The Final Frontier. On consoles

[Racecarlock]

Look, space ship games just kind of suck on 7th generation consoles. I don't know why. I mean, star fox 64 was great and the Rogue Squadron series was great, so what gives? Where are the space combat games for xbox 360 that aren't either indie or aces of the galaxy?

Space trading sucks on 7th gen consoles too. I don't know why, starflight on the genesis was awesome and they didn't have nearly the power that the 360 and the ps3 do.

What's going on here? I mean, maybe starflight never got a sequel, but rogue squadron got 2 pretty good sequels. So what's with the lack of space combat on consoles? It's entirely possible and sometimes even profitable. So why?

 

[Racecarlock]

Well technically, there is nothing stopping space sims from coming to consoles.

There is no weather, no huge set pieces. Just a space station, some rocks, some nebulas and a few ships with a skybox texture for a planet. Not as demanding as battlefield or COD with set pieces everywhere. You can't render empty space, its like "rendering" air.

What is limiting is the way space sims carried themselves. Its a slow experience on a platform that games only get played once for a week then traded in. It has become expected to finish a game in a few days and trade it in. Even Skyrim was streamlined for faster gameplay, which is why the "circular" level design is present in every aspect of the game.

Space sims don't do that. Space Sims are niche and can't be sold to the COD crowd that everyone wants to sell to. The audience that did want that moved to PC when the X series came around.

Its nothing about tech power. Its the modern console culture of consumption and development that doom any chance of a real full fledged space game coming to consoles.

There is a reason X rebirth was dropped on xbox 360 and just slapped onto PC. Publishers starved the market out of the consoles for a while, and now the only market left is the COD crowd that publishers keep catering to. Putting too much emphasis on pick up and play regardless of likes and dislikes makes for a bland market.

Which is stupid, like movie studios no longer making horror movies because horror is "niche" to action.

So, just blame short sighted big business choking out niche genres and audiences because they don't make money on the level of the vanilla, mainstream flavor of the month.

Everyone wants to sell to the COD crowd? I mean, I don't see david cage or telltale games or galactic cafe making military shooters.

And if space games don't sell, then how do you explain mass effect? Or kerbal space program or hell, star citizen on PC. Evochron mercenary and X too. Don't those have the same production levels as AAA games? At least X or evochron. And even if they don't, doesn't that just make them cheaper and less of a risk to make?

You just wanted to make me hate the COD crowd, didn't you?

 

[Racecarlock]

Well technically, there is nothing stopping space sims from coming to consoles.

There is no weather, no huge set pieces. Just a space station, some rocks, some nebulas and a few ships with a skybox texture for a planet. Not as demanding as battlefield or COD with set pieces everywhere. You can't render empty space, its like "rendering" air.

What is limiting is the way space sims carried themselves. Its a slow experience on a platform that games only get played once for a week then traded in. It has become expected to finish a game in a few days and trade it in. Even Skyrim was streamlined for faster gameplay, which is why the "circular" level design is present in every aspect of the game.

Space sims don't do that. Space Sims are niche and can't be sold to the COD crowd that everyone wants to sell to. The audience that did want that moved to PC when the X series came around.

Its nothing about tech power. Its the modern console culture of consumption and development that doom any chance of a real full fledged space game coming to consoles.

There is a reason X rebirth was dropped on xbox 360 and just slapped onto PC. Publishers starved the market out of the consoles for a while, and now the only market left is the COD crowd that publishers keep catering to. Putting too much emphasis on pick up and play regardless of likes and dislikes makes for a bland market.

Which is stupid, like movie studios no longer making horror movies because horror is "niche" to action.

So, just blame short sighted big business choking out niche genres and audiences because they don't make money on the level of the vanilla, mainstream flavor of the month.

Everyone wants to sell to the COD crowd? I mean, I don't see david cage or telltale games or galactic cafe making military shooters.

And if space games don't sell, then how do you explain mass effect? Or kerbal space program or hell, star citizen on PC. Evochron mercenary and X too. Don't those have the same production levels as AAA games? At least X or evochron. And even if they don't, doesn't that just make them cheaper and less of a risk to make?

You just wanted to make me hate the COD crowd, didn't you?

Huh? Oh no, I meant that console games have gone down the road of mainstream. If you can't peddle a game to absolutely everyone, it won't be made anymore. Movies have this syndrome, but to a lesser extent.

And mass Effect isn't a space sim. Its a space ship captain simulator with literally 0 responsibilities as one. Everything is done for you outside the shooting, moral decisions, and choosing who you will have an awkward pity fuck off screen.

If space battles and actual commanding anything had been in mass effect, it would have been a better game. But we can't expect every player to be a strategic genius, outsmarting an elder race. We can't expect everyone to care. So everything is done for you and you are railroaded into binary stories with unreasonable and illogical aliens demanding everything from you.

Kerbal and Star citizen is PC. You asked for consoles. On consoles, publishers rule and unless it sells like COD, they won't go for it. PC doesn't really rely on publishers, as early access and kickstarter fill the void.

You asked why space games aren't on consoles. Publishers, development costs, and shifting demand are why.

You'd think with the spectacle the industry is going for these days, entire buildings and/or mobile space cities (or at least large space hotels) fighting each other while you go around in your small ship barely avoiding large lasers and explosions while trying to take out enemy fighters and turrets would come back in style again.

Maybe shipping space cargo isn't the most exciting thing in the world though, so that's understandable.

Still, who says everything needs the largest production costs? Oh yeah, the idiots in charge of the industry. I hope an indie or an arcade developer at least releases a freespace 2 rip off on XBLA. That would be nice.

 

[DrOswald]

This is hard to discuss because there is no single reason. But there are many reasons that add up to a general trend that we can point to:

In the last generation, video games were at a very special point where we had tons of difficulties in development but very few positives. This ranged from culture to hardware specs and everything in between. Lets talk about one specific example, hardware specs.

The x360 and PS3 were powerful enough machines to make games that looked very good. But it was very hard to do on anything less than a AAA budget. This means developers had the disadvantage of developing for an audience that demanded a certain level of graphics but they did not have the advantage of developing on a platform that made that goal easily achievable.

And it wasn't just graphics. There is a whole laundry list of things that gamers expect from games now days but are difficult and expensive to put in because they are process intense.

This means that video game budgets were very high to reach these minimum requirements. And as the budget goes higher the willingness to take risks goes down. This means that only proven mass appeal ideas are going to get green lit. Thus many genres were listed as "too risky" and they basically disappeared. Space Sim games were one of the big casualties this generation because of this mentality, as were many relatively niche genres.

This generation we have much more powerful hardware and it is becoming increasingly apparent that even with this power chasing ever improving graphics is a fools game. It is possible that we are going to see a resurgence of relatively niche titles.

 

[Something Amyss]

And if space games don't sell, then how do you explain mass effect?

You mean the franchise they're slowly morphing into a FPS?

If you want space shooters, then yes, there are space shooters. I thought you wanted games like Starfox or Rogue Squadron,t though.

and if you can find so many indie titles on PC, why not just stick with them?

Games that are popular on PC won't necessarily market well to the console crowd.

the big name publishers decided that certain genres are dead and dropped all support for developers making them. thats why they are either hardcore niche games or having to be crowdfunded these days

Hell, these days "niche" seems to mean "anything that doesn't move a million units."