Poll: The decline of high quality games.

[Jay_The_Beast]

I hope i'm not the only one seeing many game company's focus on getting cash rather then delivering quality games as of late. Now, by high quality games, i mean good length, no major bugs and few minor bugs present, and obviously, fun to play (This part of coarse, may very by person.)
The example i'm going to use is Brink. 60 dollars, way to short, and the campaign is literally the multiplayer as well. Sure, the game was decently fun but it was a knock off of team fortress with the very minor feature of free running.

So basically, what i'm asking is.. Does anyone else feel that us gamers are being overcharged for the lack of content in games as of late? And i mean, the majority of games, not all.

 

[Cheery Lunatic]

Nope.

I feel if anything games are getting more awesome. All the games I've bought recently I've been completely satisfied with.

 

[SteveeVader]

Nope.

I feel if anything games are getting more awesome. All the games I've bought recently I've been completely satisfied with.

Well....how many and what have you bought?

OT: I think games are getting shittier. I still play old school RPGs because even the good ones now don't compare story wise. As for Shooters i haven't cared to buy many since most are just generic rip offs of each other adding nothing new.

I have 82 360 games, 15 ps3, 7 wii games and about 20 ds games 1 3ds and the class best ps2 games I can safetly tell you games are not sucking.

Jeez is this the new hipster thing now to hate on video games as a whole... tell me why do you keep playing then

P.s people like you on the forums just go to 4chan /v/ bored you'll fit in there

 

[babinro]

I've gradually shifted to Steam sales and Game of the Year editions/used games as a result of costs. Only if I'm bored and need something to do will I buy a new game for consoles these days.

I don't really feel that games are overpriced though...its more that they have terrible quality standards. Some games aren't truly ready for months or a year after release...to pay full price for such products is just wrong. Many games with short campaigns make up for it in multiplayer if you're into that sort of thing. I don't play multiplayer, and so I don't buy FPS given that $60.00 isn't worth a 5 hour campaign to me.

 

[Amishdemon]

hell no considering TF2 is now free.

 

[Phlakes]

Mass Effect 2, RDR, Uncharted 2, Bioshock, Portal 2, The Witcher 2, L.A. Noire, Mortal Kombat, Assassin's Creed franchise, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Super Mario Galaxy 2, and soon Skyrim, Mass Effect 3, Battlefield 3, etc.

In other words, no.

 

[Krantos]

Price for games hasn't moved in a long time. However, cost to produce has increased significantly. Frankly, I'm surprised we don't pay more.

And Brink is a bad example. It was a bad game overall. Most games these days contain more content.

 

[jacobythehedgehog]

I hope i'm not the only one seeing many game company's focus on getting cash rather then delivering quality games as of late. Now, by high quality games, i mean good length, no major bugs and few minor bugs present, and obviously, fun to play (This part of coarse, may very by person.)
The example i'm going to use is Brink. 60 dollars, way to short, and the campaign is literally the multiplayer as well. Sure, the game was decently fun but it was a knock off of team fortress with the very minor feature of free running.

So basically, what i'm asking is.. Does anyone else feel that us gamers are being overcharged for the lack of content in games as of late? And i mean, the majority of games, not all.

I wouldnt say that games are getting worse. It is that the good games don't really get much hype and all the bad games do. Look at Vanquish and Duke Nukem Forever. Duke Nukem I felt ws a really really really bad game, and Vanquish I felt was amazing. And Duke Nukem had hype and Vanquish didn't.

 

[thenamelessloser]

I say contemporary console games are far superior to the older console games but PC games are inferior to the older PC games at least when it comes to the style of games I like. (RPGs) Prefer playing games on consoles because I'm lazy but it seems I haven't really missed much not bothering getting a fancy new computer for RPGS. The only one I know that probalby can't play is coming out for the Xbox 360 anyhow. (Witcher 2)

 

[grumbel]

So basically, what i'm asking is.. Does anyone else feel that us gamers are being overcharged for the lack of content in games as of late?

No, as game length hasn't really changed all that much. Sure you have the occasional disappointingly short 4-6 hour games, but you also have the 20-40h Mass Effects and Assassins Creeds. Essentially, if the game is to short for your taste, don't buy it, there are plenty of long games that give you good value for your money.

That's not to say that some things changed and some genre died out, but overall quality of games is extremely high (aside from the occasional crappy PC port).

 

[Halo Fanboy]

Guess what, dude?

Games have always, since even the early days of arcades, been about making money.

That's not really true. Spacewar & Galaxy Game weren't made for any real distribution. They were used to see what could be done with the engine and to explore a rule set. It was ten years of only being played by programmers on specialized computers before Galaxy Game became the first coin op game.

 

[Hollock]

Nope, because you don't need to buy shitty games (or short ones). I'm still playing L.A Noire.

 

[chadachada123]

I don't think that it's a "decline." I think that, for much of gaming history, it has been the same.

Recently, for some games, perhaps, but now that we have free updates that older games didn't have, game-breaking glitches tend to be less of a problem.

 

[Jay_The_Beast]

Guess what, dude?

Games have always, since even the early days of arcades, been about making money. Not about art, unfortunately, but the business side of games must come first in order for them to be even the least bit successful.

Also, in the past there have always been a ton of so-so games and only a few that shine brighter than everything else, and even fewer that shine bright enough so as to make time irrelevant. No, games are not getting worse, if anything they're getting better. Cite all the recent shit you want to, I'll just go play some of the recently released FEAR 3 with my buddies, thank you very much. Then I might get around to Crysis 2's single player, or kill some Darkspawn in Dragon Age Origins, or maybe do some crazy color changing antics in Outland. Hell, I might shoot some zombies in Left 4 Dead or go play through the cel-shaded Prince of Persia, or explore the vast land of Fallout New Vegas.

Do you see where I'm going with this? There's a ton of variety in modern games. If you don't believe modern gaming has anything to offer you, then quit gaming and leave the rest of us to enjoy it.

Well put, but with DLC being such a must for most games seemingly instead of making it ship with the game, the stall it to make extra cash, is something i forgot to add
------
EDIT: Also, yes, its about the money.. But i want to create video games after i finish college and i could care less if i make minimum wage if i'm doing what i love.

 

[bakan]

I would say the majority of these 'chash-cow' titles which get more and more pre-/sequels suck.
The first games of a series could have been good, but the newer ones aren't any good anymore.

However, I think you still get a good number of good games despite all the crap which gets released.
But as there are only two options I tend to say that there are more bad releases at the moment and less good games, but I am also very picky.

 

[Uncle_Brainhorn]

I have 82 360 games

Haha, at first glance I thought you were claiming to own over 82 thousand games.

 

[Veylon]

I don't think the quality is in decline. Many older games had bugs and flaws associated with them, such as Final Fantasy's worthless LOCK spell and the Peninsula of Power. X-COM: Terror From the Deep had an issue where, if you researched technologies in the wrong order, the game became unwinnable. Today's games are vastly more complicated and it takes much more work to keep these problems down.

The amount of content is through the roof. Dozens, if not hundreds of artists, writers, modelers, voice actors, etc. are involved in the creation of content. The number of man-hours to create a room or scene in Mass Effect is almost incomparable to that of Dragon Warrior or Secret of Mana.

The problem with modern games is blandness. So many games are so similar that the competence and content are entirely lost due to the fact that they blend right in with all the others. The games people remember and cherish are the ones with personality and color.

And, no, I don't think people are being overcharged for games. You see the price sticker on the game and you decide whether it's worth it. The game companies have no power to make people buy their product; the pricing is entirely a result of the willingness of gamers to pony up.

 

[ChupathingyX]

I'm still having lots of fun with modern games.

However, when games first started obviously there were much less areas explored in gaming, as time goes on more people start to develop games that are similar but there will always be those hiddem gems that will enertain you.

In terms of long series such as CoD as the series goes on developers start getting less ideas so the game feel similar but they're still fun and it really comes down to personal preference.

Yes games are about making money but the way developers do it is different, whether they make money that will suit people who like casual shooters, hack-n-slash, strategy, puzzle or even games that parody real life human faults and political systems and lampoon how mankind is so good at screwing itself over.

 

[Coldie]

The game quality varies wildly, but the price tends to stay the same, $50 for any and all "big" games. So when you buy a good game for $50 and enjoy it, you will naturally expect similar quality for games with the same price tag. Alas, it doesn't always quite work out that way. There's a lot of games out there that someone would regret spending the full $50 on. Whether or not the percentage of such games is increasing is probably up to personal opinion.

For further pricing dissonance, let's refer to Steam:
Dragon Age 2: let's not go there, but $59.99 is a bit over the top.
Fable 3: a fairly mediocre game that neither excels nor sucks at anything, at least according to popular opinion, $49.99
Portal 2: you should know this already, and it costs the same $49.99.
The Witcher 2: loved by both the players and the critics, $19.99 for a digital premium edition (though it's the only digital edition, it would seem).

 

[Mr. Eff_v1legacy]

I don't buy games often, and I'm pretty careful with what I do buy. The latest (new) ones I can think of - Alice: Madness Returns, Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Napoleon: Total War, have all been great. I think it comes down to being careful with your choices.

The only new game in the last year or so I wasn't really satisfied with was Splinter Cell: Conviction. It mysteriously deleted my saves twice and haven't bothered since.