Poll: Would you be ok with the Games Industry Crashing and not having AAA titles for 5-10 Years?

[Squilookle]

Yeah, I'd welcome it. With open arms. There's been perhaps one single AAA game in the last three years that I got excited about. When you start looking forward to re-releases of old games more than new ones coming out, there's something seriously wrong with the games on offer.

I hope this will result in more releases with lower production values. I don't care about the resolution of wall textures or realistic foilage. I don't expect a game to have a cast of hundreds of professional actors. I wan't to see something new occasionally, and to have some variety in general. And I'd love to see gameplay design getting the attention it needs in this medium.

Exactly. Forget hi-def graphics. As long as the gameplay is there I'll be fine.

 

[Awexsome]

Of course not. Why would I want a gaming crash to force thousands of talented developers to be out of work? All those jobs lost and progress erased is honestly being thought of as a good idea since games, "Just aren't very good anymore" for some people?

 

[Beryl77]

No, not really. I like indie games but I also like AAA games. Let aside that a crash would cost many jobs and it would also harm indie devs.
Also, just because it worked like that when it crashed once doesn't mean that the same will happen again.
To me it seems like indie devs are becoming more and more popular anyway.

 

[Something Amyss]

AAA really just means they're tossing a lot of money and an established studio behind it. Neither are a big deal for me. "AAA" in no way means quality.

 

[Tendus]

No, just no.

Besides the millions of people it would put out of a job, we'd also lose many of the smaller companies that aren't quite big, but still require funding. Hundreds of GOOD 1st and 3rd party developers would be destroyed. You definitely won't be seeing any new games from Team Ico at that point.

For those who honestly believe that some "wave of innovation" will take hold because of this, tell me, what publisher in their right business mind would invest in innovation alone for what they see as a crashing industry? If anything only the safe samey games will be funded.

Right now I'd say we are actually are in a pretty sweet spot. Want a short fun game? Indie market that-a-way. Perhaps you'd rather play a massive adventure game or FPS with a strong enough following? AAA this-a-way. We are also seeing more publishers willing to try funding newer games. EA just published Kingdoms of Amalur a few days ago. Tell me, when was the last time EA ever released a fantasy action-adventure game? (that wasn't made by Bioware)

 

[Arnoxthe1]

As a question of whether I, personally, could handle a complete lack of AAA games for the next 5-10 years then yes indeed. There's a lot of games with a lot of multiplayer/modding/creating potential that, IMO, didn't get enough attention. Those games can keep us busy for a long time I'm sure. Well it would for me anyway. A resurgence back to the classics, if only for a while, would truly be great.

Oh yes, relevant video is relevant:

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/158631

 

[theultimateend]

Sure. I'm an avid reader, as long as MTG wasn't hurt this wouldn't impact me in the slightest.

I say this as someone who works in the game industry...so perhaps I should rethink my thought.

 

[babinro]

Not at all.

In all likelihood the circle of power would simply shift to another entity. One that could easily be worse than our current market. In the meantime, I'd be out of a major hobby of mine.

To look at it another way...the AAA gaming market hardly makes up all of gaming now anyways. Just like movies they take they spotlight with their blockbusters coming out during high gaming months. Thanks to the popularity of gaming though, we've seen a ton of Indie games pop up as well. We're in a great market right now in that you have a ton of AAA, casual, hardcore and Indie titles to choose from.

I for one love the AAA titles. 9 out of 10 purchases I make would fall under that category. I don't want to see it end any time soon.

 

[JoesshittyOs]

Nah. This is sort of that Hipster mentality that assumes it can survive off of nostalgia and happy thoughts. You guys see Call of Duty and other big budget games striving off of repetition, but they literally dominate the industry. They are less of a game and more of a drug nowadays.

No way. Indie games are going stronger than ever, and Call of Duty is dying. Bad clones are doing bad, sequels are trying to stay ahead of the curve.

The old days of gaming weren't as good as everyone remembers. A great deal of innovators fell flat on their ass. Games are evolving. This is part of the process.

 

[Chemical Alia]

I make those games for a living, so no, I wouldn't be okay with that. I don't think the idea of anyone having to lose their job in such a way is a cool idea, either.

 

[KiloFox]

i vote yes because the AAA titles are getting bad and predictable... none of these major companies wanna take an actual risk and spend so much money on utter shite that they don't want to release a decent-length game... seriously... people rag on HALO having 4 chapters now (not counting Wars and Reach) look at CoD (at some 7 now i think) or Assassins Creed (at about 4 i believe... and that was new IP not too long ago) and hell FINAL FANTASY which clocks up 13 games in sequence ALONE (not counting all the tactics and other spinoffs from the "saga")now i'm ALL about giving games a sequel... sometimes it's to touch up new graphics (PSO2 shows this perfectly greatly improving on the graphics of PSO(BB) and introducing more story and gameplay mechanics as well... and it's only about 6 YEARS or so after the MOST RECENT re-release of PSO (initially being on the Dreamcast and re-released on the GC and PC) or sometimes a sequel to tie up a story when a game was already ungodly long (the FF series i GUESS... at least the early ones? i never played FF so IDK... but like the LoZ series too) but seriously now... did HALO (and i love halo) NEED 4 games to tell Master Chief's story? short answer: no each game can be beaten in the matter of a SINGLE afternoon... and that is NOT okay for a $60 AAA game... if i pay full price for a game, then i WANT a full game... that's what i paid for after all. i WANT a campaign that i'll need to take nap-breaks in. because that's what i expect from a full-priced high-budget AAA game... it baffles me how i've seen a few games out there by small developers, hell even ones made by a few guys in a basement or something... that run LONGER and more engrossing campaigns than these high-budget AAA titles made by gaming mega-corporations. it's actually kinda backwards... AAA titles should be these multi-day glorious adventures through mystic lands... not the indi titles.. the indi titles should be the short "well that was fun and interesting" titles that give inspiration to new IP, or get built into a bigger, better version of itself when the project is taken on by a AAA franchise. and if we can get that back by sacrificing having AAA games that're way too short with not enough content and way too many cutscenes and totally unnecessary graphics quality... and have more high-quality long WORTHWHILE games to play... then i'm all for it... 100%...

 

[krellen]

no no no no no i love AAA games pretty much everyone here does we love put bio shocks, our fallout's, our skyrim's,our mass effects i could go on and on listing AAA games we all love on this site for ever

Speak for yourself. I could certainly live without any of those games. (Though I would argue that, while Mass Effect 2 was certainly AAA, Mass Effect 1 wasn't so much, and I much much much preferred ME1. ME2 was decidedly non-Scottish.)

 

[FateOrFatality]

But because they are so glued to the demographics charts, AAA gaming companies never grasped that this is what people might want.

You do realise how contradictory that statement is. Developers aren't giving people what they want because they're so focused on... giving people what they want?

What I'm saying is, AAA developers are giving people what they want, it just isn't what YOU want. They're appealing to the lowest common demoninator, which is far from your average Escapist member. That's why we call it the gaming 'industry' - because at the end of the day, these are businesses trying to make money. And risking millions of dollars on your creative ideas and innovations isn't feasible for AAA companies, unlike the much cheaper productions of indie games.

 

[FateOrFatality]

But because they are so glued to the demographics charts, AAA gaming companies never grasped that this is what people might want.

You do realise how contradictory that statement is. Developers aren't giving people what they want because they're so focused on... giving people what they want?

What I'm saying is, AAA developers are giving people what they want, it just isn't what YOU want. They're appealing to the lowest common demoninator, which is far from your average Escapist member. That's why we call it the gaming 'industry' - because at the end of the day, these are businesses trying to make money. And risking millions of dollars on your creative ideas and innovations isn't feasible for AAA companies, unlike the much cheaper productions of indie games.

Personally, I believe you'll never give people what they want through charts.

This is what results in movies like The Smurfs and games like The Old Republic.

The best thing you can do is just make a game that you want to play. Not what your charts say that people want to play. Then at least you will avoid repeating tired trends.

I genuinely do not understand what you are saying. Those 'charts' you're dismissing are done by market researchers who are paid to find out what people want, and they're very good at it.

I confess, I don't know much about the Smurfs, nor ToR, but I'm sure they would have done some very thorough market research there before deciding to make them. EA invested (or, its rumoured they invested) billions of dollars into ToR, and they wouldn't have done that without researching that people like Star Wars, MMOs and Bioware, and aspects of those things they like.

Basically, yes those charts are what tells developers what people want.

 

[FateOrFatality]

I genuinely do not understand what you are saying. Those 'charts' you're dismissing are done by market researchers who are paid to find out what people want, and they're very good at it.

I confess, I don't know much about the Smurfs, nor ToR, but I'm sure they would have done some very thorough market research there before deciding to make them. EA invested (or, its rumoured they invested) billions of dollars into ToR, and they wouldn't have done that without researching that people like Star Wars, MMOs and Bioware, and aspects of those things they like.

Basically, yes those charts are what tells developers what people want.

Well those "market researchers" are wrong.

How else do we get tired CoD clone after CoD clone?

Maybe it is the way they're reading it or whatever. The industry needs creativity, not CEOs thinking that they can replicate success by copying ideas.

You're proving my point. CoD is a success - it makes billions of dollars in a couple of weeks. The market researchers are right, and people are buying the game because they like it.

Regardless of whether this leads to stagnation in the industry or not, they are doing the exact thing you asked for. They're making games people like. Just not you.

tl:dr, you're opinion is a niche opinion. Telling developers like Infinity Ward to "make games people want" is stupid because that is exactly what they're doing.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Not so much. While titles like Bastion, Psychonauts, Outland, and Puddle are wonderful little additions, they are complements. Without the balance of our Skyrims, Modern Warfares, God of Wars, and Zeldas, we'd slowly grow tired of the smaller treats. Sometimes, you want a light dinner, nothing too heavy. Other times, you want to down as much of the lasagna as you can, and polish off both sides of it with a hearty salad and a thick brownie. Or three. Sometimes, I want to sit down with a good 70 hour game, and find all the side quests. Others, I want to spend 12 hours enjoying a well crafted tasty little morsel.

Aside from just the amount of personal interest in it, it'd be a terrible thing to see it collapse. AAA titles have lots of backing, and lots of backing means lots of jobs. More jobs means more industry growth. There are still plenty of great games on all ends of the spectrum, despite the ruthlessly cynical sheep constantly baahing about things having gone to crap.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

I voted "yes."

In as much as I have thoroughly enjoyed some recent AAA games, I feel that the AAA industry is definitely stagnating. Outside of the FPS genre, yearly sports titles, and established franchises with devoted fanbases (like Assassin's Creed, Final Fantasy, or Mass Effect) it's hard for publishers to recoup development costs. Due to the amount of work that goes into developing for the graphic engines of the day, and used games sales and piracy on top of that, publishers are becoming less and less willing to take risks; instead they're looking more towards the ridiculous financial successes of Call of Duty and World of Warcraft and then try to emulate them.

Without risk, without branching out and trying new things, stagnation is inevitable. And that's exactly what we're beginning to see. Quick, name a new AAA IP from the last 3-4 years that has gone on to critical and commercial success. The last surge of innovation in the AAA industry came in 2007 with titles like Portal, Bioshock, the first Assassin's Creed, the first Modern Warfare, the first Mass Effect. Ever since then, the AAA industry has mostly be riding the waves generated by 2007.

We need another 2007, but I don't see that happening because of all the crap I described in the first paragraph.

In as much as I would lament the lack of certain titles, my backlog of past games is more than big enough to tide me over until the return after the crash. And, well, from the ashes of the first crash we got the Nintendo Entertainment System, the most important gaming console ever made, the foundation of the modern video game console.

When there is a vacuum, developers have a unique opportunity to place something truly creative and ground-breaking its place because the demand alone will make it financially viable. It happened with the NES, and it can and will happen again if and when we have another crash.

 

[NeoShinGundam]

HELL NO!! Look how long we had to wait for StarCraft 2!!! And that was during the years the industry was growing.

 

[nokori3byo]

Naw, I like my AAA games. Indie titles can be interesting, but generally lack the scope to satisfy the cravings I get.

 

[Eventidal]

Honestly, maybe not, but they need a damn good boot to the face to get what they're doing wrong.

Those who are tired of AAA games, move to the Wii, 3/DS and PC indie scene to see what's really cooking in the "people who actually think about what is fun" industry. Why do I love Nintendo? It's not for the Marios and Zeldas, though those ARE fun to play as any big game may be. It's because their systems routinely get the most entertaining, greatest gameplay, best art direction, not-held-back-by-sticking-to-realism FUN. Elebits. Little King's Story. Sin and Punishment. Jamestown. Cave Story. They join games such as Dark Souls, Skyrim, Monster Hunter and Bioshock as being some of the best of their kind I have ever played. They do it without sticking to the "rules" of AAA games. No wasting my time on long cutscenes explaining how stupid the emperor is and how I have to kill him in a past life to reclaim my memories. No sticking to the same tired gameplay through 3 games because Drake isn't supposed to fly in a steampunk airship or fight rotund bosses where the entire arena becomes a giant pinball game with the fat dude as the ball. Yes, some of my absolute favorite experiences were the most ridiculous ones that break the barriers of what I think a game is and SURPRISE ME.
That right there is something AAA doesn't do more than dabble in. When was the last time CoD really surprised you, mechanically? Probably when the zombies came out and you found the secret alien weapons. How about Assassin's Creed? Have we come to expect anything but bigger, crazier setpieces in Uncharted? And when a game DOES do something surprising, they make sure to advertise the hell out of it, so it's not going to catch us off-guard or something.

What gaming needs is more creativity. More pushing the boundaries. Less fear that stepping outside the expected will ruin your carefully-manicured experience. Give us an unlockable mode that changes the narration to sound like a 5 year old wrote it. Give us more ridiculous guns. Stop thinking that physics and realistic, completely explainable mechanics are the only ones you can use. Try new things, even within the context of your game.
Come on, game developers. SURPRISE US.