Gears of War Designer: "The Future of Shooters is RPGs"

[Baby Tea]

I couldn't disagree more. Everything Cliffy said and you agreed with was basically 'I'd rather turn out shit and appeal to the lowest common denominator rather than producing a good game'.

Well millions of copies sold would say it's a good game.
How many millions of people have to love it in order for it to be a 'good game'?

A good game is in the eye of the beholder, we all know that. And I'm saying it's different for different people, I'm not saying 'Eye of the Beholder' is a good game, though I thought it was pretty good. The point is that if you didn't like a game, but millions of other people love it, who is right and who is wrong when it comes to that game being good?

What cliffy B is saying is not that he wants to appeal to the 'lowest common denominator', (which, by the way, makes you sound like a pretentious prick) but that he wants to make a game that many people like, buy, and play. And you know what? He's doing it.

The 'gamer snobs' may not like it, but who cares when you're selling millions of copies and falling ass-backwards into money? Let the gamer snobs ***** about years gone past and 'better' games that barely sell 50,000 copies.
Everyone else will be playing games for the sake of fun, which is the whole freaking point.

 

[Legion]

"I would much rather be the guy who makes a game that sells millions of copies that people love to make fun of - because that's what people do on the internet - than the guy who makes a critical darling that no one really knows about."

Cliffy B may be a bit of a dink sometimes, but this quote is actually really excellent, and I completely agree with him.

Say what you will about the Halo, Gears of War, and similar game franchises...but numbers don't lie. And I'm not talking the ratings score numbers. I'm talking the millions of games sold. Halo, in particular, seems to receive a healthy dose of bashing on the internet, but the game sold (And still sells) very very well. Which means that millions of people are enjoying the game.

Then you get people like Tim Schafer who makes great games (Grim Fandango and Psychonauts, as examples for those who don't know) and are critically acclaimed...and sell like crap. Everyone says it's awesome, so why isn't it selling? I'm sure there are plenty of reasons why they flop at the register, but the bottom line is the bottom line: How much did it sell?

And Cliffy B is that guy that he describes. People ridicule him and the Gears narrative and the like for being so brutish and childish and cliche...but in the end, he's selling millions of copies of his game and falling ass-backwards into money. So who is really laughing here?

Exactly.

If the games sucked that bad they wouldn't sell so well.

Ok, you could say people are sheep and buy what's popular, but people only like that argument when it's a game they don't personally like.

*snip*

Heres your straight faced answer:

You are comparing GOW's plot to Halo's story. The difference being that the plot is the gameplay and the story is the background info that doesn't affect you blowing things up.

The story of Gears is a lot stronger than people like to pretend. I shall give a short version covering the back story as well as both the games:

1: Humanity discovers an energy source that is extremely powerful (Imulsion). The countries with less Imulsion attack the countries with more of it (see the similarities to the real world yet?). The war goes on for years before ending with a new government arising: The COG (Coalition of Ordered Government). There's peace for the first time in years.

2: A race of violent beings (Locust), using this peace, attack the surface from below and wipe out 3/4 of humanity in a short space of time. Humanity, on the retreat destroys the surface of the planet to deny their enemy any strongholds and abandons those outside the safety of their cities to fend for themselves.

3: The war rages on for 14 years with humanity slowly dying out. The humans left in the open (the stranded) try to fend for themselves/survive where they can whilst the army of "Gears" simply try to defend their last cities against the enemy.

4: A last desperate plan emerges to destroy the Locust. They release all prisoners due to lack of numbers and one of these is the main character of the game 'Marcus Fenix'. He is recruited into Delta squad and sent on a mission to retrieve a technology which can map the underground of the planet where the Locust live. They eventually manage to map the underground and activate a bomb with the intention of destroying the Locusts home.

5: It fails, and the Locust fight back by sinking human cities. The Gears launch an offensive into the heart of the underground in an attempt to destroy the Locust in their homes. They discover that the sought after energy source causes mutation after long exposure and that the Locust are fighting for the surface because they are losing their own territory to those that have mutated. The Locust plan to sink the final city of the humans in order to destroy the mutated aka the 'lambent' (volatile) ones below and take the surface for themselves.

6: The humans decide to evacuate the city and sink it before the Locust reach the city so they can trap both them and their mutated kin underground. They succeed in doing so and now need to find a new place to live.

7: It is also discovered that humanity has had contact with the Locust that has been kept a secret, Marcus' father who was a COG scientist had made contact with the Locust queen and despite being thought of as dead is in fact, still alive.

 

[Woem]

First-person action role-playing games (FPARPGs?) are far from new, and I don't see them being more part of the future than they were from the past. There were the classics such as Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss, Shadowcaster , The Elder Scroll series, followed by the epic System Shock and Deus Ex, and then Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, and Hellgate: London. Many have come before and many will follow. The obvious has been stated.

 

[Lord Thodin]

Cliff buttfucksky better not fuck up gears of war.

... How does one fuck up gears of war? Are you implying that adding something deeper than Explosions and gore is "fucking it up"?

no im implying that adding too much of an RPG element will make Gears of War something its not. And yes it would fuck it up if it went deeper than explosions and gore because thats what made that game famous, and main stream. Not because we all cared about Doms Wife, Carmines brothers, or Fenixs daddy. thats how you fuck it up

 

[HomeAliveIn45]

So Bleszkinski would rather be a sellout than a creative artist.

No, he'd rather make a game that people love and sells well than impress eleven angry guys on a website that have become glittering gems of hatred for anything with space marines and who only play stuff from Tim Schafer and Team ICO. He feels the same way about them that Bethesda does about places like NMA.

I never said anything about hating space shooters, I played and thoroughly enjoyed GoW. It just seems strange that Cliffy B. would rather create popular games (weather they're good or not) than try to create great entertainment.

Also, I would say that although the RPG elements of bioshock (squint and look to the side and you can see them) were good, that game isn't revered because it had RPG elements. I loved bioshock for the atmosphere and plot.

Actually, they share a writer

Ok, so the writer did a better job (in my opinion) doing Bioshock than GoW. That has nothing to do with weather or not it has RPG elements.
In the end, all I'm saying is that I thought Cliffy's statement about Bioshock being an RPG/FPS was inaccurate.

 

[Halo Fanboy]

I don't think he has the right to say a damn thing. And speaking as someone who is trying to get into the industry (yeah, I know, not with this attitude I won't )

You want to get into the industry while you tell everyone that everyone developing the game beside story writers can't create anything with any more merit than I Micheal Bay film?

There are alot of said things in this thread that annoy me. Particularly more than a few commenters saying that not liking story in games is the same as literally being an idiot.

People are misinterpring what Mr Belinski said. Popularity doesn't mean "it made a lot of money," it means nothing other than it appeals to alot of people. The game is also accompanied by great acclaim from critics and average Joes.

Personally I think Gears is one example of pure art in the industry. Belinski undergoes this whole effort just to provide you with what he thinks is cool and fun, his personal touch is visable in almost every facet of the game from the setting to the characters. And for the record I think the writing and acting is good, the story is simple but not bad. The only problems are some poorly concieved plot threads in the sequal.

*heysorryifthiscountsasnecroing *

 

[Kaboose the Moose]

The formula for Gears is very simple. It's mindless, unadulterated fun coupled with a very effective gameplay control and the end result is an epic shooter game. My questions is why tinker with something that isn't broken?. The current formula works and it works well and I don't think it needs to over complicate a simple recipe by adding in character development. Don't get me wrong, I am not one for advocating that old ways are best and change is wrong but when a game like GOW, which is based primarily on combat and is widely regarded as a good, fun game then the last thing you need is getting distracted from the fun to pursue character development. While I am sure some of you will disagree and say that character development in it's own right has fun elements to it, it isn't sticking to what GOW was about in the first two games. I'd much prefer it if the inherent storyline of GOW developed my character for me rather than do it myself.

That said, if GOW originally came out with a character development arc then it would be a different story. Why?, well because we would have gotten our heads around each character and their strengths and weaknesses by the first two games and it would be natural progression from then on. However, adding such a development system now, two game later, is in my mind unnecessary and a bit too late. Personally I don't care about the back story for each character now, I may have done so in the past but not now. All I care about is kicking Locust ass and enjoying a good co-op with a friend!. I can't imagine a GOW now with an inventory system and RPG elements, perhaps if they made a standalone title, a separate game to experiment with, then we can see how it all pans out but I hope that they don't suddenly implement this with GOW 3 (If such a thing is in the works).

Honestly though, I do see the point of what Belinski is trying to get at but it is fact of too little too late. I mean, trying to modify a game that is already on the run is a tricky operation and it will inevitably carry the scars of said modification when it is eventually released. I only hope the scars don't land where the fun in the game used to be.

 

[Darenus]

As much as I usually agree with the desire that there will be another jewel in this world like the Deus Ex 1 which combined both Excellent RPG elements like deep story with multiple layers, upbuilding sections and tactical thought behind those upgrades, as well as a well working shooter with usually instantly immersive 1st-person view and direct controls as well as fast action if things need a little more than a careful plan or this plan went down the gutter, (deep breathe...) I can not say that I really think that Shooters will ever extinct.

Why? Simply because they are simple.

DEx is deffinitly one of the greatest games ever made (along with Systemshock 2, which I ust never played) but yet it has to be considered as a game that now fits in a genre.

Serious Sam never had that much depth and let's face it, the story is hillariously simple but that doesn't take it's charm away. It was a fun, fast, simple, easy and gigantic FPS game that fulfilled my needs whenever I felt like playing a shooter.

While I admitedly would like some more great stories in the games of today I sure as hell can accept a lack of one if the game is overally just made for what my needs crave for.

What do I mean by all that?
Summarized: Mr. Bleszkinski, please don't stop making what you're good at. Do your thing that you're best at and give us the quality we want but keep your direction unless you are evenly good or better at a new one. I will gladly play and buy your games, as long as they are fun and hit MY taste in gaming. As will many many others do, as I am sure.