How the hell has the gaming industry still not embraced extras in games?

[aozgolo]

frankly, as someone who is rarely interested in extras, i dont want that stuff taking up space. videos and stuff could add to several more gigs of space being taken up, with most people not bothering to watch them. id rather just watch extra content online, like the behind the scenes stuff for Halo 5.

I like the way GOG does it, it offers tons of extra content for every game that has it, but it's all optional downloads, so if you only want to check out a few extras but not all, it's great for that.

 

[Gamerpalooza]

Mainly because they invest more in graphics then they rush the product that they don't have time to implement extra content. If they want to have it in they usually just allow for it to be possible through DLC and milk consumers via that system.

It used to be a standard in games up but towards the end of the ps2/ngc/original xbox era by introducing online i guess they saw a system they could exploit and milk as much as they can. Especially with what ended up happening with XBL and DoA when they introduced a lot of costumes for .99.

 

[skywolfblue]

Homeworld
Crysis 2
Tomb Raider 2013

Didn't Mass Effect and Dragon Age have "extras" in game? I'm a little foggy but I thought they did...
Dead Space as well?

I'm not really a big fan of "making of" videos. I do love concept art.

But I think online makes a better format for concept art and "extras". For example Blizzard is nigh legendary for it's concept art galleries. It's a huge boost to their marketing to do so. Release concept art to the web, people drool, profit.

I'd rather access concept art via the web, where I can share it, download it and whatnot. As opposed to in-game, where you can't easily share it. The games that did have extras in-game hardly register for me, because even if I do look at the gallery I'll just go "oh that's nice" and then go online to download it instead, making the in-game "extra" kinda moot.

 

[crimsonspear4D]

Homeworld
Crysis 2
Tomb Raider 2013

Didn't Mass Effect and Dragon Age have "extras" in game? I'm a little foggy but I thought they did...
Dead Space as well?

They only had things like Credits and in-game manuals and the like. I remember when those used to be on booklets you got inside your game case, not taking up space on your games start screen.

I kinda wish they did have on-disc extras, even if it's nothing more than behind-the-scenes videos or concept art, or even just funny random things like a blooper real or something. Before Machinama, Gmod, and SFM became popular I remember studios having fun with their work.

 

[Squilookle]

Back in my day, games used to come with these little books with lore, character info, and all kinds of fascinating details and stories in them that related to the game.

We used to call them... oh now what was it... That's it- manuals.

Quite often you'd buy a game from a store (yep, an actual store! Imagine that! No downloading on the internet back then!) And you'd grab that manual and pore over it on the way home, absorbing all its details until by the time you had the game ready to go you were positively brimming with excitement for it.

Ahh but y'see then came DLC. Suddenly they didn't even have to finish a game before selling it. They even got us to pay up months before release, and we did it! We were so naive back then, but we didn't know any better. Anyway, those greedy companies got greedy they did. Out with the manuals, careful design, deep stories and innovative gameplay, and in with the shiny.

Yes, the shiny. You probably don't even notice it young'uns- it's in everything you've ever played. But back in my time, all that glittered wasn't worth a damn unless it also worked, too.

But those days are long gone, cherub. Long gone. They're spoonfeeding us the shiny now, and you're all gobbling it up wholesale. Sure they could give you more but when you keep buying what they shovellin'

...why would they bother?

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Like some other people have said already, actually checking out commentaries and behind the scene stuff is really niche. I like listening to the commentaries of my favorite shows and movies but even as I'm listening to those, there are a good chunk of commentaries that knowingly say things along the lines of, "we know nobody is listening, tell me about your new dog at your new house at this address". Part of why I liked game manuals was because they did have some concept art sometimes and Prima guides might as well be classified as art-books in addition to game guides. I think a couple had behind the scenes tid-bits written in the margins too...I miss those.

 

[Secondhand Revenant]

Personally they wouldn't make much of a difference to me if included or not. Perhaps most people don't care about them enough for developers to bother

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Well, I really liked the ingame audio commentaries in most Valve titles starting with HL2 Lost Coast. They weren't too technical and a lot of the time didn't just explain the 'how' of a setpiece or mechanic, but also the 'why' of what they did with them. Then again, I have a casual interest in game design and I get why these things could be considered unnecessary boring filler and/or effort that could've better been spent elsewhere.

There's one 'extra' I always appreciate in a pc game though, and I wish more games had it. Benchmarking tools. Doesn't need to be much. A short ingame demo with a framerate counter is enough. Just something to determine what kind of performance I can expect at various graphical settings without having to actually start a game proper.

 

[Fox12]

Contrast that to the video game process, which is 90% chaos and hell from beginning to end. Art, story, and gameplay take far longer to hammer out, and are subject to change at the drop of a hat. Much of the development time is spent in dark rooms staring at screens for hours at a time. The suits drop in every once in a while to dick around with everyone. There are no interesting locations. Most of the people involved are just regular folks, unused to having a camera pointed at that. Most of them wouldn't know what to do with a decent camera if their lives depended on it, so they have to pay someone else to deal with it - Probably 100-300 thousand dollars if you want to record the entire thing. It's time consuming, expensive, and simply less interesting to watch.

I wonder if there's a difference in personality type between film makers and game makers as well. Many of our best gaming visionaries seem quite shy. I've poured over every scrap of material I can find for Miyazaki, for instance, and there's not much out there. He refuses to be filmed under anY circumstances, and he'll only consent to interviews if they're text based. Interviewers can't even use audio. Any press work done for his games are usually handled by the producers. I wonder if this level of reclusiveness is normal in the gaming industry. I've noticed the same thing with Toby Fox, the maker of Undertale. His interviews are pretty one note and boring, since he refuses to answer half the questions. I can't tell if he's a bit of a pretentious asshole, or just awkward : P

 

[DefunctTheory]

Spoiler

Contrast that to the video game process, which is 90% chaos and hell from beginning to end. Art, story, and gameplay take far longer to hammer out, and are subject to change at the drop of a hat. Much of the development time is spent in dark rooms staring at screens for hours at a time. The suits drop in every once in a while to dick around with everyone. There are no interesting locations. Most of the people involved are just regular folks, unused to having a camera pointed at that. Most of them wouldn't know what to do with a decent camera if their lives depended on it, so they have to pay someone else to deal with it - Probably 100-300 thousand dollars if you want to record the entire thing. It's time consuming, expensive, and simply less interesting to watch.

I wonder if there's a difference in personality type between film makers and game makers as well. Many of our best gaming visionaries seem quite shy. I've poured over every scrap of material I can find for Miyazaki, for instance, and there's not much out there. He refuses to be filmed under anY circumstances, and he'll only consent to interviews if they're text based. Interviewers can't even use audio. Any press work done for his games are usually handled by the producers. I wonder if this level of reclusiveness is normal in the gaming industry. I've noticed the same thing with Toby Fox, the maker of Undertale. His interviews are pretty one note and boring, since he refuses to answer half the questions. I can't tell if he's a bit of a pretentious asshole, or just awkward : P

I don't think there's anything in the video game industry that inspires or attracts people who are 'shy,' so to speak. But I do think the movie industry does attract people who at least want to be in front of a camera, and probably people who are better at it.

And one has to remember that cameras change what they record. Even trained, experienced actors have remarked on what cameras do to people. I recently watched an interview with Mark Hamill about his work as the Joker, and he talked about how cameras can mess with you. Penn Jillete, a notorious camera whore, has also gone on record about how cameras not only change your behavior, but can actually be physically and mentally exhausting to stand in front of. And these are trained, experienced entertainers who have problems with being recorded. Can you imagine how that would affect some 'random' person who hasn't practiced at public performance, or had any interest in it? It would be terrible.

Hell, maybe Miyazaki isn't shy. Maybe he just knows that the camera may force him into behavior that's 'not him,' and so he tries to avoid it.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

The Lord of the Rings Return of the King videogame had awesome little behind the scene movies that you had to unlock by getting a high enough score in the levels, they had the actual actors interviewed and giving commentaries and stuff:


They were awesome, but then it was a movie videogame, so they had other material to work with

EDIT: This is my favourite one from the game:

 

[Redd the Sock]

It used to be rather common, but it fell to 2 problems. First is that that kind of material can get repetitive and interest wanes over time. It's fascinating at first, but after the 20th audition process, design process, recording process, etc. you know it by heart and don't have much interest in the technical process again. Secondly, o save space, when done these extras were minimal. You usually got concept art, 3D model viewers, and maybe a short interview or few. Not so bad until the crap material went behind tedious walls. I'm all for reward for 100%ing a game, but when the reward for finding all hidden whatevers was a concept sketch collection, there's not much motivation.

Things I've liked:

Megaman anniversary collection included an episode of the cartoon.
Street Fighter 2 anniversary collection had the anime movie
Final Fantasy XII and the Kingdom Hearts collections offered themes (not great ones, but the thought was there)
God of War's mini movies hinting at sequel possibilities.
Sonic Jam (the first collection of sonics 1 - 3 and knuckles) on the Saturn had japanese commercials in addition to the normal fare.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

You mean those interviews, making of the game and etc they do to supercharge hype train when the pre-orders begin?

Why would they charge for those things... when they on youtube? For Free.

For the most part, this.


So much of the behind the scenes stuff is online for promo purposes and you can buy the artbooks for most games outside of the game. Posters are at most conventions or online as well as in pre-order bonuses.


Extras in games have slowed down because the majority of people don't care when its packed it. Those who do will get them.