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"The gaming industry unimaginative, and trivial due to games like BlackOps" says dev
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Is it true, though? I mean, code is hard. If it wasn't, there wouldn't be so many modern mainstream games that are still buggy messes. In a lot of cases, it may actually be easier and cheaper to generate all that stuff Jephery mentioned in an existing engine than it is to write a new engine with fresh gameplay. Isn't this why mods and total conversions are so common? And why Bethesda has been reusing the same ancient engine since forever? And how they can pump out a new Call of Duty game a year?
Or maybe the industry is just really bad at software engineering. I don't know.
I deleted my last response because I misunderstood what you were saying and was going to think it over, but I just realized what the response should be.
Watch the Black Ops credits roll: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MujQVKuxlF4
Only 20 seconds out of 9 minutes of the credits scroll is dedicated to the Engineers, the people who actually worked on the game engine itself. Admittingly, they're densely packed in there.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
There needs to be a larger variety of distinct types of games (genres if you will) that are intended to be mainstream and can represent the best gaming can offer.
Games don't get created off the patronage of the wealthy or government funds or get created purely as an act of dedication and passion. Games have to actually make money because they're basically a variety of consumable product.
People like action. They also like escapism. Now, in the real world there is no way they can go diving all over the place while firing an automatic rifle while flying through the air to kill their friends or even people they don't know. All that "ideal solution" would accomplish is a bunch of high-budget games which would sell terribly, a bunch of people losing their jobs, and probably more than a couple devs going entirely out of business. People don't just buy games because they're expensive to make, they buy them for fun.
If you unionized the entire game development industry and convinced all the devs to make nothing with guns, you'd do a great job of collapsing the industry overnight for no other reason than some silly ideal based on an opinionated view of creativity.
It is indeed, I played some Quake online last night. Surprised at how many games were going.
Also I think this topic of discussion is all but dead really (the gaming industry one, not Quake, I could talk about that for days).
PSN: SirGrinchX
Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
It is like a cross between CPMA and unreal tournament.
You don't need to circle jump anymore because there is a dash command which makes you hit 475 ups instantly in your movement direction, you can also change directions instantly without losing speed. Same key also jumps you off walls. If you're not moving at 650-750 you're not moving fast enough.
It has a quake 3 weapon set with any ammo boxes you pick up giving you 'strong' ammo either increases the damage of the shots or slightly modifies how the projectiles work. It is pretty great, unfortunately it is hard to learn even for players of duel fps so the community is incredibly small. Australia's died recently because one of the few active players fractured his hand.
E: Also I wanna bitch about how games don't let me change my FOV anymore. Screw that. 90 as a MAXIMUM? Pah. 140 or bust. (I guess 130 if it is capped at that like quake 3)
The economic argument is the most important one for any business to concern themselves with. I don't know of any publisher-backed developer that thinks risking tens of millions of dollars of other people's money on games that don't have well-established, well-sized target audiences is the best way for them to stay in business.
Don't expect risks to be taken by people who have their livelihoods depending on this stuff, is all.
The same amount? Really? Safe bets pay for the risky ones; I don't know that you could ever have them in the same proportion.
What we're going to see is a shift in how games are funded, and how games are published entirely. Valve was discussing this, publicly, what, half a year ago now? Actual gamers, art houses, private groups, etc., donating money to publishers they like on games they want to see come to life for a portion of profit, artistic control, etc.. That's an interesting concept and it's similar to one that theater has been using for, what, the last 100 years or more? Minecraft is a really good example of this. Buy it in alpha for 15 dollars now, and get the whole version when it's released for free, at which point it will be sold for 30 dollars (or more). That's an example of this new kind of publishing. It's a brave new world, and it's glorious.
Ummm, I'm pretty sure people really like games about people with guns. That's why they're popular. The market reflects what the consumers want.
I mean, what would we play? Games about plumbers who jump up and down? Who the hell wants that?
The problem is when publishers refuse to fund any games which aren't already commerically proven. It's an understandable policy, which sadly leads to a ton of identical games in the market.
I really love Ron Carmel's suggestion that Activision and the other big companies should set up "indie teams" internally.
http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2010/11/indepth_world_of_goo_dev_tells.php
Assemble a small team of developers inside EA/Activision, give them a small budget and creative freedom.
The cash cows like CODBLOPS would easily cover the cost if the results weren't commercially successful, and the potential rewards would be critical and commercial acclaim. Not to mention brand new IP.
Sadly, I doubt Mr Kotick will let anyone under his employment step away from the COD coalface any time in the near future.
Here is EA's take on that concept.
They're bringing Fancy Pants Adventure to console!
Yes, because all the basic gameplay was already implemented and polished in previous CoD releases. If they were to make a more unique style of game, the list of developers might be significantly longer. Additionally, LMNO was mentioned earlier in the thread. With that, it took the developers six months to make something that was still much more engine than game. Pretty much everyone uses middleware now. But middleware bends in some directions more easily than others.
Is the number of artists credited usually larger than most other groups, just because it's easier to define a graphical style than it is to keep a large team of programmers coordinated? Kinda how throwing more developers at a project won't make it not late?
I'm mostly just thinking out loud.
I outright evaluate whether or not I'm going to buy a game by how many hours of entertainment I'm getting per dollar spent. Games like New Vegas, Shiren and Civilization get snapped up on day one because even at full price they're still an awesome value. Getting something like Mirrors Edge is like throwing your money down the toilet.
This approach is pretty shortsighted. It devalues quality, and rewards grinding based games. In short, it plays right into the hands of publishers who release games such as the one the OP is complaining about.
Are you really suggesting 1 hour of a good movie is equal in value across the board? Likewise, the same holds true for videogames? I don't think this is your point, but your stance implies this point.
I think his point is that, in this economical climate, a good game with plenty of content is a smarter purchase than a better game with a small amount of content.
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I got a good 30 hours worth of entertainment out of Mirror's Edge and I'll probably go back to the game later and play it some more. Definitely not throwing your money down the toilet.
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire,
It's a shame because the first few levels really flow, and then they slow you down with sneaking around crates and shit. Also the enemy runners that chase you were an excellent idea for the later levels. Shame they used them about twice and otherwise stuck to squads of armed police.
I did replay the first 4 levels quite a lot though.
Would you rather spend $1 on a fresh, warm Mrs. Fields cookie, or on a 16-oz bag of off-brand chips from the dollar store?
I guess it depends on how hungry you are at the moment.
PSN:RevDrGalactus/NN:RevDrGalactus/Steam
I can't quite agree with that. I'm loving New Vegas and Civ, but I'd trade them in a heartbeat for another Uncharted.
Man, but Uncharted is not only wonderful, it's got excellent multiplayer too!
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I actually meant ideally for consumers. Out of the many genres and styles of games seen since videogames started really only a few genres are popular anymore and out of those a couple genres receive the big budgets. For the most part. Whereas back in the day a mainstream basketball game was meant to be fun for any gamer and and received the same budget as other types of games. Or a puzzle, fighting, racing, or platform game. Hardly anyone is putting large budgets in to make these types of games. Obviously some genres require more or less resources and the type of game determines how much as well.
I just wanted to talk about what could be making the gaming industry feel unimaginative. It's not even the genre of FPS. I think it's that any big budget game is about "people with guns" whether it's RPGish like Fallout, open world like Red Dead Redemption, third person like Uncharted, mixed genre like Mass Effect 2 or just FPSish like Call of Duty. It's hard to point to a non-gun-game in the video game industry that people can look to as AAA, mainstream, and top-budget or whatever you want to call it.
I know the differences between the games I listed above but I think after a while the industry has been losing creativity due to it's reliance on guns in games. Because it's rather insular to keep your focus on that compared to the many styles of games that could be done.
Mirror's Edge was a good game but it was kind of niche. If it was expanded, using the same theme, to be a fuller game experience such as Thief or Beyond Good and Evil I think it could be excellent (and more mainstream).
The part that everyone has forgotten is that gaming has ALWAYS been like this. People cry about how innovation is dead due to 1 inch thick nostalgia goggles. I started gaming in the Atari age and I can say with authority that if anything, the amount of shovelware has gone down and things couldn't be better In the old days, if one game got super popular, you could bet that there'd be dozens of terrible clones out of that game soon after and it was always a pain seperating the good stuff from the shit.
Yes, there was a certain level of creative freedom back then since it was just as cheap to attempt to do experimenting as it was to produce raw shovelware, but let's not kid ourselves either. Back then stuff like Pole Position was mind blowing.
There was a lot of newness to gaming that helped us not really care about the shovelware. These days gamers tend to be the equivalent of the grizzled war veterans we tend to end up playing as. We've seen everything, we've done everything. Us old guard gamers have a thousand yard stare and permanent gaming related calusses.
It's easy to forget that there's new generations of gamers out there and that to them, Modern Warfare 1 was their Goldeneye and Black Ops is their Perfect Dark. Gaming couldn't be any better in all honesty. Thanks to digital distribution, the indy scene is producing some truly outstanding and innovative games. Sure the mainstream games aren't going to blow you away with what they're all about, but when have they ever? If the biggest problem we have now is the occasional game like Medal of Honor falling horribly short, then I think we're doing alright. The ratio of "pretty decent/good" to "what the fuck is this shit?" has gotten a lot better over time.
Hell, why are we bitching about Cod Blops when Nintendo has been rehashing the same batch of games for the past 20-30 years? Oh right. Because the devs for a game desperately in need of press and attention found an easy target and got to do some media trolling that worked.
You may get your wish.
That said, the industry should invest in more creative ideas, at least as side projects to their major ones. If nothing else so as to avoid slipping into irrelevance when the fickle tastes of the masses suddenly change and last year's blockbuster becomes a passing fad.
see: Rock Band 3
They're are fun. Their art is secondary to how fun they are. Unless they don't care about sales, in which case, why is he talking? Plenty of people are making clever stuff.
Besides, Black Ops is a significant jump in the cinematic quality over previous COD games. They also learned a lot about what makes multiplayer fun. These lessons will help Treyarch and others make better shooters.
They don't need to have an amazing ecology system with rpg elements to break new ground. It can just do something better than ever before.
That said, AC:Brotherhood multiplayer is amazing. This breaks new ground with an amazing concept and awesome execution (no pun intended)
This reminds me of Tower of Goo, which was a school project, and moved on to become the very-very excellent World of Goo.
I'm just going to take a moment out from the discussion at hand to say oh... My... GOOOOOODDDDDDD!!!!!!!
YEEEEEEESSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!
JADE! I LOVE YOU JADE!
The bolded part I don't necessarily agree with. Everything else though I think you're on to something. Maybe the guy meant to say that the new expanded customer-base of video games is unappreciative of the creative / clever titles.
These companies are out to make money. That is why people put the money up so developers can do what they do. It is EXTREMELY difficult to convince an investor that people want to play something like Minecraft. That is why innovation tends to come out of hobby developers or self-funded developers.
And by art, I mean, Artistic Gameplay or truly ground-breaking games. Most games like that fail badly and financially.
That said, Mirror's Edge was pretty unique and did well enough. But the risk is higher since the game company's goal is to make money.
I love innovation though.
Anyway, the guy is out of his gourd if he thinks that it is wise to complain about your customers. If they don't like something weird, they don't like something weird. If you want to make money, you find things that people want to play; even if they don't realize they want to play it.
Plenty of room for innovation, just a lot of it will fail.
I just heard the Idle Thumbs podcast discuss how the length of games and level segmentation encourages convoluted plot lines similar to that of serial tv shows, while the best stories in games are simpler plots not so much told but explored in a meaningful way.
e.g.
for Portal: "You get a neat gun, but you are a disposable guinea pig, so you outsmart the malicious AI"
for SoC: "You must slay 16 giants, but killing them makes you a bad person, so you die"
Basically less scripted sequences, more evocative play mechanics or setting makes for "good story" in games I guess.
bought mirror's edge because it's goddamn gorgeous. played some, got distracted by a game with a sterner story, also felt that the gameplay offered a lot but probably needed to be exclusively played for a while. paid 30 bucks for it, played for under 10 hours.
bought prince of persia (2008) because it's goddamn gorgeous. played it, enjoyed the beauty of the environments, beat it, eventually got tired of the world devoid of other living things, THEN got screwed over hard by ubisoft on the DLC. paid 25 bucks for it, played for around 30 hours.
bought borderlands because it's goddamn gorgeous. wound up loving not just the art direction but the gameplay too. paid 45 bucks for it, played for over 600 hours so far.
conclusions? i can't draw any. i don't consider mirror's edge a worse purchase than borderlands, even though the cost to hours played ratio couldn't be more different.
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
Are people mad because they don't do BLOPS numbers? Well... isn't that not the developer's fault?
I mean, Alan Wake had just as many ads as Black ops did, basically. So why isn't alan wake in the same catagory as blops in regards to sales figures?
Hell, I bought both.
"Fail" doesn't mean what it should, sadly. I think the concept of failure means not being on the top 5 of a top 10 chart, or not selling millions. But anyway that's another discussion.
how's this apply to CoD? well, this system of bait and hook informs how i consume game content. i know, for example, that CoD's hook - the multiplayer - is not attractive at all for me. still, the bait - the storyline/campaign - remains appetizing. if i buy the game, though, i've spent 60 bucks on just the bait. that's not a good investment. once my curiosity is satisfied and the bait's consumed, i'm left with unappetizing hook. the same thing applies to FF13. the bait is the storyline. the hook is the battle system. i only want the one, as i've had experience with the other and i don't like it much.
what to do? youtube acts as my bait-buffet. i watch the campaigns of games whose bait seems interesting, and in the end, i don't have to deal with the leftover hooks.
sometimes, i buy games whose baits have expired. this most often occurs when older games go on sale on steam. there's no hype, there's no eagerness or gnawing curiosity. instead, i have to make purchases based on hooks, and i'm a lot more careful as to which hooks i pay for. GTA4? the bait didn't interest me, the hook didn't interest me, but my friends said a particular part of the hook - the freeroam - was worth it. however, i don't pay full price for a partial hook and no bait. so GTA4 had to get down to a 7.50 sale before i purchased it.
i think what the six-days-in-fallujah guy is facing is an uneven battle. his game is all bait - all untested bait - unlike anything the war shooter genre has done before. he's trying to compete against a game that's nearly all proven, time-tested hook. for gamers, it comes down to "do i have an extra 50-60 bucks to gamble on a game that may be all bait?"
and publishers already know that a trusted hook keeps their audience coming back for more.
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy