Poll: Is the gaming industry deterioating?

[Something Amyss]

I am going to disagree with you here, here is why.

Mario indeed wasnt the multimillion dollar smash hit that claim the top spots today, however it was popular and influential enough that the 2D platformer became the standard go to solution for every shitty game that was either a movie/comic/cartoon/toy tie in. From Barbie to Seven Ups Cool Spot, they all massively abused the idea and churned out crap around the clock.

The fighters of the 90s in their own right did the same thing, with hundreds of shitty clones that featured at least a Ryu type Character.

Finally the JRPGs, just because most of them didnt make it oversees, doesnt mean Japan wasnt drowning in them, If you mention one Anime series from the 80s-00s era it had a JRPG game.

Okay, so if you're going to disagree with me, try and make it for something I said.

The reason I mentioned these specific genres is that they were popular, nay exploded in their respective time period. The argument had nothing to do with their popularity, but whether or not their popularity led to expectations of financial excellence on the behalf of other titles. You know, exactly what I stated.

Did Mario start the shutdown of companies who made less successful titles? Hell no. Did Street Fighter 2/Mortal Kombat? Again, no. Final Fantasy VII? No again.

So please, explain where exactly we disagree.

 

[Ryotknife]

i feel that the gaming industry is moving away from the demographic that have been playing for most of our lives, and that saddens me.

but i guess im just a dinosaur. so no, i do not feel that the industry is deteriorating, but it is moving in a different direction and im no longer invited to the ride.

 

[boag]

I am going to disagree with you here, here is why.

Mario indeed wasnt the multimillion dollar smash hit that claim the top spots today, however it was popular and influential enough that the 2D platformer became the standard go to solution for every shitty game that was either a movie/comic/cartoon/toy tie in. From Barbie to Seven Ups Cool Spot, they all massively abused the idea and churned out crap around the clock.

The fighters of the 90s in their own right did the same thing, with hundreds of shitty clones that featured at least a Ryu type Character.

Finally the JRPGs, just because most of them didnt make it oversees, doesnt mean Japan wasnt drowning in them, If you mention one Anime series from the 80s-00s era it had a JRPG game.

Okay, so if you're going to disagree with me, try and make it for something I said.

The reason I mentioned these specific genres is that they were popular, nay exploded in their respective time period. The argument had nothing to do with their popularity, but whether or not their popularity led to expectations of financial excellence on the behalf of other titles. You know, exactly what I stated.

Did Mario start the shutdown of companies who made less successful titles? Hell no. Did Street Fighter 2/Mortal Kombat? Again, no. Final Fantasy VII? No again.

So please, explain where exactly we disagree.

I precisly quoted the part of the text I disagreed with for simplicitys sake, Let me make it clearer for you.

Even though Mario didnt explicitly set sales goals (20 years ago, it was literally unheard of any game publisher sharing its sales), it did well enough and stablished a trend so high, that it drowned 8 and 16bit gaming in shitty platformers. You should be able to infer the parralels from Mario back in the Day and CoD today from this. Same example for Figthers and JRPGs.

More over, I have a problem with your continous statement "that COD has shutdown companies", I would like to see you show proof of a developer quoted saying "We shut down because we didnt sale as much as CoD".

 

[Something Amyss]

I precisly quoted the part of the text I disagreed with for simplicitys sake, Let me make it clearer for you.

Not according to your "Clarification." In fact, you still seem to be "precisely" saying what I did not and don't seem to be opposing what I was said.

Precisely.

 

[boag]

I precisly quoted the part of the text I disagreed with for simplicitys sake, Let me make it clearer for you.

Not according to your "Clarification." In fact, you still seem to be "precisely" saying what I did not and don't seem to be opposing what I was said.

Precisely.

sigh.

But Mario didn't set sales expectations or even sequel expectations. Neither did fighters in the 90s, or JRPGs in the late 90s/early 2000s

Mario did set sales expectations and did set expectations.
So did Fighters like SF and Mortal Kombat and King of Fighters.
So did games like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Lunar, Phantasy Star, Tales of.

THE POINT -> Just because they didnt make the Billions of Dollars that a AAA blockbuster movie makes today, doesnt mean they didnt set, follow and exploit their trends. <- THE POINT


Is that clear enough now?

 

[Grygor]

Every media has an area devoted to mass market appeal.

Just at look at movies, TV, books, music, all these outlets have something that appeals to the mass market, despite being frowned upon by people who are more experienced with the intricacies of the media.


TV as reality TV, movies have the likes of the Transformers movies, books have Dan Brown (ugh, that guy sucks so much).

It's an inevitable consequence of popularity.

Thing is, movies also have their Black Swan and Children of Men. Books have their Tolstoy and Pratchett.

Games have... what exactly?

Games have Bastion, LA Noire, Portal. Those three are some of the best storytelling experiences I have had. You cannot of told those storys without it being interactive.

That's... that's it?

Don't get me wrong, those are good games. A couple of them are great. But comparing them to the best that movies and books have to offer just seems like a bad joke.

Thing is, movies also have their Black Swan and Children of Men. Books have their Tolstoy and Pratchett.

Games have... what exactly?

Planescape Torment, Shadow of the Colossus, Okami.

Once again, those are good games. (Can't speak for Okami, haven't played it.) But the notion that they are the best we can come up with is just a tad depressing.

Sure these titles aren't comparable to the greatest books and movies, but gaming is a lot younger than those things.

We'll have our time, don't worry about that.

Well, that's some consolation.

Yes indeed, it's important to remember that video gaming is still a young medium. Dating from when they went mainstream, modern video gaming is roughly equivalent to film in the early 1930's. Now take a quick look at the IMDb top 250: the oldest movie on the list is from 1921, and there are only 15 films from before 1940 (7 from the 1920's and 8 from the 1930's). In other words, when film was where gaming is now, most of its great works of art were still in the future.

Keep in mind that filmmakers were fairly quick to grasp the capabilities of the medium, and by the 1930's had already developed a grammar for discussing and theorizing about film - the artistic implications of gaming's signature element, interactivity, are still only poorly understood.

 

[Kahunaburger]

I've seen it all over the place on just about every message board that has to do with gaming: Gaming is on a downward slide thanks to Call of Duty, Battlefield, etc. What do you guys think?

I think that I just blew a dude up with a blue disk in the Tribes: Ascend beta while we were both going about 100 mph in opposite directions. While jetpacking. So I feel pretty good about the future of gaming in general and shooters in particular.

 

[LilithSlave]

No, it's not. Games are selling more then ever

Eh, I bet about %20 of that sales boost is too to piracy. Media of all varieties are selling more. Because people are surrounded by media all the time on the internet and ways to purchase or pirate it, they become addicted to it and spend more time partaking in and buying it. Furthermore, they're surrounded by media that isn't forced down our throats via cable television, meaning that less people are saturated by sitcom media and other material controlled by major companies like Viacom, and instead more exposure to other media such as video games. Given that people are surrounded by different things, and video games have had a place to escape the stranglehold tv companies have had on media industry, video games are doing better than ever.

Also, just because games are selling more, doesn't mean the quality has improved. I believe that many things about the gaming industry have gone downhill. Maybe not the sales, but the quality.

 

[TehCookie]

OT: personally , and i talk only for myself, Less and less games interest me as time goes on, does that mean that the industry is deteriorating? Not exacly , just thst they moved past what i prefer in my games . It's just my taste that has not evolved with games. Thus i buy less games that i have in the past . I do have 30 some games on my xbox 360 , but that compared to the 100 games i have on the ps2 , the 100 games i have on the ps1 , the 60 games i have on the snes and so on and so forth , it is just a few. Since i only buy games that really interest me , apparently not that many games this gen pique my interest .

Also i don't feel the need to replay any of my xbox360 games, save 3 or 4 , compared to games i have on previous generations that i replay quite often. Anyways thats just me.

What a coincidence that's also me. I'll wave my cane in the air and say modern gaming is shit, but I hope no one takes my bitter retrogamer rants seriously. It's just my opinion.

Bah kids today have no imagination. They just play realistic games, and even their fantasy games try to be realistic. You don't need no powersuit to fight aliens, you just need more guns. You didn't worry about how you carried them, it was fucking magic.