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.
The problem is that even in comparison to older games of their types, recent games rely too much on tutorials; even comparing Picross-e with the new Zelda-themed Picross is instructive.
I wouldn't say the industry is in a precarious state. It is simply reaching the state of maturity, which is characterized by certain obvious trends:
— low barrier of entry for new developers;
— low barrier of entry for new consumers;
— consolidation of businesses;
— market content saturation;
— audience expansion;
— low rate of innovation.
It's a normal process for any industry. Gaming industry in particular isn't going anywhere, it's just changing. The adaptation is bilateral in the sense that many of these trends are susceptible to positive feedback loops; eg. low barrier of entry for new consumers means games are easier to get into, which brings in new audience that isn't willing to put in as much effort, who demand more accessible games, and so on. It's the same as cameras in cellphones: they were beyond awful when they first appeared, but people have started using them, which in turn prompted more models of cellphones with cameras included, and now they're the norm—even though it took some 7-8 years of worthlessness and sarcastic remarks before the technology became truly useful and usable.
Realistically the only thing that I do think is endangering the industry is the alarmingly rising trend of games with no clear failure state. A game that doesn't punish for doing badly is a toy, not a game. Such games don't trigger the necessary mental response that makes us engaged in the process and forces us to do better. If the gaming industry collapses in foreseeable future, so far I consider this to be the most likely potential reason.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
If talking about the current state of the gaming industry, I think that VR is an interesting subject.
It seems that everybody is hailing VR as the next big thing, something that will completely revolutionize gaming and take it to a completely new level. I'm just not seeing it.
For a very long time it was envisioned that VR headsets would become pretty much essentially a new form of display, which would be used in almost all 3D games. Just like your regular display, but with stereo vision and head-tracking. It would significantly enhance the gaming experience when you would see your games in stereo, like it were the real world.
But it turns out that VR "doesn't work" with traditional games. With this they don't mean that there's a technical reason why it can't be used with basically every 3D game out there. It would be pretty trivial to add VR headset support to almost any game. No, what they are talking about is nausea. Because many people get nausea if playing a traditional game with traditional controls (ie. keyboard+mouse or gamepad), this problem is considered so severe that game developers have pretty much abandoned the idea of adding VR support to their traditional games completely.
You are not going to see VR support in games like Portal2, Mirror's Edge, Skyrim, Alien Isolation or Doom (at least not official support from the game developers). And you most probably won't be getting VR support in any new games using traditional controls (eg. first-person shooters). Because it "doesn't work". (There are third-party mods and drivers that can be used to add partial support to many games, but this support is often very limited because it has not been integrated in the game itself. Eg usually head-tracking is very limited.) I think Half-Life 2 has VR support, but I get the impression that Valve added it before they decided that VR "doesn't work" with such games, so it's there kind of by accident (and I wouldn't be at all surprised if they remove the support in the future).
It seems that the only existing genre that has fully accepted VR is the vehicle simulation genre (with which I mean space simulators, flight simulators, truck simulators, racing games and the like.) Other than that, there seems to be only an extremely narrow range of game genres that "work" with VR.
It doesn't exactly help that HTC/Valve seems to think that "room-scale VR" is the only proper way to do VR, and seems to be tacitly dissing sit-down VR. And it seems that the public at large is agreeing with them. (When you see people talking about it, it almost feels like they are talking about a religious experience.)
But I just can't see a future for "room-scale VR". It's highly restrictive in terms of game mechanics and game design. Almost none of the movement actions that are typical of video games (running, jumping, climbing, jumping from ledges and over chasms, parkouring, running from cover to cover, circling the enemy, running backwards while shooting at the enemy... to name just a few) are possible. Moving even a moderate distances is not possible (not to talk about exploring a building or a vast overworld spanning tens of miles across), other than "teleporting", which just sounds like an unfun kludge to get around the limitation. If you look at the popular VR games at this moment, most of them seem to consist of you standing still and shooting around. Or standing still and manipulating objects. Or standing still and repairing a robot.
In fact, in terms of game design and game mechanics, "room-scale VR" reminds me quite a lot of the infamous Kinect. Sure, VR is a thousand times more accurate and a million times a better experience, but other than that, in terms of game mechanics, they are surprisingly similar. Similar mode of control, similar restrictions. And we all know how successful the Kinect was. Microsoft really, really tried to push it as the next big thing, several times, and some serious triple-A games were made for it... but in the end it was just a failure.
I'm not saying that VR will likewise be a failure, but I'm seeing the signs. Rather than being a generic display peripheral, it turned out to be a very specialized and narrow one, requiring (mostly) custom games that are specifically designed for it (with the exception of vehicle simulators and very few other genres), and with very limiting and restrictive requirements for game design and game mechanics.
Maybe VR will turn out to be ok, and become highly successful, with a library of tens of thousands of big-budget triple-A games, and with VR headsets being a stock peripheral in most households. Or it might turn out to be another Kinect. Or another PS Vita: Impressive specs, but an abysmal library of triple-A games, and quickly forgotten by everybody. A short-lived curiosity. An expensive vehicle simulator peripheral almost exclusively for the enthusiasts.
(I'm still hoping it will turn out ok, though, especially now that Razer OSVR is bringing some healthy competition to the market, to combat the de facto monopoly of those two other companies and their outrageous pricing. PS VR might also have something of an impact, especially since they are emphasizing the sit-down experience, and aiming for a more affordable price.)
I'm with you, Warp. The Wii soured on people after a year for being "gimmicky" and I'm supposed to believe that VR is going to disrupt the industry? Gamers get ridiculously hyped for things all the time (Superman 64 and Lair immediately come to mind). They fail to recognize that core gameplay principles (not graphics) and an affordable price point will drive console sales and then are shocked at their disappointment. Then they do it all over again. Call me a wet blanket, but I don't think I've been hyped up about anything-- video game or otherwise-- for the better part of a decade. It only ends in pain.
I really feel like a minority for having literally zero interest in VR. It always came off to me like setting a game to full screen and adding gimmicky controls. It doesn't help that I'm a person who easily gets a headache from playing games, if something isn't set up optimally (distance to the screen, size of the screen). Also, I wear glasses, which already made me hate 3D in movies.
Besides that, a new gimmick can't change the fact that most of those new, "big" games don't interest me anyway. I could write a book about why that is.
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.
For what it's worth, I never really got the hype about VR myself either. Then again, it is notoriously hard to get me excited about things anyway.
I wanted to reserve judgement until I had the chance to actually to try out a VR headset for myself, but the current price tag for the Rift and the Vive, along with the hardware needed to support these headsets, make this unlikely to happen any time soon.
From what I can see, there doesn't seem to be a Killer App for VR just yet; a great game that everybody needs to play, that works much better or only works in VR. I believe VR needs a game like this, or several, to really take off. Until now, most of the games I have seen seem to be fairly gimmicky showcases of the technology. However, I haven't really paid attention to this year's E3, so if something exciting for VR has been announced, feel free to correct me on this point.
It seems that everybody is hailing VR as the next big thing, something that will completely revolutionize gaming and take it to a completely new level. I'm just not seeing it.
I think you aren't seeing it because the way current VR games are done is, basically, take a normal game and tack on a two-axis viewpoint control. I mean, the current VR headsets still use the basic designs from early 90s, what do you expect? Even if you bring the constituent parts up to date, the technology is still old. What the companies are doing are attempts to bring a still very immature tehnology into a very mature market.
It will take a while before the market is filled with well-done games developed completely around the concept, coming up with gameplay that doesn't even work otherwise and narrative methods that exploit the potential of full immersion instead of trying to adapt the cinematic concept of framing to unrestricted viewpoint. I'm thinking it will take a while for the concept and associated technologies to progress and mature, too. VR probably won't be a big thing until we have basic olfactory and full-body tactile feedback capabilities. Or maybe until we have a more direct neural interface that bypasses the need to use physical controllers (and as such, physically move parts of your body around). Consider that, when you sleep, you can move and interact with entities in a dream, yet you don't physically move in your bed. That is the end state of VR, and the current tehnology is nowhere close yet.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
I really feel like a minority for having literally zero interest in VR.
I have been really excited and expectant of VR since the very first announcements of the Oculus Rift, and especially after I got to try the first development kit. I could just imagine how mind-blowingly awesome it would be to play my all-favorite games in VR, like Portal, Portal2, Mirror's Edge, Skyrim and Alien Isolation, among many others.
However, I'm quite disappointed at how it turned out to be. While the OR has from the very beginning, and even to some extent to this day, emphasized the sit-down experience of more traditional games, mainly HTC/Valve decided that VR "doesn't work" with any of those traditional first-person perspective games (or even most third-person perspective ones), and it seems that Oculus has pretty much followed suit, alongside the vast majority of game developers. Which in practice means that I will most probably never experience those games in VR, at least not official support. (There are third-party drivers and mods that can be used to play many existing games in VR, but almost invariably there are limitations, especially related to head-tracking. Most typically there's a very limited range within which you can turn your head before the edges of the rendered world come into view, which probably just destroys the immersion. This is because independent head movement has not been programmed into the game itself.)
I want to experience Portal2 VR, Mirror's Edge VR, Doom VR, Alien Isolation VR... but the developers are not going to add support. And it seems that they have zero plans of adding support to any future games of those genres either. Because VR "doesn't work" with them (meaning it causes nausea to most people).
At most what you'll get is what Bethesda announced with respect to Fallout 4: They announced that they will be adding VR support to the game... as room-scale VR. In other words, rather than having your regular Fallout 4, just with stereo vision, they will be offering a crippled "room-scale VR" version. Meaning standing still, shooting around, and "teleporting" to move. And, of course, only for the Vive.
Yeah, I'm sure "room-scale VR Fallout 4" would be nice to experience once, as a tech demo and an experience, but I suspect that as an actual game it will mostly suck. Being limited by the restriction of "room-scale VR" sounds like it will just suck all the fun out of actually playing such a game. (Not to talk about how long you will be able to play a game while standing up. My feet hurt just from thinking about it.)
Somehow I'm not very excited about paying 900€ for some tech demos and crippled games.
I will most probably get myself a headset some time in the future, when the prices come significantly down. I hope that game developers will reach an agreement of offering VR support to more traditional games, even if it causes nausea to some people. You demonstrably get used to it (as has been demonstrated by many people eg. on youtube). It's not an insurmountable problem, and personally I'm fully ready to give it a try, to make myself accustomed to the system and get over the nausea, even if it takes weeks or months. I fear, however, that game developers are not going to give me even the chance to try. And that's why I am finding this whole VR so disappointing.
I think you aren't seeing it because the way current VR games are done is, basically, take a normal game and tack on a two-axis viewpoint control.
I don't really understand what you mean. I'm disappointed precisely because they are not doing that. They are convinced that VR "doesn't work" with traditional games, and they have to come up with custom VR-exclusive games.
I am also disappointed in how Valve seems to think that "room-scale VR" is the only way to go, and how so many people, including so many developers, are following them. I see room-scale VR as severely limiting in terms of game mechanics and gameplay. And there is obviously absolutely no space for traditional first-person shooters or any other such genre. They are completely out of the question.
It almost feels like VR has "failed" already, in a sense. It "doesn't work".
Ok, let me explain.
They may say they're convinced it doesn't work with "traditional" games, but that's still what they're doing: same old "traditional" games with a two-axis viewpoint control. I haven't seen even a single fully developed, non-proof-of-concept game that would rely on VR instead of VR being forced on it.
I mean I've just googled "best VR games" and this was the first hit. Inside is the list of same fucking old games I played a decade ago—except they're now completely smothered with shadurrs and have... yes, a two-axis stereoscopic viewpoint control system strapped to your head! But nothing else changed. No new ways to interact with in-game environments, no new interface-driven narrative approaches, none of that. The original Penumbra tech demo probably did more for immersion and the concept of "reality" than all of that list combined, if only because it actually offered entirely new ways of interaction with a 3D game environment that affected the gameplay in a major way, while still using the existing technology. It used the latent potential of that technology that everyone else ignored, using realistic physics emulation to inform a player's decisions and provide them with methods of dealing with in-game problems, real-time lighting as a gameplay element rather than a graphics showcase, etc.
Valve does have a point in the sense that simply putting two eye-tracking displays on your head does not a virtual reality make. VR headset is really just a glorified way to trick your field of view in a way that erases the rest of the room from it (Google Cardboard is perhaps the most convincing illustration of this). It has a very long road ahead of it before it could seriously be called virtual reality. It hasn't failed yet because it hasn't really appeared yet—what you see is the embryo of the technology to come, which companies are eager to turn into buzzword and cash in before it gets good and they can cash in again.
I mean when you saw Tron or Money for Nothing music video in the 80s you didn't think CGI "already failed", right? It barely even existed back then.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
What you are seeing is completely contradictory to what I am seeing.
For years I was expecting them to simply "slap VR into the same old games", and now I'm disappointed that they are not. Because that's exactly what I wanted: To be able to experience my all-time favorite games in VR. Instead, they are dissing traditional games completely, saying that VR "doesn't work" with them, and they have zero intention of adding VR support to them. They are instead adamant in creating custom VR-only games that work differently from traditional games.
You are saying the exact opposite of what I am saying.
Because that's exactly what I wanted: To be able to experience my all-time favorite games in VR. Instead, they are dissing traditional games completely, saying that VR "doesn't work" with them, and they have zero intention of adding VR support to them.
Well, of course they don't. Catering to nostalgia in this way isn't worth the investment. Which is understandable, because in cases with many (most?) older games adding VR support entails rewriting the entire rendering pipeline from the ground up. It's more profitable to make a new game.
Warp wrote:
They are instead adamant in creating custom VR-only games that work differently from traditional games.
Do they, though? What VR changes right now is making the camera control more awkward by making it equivalent to your head turning synchronously with your eyeballs, which is not how human eyesight works (and is hence nauseating for sensitive people). But the core gameplay hasn't changed, and the selection of genres hasn't changed. Besides, if a game is neither fun nor satisfying regardless of VR support, that's really the game's fault, not the VR's. Which is, again, understandable: if you take the time to develop a future classic, you will miss the fad cash-in. Publishers don't want that.
Meh, just wait it out. The initial fad will die, people will start thinking on the ways to bring out its potential, and we'll get some good games that will hopefully encourage further advancement of the technology.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Which is understandable, because in cases with many (most?) older games adding VR support entails rewriting the entire rendering pipeline from the ground up.
If a third party driver can do most of it automatically, it's nevertheless too difficult and laborious for the developers to do it having the source code of the game?
One of the core tenets of being a developer (and, I apologize to any other developers in the thread who will want to lynch me for sharing this trade secret) is that you don't re-do work that's already been done properly. If this third party driver does exactly what is necessary for older games to work with VR in the most basic capacity, there's no need for a team of developers to implement it for each individual and ancient game, knowing that they won't be paid for the task, and that they have more important things to do.
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
One of the core tenets of being a developer (and, I apologize to any other developers in the thread who will want to lynch me for sharing this trade secret) is that you don't re-do work that's already been done properly. If this third party driver does exactly what is necessary for older games to work with VR in the most basic capacity, there's no need for a team of developers to implement it for each individual and ancient game, knowing that they won't be paid for the task, and that they have more important things to do.
As I commented earlier, the driver has limitations mainly related to head-tracking. Since looking around independently of where you are aiming has not been coded into the game, the driver can't do it itself. Thus it has a very limited range of how far you can look to the side, away from where you are aiming. Thus the VR support is limited.
So... it sounds a lot like you're talking about Doom. Or, to be more generic, Generic First Person Shooter.
In Generic First Person Shooter, the game that actually exists, "looking around independently of where you are aiming has not been coded into the game," yet this is what you want. A thing that doesn't exist in the game ... in the game.
Which you expect developers to jump out of their seats and make for you, right now, because you want it. Ignoring the fact that these people have jobs, are paid to work on actual projects that exist, and are generally under the thumb of someone higher up that reminds these developers that they have to work on actual projects that exist (and also these six bugs in the database, by Friday, please), and you expect them to do so in a world where releases are frequently late, frequently rushed, frequently buggy, and frequently underappreciated.
On behalf of the developer community, "We'll get right on that."
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
Which you expect developers to jump out of their seats and make for you, right now, because you want it.
Exactly. You understood perfectly.
The alternative is that they just create a few VR-only "room-scale" triple-A games, and the system withers away into obscurity due to the lack of a healthy library of games.
VR could have literally thousands of triple-A games right now. The OR development kit has been around for about three years. They had plenty of time to add quick support to most existing games. That could have sky-rocketed the popularity of VR right from the start.
But they didn't. And now VR has a pityable game library. And for the looks of it, they aren't going to add support to any of the new traditional games either. All we have is some robot repair simulators and gallery shooters, most of which have PS2-grade graphics.
To say that VR has, so far, turned out to be a disappointment, is an understatement.
Which you expect developers to jump out of their seats and make for you, right now, because you want it.
Exactly. You understood perfectly.
Do you want a Green Lantern ring with that?
What you are effectively asking is that every game studio across the planet drop what they are doing, dig up all of their old projects, read the code for all of those old projects, figure out where best to implement VR code into those old projects [without fixing known bugs], and then release those old projects with brand new VR support, probably for free because you're not going to pay for a thing when you can use a readily available VR driver off of the internet, just because you want them to. Nobody is going to do that. Zero studios, zero people.
Patton Oswalt wrote:
That's what crazy people want.
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
VR could have literally thousands of triple-A games right now. The OR development kit has been around for about three years. They had plenty of time to add quick support to most existing games.
...Most existing games that people already own and are extremely unlikely to pay the second time for. I understand the sentiment (I'm giddy enough that some games such as System Shock 2 receive fan-sourced bufixes and facelifts), but hoping for something like this to happen officially is just wishful thinking, I'm afraid.
Let's face it. Adding support for features that do not exist in the game costs money. Fixing bugs and compatibility problems, as well as listening and responding to actual complaints, costs money. Re-advertising the addition of new features costs... you guessed it, money. As does the redistribution, as it has never really been free for anyone. So where do you expect this money to come from? People are hard enough to convince paying for something the first time; the percentage of the original audience who would be willing to pay again would never cover the costs. What about possible reputation risks, arising from disappointingly implemented VR in games that weren't conceived with it in mind, that might affect future purchases? Publishers know this, so they won't bother. Profit margins for new games are higher—that's just the reality of things.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
What you are effectively asking is that every game studio across the planet drop what they are doing, dig up all of their old projects, read the code for all of those old projects, figure out where best to implement VR code into those old projects [without fixing known bugs], and then release those old projects with brand new VR support, probably for free because you're not going to pay for a thing when you can use a readily available VR driver off of the internet, just because you want them to. Nobody is going to do that. Zero studios, zero people.
And thus VR may turn out to be a failure. Abysmal game library. No support nor interest from game developers. "Zero studios, zero people." Just like the PS Vita.
Do you understand the point I'm trying to make?
And thus VR may turn out to be a failure. Abysmal game library. No support nor interest from game developers. "Zero studios, zero people." Just like the PS Vita.
Do you understand the point I'm trying to make?
Well it has Batman VR, developed by the peeps who made the Arkham series. That's a pretty big studio to have an interest in it.
Plus the Vita is pretty much a cult classic at this point. Kind of like the Gamecube.
effort on the first draft means less effort on any draft thereafter
- some loser
Let's face it. Adding support for features that do not exist in the game costs money.
For like a year or more after the PS4 was launched, a significant portion of the games that were published were actually "remastered" PS3 games. And porting and remastering a game from one console to a completely incompatible newer console is not a very easy task. Yet lots of game studios did exactly that. And apparently it was profitable because the remastered versions sold quite well.
Adding VR support to an existing game ought to be a significantly smaller task, especially if the game doesn't use any fancy rendering or scene geometry tricks that do not work in stereo vision. (Some games do, making them harder to add good VR support, as the stereo vision reveals the tricks used, making the unrealistic. These are tricks like objects being much smaller and closer than they ought to be, among other things. However, likewise quite many games do not do this.)
Valve did it with Half-Life 2. I doubt it was a humongous task to them.
Adding VR support may well revitalize the sales of a particular game. And if nothing else, it would contribute to making VR more widely adopted and accepted. A gaming device needs a healthy triple-A game library, else it's doomed to failure. This has been seen time and again during the history of video games.
But Valve did pretty much an 180, and discouraged anybody from adding VR support to any existing game (with, perhaps, the exception of vehicle simulators). And they started tacitly dissing sit-down VR, implying that room-scale VR is the only way to go. Unfortunately, it seems that most game studios are believing them.
Add the outrageous pricing of the headsets to the mix, a price point well outside the budget of the average gamer, and you have a formula for failure. (I may well be wrong on this, but I'm seeing all the signs.)
Adding VR support to an existing game ought to be a significantly smaller task, especially if the game doesn't use any fancy rendering or scene geometry tricks that do not work in stereo vision.
Warp wrote:
These are tricks like objects being much smaller and closer than they ought to be, among other things.
Warp wrote:
Adding VR support may well revitalize the sales of a particular game.
Ought to be, ought to be, may well. None of these things are facts, these are entirely your opinion, with no facts to back you up.
Here's the reality of those statements, in order:
Adding support for any particular driver requires someone on the code team to know how that driver works in order to interact with it. It also requires a second and possibly third person on that same team to be able to spot check any written code, requires a tester or two to have the technology in the office to be able to test that code, and requires a boatload of tests to make sure that adding VR support to the game didn't affect anything else negatively.
And now you're entering the realm of code difficulty - if things ought to be a particular size, and you're asking the rendering engine to do it differently because someone is using a particular headset, you're creating an entirely new branch of code that needs to be completely tested (with that headset, time, money, etc.) and you need to check that nothing goes wrong when switching back and forth between rendering engines, and that no puzzles become less difficult than intended because of that switch. A puzzle which is easier in VR than on a monitor is a lose by the development team, and so is a puzzle which is harder in VR than on a monitor. Both result in negative press, general audience disappointment, and the like. And without even talking about puzzle difficulty, we can just look at framerate issues. If the headset requires rendering objects one way while a conventional monitor renders them another, people will post side-by-side comparisons on the internet and lambaste the developers for this terrible injustice. Look no further than the 30 fps vs. 60 fps frustration/debate/scandal in current news media.
Producing games maintains the vitality of the gaming industry. Releasing old games with new features asks for the continued goodwill of the gaming public begs a lot of their nostalgia and the hope that this time isn't the last time.
This article talks about retro gaming.Gamespot wrote:
"Most recently I purchased Final Fantasy: 8 and Half-Life 2. I had played neither of these games before but bought them simply because of the hype that surrounds them. The problem is I just can't bring myself to enjoy them."
"HL: 2 from all accounts redefined shooters. It was obviously a pretty amazing game of its time and its (possibly) impending sequel has a major internet cult following. It was for these reasons that I thought I would play it. I picked it up for only $2 so I figured it wouldn't hurt! However upon playing it I just couldn't get past the outdated graphics and mechanics. It was simply awful. I feel bad about saying this about a game that so many people revere and I also understand that it first released in 2004 but for me it is unplayable now."
"The main reason why I couldn't finish these games is because I never played them when I was younger. I don't have that nostalgic connection to the game which would be required to see past these little problems. Nostalgia is a very powerful thing and gives people the ability to view things they used to like through rose tinted glasses. Whereas all I can see is graphics and mechanics that have been done better in newer games."
Later, when talking about Pokémon (Blue, according to the screenshot),Gamespot wrote:
"Another major help is that fact that I have completed the game so many times that it is now really easy."
This thread is about the board game industry, but it's just as relevant to the video game industry.
This essay is about retro gaming and nostalgia, and it writes,
That Essay wrote:
Retrogamers and game journalists have weighed in on these official compilations, and two themes are common in their critiques. First, many take issue with any tinkering or tweaking to what they consider to be classic games, arguing that the games which have been modified to appeal to modern audiences have key components compromised. For example, collections such as the Sega Classics Collection, which re-creates two dimensional games, such as Golden Axe (Sega, 1989) and Space Harrier (Sega, 1985), in three dimensions, have been almost universally decried as being unfaithful to the memory of the original games. Second, critics are often quick to question the decisions about which games are designated with “classic” status in these collections. Compilations, such as the Capcom Classics series, are often attacked on gaming websites for their exclusion of particular games that are deemed by many participants in retrogaming culture as seminal titles in the history of gaming. For example, the exclusion of a specific version of Street Fighter II on the first Capcom Classics collection for the PlayStation 2 left many critics cold to the release and sparked some retrogaming websites to suggest boycotting the game, petitioning Capcom, or downloading illegal ROMs of the missing game.
A quick case study of the response to the Sega Genesis Collection is instructive. IGN.com’s review of the game notes “A few of the choices and omissions are curious. I'd gladly trade Ecco Jr., Decap Attack or Virtua Fighter 2…for the Streets of Rage trilogy or Eternal Champions” (Goldstein, 2006).
...
Similar comments in response to other official collections of classic games have been repeated across the web for nearly every compilation that has been published by the industry over the past decade. The tenor of these remarks suggest that some gamers are concerned about how their own version of gaming history is being re-presented; they worry about what specific games are being collected, remembered, and re-played and what other titles are being excluded from these collections.
The article continues to discuss nostalgia, and the way players visit those older games with new eyes.
Warp wrote:
For like a year or more after the PS4 was launched, a significant portion of the games that were published were actually "remastered" PS3 games. And porting and remastering a game from one console to a completely incompatible newer console is not a very easy task. Yet lots of game studios did exactly that. And apparently it was profitable because the remastered versions sold quite well.
This is a way to expand your playerbase without alienating your old players. Similar techniques are used when designing traditional cross-platform games (PlayStation Something <-> X-Box Number <-> Nintendo Alphabetti-Spaghetti <-> PC), but in the case of developing for the PS3 and the PS4 specifically, the developers on these teams were already developing a game for the PS3 (a systemnotoriouslydifficultto write code for), whereas the PS4 "features an AMD Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) built upon the x86-64 architecture" which is a far more common architecture to work with. I'm not saying that the work required to develop the PS4 version out of the PS3 code is trivial, just that you don't need as specialized a team to do it, particularly if your PS3 and PS4 teams are talking together on a regular basis. Doing cross-platform development like this while the game is still being worked on is factored into budgets, and is a completely different animal than digging up a fossil and adding new code to it.
If you choose to ignore all of the costs of developing, publishing, and maintaining software, as well as the time required to implement all of these changes, then I agree with you 100%, "it ought to be easy". However, when you factor in that adding a new technology to your stack is expensive (due to acquiring the technology and training people on it), and that developers are already working on more modern things, paying someone (or, rather, someones) to go into your vault, decide which games should receive VR facelifts (and bugfixes and updates) is not a good use of company time.
Edited to add: It's a far better gamble, cost-benefit-wise, to let some third party develop a driver which does most of the things players want in a VR experience, and to gauge customer satisfaction from watching that project than to dive in, head-first, and do a lot of work that might be unprofitable.
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
