Its not that they target young people, because I highly doubt thats it. Plus kids don't really have money to spend. Its more that they target "casual" or "non-gamer" people who don't spend alot of time playing games and will spend money for things like aesthetic items and things like that.
These people would normally not play a game that requires something like a monthly fee, but would have no problem playing a free game... and then of course after playing it they will start seeing things they want and spend money on it and end up spending more money than a monthly fee game, but it will feel like its less since they are in direct control of the money spending.
I'm not positive on this but I believe its been shown that cash shop free to play games make more money than monthly fee games. For most companies, thats usually a good enough reason to use the system.
Originally posted by Badnesso I feel like Movies, products, services etc.. Have begun taking a downward spiral sense around 2005. And not to long after mmo's joined in. All developers care about these days is money just like the rest of the world. I can't find a single mmo where I can't buy gear or advance by spending money. If that's not bad enough there's constantly an arrow pointing to where I need to go zone by zone it's like one huge race to max out your character, only to buy the next expansion and start all over. Mmo's used to target adult and teens I'm guessing they made mmo's to toned down and easy these days is for children 6-13 and the $$$ subscriptions just weren't enough cash flow for their greed. Cause we all know children spend money With no concept of its value.
Well, you don't like today's entertainment != others don't.
Avatar, Avengers, The Dark Knight, Toy Story 3 .... are all great and entertaining movies after 2005. In fact, for me and many others, movies are getting better and better.
Products .. you are kidding me .. iphone, ipads, tablets .. the world is literally changing because of all these new and great products.
Games are art, when corperations decide what art is, you are doomed.
Games are NOT art. Games are entertainment products.
[mod edit[
~It used to be art, back when fewer hands were on a title, and before mass-commercialization. People took their work seriously, and had an sincere intent behind what they did. Now everything is hollywood, so it's about as "art" as a Micheal Bay film could ever be. Which is still *some*, even though the intent is to sell the product to braindead and emotionally void morons en masse.
Well, I will be playing Lone Survivor sooner or later, and will get back to a time when artists took their art seriously.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4 Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
Games are art, when corperations decide what art is, you are doomed.
Games are NOT art. Games are entertainment products.
Failest thing you've ever said... and I mean *ever*.
That's hard to fathom, given how often you spout utter crap.
~It used to be art, back when fewer hands were on a title, and before mass-commercialization. People took their work seriously, and had an sincere intent behind what they did. Now everything is hollywood, so it's about as "art" as a Micheal Bay film could ever be. Which is still *some*, even though the intent is to sell the product to braindead and emotionally void morons en masse.
Well, I will be playing Lone Survivor sooner or later, and will get back to a time when artists took their art seriously.
LOL .. people don't take their work seriously now?
Ultima 6 is about entertaining the players. Space Invaders is about entertaining the players. Pong is about entertaining the players. Piccasso is art. Pollock is art. Ultima 6 is not.
LOL .. people don't take their work seriously now?
Ultima 6 is about entertaining the players. Space Invaders is about entertaining the players. Pong is about entertaining the players. Piccasso is art. Pollock is art. Ultima 6 is not.
[mod edit]
Well, you can throw in Dear Esther too. So what if there are a few "indie" type games.
99% of the games, FROM THE BEGINNING, are entertaining products. Heck, even Silent Hill is about scaring people. I don't see what is so "artsy" about it. Is "Ring" (the japanese horror movie) art? I think not.
And final fantasy is art .. LOL .. it is as much art as "Code Geass" or "Macross".
Decisions are driven by appeal to mass audience without deep mechanics, path of least resistance features, and design elements that are built for comfort of the devs. The result is games that more and more resemble console games, where your stay is supposed to be short and bereft of large amounts of saved data.
Community means nothing to the server monkeys, they only count logins.
Developers sit around and talk about all of the cool things they wish they could build and play. Trust me on this. But the commercial success of some of the games in the industry attracted the locusts: the people who only want to strip money off any product, regardless of what that product is.
When they see something like WoW hit mainstream, they zoom in with their corporate model and "apply marketing process x, widget-building process y, and the rest of their accountant -friendly, revenue stream mentality to the process. And they tell the developers what they will make, and when they will make it too.
The truth of the matter is the last 5-6 years no investors want to hear about new and inovative,all they care about is mainstream and profitable.Dont get me wrong theyre are indie games that break the mold,some anyway.I wouldnt say its right but thats america in a nutshelll now.
It's not the developers who are the problem, it's the publishers. EA, Activision, SoE, etc. Content seen as a risk is replaced with content that's more accessible. They'd rather please everyone rather than risk pleasing only a certain gamer demographic and upsetting another in return.
Instead of playing what the game developers want to play (which was the case with EQ1) we're forced to play a watered down version of what is more likely to please a larger crowd. They go with what has worked for WoW thinking they'll earn a larger profit, which may be true in the short term, but long term (especially in the case of Swtor for example) these companies will suffer as a result.
I disagree. I think players are ruining the experience.
If players did not want what is offered to them, then devs would be scrambling to find what players DO want. It seems devs have found what most players want. They must have because players flock to the new games and spend loads of cash for them.
Many players complain and moan about today's games. Many players support these new games with their money. Why would devs create something different? The current formula is working great for them.
Are the games really what people want or are they cashing in on initial hype and the world's preoccupation to be first at everything and then falling off completely as those same people treat it like any other fad?
Devs aren't asking because they are too busy designing games to cash in on the supposed success of any game that turned a profit.
I think better questions are:
How is the gaming industry so far down right now with games continually hitting sales record after sales record?
How do people keep spending tons of money on initial purchase, item mall items, DLC after DLC, etc in this economy?
How are game companies spending so much money on copies of other products and expecting lightning to hit every single time?
I disagree. I think players are ruining the experience.
If players did not want what is offered to them, then devs would be scrambling to find what players DO want. It seems devs have found what most players want. They must have because players flock to the new games and spend loads of cash for them.
Many players complain and moan about today's games. Many players support these new games with their money. Why would devs create something different? The current formula is working great for them.
Are the games really what people want or are they cashing in on initial hype and the world's preoccupation to be first at everything and then falling off completely as those same people treat it like any other fad?
Devs aren't asking because they are too busy designing games to cash in on the supposed success of any game that turned a profit.
I think better questions are:
How is the gaming industry so far down right now with games continually hitting sales record after sales record?
How do people keep spending tons of money on initial purchase, item mall items, DLC after DLC, etc in this economy?
How are game companies spending so much money on copies of other products and expecting lightning to hit every single time?
I don't know about other people.
But why would i pay for a game i do not really want? No one holds a gun to anyone's head to buy a VIDEO GAME.
"Cash in" is another phrase for "figuring out what previous games people like, and hope that they like a similar one". Nothing wrong with that. If Ruth Chris steak house is successful, what is wrong with someone starting another steak house?
I disagree. I think players are ruining the experience.
If players did not want what is offered to them, then devs would be scrambling to find what players DO want. It seems devs have found what most players want. They must have because players flock to the new games and spend loads of cash for them.
Many players complain and moan about today's games. Many players support these new games with their money. Why would devs create something different? The current formula is working great for them.
Are the games really what people want or are they cashing in on initial hype and the world's preoccupation to be first at everything and then falling off completely as those same people treat it like any other fad?
Devs aren't asking because they are too busy designing games to cash in on the supposed success of any game that turned a profit.
I think better questions are:
How is the gaming industry so far down right now with games continually hitting sales record after sales record?
How do people keep spending tons of money on initial purchase, item mall items, DLC after DLC, etc in this economy?
How are game companies spending so much money on copies of other products and expecting lightning to hit every single time?
I don't know about other people.
But why would i pay for a game i do not really want? No one holds a gun to anyone's head to buy a VIDEO GAME.
"Cash in" is another phrase for "figuring out what previous games people like, and hope that they like a similar one". Nothing wrong with that. If Ruth Chris steak house is successful, what is wrong with someone starting another steak house?
I don't know why they do it, I just know they do it. My lack of such desire just let's me skip them or play the wait and see instead of buying blind. Why do people still post "First!" on message boards? Why do people feel the need to be first to review everything on youtube without really testing it? Why do people post everything about their entire lives on facebook and regret it later knowing what becomes of it?
To your example, there is nothing wrong with competition. But, if two steak houses are EXACTLY the same other than price, which will you go to? If you always went to the first one, had no issues with it, and the second one only offered more of the same, why would you go to the second one? The movie industry is horrible about cashing in on 1000 cheaper variations of every movie that pulls a profit.
From what I am seeing many Developers are too scared or hesitant to create anything truely unique and original and you can't really blame them being the entire genre is now about subscription numbers, box sales, as well as cash shop sales. Not many are willing to take the risk like games past of creating something unique and allowing it to grow slowly over time, if a game does not release and launch perfectly with every option and feature from every game included and with a sub base of 10million+ its considered a failure by the MMO gaming community, which is sad cause there is a lot of really good MMO's out there that were never really able to develop properly due to the impatience and unrealistic standards of the current MMO player base.
From what I am seeing many Developers are too scared or hesitant to create anything truely unique and original and you can't really blame them being the entire genre is now about subscription numbers, box sales, as well as cash shop sales. Not many are willing to take the risk like games past of creating something unique and allowing it to grow slowly over time, if a game does not release and launch perfectly with every option and feature from every game included and with a sub base of 10million+ its considered a failure by the MMO gaming community, which is sad cause there is a lot of really good MMO's out there that were never really able to develop properly due to the impatience and unrealistic standards of the current MMO player base.
Yet, the majority of them also launch late/after multiple delays and incomplete/with missing features that they promise to fix at a later time if you'll just keep paying and be patient.
I think topics like these is the result of changing times. I sometimes curse at how much crap is on tv these days, but is today's tv shows really bad or are they going after an audience that I am not part of, anymore?
a lot of people like to look at the past with tinted glasses and curse how much things suck today w/o figuring out that they are no longer the intended audience.
so to answer the op question is neither. Developer are still doing the exact same things they having the past. The developer pitches an idea, the publisher ask, but can it make us money? And so forth, nothing has changed except that the publisher/developers are no longer interest in the minority which just happens to include most of the people that come to this site. And that's why things seem different, because you don't count as much as you did in the past.
it is an inevitable part of media consumption. Remember all those stories your annoying grandpa used to tell about how awesome things were in the past? You guys especially on this forum seem to love invoking that same silly spirit. Change sucks you either adapt or find yourself a new hobby.
I agree w/ the folks who say it's not the dev's fault. Follow the money and look at the last 5 years of popular MMOs.
Step 1: Purchase an IP that is either wildly popular or well-known.
Step 2: Hype the Hell out of it
Step 3: Make as much money on the front end as possible. Mask the money grab as a "free beta weekend", but put most of your horses on the first month, then let your lead designer go and start downsizing in preparation for the population fall-off.
Step 4: Next MMO.
I mean I might be wrong and certainly there are some exceptions to the rule out there, but this seems to be a disturbing trend. It would seem that the only way to win the game is Not. To. Play.
If I, and many other gamers, can literally go back to our Playstation 1, or Segas, or whatever older game consoles we grew up with, play those games and have a more enjoyable time playing them than the current games being released, then that is in no way nostalgia slamming into and altering our perceived fun factor.
This isn't about 'the good old days' that are now -completely- void due to technology. This isn't about 'walking to school two miles, up a hill, bare-foot, with my younger brother on my back', which was decimated due to a simple bus. We still -have- these older games. I, for one, actually still actively -play- said games. It is not rose-colored glasses. It's the simple fact that games in the earlier generations were far, far more innovative and far more well-designed than the currently released steaming piles of shit we have.
[mod edit]
Pro-tip; There is not a chance in hell that Blizzard would be even a fraction of the company they currently are if they had released their past few titles with the playerbase that they had during the time of Diablo 1/Warcraft II/ Starcraft. [mod edit]
Pro-tip; There is not a chance in hell that Blizzard would be even a fraction of the company they currently are if they had released their past few titles with the playerbase that they had during the time of Diablo 1/Warcraft II/ Starcraft. [mod edit]
That's because people used to make games THEY wanted to play.
Now they make ones that "market research leans towards"... [mod edit]
Nope, you are correct. It's a 'hit and run' tactic, because they know they will make money regardless howl ittle they put back into a title post-launch.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4 Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
Ultima Online, a virtual world where you could live your life, buy/build a house, start your own commerce and sell your goods, or be a warrior that fight dragons, be a musician that controls the mind of your enemies, play chess in your house at night near the fireplace with candles with your friends. A role playing game like everyone saw it in 90's...
Themepark, a virtual world where you are a monster slayer, choose your monster slayer class and monster slay in style! You do not follow your own path but the path the Quests tell you to follow, there is a level system blocking you to play with your lower level friends, beceause you get no benefits of doing so (TSW fixed it by making all quests repeatable...). The level system has a "End" the obvious end is patched with GEAR HUNT, more monster hunting.
The gaming industry has come a long way and games like Braid, Fallout, Skyrim, Bastion, Amnesia, Left 4 Dead, etc etc are considered great games (not the greatest examples but whatever, they're good games).
Then explain why we like all those games, but all agree that MMOs are stagnating in a puddle of lame?
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4 Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
The players have ruined this genre. The majority of players in this genre do not want MMORPG's, they want online rpg's. Real MMORPG'ers are a niche group, they were a niche group back in the late 90's, and they are still a niche group today. Only difference is MMO's are not being made today. That is the saddest part. Pre-wow mmo's were very succesfull back in the day, and they could still be very profitable today.
I just want some true MMORPG's to be made, you guys can have all your online rpg's. But those are not for me.
Waiting for:EQ-Next, ArcheAge (not so much anymore) Now Playing: N/A Worst MMO: FFXIV Favorite MMO: FFXI
The gaming industry has come a long way and games like Braid, Fallout, Skyrim, Bastion, Amnesia, Left 4 Dead, etc etc are considered great games (not the greatest examples but whatever, they're good games).
Then explain why we like all those games, but all agree that MMOs are stagnating in a puddle of lame?
Comments
This is like saying 'Movie makers are ruining the movie industry'.
Ehh... logic???
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
I found a great picture as a reply...
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Its not that they target young people, because I highly doubt thats it. Plus kids don't really have money to spend. Its more that they target "casual" or "non-gamer" people who don't spend alot of time playing games and will spend money for things like aesthetic items and things like that.
These people would normally not play a game that requires something like a monthly fee, but would have no problem playing a free game... and then of course after playing it they will start seeing things they want and spend money on it and end up spending more money than a monthly fee game, but it will feel like its less since they are in direct control of the money spending.
I'm not positive on this but I believe its been shown that cash shop free to play games make more money than monthly fee games. For most companies, thats usually a good enough reason to use the system.
Games are NOT art. Games are entertainment products.
Well, you don't like today's entertainment != others don't.
Avatar, Avengers, The Dark Knight, Toy Story 3 .... are all great and entertaining movies after 2005. In fact, for me and many others, movies are getting better and better.
Products .. you are kidding me .. iphone, ipads, tablets .. the world is literally changing because of all these new and great products.
[mod edit[
~It used to be art, back when fewer hands were on a title, and before mass-commercialization. People took their work seriously, and had an sincere intent behind what they did. Now everything is hollywood, so it's about as "art" as a Micheal Bay film could ever be. Which is still *some*, even though the intent is to sell the product to braindead and emotionally void morons en masse.
Well, I will be playing Lone Survivor sooner or later, and will get back to a time when artists took their art seriously.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
LOL .. people don't take their work seriously now?
Ultima 6 is about entertaining the players. Space Invaders is about entertaining the players. Pong is about entertaining the players. Piccasso is art. Pollock is art. Ultima 6 is not.
Well, you can throw in Dear Esther too. So what if there are a few "indie" type games.
99% of the games, FROM THE BEGINNING, are entertaining products. Heck, even Silent Hill is about scaring people. I don't see what is so "artsy" about it. Is "Ring" (the japanese horror movie) art? I think not.
And final fantasy is art .. LOL .. it is as much art as "Code Geass" or "Macross".
IMO yes.
Decisions are driven by appeal to mass audience without deep mechanics, path of least resistance features, and design elements that are built for comfort of the devs. The result is games that more and more resemble console games, where your stay is supposed to be short and bereft of large amounts of saved data.
Community means nothing to the server monkeys, they only count logins.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
It's not the developers , it 's the "suits."
Developers sit around and talk about all of the cool things they wish they could build and play. Trust me on this. But the commercial success of some of the games in the industry attracted the locusts: the people who only want to strip money off any product, regardless of what that product is.
When they see something like WoW hit mainstream, they zoom in with their corporate model and "apply marketing process x, widget-building process y, and the rest of their accountant -friendly, revenue stream mentality to the process. And they tell the developers what they will make, and when they will make it too.
That's it.
The truth of the matter is the last 5-6 years no investors want to hear about new and inovative,all they care about is mainstream and profitable.Dont get me wrong theyre are indie games that break the mold,some anyway.I wouldnt say its right but thats america in a nutshelll now.
It's not the developers who are the problem, it's the publishers. EA, Activision, SoE, etc. Content seen as a risk is replaced with content that's more accessible. They'd rather please everyone rather than risk pleasing only a certain gamer demographic and upsetting another in return.
Instead of playing what the game developers want to play (which was the case with EQ1) we're forced to play a watered down version of what is more likely to please a larger crowd. They go with what has worked for WoW thinking they'll earn a larger profit, which may be true in the short term, but long term (especially in the case of Swtor for example) these companies will suffer as a result.
Are the games really what people want or are they cashing in on initial hype and the world's preoccupation to be first at everything and then falling off completely as those same people treat it like any other fad?
Devs aren't asking because they are too busy designing games to cash in on the supposed success of any game that turned a profit.
I think better questions are:
How is the gaming industry so far down right now with games continually hitting sales record after sales record?
How do people keep spending tons of money on initial purchase, item mall items, DLC after DLC, etc in this economy?
How are game companies spending so much money on copies of other products and expecting lightning to hit every single time?
I don't know about other people.
But why would i pay for a game i do not really want? No one holds a gun to anyone's head to buy a VIDEO GAME.
"Cash in" is another phrase for "figuring out what previous games people like, and hope that they like a similar one". Nothing wrong with that. If Ruth Chris steak house is successful, what is wrong with someone starting another steak house?
I don't know why they do it, I just know they do it. My lack of such desire just let's me skip them or play the wait and see instead of buying blind. Why do people still post "First!" on message boards? Why do people feel the need to be first to review everything on youtube without really testing it? Why do people post everything about their entire lives on facebook and regret it later knowing what becomes of it?
To your example, there is nothing wrong with competition. But, if two steak houses are EXACTLY the same other than price, which will you go to? If you always went to the first one, had no issues with it, and the second one only offered more of the same, why would you go to the second one? The movie industry is horrible about cashing in on 1000 cheaper variations of every movie that pulls a profit.
From what I am seeing many Developers are too scared or hesitant to create anything truely unique and original and you can't really blame them being the entire genre is now about subscription numbers, box sales, as well as cash shop sales. Not many are willing to take the risk like games past of creating something unique and allowing it to grow slowly over time, if a game does not release and launch perfectly with every option and feature from every game included and with a sub base of 10million+ its considered a failure by the MMO gaming community, which is sad cause there is a lot of really good MMO's out there that were never really able to develop properly due to the impatience and unrealistic standards of the current MMO player base.
Yet, the majority of them also launch late/after multiple delays and incomplete/with missing features that they promise to fix at a later time if you'll just keep paying and be patient.
I think topics like these is the result of changing times. I sometimes curse at how much crap is on tv these days, but is today's tv shows really bad or are they going after an audience that I am not part of, anymore?
a lot of people like to look at the past with tinted glasses and curse how much things suck today w/o figuring out that they are no longer the intended audience.
so to answer the op question is neither. Developer are still doing the exact same things they having the past. The developer pitches an idea, the publisher ask, but can it make us money? And so forth, nothing has changed except that the publisher/developers are no longer interest in the minority which just happens to include most of the people that come to this site. And that's why things seem different, because you don't count as much as you did in the past.
it is an inevitable part of media consumption. Remember all those stories your annoying grandpa used to tell about how awesome things were in the past? You guys especially on this forum seem to love invoking that same silly spirit. Change sucks you either adapt or find yourself a new hobby.
I agree w/ the folks who say it's not the dev's fault. Follow the money and look at the last 5 years of popular MMOs.
Step 1: Purchase an IP that is either wildly popular or well-known.
Step 2: Hype the Hell out of it
Step 3: Make as much money on the front end as possible. Mask the money grab as a "free beta weekend", but put most of your horses on the first month, then let your lead designer go and start downsizing in preparation for the population fall-off.
Step 4: Next MMO.
I mean I might be wrong and certainly there are some exceptions to the rule out there, but this seems to be a disturbing trend. It would seem that the only way to win the game is Not. To. Play.
[mod edit]
If I, and many other gamers, can literally go back to our Playstation 1, or Segas, or whatever older game consoles we grew up with, play those games and have a more enjoyable time playing them than the current games being released, then that is in no way nostalgia slamming into and altering our perceived fun factor.
This isn't about 'the good old days' that are now -completely- void due to technology. This isn't about 'walking to school two miles, up a hill, bare-foot, with my younger brother on my back', which was decimated due to a simple bus. We still -have- these older games. I, for one, actually still actively -play- said games. It is not rose-colored glasses. It's the simple fact that games in the earlier generations were far, far more innovative and far more well-designed than the currently released steaming piles of shit we have.
[mod edit]
Pro-tip; There is not a chance in hell that Blizzard would be even a fraction of the company they currently are if they had released their past few titles with the playerbase that they had during the time of Diablo 1/Warcraft II/ Starcraft. [mod edit]
That's because people used to make games THEY wanted to play.
Now they make ones that "market research leans towards"... [mod edit]
@Pagoday
Nope, you are correct. It's a 'hit and run' tactic, because they know they will make money regardless howl ittle they put back into a title post-launch.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
Ultima Online, a virtual world where you could live your life, buy/build a house, start your own commerce and sell your goods, or be a warrior that fight dragons, be a musician that controls the mind of your enemies, play chess in your house at night near the fireplace with candles with your friends. A role playing game like everyone saw it in 90's...
Themepark, a virtual world where you are a monster slayer, choose your monster slayer class and monster slay in style! You do not follow your own path but the path the Quests tell you to follow, there is a level system blocking you to play with your lower level friends, beceause you get no benefits of doing so (TSW fixed it by making all quests repeatable...). The level system has a "End" the obvious end is patched with GEAR HUNT, more monster hunting.
UO : Life
WOW : Monster Hunt
Not the same type of game, serously.
Then explain why we like all those games, but all agree that MMOs are stagnating in a puddle of lame?
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
The players have ruined this genre. The majority of players in this genre do not want MMORPG's, they want online rpg's. Real MMORPG'ers are a niche group, they were a niche group back in the late 90's, and they are still a niche group today. Only difference is MMO's are not being made today. That is the saddest part. Pre-wow mmo's were very succesfull back in the day, and they could still be very profitable today.
I just want some true MMORPG's to be made, you guys can have all your online rpg's. But those are not for me.
Waiting for:EQ-Next, ArcheAge (not so much anymore)
Now Playing: N/A
Worst MMO: FFXIV
Favorite MMO: FFXI
Easy: we don't all agree.