Videogaming's problems: Saturation, Quality, The Gamer, and the Companies.

toapat

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There are major problems with the entire Videogame industry. They are the overproduction of games, the quality of games and the ideas in them, the gamer, and the gamer's effect on the companies who make games.

Saturation: Companies like to make money. That is not bad in and of itself. What has happened over the past 11 years of gaming is a change in what categories are made.As companies noticed that Golden Eye and Doom were truely great games, companies started to make large numbers of FPS games. This has resulted in a massive number of games all in the same category coming out at one time, failing to give the gamers time to show what is good and what is bad.
Another problem is because of the rapid success of the game industry from 1995-2002, a large number of people have entered the business in hopes of making their ideas a reality, which generally is just some kind of generic shooter, further saturating the market.

Quality: As companies have begun to demand higher numbers of games be made, the games have been given shorter and shorter developement cycles. This has in turn slowly lowered the overall quality of a given game because they can not create and fully test it in the time given. Games that are badly made show how badly they are done in some way or another, hurting sales.

The Companies: As companies cut the time off of developement cycles, they lower the overall quality of a game. As the quality lowers, fewer people are willing to buy the game or are willing to play it. When a game comes out, people flock to buy it. These sales in turn deceive companies into believing that they created a game worth buying. This perpetuates the cycle.

The Gamer: As gamers buy lower and lower quality games, companies in turn believe that they can get away by delivering only half a game. Entire Genres of gaming thrive on the ignorance of those who play games. The less a gamer can differentiate a gem from the sewage that it has to float with, the worse off the games industry will become.
 

JRCB

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And the discussion value here is.....?

Nostalgia will usually mess with peoples views on things, as they are stuck on how "games were better in the good old days."

And is this on par with how you threatened to stab me in the throat for liking Halo?
 

Internet Kraken

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These are problems the video game industry has always struggled with.

What exactly is the discussion here?
 

toapat

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Internet Kraken said:
These are problems the video game industry has always struggled with.

What exactly is the discussion here?
the problem is whereas the previous colapse of the games industry was because of these same problems, but for entirely different reasons is why this is a problem. the industry colapsed because there was nothing to make, its going to colapse because nothing new will be made
 

Internet Kraken

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toapat said:
Internet Kraken said:
These are problems the video game industry has always struggled with.

What exactly is the discussion here?
the problem is whereas the previous colapse of the games industry was because of these same problems, but for entirely different reasons is why this is a problem. the industry colapsed because there was nothing to make, its going to colapse because nothing new will be made
Again, what are we supposed to discuss?
 

squid5580

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Internet Kraken said:
toapat said:
Internet Kraken said:
These are problems the video game industry has always struggled with.

What exactly is the discussion here?
the problem is whereas the previous colapse of the games industry was because of these same problems, but for entirely different reasons is why this is a problem. the industry colapsed because there was nothing to make, its going to colapse because nothing new will be made
Again, what are we supposed to discuss?
We are not supposed to discuss. We are supposed to applaud his genius then hide under our desks in fear of the upcoming video game doomsday.
 

Eclectic Dreck

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toapat said:
There are major problems with the entire Videogame industry. They are the overproduction of games, the quality of games and the ideas in them, the gamer, and the gamer's effect on the companies who make games.

Saturation: Companies like to make money. That is not bad in and of itself. What has happened over the past 11 years of gaming is a change in what categories are made.As companies noticed that Golden Eye and Doom were truely great games, companies started to make large numbers of FPS games. This has resulted in a massive number of games all in the same category coming out at one time, failing to give the gamers time to show what is good and what is bad.
Another problem is because of the rapid success of the game industry from 1995-2002, a large number of people have entered the business in hopes of making their ideas a reality, which generally is just some kind of generic shooter, further saturating the market.
Saturation is relative. A market is generally not considered oversatured with a type of product if it's still possible to be successful. Some areas of the market meet this criteria (iPhone, to a lesser extent the Wii (only Nintendo and EA have managed to attain any real success, and EA has only done so with one game)).

toapat said:
Quality: As companies have begun to demand higher numbers of games be made, the games have been given shorter and shorter developement cycles. This has in turn slowly lowered the overall quality of a given game because they can not create and fully test it in the time given. Games that are badly made show how badly they are done in some way or another, hurting sales.
In most cases, development cycles seem to have remained about the same. The difference is, as techology advances at it's relentless and murderous pace, it takes more and more effort or produce a game. A single developer can produce a game of the quality of Tetris in a few days work. It generally requires hundreds of man YEARS to produce a modern AAA title. Additionally, while games are inarguably shorter these days, it is not necessarily a bad thing in general. Many older games managed to have incredibly long play times because of simple repition or difficulty curve. Some modern games, notably RPGs (and more so JRPGs) do the same. In Final Fantasy for example, success requires the player to spend dozens of hours grinding away at the trash mobs for cash and experience. During these encounters, the player's skil is not being tested and the plot is not being advanced. While the people who like that sort of thing may disagree, I consider most of that grind to be an incredibly cynical way to stretch out the length of a game that would otherwise clock in at a dozen hours or so (Final Fantasy 12 specifically as it's the only one I've played to completion since 3)

Overall quality is a matter of debate. There have ALWAYS been terrible games and there will continue to be terrible games. Back in the old days, the difference between a terrible game and an excellent one wasn't always as obvious as you might think. I played revolution X for dozens of hours and in retrospect that game OUGHT to be in a museum dedicated to bad ideas poorly executed (You play an Aerosmith fan who saves the world from the domination of the New World Order using a gun that shoots CD's). These days, the difference in quality is mcuh more telling. Few companies have the resources to devlop the quality assets or go through the absolutely insane testing cycles that companies like Blizzard and Valve manage, most don't even come close. This generally results in three distinct categories of games:

AAA Titles - games with a multi-million dollar budget that often spend years in development. These games often receive near universal acclaim and achieve tremendous sales.

Low Budget - this set generally offers a highly variable experience, and includes anything from a knock off of asteroids to a half-baked idea or joke made into a game. Often you'll find games in this category that take a single unique idea and execute it to a mind boggling degree of perfection and depth (see 'splosion man for example).

Middle Teir - generally a wasteland of shovelware and licensed games. While occasional gems slip out from smaller developers testing the waters of more complex and expensive development, this category is generally a dumping ground. Often games in this cateogory are made for the purely mercenary reason of funding the devlopment of a much more expensive game. If you are looking for a degredation of quality, this is generaly where you'll find it.

toapat said:
The Companies: As companies cut the time off of developement cycles, they lower the overall quality of a game. As the quality lowers, fewer people are willing to buy the game or are willing to play it. When a game comes out, people flock to buy it. These sales in turn deceive companies into believing that they created a game worth buying. This perpetuates the cycle.
As I said, development cycles are not generally getting shorter, and in many cases where they are, the actual man-hours invested increses. This is done through means such as mandatory cruch time where an employee might work 60 - 80 hours a week for months on end, the addition of additonal staff or outsourcing of various parts of the development process or some combination thereof. The real problem is that each and every generation of hardware makes it that much harder to produce a game that recieves universal acclaim.

toapat said:
The Gamer: As gamers buy lower and lower quality games, companies in turn believe that they can get away by delivering only half a game. Entire Genres of gaming thrive on the ignorance of those who play games. The less a gamer can differentiate a gem from the sewage that it has to float with, the worse off the games industry will become.
The market is what determines the ebb and flow of the process. Often when a franchise becomes stagnant a new, better player comes along. Blaming people for playing bad games is like blaming people for seeing bad movies - it might make you feel better but it won't stop it from occuring in the future. I would instead blame the consumers for not purchasing games that actually are quite good, though this is often the fault of the developer/publisher as much as anyone.
 

squid5580

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And who are you to say what is a high quality vs low quality game? I have played indie games from the marketplace which technically are low quality. Yet they were alot of fun. I hated COD4. It is technically a very high quality game and I really can't say much negative about it except I didn't like how it lead you by the nose. What is the standard for determining quality.
 

Nick Bounty

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The quality in games is subjective to it's content and the content in games is varied across all platforms. You can not just say low quality games because sometimes it works with games. The best example is the indie game genre. Most of the indi-game are stung together by shoestring but their are some awesome games out there like Braid, Crayon Physics and world of goo. They are not of Crysis quality but they are fantastic. The point is that you can't judge a game by the quality of it's graphics or processing requirements.

Some of the best games are the simplest ones and those that took very little development time.
 

Poopie McGhee

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Well sir, despite the fact that you provide some valid points, have you taken into consideration how costly it is to create a game these days?

And there are some great games coming out amidst all these "piles of crap" games...
 

matsugawa

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No kidding, why don't you tell us something we don't know?

Seriously, this whole 'vicious cycle' of gamers influencing the market which caters to the gamers influencing... we've seen it all before. Of course, the result then was the Arcade crash of 1982. Mainstream interest (which often leads to the over-production of games and saturation) in games comes and goes like the tide, it's just that now the vast majority has gotten past the novelty of "I move the joystick and the thingy on screen moves around" of ye olde days and can have their interest and attention held for more than a few hours.

Yes, it is a problem, but 1) it just means we have to look a little harder for good games 2) it doesn't last very long as a problem and 3) the worst thing about the resultant crash is fewer companies make games, fewer games come out, fewer people play, and us hardcore gamers get a little breathing space and elbow room.

I welcome another crash.
 

matsugawa

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toapat said:
... the industry colapsed because there was nothing to make, its going to colapse because nothing new will be made
I'm sorry, I don't like to double-post, but could you possibly elaborate on this? It really doesn't make any sense. It implies that the only reason the games industry 'recovered' from the crash was that what was old became new again? We set Pac-Man on the shelf for ten years so we'd forget how tired of it we got back then so we can play and get tired of it all over again?
 

toapat

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Nick Bounty said:
The quality in games is subjective to it's content and the content in games is varied across all platforms. You can not just say low quality games because sometimes it works with games. The best example is the indie game genre. Most of the indi-game are stung together by shoestring but their are some awesome games out there like Braid, Crayon Physics and world of goo. They are not of Crysis quality but they are fantastic. The point is that you can't judge a game by the quality of it's graphics or processing requirements.

Some of the best games are the simplest ones and those that took very little development time.
quality is not determined by budget. some of the best games can be made for about $60, while at other times, a sub-par game can have millions of dollars spent on making it. the entire CoD series is an over budgeted series of generic FPS games with little variety. this is from the largest company in the games industry, a company with absolutely no fears of collapse, and what do they do with those dumptrucks of cash? they hoard it and dont spend it on making sure that the games are worth it.

matsugawa said:
no, the games industry recovered because Nintendo did what it needed to to make sure that they didnt get fucked over by the other companies. you think the Wii is bad? its mearly the next console in a series that singlehandedly rescued the entire industry.
goto a walmart, except for 2-3 games per console, they only stock shooters. the games industry is in a downward spiral because companies keep making the same game (generic FPS, Driving games, and RPGs) over and over again.
when the industry collapsed, it was because the industry had fully failed to make sure that it could withstand what the industry has to withstand now, or even a quarter of the things it might have to deal with at the time.

matsugawa said:
Yes, it is a problem, but 1) it just means we have to look a little harder for good games 2) it doesn't last very long as a problem and 3) the worst thing about the resultant crash is fewer companies make games, games come out, fewer people play, and us hardcore gamers get a little breathing space and elbow room.

I welcome another crash.
1: true, but you dont take into account the shear numbers of games
2: if it didnt last, then why have Halo, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, and (insert generic multiplayer FPS not named Battlefield or Unreal Tournament) succeed in becoming world changing series.
3: you consider letting gamers have fun and relaxing a bad thing? Do you even understand what videogames are for? the bad thing is we wouldnt get Starcraft 3, Warcraft 4, and Diablo 4
 

toapat

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Eclectic Dreck said:
*mega snip*
games such as FPSs get pumped out in 2 years.
your breakdown of titles is a major problem, AAA titles such as Halo come out as low quality shovelware, while games like starcraft could easily be AAAAA titles (although Starcraft technically is the greatest game on earth, going above any other, launching pro gaming in earnest, and having entered space)
AAA Title: games that truely change the world.
S Titles: games which you keep coming back to, because they are that good
A Titles: games that truely take what they attempt to do to the next level
B titles: note worthy games, truely creative with great application of the ideas
C Titles: Games that you play simply to get away, little variety from a game made 8 years ago
D Titles: Shovelware
F Titles: games that are truely terrible, with little attempt at cohesion or quality. attempted storyline continuation games (Im looking at you Halo 2) also fall here

Developement cycles have shortened in length overall, as graphics take predominance over gameplay, with games made with premade engines take a matter of months to make, while other games, such as halflife are painstakingly made over years of time.

A point i truely missed though by an incredible longshot is The Game Critic, which can be summarized as they are too willing to give great reviews for an extra check from the company.
 

Eclectic Dreck

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toapat said:
Eclectic Dreck said:
*mega snip*
games such as FPSs get pumped out in 2 years.
your breakdown of titles is a major problem, AAA titles such as Halo come out as low quality shovelware, while games like starcraft could easily be AAAAA titles (although Starcraft technically is the greatest game on earth, going above any other, launching pro gaming in earnest, and having entered space)
AAA Title: games that truely change the world.
S Titles: games which you keep coming back to, because they are that good
A Titles: games that truely take what they attempt to do to the next level
B titles: note worthy games, truely creative with great application of the ideas
C Titles: Games that you play simply to get away, little variety from a game made 8 years ago
D Titles: Shovelware
F Titles: games that are truely terrible, with little attempt at cohesion or quality. attempted storyline continuation games (Im looking at you Halo 2) also fall here

Developement cycles have shortened in length overall, as graphics take predominance over gameplay, with games made with premade engines take a matter of months to make, while other games, such as halflife are painstakingly made over years of time.

A point i truely missed though by an incredible longshot is The Game Critic, which can be summarized as they are too willing to give great reviews for an extra check from the company.
There's a problem with your distinction versus mine. My categorization is broadly based on the cost of production, and indeed money is what qualifies a AAA as AAA. Your own distinction is based off of perceived quality of game, and this poses a challenge. Classifying halo as "shovelware" is nothing more than fanboy baiting and will not help spur meaningful discourse. Classifying it as a AAA title however will not because this is a statement of production value, which is based in the realm of fact rather than a subjective evaluation.

Development cycles of AAA titles, in spite of what you postulate, has generally increased. Morever, total man hours spent on these titles increases dramatatically. The original doom was produced in less than a year, but Doom 3 took several years to produce. Diablo, Starcraft, Half-Life and countless others express this trend clearly. Developers will spend as much time as they think they can afford to make a quality game. The trouble is, most developers don't have the kind of resources that a Blizzard or Valve or Nintendo can muster.
 

toapat

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Eclectic Dreck said:
There's a problem with your distinction versus mine. My categorization is broadly based on the cost of production, and indeed money is what qualifies a AAA as AAA. Your own distinction is based off of perceived quality of game, and this poses a challenge. Classifying halo as "shovelware" is nothing more than fanboy baiting and will not help spur meaningful discourse. Classifying it as a AAA title however will not because this is a statement of production value, which is based in the realm of fact rather than a subjective evaluation.

Development cycles of AAA titles, in spite of what you postulate, has generally increased. Morever, total man hours spent on these titles increases dramatatically. The original doom was produced in less than a year, but Doom 3 took several years to produce. Diablo, Starcraft, Half-Life and countless others express this trend clearly. Developers will spend as much time as they think they can afford to make a quality game. The trouble is, most developers don't have the kind of resources that a Blizzard or Valve or Nintendo can muster.
@halo: im refferencing the fact that the storyline for halo 1 basically opens and closes entirely in the first game, with only enough left over to justify one of the halo books, a fact that when you look at the 4 scripts for the games is a bit more obvious.

@AAA: time input makes a AAA title, prodution costs doesnt really. you can have games that are terrible that cost alot to make, but were not given the time to be made

FightThePower said:
Don't these problems pervade every genre of entertainment?
no, you can remake any movie in an entirely different way (pov, angles, and other ways). Gaming is more susceptible because the actual people working on games do not roam as much as movies
 

Space Spoons

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So the industry crashes in a few years, gaming is dead, then Nintendo revives it again by reinventing how we play, thus beginning the cycle again. No big deal, really, happens with a lot of entertainment mediums.
 

matsugawa

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toapat said:
matsugawa said:
...
goto a walmart, except for 2-3 games per console, they only stock shooters. the games industry is in a downward spiral because companies keep making the same game (generic FPS, Driving games, and RPGs) over and over again.
...

matsugawa said:
Yes, it is a problem, but 1) it just means we have to look a little harder for good games 2) it doesn't last very long as a problem and 3) the worst thing about the resultant crash is fewer companies make games, games come out, fewer people play, and us hardcore gamers get a little breathing space and elbow room.

I welcome another crash.
1: true, but you dont take into account the shear numbers of games
2: if it didnt last, then why have Halo, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, and (insert generic multiplayer FPS not named Battlefield or Unreal Tournament) succeed in becoming world changing series.
3: you consider letting gamers have fun and relaxing a bad thing? Do you even understand what videogames are for? the bad thing is we wouldnt get Starcraft 3, Warcraft 4, and Diablo 4
All right, first of all, I'm not sure what kind of Wal-Mart you frequent, but there are a lot more than 2-3 games that are not shooters. Yes, there's a lot of repetition, shovelware, and me-too fare, but it's not all one genre (or grossly favoring one over the other). If you're going to make your point, you'd probably do best to steer away from hyperbole.

Secondly, I think you need to pay a little closer attention to what those three points I made are about the 'problem'. You're talking about sequels to world-changing series, these are titles that do not exist post-crash. The 'second crash' hasn't happened yet; your initial post implied that one was on its way. Until that happens, we're going to endure sequel after sequel of generic games made by companies that rely on potential customer bases, which are not the same as user bases (according to Stardock's CEO). It's like with bands, the size of your audience is inversely proportionate to its dedication. When the audience for games shrinks, we're going to see fewer sequels because developers will feel more challenged by a smaller user group that's going to pick apart their game instead of simply demanding more of the same.

3: you consider letting gamers have fun and relaxing a bad thing? Do you even understand what videogames are for? the bad thing is we wouldnt get Starcraft 3, Warcraft 4, and Diablo 4
Look, I respect that some of the other posters who've responded to your OP are a little hard to follow, but please respect you're not making it much easier. Again, try to understand that the 3 points I made were referring to the crash and its after-effects, not the current situation.

MoH, Halo, and the like are successful because they're average and play it safe, and rely on their broader appeal. Big developers like EA won't be able to survive a second crash, even if they bank on PC games like they did before during the first crash. Those wishy-washy-just-above-casual gamers will have moved on once they bore of their generic war-shooters. The hardcore gamers will endure, and they're going to be a lot pickier about their games than the average Joe or Jane.

Gamers having fun is fine, but in the aftermath of a crash, the paradigm of hardcore/casual is going to shift drastically. What happened after the first crash was that the older, 30-something gamers and the female gamers all left the arcades. That's a significant change of scenery.

I never said that 'gamers hav(ing) fun' was a bad thing and I'm not even sure how you inferred that. If there's a second crash, the casual gamers will leave (diminish) and take their mediocre multi-sequel series with them (since those bigger publishers will lose that huge audience). That's what was said. Maybe I'm missing your point, but considering the first few replies to your OP were "what's the discussion?" you might want to re-think your argument.
 

matsugawa

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FightThePower said:
Don't these problems pervade every genre of entertainment?
You're absolutely right. People think the entertainment industry is recession-proof; it's not untrue, but it depends on what's by "recession-proof".

If you mean that they're largely unaffected by national recessions, then it's completely apt. For example, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, Disney was producing films like Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, which was hardly impeded during production by the recession and certainly wasn't a commercial flop when released to theaters. Same goes for Gone With the Wind, one of the highest-grossing movies of the era DESPITE the stock market crash.

If, however, one means "recession-proof" to mean "impervious to all financial downs" then it's completely untrue. For example, in Japan, there was nearly a full ten years between Terror of Mechagodzilla and Godzilla 1985. This was not a marketing strategy; this was a case of people simply turning away from theaters and more toward other mediums of entertainment such as television.

There are hills and valleys in entertainment, they just move to the beat of a different drummer than everywhere else.