Beyond the Fallout
- Thread starter Brother None
- Start date
Crni Vuk said:
Looks like today "commercial success" means that they've made a good quality product, or they just don't care about what they sell, which means for them every other game is the same slice of bread as the previous one- you can still eat it.
exactly, it seems "money" equals "quality" in the sense of "the more it sells the better its quality". What I dont understand how so many can bring that as defensive argument, like Fallout 3 or Oblivion HAVE to be quality games, look how much it sold! That is something I dont really understand.
Hamenaglar
It Wandered In From the Wastes
Crni Vuk said:
It's capitalism mate. They are proud because they are making money and are successful, because people are playing their games and because a lot of people actually love those games. They are a successful company, no doubt about it, just crap at making games. People like crap. That's why Mcdonald's is flocking succesfull.
At least McDonald's overall crappiness seems to be widely accepted.
The videogame industry often strikes me as a kind of overgrown version of Thor publishing. It's all crap, but it sells incredibly well to people who enjoy crap (read: a lot of people) and the press is in perpetual circle-jerk mode about it.
The videogame industry often strikes me as a kind of overgrown version of Thor publishing. It's all crap, but it sells incredibly well to people who enjoy crap (read: a lot of people) and the press is in perpetual circle-jerk mode about it.
Hamenaglar
It Wandered In From the Wastes
Brother None said:
99% of everything is crap. We are not talking just about gaming industry. Literature, movies are also quite good examples.
It's a sad thing that Bethesda took a franchise a step back, if not two. Personally I don't understand why they bought the license and then did not honour FO world.
But about McDonald (I worked there for 2 years once), people at least KNOW that its crap what they buy and eat.
Bethesda acts in a way like they would try to sell a 5-min-fast-food burger as a 5 Star Filet Mignon. And people as well repeat that hyped marketing stuff and some (I dont know why, either cause they dont know it better?) believe it completely.
Capitalism, much money, nice and good. But that crap gets sold as quality product is not even something very common in capitalism.
Bethesda acts in a way like they would try to sell a 5-min-fast-food burger as a 5 Star Filet Mignon. And people as well repeat that hyped marketing stuff and some (I dont know why, either cause they dont know it better?) believe it completely.
Capitalism, much money, nice and good. But that crap gets sold as quality product is not even something very common in capitalism.
Cause its much more expensive that way compared to the way they do games now. Bethesda as company and developer do not even spend much time with a concept phase. The result of it can be seen in the bad dialogues and issues regarding your companions.Hamenaglar said:
Hamenaglar
It Wandered In From the Wastes
Crni Vuk said:
Oh, come on. Selling is all about PR. FFS Nives Celzijus' book was the best selling book by far last year (I'm not sure if you know who Nives Celzijus is, but she got famous for sleeping with average football players).
Want a better example? Da Vinci code. Hardly a brilliant piece of literature.
An example about movies? The Dark Knight, a decent movie, perhaps a really good comic book movie, but on IMDB it has an average of 8.9.
FO 3 isn't really crap, not by gaming industry standards (which are low, that's true).
Crni Vuk said:
What I meant is, why spend a whole lot of money on a license for a franchise and then not honour it? They could have made their own post-apocalyptic game. There's really no logical explanation to that.
Most popular entertainment products are crap. Some are widely recognized as such, some aren't, doesn't change the fact they are crap. People love crap and will eat it, read it, listen to it and play it.
Hm... I think I've forgotten my original point.
It's easier to buy already created and original setting/franchise, than spend money/waste time on making your own.
The franchise hasn't been touched for a while, and Fallout games were never made for mass audience (as most of pure RPGs). So they picked it up because kids these days ain't know what Fallout is, and only the old fanbase might complain.
They ain't care about "honouring it". It's capitalism, as you said mate.
You might be right with some what you say, even though when I thought the Dark Night was entertaining (but yeah, that almost was it). The real difference is though that you have a free journalism regarding books and movies, I would not lower them to the level the game development and PR is at the moment considering how heavily biased almost the whole media and press is around games. I dont know it, maybe its cause no one really cares about it (hey it are just games might many think ...) or people are already that used with this kind of way to get informations that its alright. But I mean you have critics that with Books and movies that are at least somewhat independend from the industry they do critics for. Not so with games.Hamenaglar said:
Dont get me wrong, of course you have a lot of hype regarding Movies, particularly the one that come from Holywood and have a big budged. But even with the many praise you have and can still find many either negative or at least "professinal" honest reviews and criticism from usual known critics and big newspapers. That is not the case with block buster games. One has to really look very deep to find here for example honest reviews about either Fallout 3 or Oblivion for example it seems like absolutely EVERYTHING would be perfect and they can do no wrong.
Hamenaglar
It Wandered In From the Wastes
Crni Vuk said:
I do agree with you, that there is too much hype influence in gaming industry. I've said standars are really low. When I hear that FO 3 is one of the best games ever, I want to puke. It was obvious from development reports that this game is a step back.
I think the part of a problem is that movies, music and books are considered art as well as entertainment. However games are considered just as entertainment.
I haven't played FO 3 really, but I believe that on pure entertainment level it may be close to FO 1 & 2, although different kind of entertainment. I'm sure I could enjoy playing FO 3 if it wasn't a Fallout game. However Fallout 1 had some artistic value too, I wouldn't say it's great, but you can see that it is and wants to be much more than just fun, and that's where FO 3 and bethesda failed in such a catastrophic fashion. FO 3, absolutely has no artistic value and that's why I don't want to play it.
H.A.D.E.S.
First time out of the vault
Brother None said:
Their souls?
DexterMorgan
A Smooth-Skin
Hamenaglar said:
Really? Wow, Croatia's definitely hit rock bottom on that one. I blame Red Carpet
Hamenaglar
It Wandered In From the Wastes
DexterMorgan said:Hamenaglar said:
Really? Wow, Croatia's definitely hit rock bottom on that one. I blame Red Carpet
Urgh, that's a horrible show. One of their reporters came to a scifi convention asking questions about David Hasselhoff.
Jidai Geki
It Wandered In From the Wastes
It's like a lot of people have already said here: the gaming industry is comparable to the movie industry or the music industry, in that what sells is generally sanitised, generic commercial crap, and this is definitely the route Bethsoft are taking. This is obviously at the cost of their integrity, much like everything Michael Bay has ever done shows him to be a mindless, gibbering, explosion-centric fucktard, but integrity is easily sold for shiny gold.
The biggest problem with the gaming industry, however, as opposed to the other entertainment industries (and this has also been previously pointed out) is that there is very little freedom for the press to say what they think. Bad previews? Fuck you, no review copy or further preview access. Bad reviews? Fuck you, no advertising.
Basically, play ball by the publishers' and devs' rules, or get no access. It's an issue that really needs remedying, and the only way I can see that happening is if the gaming public stop putting their faith in the big-name gaming websites that are basically on the publishers' payrolls, and start being a bit more sceptical. Commercially successful stuff is always gonna be bigger and flashier than indie/(theoretically) critically acclaimed stuff, but in the movie industry there is room for both. Hopefully gaming will get there one day, too.
The biggest problem with the gaming industry, however, as opposed to the other entertainment industries (and this has also been previously pointed out) is that there is very little freedom for the press to say what they think. Bad previews? Fuck you, no review copy or further preview access. Bad reviews? Fuck you, no advertising.
Basically, play ball by the publishers' and devs' rules, or get no access. It's an issue that really needs remedying, and the only way I can see that happening is if the gaming public stop putting their faith in the big-name gaming websites that are basically on the publishers' payrolls, and start being a bit more sceptical. Commercially successful stuff is always gonna be bigger and flashier than indie/(theoretically) critically acclaimed stuff, but in the movie industry there is room for both. Hopefully gaming will get there one day, too.