OP, you're absolutely right, this is what happens when suits run the joint. The first rule of any creative medium is that you have to be an acitve consumer of that medium if you want to make something within it. You wouldn't write a novel if you weren't an avid reader, so why do people with no qualifications (or even interest) in the gaming industry dictate the way modern games are made? The point is that games are an art form just like any other, and as with movies and music, too much money breeds risk aversion and stifles creativity and innovation.
For all the armchair economists out there arguing that capitalism breeds creativity, here is my counter argument: creativity existed well before capitalist market economies did, and we got along just fine. In fact, the foundations for some of the greatest achievements of our time were laid in non-capitalist societies. It was the work of Von Braun - a Nazi scientist - that ultimately led to the Apollo program, and a large (meangingful) portion of his work was done under the oppression of the Nazi regime. Then there were the soviet scientists who put the first man in space (Yuri Gagarin, if you didn't know), and all of the innovations over the ages in engineering and mathematics that led up to this point in history. Funny that most of the foundations for modern ethics, mathematics, science and politics were laid centuries ago before Adam Smith ever wrote about the wealth of nations. Capitalism never had a monopoly on enlightenment.
My assertion is that people will innovate regardless of their social, political and economic environment, because it's something they are driven to do. Money stifles risk, because it becomes an end in itself, rather than a means to an end. Big companies pursue profit, and so they have something to lose by engaging in too much risky behavior. Individuals who do it for the passion have nothing to lose, and are the main driving force behind innovation. Just ask Albert Einstein how many suits funded his work on relativity while he was working as a post office clerk. How many large companies were involved in the invention of the jet engine, or the work of Nicholai Tesla?
In a nutshell, MMOs are no longer fun, and this is a problem. They all recycle the same clunky mechanics and try to one up a corporate giant that happened to corner the market and create a monopoly. Rather than trying to steal customers from Blizzard, maybe they should do what Blizzard did and create their own market.
That said I also think that we as consumers need to control the industry with our wallets. All those of you who agree with the OP should start to subscbribe to EVE.. Its the last of its kind. We need to show that the second largest game after WoW is a sanbox.
Now you might not like EvE, or you might not just have gotten it jet. Takes a few tryes to start to understand just how great that game is. But its the last true sandbox and for that we need to suport it, even if you dont like it.
So all off you fed up with the treadmill, theampark bullshit... subscribe to EVE today... show the new Devs that we want less shity grind games and more free roaming world games were you imagination can run wild!!!
Hate to sound like the devil's advocate here but is it not what business is all about? Making money whatever way they can? I mean, they aren't doing charity, their ultimate goal is to make a profit, if they like what they do then that's a big bonus and potential gain for the quality, but it's still about making money.
If you don't like it then don't buy it.
Of course but the problem is that they often trick themselves.
Wow has many players, therefor decided people like Jacobs & Barnett to xerox it. Problem is that people didn't want a new Wow (with smaller world and worse programing), they want something new or rather stay in the old game instead of doing the same thing in a slightly different game.
Investors tend to forget that it is Fun that sells games, not a certain kind of mechanics.
Games should be made by gamers for gamers, and that will actually sell fine too. If you want proof for that just look on Wow.
A few EQ fans who worked at Blizzard started on it because they thought EQ was a bit crude. So they tried to make it more fun (the teamed changed completely during development and Wow is not the game it was at launch but it still proves the point). When the game released it soon got many players because it was well coded and fun.
But people focus on the wrong thing when it comes to MMO, they forget that it is fun that sells. And playing a game that is more or less exactly the same as the previous game you played isn't really that fun.
Fun games will always make a lot of money.
This is so true... But sadly they keep doing the same thing over and over... Lets hope for World of Darkness to stay true to the sandbox, but with some lighter elements to attract the crowds...
As far as I am concerned when I played WoW in the beginning in 2004 it was fun in spades. That is one of the reasons it did so well. Snide remarks aside that is the number one reason people played it because it was fun.
i agree with the original poster. Also shame on the gaming community for picking ad revenue over gaming consumerism.
This whole genre has gone to hell and although I do watch from afar I've given up on this folley.
I refuse to accept that the game developers and execs are too stupid to make the game that all the eq-uo-daoc-ac generation calls for. Therefore I must be left with the notion that they don't want to make it.
I just want a game where I pay a fee and so does everyone else and we all have our little virtual world to explore and be happy playing out some fantasy world in between poopy diapers and eye doctor appointments.
Instead we get this drivel on a stick. Yeah I'm done this mouse wheel.
"MMOs are now produced by bloodsucking capitalist morons"
Just like everything else on this planet if you look at real life in big picture view.
Welcome to the human race. Eventually we corrupt every decent thing we find or create, even if it's great to start with. MMOs are a perfect example of this trait of our species.
And I hate it too.
I am the Player that wonders... "What the %#*& just happened?!" ............... "I Believe... There should be NO financial connection or portals between the Real World and the Virtual in MMOs. " __Ever Present Cockroach of the MMO Verses__ ...scurrying to and fro... .munching on bits of garbage... always under foot...
OP, you hit quite a bit about my gripes with the state of MMORPGs. It's why I don't play any of them these days and the big titles coming down the road? Not impressed. Especially when features that remove the player from the sense of community are being heavily touted. In a Massive Multiplayer Onine RPG to top it off.
There was a time when gameplay heavily promoted player interdependence and community. But those traits are deemed undesirable for years now.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
This post is both humorous and sad at the same time. There are many games that are taking risks, but they are either ignored, or bashed because they are not 'good enough'. The games that are 'good enough' are bascically shovelware, and are totally non innovative.
Companies make games, to make money. As long as shovelware pays the bills, and innovation results in them losing their house... which do you think they are going to choose? The problem today is not the companies. They are making the only sane choice... The problem is the people in charge, you all.
WoW was the king of online games... until it was voted out by the populous, for Farmville. So, now developers are making farmeville clones, because that is what the people have told them they want. If you want something else, then, make the next big game something that you want companies to emulate, not something that you hate.
Hate to sound like the devil's advocate here but is it not what business is all about? Making money whatever way they can? I mean, they aren't doing charity, their ultimate goal is to make a profit, if they like what they do then that's a big bonus and potential gain for the quality, but it's still about making money. ...
No problem here, I don't mind that they make money. The problem is that they don't. They're bad at it. They're bad at making good games and bad at earning money with it.
When looking at the last 3 or 4 years we have a string of releases that didn't impress the players and didn't impress the financial markets either: virtually all MMOGs released in that time span have been financial under-achievers, and some of them even outright financial disasters.
To contrast that with earlier games like UO, EQ, DAoC and the like: good games and those games even made money ...
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
Modern mmo's have nothing to do with imagination, immersiveness, ingenuity, creativity, aesthetic appeal, or anything. They have become streamlined bullshit that is solely consisted of the most repetitious actives targeting the weakest aspects of human behavior.
Last I checked, the original MMOs were like that too.
Anyone remember when you met (some) old people who'd talk about how great things were back in the day? Well, half of the OP's post and most of the complaints seem to be along those lines. That's just viewing the past with rose-colored glasses. MMOs are generally better now than they were when they first arrived on the scene. That said, there has been stagnation in the industry and a lot of rushed MMOs that have then done poorly. There hasn't been a lot of innovation and gameplay hasn't improved very much. Thankfully some new games seem to be on the horizon to address that in the next few years, GW2 chief among them. So we've had a bit of a slow period, but it looks like things will get better.
Anyhow, yeah, MMOs now have a lot of problems, but it isn't like EQ, UO, or the like were any better. They even had more problems. It's invetiable that a subscription-based game is going to be grindy, since the developers have a massive incentive to stretch the fun out as much as possible (they get more money). Contrary to popular belief, it doesn't take that much money to run a server, certainly not remotely close to 15 bucks a month. Many b2p games (like SC2) have servers that are run for free for a decade or more. True, an MMO server with seemless zones does cost more to run (perhaps twice as much or so), but 15 bucks is still insanely overpriced given that other games have servers that are totally free. Let's not pretend the sub is about content either. No one is getting a new game worth of content every 4 months in ANY MMO (or 6 months if you want to pretend the sub is doing something to maintain servers). Heck, you don't even get a new game worth of content once per year. Let's not forget content is far easier to make than a new game, so really any sub game should be churning out tons and tons of content...but they don't. They'd rather pocket that money as pure profit, so they do, and most of us pretend that a lot of that money is used for servers or content because that makes us feel like the cost is justified. In reality, the game is designed to be a treadmill offering just enough to keep you paying.
Personally, I think I'm done paying for sub-based games. I'd rather have a game that designed around maximizing how much fun it is in a given timeframe than stretching that fun out as much as possible.
I agree.
EQ was as "sandboxy" as a game needs to be IMO. The second you revolve the game around Uncle Owens, and PVP gamers, is the second I have no interest in game.
Someone in thread mentioned basically...."why dont you support the games that cater to your gaming style". Pretty muich says it all IMO.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
EQ was as "sandboxy" as a game needs to be IMO. The second you revolve the game around Uncle Owens, and PVP gamers, is the second I have no interest in game.
Someone in thread mentioned basically...."why dont you support the games that cater to your gaming style". Pretty muich says it all IMO.
Because none that cater to my gaming style exist anymore to support.
Ultima Online and SWG are not the same games they used to be, they've been beaten with the same stick that WoW was created with, otherwise I would be supporting them still.
I wouldn't be surprised if that was the exact same sentiment from many others.
To the original poster, all you need to survive is 2400 calories, which can be gotten with bad cheap food, a bed, and 2 pieces of cloths, shirt and pants. Any thing more then that you should give to another person(s) who do not have those. If you do not you are a greedy bloodsucking capitalist pig. grow up and welcome to the real world.
Companies need to make money. they can not run the games for free and hope that money falls from the sky so they can pay thier employees, or mayby they can get slaves to work for them. Im sure we can easily enslave you since it appears you like the koolaid.
As others have said, you dont like it, then make the game, you go out and secure the financing, hire the employees, find the space to house the employees, and their is much more. learn about what it takes to run a business.
If not shut the effin up.
now that my rant is done.
Game follow market forces. Great example is Star Wars Galaxies. It was a great game, popular among those who pay for the game and the monthly fee. Sony was making alot of money with this game. Then Sony complety changed the game. Market forces showed that players where unhappy and they moved on. Players moving on to somehting differnt and better is the norm. Only a small percentage of a games player base stay for any lenght of time. So companies need to keep more players. With the over saturation of the MMO market compaines have to find ways to get players into the game. So that will mean that games will get easier or dumbed down if you prefer. Look at games that are harder to play. They have small player bases. If the company is small then this isnt that big a problem, they can make just enough to keep game running, though any new content will not be as forthcoming as larger games.
Also games evolve. This includes playstyles, graphics and many other. Companies can not go backwards. Games like Everquest were great in thier time, but many forget the grief of spending hours to get into groups or to raid.
But the basics of MMO's is to design a form of enterainment that allows a company to make money. If they do not they will fail. If you dont like it, move on, or leave gaming.
Looking at a few of the first incarnations of MMOs, EQ1 and UO. They're still releasing packs that you have to pay for. This is not new, this is old. Get over it, go play single player, and stop your BITCHING. By the way, you may want to google "the human condition" and see if the reveals any truths to you.
i personally haven't enjoyed a MMO in a long time, but that is the fault of the consumers not the companies. Businesses gather statistics and figure out what is the best way to get a good return on their initial investment based on consumer trends. Those of us who have been around MMO's since the beginning seek something *new* and *creative*, but these things are happening: the market is stlil expanding which has these new and bigger mass of consumers to find anything as creative, interesting, and worth buying. These new consumers are in such a big number that sales have improved for companies while costs are most likely lowered. There is currently little need to do something innovative right now. I still think it will be a while sentiment shifts, as media markets don't change over the course of just a year. The big companies are generally not innovative when it comes to design, and tend to wait and see the success of smaller attempts. Often those successfull, smaller attempts have ideas which are 'borrowed' by the bigger companies as they pump money into something similar.
Anyways...the short of it is that buying habits dictate what companies produce. These are not starving artists, and everyone is in this game to make a living.
I will comment on the title as it gives the impression that you are looking for something to blame the current state of MMO's on, and like snap you droned into what you are told most often to despise by the modern media, capitalism.
Capitalism is not the source of your problems. Bad companies, bad business decisions, and greedy individuals are the problem. You don't blame the car when a drunk driver drives into oncoming traffic, you blame the person operating that vehicle for making that mistake, as is such with a person being being part of the free market and likewise making decisions (right or wrong).
I just thought I would point that out before someone went on and started a 420 for life / God is a milk carton / 9/11 was an inside job / Republicans want to kill babies bandwagon.
No doubt you've now decided you really meant to say "produced by bloodsucking morons."
Not sure if OP knows but the average age of a gamer is 32 years old. Im just guessing here but most 32 year olds have lives outside of gaming so gaming to them is just a brief casual escape from the mundane. So developers are just playing to that to try and get the subs up.
The average gamer is a casual gamer. You cant blame the developers for what the average gamer wants.
And yes the average gamer is the vast majority of the 12 million subs of WoW.
I will comment on the title as it gives the impression that you are looking for something to blame the current state of MMO's on, and like snap you droned into what you are told most often to despise by the modern media, capitalism.
Capitalism is not the source of your problems. Bad companies, bad business decisions, and greedy individuals are the problem. You don't blame the car when a drunk driver drives into oncoming traffic, you blame the person operating that vehicle for making that mistake, as is such with a person being being part of the free market and likewise making decisions (right or wrong).
I just thought I would point that out before someone went on and started a 420 for life / God is a milk carton / 9/11 was an inside job / Republicans want to kill babies bandwagon.
No doubt you've now decided you really meant to say "produced by bloodsucking morons."
Exactly, and you don't blame companies for making bad cars if people keep buying them.
I have not been able to read all of the replie since my last post, but I'll try to cover some points.
1. Yes, I can not speak for 12 million players of an online game. But I can speak, as stated before, to underlying psychological tendencies that are being exploited by Blizzard and other game developers. There is sufficient evidence to this when you look at loot systems, the justice points used by WoW currently, the little shiny "?" marks in EQ2 that are for collections (and by now the game has hundreds of sets), achievement points, etc. None of these are particularly fun mechanisms to an MMO, but they are "kinda" fun, just enough to keep people playing while waiting for the next reward. Players don't deserve to be fed increments of fun while paying for a subscription based game, or even if they just bought the retail box. MMOs should offer memorable experiences, and ones that are not repetitive and required to be done hundreds of time so you can get some new armor.
2. Blizzard has offered both excellent innovation in the industry and also had made very poor etical decisions. The customer service, regular updates, plenty of new content, arenas, battle grounds, class revamps and balances, etc have all upped the standards in what is expected of game developers. Blizzard does consistently make sure that the main problems of the player base are addressed. I do respect this from them. I also do enjoy the feeling that when I am subscribed to WoW, I am apart of a social world where I can log in with my friends, do battlegrounds or dungeons or w/e.
What I do not like about Blizzard is their willingness to see their player base as solely consumers. Most business models do listen to their customers enough to ensure that they will keep buying, so I don't think it is a contradiction to say that Blizzard listens to their customers but also views them as mindless consumers. The primary gameplay of WoW once you hit level 80 (and soon to be 85), is to grind dungeons until you have decenet armor, and then grind 10-25 man heroics until you get better armor. Every tier of gameplay is solely there to get you ready for the next, and each tier can take upwards of 75 hours of play time to achieve. Can you imagine what you could accomplish in playing an instrument, or working on an art piece, or starting your own company, if you offered such persistent time and motivation to acquiring something?
The problem isn't that Blizzard asks you to play so much time, it is that 80% of what they ask you to do isn't very fun. When I first ran through the WotLK quests and dungeons it was fun. But the second time I run "The Culling of Stratheholm" I know what to expect. The next 15 times I run it, it isn't fun at all. And Blizzard has used the "random dungeon finder" so each dungeon is random enough to remain slightly fun or interesting.
3. If we are to say that "Capitalism offers innovation" we need to first ask ourselves what is innovation. If someone sees innovation as soley new forms of technology via bigger lcd screens, blacker blacks, cars that have better steering, toilets that flush quieter, toasters that toast quicker, etc, then their idea on creatvity is based solely on increasing the stardard of living through comfort and basic forms of entertainment. That is not innovation. That is improvement (which I personally wouldn't even agree with to begin with.)
Innovation is creating new ideas. It is a process of breaking away from the mundane. In a general sense, what do we see in our society that offers new, refreshing ideas and creations that provide an aesthetic and functional satisfaction to people? I wouldn't say much. Most technelogical advancements are really just mind numbing. I am not opposed to technology (obviously if I'm advocating MMO innovation), but I do think we need to reframe our idea of it. There is technology that provides both function and beauty. And there is technology that provides basic function, and no beauty.
Companies focusing on creating wealth are not concerned with creativity. They are concerned with what creates the most possible amount of money for themeselves, and in the case of mmos, that is putting people on a treadmill to suck a constant flow of revenue. Look at game developers that have pursued innovation and see how much attention, or appraisal they have received. Eve Online is a wonderful exception to this.
4. We don't have to assume that game's should be about making money at all. It would be interesting to see development become funded by private organizations, or public (we've already seen this with Tera, but in a different manner). If we changed our perspective on what video games can offer (not what they should), then I think more academic or private institutions would find value in funding new ideas. And I don't mean by following "game theory" models where the world is limited based on a certain premise, but rather creating whole worlds where diversity is appreciated, and player creation is stimulated. This doesn't have to look just like Second LIfe either. I think Second Life is an awesome concept, but it is basically a virtual imitation of life. It would be much more interesting to observe human behavior and imagination through an actual fictional world.
(Edit) 5. Many people offer the advice to "take it or leave it" or find games that you enjoy and not bother other people's taste in gaming. That isn't bad advice, but also I am only stated an opinion here. Yes, it is subjective in the senes that I'm talking about what impressions are made on me from modern gaming- for what I like and do not like. But it is not subjective when I talk about the general business model and gameplay mechanics behind MMOs.
I'm criticising big game develoeprs because they are creating a business model that all others are trying to follow. Game publishers are unwilling to fund more innovative ideas because they don't follow the WoW plan. So yes, I can go out and support new independant games that are coming out (which I do, much hope rests in JGE), but that doesn't mean that I can't have an opinion on the general direction onlne gaming is going (or has been for the past six years).
It is simple for me. For the past 10 years of my gaming time I have had more fun playing non mmos than playing mmos. MMOs seem to be built around grind and extending that monthly fee. The only mmo that was worth my time was FFXI. I played that for 2 years before moving to Guild Wars. Today mmos are built around a single player experience with a subscription fee. I can't see how that qualifies as a mmo at all. Today it is all about pushing sales than it is about making fun creative games to play.
2. Blizzard has offered both excellent innovation in the industry and also had made very poor etical decisions. The customer service, regular updates, plenty of new content, arenas, battle grounds, class revamps and balances, etc have all upped the standards in what is expected of game developers. Blizzard does consistently make sure that the main problems of the player base are addressed. I do respect this from them. I also do enjoy the feeling that when I am subscribed to WoW, I am apart of a social world where I can log in with my friends, do battlegrounds or dungeons or w/e.
What I do not like about Blizzard is their willingness to see their player base as solely consumers. Most business models do listen to their customers enough to ensure that they will keep buying, so I don't think it is a contradiction to say that Blizzard listens to their customers but also views them as mindless consumers. The primary gameplay of WoW once you hit level 80 (and soon to be 85), is to grind dungeons until you have decenet armor, and then grind 10-25 man heroics until you get better armor. Every tier of gameplay is solely there to get you ready for the next, and each tier can take upwards of 75 hours of play time to achieve. Can you imagine what you could accomplish in playing an instrument, or working on an art piece, or starting your own company, if you offered such persistent time and motivation to acquiring something?
The problem isn't that Blizzard asks you to play so much time, it is that 80% of what they ask you to do isn't very fun. When I first ran through the WotLK quests and dungeons it was fun. But the second time I run "The Culling of Stratheholm" I know what to expect. The next 15 times I run it, it isn't fun at all. And Blizzard has used the "random dungeon finder" so each dungeon is random enough to remain slightly fun or interesting.
I don't see the problem here. If you truely hate their business model so much and do not enjoy 80% of the game, why do you play? By playing you give Blizzard the idea that that kind of business model makes money and thus they will make more content like it. Not only that but other companies will make games that emulate this. Thus the problem grows while the gamers blame the companies instead of blaming themselves.
Well this my 2 cents and i honestly say OP , you mean about wow , thats all fine we all have our day .
But i do not blaim capitalisme , why we all want our salary increase each year !
But we all forget our subscription money doesn´t get more expensive every year !
Infact what i blaim is the current people playing MMO , where in the past we were open friendly kind .
I mean look at this thread so many different views , so many opnions and understanding , but heck not even 1 flame !!!
Lets say this thread here people play together in 1 single game , atleast there is communication .
There is understanding , intelligent wisdom there own point of view .
Thats what is currently lacking in MMORPG , same way in games development .
Example
Player = I want a SANDBOX
Developer = SANDBOX is out dated.
Player = I WANT A SANDBOX
Developer = but but all endgames are sandbox .
Player = I WANT END GAME TO START AT LEVEL 1 !!!! (insert QQ EMO flamming actng like a little baby)
There is so little understanding of eachother viewpoints , you dont want anything but a community .
A community you have to work for cheerishe and upkeep , you can blaim blizzard , you can blaim capitalisme .
But truth is , you should start blaiming yourself for letting the communties the guilds slips .
The people who tried to be fair honest and entertaining , are tired of problems or drama .
Once in a while its fun , but everyday drama is a bit too much .
My current take of MMORPG is that its not dying , its a change of gaurd .
Same way EQ was a change of gaurd ,same way SWG was a change of people , SWG had infact so many millions of Players excited and willingness of community to play a flawed game . but sadly too many slipped trough the holes.
Sorry many hold SWG like god status , but the game was flawed (this alone i will get flamed in 2 second)
Cause god status if you found the people willing to help , flawed and boring if you couldn´t find the people .
WoW offered something different , they try to correct that flawed status what do gamers want ?
And nobody else offered that , see each expansion they keep updating what do the majority want ?
And why are the majority playing ? sorry i can say for sure 50% of WoW western world , wouldn´t play it , if it wasn´t for the people , i think my whole guild in wow , play for one and other .
Competition is what breeds innovation, and pure capitalism breeds monopolies (or oligopies), which is what breeds stagnation.
A mixed market is what breeds innovation, but sadly the current MMO industry is miles away from being that. It's currently an Oligopoly, where only a few major publishers are able to actually properly fund an MMO to completeness. All of said publishers are all after the same thing, your money, and all of them want to get it with the least amonut of effort on their end. That's why the MMO industry has spiraled into the stagnent pit it's currently in.
The sad thing is that there's so much over-emphasis on all of the wrong things right now in MMOs, that indie developers have a hard time breaching the barriers of entry into the market. They simply don't have the funding to polish their games to the level that so many players demand these days, despite the fact that they may have some phenominal game design ideas and concepts.
The last truly successful indie MMO was Eve, and that was what, 6+ years ago?
Excellent post and I can totally associate with OP's frustration as a serious gamer. However, as some of the others have mentioned, it's difficult to blame any particular group for the current state of things. Yes, development and publishing companies (and their investors) make all sorts of stagnant uninspired drivel, and even market leaders produce mindless repetitive games, but since they are large companies, they have to make what they believe will bring in most money. A single artist, or a group of like-minded gamers working out of a garage, can always decide to ignore the financial aspects, but that's not practical for a company with hundreds or thousands of employees, and investors looking over their shoulders. So these companies do all sorts of market research and aim for what the mainstream wants (and often miserably fail to deliver it anyway). So at this point, many start blaming the mainstream, and the gamers themselves for buying such games and encouraging companies to produce more of them, but I think this is also an incomplete view. The people that make up the mainstream crowd are the way they are, including but not limited to gamer grandmas, little kids, bored ADD teenagers, etc. We can't realistically expect them all of a sudden to start appreciating deep and sophisticated games any more than we can expect serious movies about the human condition to start outperforming summer action blockbusters at the box office. So to me, the gaming industry is made up of all these different actors who just do what they do, and no single one of them is really to blame, but together all of this leads to a crappy scene for mature gamers.
However, I think there is definitely some hope for us in the future. Although gaming is somewhat different from other entertainment media, I do believe we can draw some useful analogies. If you look at literature, movies, television, or music, all of them tend to follow a similar pattern: the vast majority of each of those mediums consists of mainstream fluff, be it romance novels, action sequels, reality shows, or processed pop music, but at the same time, each has a much smaller but thriving "mature" niche. The latter is sustained by real artists, or companies looking to get get out of the over-saturated mainstream market. I believe there is no reason that gaming cannot and will not follow the same path down the line. Most of the games in the future, in my humble opinion, will be aimed at the mainstream, and be in the mold of World of Warcraft and Call of Duty 5000, but there will also be a very thriving market segment aimed at people looking for something deeper. We can already see seeds of this today, with deeper games developed by tiny independent studios (the artists) sprouting everywhere (Eve Online, Mortal Online, Xsyon, ArcheAge Online, Dwarf Fortress, Elemental, etc), although most of them tend to struggle at the moment. The big obstacle seems to be the prohibitive cost of technology required to produce a modern video game in most of these cases, although as with any video game market segment, bad decisions also play a role. This is where I think things will improve in the near future, as more and more third party technology solutions allow more and more people to create professional games on smaller budgets. Even today, there are already some vendors offering their engines to developers, such as Epic with Unreal Engine 3, Unity engine, and under certain contracts, devs don't have to pay them anything until they successfully sell a certain amount of copies or achieve some threshold of revenue, and if this trend continues, there might be very good deals to be had.
Online games should enhance the creative aspects of the individual
Progress has come at last to the MMO market. after years of neglect Industrial Entertainment has arrived.
Most readers while generally sympathetic to the OP,s point of veiw, will feel as do the developers of MMO's that although an immersive,freewheeling,Community centric MMO is a fine thing,certain comprimises and adjustments are necessary in order to meeet the ever expanding demand for MMO recreation.
The first issue that appears when we get into this matter,the most important issue and perhaps the only issue,is the one called accessibility. The Developers insist the MMO must be made fully accessible to not only the hardcore gamer the roleplayer and the niche player, but also to the casual,the masses and there grandmothers.
Now what does accessibility mean? easy to approach,reach,enter,speak with,or use. Is there any game that is really unaccessible? All it takes is an ISP and an account and it is accessible physicaly, After that all that remains is a desire and a will to play.
Is there any game that players have not conquered, or proved accessible? Thousands have made there mark on games that for complexity and immersion are or were shining examples of the industry. The one thing they all have in common is the refusal to play like lemmings in a march to the sea.
This being the case why are Developers generally so anxious to cater to that other crowd? the indolent millions born on instant gratification,and suckled on shiny perks, and who expect and demand a golden road to lead them to every nook and corner of a MMO.
For the answer we must consider the character of of Industrial Entertainment and the quality of the casual gamers.
Industrial Entertainment is big business,it means money,it includes the developers themselves,ISP providers,Sites like MMORPG,no offense,and Goverment through taxation. These various interests are well organized well funded and Command the power of the service in question. Combined they create an enormous amount of pressure to bear upon such a slender reed as "creative individuality" in the games we play.
But in the end it is the masses of players who supply the money that supports the Industrial Entertainment Industry,until the masses are weaned from the golden road onto the paths less trodden it will remain so.
Comments
OP, you're absolutely right, this is what happens when suits run the joint. The first rule of any creative medium is that you have to be an acitve consumer of that medium if you want to make something within it. You wouldn't write a novel if you weren't an avid reader, so why do people with no qualifications (or even interest) in the gaming industry dictate the way modern games are made? The point is that games are an art form just like any other, and as with movies and music, too much money breeds risk aversion and stifles creativity and innovation.
For all the armchair economists out there arguing that capitalism breeds creativity, here is my counter argument: creativity existed well before capitalist market economies did, and we got along just fine. In fact, the foundations for some of the greatest achievements of our time were laid in non-capitalist societies. It was the work of Von Braun - a Nazi scientist - that ultimately led to the Apollo program, and a large (meangingful) portion of his work was done under the oppression of the Nazi regime. Then there were the soviet scientists who put the first man in space (Yuri Gagarin, if you didn't know), and all of the innovations over the ages in engineering and mathematics that led up to this point in history. Funny that most of the foundations for modern ethics, mathematics, science and politics were laid centuries ago before Adam Smith ever wrote about the wealth of nations. Capitalism never had a monopoly on enlightenment.
My assertion is that people will innovate regardless of their social, political and economic environment, because it's something they are driven to do. Money stifles risk, because it becomes an end in itself, rather than a means to an end. Big companies pursue profit, and so they have something to lose by engaging in too much risky behavior. Individuals who do it for the passion have nothing to lose, and are the main driving force behind innovation. Just ask Albert Einstein how many suits funded his work on relativity while he was working as a post office clerk. How many large companies were involved in the invention of the jet engine, or the work of Nicholai Tesla?
In a nutshell, MMOs are no longer fun, and this is a problem. They all recycle the same clunky mechanics and try to one up a corporate giant that happened to corner the market and create a monopoly. Rather than trying to steal customers from Blizzard, maybe they should do what Blizzard did and create their own market.
I could not agree more with the OP...
That said I also think that we as consumers need to control the industry with our wallets. All those of you who agree with the OP should start to subscbribe to EVE.. Its the last of its kind. We need to show that the second largest game after WoW is a sanbox.
Now you might not like EvE, or you might not just have gotten it jet. Takes a few tryes to start to understand just how great that game is. But its the last true sandbox and for that we need to suport it, even if you dont like it.
So all off you fed up with the treadmill, theampark bullshit... subscribe to EVE today... show the new Devs that we want less shity grind games and more free roaming world games were you imagination can run wild!!!
This is so true... But sadly they keep doing the same thing over and over... Lets hope for World of Darkness
to stay true to the sandbox, but with some lighter elements to attract the crowds...
As far as I am concerned when I played WoW in the beginning in 2004 it was fun in spades. That is one of the reasons it did so well. Snide remarks aside that is the number one reason people played it because it was fun.
i agree with the original poster. Also shame on the gaming community for picking ad revenue over gaming consumerism.
This whole genre has gone to hell and although I do watch from afar I've given up on this folley.
I refuse to accept that the game developers and execs are too stupid to make the game that all the eq-uo-daoc-ac generation calls for. Therefore I must be left with the notion that they don't want to make it.
I just want a game where I pay a fee and so does everyone else and we all have our little virtual world to explore and be happy playing out some fantasy world in between poopy diapers and eye doctor appointments.
Instead we get this drivel on a stick. Yeah I'm done this mouse wheel.
"MMOs are now produced by bloodsucking capitalist morons"
Just like everything else on this planet if you look at real life in big picture view.
Welcome to the human race. Eventually we corrupt every decent thing we find or create, even if it's great to start with. MMOs are a perfect example of this trait of our species.
And I hate it too.
I am the Player that wonders... "What the %#*& just happened?!"
...............
"I Believe... There should be NO financial connection or portals between the Real World and the Virtual in MMOs. "
__Ever Present Cockroach of the MMO Verses__
...scurrying to and fro... .munching on bits of garbage... always under foot...
OP, you hit quite a bit about my gripes with the state of MMORPGs. It's why I don't play any of them these days and the big titles coming down the road? Not impressed. Especially when features that remove the player from the sense of community are being heavily touted. In a Massive Multiplayer Onine RPG to top it off.
There was a time when gameplay heavily promoted player interdependence and community. But those traits are deemed undesirable for years now.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
This post is both humorous and sad at the same time. There are many games that are taking risks, but they are either ignored, or bashed because they are not 'good enough'. The games that are 'good enough' are bascically shovelware, and are totally non innovative.
Companies make games, to make money. As long as shovelware pays the bills, and innovation results in them losing their house... which do you think they are going to choose? The problem today is not the companies. They are making the only sane choice... The problem is the people in charge, you all.
WoW was the king of online games... until it was voted out by the populous, for Farmville. So, now developers are making farmeville clones, because that is what the people have told them they want. If you want something else, then, make the next big game something that you want companies to emulate, not something that you hate.
No problem here, I don't mind that they make money. The problem is that they don't. They're bad at it. They're bad at making good games and bad at earning money with it.
When looking at the last 3 or 4 years we have a string of releases that didn't impress the players and didn't impress the financial markets either: virtually all MMOGs released in that time span have been financial under-achievers, and some of them even outright financial disasters.
To contrast that with earlier games like UO, EQ, DAoC and the like: good games and those games even made money ...
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
I agree.
EQ was as "sandboxy" as a game needs to be IMO. The second you revolve the game around Uncle Owens, and PVP gamers, is the second I have no interest in game.
Someone in thread mentioned basically...."why dont you support the games that cater to your gaming style". Pretty muich says it all IMO.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
Because none that cater to my gaming style exist anymore to support.
Ultima Online and SWG are not the same games they used to be, they've been beaten with the same stick that WoW was created with, otherwise I would be supporting them still.
I wouldn't be surprised if that was the exact same sentiment from many others.
To the original poster, all you need to survive is 2400 calories, which can be gotten with bad cheap food, a bed, and 2 pieces of cloths, shirt and pants. Any thing more then that you should give to another person(s) who do not have those. If you do not you are a greedy bloodsucking capitalist pig. grow up and welcome to the real world.
Companies need to make money. they can not run the games for free and hope that money falls from the sky so they can pay thier employees, or mayby they can get slaves to work for them. Im sure we can easily enslave you since it appears you like the koolaid.
As others have said, you dont like it, then make the game, you go out and secure the financing, hire the employees, find the space to house the employees, and their is much more. learn about what it takes to run a business.
If not shut the effin up.
now that my rant is done.
Game follow market forces. Great example is Star Wars Galaxies. It was a great game, popular among those who pay for the game and the monthly fee. Sony was making alot of money with this game. Then Sony complety changed the game. Market forces showed that players where unhappy and they moved on. Players moving on to somehting differnt and better is the norm. Only a small percentage of a games player base stay for any lenght of time. So companies need to keep more players. With the over saturation of the MMO market compaines have to find ways to get players into the game. So that will mean that games will get easier or dumbed down if you prefer. Look at games that are harder to play. They have small player bases. If the company is small then this isnt that big a problem, they can make just enough to keep game running, though any new content will not be as forthcoming as larger games.
Also games evolve. This includes playstyles, graphics and many other. Companies can not go backwards. Games like Everquest were great in thier time, but many forget the grief of spending hours to get into groups or to raid.
But the basics of MMO's is to design a form of enterainment that allows a company to make money. If they do not they will fail. If you dont like it, move on, or leave gaming.
Looking at a few of the first incarnations of MMOs, EQ1 and UO. They're still releasing packs that you have to pay for. This is not new, this is old. Get over it, go play single player, and stop your BITCHING. By the way, you may want to google "the human condition" and see if the reveals any truths to you.
i personally haven't enjoyed a MMO in a long time, but that is the fault of the consumers not the companies. Businesses gather statistics and figure out what is the best way to get a good return on their initial investment based on consumer trends. Those of us who have been around MMO's since the beginning seek something *new* and *creative*, but these things are happening: the market is stlil expanding which has these new and bigger mass of consumers to find anything as creative, interesting, and worth buying. These new consumers are in such a big number that sales have improved for companies while costs are most likely lowered. There is currently little need to do something innovative right now. I still think it will be a while sentiment shifts, as media markets don't change over the course of just a year. The big companies are generally not innovative when it comes to design, and tend to wait and see the success of smaller attempts. Often those successfull, smaller attempts have ideas which are 'borrowed' by the bigger companies as they pump money into something similar.
Anyways...the short of it is that buying habits dictate what companies produce. These are not starving artists, and everyone is in this game to make a living.
tl;dr
However... I'll bite...
I will comment on the title as it gives the impression that you are looking for something to blame the current state of MMO's on, and like snap you droned into what you are told most often to despise by the modern media, capitalism.
Capitalism is not the source of your problems. Bad companies, bad business decisions, and greedy individuals are the problem. You don't blame the car when a drunk driver drives into oncoming traffic, you blame the person operating that vehicle for making that mistake, as is such with a person being being part of the free market and likewise making decisions (right or wrong).
I just thought I would point that out before someone went on and started a 420 for life / God is a milk carton / 9/11 was an inside job / Republicans want to kill babies bandwagon.
No doubt you've now decided you really meant to say "produced by bloodsucking morons."
Not sure if OP knows but the average age of a gamer is 32 years old. Im just guessing here but most 32 year olds have lives outside of gaming so gaming to them is just a brief casual escape from the mundane. So developers are just playing to that to try and get the subs up.
The average gamer is a casual gamer. You cant blame the developers for what the average gamer wants.
And yes the average gamer is the vast majority of the 12 million subs of WoW.
Exactly, and you don't blame companies for making bad cars if people keep buying them.
I have not been able to read all of the replie since my last post, but I'll try to cover some points.
1. Yes, I can not speak for 12 million players of an online game. But I can speak, as stated before, to underlying psychological tendencies that are being exploited by Blizzard and other game developers. There is sufficient evidence to this when you look at loot systems, the justice points used by WoW currently, the little shiny "?" marks in EQ2 that are for collections (and by now the game has hundreds of sets), achievement points, etc. None of these are particularly fun mechanisms to an MMO, but they are "kinda" fun, just enough to keep people playing while waiting for the next reward. Players don't deserve to be fed increments of fun while paying for a subscription based game, or even if they just bought the retail box. MMOs should offer memorable experiences, and ones that are not repetitive and required to be done hundreds of time so you can get some new armor.
2. Blizzard has offered both excellent innovation in the industry and also had made very poor etical decisions. The customer service, regular updates, plenty of new content, arenas, battle grounds, class revamps and balances, etc have all upped the standards in what is expected of game developers. Blizzard does consistently make sure that the main problems of the player base are addressed. I do respect this from them. I also do enjoy the feeling that when I am subscribed to WoW, I am apart of a social world where I can log in with my friends, do battlegrounds or dungeons or w/e.
What I do not like about Blizzard is their willingness to see their player base as solely consumers. Most business models do listen to their customers enough to ensure that they will keep buying, so I don't think it is a contradiction to say that Blizzard listens to their customers but also views them as mindless consumers. The primary gameplay of WoW once you hit level 80 (and soon to be 85), is to grind dungeons until you have decenet armor, and then grind 10-25 man heroics until you get better armor. Every tier of gameplay is solely there to get you ready for the next, and each tier can take upwards of 75 hours of play time to achieve. Can you imagine what you could accomplish in playing an instrument, or working on an art piece, or starting your own company, if you offered such persistent time and motivation to acquiring something?
The problem isn't that Blizzard asks you to play so much time, it is that 80% of what they ask you to do isn't very fun. When I first ran through the WotLK quests and dungeons it was fun. But the second time I run "The Culling of Stratheholm" I know what to expect. The next 15 times I run it, it isn't fun at all. And Blizzard has used the "random dungeon finder" so each dungeon is random enough to remain slightly fun or interesting.
3. If we are to say that "Capitalism offers innovation" we need to first ask ourselves what is innovation. If someone sees innovation as soley new forms of technology via bigger lcd screens, blacker blacks, cars that have better steering, toilets that flush quieter, toasters that toast quicker, etc, then their idea on creatvity is based solely on increasing the stardard of living through comfort and basic forms of entertainment. That is not innovation. That is improvement (which I personally wouldn't even agree with to begin with.)
Innovation is creating new ideas. It is a process of breaking away from the mundane. In a general sense, what do we see in our society that offers new, refreshing ideas and creations that provide an aesthetic and functional satisfaction to people? I wouldn't say much. Most technelogical advancements are really just mind numbing. I am not opposed to technology (obviously if I'm advocating MMO innovation), but I do think we need to reframe our idea of it. There is technology that provides both function and beauty. And there is technology that provides basic function, and no beauty.
Companies focusing on creating wealth are not concerned with creativity. They are concerned with what creates the most possible amount of money for themeselves, and in the case of mmos, that is putting people on a treadmill to suck a constant flow of revenue. Look at game developers that have pursued innovation and see how much attention, or appraisal they have received. Eve Online is a wonderful exception to this.
4. We don't have to assume that game's should be about making money at all. It would be interesting to see development become funded by private organizations, or public (we've already seen this with Tera, but in a different manner). If we changed our perspective on what video games can offer (not what they should), then I think more academic or private institutions would find value in funding new ideas. And I don't mean by following "game theory" models where the world is limited based on a certain premise, but rather creating whole worlds where diversity is appreciated, and player creation is stimulated. This doesn't have to look just like Second LIfe either. I think Second Life is an awesome concept, but it is basically a virtual imitation of life. It would be much more interesting to observe human behavior and imagination through an actual fictional world.
(Edit) 5. Many people offer the advice to "take it or leave it" or find games that you enjoy and not bother other people's taste in gaming. That isn't bad advice, but also I am only stated an opinion here. Yes, it is subjective in the senes that I'm talking about what impressions are made on me from modern gaming- for what I like and do not like. But it is not subjective when I talk about the general business model and gameplay mechanics behind MMOs.
I'm criticising big game develoeprs because they are creating a business model that all others are trying to follow. Game publishers are unwilling to fund more innovative ideas because they don't follow the WoW plan. So yes, I can go out and support new independant games that are coming out (which I do, much hope rests in JGE), but that doesn't mean that I can't have an opinion on the general direction onlne gaming is going (or has been for the past six years).
Great replies all around though. Keep them up!
It is simple for me. For the past 10 years of my gaming time I have had more fun playing non mmos than playing mmos. MMOs seem to be built around grind and extending that monthly fee. The only mmo that was worth my time was FFXI. I played that for 2 years before moving to Guild Wars. Today mmos are built around a single player experience with a subscription fee. I can't see how that qualifies as a mmo at all. Today it is all about pushing sales than it is about making fun creative games to play.
I don't see the problem here. If you truely hate their business model so much and do not enjoy 80% of the game, why do you play? By playing you give Blizzard the idea that that kind of business model makes money and thus they will make more content like it. Not only that but other companies will make games that emulate this. Thus the problem grows while the gamers blame the companies instead of blaming themselves.
Well this my 2 cents and i honestly say OP , you mean about wow , thats all fine we all have our day .
But i do not blaim capitalisme , why we all want our salary increase each year !
But we all forget our subscription money doesn´t get more expensive every year !
Infact what i blaim is the current people playing MMO , where in the past we were open friendly kind .
I mean look at this thread so many different views , so many opnions and understanding , but heck not even 1 flame !!!
Lets say this thread here people play together in 1 single game , atleast there is communication .
There is understanding , intelligent wisdom there own point of view .
Thats what is currently lacking in MMORPG , same way in games development .
Example
Player = I want a SANDBOX
Developer = SANDBOX is out dated.
Player = I WANT A SANDBOX
Developer = but but all endgames are sandbox .
Player = I WANT END GAME TO START AT LEVEL 1 !!!! (insert QQ EMO flamming actng like a little baby)
There is so little understanding of eachother viewpoints , you dont want anything but a community .
A community you have to work for cheerishe and upkeep , you can blaim blizzard , you can blaim capitalisme .
But truth is , you should start blaiming yourself for letting the communties the guilds slips .
The people who tried to be fair honest and entertaining , are tired of problems or drama .
Once in a while its fun , but everyday drama is a bit too much .
My current take of MMORPG is that its not dying , its a change of gaurd .
Same way EQ was a change of gaurd ,same way SWG was a change of people , SWG had infact so many millions of Players excited and willingness of community to play a flawed game . but sadly too many slipped trough the holes.
Sorry many hold SWG like god status , but the game was flawed (this alone i will get flamed in 2 second)
Cause god status if you found the people willing to help , flawed and boring if you couldn´t find the people .
WoW offered something different , they try to correct that flawed status what do gamers want ?
And nobody else offered that , see each expansion they keep updating what do the majority want ?
And why are the majority playing ? sorry i can say for sure 50% of WoW western world , wouldn´t play it , if it wasn´t for the people , i think my whole guild in wow , play for one and other .
Capitalism does not breed innovation.
Competition is what breeds innovation, and pure capitalism breeds monopolies (or oligopies), which is what breeds stagnation.
A mixed market is what breeds innovation, but sadly the current MMO industry is miles away from being that. It's currently an Oligopoly, where only a few major publishers are able to actually properly fund an MMO to completeness. All of said publishers are all after the same thing, your money, and all of them want to get it with the least amonut of effort on their end. That's why the MMO industry has spiraled into the stagnent pit it's currently in.
The sad thing is that there's so much over-emphasis on all of the wrong things right now in MMOs, that indie developers have a hard time breaching the barriers of entry into the market. They simply don't have the funding to polish their games to the level that so many players demand these days, despite the fact that they may have some phenominal game design ideas and concepts.
The last truly successful indie MMO was Eve, and that was what, 6+ years ago?
Excellent post and I can totally associate with OP's frustration as a serious gamer. However, as some of the others have mentioned, it's difficult to blame any particular group for the current state of things. Yes, development and publishing companies (and their investors) make all sorts of stagnant uninspired drivel, and even market leaders produce mindless repetitive games, but since they are large companies, they have to make what they believe will bring in most money. A single artist, or a group of like-minded gamers working out of a garage, can always decide to ignore the financial aspects, but that's not practical for a company with hundreds or thousands of employees, and investors looking over their shoulders. So these companies do all sorts of market research and aim for what the mainstream wants (and often miserably fail to deliver it anyway). So at this point, many start blaming the mainstream, and the gamers themselves for buying such games and encouraging companies to produce more of them, but I think this is also an incomplete view. The people that make up the mainstream crowd are the way they are, including but not limited to gamer grandmas, little kids, bored ADD teenagers, etc. We can't realistically expect them all of a sudden to start appreciating deep and sophisticated games any more than we can expect serious movies about the human condition to start outperforming summer action blockbusters at the box office. So to me, the gaming industry is made up of all these different actors who just do what they do, and no single one of them is really to blame, but together all of this leads to a crappy scene for mature gamers.
However, I think there is definitely some hope for us in the future. Although gaming is somewhat different from other entertainment media, I do believe we can draw some useful analogies. If you look at literature, movies, television, or music, all of them tend to follow a similar pattern: the vast majority of each of those mediums consists of mainstream fluff, be it romance novels, action sequels, reality shows, or processed pop music, but at the same time, each has a much smaller but thriving "mature" niche. The latter is sustained by real artists, or companies looking to get get out of the over-saturated mainstream market. I believe there is no reason that gaming cannot and will not follow the same path down the line. Most of the games in the future, in my humble opinion, will be aimed at the mainstream, and be in the mold of World of Warcraft and Call of Duty 5000, but there will also be a very thriving market segment aimed at people looking for something deeper. We can already see seeds of this today, with deeper games developed by tiny independent studios (the artists) sprouting everywhere (Eve Online, Mortal Online, Xsyon, ArcheAge Online, Dwarf Fortress, Elemental, etc), although most of them tend to struggle at the moment. The big obstacle seems to be the prohibitive cost of technology required to produce a modern video game in most of these cases, although as with any video game market segment, bad decisions also play a role. This is where I think things will improve in the near future, as more and more third party technology solutions allow more and more people to create professional games on smaller budgets. Even today, there are already some vendors offering their engines to developers, such as Epic with Unreal Engine 3, Unity engine, and under certain contracts, devs don't have to pay them anything until they successfully sell a certain amount of copies or achieve some threshold of revenue, and if this trend continues, there might be very good deals to be had.
Here here a salute to the OP.
Online games should enhance the creative aspects of the individual
Progress has come at last to the MMO market. after years of neglect Industrial Entertainment has arrived.
Most readers while generally sympathetic to the OP,s point of veiw, will feel as do the developers of MMO's that although an immersive,freewheeling,Community centric MMO is a fine thing,certain comprimises and adjustments are necessary in order to meeet the ever expanding demand for MMO recreation.
The first issue that appears when we get into this matter,the most important issue and perhaps the only issue,is the one called accessibility. The Developers insist the MMO must be made fully accessible to not only the hardcore gamer the roleplayer and the niche player, but also to the casual,the masses and there grandmothers.
Now what does accessibility mean? easy to approach,reach,enter,speak with,or use. Is there any game that is really unaccessible? All it takes is an ISP and an account and it is accessible physicaly, After that all that remains is a desire and a will to play.
Is there any game that players have not conquered, or proved accessible? Thousands have made there mark on games that for complexity and immersion are or were shining examples of the industry. The one thing they all have in common is the refusal to play like lemmings in a march to the sea.
This being the case why are Developers generally so anxious to cater to that other crowd? the indolent millions born on instant gratification,and suckled on shiny perks, and who expect and demand a golden road to lead them to every nook and corner of a MMO.
For the answer we must consider the character of of Industrial Entertainment and the quality of the casual gamers.
Industrial Entertainment is big business,it means money,it includes the developers themselves,ISP providers,Sites like MMORPG,no offense,and Goverment through taxation. These various interests are well organized well funded and Command the power of the service in question. Combined they create an enormous amount of pressure to bear upon such a slender reed as "creative individuality" in the games we play.
But in the end it is the masses of players who supply the money that supports the Industrial Entertainment Industry,until the masses are weaned from the golden road onto the paths less trodden it will remain so.
But what game
Welcome to the rest of the video game industry. Don't get comfortable.