People have been touching on this topic for the past few years, but it's obvious to me that the gaming industry as whole is in a very precarious state. Seems to me that it's heading for a crash that's not too dissimilar to the one in the early 1980's. This is the first generation of consoles in my lifetime where I don't own a cutting edge system. Maybe if the next Zelda game on the Wii U turned out to be the next killer app game. I might have considered buying a Wii U, but the fact they're also bringing it out on the NX means I don't need to bother. However, the fact I was so put off by the current generation of consoles on the market meant I decided to get into retro gaming, and try and get a hold of the games I missed from my early childhood.
Here's some fundamental problems I have with what's happening in the current gaming world...
1. Whats the point of CD's anymore? You put the game into the console and you load the contents of it onto the internal memory. Sure, it makes sense from the point of view that the game will run smoother, but if that's the case. Why not just download the game, or put onto some SD card?
2. The whole issue of patches. Yeah, I get that you want some annoying and game breaking bugs and glitches to removed from the game, but this aspect has made developers lazy by rushing unfinished products to market. It makes me wonder what's the point in even getting a game at launch if you know it's going to be unfinished.
3. Micro transactions. I understand it from a money making point of view, and especially for games which you can obtain for free on your Android, but for a game you already spent $50-60 on?
4. Games today seem to treat you like idiots. Some of those FPS games of today are not a whole lot different from an on-rails shooter of the past. I don't mind a lot of back story and tutorials at the start of the game, but having it like that throughout a game is stretching it.
5. Game companies are being run by people who don't know anything about gaming. They tend to be either accountants or marketers who just seem to copy what sold well last year, or what has historically done well. No creativity or risk taking whatsoever. I must admit this situation must be very moral sapping for games developers.
6. Game budgets have gotten ridiculous. Whenever I hear a game costing $100m+ I don't even bat an eyelid anymore. Even when you factor in inflation. Games cost many fold more to make compared to what they did in the late 90's.
7. This relates to my last point, but there is no middle ground when it comes to gaming. Either you get shovelware or an AAA game.
1. Because disk space is finite.
2. There are still a lot of games that don't get patched. This is becoming less and less frequent as developers are adopting the DLC model, and far more games are of the "constantly evolving" type, but I wouldn't call "continuing to provide a user experience even after the game has ended" to be a particularly bad thing overall.
3. Micro-transactions are a way for players to get ahead without necessarily having the skill (or patience or time) to do so under normal gameplay. They're not intended as necessary (most of the time), and they're definitely not intended as necessary in off-the-shelf $60 games.
4. Game developers have to approach each new game as a new game, even if you're talking about ShootyGame 9, which builds right out of ShootyGame 8. There is always going to be a portion of the audience who hasn't played ShootyGame 8, and who needs that tutorial section. So, in mixing gameplay and story, you, the experienced gamer, have to suffer through a boring tutorial session filled with story you don't necessarily need or care about so that all new players can have a baseline of skill to move forward with.
5. That is becoming less and less true with the rise of indie developers, who are generally gamers with a bit of programming savvy who want to tell stories and sell adventures. While the major studios seem to have this problem, it is a changing landscape.
6. Software and hardware are also more complex than they were in the late 90s. You didn't have DirectX11-enabled texture-mapped massive landscapes or realistic physics, or huge skyboxes, or competent enemy AI, or the mass of interactions that are possible in modern games. That argument, that games are more expensive than they were then, doesn't hold water when you think about how far technology has come.
7. That is entirely a matter of opinion, and I will not attempt to debate you on this.
I am still the wizard that did it.
"On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata
<scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is
I have a big problem with this topic.
A bunch of these points sound like assumptions without any kind of citation or proof.
Not even examples?
I know you want to discuss this, but it's not really going to be a discussion if you can just say "not true" to like half of what's being said.
Warning: Might glitch to creditsI will finish this ACE soon as possible
(or will I?)
People have been touching on this topic for the past few years, but it's obvious to me that the gaming industry as whole is in a very precarious state. Seems to me that it's heading for a crash that's not too dissimilar to the one in the early 1980's.
I don't think the gaming industry is going to crash (unless the whole world economy crashes; in other words, if the gaming industry ends up crashing, it's not doing so alone, and will be just a symptom of a much larger problem than just "games don't sell").
What is, however, most probably going to change is the paradigm of desktop console gaming: I don't think desktop consoles have a future. Their time will soon be over, and they will probably become as obsolete as VHS and C-cassettes. (I wouldn't actually be surprised if this is the last, or second-to-last console generation, in its current desktop form.)
Handheld consoles might still have somewhat of a future, but most probably not in their current form. They'll probably just merge with cellphones.
1. Whats the point of CD's anymore? You put the game into the console and you load the contents of it onto the internal memory. Sure, it makes sense from the point of view that the game will run smoother, but if that's the case. Why not just download the game, or put onto some SD card?
Physical discs becoming obsolete is not going to kill the gaming industry. That's a rather silly thing to worry about.
2. The whole issue of patches. Yeah, I get that you want some annoying and game breaking bugs and glitches to removed from the game, but this aspect has made developers lazy by rushing unfinished products to market. It makes me wonder what's the point in even getting a game at launch if you know it's going to be unfinished.
Patches aren't going to kill the gaming industry either. I think they allow more good than bad.
3. Micro transactions. I understand it from a money making point of view, and especially for games which you can obtain for free on your Android, but for a game you already spent $50-60 on?
Microtransactions plague almost exclusively mobile games. On the PC and desktop console side gamers just can't be bothered.
But on that note, mobile games use microtransactions because it sells. They wouldn't be using them if it didn't sell. It may sell because casual players are stupid, but that doesn't change the fact that it sells. Thus it isn't exactly something that will make the gaming industry crash.
4. Games today seem to treat you like idiots. Some of those FPS games of today are not a whole lot different from an on-rails shooter of the past. I don't mind a lot of back story and tutorials at the start of the game, but having it like that throughout a game is stretching it.
This is mostly a delusion. Sure, some first-person shooters may be highly linear and simplistic, but others are really complex and smart. For each Call of Duty you have an Alien Isolation.
Video games haven't changed in this respect much in the last 30 years. If you think it has, you are simply filtering the bad games from your nostalgia.
5. Game companies are being run by people who don't know anything about gaming. They tend to be either accountants or marketers who just seem to copy what sold well last year, or what has historically done well. No creativity or risk taking whatsoever. I must admit this situation must be very moral sapping for games developers.
Citation needed.
6. Game budgets have gotten ridiculous. Whenever I hear a game costing $100m+ I don't even bat an eyelid anymore. Even when you factor in inflation. Games cost many fold more to make compared to what they did in the late 90's.
Something we agree on. The game industry has become too large for its own good. Just ten years ago a game selling 2 million copies was a ginormous success. Today we have reached a point were a game selling 2 million copies is considered by the investors to have "sold poorly". The investor money would be there, but if a game doesn't sell hundreds of millions of copies, then it doesn't, and there's nothing that they can do about it.
What this may cause is that investments and budgets will get smaller, which will lower the overall quality and production values of video games. There will simply not be enough money to create top-of-the-line games taking advantage of the latest hardware innovations.
7. This relates to my last point, but there is no middle ground when it comes to gaming. Either you get shovelware or an AAA game.
I don't understand what you are trying to say here.
5. Game companies are being run by people who don't know anything about gaming.
how is this different from...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar4gIEFdPrQ
basically your view is pretty skewed,yes,the videogame scenario is pretty different from what it was but the part where u just say"today shit is bad,nostalgia is good" is just plain opinion.
if i had to sum it up,it's a just much more crowded market,basically.That's why you have this feeling taht only the big monopolies can run the market,and the other companies are just shitty small producers.It's hard to sell one billion copies when there's so much good content to be bought competing with yours.It's also hard to grow to the top spots in such an established scenario.The pressing budgets are also a clear sign of cut-throat competition in the industry.Nobody will make money without spending a lot of it.
TAS i'm interested:
megaman series: mmbn1 all chips, mmx3 any% psx glitched
fighting games with speed goals in general
I'd argue the game industry has been in a pitiful state for the last 20 years (I point to Sony's entry) and it is getting worse. There's far too much for me to talk about here, so I'll just touch upon a few simple themes.
First and foremost, I've grown up and the video game industry hasn't. This is part of what happens whenever anyone pines for the "good ol' days". All of the criticisms that follow have been a part of the video game industry since well before the modern era. Having said that, I also think that there has been an "erosion of values".
The video game industry is alive and well if...
You like first person shooters.
You like fantasy games.
You like MMORPGs.
You like multiplayer games.
You value graphics above all else.
You are a white male.
And look, that's not to specifically criticize white men or anything, but there are plenty of other demographics-- women especially-- who would love to get into video games but are repulsed by the community that flocks there. The video game industry used to be about creativity, creating new genres and carving out niches in its fanbase. For every Contra, there was a DuckTales or Dr. Mario or EarthBound. A lot of the whimsy has left the industry in favor of super-high-budget games that cater to the hypermasculine crowd. The whole "gaming culture" has turned incredibly toxic. If you go to gaming subreddits, you'll find circlejerking over the latest releases (I suspect much of this is planted promotional material), miscellaneous depravity, and blatant racism and sexism that self-identifying gamers refuse to acknowledge. It's the Mad Max culture come to life.
I'm an avowed Nintendo fanboy. In the face of increasing violence and sexism, Nintendo has realized that they cannot compete directly with Sony and Microsoft and I applaud them for it. They've consistently tried to do new things with games while keeping most of their library appropriate for all ages and, most importantly, fun. I bought a Wii on the day it was released and I don't care what anyone says, it was a damn good console and I enjoyed the hell out of it. I recognize, however, that Nintendo is struggling to stay afloat at this point. With the previous generation of consoles, they at least got a mention against the X-Box 360 and PS3. Today, whenever anyone talks about console wars, it's always Sony versus Microsoft and I think that's doing a terrible disservice to a major player that is actually attempting to do new things in the industry. Unfortunately, they're also suffering from sequel-itis and Nintendo seems to be financed by perennial Mario, Zelda, Smash Bros., and Mario Kart games. That's just as true of other systems, though. How many Call of Duty or Madden games do we need at this point?
My point is that Nintendo is running out of steam but Microsoft and Sony just disgust me outright. If Nintendo leaves the console market, then yes, I think we're headed towards a crash. Even with them in the industry, they need new talent and new ideas and I just don't see where they're coming from at this point.
"If there is hope,... it lies in the proles."
I notice that thus far this thread has specifically focused on major game companies. What about folks like Daisuke Amaya, Derek Yu, Kayin Nasaki, Scott Cawthon, Adam Pedersen, or our very own Mothrayas?
What about small groups like Wayforward Technologies, Yacht Club Games, Team Meat, or the various rom-hacking communities dotting the landscape of the internet?
No, big gaming companies cannot survive on the traditional model in this modern era. The big gaming companies have recognized this, which is why most of the above-cited examples can be found on their consoles and handhelds. This isn't the halcyon days of the nineties, kids, where we were beholden to the manufacturers because of cartridges and were forced to accept what they decided to publish. We have our own wallets, our own computers, and our own passions. We can make our own games.
That, more than anything else, is why the Big Three need to evolve or die.
I tend to not play more recent games as a function of not being able to afford current hardware. Right now I'm working my way through Fallout 3 on PC (ported to New Vegas's version of Gamebryo with A Tale of Two Wastelands) and also playing Deus Ex: Revision.
Both of those games allow a large degree of freedom in how you play, which is something important to me in a video game, and it has been even since Super Metroid taught me about the concept of "sequence-breaking." That was also what drew me to Mass Effect back in 2009, and despite the sequels becoming progressively more linear, the first game sowed the seeds that kept me hooked for the whole trilogy.
I can agree that games got less diverse, while the ways to make as much money as possible from a single title became more and more creative. It is true that ever since Sony entered the console market and made video games "cool", games became less and less diverse. All games need to have a dark, "mature" setting, preferably with lots of guns. It doesn't even have to be an FPS, even fantasy games need to be dark and violent, just look at the success of Dark Souls. While I do think said game is truly great, I'm still almost certain that it wouldn't have sold as well if it had a lighter setting, closer to something like World of Warcraft. It feels like the industry has found that optimal formula to make the easiest money, after all the things they tried in previous generations. Sure, a mainstream publisher could also produce and sell stuff like 3D platformers, but why should they? The commercial potential of such a title wouldn't even come close to the potential of "Multiplayer Focused FPS 529".
And yes, even Nintendo is guilty of this! They also found their easiest formula to sell as many games as possible with the least effort. Why aren't they making true 3D Marios anymore? Because they learned that 2D Marios will sell just as well while having much lower production costs. It's really that simple. So if you ever complained that every Paper Mario game became more trivial than the last one or that they won't bring back franchises like Mother/Earthbound or Metroid, there is your answer: Costs and benefits. The most efficient way to make money is to release dozens of simple Mario games. Ambition is inefficient.
But all that pessimism really only applies to the few big publishers. There is an alternative, thanks to all the indie developers out there. Sure, not all indie games are good, but you will find enough greatness among them to never have a reason to "give up gaming" or anything like that.
Current project: Gex 3 any%
Paused: Gex 64 any%
There are no N64 emulators. Just SM64 emulators with hacky support for all the other games.
The whole "gaming culture" has turned incredibly toxic.
As an avid gamer, I am a member of the gaming culture. Therefore you are insulting me alongside every other gamer.
This part of the comment has been removed. It's completely unnecessary. --Invariel
Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4083
Location: The Netherlands
Let me post a reminder to everyone to keep this discussion civil, and refrain from direct personal attacks, insults, or call-outs to other posters or other such thread derailment.
You may disagree with other people's posts in this topic, but please do so civilly and argumentatively.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa
<dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects.
<Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits
<adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
Ok, let me elaborate on my comment, in a reasonable and civil manner, and trying to connect it to the original topic at hand.
During the last couple of years a very negative narrative has been pushed by a significant portion of the media, especially the gaming media, and also several famous individuals, about video games, their developers, and gamers. They are being accused of all kinds of heinous things, like sexism, misogyny and racism. This attack on games, and the gaming culture, has been really vicious at times.
These claims are gross exaggeration and distortion. Video games do not cause sexism nor violence (as has been found by several studies), and both the presence of "sexism" and "misogyny" in video games, and their impact, is greatly exaggerated. More egregiously, the attack has been especially vicious against gamers themselves. They are depicted as anti-social woman-hating sexist no-lives, and accused of all kinds of heinous things.
As a gamer myself, I find these accusations preposterous and personally insulting, and it irks me whenever I see somebody repeating them like they were somehow a self-evident fact, against all evidence. Sure some gamers are a-holes and trolls, but that's true for every single group of people in existence; it's not somehow exclusive to, or unusually prevalent, in the world-wide gaming community in particular.
This particular topic only affects the gaming industry because of the attacks against it. The alleged "sexism" and "misogyny" and "toxic masculinity" is not even nearly so prevalent as to itself shape or affect the industry.
Unfortunately the attack against the gaming industry is so strong and so successfully that it is having some effect on it. Some companies are self-censoring, and a few of them are even introducing identity politics into their games. To address complete non-issues.
Ok, let me elaborate on my comment, in a reasonable and civil manner, and trying to connect it to the original topic at hand.
During the last couple of years a very negative narrative has been pushed by a significant portion of the media, especially the gaming media, and also several famous individuals, about video games, their developers, and gamers. They are being accused of all kinds of heinous things, like sexism, misogyny and racism. This attack on games, and the gaming culture, has been really vicious at times.
These claims are gross exaggeration and distortion. Video games do not cause sexism nor violence (as has been found by several studies), and both the presence of "sexism" and "misogyny" in video games, and their impact, is greatly exaggerated. More egregiously, the attack has been especially vicious against gamers themselves. They are depicted as anti-social woman-hating sexist no-lives, and accused of all kinds of heinous things.
As a gamer myself, I find these accusations preposterous and personally insulting, and it irks me whenever I see somebody repeating them like they were somehow a self-evident fact, against all evidence. Sure some gamers are a-holes and trolls, but that's true for every single group of people in existence; it's not somehow exclusive to, or unusually prevalent, in the world-wide gaming community in particular.
This particular topic only affects the gaming industry because of the attacks against it. The alleged "sexism" and "misogyny" and "toxic masculinity" is not even nearly so prevalent as to itself shape or affect the industry.
Unfortunately the attack against the gaming industry is so strong and so successfully that it is having some effect on it. Some companies are self-censoring, and a few of them are even introducing identity politics into their games. To address complete non-issues.
i wouldn't go as far to say the gaming community is or isn't toxic,but surely not in any way that is different from the normal respective population.
i also think that the attack is only ocasionally targeted towards the industry ,traditional media divides its focus on both the industry and the players,one at a time.I used to watch the hell out of Law and Order SVU,as i enjoyed the psychic and legal aspects of it,but the videogame rapists episode really stuck to me as how badly people might view the players in general.The videogame press itself seems to work with the other intention,putting developers on blast for too much "asses" like in SF5 beta r. mika Super.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKTRY0n39Yc
original camera from the super^
TAS i'm interested:
megaman series: mmbn1 all chips, mmx3 any% psx glitched
fighting games with speed goals in general
Warp, the issue is that those same toxic people that aren't representative of the whole are the most vocal, the most visible, and the most likely to be in an echo chamber. Disregarding traditional media's bizarre need to blow things out of proportion, because we're not rooting them out ourselves they will continue to be cancerous.
What's worse is that because they toxic ones are the most visible and vocal, young kids are going to enter the world of gaming with the assumption that that's how they have to behave in order to fit in. Even if it's not the norm now, it has the frightening potential to become the norm.
Warp, the issue is that those same toxic people that aren't representative of the whole are the most vocal, the most visible, and the most likely to be in an echo chamber. Disregarding traditional media's bizarre need to blow things out of proportion, because we're not rooting them out ourselves they will continue to be cancerous.
What's worse is that because they toxic ones are the most visible and vocal, young kids are going to enter the world of gaming with the assumption that that's how they have to behave in order to fit in. Even if it's not the norm now, it has the frightening potential to become the norm.
Even if that were true, I don't believe for a second that it's the video games themselves that are responsible. Yet most of the current attacks against gaming is precisely against the video games themselves. The games are being accused of "sexism" and all kinds of things, and game developers are being pressured into bending over backwards to placate to the complaints.
But since video games are demonstrably not the cause of some people being a-holes, "fixing" the video games is not going to "fix" those people.
What saddens me is that during the past 20 years or so, gamers have slowly but steadily gained the acceptance of the general public. No longer are gamers seen as anti-social no-life nerds playing in their mom's basement. And all that has now been flushed down the drain during the past couple of years, by a vicious attack on them and their public image, mostly via distortions and outright lies, just to promote an agenda. The propaganda has been so pervasive and so virulent that even many gamers have started believing it.
The propaganda has been so pervasive and so virulent that even many gamers have started believing it.
Maybe because they took a moment, evaluated themselves, and realized it was true? Because I know several people - including myself - where that was the case.
The propaganda has been so pervasive and so virulent that even many gamers have started believing it.
Maybe because they took a moment, evaluated themselves, and realized it was true? Because I know several people - including myself - where that was the case.
Well, I for one am not sexist nor racist, I do not hate women, and I respect women exactly as much I respect everybody else, and women have the exact same right to play games as everybody else, and I don't believe for a second that the vast majority of gamers feel otherwise. I find any insinuation of the contrary personally insulting.
1. Whats the point of CD's anymore? You put the game into the console and you load the contents of it onto the internal memory. Sure, it makes sense from the point of view that the game will run smoother, but if that's the case. Why not just download the game, or put onto some SD card?
2. The whole issue of patches. Yeah, I get that you want some annoying and game breaking bugs and glitches to removed from the game, but this aspect has made developers lazy by rushing unfinished products to market. It makes me wonder what's the point in even getting a game at launch if you know it's going to be unfinished.
3. Micro transactions. I understand it from a money making point of view, and especially for games which you can obtain for free on your Android, but for a game you already spent $50-60 on?
These 3 points + the massive amounts of online content nowdays makes me actually wonder how the hell will future generations play back old (this decade) games. Even if say people somehow make private servers, and somehow get all the patches/microtransaction via hacks, how will that solve the problem of multiplayer needing other people? While some popular games might have tons of people on the servers, obscure games are going to be near impossible to have an "authentic" multiplayer experience :|
These 3 points + the massive amounts of online content nowdays makes me actually wonder how the hell will future generations play back old (this decade) games. Even if say people somehow make private servers, and somehow get all the patches/microtransaction via hacks, how will that solve the problem of multiplayer needing other people? While some popular games might have tons of people on the servers, obscure games are going to be near impossible to have an "authentic" multiplayer experience :|
Servers shutting down is actually a problem with some relatively recent games (and a common cause for users getting upset).
For some reason many game developers don't want to support user-controlled servers, and want to have a tight grip on that part, and will thus maintain their own servers. And when they decide to shut them down... well, if the game is multiplayer-only, you are left with a useless disc.
You're right. Anyone who wants to continue to discuss the wage gap can do so in the split-off thread.
I am still the wizard that did it.
"On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata
<scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is
These 3 points + the massive amounts of online content nowdays makes me actually wonder how the hell will future generations play back old (this decade) games. Even if say people somehow make private servers, and somehow get all the patches/microtransaction via hacks, how will that solve the problem of multiplayer needing other people? While some popular games might have tons of people on the servers, obscure games are going to be near impossible to have an "authentic" multiplayer experience :|
Servers shutting down is actually a problem with some relatively recent games (and a common cause for users getting upset).
For some reason many game developers don't want to support user-controlled servers, and want to have a tight grip on that part, and will thus maintain their own servers. And when they decide to shut them down... well, if the game is multiplayer-only, you are left with a useless disc.
There isn't much to be done, i mean, you can hack and host your own private server if you can,but the company themselves have it pretty clear when they call their games "Software as a Service",the company supports it and you pay for the support and not for the product actually.I think it's better to play games with local server hosting as a feature if it bothers you(counter strike,tf2)
TAS i'm interested:
megaman series: mmbn1 all chips, mmx3 any% psx glitched
fighting games with speed goals in general
