Poll: Are game developers settling for mediocrity?

[Thingo]

I recently played homeworld, an old 3d strategy game. It made me think about how games have become, i mean, homeworld made something brave and new, the cutscenes were almost like digital pieces of art and so was the game itself, when i compared it to a newer game it felt like the guys who made homeworld really tried something new and exciting, they didnt just copy something from an older game, change it a bit so they dont get sued and paste it into the game then put in the newest graphics engine like all the newer games do (take the world war 2 games for an example, they seem safe enough so the developers take that war, paste it into the game and put in a new graphics engine then kick it out on the market), they made a story that hadnt been done before added new gameplay mechanics and some god graphics (for that time) and hoped for the best. Everyone seems to do their best to get to the mediocrity line ( though some piss themselves and die somewhere near the start)then just sit there because they think they'll get more money that way. Do you think they've started settling for mediocrity?

 

[bad rider]

Some are some aren't, though on the whole they are pushing less boundries these days. However is that them or the lack of boundries to be pushed?

 

[Ace of Spades]

As long as they can make money, then yes. I think your view is a bit narrow though. I agree that there have been plenty of mediocre games, but there have also been great ones. Call of Duty 4, Half Life 2, Portal, Team Fortress 2, Resistance: Fall of Man, BioShock. I could go on for quite a while listing great new games. There always were and always will be mediocre games.

 

[Charli]

Have noticed it in some franchises and companies, yet not in others.

 

[Uszi]

Yeah, mediocre seems like an odd criticism. I find it hard to claim any game that is largely enjoyable is mediocre. So you can complain about how played out the WW2 theme is, but COD5 is hardly mediocre since it offers a very competitive and enjoyable multiplayer experience.

 

[Thingo]

Yeah, i loved fallout 3 for the way they gave you alot of freedom, told the story in a great way and somehow didnt screw up gameplay completely and COD4 for making a game set in our time instead of all the futuristic and WW2 games but there has been alot of mediocre games. Take farcry 2 for an example, it was absolutely GORGEOUS but gameplay and the AI got screwed up pretty bad.

 

[Inverse Skies]

It depends on the company. Some companies put so much effort into making their games enjoyable to play that when you play games from other companies that don't have such a meticulous design process they can feel mediocre.

That and the length it takes to program days nowadays I can see why the feeling would be games are becoming something which less passion and thought is put into rather than games of the past. But remember we've had bad games all throughout gaming history, but with the internet and forums like these we're more likely to hear about the bad ones and therefore are inclined to believe that more of them exist.

 

[Ace of Spades]

Yeah, mediocre seems like an odd criticism. I find it hard to claim any game that is largely enjoyable is mediocre. So you can complain about how played out the WW2 theme is, but COD5 is hardly mediocre since it offers a very competitive and enjoyable multiplayer experience.

Would you recommend COD5? I'm trying to decide whether or not to get it.

 

[z121231211]

Yes, they are settling for medicore, but it costs so much money to make a game nowadays that failure=out of business.

 

[SsilverR]

i dunno .. bottom line is ... they're still getting rich .. they keep making these games because they sell .. the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few .. a mojority of gamers are easy to please retards so ... yeah .. nothing we can do about it

 

[Librarian Mike]

Games cost so much and are so time-consuming to make these days that I can understand the developers trying to be 'everything to everyone'. Movies are going through the same thing nowadays.

 

[EzraPound]

LOL @ people who said games are better now than than they used to be. There's been like ten good games in the last ten years:

- Conker's Bad Fur Day
- Grand Theft Auto III/VC/SA
- Morrowind/Oblivion/Fallout 3
- Shadow of the Colossus
- Super Mario Galaxy
- KOTOR/Jade Empire
- PoP: Sands of Time
- Resident Evil 4
- Soul Calibur
- Psychonauts
- Metroid Prime
- System Shock 2
- Half-Life 2
- Homeworld
- God of War
- Deus Ex
- Ico

...Rest assured, this would've sufficed for about two years between 1985-1998.

 

[stompy]

Actually, I've always thought that game developers are settling for whatever sells. If they can use less resources and get the outcome, why shouldn't they? In the end (in our global economy), consumer sovereignty sets the bar developers need to reach, and if that's lower than the past, well, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

 

[Uszi]

LOL @ people who said games are better now than than they used to be.

Thanks for denigrating the opinions of 16% of the people who answered this poll. That was really cool, and it made you look super intelligent.

There's been like ten good games in the last ten years:

- Conker's Bad Fur Day
- Grand Theft Auto III/VC/SA
- Morrowind/Oblivion/Fallout 3
- Shadow of the Colossus
- Super Mario Galaxy
- KOTOR/Jade Empire
- PoP: Sands of Time
- Resident Evil 4
- Soul Calibur
- Psychonauts
- Metroid Prime
- System Shock 2
- Half-Life 2
- Homeworld
- God of War
- Deus Ex
- Ico

...

Your list is silly. You kind of just said, "These are the 10 games that I really enjoyed, THEREFORE THEY ARE THE ONLY GOOD GAMES!" I did not know the Christ Child descended from heaven and touched your perceptions in such a way that the games that you alone enjoyed were objectively the best games, that everyone can agree on.

I think the games you listed fall into three categories:

1). Games I can accept some of your games as genuinely good and inarguably creative.

2). Games that I'll argue are merely a matter of opinion. A game like System Shock is completely unenjoyable to a whole sect of gamers out there.

3). Games where you are flat out wrong. Many of your games meet the OP's very definition of mediocrity, i.e. pumping out the same set game pieces with small tweaks. FO3 is a great example. They took Oblivion, added guns, and tapped into a different spring of creativity than there own. They're basically the Kanye of game making.

Now then, if you don't measure mediocrity in terms of making the same games over and over, and instead in terms of enjoyability, as I first suggested earlier, then you can go ahead and say, "Fallout 3 was not mediocre because it was enjoyable!"

But then, it's merely become subjective.

Then, there's no objectivity to argue over. We might as well argue over our favorite paintings by Van Gogh, or our favorite type of cloud. I like cumulus, myself.

 

[EzraPound]

2). Games that I'll argue are merely a matter of opinion. A game like System Shock is completely unenjoyable to a whole sect of gamers out there.

SS2 is pretty freakin' innovative, and is inarguably a great game.

Games where you are flat out wrong. Many of your games meet the OP's very definition of mediocrity, i.e. pumping out the same set game pieces with small tweaks. FO3 is a great example. They took Oblivion, added guns, and tapped into a different spring of creativity than there own. They're basically the Kanye of game making.

I deliberated whether to include titles like VC and FO3 and decided to include their respective series', but I should clarify: what I meant, really, was that GTA III and Morrowind I found "good" - notsomuch VC or FO3, but I didn't want people being like "oh man lol but fo3 was so good wtf?". The point is, though, and I was exaggerating: there has been a lot less innovative/influential titles this decade then in the one that preceded it, and alot more high-profile drivel.

 

[Shadow Law]

You could probibly say that games are going towards more gameplay action then backstory and story telling cut sceans.

 

[shatnershaman]

Games are much better today, there was garbage and rinse and repeats titles back in "the good old days" (1999 wasn't even that long ago) like Megaman 1-7. I'm one of the believers of better tech makes better games (Ex. GTA 2-GTA 3 or Super Mario World-Super Mario 64) though obviously a good old school game will beat a bad new one.

 

[Thingo]

I have said it before and I will say it again. The PSX era was the golden age of gaming. Back when ideas were new and fresh and humour in games was not just macho one liners (with the exception of Duke Nukem but fuck you, it was his thing) nowadays its just all bland redone bullshit.

Yeah, most of the games out there are copies of older games or just really badly done sequels but saying that halo is a doom clone is just dumb (not meant towards you), because that would make all the games pong clones (or whatever the first game was). But there are some gold nuggets like fallout 3 (which has been called oblivion with guns but i dont think you got to fight super muties with a mini nuke launcher in the ruins of downtown washington DC in oblivion), half life 2 (or so i heard, i havent tried it myself)and some other games, plus all those indie games.