Jaffe: FPS Genre Is Stale

[dessertmonkeyjk]

Why... yes. Yes it is.

Honestly, I noticed this around the time MW2 came out.

captcha: dog eat dog
Yeah... how about let's not involve FPS so much in such a thing from now on?

 

[II2]

I think David Jaffe was Susan Arendt's "total cock" developer who always comes off as an asshole (ref: escapist podcast)... or at least a likely suspect.

That said, there is some truth to his words. I remember someone (not Jaffe) saying that shooters were a bit like making musicals; in that whatever story you're trying to tell has to constantly break into song and dance routines (or for shooters, gunfights).

It makes it much harder to do something creative with the story as compared to other genres, because of the necessity of a context to support that recurring core scenario. It's understandable, then, that the same old "War Men", "Honor of Duty", "Battle Guy", "Desert Fight" tropes make the most plausible backdrop for these incessant gun battles while simultaneously capitalizing on what is presently topping the sales charts.

But first person games, even with shooting bits are far from played out... Arguably, many ideas have yet to even be attempted or tapped. Sure Mirrors Edge and Brink confirm that first person platforming is a bad mix, but all sorts of other weird and wonderful titles like Fallout, Skyrim, Natural Selection, Tribes, Firefall, Hawken, Love, Minecraft and Amnesia all stand as testaments that you can take the FPerspective to new and interesting places.

Cool times ahead (and behind):

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

I predict failure.

If the FPS genre being stale actually had a noticeable effect on sales, would Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3 have released to record breaking sales?

The genre won't change, and people won't mass buy innovative products, until the big titles have seen real and noticeable drop off. Maybe it'll be Halo 4 that does it, or maybe something else (I don't play many FPSs.) But until then, any attempt at innovation will fail.

 

[Atmos Duality]

I predict failure.

If the FPS genre being stale actually had a noticeable effect on sales, would Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3 have released to record breaking sales?

The genre won't change, and people won't mass buy innovative products, until the big titles have seen real and noticeable drop off. Maybe it'll be Halo 4 that does it, or maybe something else (I don't play many FPSs.) But until then, any attempt at innovation will fail.

Yup.

The mass-migration from other games to those mega-giant FPSs is why they're setting records while everyone else is failing (or are failing to even approach the same degree of success).
I noticed this after Black Ops launched, and Halo Reach's online population plummeted.

Shallow and petty as it sounds, there is some logic to "I love it because it's popular".
Gamers want to play with the largest playerbase. It's assurance that their purchase wasn't a dud, and it's the sort of problem that builds upon itself.
(in economics, this is a Network Good, where the value of the good increases proportionally with the number of people using it)

In fact, that sort of consolidation occurs when any game becomes dominant, as Halo 2 and World of Warcraft can attest.

Even garbage like Farmville (or any of Zynga's grinders) is a shameless note-for-note clone of its competition, yet it succeeded wildly where its competitors fail.

As long as the market continues to funnel themselves into a more narrow selection of shooters, this cycle will continue. Eventually, something must give; either the market will become bored with the same thing year after year, or something else will take center stage.

 

[harvz]

I never would have guessed, a genre based around the perspective of the camera and the weapons could possibly become stale. It does make me quite sad though that tribes ascend (despite loving that game) is considered a great innovation, seeing how old the franchise is.

The depressing fact, at least at this point in time, is that innovation in some genre's (this is a biggie) is barely existent because the target audience doesn't want it. Unfortunately for us, the aim of most big budget FPS seems to be squarely targeted at 13 year olds and until that changes... we are just going to keep seeing more CoD's, more BF3's, more MoH: wipe out the middle east.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

Thanks for your opinion. I'll just put it with the other hundred million that say the exact same thing.

 

[EHKOS]

How about when aiming we can hold our guns to the side like a badass?

 

[nathan-dts]

"Now if you'll excuse me," Jaffe continued, "I have to go design some more quick-time events."

How many games has Jaffe done with QTE's? He only directed the first God of War, didn't he?

 

[Ninjamedic]

"Now if you'll excuse me," Jaffe continued, "I have to go design some more quick-time events."

How many games has Jaffe done with QTE's? He only directed the first God of War, didn't he?

You need to remember, on Gaming Discussion, if you have a high up position in Games Development and are not Notch/Gabe Newell, you're the devil.

OT: I love Jaffe now. The audacity of his statements combined with his bluntness is something I've always respected. Also love the comments everyone, dismiss a man's opinion to then give your own opinion about his opinion.




........wait....