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The demise of the gaming industry
havocthefirs
Member Posts: 229
Ever since UO was killed by EA games waaay back at publish 16, all the vets including myself left. Since then I've played EVE, SHADOWBANE, SWG, EQII and WOW just to name a few. Between them I have to say SWG was the best, of course that was before it got ruined so I've heard, the worst was WOW hands down, to a UO vet player it was linear beyond belief with absolutely nothing to do.
Since then I've managed to cobble together and old system that plays old games that I buy online, because lets face it, all the stand alone games suck as well. I've been playing Ghengis Khan II a KOEI game and Perfect General an SSI game, The Grandest Fleet a QQP game, all about 10 years old, sad as that sounds.
Anyone remember the good old days when you walked into a computer store and there was so much to chose from you just could'nt afford to buy all the great games you wanted. Well 10 years later I've got the money but theres not a damn thing I want. When Heroes of Might and Magic came out I'd call in sick just to play it. I picked up Heroes V a while back and thought what the hell is this, a joke? None of those old games had great grafix in any sense of the word but the gameplay was fantastic.
I've recently started playing UO again on a free server with the old ruleset. It's good but not quite the same, skill gain is too fast and the gaming co. that provides the service sells houses and such, but since its basically for vets of the game its not too bad. So yes I am still playing games that are 10 years old.
I'm not really sure when the demise of games began but I know its here, hopefully not for good. It used to be a few guys in a basement could churn out great games. Now giant corporations bang out repetitive garbage. Apparently thought, imagination and a drive to put out a quality game thats actually fun has been replaced with great grafix, scantily clad girls and kick ass sound.
Comments
I love these chicken little doomsdayers...endless entertainment.
I hold the opposite of your opinion: the genre is not only exploding in growth, depth, and variance...but it is going to dominate all entertainment within 25 years.
Let me give you an example -
ELITE widely considered as one of the best games of all times was written for Acron BBC - the game was only handfull of kilobytes big.
Today people are playing it successors like EVE online or Freelancer, X2 ... etc
and are complaining "This isnt as good as ELITE"
But it is not true , this games are at least judging by their size few hundered thousand times bigger and more complex.
So what is the problem.
Problem is that ELITE was a mindblowing game in its time. EVE is just a copy cat of an old old game.
While ELITE brought everything new , EVE is just trying to copy.
And that is allright , but one would expect that if 48k game was awsome - 1gig (+monthly fee) game would be
1000 times better.
Unfortunately it is not....
It is much harder to make games now , it takes much more time - and ideas seem to be all gone away.
Maybe gaming industry needs reset.
Or maybe they just need to say - Lets do something groundbreaking like ELITE did back in 1981
"Before this battle is over all the world will know that few...stood against many." - King Leonidas
I currently have the same problem with console RPG's. I also miss the good old days, yet moden RPG's, like Final Fantasy X, have much more features, more depth, better graphics, but I don't know what it is, I just prefer the older rpg's.
Another example, I'm a veteran of Ragnarok Online. it was my first mmorpg, so its my favourite. I played it for 2~3 years and loved every minute of it. now Gravity is making Ragnarok Online 2, better graphics, supposed to have more depth. But I'd rather have Gravity ditch Ragnarok online 2 and just continue with Ragnarok online, because I know I won't play RO2 as long as I did play RO1.
I can walk in a store right now, and buy Grandia 3 (or 4, whatever part is new) Xenosaga 3 and Final Fantasy XII, but here I am, looking around on ebay, searching for a copy of Suikoden 2 on the playstation 1, and praying I still have 150$ somewhere to pay it.
its weird. its not that todays games (MMO's included) are bad games, i just prefer the old ones for unknown reason.
But what I do notice is that alot of games are becoming more simple, and there is more focus on graphics.
This isn't the case with every game ofcourse.
A good example of this is Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, all dialogue in this game has voice acting, but that means there is ALOT less dialogue then Elder Srolls 3: Morrowind, the game is more immersive, but lacks the depth and content Morrowind has.
That is all just my opinion though.
I don't care all that much about graphics, I still play games like Baldurs gate occasionally, and enjoy them just as much or even moreso then any other games recently released.
REPENT NOW!
the end is near
rofl
after 6 or so years, I had to change it a little...
Yep, everything was better 10 years ago. It's like those people that were pissed about the new Star Wars movies because they weren't as good as the original.
NEWS FLASH: most of you were about 10 years old, ten years ago. EVERYTHING was cool when you were ten. In fact, that feeling of "new hottness" sticks around until you hit 25. After that, you have to look for something to be excited about since you've been there, done that and got the T-shirt.
For me, the end happened sometime between the release of the PS2 and the XBox. Up until then, I was stoked about just about every release in the genres that interested me. Now..... I just can't bring myself to care. FFXII, Metal Gear Solid 4, YAMITG (Yet Another Men In Tights Game).... I've seen it all and done it all. About the only thing that really has me excited is the Nintendo Wii because it's so different from anything that we've seen in the home marked before.
For the past couple of years I've been retro gamming. Mostly old console and arcade games. I recently picked up DOSbox and rekindled my love for old PC strategy and wargames like Master of Magic and Steel Panthers. BTW there's a windows version of the original Steel Panther available for free download at Matrix games. If you're a hardcore, old school wargamer, you OWE it to yourself to play this game.
I think a lot of this feeling is that I've just grown up and grown out of games for the most part. I can still enjoy and appreciate the games that I played in the past, but they just don't light up my life anymore.
P.S. If you're into the whole Elder Scrolls thing, download DOSbox and the original ES: Arena. You might also want to check out the Ultima Underworld games, they're awesome!
QFT
The problem is this...
Back in the day games were made by gamers. They were open and took a bit of brains to play. They maintained some good subscriber numbers and a few corporations thought they could make a buck there too. Corporations know that in order to make money you have to make things for stupid people. The majority of people in this world have an eigth grade reading level and can barely divide a fraction. Knowing this they make games like WoW and Guildwars which pretty much play themselves as long as a macro or a monkey is smart enough to press a button at the right time.
There's only a few games today that require thought to avoid serious pain. The future holds more of the same in large part. WoW has set the bar and soon games like LOTR and Vanguard will follow its lead. Luckily for old gamers there are companies like CCP. I don't know if they'll ever make the game that satisfies large numbers of players but they are out there igoring the cookie cutter mold of today and doing their own thing regardless of meager profits. It's only a matter of time until some mom and pop company put out the game you're waiting for. Trust me. If theres a customer theres a company waiting to sell you something. Rememer you're not alone in your disdane. Someone who feels just like you is probably in design school as we type.
Make a difference!
I was 26 ten years ago. When i was 10 the Atari 2600 was the big thing. We played asteroids for hours and hours. Even Asteroids held more of a challenge than WoW.
Make a difference!
Todays games are made for the lowest common denominator.
WoW is just one example.
Again, I agree with you except for that statement. Guild Wars is one of the few games out there right now that takes a lot of stratagy when it comes to your build and how to play it.
Again, I agree with you except for that statement. Guild Wars is one of the few games out there right now that takes a lot of stratagy when it comes to your build and how to play it.
Definately agreed. Guildwars is a great game.
So it's dominating. You know what? TV dominated for a while... when it started out, it was cool, had good shows, and was worth the time. Now, producers spend their time hunting celebrities and revealing their daily lives, for which nobody would give two sh!ts out a rat's arse. Pardon my language.
This is what is happening to the game industry. Development companies are chasing fads or successful games of the past, reviewing them, and regurgitating them into disgraced clones of their former selves. In my opinion; Morrowind, Halo, and Half-Life 2 marked the end of the golden age of video games. Have you ever watched a commercial about "tightening up the graphics" or "make your own video games"? That's what the future of games is: prefabricated steaming heaps of crap made by wannabe gamers.
With games like Saint's Row and 50 cent shamelessly ripping off the Grand Theft Auto or 'gangsta shooter' games you can clearly see that nobody's thinking outside of the box... but why do that when you can make millions by using everything already in the box like World of Warcrap?
Games are getting worse. Normal and parallax mapping with HD lighting or extreme surround sound are supposed to replace gameplay. You may find joy in your own ignorance and buy these cheap knock-offs, but personally I'm disgusted with the lack of effort in today's games. Look at The Elder Scrolls series by Bethesda Softworks: Arena (good game), Daggerfall (bigger, better game), Morrowind (awesome game), Oblivion (flashy graphics that were even toned down to work better on the 360. The interface is chunky and made for a console and the story is plain boring. There is no feeling of open-ended gameplay in this pile of junk).
Morrowind, Halo 2, Fable, EVE, SWG (pre-CU), and Half-Life 2 (to name a few) marked the end of the golden age of video games.
Your wants mean nothing to any major game company, only your money does. If you keep buying their half-ass cut-n-paste 'work', they'll keep making it and the game industry will fall into the sewers with television media.
By the way, I was 23 ten years ago.
No mmorpg is "hard to play" or "difficult". its all easy, very easy. WoW isn't more easy then other mmorpg's. its just over a lot sooner. and no, losing your equipment does not make the game harder. it makes the game take longer.
So you say. I said it will dominate in 25 years. Please refer.
Television's first broadcast was in 1926. America's adoption of television became mainstream in the 1950s. You are, by your own admission, 33 years old. You haven't even been alive as long as television has been a dominant entertainment force. Thus, when you said "when it started out, it was cool" you are clearly speaking out of your ass.That is your opinion. You're entitled to it. I completely disagree. I find the industry is getting bigger and better, with more titles capturing my imagination than ever before. As in the past, there are many shoddy pieces of work...but there are more pieces of work now than ever before, and more quality pieces of work than ever before.
Go ahead and preach your doom. I don't mind, it amuses me. Meanwhile, I'll be enjoying any number of titles that I find to be fascinating and entertaining.
For example, remember Myst? came out mid 90s, two brothers... moody, puzzle piece, enthralling. New niche and it filled it. Remember Thief? All the FPS kill em all and this game makes you weak as a mouse... you sneak around scared to death, zombies rise up and start grabbing at you... freaky. new. very cool. UO first mmo. EQ followed up, wow just another repeat. And I remember early on when groups would get together at the mall, rent a room, hook up our computers to play UT...all day. Now FPS niche is filled up with quake, ut, css, bf2, etc. IF anyone goes into any of these niches and tries to create a game... even if they do a great job it's gonna feel 'ho-hum'...
The market is mature now. And you OP, sound like a mature gamer. If you think about it, you probably enjoyed the NEWNESS of game X as much as the game itself. NEWNESS in a genre can never be repeated. And as computers/consoles have been around longer, it's inevitable that it will become harder and harder to feel that sense of newness... because there is less and less that can be done with games.
NOTE: I'm guessing you think a little like me... if wrong, sorry. This is at least how I feel about computer games...
Adventure games, even graphical adventure games, were not a new niche. They had been around for a couple decades already. The games "Adventure" and "Zork" are ultra classics, as were many other adventure games that came out before Myst. What made Myst so spectacular, and so popular, was the CD drive. With the popularization of this technology, and mass adoption, it became possible to provide a game with hundreds of megabytes of data. Hence, this graphically rich game with what was then a very large footprint.
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People put all kinds of focus about games on the popular titles. But the innovation always comes from the fringes. Small titles that capture the imagination, and in many cases go unnoticed until they are replicated by a larger developer. Thief is a great example of that...it was a commercial dud, but a spectaluar game that spawned an entire genre. Along comes the Rainbow Six series which hit huge commercial strides. Rainbow Six wasn't much of an innovation on Thief (or System Shock for that matter, which was even better) but it hit the right notes for a lot of people.
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MMOGs don't release as many titles as other games, because the size of the game is prohibative to a fast turnaround. But people focus all kinds of attention on WoW, or SWG, or EQ2...forgetting about the niche games like A Tale in the Desert, EVE (yes, it's a niche game)/Jumpgate/Earth and Beyond, Seed, and other titles that simply don't do things in a formulaic way. They're not nearly as popular...is that because they suck, or are they just ahead of their times?
Before you say they suck, keep in mind that many of the games most of you consider to be top-notch successes today were predated by an ancestor game that your top-notch favorite is copying. Innovation is rarely heralded when it arrives...usually only when it's refined and copied to a polished, beautiful thing.
I have to agree with the OP about current games growing less and less deep in their gameplay/storyline aspects. It's become very disheartening, particularly for people like me who are solely PC gamers.
The only serious point against the OP that I've seen raised is the comment from several posters about how the Gaming industry has matured, and that what we're calling a decline is really the result of that maturization process. A reasonable idea, but with which I disagree.
It's not maturization per se, it's money. Money is killing the industry, IMO.
Now, what I said might seem counter-intuitive. But if you stop and think about it, you'll see what I mean. Because companies see so much money to be made, they persue it with a single-minded intensity. They demand that the developers they hire to make the games focus entirely on what will make the most money, NOT on what will be the best story or the best game, not even the best quality of game. This puts the Devs into the position of having to justify their every decision as to whether or not it will help make the game more money, and NOT on whether something they want to do will make for a better game or gaming experience.
You get games shoved out the door before they are ready. You get shallow games. You get regurgitations of games that were successful. You get games that are not risky or innovative -- better to turn out mediocre games that will make money than take a shot at greatness and fail to make anything.
Why focus on graphics? Graphics are flashy. They are easy to market. They are likely to cause people to buy the game regardless of any other aspect of the game.
A good comparison is Morrowind and Oblivion. Oblivion had far superior graphics, and most of its voice acting was better, it's sound in general was also at least as good as Morrowind. But I think Morrowind was a much better game.
It's not just about newness, it's about depth of story and the types of stories. It's about treating gamers like adults and not like kids. It's funny: when lots of gamers were kids, they were given adult-type games, but now that most gamers have grown into adults, they're being given increasingly less sophisticated or mature games to play.
I used to buy a lot more games than I do now. There used to be a lot more quality games to buy, and whether or not I myself liked them, they were considered good games. It just doesn't seem to be like that anymore. There are still some good games being made, but the noise-to-sound ratio has gone way up. I expect that as long as companies see so much money to be made -- as long as we keep buying mediocre games -- this trend will continue, and we Gamers will be worse off because of it.
It is strange how everything old is new again.
Ten years ago, I was 22. However, my first real experience with video games was in a social setting when I was about seven or eight. It was the arcade, and I remember that my hometown for some strange reason banned coin-ops in the city.
Luckily, the next 'burb was just a few blocks away, and I'd remember my friends and I would load up on quarters and play Ikari Warriors, or Double Dragon at the 7-11. Now of course we had the Atari 2600, followed later by NES, and then Sega Genesis. But none of it compared to the coin-op versions. The gameplay was more subtle, with more depth available than the home versions. The graphics were always better, with the peripherals and controls all high quality, and big.
Playing games on the console was fun, but the arcades, now that was the "premium content."
Somehow the "social experience" was much more genuine then, and the "pay to play" format was about paying for quality. Man I could feed those damn machines all day when I was in Junior High and High School.
Now it seems that the "social experience" is sitting alone at your computer, and gaming with your friends has more to do with competing with and against people you never knew, and sometimes, don't even want to know. Rather than go to the public setting to play the game you pay your quarter to rent out, they send it to you in your private setting to share game with people outside your control. MMOs are almost a "reverse arcade" in that sense.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Lots of interesting points being made... enjoying it.
Myst: yea, i played zork in 'text-mode' and it was cool. So I agree that myst was not really a new genre in that sense, but it brought something new to an existing genre... a 'niche' in a weak sense. What made it feel 'new' to me was how the detail + mood + really wierd story line "bring me the blue pages"... it totally drew me in. I've played 5-6 titles that were similar since then, and nothing drew me in like that first weekend I was in that myst world.
Thief: After tons of gut-splattering twitch-fests in various FPS games... this game just took me over. creeping around, scared to death, zombie coming down the hall... yikes!
These were the titles that did it for me... they were new for ME... not necessarily new for the world. That was the point I was trying to make... BUT having played them, I wander if I will ever have another experience like I did at first? Isn't there some new genre out there, some new kind of experience that proves interesting and engrossing? Or has everything been done already?
MONEY... drives the industry. Agree on it causing games to not be as good as they could be. But business is booming; WoW's success is going to inspire hundreds of MMOs... lol... crazy man. Articles about 17 year old kids making 35k playing Entropia are going to inspire a new generation... to get to WORK and start mining!. I guess having fun, being immersed in another world to escape your own, is not needed anymore? Am I the last ex-70s-pothead left on the planet?
We keep bringing up this word, "originality", and it seems like most people here think that means that the game has to give birth to a whole new genre. It doesn't.
FPS games had been around for a long time before Half-Life and Unreal Tournament came out. Despite this, both games had enough originality to draw players in and keep them there.
RTS games had been around for a long time before Command & Conquer and Starcraft came out. Despite this, both games have a very different feel and maintain a unique quality that no other RTS has been able to successfully duplicate.
RPGs have been around almost since the before the advent of the home computer. Yet Morrowind and Neverwinter Nights established themselves with features and depth that many of their contemporary competitors lacked.
Not every game can be Katamari Damacy or Okami. However, most games released today seem to be lacking the kind of inovative spark that lends many of the greatest games their sense of depth and replayability.
keep that word in mind, "replayablity." Most Developers aren't paying attention to it. The market is flooded with short, "one-shot" games and, soon, the bottom will drop out. Either the industry is going to have to make original, replayable games, or it's gonna bomb..... a lot....
Yes. Most games are not innovative.
Innovation is rare. If it wasn't rare, if it were common, it simply wouldn't be unique.
In the recent game, did you try:
Domination: Massive assault like never before (or something close to that).
Indie Russian-devs, very cool...it is not exactly the game you play, but as a SSI and KOEI fan, it is worth a check, now don't expect the game to be better than SSI games, just an interesting twist! It is futurist, but don't let that stop ya.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren