What do you reckon could improve modern games?

[Pjotr84]

I think there's a lot that can be improved to games' stories. Just like in movies, when graphics (CGI and special effects) got better, they were used to compensate for story. Just throw in a few explosions or pour some bloom on it, and you don't have to bother with a proper writer.

I'm not saying all games have poor stories or that good graphics always goes hand in hand with them, but I think it's definitely a trend.

 

[karamazovnew]

For me, it would be full head tracking head mounted displays (virtual helmet)... Will probably suck for FPS's if not done right, but they will be awesome for us simulator fans. I doubt I'd play anything else than DCS Warthog or Blackshark.

 

[teqrevisited]

If everyone who worked for Capcom suddenly burst into flames I think that'd help a great deal. Realistically though, if developers started listening to fans instead of ignoring them and blaming them for everything we might actually get something decent.

 

[Edhellen]

The best change in general would probably be the removal of publishers (and really the end of consoles period*) and a dramatic shrinking of the budget a game is expected to have. A game being required to make hundreds of millions in order to justify any investment is totally crippling. Limit game budgets to... I dunno, $10,000 or something. Make developers do more with less instead of copy/pasting crappy mechanics and spending millions on models, textures, and animation work.

*People complain about DRM now, but the only real reason consoles were ever attractive to game developers was because they made piracy far more difficult. A proprietary cartridge format is way more difficult to copy than a cassette tape or a floppy disk. Consoles exist to benefit game publishers, not to benefit game players or game developers.

A specific change I'd really like to see? Ban all dialogue from games for a while. I'm dead serious. As incredible the potential is for games to be able to convey mood and emotions at a far deeper level compared to novels and films, this is constantly wasted through a complete lack of subtlety. Force game developers to learn how to convey things without dropping mountains of exposition on the player. Would we lose valuable things that only dialogue can do? Yeah, but I think there's far more to be gained than lost here.

 

[Futureman]

more secrets. I miss the secrets

 

[FreakSheet]

Ditch the bad publishers. The ones who will sacrifice quality for profit, will take the customer for all they're worth, and will refuse to take risks.

 

[ScrubberDucky]

Destroy about half of gaming's audience so profits and return of investment would stop dictating 40% of games made. There's too much fucking money to be made in video games, so they went the same direction as the movie industry. A lot of bland trash being churned out ad nauseum because people will buy it. Obviously this always happened, but it's almost suffocating these days. Most creative, original ideas get smothered, and even triple-A titles that ARE original and creative have to be put through the wringer before release so the publishers can GUARANTEE massive profits.

 

[SilentFlames26]

I think that a little color really couldn't hurt and game developers need to start coming up with some more original ideas, they are just repackaging the same stuff over and over agian, just look at the new black ops zombie maps, they are almost all just world at war ones repackage. Also if a game developer cannot think of a really good idea for a game, make something simple and reward modding, that way at least something different and original will come out of it, at least that's what I think.

 

[Rednog]

I wish some developers would stop taking themselves so seriously, there are games that would absolutely benefit from being less realistic or just being ludicrous. A recent example, Dead Island, the whole makeshift weapon thing, the honestly should've gone the Dead Rising path by just making off the wall weapons, hey a paddle and 2 chain saws go. But instead oh an electric weapon, fire, blah blah blah same ol, same ol. I got maybe like 10 hours of just random exploring fun but once you do the quests they get really samey and just beating somebizes with the same old weapon but different stats get boring quickly.

 

[Collymilad]

I think they need to get some of their craziness back. I do like recent games but they can seem a bit dry.

I mean, it's all well and good trying to advance the medium and all that stuff but...

If game developers spent less time trying to mimic film and more time just making what they wanted to, I reckon we'd get games that are more fun.

 

[TrevHead]

Less realistic brown and grey FPS games that all look alike. and above all more inovation as much of the western console industry is stagnating atm.

Imo its all to do with economics and how gamers who moan that they are sick of playing the same old shit only buy the most popular AAA games due to not wanting to risk £40 / $60 on a game theyre unsure of.

So my answer would be make consoles an open platform just like the PC and allow devs to sell their games for the price they want.

Due to Steam sales and things like it where gamers can buy new games for very little money, means that gamers are more willing to buy games that they normally wouldnt. So it spreads money away from the likes of COD and Mass Effect to the smaller devs who in turn are more willing to take risks in the type of games they make. It also means the player base is more open to new ideas. (Jim Sterling kind of touches on this in his lastest vids about PC)

I have no figures with me but I expect many ppl have 50+ games on their steam account.

Also get rid of inbstant autosaving/ releading that spread from PC to Console. Its crap and totally unballances the game, thats why the Japanese hate it.

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

Co-op. All the single-player games I own, I can't think of one that wouldn't have been fun, or at least hilarious, without co-op. You don't even need to do anything special; "Halo" co-op works fine and it's the exact same game just with one extra person.

 

[FirmartheTrilby]

Less crates...Seriously, did you guys noticed that most of cover and details are crates? "Hey this room needs some detail!" "OMG I GOT IT! Let's put in a crate!" "OH GOD GENIUS AND SO ORIGINAL AT ONCE!"

 

[mezorin]

"I miss the mob..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFRLSAPnIG0


This video hits the nail on the head: bring back the 'fun'. To paraphrase the end bit, the game company developers should remember why they're doing what they're doing: are the entertaining people? Are their customers enjoying themselves? Are the developers happy they made an awesome game? Are they profitable? Isn't that enough?

 

[Tsaba]

Less sequels, seriously, you can't seem to make anyone happy anymore or you can't do it right.

Why would that just improve "modern games"? There have been billions of sequels since the NES era -_-

Easy, the fan base is much larger than it was during the NES, and that fan base seems to knit pick every piece of a game (sequels), great games (sequels) don't get their due because they are a sequel/prequel/what ever. A great example is Final Fantasy series, They are amazing games and a lot of people (the fan base) don't seem to want and say that, As a GAME they are great, as a Final Fantasy Game the argument is that it is not nearly as good as the previous and therefore for some reason with the alignment of the stars it is not a great game. We need to judge games as games alone and not as what falls in the title.

I'm sure I could go on, but, I do think games can have multiple story lines in their universe/realm/what ever, I just don't like games titled with 1-9, it sends the wrong message, game makers could have made a better title for it like..... Halo Reach, it was the same universe, but, people saw it as a prequel, which it sort of is and sort of isn't. Game makers can do better with a freaken titles. Its not solely the game makers but us as well, we've come to expect games with 1-9 to have the same elements as the previous, and that is what is screwing us.

EDIT:
Don't get me wrong, some aspects are terrible.

 

[LordLundar]

I would say the best thing they can do is learn from the earlier days of gaming. There was a time where a developer had to scrounge for a few thousand dollars and make due with that. Nowadays they get handed several million dollars and if that runs dry they just ask for more. It's created a real "bloat it up" aspect I'm not crazy about. They need to relearn how to make games on a budget again.

 

[Seishisha]

A main character that doesnt have brown hair, seriously loads of games have a grizzeled browned haired protaganist.

On a more serious note less direct copying of other stuff, i know the industry is practicly built on stealing other peoples good ideas but it gets to the point where everything your playing feels the same but with a reskin. I'd also love to see somone grow some balls in development of new ip's companies are so scared that somthing new will just fail outright they just keep making sequels or as i said earlier direct copies of other games.

 

[DubMan]

Writers should have degrees in literature. It wouldn't hurt to mandate this for gamers as well. I keep trying to explain to people why the dialogue in games like Halo and Gears of War is totally fucking vacuous and relies exclusively upon the relative illiteracy of everybody involved to seem engaging, and they look at me like I'm from another planet.

 

[kebab4you]

*Turn down the amount of time and money put into graphics
*Remove those 1 year until release dates(it´s done when it´s done is a much better way for games to be developed)
*COLOUR, USE EM!
*Innovate,Innovate,Innovate!

There saved a whole wall of text with my point list, me so happy.

Edit: Came up with another one;
*More % of the profit to the developers

 

[XT inc]

I think japanese games made by western developers would rock sauce. The japanese have the gift of making games wacky and cool, and random. Like the New game Neverdead from konami Looks super cool, but because it is from a japanese developer you just know it is going to have a bad camera, rigid gameplay, and just be old, not old school old.

They need to get on their knees and give out some fucking Fan Love We used to be fans, now all we are are fucking consumers, and they try and milk us for every penny we have on every piddly thing. So be it if there is another games crash to get us back to the love we got in the 90's.

Cheat codes, If I want to play your game through again with a revolver and a slow mo add on that is either infinite or has a cool down like fear, then put it in there. All guns, paintball mode. big head, slo mo death...

... Open up Goldeneye 64 and copy paste the cheat list into your fps and then be inspired by GTA san andreas and see what kind of codes can come up

The whole industy has put on this bullshit serious business face while having mediocre storys not worthy of this pristine don't cheat the world must be preserved as the way we present it bs.