This was an opinion piece backed up by a single fact (that the target market is 14-25) and that fact is wrong. The rest of everything you say is just shit spew. I can spew shit too:
Here is a fact. They are literally making a 3rd or 4th version of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Literally clones...When that game came out for N64 I thought it took action adventure to the next level. We went from 2d top down snes zelda to a 3d multi-angle and we actually GAINED story depth and other gameplay dynamics we didnt have before.
We have the technology. We can make games bigger, faster, stronger. We just don't because its easier to make another version of Ocarina of Time and get that quick quarterly bonus.
Taking games to the next level isn't profitable yet because some people are satified with a stagnant market be that MMO's or any other kind. The gaming industry has been corportized and possibly necromanced. So in a few years when they've finished milking the corpses of our old beloved games the decomposition will force them to evolve or at least mutate.
In ESB he was little more than a green muppet. If you look back at contemporary criticisms of the first three films you'll find a Jar-Jar comment in each. The Jar-Jar for the first three movies (in order):
R2-D2
Yoda
The Ewoks
Again. These are children's movies. Period.
Yes you did. I can understand the Ewoks and even R2... but Yoda? Sure he's a little crazy, but living as a hermit in a swamp will do that to you. Jar-Jar was an idiot the entire time. At least Yoda got serious and gave some words of wisdom.
On topic: I'm still young so the whole "You're just too old for them" thing doesn't apply. MMOs have been sucking lately, we'll see what happens in the near future.
But hey, you had to be there to know that. But it's your lucky day; get a hold of an old NES system with a copy of Ninja Gaiden. Play it, then try to compare it to ANYTHING currently on the market.
THAT is how games used to be (although that example is a harsch one). THAT is what we want. Not the fruitcake games of the present.
The Ninja Gaiden trilogy on the NES are some of the best platformers of all time. To this day, I can't beat them without the use of hacks. I was able to get all the way through the Gamboy version, but never the original NES games.
It's actually a pretty good time to be a platform gamer ;-)
Well, I never said I completed it :P. The once that have are as scarce as Jedi.....pun intended.
Anyhoo, I wasn't really trying to compare it to platform games of this time, but I was trying to state that a lot of games back then required more than the skill to find the exclamation marks above NPC heads. Obviously, others were a pile of crap, but that's beside the point.
Games have, over time, become easier. Too easy, in my opinion. And the MMO genre is at the top with this. Catering to the youngest of folk, who are still used to their parents clapping and yelling "Way to go!" whenever they manage to do something trivial.
Me, with my 30 years, am still young (compared to a few in this topic. You know who Im talking to, you old farts!), but I am already on the MMO decline. All I can do (with MMO games that is) is try out the new ones and hope one will finally give me that adventurous feeling, mixed in with a bit of panic here and there.
Therefor, I disagree with the statement.
But there's the thing. You've been there so you know all of the tricks. People that haven't been doing MMOs for that long don't know the tropes and have that feeling that you're searching for.
Yes, the games are all reading from the same playbook. That doesn't mean that they suck. They certainly aren't original, but they do what they're supposed to do. Like I said earlier, it's just easier to cater to the lower expectations of newer players than try to exceed the expectations of veterans. It's also a lot less risky.
I remember when The Operational Art of War was released. It was probably the most in depth computer wargame of it's time. And the wargaming community hated it. They picked at every miniscule inaccuracy and called it mindless eye-candy. BTW, here's what the game looked like:
Did I mention that the game was released in 2006? Mindless eye-candy indeed. . . .
The reason I bring this up is because the people yelling the loudest were the people that had been playing wargames since the early sixties. Yep, they were playing wargames with real maps, cardboard, and dice. And they LIKED IT!!
The exact same thing is happening with MMOs. Tell me, as if you were a game developer, which audience would you rather cater too?
Awwwwe, Cute. OP must have just had his 11th Birthday. Don't worry your little head son, it gets alot worse when you leave your keyboard and have to hold down a job for your online trolling habits.
In ESB he was little more than a green muppet. If you look back at contemporary criticisms of the first three films you'll find a Jar-Jar comment in each. The Jar-Jar for the first three movies (in order):
R2-D2
Yoda
The Ewoks
Again. These are children's movies. Period.
Yes you did. I can understand the Ewoks and even R2... but Yoda? Sure he's a little crazy, but living as a hermit in a swamp will do that to you. Jar-Jar was an idiot the entire time. At least Yoda got serious and gave some words of wisdom.
On topic: I'm still young so the whole "You're just too old for them" thing doesn't apply. MMOs have been sucking lately, we'll see what happens in the near future.
Lets not forget that the Origonal Muppets were mostly for adults and a lot of adults like them as well.
In ESB he was little more than a green muppet. If you look back at contemporary criticisms of the first three films you'll find a Jar-Jar comment in each. The Jar-Jar for the first three movies (in order):
R2-D2
Yoda
The Ewoks
Again. These are children's movies. Period.
I grew up with the original trilogy, and i don't remember ever hearing the critizisms of Yoda that i heard for Jar Jar Binks..
Yoda is an icon of Star Wars, that at times even trandscends the IP.. Theres people who are not Star Wars fans that who know the mannerisms...
I think it's a combination of factors, some of what the OP described and some different ones:
- youth made us experience things intenser: when we were younger we had a lot of more times of 'whoaa that's great!' and we could be enthusiastic about sometimes simple things in life, things that don't do it for us anymore. Call it jadedness or having wizened up, but it's a fact of life that you can see kids being completely absorbed and having great fun with something almost stupidly simple, while the older we get, the more complex things we need to achieve that level of excitement and enthusiasm that came so easily with so little when we were young. In the same line is the 'first time' love kind of thing, where the first time we experience something, it leaves a stronger emotional imprint than when we've had that experience a lot: the first holidays, our first months in the relationship we've been in for years, the first months of experiencing sex, the first good times make a more vivid impression than when you've done it for the 200th time, even sex (unless that 200th time had something else special or new that made it jump out, eg first time anal, first threesome etc).
- rose tinted glasses that nostalgia and memories of the past bring: unless someone had very traumatic experiences, people remember the good stuff and a lot less the bad stuff. With games, a lot games came out in the past, but the vast majority was as much garbage and 'same stuff as usual' as a number of games are considered nowadays. Only people forget all those other, less great games, that came out and only recall the very good ones. I'd say if it's highlights people are looking for, there are enough games in a wide variety that are great depending on what your personal tastes and preferences are.
- 'indie goes pop and mainstream' hatred: the same as you see with music and other kinds of interests and entertainment. Something that's niche and loved by a small groupof the population suddenly becomes so successful that it becomes mainstream, drawing in a lot of other people and artists/companies that show an interest in it. Which in turn draws the ire of the group of people that loved it before the genre changed, some are unable to accept or adapt to the change and start hating the genre and those 'filthy mainstream people that are the cause of the changes', and the artists that surf on the waves of this booming success are considered sellouts by the same group of people. It happened with rock, with punk, with grunge, rap and house, and as well as with things like the gaming genre or MMORPG genre.
- 'things are always in motion' aversion: it's a fact of life, everything changes continuously. However, changes aren't always what we wish for, there's good, there's bad. If the goods of the past seem too big, and the bads of the present or future too ominous, people shy back from that fact of life, they want things to remain the same and are unwilling to accept the changes that are happening. That's why you have conservative groups or factions who are so much against immigrants because it threatens and changes the way of life they had into something they're not content with. In the same way you'll see people who want gaming to remain like it was in a specific time period that they personally considered the peak of gaming for whatever personal reason and experiences they've elevated that timeperiod to that highlight.
There'll be more reasons of course, but I think those 4 play a large part in how quite a number of people regard things, the mix of course being different from one person to the next
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
In ESB he was little more than a green muppet. If you look back at contemporary criticisms of the first three films you'll find a Jar-Jar comment in each. The Jar-Jar for the first three movies (in order):
R2-D2
Yoda
The Ewoks
Again. These are children's movies. Period.
I grew up with the original trilogy, and i don't remember ever hearing the critizisms of Yoda that i heard for Jar Jar Binks..
Yoda is an icon of Star Wars, that at times even trandscends the IP.. Theres people who are not Star Wars fans that who know the mannerisms...
Jar Jar Binks? not so much......
I don't agree with Yoda, but the Ewoks, definitely.
Ewoks or Yar-Yar, it moves around the same level of enforced cuddliness and kid attraction.
To be totally fair, only the first 2 movies of the original trilogy rank as being a better breed of Star Wars movie, the Return of the Jedi moves along the same line as a RotS or AotC to me.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
You know why the original Star War Trilogy was so much better than the prequels? It's because you were 10 years old and everything is fucking awesome when you're 10 years old.
You've been there. You've done hat. And now you're no longer in the demographic that the game industry caters to. You aren't a surburban white boy between the ages of 14 and 25. It's not the games, it's you.
I've been trying to get this across for years, but it always falls on deaf ears. So here it is one more time. The games are the same brainless fun that they've always been. You've just gotten to old and jaded to participate.
It's not that I am too old......but when I WAS part of the "target demographic" games were targeting.....they weren't quite so "brainless".
Think about that for a minute. MMORPGs used to be targeted at pen and paper RPG players. There was a steep learning curve, insane amounts of non-linear content, no concept of an "end game", complex systems (such as AO's implants) and a focus on a living, breathing world.
Now they are targeted at console 3rd person shooter players. Any complex systems have been removed completely because the target audience can't be bothered to read anything, much less figure out how to accomplish something without a big flashing sign or dotted line to follow. Focus is almost entirely on combat, to the point where people ACTUALLY complain if there is a story, or a crafting system.
And what's worse is that the corporations developing these games don't seem to realise that their target audience....this "lowest common denominator", has so little attention span that in targeting them for a subscription based product they are shooting themselves in the foot.
The game is released, these droolers rush to max level, complain there is nothing to do, and LEAVE. And then we have ANOTHER f2p game limping along until they finally pull the plug.
So no.....it's not me. It's not my age. It's corporate exploitation of the american "cash cow".....bringing the MMORPG industry to the brainless american "consumer herd" and tailoring it to appeal to them, in order to make a quick buck.....while leaving us old MMORPG gamers looking on in horror as we are left in the cold with nothing but indie games to place our hope in.
Sure, the wonder and newness of, say the first star wars movies, isn't quite the same from when I first saw them at 7 and when I see them now at 44 but I can still watch them and realize they are leagues above the new star wars movies.
We might experience games a bit differently from when we were young and we might be a bit more critical but for a person who can still firmly plant a foot into his/her childlike place, they will clearly still enjoy games, movies, comics, etc as long as they are taken in perspective.
My 8 yr old daughter loves the original trilogy and thinks the prequels are crap. That pretty much puts an end to this thread.
I have three younger sibblings (I'm 32), one (18 year old female) hates anything Star wars the other two (boys 13 and 16) hate anything "old" Star Wars, but love the new movies and cartoons(s). I guess the thread started back up.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
never to old for gaming. i still enjoy playing RPG and sports and i'm 30 and married. my mother is almost 60 and she still enjoys atari 2600 and the nintendo wii.
Think about that for a minute. MMORPGs used to be targeted at pen and paper RPG players. There was a steep learning curve, insane amounts of non-linear content, no concept of an "end game", complex systems (such as AO's implants) and a focus on a living, breathing world.
Now they are targeted at console 3rd person shooter players. Any complex systems have been removed completely because the target audience can't be bothered to read anything, much less figure out how to accomplish something without a big flashing sign or dotted line to follow. Focus is almost entirely on combat, to the point where people ACTUALLY complain if there is a story, or a crafting system.
And what's worse is that the corporations developing these games don't seem to realise that their target audience....this "lowest common denominator", has so little attention span that in targeting them for a subscription based product they are shooting themselves in the foot.
The game is released, these droolers rush to max level, complain there is nothing to do, and LEAVE. And then we have ANOTHER f2p game limping along until they finally pull the plug.
I disagree. Why? Just look at WoW. Yes, yes, I know, a very inconvenient example to use every time; but what WoW showed was that those new audience had enough attention span to keep paying for an MMORPG for years, where as before they had no interest in any MMORPG that was available at all, and often even stay in it longer than many pre-WoW gamer stayed in their MMORPG.
So, to anyone being objective it shows that this group of people new to MMORPG's is willing to stay for sometimes years in an MMORPG and enjoy it, if it has the things they like. Years of subbing seems like an adequate attention span to me.
I agree on the part where you say that the first group of MMORPG gamers was a different breed than what came later. Those 'early adapters' consisted of RPG gamers, PnP gamers and such, who had a different interest in MMORPG gameplay than later groups.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I think it's a combination of factors, some of what the OP described and some different ones:
- youth made us experience things intenser: when we were younger we had a lot of more times of 'whoaa that's great!' and we could be enthusiastic about sometimes simple things in life, things that don't do it for us anymore. Call it jadedness or having wizened up, but it's a fact of life that you can see kids being completely absorbed and having great fun with something almost stupidly simple, while the older we get, the more complex things we need to achieve that level of excitement and enthusiasm that came so easily with so little when we were young. In the same line is the 'first time' love kind of thing, where the first time we experience something, it leaves a stronger emotional imprint than when we've had that experience a lot: the first holidays, our first months in the relationship we've been in for years, the first months of experiencing sex, the first good times make a more vivid impression than when you've done it for the 200th time, even sex (unless that 200th time had something else special or new that made it jump out, eg first time anal, first threesome etc).
- rose tinted glasses that nostalgia and memories of the past bring: unless someone had very traumatic experiences, people remember the good stuff and a lot less the bad stuff. With games, a lot games came out in the past, but the vast majority was as much garbage and 'same stuff as usual' as a number of games are considered nowadays. Only people forget all those other, less great games, that came out and only recall the very good ones. I'd say if it's highlights people are looking for, there are enough games in a wide variety that are great depending on what your personal tastes and preferences are.
- 'indie goes pop and mainstream' hatred: the same as you see with music and other kinds of interests and entertainment. Something that's niche and loved by a small groupof the population suddenly becomes so successful that it becomes mainstream, drawing in a lot of other people and artists/companies that show an interest in it. Which in turn draws the ire of the group of people that loved it before the genre changed, some are unable to accept or adapt to the change and start hating the genre and those 'filthy mainstream people that are the cause of the changes', and the artists that surf on the waves of this booming success are considered sellouts by the same group of people. It happened with rock, with punk, with grunge, rap and house, and as well as with things like the gaming genre or MMORPG genre.
- 'things are always in motion' aversion: it's a fact of life, everything changes continuously. However, changes aren't always what we wish for, there's good, there's bad. If the goods of the past seem too big, and the bads of the present or future too ominous, people shy back from that fact of life, they want things to remain the same and are unwilling to accept the changes that are happening. That's why you have conservative groups or factions who are so much against immigrants because it threatens and changes the way of life they had into something they're not content with. In the same way you'll see people who want gaming to remain like it was in a specific time period that they personally considered the peak of gaming for whatever personal reason and experiences they've elevated that timeperiod to that highlight.
There'll be more reasons of course, but I think those 4 play a large part in how quite a number of people regard things, the mix of course being different from one person to the next
You only are listing reasons for changes in personal interests out of personal interpretation. This implies each person is a victum of their own circumstance and that developers are not at fault. This is a complete naive point of view and summory.
What I was refering to on my page 1 post was that there are legitimate reasons why games have changed today. The largest of these is the rampant purchase of indie developers by large mega-corps and forced to follow their marketing structure. This typicaly weeds out variety and innovation in favor of strict templating and sequal based game developing. This is entirely the reason behind ShooterX or mmoclone 1, 2, 3, 4, etc ...
Many perfectly intelligent people out there exist that see this trend. They see what companies like Activision are doing to the industry by stagnating indi game developments. They see Electronic Arts formulaic game philosophy and development team deconstruction from project to project. They see how cash models are shaping games and not allowing games to shape cash models. They see what these trends have done over the years and why it is a direct cause of where the game industry is at now, why the games we see are made and why they differ from the past.
The scariest thing is these people see that the glory days of gaming (where games either succeeded or failed but at least had the chance to compete and try different things) is forever dead and we now enter a period of mass production and marketing where innovation and originality is not only frowned upon but deconstructed and squashed.
I would normally have hope for change if we could compare this to the movie industry where independent movies once again became fruitful because the market became so large the mega-corps could no longer control the medium. Sadly this is exactly what the large gaming companies are trying to do today. They learned from past mistakes and are now also trying to control the medium in which we obtain the games and play the games. What players need to do now is find a way to rebel and gain personal control over the undustry. This will not happen though if players continue to be willing to buy Call of Duty 43,44,45, etc.
This was an opinion piece backed up by a single fact (that the target market is 14-25) and that fact is wrong. The rest of everything you say is just shit spew. I can spew shit too:
Here is a fact. They are literally making a 3rd or 4th version of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Literally clones...When that game came out for N64 I thought it took action adventure to the next level. We went from 2d top down snes zelda to a 3d multi-angle and we actually GAINED story depth and other gameplay dynamics we didnt have before.
We have the technology. We can make games bigger, faster, stronger. We just don't because its easier to make another version of Ocarina of Time and get that quick quarterly bonus.
Taking games to the next level isn't profitable yet because some people are satified with a stagnant market be that MMO's or any other kind. The gaming industry has been corportized and possibly necromanced. So in a few years when they've finished milking the corpses of our old beloved games the decomposition will force them to evolve or at least mutate.
Yeah but... I like that they are making clones of LOZ:OoT with a couple new/unique features. It was a well made game that doesn't need alot of improviment. (Why other companies don't try to copy it, confuses me...)
At this point I would be happy with a clone of Old SWG, EQ, or AC with a new coat of paint and maybe a couple new features or things. But instead we are getting the most basic of basic MMOs with one or two new things. What happed to your character learning things, not just training you you get x level, what happened to seting your own stats, what happen to player towns and vendors, what happened to more then 1 press crafting?
I will not play a game with a cash shop ever again. A dev job should be to make the game better not make me pay so it sucks less.
if they cleaned up the swg engines buggs and lag and polished it and add generic space title and make it free2play with shop option i think it could do well.
You only are listing reasons for changes in personal interests out of personal interpretation.
Of course, it seems to me everyone is doing that in this thread, but I only glanced some of the comments not every post in it.
This implies each person is a victum of their own circumstance and that developers are not at fault. This is a complete naive point of view and summory.
Here you go on your own personal interpretation: just because my viewpoint doesn't agree with yours, suddenly I'm wrong and naive, business as usual it seems
What I was refering to on my page 1 post was that there are legitimate reasons why games have changed today. The largest of these is the rampant purchase of indi developers by large mega-corps and forced to follow their marketing structure. This typicaly weeds out variety and innovation in favor of strict templating and sequal based game developing. This is entirely the reason behind ShooterX or mmoclone 1, 2, 3, 4, etc ...
This is what I mentioned under point 3 'indie fans hating the mainstream change and what it brought'
I didn't read your post on page 1, so I can't comment on it. What i do think though is that there's quite some variety in games, if you stop looking to the top20 segment of released games.
Many perfectly intelligent people out there exist that see this trend. They see what companies like Activision are doing to the industry by stagnating indi game developments. They see Electronic Arts formulaic game philosophy and development team deconstruction from project to project. They see how cash models are shaping games and not allowing games to shape cash models. They see what these trends have done over the years and why it is a direct cause of where the game industry is at now, why the games we see are made and why they differ from the past.
This sounds to me like an indie music fan soapboxing about how the 'big music companies have ruined the music or a music genre'.
While big game companies like EA or Activision have their effect on the market, the complete gaming industry isn't determined by them.
I would normally have hope for change if we could compare this to the movie industry where indipendent movies once again became fruitful because the market became so large the mega-corps could no longer control the medium. Sadly this is exactly what the large gaming companies are trying to do today. They learned from past mistakes and are now also trying to control the medium in which we obtain the games and play the games. What players need to do now is find a way to rebel and gain personal control over the undustry. This will not happen though if players continue to be willing to by Call of Duty 43,44,45, etc.
Shrug. Microsoft and Apple are trying to control platforms they operate with their products in, Google tries it, Facebook tries it, music companies try it, big oil companies try it, it's what they do all the time.
Sure, it's good to promote a larger variety in games, but the first thing someone should do is look at what's available in games, and this ranges across the platforms, from web browser based multiplayer games to Facebook games to console games to PC games.
There's a lot more games around in a larger variety than just CoD, from Modern Warfare 3 to Battlefield 3 to Ruse to Heavy Rain to LA Noire to GTA IV to Skyrim to Mass Effect 2 to Bioshock to Portal 2 to Flower to Journey to Amnesia to Little Big Planet to those crazy, wildly varied (and sadly, sometimes untranslated) Japanese games, to Zelda, to the Witcher 2 to a whole horde of other games.
These are just the few that came up in my mind right away, but in this small list alone I already see a wide variety of quality gameplay and mechanics and quite some diversity. In my opinion, that is.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Yeah the new MMO's SUCK. I am 24 now and ive hated mmos for a couple years now. I thought maybe it was because i was getting older intill i just recently went back to Ultima Online. And i am in love again. The open,player drivin world. Real community. And the devs actually are involved in the actual world always making unique events. There are so many things to do you couldnt possibly see it all. It is deffently the little theme park, meaningless MMOs nowadays. UO is a real mmorpg. these new games you people call mmorpgs are just MOs. nothing more.
I'm 56. I still enjoy computer games whether they are new or older. Some games I don't like. Most games I do like. My liking or disliking a game has nothing to do with my age.
Same for me, its just matter of taste and not much to do with age at all. But for me i see differents between early years of mmo's and these days with community, its alot more different then 10years ago.
Way more helpfull and friendly and always random partys np for 99% of time back then.
4) There have always been game critics. And genres get stale over time and the critics complain about it. But then there are sporadic revolutions in gaming that take one genre or another (or hybrids) to new heights. FPS games for instance (once called Doom clones) had been stale for many years, but had been reinvigorated by Halo 3/Cod4, and probably now reentering a stale phase again.
As an older gamer I was around during the great gaming crash of the late 1980's when people thought gaming had run it's course (many gaming companies went bankrupt including Activision). Gaming has only gotten bigger and broader demographics. I am today in my 40's and probably log more hours gaming than I ever have. Definately more than when I was in my 20's. Older gamers like myself don't go out partying as much anymore because we have kids in the house. Instead we settle down for some gaming when the kids go to bed...
This is pretty much what I'm getting at.
The majority of games are not bad; just average. But those of us who have been around for awhile see those average games as "brainless," "dumbed down," "eye candy," etc., and so on. We've been here long enough that we're looking for something new and/or exceptional rather than something competently made. And many of us don't bother considering the cycle that you discussed in point four.
As for the demographics widening. . .
I think that the industry has actually split into catering for two seperate demographics. On the side this forum is on, as well as the bulk of the mainstream gaming market, you have the traditional 14 to 25 white male demographic. On the other side, you have the 40+ cell phone and Facebook market. There's room for both audiences in this hobby. But if you're standing in a teen club, you have no right to complain that there's no beer on tap.
Seems like you have more against you then with you my friend. Maybe you should wake up and smell the coffee. If more people agree against you, then with you. Does that make you right? This is a matter of opinion, if 98 people say it sucks, or has degraded, and 2 people say NO. That makes 98 people wrong and 2 people right? Maybe in the little world you live in(called johnnys world)
In your little world it does im guessing. I say your little word because of this " you have the 40+ cell phone and Facebook market. There's room for both audiences in this hobby." So you took someone's words, that didn't even mean anything along these lines, and twisted them to fit your own little world that you live in.
Facebook games blow, they are pay2win, that isn't even real gaming. Don't even mention that crap on this topic. Cause those games are just crack dealing companys taken advantage of peoples addiction.
Your a causal gamer by what i can tell, Sorry but causal gamers get no play in my "world". They ruined the gaming industry.
But again i stress this topic to you johnny, its a matter of opinion. 98 people say it has degraded 2 say it hasn't.
Just like i stated my opinions above, if 2 people agree with me and 98 people don't. I guess i just don't agree with the mass, BUT THAT DOESN'T MAKE ME RIGHT!.
I think it's true that when we're kids we find games to be really exciting and fun, we really don't have any standards when we start playing for our first times.
As we grow older our standards get bigger. We want more in the games, we don't want the same thing that we've had for the past few years, we want something different.
However some people still like the same old thing, like me. I still love click and wait mmorpgs. Many people are sick of click n wait gameplay though.
That's why there are many games coming out as hack n slash mmos, letting you aim your attacks and spells to hit monsters. Unfortunately most of these games that are out atm are dungeon games only like Vindictus. Tera and Blade & Soul should make some revolution in gaming industry for those that are sick of click n wait mmorpgs.
What I was refering to on my page 1 post was that there are legitimate reasons why games have changed today. The largest of these is the rampant purchase of indie developers by large mega-corps and forced to follow their marketing structure. This typicaly weeds out variety and innovation in favor of strict templating and sequal based game developing. This is entirely the reason behind ShooterX or mmoclone 1, 2, 3, 4, etc ...
Many perfectly intelligent people out there exist that see this trend. They see what companies like Activision are doing to the industry by stagnating indi game developments. They see Electronic Arts formulaic game philosophy and development team deconstruction from project to project. They see how cash models are shaping games and not allowing games to shape cash models. They see what these trends have done over the years and why it is a direct cause of where the game industry is at now, why the games we see are made and why they differ from the past.
The scariest thing is these people see that the glory days of gaming (where games either succeeded or failed but at least had the chance to compete and try different things) is forever dead and we now enter a period of mass production and marketing where innovation and originality is not only frowned upon but deconstructed and squashed.
I would normally have hope for change if we could compare this to the movie industry where independent movies once again became fruitful because the market became so large the mega-corps could no longer control the medium. Sadly this is exactly what the large gaming companies are trying to do today. They learned from past mistakes and are now also trying to control the medium in which we obtain the games and play the games. What players need to do now is find a way to rebel and gain personal control over the undustry. This will not happen though if players continue to be willing to buy Call of Duty 43,44,45, etc.
Yeah but the reason that the corps can buy up all indie companies is how much making games have increased in money.
Most of the old companies in the 80s and 90s were working on several games at the same time, some many. Now few companies besides Activision and EA works on more than 2 games at the same time. Look on an old rather small dev in the old days, like Microprose. They didn't have so many people working for them but still had 5 or more games in devolopment at any given time.
Now games cost from $10M to $115M (GTA4), compared to a few thousand dollars in the 80s. That kills any small company. And the few that survives can only afford to work on a single game at any given time, if that game fails the company fails...
I think this is the reason why cell phone games are a huge industry today while PC games are shrinking.
The thing with movies is that technology actually made it cheaper to produce a pretty good movie, and it is a lot easier for a band today to produce their own album but computer games have instead gone to a levelthat more or less kills off all indie companies fast.
The only hope now is that Minecraft starts of something new where people stop being so *word censored* about graphics and instead start buying after what is fun.
I think it's true that when we're kids we find games to be really exciting and fun, we really don't have any standards when we start playing for our first times.
As we grow older our standards get bigger. We want more in the games, we don't want the same thing that we've had for the past few years, we want something different.
However some people still like the same old thing, like me. I still love click and wait mmorpgs. Many people are sick of click n wait gameplay though.
That's why there are many games coming out as hack n slash mmos, letting you aim your attacks and spells to hit monsters. Unfortunately most of these games that are out atm are dungeon games only like Vindictus. Tera and Blade & Soul should make some revolution in gaming industry for those that are sick of click n wait mmorpgs.
That is of course part of the problem, and also the fact that we are nostalgic about old games and forget the bad stuff (I know a certain SWG vet who cursed his game constantly at the time but now say it was perfect).
But look on the numbers of releasing PC games now and 15 years ago, there is a lot fewer to choose from and a lot fewer devs. That must have an impact on how many good games that get's released.
Comments
This was an opinion piece backed up by a single fact (that the target market is 14-25) and that fact is wrong. The rest of everything you say is just shit spew. I can spew shit too:
Here is a fact. They are literally making a 3rd or 4th version of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Literally clones...When that game came out for N64 I thought it took action adventure to the next level. We went from 2d top down snes zelda to a 3d multi-angle and we actually GAINED story depth and other gameplay dynamics we didnt have before.
We have the technology. We can make games bigger, faster, stronger. We just don't because its easier to make another version of Ocarina of Time and get that quick quarterly bonus.
Taking games to the next level isn't profitable yet because some people are satified with a stagnant market be that MMO's or any other kind. The gaming industry has been corportized and possibly necromanced. So in a few years when they've finished milking the corpses of our old beloved games the decomposition will force them to evolve or at least mutate.
"LOL"
Yes you did. I can understand the Ewoks and even R2... but Yoda? Sure he's a little crazy, but living as a hermit in a swamp will do that to you. Jar-Jar was an idiot the entire time. At least Yoda got serious and gave some words of wisdom.
On topic: I'm still young so the whole "You're just too old for them" thing doesn't apply. MMOs have been sucking lately, we'll see what happens in the near future.
But there's the thing. You've been there so you know all of the tricks. People that haven't been doing MMOs for that long don't know the tropes and have that feeling that you're searching for.
Yes, the games are all reading from the same playbook. That doesn't mean that they suck. They certainly aren't original, but they do what they're supposed to do. Like I said earlier, it's just easier to cater to the lower expectations of newer players than try to exceed the expectations of veterans. It's also a lot less risky.
I remember when The Operational Art of War was released. It was probably the most in depth computer wargame of it's time. And the wargaming community hated it. They picked at every miniscule inaccuracy and called it mindless eye-candy. BTW, here's what the game looked like:
Did I mention that the game was released in 2006? Mindless eye-candy indeed. . . .
The reason I bring this up is because the people yelling the loudest were the people that had been playing wargames since the early sixties. Yep, they were playing wargames with real maps, cardboard, and dice. And they LIKED IT!!
The exact same thing is happening with MMOs. Tell me, as if you were a game developer, which audience would you rather cater too?
Awwwwe, Cute. OP must have just had his 11th Birthday. Don't worry your little head son, it gets alot worse when you leave your keyboard and have to hold down a job for your online trolling habits.
Lets not forget that the Origonal Muppets were mostly for adults and a lot of adults like them as well.
My theme song.
I grew up with the original trilogy, and i don't remember ever hearing the critizisms of Yoda that i heard for Jar Jar Binks..
Yoda is an icon of Star Wars, that at times even trandscends the IP.. Theres people who are not Star Wars fans that who know the mannerisms...
Jar Jar Binks? not so much......
Lol. Wow, what a long thread.
I think it's a combination of factors, some of what the OP described and some different ones:
- youth made us experience things intenser: when we were younger we had a lot of more times of 'whoaa that's great!' and we could be enthusiastic about sometimes simple things in life, things that don't do it for us anymore. Call it jadedness or having wizened up, but it's a fact of life that you can see kids being completely absorbed and having great fun with something almost stupidly simple, while the older we get, the more complex things we need to achieve that level of excitement and enthusiasm that came so easily with so little when we were young. In the same line is the 'first time' love kind of thing, where the first time we experience something, it leaves a stronger emotional imprint than when we've had that experience a lot: the first holidays, our first months in the relationship we've been in for years, the first months of experiencing sex, the first good times make a more vivid impression than when you've done it for the 200th time, even sex (unless that 200th time had something else special or new that made it jump out, eg first time anal, first threesome etc).
- rose tinted glasses that nostalgia and memories of the past bring: unless someone had very traumatic experiences, people remember the good stuff and a lot less the bad stuff. With games, a lot games came out in the past, but the vast majority was as much garbage and 'same stuff as usual' as a number of games are considered nowadays. Only people forget all those other, less great games, that came out and only recall the very good ones. I'd say if it's highlights people are looking for, there are enough games in a wide variety that are great depending on what your personal tastes and preferences are.
- 'indie goes pop and mainstream' hatred: the same as you see with music and other kinds of interests and entertainment. Something that's niche and loved by a small groupof the population suddenly becomes so successful that it becomes mainstream, drawing in a lot of other people and artists/companies that show an interest in it. Which in turn draws the ire of the group of people that loved it before the genre changed, some are unable to accept or adapt to the change and start hating the genre and those 'filthy mainstream people that are the cause of the changes', and the artists that surf on the waves of this booming success are considered sellouts by the same group of people. It happened with rock, with punk, with grunge, rap and house, and as well as with things like the gaming genre or MMORPG genre.
- 'things are always in motion' aversion: it's a fact of life, everything changes continuously. However, changes aren't always what we wish for, there's good, there's bad. If the goods of the past seem too big, and the bads of the present or future too ominous, people shy back from that fact of life, they want things to remain the same and are unwilling to accept the changes that are happening. That's why you have conservative groups or factions who are so much against immigrants because it threatens and changes the way of life they had into something they're not content with. In the same way you'll see people who want gaming to remain like it was in a specific time period that they personally considered the peak of gaming for whatever personal reason and experiences they've elevated that timeperiod to that highlight.
There'll be more reasons of course, but I think those 4 play a large part in how quite a number of people regard things, the mix of course being different from one person to the next
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I don't agree with Yoda, but the Ewoks, definitely.
Ewoks or Yar-Yar, it moves around the same level of enforced cuddliness and kid attraction.
To be totally fair, only the first 2 movies of the original trilogy rank as being a better breed of Star Wars movie, the Return of the Jedi moves along the same line as a RotS or AotC to me.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Best reply ever and SO spot on IMO. Bravo.
I have three younger sibblings (I'm 32), one (18 year old female) hates anything Star wars the other two (boys 13 and 16) hate anything "old" Star Wars, but love the new movies and cartoons(s). I guess the thread started back up.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
never to old for gaming. i still enjoy playing RPG and sports and i'm 30 and married. my mother is almost 60 and she still enjoys atari 2600 and the nintendo wii.
I disagree. Why? Just look at WoW. Yes, yes, I know, a very inconvenient example to use every time; but what WoW showed was that those new audience had enough attention span to keep paying for an MMORPG for years, where as before they had no interest in any MMORPG that was available at all, and often even stay in it longer than many pre-WoW gamer stayed in their MMORPG.
So, to anyone being objective it shows that this group of people new to MMORPG's is willing to stay for sometimes years in an MMORPG and enjoy it, if it has the things they like. Years of subbing seems like an adequate attention span to me.
I agree on the part where you say that the first group of MMORPG gamers was a different breed than what came later. Those 'early adapters' consisted of RPG gamers, PnP gamers and such, who had a different interest in MMORPG gameplay than later groups.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
You only are listing reasons for changes in personal interests out of personal interpretation. This implies each person is a victum of their own circumstance and that developers are not at fault. This is a complete naive point of view and summory.
What I was refering to on my page 1 post was that there are legitimate reasons why games have changed today. The largest of these is the rampant purchase of indie developers by large mega-corps and forced to follow their marketing structure. This typicaly weeds out variety and innovation in favor of strict templating and sequal based game developing. This is entirely the reason behind ShooterX or mmoclone 1, 2, 3, 4, etc ...
Many perfectly intelligent people out there exist that see this trend. They see what companies like Activision are doing to the industry by stagnating indi game developments. They see Electronic Arts formulaic game philosophy and development team deconstruction from project to project. They see how cash models are shaping games and not allowing games to shape cash models. They see what these trends have done over the years and why it is a direct cause of where the game industry is at now, why the games we see are made and why they differ from the past.
The scariest thing is these people see that the glory days of gaming (where games either succeeded or failed but at least had the chance to compete and try different things) is forever dead and we now enter a period of mass production and marketing where innovation and originality is not only frowned upon but deconstructed and squashed.
I would normally have hope for change if we could compare this to the movie industry where independent movies once again became fruitful because the market became so large the mega-corps could no longer control the medium. Sadly this is exactly what the large gaming companies are trying to do today. They learned from past mistakes and are now also trying to control the medium in which we obtain the games and play the games. What players need to do now is find a way to rebel and gain personal control over the undustry. This will not happen though if players continue to be willing to buy Call of Duty 43,44,45, etc.
You stay sassy!
Yeah but... I like that they are making clones of LOZ:OoT with a couple new/unique features. It was a well made game that doesn't need alot of improviment. (Why other companies don't try to copy it, confuses me...)
At this point I would be happy with a clone of Old SWG, EQ, or AC with a new coat of paint and maybe a couple new features or things. But instead we are getting the most basic of basic MMOs with one or two new things. What happed to your character learning things, not just training you you get x level, what happened to seting your own stats, what happen to player towns and vendors, what happened to more then 1 press crafting?
I will not play a game with a cash shop ever again. A dev job should be to make the game better not make me pay so it sucks less.
if they cleaned up the swg engines buggs and lag and polished it and add generic space title and make it free2play with shop option i think it could do well.
http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2009/07/14/evolution-of-evony-video-game-ads/
this is what it comes down to for 90% of the market.
There are still some good games but rare they are
Pi*1337/100 = 42
DX:HR easter egg summarizes this entire thread.
I expect each game to be better than the last.
I expect each dev to learn from the mistakes of previous dev's.
I expect that every dev has played the game that they created and support.
I expect the dev's to listen to the players.
And I expect truth in advertising.
...
I guess I'm too old and have unrealistic expectations of games and gaming companies?
Shrug. Microsoft and Apple are trying to control platforms they operate with their products in, Google tries it, Facebook tries it, music companies try it, big oil companies try it, it's what they do all the time.
Sure, it's good to promote a larger variety in games, but the first thing someone should do is look at what's available in games, and this ranges across the platforms, from web browser based multiplayer games to Facebook games to console games to PC games.
There's a lot more games around in a larger variety than just CoD, from Modern Warfare 3 to Battlefield 3 to Ruse to Heavy Rain to LA Noire to GTA IV to Skyrim to Mass Effect 2 to Bioshock to Portal 2 to Flower to Journey to Amnesia to Little Big Planet to those crazy, wildly varied (and sadly, sometimes untranslated) Japanese games, to Zelda, to the Witcher 2 to a whole horde of other games.
These are just the few that came up in my mind right away, but in this small list alone I already see a wide variety of quality gameplay and mechanics and quite some diversity. In my opinion, that is.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Yeah the new MMO's SUCK. I am 24 now and ive hated mmos for a couple years now. I thought maybe it was because i was getting older intill i just recently went back to Ultima Online. And i am in love again. The open,player drivin world. Real community. And the devs actually are involved in the actual world always making unique events. There are so many things to do you couldnt possibly see it all. It is deffently the little theme park, meaningless MMOs nowadays. UO is a real mmorpg. these new games you people call mmorpgs are just MOs. nothing more.
Same for me, its just matter of taste and not much to do with age at all. But for me i see differents between early years of mmo's and these days with community, its alot more different then 10years ago.
Way more helpfull and friendly and always random partys np for 99% of time back then.
Seems like you have more against you then with you my friend. Maybe you should wake up and smell the coffee. If more people agree against you, then with you. Does that make you right? This is a matter of opinion, if 98 people say it sucks, or has degraded, and 2 people say NO. That makes 98 people wrong and 2 people right? Maybe in the little world you live in(called johnnys world)
In your little world it does im guessing. I say your little word because of this " you have the 40+ cell phone and Facebook market. There's room for both audiences in this hobby." So you took someone's words, that didn't even mean anything along these lines, and twisted them to fit your own little world that you live in.
Facebook games blow, they are pay2win, that isn't even real gaming. Don't even mention that crap on this topic. Cause those games are just crack dealing companys taken advantage of peoples addiction.
Your a causal gamer by what i can tell, Sorry but causal gamers get no play in my "world". They ruined the gaming industry.
But again i stress this topic to you johnny, its a matter of opinion. 98 people say it has degraded 2 say it hasn't.
Just like i stated my opinions above, if 2 people agree with me and 98 people don't. I guess i just don't agree with the mass, BUT THAT DOESN'T MAKE ME RIGHT!.
I think it's true that when we're kids we find games to be really exciting and fun, we really don't have any standards when we start playing for our first times.
As we grow older our standards get bigger. We want more in the games, we don't want the same thing that we've had for the past few years, we want something different.
However some people still like the same old thing, like me. I still love click and wait mmorpgs. Many people are sick of click n wait gameplay though.
That's why there are many games coming out as hack n slash mmos, letting you aim your attacks and spells to hit monsters. Unfortunately most of these games that are out atm are dungeon games only like Vindictus. Tera and Blade & Soul should make some revolution in gaming industry for those that are sick of click n wait mmorpgs.
Yeah but the reason that the corps can buy up all indie companies is how much making games have increased in money.
Most of the old companies in the 80s and 90s were working on several games at the same time, some many. Now few companies besides Activision and EA works on more than 2 games at the same time. Look on an old rather small dev in the old days, like Microprose. They didn't have so many people working for them but still had 5 or more games in devolopment at any given time.
Now games cost from $10M to $115M (GTA4), compared to a few thousand dollars in the 80s. That kills any small company. And the few that survives can only afford to work on a single game at any given time, if that game fails the company fails...
I think this is the reason why cell phone games are a huge industry today while PC games are shrinking.
The thing with movies is that technology actually made it cheaper to produce a pretty good movie, and it is a lot easier for a band today to produce their own album but computer games have instead gone to a levelthat more or less kills off all indie companies fast.
The only hope now is that Minecraft starts of something new where people stop being so *word censored* about graphics and instead start buying after what is fun.
That is of course part of the problem, and also the fact that we are nostalgic about old games and forget the bad stuff (I know a certain SWG vet who cursed his game constantly at the time but now say it was perfect).
But look on the numbers of releasing PC games now and 15 years ago, there is a lot fewer to choose from and a lot fewer devs. That must have an impact on how many good games that get's released.