ukdeveloper: Glad to hear there are still people around here who appreciate the good old days :)
I got an SNES back on Christmas of 91, and hells yes there was magic. So many masterpieces were created back then that I still play to this day. PSOne (although I didn't own one until 99 or so) and N64 had the same feeling, but since then the industry has produced very little that interests me. Smash Melee ranks up with the truly great, and Guitar Hero is loads of fun, but everything else has been pretty bland.
I don't think the big budget side of the industry is going to get any easier to break into, and honestly I don't really care. I think the indy game movement is a step in the right direction, and hopefully we'll eventually have all levels of complexity being produced. The problem is that the 3 largest markets at the moment are:
1. The lovers of cutting edge Halo/GTA/etc.
2. The "casual" players that only need something entertaining and don't have time to be engrossed in a work of art.
3. The kids, who get the bland games being made for DS and such.
The quality vs. profit ratio for category 3 is just too low right now for what I'm after, but I wouldn't be surprised if that changes. I knew good and well the difference between a crappy game and a great game when I was 10 years old, and with the technology awareness of today's kids, I bet if more than a few great simple games get made, the word will spread and they will be noticed.
Game Industry Growing?
Quote:Original post by ukdeveloperQuote:Original post by Telastyn
Not this crap again...
Thank you for your constructive response.
Sorry, let me rephrase.
You know, we get a lot of these "Games were so much better in the past." "Why does nobody innovate anymore?" "Big business is killing artistry!" threads. I like the responses there. I kinda wish that you'd posted into those threads rather than hijacking this one. But let me see if I can't reiterate some of the better replies from other threads here.
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Have you played Puzzle Pirates? Katamari? Drawffort? Starscape? DDR? the Wii? (a half dozen other games I'm forgetting?)
Spore is not innovative because it's being bankrolled by the worst of the 'soulless fatcats'?
Sounds like you're plugging games you think are innovative, and fuck anyone else who dares disagree with you. So much for healthy discussion.
Well, your original post indicated that you would disagree. I was curious as to why you thought these modern games were not innovative (since, as you note, I think they are innovative to one degree or another). It might be you hadn't heard of them. It might be that you define innovation differently than I. It might be that you're just blinded by nostalgia.
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What exactly do you think is innovative?
To be perfectly honest, I don't actually know anymore. Given that any concept of innovation has been shat on by the endless onslaught of mediocre, half-baked clone games flooding the market these days it's kind of hard to tell.
Except there's been an endless onslaught of half-assed clones since pong (and clearly, innovation has not been completely stifled).
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The Wii itself may be an innovative concept, but if you're going to fill its library with broken Gamecube ports from Nintendo and embarrassingly bad third-party offerings, seemingly shoved onto the system to justify its existence, then the whole point of the thing is lost.
Compared to the library of broken ps2/360 ports and horrid 3rd party offerings on the ps3, or the trickle that serves for boxed PC offerings the Wii library is fantastic by example. The ps2 has always had piles of crap to sift through to get good games. The PC has always had piles of crap to sift through to get good games. The Nintendo always had piles of crap to... The Atari...
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Sure the non-gamers love it, but do they know any different?
Fun is fun.
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But remember they are far from representative of the whole market.
They're FAR more representative than you or I.
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I wouldn't call GTA IV that well polished. Although it is very good, you can't ignore the fact that it's got framerate problems,
Not that I've seen on the ps3.
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severe pop-in issues,
Not that I've seen on the ps3.
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half the time it's too damn dark to see anything,
Before adjusting the contrast, though yeah; some bits are still too dark.
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the graphic meshes are a bit dodgy (run into a door at the right speed and Niko's head clips through it, same with the ladder on a swimming pool)
So what?
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the friends system isn't exactly perfect (there's one very notable glitch regarding this which I found on YouTube, but I won't post it here because it's a spoiler),
Yup...
But you don't fall through buildings. Niko doesn't sit there and shoot the pillar right in front of him if the wall isn't perfectly ideal for the cover. Location damage works like it's supposed to. The game doesn't go nuts if a phone call gets interrupted or a mission goes out of order. The auto-save isn't too invasive. For what it's doing, the load system works beautifully...
There's so many things that are done right (and done right consistently) that I've seen even high cost games screw up. 'Not perfect' doesn't mean it's not still lightyears ahead of other games present and past.
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I also fail to see where Blizzard comes into this.
Blizzard. Well known for high polish to their games. Made a boatload of money and respect from it. Other companies want boatloads of money and respect so follow suit. You mean you've not noticed a marked upsurge in game polish and a downswing of deadline rush atrocities since WoW hit the market?
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Another example is Unreal Tournament III.
Yup. Sometimes things suck.
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I got my first console (original Playstation) for Christmas 1996, and my brother got an N64 for Christmas 98. I still remember the magical and awesome feelings I had playing those consoles, they had proper games with great gameplay and were real good fun. I still get nostalgic now, I've got an urge to dig out the N64 and play Perfect Dark and Episode One Racer, now those are *real* games. I can only imagine the feeling kids got in the 80s when the NES first shipped, or even earlier than that with the Atari et al. Games were games and damn fine games they were too.
Except it's the same exact feeling. The games aren't any better (or worse). The same thing happens every generation, only the names of the nostalgic titles change. "Oh, doom2 was great; they don't make 'em like that anymore." "Oh, counterstrike was great; they don't make 'em like that anymore." "Oh, the orange box was great; they...".
When all you've played is tag, even kickball is badass.
heres my take on this...
The game industry is rapidly growing, and with its growth the general expectations of players are increasing.
most people are familiar with MMO's, so I'll use them as an example.
Its not that the quality is decreasing, but the people just keep wanting more. In the old days not many people complained about the MMO's they played and were happy with what they had, because the simply didnt know better.
But now, after having played almost everything, new games like Age of Conan etc dont appeal to the gameplay tastes they have developed from games like Everquest and Ultima Online.
The general expectations of players increases, and this is a fact. Mine do too, I just keep finding flaws in everything and forget enjoying a game.
The quality IS in some cases deteriorating.. but we have to consider that our expectations are too high
The game industry is rapidly growing, and with its growth the general expectations of players are increasing.
most people are familiar with MMO's, so I'll use them as an example.
Its not that the quality is decreasing, but the people just keep wanting more. In the old days not many people complained about the MMO's they played and were happy with what they had, because the simply didnt know better.
But now, after having played almost everything, new games like Age of Conan etc dont appeal to the gameplay tastes they have developed from games like Everquest and Ultima Online.
The general expectations of players increases, and this is a fact. Mine do too, I just keep finding flaws in everything and forget enjoying a game.
The quality IS in some cases deteriorating.. but we have to consider that our expectations are too high
I sometimes wonder if people who complain about the supposed decrease in game quality actually remember what games were like "back then". How many times have you fallen through the cracks into the void in a Daggerfall dungeon? Remember the ultrajump bug in TNFS 2? The horrorible bugs in Ultima 8, which are too numerous to count?
Remember the turbo exploit in Doom 1/2? The crappy mouse input in DN3D? The buggy nuke in Shadow Warrior? The railroad encapsulation exploit in Transport Tycoon? The dodgy control scheme of MW2? The really quite crappy graphics in every fighting game released before 2002 that wasn't a variation of Street Fighter 2, which in itself had awful balancing?
Remember all the rubber band AI's in almost every racing game ever released? The inversed arrow gravity in Morrowind? The sucky combat system in every Final Fantasy game, not to mention the atrociously bad stories in pretty much every JRPG ever released? What about the awfully unintuitive game system used in Baldurs Gate 1/2, the state NWN1 was released in, the moronic companions in Fallout and the sucky ending (if you can call it that) in even the venerable Syndicate?
The point is, there has always been a lack of polish. Innovation was more prevalent only because fewer things had been tried. Syndicate was innovative for its era, but today it's equivalent to a simple flash game. The difficulty of coming up with something new and polishing it steadily increases, but the imaginations of programmers and designers doesn't.
So stop whining and either be happy with what we've got or do something better yourselves.
Remember the turbo exploit in Doom 1/2? The crappy mouse input in DN3D? The buggy nuke in Shadow Warrior? The railroad encapsulation exploit in Transport Tycoon? The dodgy control scheme of MW2? The really quite crappy graphics in every fighting game released before 2002 that wasn't a variation of Street Fighter 2, which in itself had awful balancing?
Remember all the rubber band AI's in almost every racing game ever released? The inversed arrow gravity in Morrowind? The sucky combat system in every Final Fantasy game, not to mention the atrociously bad stories in pretty much every JRPG ever released? What about the awfully unintuitive game system used in Baldurs Gate 1/2, the state NWN1 was released in, the moronic companions in Fallout and the sucky ending (if you can call it that) in even the venerable Syndicate?
The point is, there has always been a lack of polish. Innovation was more prevalent only because fewer things had been tried. Syndicate was innovative for its era, but today it's equivalent to a simple flash game. The difficulty of coming up with something new and polishing it steadily increases, but the imaginations of programmers and designers doesn't.
So stop whining and either be happy with what we've got or do something better yourselves.
I work at a bigger company. I actually find things are getting better rather than worse (in terms of innovation), and that even successful titles are working harder to innovate and improve than they were 2 years (or longer) ago.
With that said, I still find that too many games are released by a whole slew of developers where you just have to scratch your head and wonder: "Why even release this? It just hurts your brand (game franchise AND company)".
Sometimes you have to look at games and just admit that maybe it's not your cup of tea (i.e. casual games, or games targetted at younger children obviously will seem stupid to me). But even if you can't fully appreciate a game, you can usually tell the difference between a game that's just not made for your demographic VS an utter pile of crap.
The term innovation itself gets tossed around pretty loosely. Sometimes things I work on, or ideas I come up with get deemed innovative by certain people, even though a lot of the times I just ripped off and re-imagined an idea from another game. Sometimes things I come up with that I personally feel are innovative or revolutionary are shrugged off as stupid. I've found in the past that sometimes it's ok not to innovate in the truest sense of the word, but rather take a game that everyone loves and re-imagine a lot of it. Or take aspects from some completely unrelated game and mix them in to create something that maybe has been around for a while, but is new to the genre you're introducing it to.
With that said, I still find that too many games are released by a whole slew of developers where you just have to scratch your head and wonder: "Why even release this? It just hurts your brand (game franchise AND company)".
Sometimes you have to look at games and just admit that maybe it's not your cup of tea (i.e. casual games, or games targetted at younger children obviously will seem stupid to me). But even if you can't fully appreciate a game, you can usually tell the difference between a game that's just not made for your demographic VS an utter pile of crap.
The term innovation itself gets tossed around pretty loosely. Sometimes things I work on, or ideas I come up with get deemed innovative by certain people, even though a lot of the times I just ripped off and re-imagined an idea from another game. Sometimes things I come up with that I personally feel are innovative or revolutionary are shrugged off as stupid. I've found in the past that sometimes it's ok not to innovate in the truest sense of the word, but rather take a game that everyone loves and re-imagine a lot of it. Or take aspects from some completely unrelated game and mix them in to create something that maybe has been around for a while, but is new to the genre you're introducing it to.
Quote:Original post by ukdeveloper
Sure the non-gamers love it, but do they know any different? If it suits them, fine, so be it. But remember they are far from representative of the whole market.
A gamer is someone who plays a game. Therefor, someone playing a game on the Wii is, in fact, a gamer. Someone playing Bejeweled 32 Extreme Edition on their cell phone is a gamer. Taking a select few people who play games and labeling them "gamers", while scorning those who play games but do not fit your preconceived notions makes the label meaningless and this discussion useless. By selecting your own breed of "gamer" and making the argument that they are not being correctly catered to by the modern game industry renders the whole argument moot. At that point, you're just saying "I and the people like me think that the people who disagree with me are wrong."
What I think a lot of people don't realize is that the hard-core gamer is a vast minority in the group of people who play games. It's fine to say that casual Wii players don't represent the whole market, but don't think for a second that you and your nostalgia-toting hard core gamer ilk are representative of the whole market, or indeed even a majority of the market, either.
And, as Telastyn pointed out, there have always been shitty clones and over-hyped flop titles. You remember all the good titles from 10 years ago, and have had plenty of time to forget the failures. Games aren't getting worse, you're just more aware of the bad ones now.
Quote:Original post by Driv3MeFar
And, as Telastyn pointed out, there have always been shitty clones and over-hyped flop titles. You remember all the good titles from 10 years ago, and have had plenty of time to forget the failures. Games aren't getting worse, you're just more aware of the bad ones now.
So true. Looking back I had hundreds of floppies with games for my C64, but only about 5 games still trigger my nostalgia. We only happen to have the internet around now to speed up disillusion some more. Come to think of it, the overload of information (not marketing per se) may be hurting the gaming experience most.
Back in the day I'd contently play Super Mario 2 and Zelda over and over again, simply because I didn't know what other titles I should be playing anyway. Today, there is at least one so-called must-have title out there at any given time, so the turnover ratio of my games got a lot higher, raising the risk of buying a flop. With the high turnover ratio, the willingness to invest into games (leveling and exploring for example, but also 'binding' with the story/characters/world) also drops, making the experience a much shallower one.
Quote:Original post by GamerzEdge
I enjoy working in business and playing games on my own time, seemed natural to combine the two but making it big in the game industry it seems is no easy feat and requires a large startup cost to really get things moving.
Making it big is always a challenge, no matter what you are trying to do [wink]
To simply get into the industry, times may never have been better though. The XNA bandwagon is well underway to publish indie games (here's one that made it), other console manufacturers are following and the industry itself is basically booming. So, there's nothing stopping you from having a go at a much more modest startup and see where you can take it.
Do consider if making games under deadlines would still hold your fancy though.
Quote:Original post by GamerzEdge
I am sure smaller indie developers would punch out a really great title if they had the same resources.
Frankly I doubt this. A wad of cash would certainly buy some nice assets and/or a decent engine, but throwing money at starry-eyed idealists is the perfect recipe for feature creep, wihout any guarantees the resulting game will be marketable or even fun.
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