Jimquisition: Guns Blazing

[Trishbot]

I admit, as a long-time gamer, I get kind of mad when I look at some of my favorite franchise of my youth and young adult years and what has become of them now.

Resident Evil was the KING of survival horror. It had dozens of imitators snapping at its heels to steal its thunder. Then Capcom decided that horror was dead and decided to turn Resident Evil into the imitator instead, borrowing bits from every popular game on the market and turning it into a much-less-interesting Uncharted and Gears of War game with so many bad QTE that even Kratos is mocking it.

Look at what happened to Dead Space in a few short years; from a successful, brilliant psychological horror game to a co-op buddy-buddy action shooter with enough microtransactions to make Scrooge McDuck blush.

Look at Final Fantasy, desperately milking that FF13 cow with their gender-swapped Cloud while ignoring almost EVERYTHING that FF4, FF6, FF7, or FF9 (hell, even FF12) did so exceptionally well, but instead sticking us in restrictive, linear hallways with no deviation, one-button victories, 20 hour tutorials, a completely contrived and plothole-filled story and not a single likable, believable character in the entire cast.

Look at what happened to Metroid when the gameplay suddenly got kicked to the curb and the folks that invested breast physics got involved, coupled with a script and character portrayals that make George Lucas look genuinely inspired in his handling of the prequel trilogy. They threw SO much money at it, and for what? What a travesty.

The new Tomb Raider is, admittedly, awesome... but everyone and their dog is wondering how much MORE awesome it could've been if they had focused their efforts more on single-player and not a multiplayer, Gears of War clone that nobody asked for or is interested in.

Mass Effect 3 will forever sadden me as I step back and look at how much RPG elements were stripped out, how little your choices actually mattered, and how much was sacrificed to make it a crappier Gears of War-in-space clone, at the expense of so much passionate roleplaying and lore.

Dragon Age has already been beaten to death. Dragon Age 2 is a classic example of a franchise with a dedicated, passionate, loyal audience that had everything they loved about the original stripped out in favor of more action, a "broader" audience, and dumbed down consumer appeal... and it didn't WORK.

Even games that are still pretty good, I'm just not getting the same "fix" as before. The Metal Gear series is a far cry from its isometric Playstation classic; Zelda has been terrified of doing anything truly surprising outside of its predecessor's successes; Call of Duty is practically the poster child for stagnation; folks had to fight tooth and nail to get a strategy XCOM game made; we're having to resort to Kickstarter for classic Adventure games; Silent Hill took a trip into a hack-n-slash dungeon crawler and (again) Gears of War action-fests; The 3rd Birthday is basically one big middle finger to every fan of Parasite Eve; the DMC reboot is now legendarily notorious; and now we're getting Dark Souls "the triple-A" experience that's interested more in chasing after Skyrim's players and success than catering to the fanbase that put it on the map in the first place.

I'm just sad because... I want my scary, thought-provoking Silent Hill games... I want my isolated, tense Dead Space games... I want my RPG-driven Mass Effects and Dragon Ages... I want my platforming Tomb Raiders and my enormous, deep JRPG Final Fantasies... I want my survival horror, puzzle-driven Resident Evils and my stealthy Metal Gears and my unrelentingly vicious Dark Souls and my parkour-enabling Mirror's Edges and my player-enabled Zelda adventures and my strategy-orientated XCOMs....

But it seems publishers don't WANT their fanbase to have these things. They want a one-size, fits-all approach to gaming. Every game with all the same features; enjoy your multiplayer, your social integration, your online passes, your Day-1 DLC, your pre-order, retailer-exclusive DLC, your computer-crippling DRM, your forced online components, your mandatory registrations and server installs, your micro-transactions, your co-op and leaderboards, and your expensive set-pieces filled with stupid quick-time events.

With new systems on the horizon, and costs sure to skyrocket, companies are going to either learn that their "formula" will ruin them, or adapt and start making smaller games with smaller teams for niche audiences, and just start making MORE of those instead of 600-person-team, mega-million-dollar messes like Resident Evil 6.

 

[RJ 17]

"And then they'll start talking about mobile gamers for some fucking reason."

Don't know why but I got a great laugh out of this line.

 

[TwistedEllipses]

I whole heartedly agree with Jim, but he said 'niche' as 'nitch' so many times, that the English pedant in me snapped and I wanted to scream "SHEESH! IT'S FRENCH! IT'S NEE-SH!"

 

[Orekoya]

Heh, I bet Jim would have been much happier to receive that ***** fist toy if it was modeled after Nathan Drake's [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/escapist-expo/6292-The-Hour-of-Love].. what did he say: "I know no other kind of love than fisty love."

 

[DrunkOnEstus]

I admit, as a long-time gamer, I get kind of mad when I look at some of my favorite franchise of my youth and young adult years and what has become of them now.

Resident Evil was the KING of survival horror. It had dozens of imitators snapping at its heels to steal its thunder. Then Capcom decided that horror was dead and decided to turn Resident Evil into the imitator instead, borrowing bits from every popular game on the market and turning it into a much-less-interesting Uncharted and Gears of War game with so many bad QTE that even Kratos is mocking it.

Look at what happened to Dead Space in a few short years; from a successful, brilliant psychological horror game to a co-op buddy-buddy action shooter with enough microtransactions to make Scrooge McDuck blush.

Look at Final Fantasy, desperately milking that FF13 cow with their gender-swapped Cloud while ignoring almost EVERYTHING that FF4, FF6, FF7, or FF9 (hell, even FF12) did so exceptionally well, but instead sticking us in restrictive, linear hallways with no deviation, one-button victories, 20 hour tutorials, a completely contrived and plothole-filled story and not a single likable, believable character in the entire cast.

Look at what happened to Metroid when the gameplay suddenly got kicked to the curb and the folks that invested breast physics got involved, coupled with a script and character portrayals that make George Lucas look genuinely inspired in his handling of the prequel trilogy. They threw SO much money at it, and for what? What a travesty.

The new Tomb Raider is, admittedly, awesome... but everyone and their dog is wondering how much MORE awesome it could've been if they had focused their efforts more on single-player and not a multiplayer, Gears of War clone that nobody asked for or is interested in.

Mass Effect 3 will forever sadden me as I step back and look at how much RPG elements were stripped out, how little your choices actually mattered, and how much was sacrificed to make it a crappier Gears of War-in-space clone, at the expense of so much passionate roleplaying and lore.

Dragon Age has already been beaten to death. Dragon Age 2 is a classic example of a franchise with a dedicated, passionate, loyal audience that had everything they loved about the original stripped out in favor of more action, a "broader" audience, and dumbed down consumer appeal... and it didn't WORK.

Even games that are still pretty good, I'm just not getting the same "fix" as before. The Metal Gear series is a far cry from its isometric Playstation classic; Zelda has been terrified of doing anything truly surprising outside of its predecessor's successes; Call of Duty is practically the poster child for stagnation; folks had to fight tooth and nail to get a strategy XCOM game made; we're having to resort to Kickstarter for classic Adventure games; Silent Hill took a trip into a hack-n-slash dungeon crawler and (again) Gears of War action-fests; The 3rd Birthday is basically one big middle finger to every fan of Parasite Eve; the DMC reboot is now legendarily notorious; and now we're getting Dark Souls "the triple-A" experience that's interested more in chasing after Skyrim's players and success than catering to the fanbase that put it on the map in the first place.

I'm just sad because... I want my scary, thought-provoking Silent Hill games... I want my isolated, tense Dead Space games... I want my RPG-driven Mass Effects and Dragon Ages... I want my platforming Tomb Raiders and my enormous, deep JRPG Final Fantasies... I want my survival horror, puzzle-driven Resident Evils and my stealthy Metal Gears and my unrelentingly vicious Dark Souls and my parkour-enabling Mirror's Edges and my player-enabled Zelda adventures and my strategy-orientated XCOMs....

But it seems publishers don't WANT their fanbase to have these things. They want a one-size, fits-all approach to gaming. Every game with all the same features; enjoy your multiplayer, your social integration, your online passes, your Day-1 DLC, your pre-order, retailer-exclusive DLC, your computer-crippling DRM, your forced online components, your mandatory registrations and server installs, your micro-transactions, your co-op and leaderboards, and your expensive set-pieces filled with stupid quick-time events.

With new systems on the horizon, and costs sure to skyrocket, companies are going to either learn that their "formula" will ruin them, or adapt and start making smaller games with smaller teams for niche audiences, and just start making MORE of those instead of 600-person-team, mega-million-dollar messes like Resident Evil 6.

I'm not going to snip that. It needs to be read again by everyone. Applause.jpg .

I myself had a big rant ready, but everything you just said was efficiently stripped from my mind and put into that post. Did we have parallel childhoods?

 

[malestrithe]

The thing is, the copy paste strategy works well with the movie and television industries.

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

Wow, Jim was sure getting worked up this time. Hell, I'd even say he's starting to sound desperate.

This is pretty much what happened with Sanctum 2, my own latest disappointment. After the moderate success of Sanctum, the developers went back to the drawing board for the sequel, with the apparent design brief of "make it more like Call of Duty". So the tower defence game with FPS elements was reworked into an FPS game with tower defence elements- and it's AWFUL! The beefed-up shooting is STILL completely half-baked and would embarass an FPS released 10 years ago, while the tower defence features have been gutted to the point where I question whether the game even belongs in the 'tower defence' genre any more- towers are overpriced, ineffective and worst of all, HARD CAPPED TO 10 PER MAP! I played the game for half an hour before giving in utter despair at how badly the developers had managed to completely and utterly fuck up what should have been a very, VERY simple sequel- do the original game again only better. Instead they decided they wanted to "do something different" (translation: like a mnainstream generic shooter) and "appeal to a broader audience" (translation: the CoD fratboy crowd) and completely ruined the game. The worst thing is that it seems to have received an even better critical reception than the original, which is unfathomable because it is purely and simply a far worse game.

 

[Reyold]

It's just mindboggling how stupid those publishers actually are. I just want to go over there, grab them by the shoulders, shake them as hard as I can and shout "what's wrong with you!" in their faces.

Personally, I'd rather just give a nice, solid punch to the face and leave it at that. At this rate, it's not like they're any closer to understanding how they're screwing over the AAA industry. I say let them destroy themselves. It'll be good for the rest of us.

 

[Eve Charm]

I remembered the out cry when they said dark souls was getting an easy mode and defended it, because people that wanted their hardcore dark souls wouldn't have to touch easy... But this is beyond that, changing the entire game for non core audience.

They'll make their money once, twice maybe. The core franchise will buy it till they get disgusted with it. And the new purchases that are there because you put something shiny out their won't become fans. They won't tell people to buy it, buy the next one because they'll probably be busy with the next AAA flavor of the week. With each time spending more and more money till making more then you sold the last one becomes a failure.

Then you'll turn into resident evil, a franchise so casualed out that no one wants you, even when you try to recapture that core audience. It's to late, because someone else will have already delivered on what you gave up on, like dead space to resident evil. And even when you do come back, and do a good job. Like resident evil revelations, The mix of RE 4 with RE 1 type of horror and puzzles married perfectly, no one will care anymore, no one will take the chance.

 

[Muspelheim]

This is probably relevant;

Spoiler

Even though they might get more people interested with a "broadened gaming experience" they'd still alienate the core fans of the game. Let us not forget that the cost that goes into broadening this experience will probably not get paid back in full with the money they make from those few extra customers.

It's as if gaming is trying to become TV...

And to put the cherry on it, I won't let them have me. I never asked for this, Namco, I feel a bit like some pretty courtier lady being approached by the Lord while he ignores his loving missus. A'ight, maybe that says more about me, but still!

Fans, as annoying as they can be, are a commodity, it's not something you can drum up at will. Telling them to make way for new, more plentiful fans when the new ones probably doesn't even want to be involved just leaves everyone dissatisfied and grumpy.

 

[DiabloBub666]

Everyone needs to send Namco Bandai a facebook message or an email with a link to this video. Maybe they'll get the message?

 

[Abomination]

I disagree with Jim here and I think he's blowing it out of proportion.

I wanted to like Dark Souls but the clunky interface, practically non-existent tutorial and time-grind punishment for failure mechanic turned me off it. I liked the combat, I liked the effect equipment had on your character and I liked how boss encounters became a dance rather than a spam.

A bit of a mainstream AAA injection into Dark Souls is ambitious. They?re a company and widening the net while staying true to the core mechanics will not drive fans away. It?s not as though fans honestly believe the game was 100% entirely perfect in everything it did. There are ways it can be improved that will bring in more consumers ? I was inches away from really enjoying it.

This is a franchise that deserves more polish and could be a far greater hit than it is already. As long as the combat mechanics keep to the same spirit of Dark Souls and the relationship between equipment and movement also remains the same the game will continue to sell.

 

[Darken12]

I feel like GlaDOS in Portal 2 when she hears Cave Johnson ranting about lemons.

"Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Take the lemons! Yeah! Oh, I like this guy. Yeah! Burn them down! He's saying what we're all thinking!"

Righteous, Jim. Very righteous.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Jim, you must be getting sick and tired of having to flog that dead horse eh?

He's getting really anal about homogenization and unrealistic expectations.

Don't misunderstand me. I agree with everything he said. What I meant was that he must be getting sick and tired of having to say it because Publishers refuse to listen.

Or because publishers (in any industry) don't really listen to critiques, reviews, or video rants especially. They listen to the customers' wallets.

Yeah, that's the part I don't understand. Surely the market has already shown that that practice isn't sustainable.

I have repeated this mantra more times than I care to remember on the Escapist: a company hears and understands only two sounds, the creak of your wallet opening and the slap of your wallet closing. Everything else is just noise to be ignored. The apparent fact is these "cheap, offensive" tactics that many of us on the Escapist rail vehemently against actually do work to improve sales and revenue for the publishers, as is evidenced by the repeated sales of 3+ million copies of these recycled franchises. Unfortunately, the shit that many of us here on the Escapist hate seeing in games does seem to cause more wallets to creak open. What has not been working for the publishers is the complete mismanagement of production and marketing costs. These have escalated faster than the corresponding increases in sales. If publishers could actually get better control of their costs while still maintaining their corresponding increases in sales, then the triple-A industry would be absolutely rolling in the green (and you would see even greater levels of homogenization and appeals to the mass audience). The perception of insufficient or lagging sales is only relative to the costs that have gone into the game, not because people are not buying games.

That doesn't make the situation any better, in fact it makes the situation worse.

 

[Darth_Payn]

yes, that's it, Jim! Release the hate! Unleash the fury! I'm as sick of AAA games tearing down niches and making everything the same as YOU are! Hey, Publishers! Did you think we don't WANT everything to look alike? That we WANT different things?!

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

Hey Jim, I thought you allready wanted to casualize Dark Souls with some shitty ez mode. This is fucking breaking my heart, but pick a fucking side and stick to it Jim.

Way to miss the point?

Jim wasn't mad about an easy mode, because it was an entirely different mode in the game rather than a change in the original formula that EVERYONE had to deal with. The old fans (back then, at least) were promised the old game that they knew and loved, yet they were bitching about how anyone who preferred their enemies lobotomized had a easy setting all to themselves, even though it would have ZERO impact on the standard game mode.

Having multiple difficulty levels is the easiest way to appeal to multiple audiences (i.e. the hardcore and those leaning on casual) without alienating anyone.

He's mad now because the developers are trying to make the CORE gameplay on EVERY difficulty level appeal to the masses by turning it into the homogenized mush that we're getting sick of.

There's a difference between making an 'ez' mode and having a 'let's waste money and resources and potentially piss off our cult fans by changing the whole game to try and attract people who don't care about our game' attitude.

 

[Homo Carnivorous]

Aaaawww nuts. I was really looking forward to Dark Souls 2. =/
I so hope you are wrong, but I suspect you right about this. We will get anonymous brown/grey action RPG clone

Speaking of 'not for all audiences'. part of the sexism debate you have banged on about relentlessly as of late, finds part of its explanation in those very words. Did Tolkiens books suffer from it's lack of complex female characters? They are pretty much an all out sausage party with a goddess here and a wife there, thrown in for good measure.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Wow, Jim was sure getting worked up this time. Hell, I'd even say he's starting to sound desperate.

This is pretty much what happened with Sanctum 2, my own latest disappointment. After the moderate success of Sanctum, the developers went back to the drawing board for the sequel, with the apparent design brief of "make it more like Call of Duty". So the tower defence game with FPS elements was reworked into an FPS game with tower defence elements- and it's AWFUL! The beefed-up shooting is STILL completely half-baked and would embarass an FPS released 10 years ago, while the tower defence features have been gutted to the point where I question whether the game even belongs in the 'tower defence' genre any more- towers are overpriced, ineffective and worst of all, HARD CAPPED TO 10 PER MAP! I played the game for half an hour before giving in utter despair at how badly the developers had managed to completely and utterly fuck up what should have been a very, VERY simple sequel- do the original game again only better. Instead they decided they wanted to "do something different" (translation: like a mnainstream generic shooter) and "appeal to a broader audience" (translation: the CoD fratboy crowd) and completely ruined the game. The worst thing is that it seems to have received an even better critical reception than the original, which is unfathomable because it is purely and simply a far worse game.

...You're not joking are you?

checks google

GODSDAMMIT!

(it appears to be due to console limitations but still...)

Ahh well , more money for Kickstarter projects then.

 

[Lex Darko]

Well if Bamco's managers screw up the Dark Souls franchise, Fromsoft can always go back to Sony and make Demon's Souls 2, maybe then we will finally get the Penetrator's armor.,

 

[Sergey Sund]

As a guy who has a little backround in economics I did CRINGE when that quote was shown.
Does "hope to God" sound like a good business plan to you?!?!?
Then how come people who have worked in the industry, and as CEOs, for YEARS somehow click off their brains and skip that goddamn annoying phrase?????