Jimquisition: Perfect Pasta Sauce

[Seydaman]

Great point, Jim, I honestly never considered this.

It makes me think of Mount and Blade, a considered niche' by all means, but as I understand it Paradox was originally just two people, but seems to have grown massively, and most of their published games seem focused around that medieval niche'.

 

[Redd the Sock]

It a sickness in capitalism that fewer and fewer have any interest in simply earning a living and providing a service. If you are looking for the big bucks as fast as you can, you're doing something wrong. Hence, everyone just tries to ape CoD and WoW, either directly, in in the features that seemed to attract all those extra casual gamers. Or, should I say most do. There are small and mid sized companies that fill their niche happily (that you Atlus and telltale) and therein lies some of the problem.

As much as I hate to defend the AAA's stagnation, there is a reality to consider: While Angry Birds soared to new heights, there are a lot of indy / mini games that flopped and are gaining digital dust right now. Walking Dead seems like a similar fluke as telltate's other games didn't set the world on fire, nor are a few other games in the same vein like Virtue's last Reward. For all the cravings of new IPs, it seems more common to see them flub in favor of Generic Sequel XIII, and companies start relying on reboots and "spiritual sequels) to avoid being ignored. You can call the AAA industry myopic, but they at least want to see more than one or two big successes before they even start to consider something a thing to try while we hold up exceptions that worked because we refuse to see a lot that didn't.

I'm not saying I like what happening in the industry. Just that it's easy to shout at companies to take a risk when it isn't your money or company you're asking them to gamble. Even on the cheap end, games are a lot pricier to produce than pasta sauce just to try something for the sake of seeing if people like it. Heck, we seem reluctant to put $60 down on something unless we're sure we're going to like it, and companies have the same reluctance. Maybe we should lead by example: buy something new. In store or online, we need to try and get other genres than the shooter, the MMO, or the AAA blockbuster up in sales more regularly. When the adventure game, the tactical RPG, or the visual novel only do modestly, or only make a splash one in a rare while, it's not hard to understand why companies get the idea they don't sell.

 

[Nazulu]

Thank God for you Jim. Another good argument to spice up the variety I miss so much.

I will drown developers in money if they bring out another game like Super Smash Brothers Melee (no, not Brawl you moron) and I don't care who does it because I don't know if I can trust Nintendo with that anymore.

Also, I will throw money bombs at any developer who can make RTS games that doesn't look like a copy of classic RTS games and also have good game play. Something with one persons soul put into it. Remember, it's glorified chess, make it fucking interesting for fuck sake.

 

[ZexionSephiroth]

4- A game that Blends Science and Fantasy in extreme ways.
Seriously, who doesn't want to see a Mage Fighting off Robots with a Magic Gun that She uses like a wand? or a Knight That uses a Lazer Sword to Decapitate an Ogre? You Following? Now... Imagine doing all this while traveling across space with an Elf, a Cyborg, a Dragon and a Cat girl, all taking up roles as Scientists and Wizards to Study life on other worlds, and they come across an Alien Race of Trolls that are essentially the Larval Form of some offshoot of Fairies, and have built a giant cocoon world in the sky out of gleaming metal and are just beginning they're quest into space.
... This Overlaps with 2.

TV Tropes to the rescue!

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScienceFantasy

Complete with Video Game samples to go and try out X3

Funny Thing... I've already played most of the Ones mentioned there...

...Save for Phantasy Star and Chrono Trigger, those are kinda hard to get hold of.

(And Phantasy Star Online 2 was still "Coming Soon" last I heard.)

 

[Jezzascmezza]

I loved the pasta sauce analogy- it really really worked.
I wish game publishers actually watched the Jimquisition- I think it would help.

 

[Danceofmasks]

Did a brit just totally rip on the royal family?

Oh come on.
I've heard what a bunch of americans say about Bush, and he was (arguably) elected.
You don't elect monarchs, you just make do with what you get. And when what you get is rolling the dice on the recessive gene table, it's not pretty.

And no, us Australians don't want to keep the queen as our head of state.
The referendum we were given was to choose between "what we've got" and "this really really really REALLY retarded alternative", and the monarchy option barely won.

 

[AshuraSpeaks]

I'd wager that CoD is creaming Battlefield because to date they've only sold one gun as DLC (in the first Black Ops 2 map pack), whereas Battlefield upsets the gun balance in practically every BF game since Bad Company Gold with Gun DLC and early unlocks, turning it into a meta-game of buying your way to victory just to keep an edge on the other players.

 

[EstrogenicMuscle]

There's not enough respect for "niches" in today's market. And niche is being treated as an insult. I never remember "niche" being treated as an insult to a genre or a type of game in the 90s. Yes, some people referred to "RPGs" in a condescending fashion in the 90s, but things were nothing like they are today.

Gamers don't all like the same game. Call of Duty fans will buy Call of Duty. Angry Birds fans will by Angry Birds. Gamers cannot all be put into one camp and moved around. We are diverse people with diverse tastes and needs.

Japanese RPGs are hardly being made except lower budgeted ones on the handheld, and indie games out of the West going by the Japanese formula like Pier Solar. Why? Because there's hardly any sales to be made and folks like Capcom and Konami have abandoned the genre. What happened to the Suikodens, the Breath of Fires, the Grandias of the world? Lost to time because the industry that created them has abandoned them.

Capcom won't even make a Mega Man game anymore. It has cancelled all Mega Man projects, and will likely not make another one. It cancelled Mega Man Legends 3. Why? Because according to them it "would not sell enough". Mega Man is seen as "too niche" by Capcom to warrant developing for.

Who is making scrolling shooters anymore, a genre that can be as varied and innovative and worthwhile as first person shooters, but folks like Cave and indie developers? This genre was one king of the arcades. Now thrown by the wayside as being "too niche". Shoot em' ups deserve a love they are not getting. In the meantime I will buy up every single thing that Cave puts out.

For goodness sake Point and Click Adventure games deserve a place in the industry. But have all but completely disappeared aside from their very cult following. I was never a PC gamer in the early days. But when people talk of the "good old days" of PC gaming, I can at least remember some PC genres of game I really did like. Point and Click adventure games were fun and took advantage of the PC platform. Why not more point and click adventure games? Visual Novels are still around. I wish Japan would discover the point and click genre(actually there are a few [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/EasternMindTheLostSoulsOfTongNou], the genre just never really took off in Japan). I'd like to seem some point and click Visual Novels. To me, a point and click adventure game and Visual Novel would be a match made in heaven. People should make more point and click games.

What about platform games? Both 2D and 3D platformers aren't getting enough love in today's industry. The majority of both of these genres are coming out of SEGA and Nintendo. Particularly Nintendo. Who carries on the torch for this genre. Outside of that? You have your Rayman, but not much else. Most of the 2D and even 3D platformers are coming out of the indie sphere. Loads of 2D platformers are coming out of indie developers all around the world. But big developers outside of Nintendo and SEGA hardly bother with the genre.

Why? Is there no innovation to be had? No new fun? Of course not! Heck, the New Super Mario Bros. games are extremely innovative and have finely polished gameplay. The fact that people think that first person shooters have more room for innovation today than platformers or shoot em' ups shows a problem with today's industry.

And here's another thing Capcom threw by the wayside, Metroidvanias. Nobody is making Metroidvanias anymore. The "Lords of Shadow" franchise has been turning Castlevania into something it is entirely not. What happened to Castlevania? What happened to Metroidvanias? I have to get mine out of the indie community, like with Cave Story, La-Mulana and Bunny Must Die.

What happened to Fighting games? I really respect Lab Zero for making Skullgirls, because outside of them, Capcom still making Street Fighter, Bandai Namco still making Tekken, and Arc System Works still making Blazblue, nobody is making Fighting Games anymore. Oh yeah, and the Dead or Alive series I suppose. What happened to other franchises like Virtua Fighter?

Why indeed the lack of real strategy and horror games? People are still carrying the torch for horror games. Amnesia is more of a horror game than the recent stuff by Capcom. Where's the effort and magic that made Silent Hill good? Where are games like Fatal Frame? At least Koei has the guts to throw the 3DS a Survival Horror game. I wish that most companies felt that way. I'm also sick of the variety in the genre, we need more games like Fatal Frame and less "Hey look! Zombies!" games. I'm looking at you, Zombie U.

This issue is also a problem in the MMORPG industry. Everyone is trying to copy World of Warcraft. Could maybe, just maybe, the folks who want to play World of Warcraft, end up simply going and playing World of Warcraft? The genre is never going to improve if every MMORPG fits the World of Warcraft or Nexon grind formula.

You've got the success of Farmville and a long history of games like Harvest Moon, Rune Factory and ect. Why does nobody want to make any more games like this? As in serious, Farm Raising type games? Right now you've got Zynga and Natsume. Why nobody else?

I hate the video game industry today. I really do. It is so alienating as someone who grew up with gaming in the 80s and 90s. I want the PlayStation 2 era video game culture back at least. People keep talking about a video game industry crash. I don't know about a total crash, but I want this current gaming culture to "crash" and be replaced by something better. I need some fresh air, because at this rate, I start to wonder if I need another hobby. And I love video games.

 

[Jimothy Sterling]

Jim, can you tell me the reason of your fixation with Dafoe, other than because he's the smexiest man alive?

 

[Telperion]

Instead of a raving lunatic with an ego that I used to ignore... I'm actually starting to enjoy listening to Jim Sterling. You got substance, Jim, and sometimes it even makes it into your videos. Cudos!

 

[IKWerewolf]

Hang on, Jim said "Don't innovate because of something you found in a focus group." But Prego made their extra chunky because of a focus group..... So, color me confuzzed.

There are two types of focus group the good one and the bad one:

In the case of Prego they provided a range of 45 different options which were varied and not biased towards any particular element. This is an example of good research where it did something positive.

Unfortunately focus groups are mainly used for playtesting are not good focus groups especially for shooters, read this article, ignore the opinions of Tripwire (I don't want a flame war) and ask what the research would result in if they took what the focus group said literally.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/03/13/call-of-duty-red-orchestra-2-interview/?ns_campaign=article-feed&ns_mchannel=ref&ns_source=steam&ns_linkname=0&ns_fee=0

Short answer, a CoD clone. Developers would try and make the game look and feel like a CoD game and make the perfect game. But as Jim mentioned before, if someone likes CoD, they are already having their fill from CoD and so they are actually reducing their potential customer base.

 

[Erv]

Jim, you just saved the game industry again. I think you can be the Howard Moskowitz of Games. I just watched the Malcolm Gladwell TED video and I realize why we have the "Average Coffee rating" problem in games.
Games and game tastes are to complex for focus testing to provide meaningful information.
Because the many people that work on a game can never agree on what is best, or best in their game, they look to metacritic and the features of top selling games to reach consensus.

Meaning no Horizontal segmentation.

Whenever I buy a game based on a rating, I never like it as much as when a friend recommended a game to me. That is because I know my friends taste and know if he is in the same game-taste segment then me.

Amazon can tell you what you might like based on what people similar to you have liked, but this information needs to be in a format that game makers can use to realize not how they can make their game perfect, but to whom they can make their game perfect.

I suspect Valve with Steam already have a huge lead on other companies with the information they have access to.

 

[minimacker]

That was great. It was... fantastic. That was one of the best episodes I've ever seen you do so far, Jim. I know that there is no perfect episode, but this is no doubt one of the perfect episodes.

 

[Paradoxrifts]

The problem with horror in video games is that the modern market is dominated intellectual properties that are driven forward relentlessly by sequel, after sequel, after sequel. The best and most fondly remembered horror serials do not focus obsessively on continuity for it's own sake, but instead using a bridging device to loosely link a set of otherwise completely unrelated stories.

Compare the original Evil Dead to the subsequent films in the original Evil Dead trilogy, or any horror movie franchise that has collapsed under the weight of it's own unnecessary sequels.

 

[wolfyrik]

Who'd have thought it? Jim seems to be a republican. I mean republican in the original sense, not the modern American, right-wing, mega rich, evil bastard, bigoted, homophobic, woman-hating, racist kind of republican.

I can't wait to try Dishonoured for the very reasons Jim describes. The only thing that keeps me away is the expansions. I'm hoping a GOTY edition or a sale. Bethesda have gotten very good at making expansions for games that I like, and making me spend more money than I should. It's taught me to be patient.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

I think it's because people looked at the first game, saw a guy a guy with a gun and a third person perspective, and though "oh, this must be a third person shooter!"

Of course it wasn't; it was an RPG. And so those people bitched about the shooting mechanics being janky and not skill based, which would be fair if it were a third person shooter. But it wasn't; it was an RPG.

Being unable to aim your gun straight when you're a newbie at Level 0, fine, fair enough. However being an N7 means you're already an elite operative and makes not being able to hold your rifle steady foolish and weird. Also, whether they liked it or not, when BioWare decided that guns would be the order of the day, that makes the game a shooter or at the very least, shooting is a central mechanic and should not be completely at the mercy of stats.

I would agree however, that the removal of the inventory, Mako/planet exploration and the deeper skill sets did detract from the overall RPG feel of ME2, indeed all ME1 needs to basically become the perfect game is the cover/fire system from ME2/3, a revamp of the inventory and a HD texture retouch.

 

[PatrickXD]

I know I'm missing the point of the video slightly with this comment. I don't care. XCOM and XCOM: Enemy Unknown were always developed seperately, by different people, at the same time. XCOM: Enemy Unknown had been at some stage of development since 2006. That would be 4 YEARS before the XCOM shooter announcement. The backlash against the XCOM shooter did in no way lead to the 'spinoff' development of Enemy Unknown. These projects are related only in name.
Spare me a lecture in aggression, this mistake has been made so many times and it really grinds my gears

So mini rant aside, once again Jim is right on the money. Making cool original games is the only way to find an audience for them - and the potential audiences can be huge. Let's hope we get some more awesome IP's rolling out on the PS4/Xbox whatever.

 

[Lightknight]

Holy shit... that comparison between "AAA" Games and inbreeding royal families is insanely profound. Well put, Jim!

Yeah, it's interesting that industry stagnation functions much the same way as inbreeding until something different is brought in.

 

[Colt47]

Yeah, there's not a whole lot to add to this one. I keep trying to come up with something to expand upon or disagree with just for conversations sake, but companies like Activision and EA are pretty much doing exactly what was stated in the video with trying to make some kind of ultimate universal selling formula. Not saying the independent development side of things doesn't have it's pitfalls, but they at least have variety and reasonable sales goals with their games, bringing back long dead genres and reviving classics that were never really dead to begin with.

In a way I think we are in another 90s situation, only instead of the Japanese industry leading the way it's the independent crowd funded developers and some mid tier studios making games like Planetary Annihilation, Star Citizen, Torment, X-COM enemy Unknown, and others.

 

[b.w.irenicus]

I do agree with the episode and it really is a shame. Good thing the Indie-market is develpoing more and more to counteract.

Same shit in the music industry, where people are searching for the next Bieber to milk, while destroying the poor guy(he really is someone to be pitied) and releasing mass produced crap that lowers standards and apparently the intelligence of its audience(fans claiming the Beatles are ripping off Bieber and equal stupidity).

Sorry, but no. Every generation always claims that "their" music is the best and everthing after is crap and "how can young people listen to this shit". Search every older musicvideo on youtube, its always the same, always wrong. There has - never - been a greater variaty of music than today, you just don't find them on MTV.