh with all the new graphics,music and things that while making the formula feel fresher,doesn't completely change it,doesn't change the core elements of the gameplay the series is known for.
It seems that developers that keep themselves independent tend to produce better games than those who sale themselves to big publishers.
Now I'd really like to see something: Could someone write a list of all the game series that died in recent time,like the last 2-3 years ? It would be pretty interesting I think.

I have to say that this was a good answer.
I also dissagree with the turn that gaming has taken - I saw it happening with Metal Gear Solid on the PS1.

It's not about the gameplay anymore, it's about production and sequels with well known characters. The gameplay can suck (Skyrim), and I have no idea how this is working.

In a way, it's good for gamers like me because I can get what I want for less money. Regarding Dragon Age and Mass Effect, why waste time playing those when you can see all of the plot points on YouTube for free?
That's my biggest gripe about them. I beat DA2 and ME2 before realizing that I was wasting my time.

 

[Stryc9]

Dear Escapists,

As someone who has been watching good gaming series get mutilated over the past decade, I have for you a question: how can developers intentionally butcher their own work and, not only be entirely oblivious about it, but also genuinely think they are doing an excellent job?

It's fairly simple. The people developing the newer games had absolutely nothing to do with the original games development in most cases so they aren't butchering their own work, they're butchering someone elses. A fair part of it is their bosses at the publishing company telling them what to make and here's the name you're going to put on it.

Other times the developers claim that instead of trying to make a game that feels like the original they want to capture the essence of how they felt about the games when they played it. There was a lot of that bullshit being spewed during the development of C&C 3 from the people working on it, and while in that case they didn't completely fuck it up they used a lot of the same words when talking about Red Alert 3 and that was a complete and total mess.

 

[Jfswift]

Eventually, games in the future will become just one mutt of a game. It will be called, "The Game" and will have a ten dollar a month subscription fee for a mediocre experience. :3

 

[Vault101]

He's not. He basically just said that you've listed games, no real experiences from them though, which serves to point out that yeah, you remember the name, but were they necessarily that memorable a game if you're not even going to talk about what's so amazingly memorable about it?
Basically, anyone can name names. He wasn't asking for names, he was asking for the memorable experiences.
.

thats a bit unfair...we figured he just wanted to know games we liked/found memorable, I didnt think he needed a description for each one

In a way, it's good for gamers like me because I can get what I want for less money. Regarding Dragon Age and Mass Effect, why waste time playing those when you can see all of the plot points on YouTube for free?
That's my biggest gripe about them. I beat DA2 and ME2 before realizing that I was wasting my time.

your kidding right?

its funny some people would say ME2 was a step up from ME1 gameplaywise AND vice versa (depending on who you ask) I prefered ME2 and liked ME3 the most (because hey I'm just a dummy who likes them shooters) I think you'll find plenty of people enjoyed playing those gamees..I played the crap out of ME2

even then watching it on youtube is nowhere NEAR "playing" those games...part of the apeal is to experience it yourself, and that means talking to the charachters, wandering around the ship and making the choices...that really is half the apeal....if your playing those games and complaining that the cutscenes/story are too long/annyoing then its clearly not the game for you

in that regard what people see in skyrim I have no Idea

 

[BreakfastMan]

*snip*

*snip*

Misconstrued on my part perhaps, though just listing games themselves and not such memorable instances designed within would better serve to illustrate my point.

An answer yes, but lacking anything substantial.

Really? Fucking really? Can you move goal posts any more blatantly?

OT: Calm yo' tits OP, gaming is not dying. Some series have degraded in quality in recent years. That is it. Great new games are still being made. The game industry isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

 

[Rachmaninov]

Some series have degraded in quality in recent years. That is it. Great new games are still being made. The game industry isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

I don't think you're looking at all the information.

It sounds like, from your post, you think that "some series degrading in quality" is what you think people feel the industry is threatened by?

Because if so, it's not. The industry is threatened by big publishers spending more money on their games than they can possibly recoup.

Prototype 2 comes out and sells well, but the developer gets shut down because the game "failed to find wider market appeal" (paraphrasing) and Dead Space had the guillotine publicly hung over it, after EA poured so much money into the third game that they'd have to sell five million units (absolutely never going to happen. Current sales figures are still less than 1 mil, and it was completely unreasonable to think five million was an achievable goal) to make it viable.

And that leads to some franchises being twisted to "appeal to a wider audience", just in the hopes of recouping some of the massive budget thrown at the games. And people feel as though you can't compete as AAA unless you spend these exorbitant amounts.

A market where every game that comes out had more money poured into its development than it can possibly get back in sales is unsustainable. No amount of plucky courage can change that.

But like I've already said, earlier in this article, I only think this would be a new chapter for gaming. A good chapter.

 

[BreakfastMan]

Some series have degraded in quality in recent years. That is it. Great new games are still being made. The game industry isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

I don't think you're looking at all the information.

It sounds like, from your post, you think that "some series degrading in quality" is what you think people feel the industry is threatened by?

Because if so, it's not. The industry is threatened by big publishers spending more money on their games than they can possibly recoup.

Prototype 2 comes out and sells well, but the developer gets shut down because the game "failed to find wider market appeal" (paraphrasing) and Dead Space had the guillotine publicly hung over it, after EA poured so much money into the third game that they'd have to sell five million units (absolutely never going to happen. Current sales figures are still less than 1 mil, and it was completely unreasonable to think five million was an achievable goal) to make it viable.

So, a couple big companies have made poor business decisions. Whoop-de-freaking-do. And yet, Square Enix continues to make good money from all of the Eidos IPs, Bethesda and 2K continue make money had over fist from their popular IPs, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony continue to sell loads of games from their stable collection of IPs, and Atlus holds the JRPG market in a strangle-hold (EDIT: And that isn't even mentioning Valve, Paradox, Nippon Ichi, Rockstar, or the massive indie community that is constantly putting out great stuff). Not really seeing the doom and gloom...

A market where every game that comes out had more money poured into its development than it can possibly get back in sales is unsustainable. No amount of plucky courage can change that.

Well, it certainly is a good thing we aren't there yet, isn't it?

 

[Mrkillhappy]

Clones have always existed in the gaming industry and in fact the clones in this generation are better then many of the previous generations. What I mean by this is that now the clones are just mediocre as opposed to how they used to be is the old days where they were rushed and broken to unplayable levels.

 

[Signa]

Clones have always existed in the gaming industry and in fact the clones in this generation are better then many of the previous generations. What I mean by this is that now the clones are just mediocre as opposed to how they used to be is the old days where they were rushed and broken to unplayable levels.

I think that's worse, because it makes everything feel mediocre. As much as nostalgic gamers get ripped on for looking at the past with rose-tinted glasses, the thing about the past is that the lows were pretty low, but the highs were awesome. In this climate, I don't think we will see highs that good ever again.

Case in point: The new Torment Kickstarter game got funded in 6 hours. I'd be shocked if it had half the writing and dialogue the last one did. Sadly, that's why everyone donated to it, because they want that writing again.

 

[Rachmaninov]

So, a couple big companies have made poor business decisions. Whoop-de-freaking-do. And yet, Square Enix continues to make good money from all of the Eidos IPs, Bethesda and 2K continue make money had over fist from their popular IPs, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony continue to sell loads of games from their stable collection of IPs, and Atlus holds the JRPG market in a strangle-hold. Not really seeing the doom and gloom...

Ah, sorry, and there I thought if the two largest video game publishers in the world collapsed in on themselves, that it might be a big deal.

But clearly not.

That'd be the day the world forgot Call of Duty, FIFA, Mass Effect... (originally, I intended to put a long list here, but I'm sure you get the point) ...and likely World of Warcraft had ever existed in the first place. And then we'd all go play JRPGs instead.

But in all honesty, we both know EA and Activision would pull the rest of the industry down with them, because they are the vast, vast majority of the industry already. The only possible exception would be perhaps Nintendo, since they seem to live in their own personal bubble, where they can achieve nothing but success despite my never having met anyone claiming to be a "Nintendo fan".

A market where every game that comes out had more money poured into its development than it can possibly get back in sales is unsustainable. No amount of plucky courage can change that.

Well, it certainly is a good thing we aren't there yet, isn't it?

We've got one foot in that grave. Prototype 2 and Dead Space 3 both sold fine, but were both crippling failures for their publishers. The fact that, if EA and Activision carry on down their current path, we will "be there" should be a worrying enough of a concept.

 

[BreakfastMan]

But in all honesty, we both know EA and Activision would pull the rest of the industry down with them, because they are the vast, vast majority of the industry already.

I don't. Seriously, why would EA and Activision folding effect 2K and Bethesda? If anything, they would step in to fill the vacuum left.

A market where every game that comes out had more money poured into its development than it can possibly get back in sales is unsustainable. No amount of plucky courage can change that.

Well, it certainly is a good thing we aren't there yet, isn't it?

We've got one foot in that grave. Prototype 2 and Dead Space 3 both sold fine, but were both crippling failures for their publishers. The fact that, if EA and Activision carry on down their current path, we will "be there" should be a worrying enough of a concept.

That assertion is based on the idea that if EA and Activision close, they take the game industry with them, which I don't buy for a second.

 

[Kyrian007]

I think lots of things are changing. Change happens within the lifetime of each entertainment medium. In its infancy some things work and are good and others bomb, but everything is new and exciting. And eventually new ideas start giving way to more derivative work trying to eek more value out of the good ideas. But that doesn't mean innovation and originality aren't still out there, just less common.

And as we gamers get older, our tastes change as well. I can't really disagree with the "games are dying" sentiment, because it's most likely true. But I believe it's the slow death of any entertainment medium (the way video killed the radio star) and none of us reading this thread will be alive to see any of them completely gone. Some people might still hate to see it go away for our children and our children's children.

But ehh... screw them. As long as I have gaming that's good enough for me.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

Let me put it this way. I have yet to see a SNES game that gives you a ton of value. Oh, sure, there are games that you wouldn't mind playing over and over again because they are damn good games, but have you ever put 100 hours into Chrono Trigger? Have you put 100 hours into Super Mario World? Have you put 100 hours into Golden Axe? I doubt it. Meanwhile, you could put 100 hours into Fallout: New Vegas or Grand Theft Auto IV and still not get everything done. This is coming from someone who thinks that the best quality of games overall was found on the SNES.

Gaming's changing, that's all. Sure, you can complain that right now, sequels are the big thing. You'd be mostly right, since only 1 of the top 10 best sellers on the 360 so far has been a non-franchise game (by the way, that one has sold just under 10 million more copies than the second place seller). However, guess how many of the top 10 best selling Super Nintendo games were originals? The answer is...4. Not that many more.

On top of that, more people are gaming now than ever. The NES has sold 60 million units. The 360? 76 million. And remember, the 360 isn't even the most successful of this generation. That would be the Wii, which has sold nearly 100 million units as of December of 2012, and may have broken past that milestone since.

You can say that games are stagnating. Tell me, how many versions of Street Fighter II were there? That wasn't only making sequel after sequel. That was making the same game over and over, adding just a few things each time. I'll tell you how many: 6. 6 versions of the same game, not counting the 360 HD remake. Can you imagine the fuss if EA decided to make Dragon Age II, Dragon Age II+, Dragon Age II: Hyper Edition, Dragon Age II: Game of the Year Edition, Dragon Age II: Electric Boogaloo Edition, and Dragon Age II: Give Us Your Money Edition? Yeah, gamers would throw a fit. But back then, people just bought each edition, giving their money to Capcom. Yep, games sure are worse now.

 

[rob_simple]

Oh good, another person who can't distinguish between something bad and something they don't like.

I'm sure someone else has already pointed this out to you, but developers don't 'intentionally ruin their games' and it's insulting to all the hard work and hundreds upon thousands of hours they clock to imply otherwise.

It reminds me of that old Bill Hicks bit about Judas Priest telling their fans to kill themselves: why would a developer intentionally do something that would potentially destroy their sales?

There are any number of reasons for a series to take a new direction; attracting a new audience, hardware limitations and, hey, here's one to consider: maybe devs aren't all that interested in making the same game every three years from now until the end of time, just to appease a tiny portion of fanboys who we all know will still piss and moan because it will never be exactly how they want it.

This whole thread could have ended after Zhukov's initial response: gaming, as a whole, has never been more exciting and diverse, and if you'd stop latching on to all your precious safezone brands like a fucking limpet you might realise that, OP.

 

[zefiris]

And yet I am playing better games

You may be having fun, but that's actually taste. You aren't actually playing better games. With the exception of FPS shooters, games did objectively offer more gameplay and options ten years ago. Ultima Underworld 2 is objectively superior to any western RPG of the last few years as far as story and roleplaying goes. And I don't even like Ultima.

Fact is, in most genres, games aren't better. What they are is more addicting by giving you frequent flashy "rewards", firing off a firework in your brain, making you THINK you are enjoying it more.

It's like eating an actual apple, versus a glob of gelatine filled with flavoring agents. The later may SEEM more appley, but that's really just a company fooling you by giving you an objectively inferior, cheaper product that you THINk is better aqnd more valuable.
And then you're surprised why you're addicted and your doctor shrieks everytime he sees you.

 

[Violator[xL]]

I started with (PC) games back in 1994, and believe me, shit has only gotten better. Nostalgia can mess your mind up. Try downloading a ten year old game and see for how long you actually enjoy it (the first ten minutes do not count, nostalgia will die out after that).

@Poster above me: You can't use the objective word in combination with better, derp.

 

[SonicWaffle]

Perhaps this is what dying feels like. You're slowly transcending into gamer heaven. Perhaps you're already dead, and you're Bruce Willis and I'm Haley Joel Osment and I'm the only one who can see your posts and oh holy shit I have scared myself a little please tell me I'm not talking to a ghost!

Who you talking to, man?
You crazy.

OHNOES

I see dead people :-(