The state of videogames

[Ilosar]

Forget it. Apparently i suck at making my points.

Better explain what is this piece of paper, i have a vague feeling that this is a sketch related to Mass Effect story, dialogue?

Yeah, it's a draft of the infamously bad ending. Don't see how that proves anything related to hs points, since it was written by the two Mass Effect leads and was the only piece of the story that had basically no revision from the rest of the writing team. Lo and behold, it completely sucked. So much for artistic integrity or less people doing better than more.

On topic, while I agree the AAA industry is a massive case of derp, I also think going all doom and gloom is silly. Kickstarter is a potentially very good thing for the RPG genre, and for other genres there are plenty of great games coming out, as well as a variety of quality free-to-play titles. Even high-profile publishers can pump out gems from time to time (Deux Ex: Human Revloution being my favorite example) and you still have medium-sized studios making good games (Amnesia, The Witcher, Dishonored...). It's not like every game released back in the 90's was a masterpiece either, and even today we haven't touched the amount of sheer stupidity that ended in the Great Crash in 1983.

I mean, let's please not start a ''only Troika games were ever good'' circlejerk here guys. This isin't RPG Codex.

 

[UniversalWolf]

Yeah, I actually think the situation overall is more positive than it has been in a long time. Crowdfunding and sites like GoG are opening things up, which is allowing a stratification between good games and games for muttonheads. You can't exterminate the muttonheads, so let them play their muttonhead games. Good games will find their audience.

 

[Akratus]

Forget it. Apparently i suck at making my points.

Better explain what is this piece of paper, i have a vague feeling that this is a sketch related to Mass Effect story, dialogue?

Yeah, it's a draft of the infamously bad ending. Don't see how that proves anything related to hs points, since it was written by the two Mass Effect leads and was the only piece of the story that had basically no revision from the rest of the writing team. Lo and behold, it completely sucked. So much for artistic integrity or less people doing better than more.

On topic, while I agree the AAA industry is a massive case of derp, I also think going all doom and gloom is silly. Kickstarter is a potentially very good thing for the RPG genre, and for other genres there are plenty of great games coming out, as well as a variety of quality free-to-play titles. Even high-profile publishers can pump out gems from time to time (Deux Ex: Human Revloution being my favorite example) and you still have medium-sized studios making good games (Amnesia, The Witcher, Dishonored...). It's not like every game released back in the 90's was a masterpiece either, and even today we haven't touched the amount of sheer stupidity that ended in the Great Crash in 1983.

I mean, let's please not start a ''only Troika games were ever good'' circlejerk here guys. This isin't RPG Codex.

If it was possible for the arguably most important part of the game to be handled with some doodles by two guys, with no questions raised by that whatsoever that doesn't make their method of work look very good. It's a child's mentality, basically. I just think it shows how nobody really gives a shit about quality control in there, or cohesiveness, or auteurship or self criticism and introspection. Or thinking.

Here's some more food for thought:

http://i.imgur.com/8MADV3h.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IEf46N39Hl8/UfO9frzifCI/AAAAAAAAD_E/Bzdg3mRYxSw/s1600/1374926821803.png
http://i.imgur.com/biZHcmJ.png
http://i.imgur.com/ycsbZAB.jpg
http://24.media.tumblr.com/654b699533f7e848439262618dbdbf5b/tumblr_ml26tk7Bvn1rjuyf4o1_1280.jpg
http://britfa.gs/e/src/137615320476.jpg
http://www.p4rgaming.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/journal1.png

 

[mobucks]

o0o0o0o those were eeeeeinteresting.

I've had a sub to PCGAMER for the past year, and I'm happy with it. Good bunch of fellows working for that one.

Two issues ago the cover was for Rise of Venice. This issue it was reviewed for 74/100. They previewed Thi4f and said it was way too fucking easy.

 

[.Pixote.]

People take their gaming too seriously - they're just fucking games, in other words, 'completely unimportant'. Now what does it say about us, that we place such importance on entertainment. Half the world doesn't even have clean drinking water.

 

[mobucks]

Sucks to be them.

 

[BonusWaffle]

what have poor people ever done for me?

 

[fred2]

The thread title reminded me of this clip

Anyway, as fans of good ol RPGs I think we can all agree about what the mainstream gaming offers us, however, I don't think lamenting the industry or make snide remarks on its achievements is in order, it is just misguided and in poor taste.

Games are not unique in the entertainment industry, you can make the argument about music, cinema, tv-shows, books etc. Yes there is a lot of crap, but just because we grow older and developed a taste for finer things and start to sound like our parents did, that doesn't mean that the end of the world has come

The digital world keep providing new avenues for small/medium developers and publishers to raise capital and development oprtunities. Recent Kickstarted success proved that there is a market for the things we enjoy and I am optimistic that we will find more supply to our demands.


Also overall, keep in mind that Mods are your friends, of the six month rule or better GOTY releases and your experience is likely to improve vastly.

Edited.

 

[shihonage]

People take their gaming too seriously - they're just fucking games, in other words, 'completely unimportant'. Now what does it say about us, that we place such importance on entertainment. Half the world doesn't even have clean drinking water.

Yeah man, what's with people taking games so seriously, like, taking years out of their lives to create ambitious mods and guides and stuffOHWAIT

 

[Jebus]

You guys need to compartmentalize.

It reminds me of all the shit Michael Bay gets. Sure, his movies are vapid. Sure, there's a mess and there's too much explosions. But... that's because you're not the target audience. His target audience is teenage boys. And what's wrong with that?

It's a strange thing that grown men do to teenage boys that grown women don't really do to teenage girls. I mean, sure women'll go on rants that Barbie is anti-feminist and stuff, but you'll never see women rage that My Little Pony or the Powerpuff Girls or Twilight isn't complex and layered enough for their taste. It's for little girls. They get it.

Yet men always seem to rage against stuff made for boys. The Michael Bay movies are a good example, and the whole shitfest against the new Star Wars movies (like the first three weren't as shit as the new ones!), and all that whining about the Teenage Mutant Turtles... Just think back to when you were a boy: did you really want complex, layered storytelling? Did you really factcheck every scientific claim in, say, the Power Rangers? Did storylines have to be coherent and meaningful? Or did you just want to have fun and see shit get blown up?

Why deny boys this day and age the same enjoyment we had? They've got it tough enough already being held to the behavioral standard of girls in schools, at least let them let of steam when they get home ffs.

Same with video games: yes, the COD and Bioware stuff seems worthless in our eyes. But that's because it's not meant for us. It's meant for teenage boys who really think romance happens like it happens in, say, Mass Effect, and who want to fight space robots and be heroic and shit.

If you want a more complex game, there are niches for you. There are plenty of RPGs geared towards adult men, plenty of shooters geared towards adult men, and plenty of strategy games geared towards adult men.

 

[shihonage]

If you want a more complex game, there are niches for you. There are plenty of RPGs geared towards adult men, plenty of shooters geared towards adult men, and plenty of strategy games geared towards adult men.

And thus it's clear that your definition of adult men doesn't differ significantly from teenage boys.

There are movies and books that are uniquely suited for adults, but the gaming industry is still in its infancy as an art form, and the proportion of suitable material there is absolutely miniscule.

The overwhelming majority of games have ineptly designed worlds, poorly written dialogue, hackneyed ways of generating emotion, amateur attempts at immersion, coming nowhere close to the heights achieved by books and film.

Even in gameplay alone, the supposed "core" of the medium, most games are unoriginal clones of each other.

I'm 36, but all of this stuff was falling apart for me when I was in my early 20s. There were a few games in different genres which were designed in a way that doesn't insult the intelligence of someone with over 80 IQ... but only a few.

When the medium stops treating everyone like a 15-year-old boy, your argument will become both valid and at the same time, no longer relevant or necessary.

At the present time, however, it simply remains inapplicable.

 

[Jebus]

The "medium" doesn't treat us all like 15-year-old-boys, only the most visible part of it. Because that's the largest section: both the boys and all the adults that just want to relax with a game for a half an hour.
As for the rest of your diatribe, you're just coming of snobbish.


Actually - what I don't get about the current games media is how focused they are on how well shit sells. Every other day there's an article on how GTA sells more than COD, the WII is not selling as it should, etc. - who the fuck cares about that? I mean, seriously, is there as much as one person on earth that ever thinks "man, I wonder how much copies that game sold"?
It's such a strange business.

 

[fred2]

If you want a more complex game, there are niches for you. There are plenty of RPGs geared towards adult men, plenty of shooters geared towards adult men, and plenty of strategy games geared towards adult men.

And thus it's clear that your definition of adult men doesn't differ significantly from teenage boys.

Clear? What is your definition of games for adult men, or rather what specifically do you want to see in games that you can't find now?

 

[Akratus]

You guys need to compartmentalize.

It reminds me of all the shit Michael Bay gets. Sure, his movies are vapid. Sure, there's a mess and there's too much explosions. But... that's because you're not the target audience. His target audience is teenage boys. And what's wrong with that?

It's a strange thing that grown men do to teenage boys that grown women don't really do to teenage girls. I mean, sure women'll go on rants that Barbie is anti-feminist and stuff, but you'll never see women rage that My Little Pony or the Powerpuff Girls or Twilight isn't complex and layered enough for their taste. It's for little girls. They get it.

Yet men always seem to rage against stuff made for boys. The Michael Bay movies are a good example, and the whole shitfest against the new Star Wars movies (like the first three weren't as shit as the new ones!), and all that whining about the Teenage Mutant Turtles... Just think back to when you were a boy: did you really want complex, layered storytelling? Did you really factcheck every scientific claim in, say, the Power Rangers? Did storylines have to be coherent and meaningful? Or did you just want to have fun and see shit get blown up?

Why deny boys this day and age the same enjoyment we had? They've got it tough enough already being held to the behavioral standard of girls in schools, at least let them let of steam when they get home ffs.

Same with video games: yes, the COD and Bioware stuff seems worthless in our eyes. But that's because it's not meant for us. It's meant for teenage boys who really think romance happens like it happens in, say, Mass Effect, and who want to fight space robots and be heroic and shit.

If you want a more complex game, there are niches for you. There are plenty of RPGs geared towards adult men, plenty of shooters geared towards adult men, and plenty of strategy games geared towards adult men.

But that's wrong. Mass Effect isn't made for teenagers, it's made for men and women 18-30.

I'm not railing against things not made for my demographic. The problem here is that the largest amount of games are being praised and are sold well whilst being intellectually vapid.

This is an age of gaming where killing the protagonist at the start for nothing but sensationalism, waving it away (not even that, just moving on without an explenation) and then at the end of this story being in the same place as at the start is praised for being smart writing.

 

[fred2]

The problem here is that the largest amount of games are being praised and are sold well whilst being intellectually vapid.

Yes, the largest amount of games/music/movies/tv-shows can be considered as intellectually vapid...

This is an age of gaming where killing the protagonist at the start for nothing but sensationalism, waving it away (not even that, just moving on without an explenation) and then at the end of this story being in the same place as at the start is praised for being smart writing.

Amazing, are you suggesting that thing like sex, action, over the top special effects and new exciting experience sells more than "smart writing"? impossible

I'm not railing against things not made for my demographic.

So other than stating the obvious, where are you going with this?

 

[Surf Solar]

I would consider myself to be a pretty cynical or jaded fellow, but boy you sound much much worse than me in the op.

I still enjoy new videogames and have no problem where videogames are going.

 

[Akratus]

The problem here is that the largest amount of games are being praised and are sold well whilst being intellectually vapid.

Yes, the largest amount of games/music/movies/tv-shows can be considered as intellectually vapid...

This is an age of gaming where killing the protagonist at the start for nothing but sensationalism, waving it away (not even that, just moving on without an explenation) and then at the end of this story being in the same place as at the start is praised for being smart writing.

Amazing, are you suggesting that thing like sex, action, over the top special effects and new exciting experience sells more than "smart writing"? impossible

I'm not railing against things not made for my demographic.

So other than stating the obvious, where are you going with this?

"I'm not naive enough to think that they're gonna make 'Star Trek: The Motion Picture' again. Never gonna happen. BUT, you can have an action star trek movie, with better writing." -Mike Stoklasa

 

[Crni Vuk]

I would consider myself to be a pretty cynical or jaded fellow, but boy you sound much much worse than me in the op.

I still enjoy new videogames and have no problem where videogames are going.

Though I have the feeling that games have not really evolved as a medium. When I look back to my youth, where I played titles like Jagged Alliance, Baldurs Gate, Fallout, Unreal Tournament, Half Life etc. I had the feeling that at least over time you would get titles that really pushed the medium forward. Some kind of evolution, just with movies or photography where it started to become a serious form of art and profession.

But I don't have the feelings like games are there yet. Its not so much that there are no quality games out there or that you cant enjoy a round of CoD or what ever. But it simply feels like they still cant find their own pace. Games like Mass Effect for example, its not a bad game. But its really more of some kind of ... interactive movie. It it has a reason when people make fun about modern shooters being more about cut scenes then gameplay ... I have as well the feeling that there is less room for experimentation, this might be because there are a lot more game developing companies out there and big publishers. But in the past you had games like Planescape Torment, Deus Ex, XIII and many more, and they all had their place. Now you can almost only find those kind of games only in the independed genre. Games like Deus Ex HR are rather pearls. To many game developers I think try to compete with movies here as far as story telling goes and all that stuff but they forget that the way how movies are told (very linear kind of story telling) isn't really using games with their full potential, the player interaction, interacting with the game world and a lot more.

Again, I am not saying that everything is doom and gloom, I just think that right now they spend to much time to focus on making games "mature", a "serious" business and using movies as guidance instead of finding their own pace. For example there should be a lot more games out there like Stalker or Deus Ex. Those are not perfect games but good examples I think. Bioschock would be another decent example. Or Fallout New Vegas. So the "great" games do exist out there. But definitely not enough.

You guys need to compartmentalize.

It reminds me of all the shit Michael Bay gets. Sure, his movies are vapid. Sure, there's a mess and there's too much explosions. But... that's because you're not the target audience. His target audience is teenage boys. And what's wrong with that?

He wanted to turn the turtles in to aliens dude ...

 

[shihonage]

What's most hysterical is that the actual complexity of programming in games has been going down in most cases, but the complexity of renderers makes people close their eyes to it.

I'm still playing Tribes: Ascend, which is unable to handle the complexity of indoor architecture of Tribes (1998), its depth of customization, modding, or even a decent server browser.

In Tribes (1998) you had emote macros, and in Tribes: Ascend (2012) you don't.

And that meme of devolution of FPS levels should be quite famous by now.

There were games with an amazing simulation engine - Mechwarrior 2, Interstate 76 and Battlezone.

Battlezone had some storyline branching and created an amazing freedom in its levels.

There was a lot of immersion created by those games through variety of means.

In addition to complexity of programming, there used to be some games with thought put into their world design, like Fallout or Betrayal At Krondor.

The "medium" doesn't treat us all like 15-year-old-boys, only the most visible part of it. Because that's the largest section: both the boys and all the adults that just want to relax with a game for a half an hour.
As for the rest of your diatribe, you're just coming of snobbish.

Right right.

Why don't you show me some recent FPS and RPGs which are made for adults as opposed to teenagers or pretentious adolescents.

You can't.

The RTS genre is the only one that evolved, through maintaining some appeal via increasing complexity of mechanics. However they, like everyone else, fail to create stories and worlds that can draw you in.

Starcraft 2 was admirable in that respect, but about it. Even the best attempts at writing in games usually max out at the level of an average TV show, and they're so very rare, practically non-existent.

Everyone claiming there is a sizeable portion of games "just like in books or film" that appeals to adults, is suffering from severe normalcy bias. An objective comparison of writing alone won't stand a chance there.

When was the last time you saw a game with writing quality of Planescape: Torment? Which was amazing for games, but merely decent in the scope of "all mediums".

Probably never.

 

[Crni Vuk]

What's most hysterical is that the actual complexity of programming in games has been going down in most cases, but the complexity of renderers makes people close their eyes to it.

I'm still playing Tribes: Ascend, which is unable to handle the complexity of indoor architecture of Tribes (1998), its depth of customization, modding, or even a decent server browser.

In Tribes (1998) you had emote macros, and in Tribes: Ascend (2012) you don't.

And that meme of devolution of FPS levels should be quite famous by now.

There were games with an amazing simulation engine - Mechwarrior 2, Interstate 76 and Battlezone.

Battlezone had some storyline branching and created an amazing freedom in its levels.

There was a lot of immersion created by those games through variety of means.

In addition to complexity of programming, there used to be some games with thought put into their world design, like Fallout or Betrayal At Krondor.

True enough, I get the feeling that we have more hardware, more freedom in making games (as far as limitations goes, I mean just look at the visuals), somewhat more resources in most cases (Blizzard, Bioware etc. are a lot bigger compared to the past), yet gameplay has in many cases to take a back seat to what is actually possible.

I mean if I remember playing Fallout for the first time I really thought what could hardware achieve in 10 or 15 years with sophisticated AI. Yet, it seems like we actually moved even backward ... as far as player and NPC interaction goes. I think the fact that games have to do full voice acting even for the smallest character is a huge limitation.