Poll: What is holding gaming back, as an industry?

[Lugbzurg]

The cost of developping quality AAA titles . Seriously , it now costs a small fortune and 4% of a persons lifespan to make 1 game . I personally believe that the only way the industry will move foward is to find a way developpe the same quality ( or better ) at a lower cost . I think , new technology needs to be developped to make games more cost efficent to make .

Once the cost is considerably lowered , then the industry could take more risks and we would get more original games . Even if the games aren't original in every sense , we would be able to experiment more and have more unique games with little risk .

This reminds me of something that happened, recently. I was at Wall-Mart, out to buy a Wii game for my friend on his birthday. I looked in and saw Super Smash Bros. Brawl. It was $50. That's right... Fifty Dollars. That game is over four years old and it's still that expensive. You know what else I saw? The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and Kirby's Epic Yarn. Guess how much they were? $50. I also looked over and saw the brand-new, relatively-complex, expansive game Lego Pirates of the Caribbean for only $20. What gives? I bought him Epic Mickey for $20 and it's so smooth and nicely-made. Just the overabundance of cutscenes as the only real problem, thus far.

But what I think is really holding gaming back is a heck of a lot of people who make them in the first place! So-called "mature" games are pathetically easy! Even today, so-called "childrens' games" are harder, longer and better-structured than these "mature" titles. But, back in the day? Oh, boy... We had CastleVania, Contra and Battletoads! Today's games are often so short, unoriginal and pathetically-easy. There are a few games still coming out that are resisting. I keep hearing several of you guys bringing up this "Dark Souls" thing as insanely hard, if I'm reading correctly. And, there's the Serious Sam series, from what I can see so far. (Still gotta play one. Really want to so bad!)

But, there's still one other problem that's really bugging me that plagues the videogame realm worse than any other media and that is this: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/experienced-points/9489-The-Racism-Blame-Game

 

[Cowabungaa]

I think I have the problem pegged down to this: people from outside the creative industry and who have nothing to do with videogames themselves rule the videogame business. I bloody hate shareholders, I really blame the majority of the industry going public for the various kinds of malpractice like draconian DRM measures.

The videogame industry should get back in the hands of gamers again. Games by gamers for gamers. At least we're making progress with things like Kickstarter.

 

[CarlMin]

Okay, so what's the deal with this constant EA/Activision hatred? What on earth has EA done to deserve this? DLC? Crappy endings? Are you kidding with me?

And I keep hearing this like "oh, the greedy big publishes are controlling the developers". They aer not controlling the developers, they are founding them. And like any company they have the right to found only the projects they will see make a profit. How on earth is that unethical or even surprising? Developers are free to work for whomever they want, just like publishers are free to sponsor whatever project they want.

If you don't want braindead, triple-A titles then don't buy them. Buy some unique indiegame instead. But obviously, this is not what people want seeing as the AAA titles are selling like they are.

Electronic Arts, Bioware, Activsion, they are only going to give you what you, as a consumer, are paying for and nothing else. And can you really blame them for it? I mean, I guess that's still more fun than taking a look in the mirror but still.

 

[asacatman]

The community. And I'm not talking about just the people who buy COD every year either. There is no market for medium budget 'Oscar bait' games like the hurt locker or the artist. The gaming community basically wants to play games about shooting people or beating people up, or escapist fantasies like Skyrim, but they don't really want serious art.

 

[Erttheking]

I was just playing Dark Souls, which didn't hold my hand, had a massive amount of different enemies, a hidden interesting storyline, and a variety of ways to tackle your foes, I think that the gaming industry is doing just fine if its churning out stuff like this, yeah you might have to dig a little to find the really good stuff but then again there are hundreds of thousands of novels out there and not everyone is a hit, I don't see Twilight bringing down the literary industry, so I don't see what the problem is with video games. Seriously there's a lot of shooters and everyone is freaking out how that's all anyone ever makes

yeah, Dark Souls, LA Noire, Human Revolution, Arkum Asylum, Portal 2, Skyrim. Among other things...you know what I take it back, I say the community.

 

[broadbandaddict]

I'm actually interested to hear what you have to say on the matter. I know that, with this console generation being the longest to date there have been quite a few issues with modern consoles, but I would like to hear why you think this console generation is holding us back.

Alright so just a disclaimer, I am a PC gamer, I owned a 360 a few years back and a PS3 about a year ago. I had the Elite 360 and the PS3 Slim. Always need a baseline for comparisons.

So the only real reason the consoles are holding us back are the hardware. They are running hardware that has long since been surpassed by PCs. Granted when the consoles were new they were most certainly cutting edge. The 360 is capable of 100+ Gigaflops of processing power, compared to a Pentium 4 of the time at 11. The PS3 is capable of 200+ Gigaflops, compared to a Core Duo of the time that could do about 20-25. Processor wise they were great. The Xbox 360 uses a triple core (I've heard hexa-thread but I have yet to confirm that) 3.4Ghz processor and the PS3 uses an octo-core at 3.2Ghz I believe. That is a lot of processing power. Unfortunately when games are designed they are done so for the lowest common denominator. This means that PC games that could use 8 threads/cores are limited to just 3 or 4. The i7 in my system sits at about 25% usage most of the time because of this.

The worst thing that effects games now for consoles (and PCs by extension) is RAM. The Xbox 360 has only 512MB of ram (PS3 is the same but it is split, 256 for processor, 256 for gpu). That is not very much RAM, something I hope most people understand. The problem with this is that games are geared to try and use the amount of RAM in consoles. I can start up pretty much any game... lets take ME3 for example... the actual game only uses 1GB of my RAM, better than the console equivalent but I think it is more intense on computers. It frustrates me to no end (mainly because I'm crazy) that I have 12GB of RAM just sitting there, unused. Hell that would be enough to load a lot of games ENTIRE install directory into. The strict RAM constraints don't help with anything and developers don't want to make an entirely different game for PC because that would be too expensive.

The good news though is that (supposedly) Microsoft and Sony will be switching from PowerPC and Cell architecture to standard x86 architecture. This means that games can be easily transferred between the consoles and PC so that towards the end of the cycle they would run the same as on a low end PC. A lot of people are getting pissed off about the fact that Microsoft and Sony "aren't doing high end consoles, man" which is a practical thing. After the failure that Sony dubbed the Vita and their other problems they don't have enough money to back a new console generation. Microsoft does but they still too a really big hit. I seem to remember that Microsoft's first profitable quarter for the Xbox was 2007 when Halo 3 was released which would equal 2 YEARS of losing money. Not many companies could shoulder that. I'm fairly certain Sony was the same if not worse.

So yeah, that is like a serious wall of text. And my writing is pretty shit and full of tangents... sorry.

TL;DR Need moar RAM!

 

[flames09]

EA and industries like it want money, casual gaming markets give them more money than all of the niche markets such as flight sims, mil sims and others.

You cut the casual gaming market and then they will have to invest money in other niche areas that we, as gamers, choose.

 

[Nargleblarg]

Call of Duty just as a whole.

Every year one of these comes out and starts up the same hype for what is essentially the same game. I think its a poison on the industry; it promotes lazy storytelling, little innovation, and 80s action movie level character and dialog and shows major profits due to this. And while I understand it's opinion but when I hear how MW3 is put up for game of the year from various organizations I always think it's a joke. It's like if at the Oscars they announced for best picture Up, Hurt Locker, Blind Side, and the Expendables. One of these just doesn't belong.


I can understand it's a mindless shooter and that's great for it's genre. I'll even agree amongst nonsensical shooting galleries it's among one of the best. But to say it's the best game made in a single year with it's nonexistant story, bland bland paper cut out characters, and the fact the gameplay is the same as the last 3 or 4 is just sad.

This isn't to say it's a bad series but they just have picked up really bad habits which hurt the industry as a whole.

Also the fact that a game like Psychonauts has sold 400,000 units in its entire lifespan while call of duty can hit a $1 billion in 2 weeks. One is a creative, artful work based around a plot similar to inception and explores emotion and the human mind. The other is a remake of a remake of a game copying off of black hawk down.

Edit: For the record other series do this to; this is just the biggest offender.

 

[GonzoGamer]

Consoles. 'Nuff said.

Exactly what I was thinking.

Not to say consoles = bad. First off graphically, their tech is still stuck in 2006. Secondly, developers think console gamers are all morons so the bar is always set really low on games.

Thirdly, not a major reason but a good one for why games aren't as complex on console. Limited button configuration. PC's use keyboards that allows you to have dozen or so configurations. Console games have to stick to what's offered on a controller. More buttons = more abilities = games being more complex.

Oh, and I'm mostly a console gamer myself. So don't try pulling that "PC elitist" card on me...lol

I mostly play on the ps3 as well. I like to play on the PC but it has even less games with splitscreen. But the way things are going hardly any console games will have splitscreen either in a few years.

The problem with the consoles is that Sony & MS haven't sold enough of them. Sales of both the ps3 & 360 combined still lag behind the sales of the ps2 when it was as old. I think the choice between poor hardware & poor support led a lot of ps2 gamers to just not bother upgrading. Things like added fees and shrinking features probably didn't help either.

I hope that they can turn things around for the next gen but their behavior hasn't filled me with too much confidence. I imagine that even fewer people will buy the next gen of consoles.

 

[Squidbulb]

I'll sound like a bit of a snob here but I'd say the community, who are mostly entitle morons who alienate anyone trying to get into gaming (see all the casual gaming hate. You complain at people who see you as reclusive freaks yet when someone tries to dip their toes into the waters of gaming (that is, they try to start off with something cheap and simple like mobile gaming to get a taste) and you drive them out) You act as if there are strict rules to being a nerd or gamer and make jokes about people who claim to be nerds. Then you get the people who buy the same repetitive shooters again and again but shun original ideas. I'm not blaming the people who make them, they make whatever people buy and that makes sense.
For my second point, allow me to paraphrase Yahtzee. "Gaming is a massive black hole of time and money". Games are not easy to develop. You need the programming knowledge and quite a bit of money. To make music all you need is an instrument or a good singing voice and you can at least get started, even if it's just on youtube or something (which of course requires recording equipment, which can be expensive). Anyone with a computer can write a book (yes computers are expensive, but hey, pretty much everyone has one).
I don't see how you can complain about corporations trying to make money. What the hell do you expect? All a company exists for is to make money. Nobody makes games simply to entertain others. It's a job. This leads me back to the point that many gamers feel that they are entitled to a game tailor made for them personally. They feel that mistakes must be corrected. That anything that doesn't personally appeal to them is wrong. Get over yourselves. Game developers aren't your slaves.
Think about it. No sensible publisher is going to fund Psychonauts 2 when nobody bought the first game. Call of Duty isn't released year after year because publishers are evil or stupid, it's because the game sell well, so from a business perspective it'd be stupid not to.

 

[renegade7]

Well there are a couple issues as I see it. BTW these are about the industry as a whole, not individual companies or games.

The first is that companies getting into the electronic game industry sometimes have a little trouble understanding exactly what they're doing...and I don't mean studios, I mean developers and publishers. Sometimes they don't know whether or they're getting into a technology industry or an entertainment industry, they need to understand that it is both.

The second is public perception. The 'games are toys' mentality puts off a lot of people, for instance when it comes to education.

 

[pilouuuu]

Risk averse publishers who make developers rush.


The obsession with graphics was in fact a good thing. If we remember correctly when 3d cards started beind produced we got more advanced looking games year after year. Now the industry reached its limit, graphically speaking, long time ago, but we're stuck thanks to this gen consoles. If we got more advanced technology not only games would look better. There's also a possibility that we may have better simulations, better A.I. as CPUs get more powerful.

Also the expense of creating games. OK, we like good graphics, we like spoken dialogues. But it's still so expensive to produce. If developers didn't reinvent the wheel all the time, but instead improved what they have, just like Valve does with their engine, maybe games could get cheaper to produce and still be amazing in graphics and sound deparments.

The reluctance of hiring good writers for games. It seems that most games still have their stories produced in-house by guys who lack the skill to create an amazing story. Hire good writers!

The focus on graphics. OK, I may seem to contradict myself here. Graphics are a good thing, and we want better animations and better textures than we have this gen. But it's not the only thing. We also want innovation, good story, great gameplay mechanics. Just putting good graphics in a game and no interaction makes really dull games. Focus on the game first and just then add all the cosmetics on top.

 

[Texas Joker 52]

I wouldn't say anything is holding the industry back as a whole per-se, but I will say that there are some things that need to change of the industry is going to move forward at a more steady, consistent pace:

1: Quality Control. Its too often that a game is rushed outright just to make a quick profit. Sometimes, it doesn't suffer very noticeably, other times what could have been an excellent game in idea, falls very short in execution due to being rushed. I know that sometimes there needs to be pressure on the developers, otherwise the game might not get done at all, but that does not mean that there should not be some sort of firm quality control so that the industry is continually flooded with mediocre, to outright horrible games.

2: Let the Developers have control over their properties again. When most of us see a big-name developer make a game that falls short of our expectations for one reason or another, who do we often look to to blame? In the case of Mass Effect 3, yes, Bioware is certainly getting its share of flak, but EA is most definitely seen as the main corrupting force. That might be greatly exaggerated, but the point still stands that a development team needs to have more creative control over their property. While I'm not going to say games are art (That really needs to be decided on a case-to-case basis, not as a whole), they do take quite a bit of creativity and innovation.

3: More variety in general. We have too many games today that try to fill the same roles as others, only with slight, to major differences. Competition is a very good thing for the medium, but that does not mean that the industry needs to be flooded with first person shooters set in a modern military setting, trying to compete with Call of Duty, Battlefield, Medal of Honor and others. The same goes for any other genre. The boundaries of genre and setting, as well as story need to be pushed further. Whether that means more games with a wacky premise, or ones that are more serious and gritty does not matter. Having the variety to choose from, is, especially since with Indie Games in particular, it can be very lucrative to make a niche game. We need more of those.

 

[DaHero]

Consoles. 'Nuff said.

And if consoles were to disappear entirely, what of the vast library of console exclusive games?

Would gamers who want to play them have to rely on used games forever?

They would be moved over to a BETTER platform, known as the PC, where it all began.

What's holding games back is a combination of stagnant, outdated consoles, conservative groups beating down new ideas, fans that rage when stuff changes, and the industry knowing that screwing up just a tiny detail can turn the game into a colossal failure in the gamer's eyes.

 

[Lunar Templar]

Consoles. 'Nuff said.

XD, no like you think.

its a number of things in my mind that are holding things back

company's like EA for sure.

Consoles to a degree,

shit like CoD/BF/Halo/FPS games in general

but PC gamers, more accurately, the elitists that think PC gaming is 'just better' because 'they can mod' or 'it looks better', yeah, don't feed me that 'better control's' bull shit, they aren't

back OT, in particular the PC gamers that whine about consoles holding back THE LEAST IMPORTANT PART OF GAMING, the mother fucking GRAPHICS, these are NOT as important as they would have you think, and only reason i can think of WHY it's so important is to justify the wholly unnecessary upgrades they like to brag they're platform is capable of for that .004% performance boost.

not that the consoles are devoid of the 'graphics whore', but i feel its them as well as people buy sub par games in bewildering numbers, on both PC and Consoles that are holding back, and no, not just talking about CoD that time, talking about anything made by Bethesda as well

 

[Hap2]

Costs. Because of the high price it takes to develop a game, most companies aren't as willing to bank on new and original concepts in gaming, and instead they focus on sequels and reusing game mechanics that are becoming stale.

 

[217not237]

I was going to click large corporations, but then I remembered that the problem is the community. Corporations only do the shit they do that holds us back because gamers will buy America, Fuck Yeah 7 a long time before they buy Original Concept: Innovation. We like what's familiar most of the time, and that's why the more intelligent games just aren't as common as they could be. Modern Warfare 3 made more money than Avatar, so of course that's what everyone will make. While there are rare titles that are fairly original that sell well, such as some XBLA Arcade games, Minecraft, Amnesia, Flower, and Portal, these are in the minority next to unique gems like Rock of Ages or Recettear that just don't make it to the mainstream.

 

[Acier]

I would say the community, in the sense that they never really but their money where their mouth is. If everyone who said they wanted better story telling and interesting/good mechanics supported every game that did so, it would allow more indie developers to flourish and push gaming new places. We've quite honestly reached the point where improvements in graphic and audio fidelity is plateauing. We need to focus less on the sensory tech and move towards tech and ideas that improve the mechanics and overall experience of the game.

 

[black_knight1337]

And we would have bigger budgets, longer development time, less innovation and shorter and more expensive games

and save time and money on excessive optimisation and workarounds to deal with the terrible tech of consoles.

 

[SilentVirus]

You should add "All of the above" to the poll. There is no isolated reason as to why the gaming industry is being held back. If that were the case, I'm sure something would have been said and probably even done about that. A combination of large corporations releasing games that are highly sub standard, the community who can't get along that nitpicks at each other that reacts poorboy to said games, the media coverage (or should I say smear campaign?) of the game and the community, makes a horrid combination of corporations feeling like they did their jobs, gamers feel like they didn't,and the media making it seem that the gaming industry/community is full of crazed, murderous, sex deviants. You make that as a whole and you get a cluster-f*ck disaster where no one is happy.