Why modern gaming sucks (according to the Escapist)

[Awor Szurkrarz]

The modern market has yet to produce something as awful as ET.

They are much more rare now (as well as people who want to make games for us) for the reasons I've mentioned in my previous post. Simply because the old generation of designers doesn't do anything anymore and the next-gen is just clueless about the better stuff and thus can't replace the old-gen.

Except that back then, you had a ton of designers producing "mainstream" games for every Richard Gariott.

 

[BLOBERT]

BROS LOLOLOLOL I AGREE THE SHEEPLE ARE RUINING EVERYTHING WHEN I WAS YOUNGER WE WERE ALL ALOT SMARTER AND ONLY PLAYED GAMES BY PEOPLE WHO LOVED GAMES

LOLOLOLOL CONSOLETARD FAGS AND EVIL; CORPORATIONS LOLOLLOL

BRO IT IS TRUE THAT ALMOST NINETY PERCENT OF A GAMES BUDHJET IS MARKETING STUGFF TO FORCE FEED SHIT DOWN THE SHEEPLES THROAT OLO9LLOLOL

BROS WOULDNT IT BE FUNNY IF YOU HAD LOTS OF PEOPLE WORKING ON EACH GAME AND IT COST MONEY TO PAY THOSE SALARIES AND THAT IS WHAT MADE UPO ALOT OF THE BUDJET LOLLOLLOL

 

[MetalCraze]

so 10 years ago big studios worked for fresh air with 1 mln- budgets and yet made vastly superior games?

Man aren't you retarded?

 

[BLOBERT]

SOMETIMES I HEARD THAT GAMES HAVE BIGGER TEAMS MAKING THEM AND I HAVE HEARD OF A TERM CALLED INFLATION I DOIN'T KNOW IF I BELIEVE IT IT MIGHT BE A POPAMOLE COVERUP

BACK WHEN I PLAYED GAMES I HAD TO WALK UPHILL BOTH WAYS AND IT WAS MANDATORY TO LEARN CALCUKLUS READ DOSTEOEVSY AND DO AN OIL PAINTING IN BETWEEN EACH GAME IT WAS A TIME OF CULTUIRE AND RENASSAINCE

 

[Alex]

Hey Blobbert, is your reply, in any part, directed toward what I posted earlier? If so, calm down. If you disagree with a point I made, point it out and we can discuss. As it is, your arguments are all over the place like mentioning bigger teams and inflation at the same time...

 

[fizzelopeguss]

blobert keeping it real.

 

[PorkaMorka]

If we accept the premises of this article as true, and I do, how come indie gaming is failing so badly?

If there are all these fans of niche genres who are are not being served by mainstream titles, how come we don't see many people producing high quality indie games with lower graphics budgets to appeal to them?

Sure, indie games exist in these niche genres, but they tend to be far worse than the games of 10 years ago in terms of quality (not talking graphics, but gameplay, plot, UI etc), and they are as rare as hen's teeth.

Indie gaming is mostly about "casual games".

And when a good indie game does come out, like say Dominions 3 or KoTC, it doesn't get played a whole lot.

Did these markets for niche genres that once existed dry up? IE: thanks to marketing everyone (except me) is a graphics whore? Graphics whores have penetrated even the codex, that is for sure.

Or are there still niche markets out there waiting for an indie game to serve them? If so, how come nobody is doing it?

I suggest that these markets no longer exist, people have either turned into graphics whores or given up on gaming and stopped upgrading their PCs (I stopped upgrading my PC although I still do a little gaming).

 

[zeitgeist]

how come we don't see many people producing high quality indie games with lower graphics budgets to appeal to them?

For many of the same reasons that you don't see non-indie games that appeal to such markets. Obviously, first of all it's incompetence, combined with the fact that it's much more profitable to make a Bejeweled clone/AAA console shooter. Making a complex game is, well, complex, regardless of the level of graphics. The industry and the entire game development "culture" is in such a state that competent people aren't exactly encouraged to work in smaller studios, they're much more likely to play a bit part in some AAA studio. Which mostly leaves smaller indie studios to the people who didn't make it in the "big boys club" for various reasons. This doesn't have to be incompetence, mind you, but it's usually some combination of personality traits that isn't conductive to making a good game on their own.

There is a tremendous rift between AAA developers and smaller developers, not only economically, but in the public consciousness (because of marketing, artificially created fanbases and so on). In the early nineties, a startup company could still have a chance on the market, it could still employ similar marketing, and have a similar organization structure and workflow as more famous/established companies. This is not the case anymore. Also, culturally speaking, indie games today are basically relegated to counter-culture by default, with all the good and (mostly) bad this position brings. And - related to the topic at hand - the biggest problem with this is that there is a sizable portion of the mainstream market who will just eat up anything counter-cultural regardless of its quality, which accounts for the relative success of games like Braid.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

If we accept the premises of this article as true, and I do, how come indie gaming is failing so badly?

Well, basically, people who started the business could get away with making games with simple mechanics and incrementally increasing their complexity as they gained more experience. Also, they had much less stuff that would distract them, so they could fully focus on basic stuff like learning programming. Hell, first game of Julian Gollop didn't even have an AI.
Nowadays, not only you have to start out at much higher level of complexity, but you also have tons of other games, possibility of modding other games, etc. as a distraction.
Note how many scenarios for NWN there are, note stuff like recreation of Ultima games on Dungeon Siege engine. There are also mechanics mods for many, many games.
Basic problem: if you already have a vision and don't have to wait to your fourth game to actually create something good, it's much easier and much more rewarding to realise at least a part of that vision by modding a pre-existing game.
Following the path of precursors of the genre would be putting away all the fun stuff like doing tons research, game design, creating assets, testing, etc. and starting with banal shit boring stuff like learning programming (unless you can somehow get a programmer, of course).
So, you'll see many people who actually could make a good indie game (who understand concepts like good games and having fun when playing games), work on mods instead, because it's more fun (which is what games are about - and person that understands it probably will choose more fun option for himself).

And when a good indie game does come out, like say Dominions 3 or KoTC, it doesn't get played a whole lot.

They tend to outprice a large part of their potential audience. A large part of old school gamers seem to be living in developing countries and their prices don't translate well to local markets. Also, dungeon crawlers are niche in a niche.

 

[AzraelCC]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/ ... Innovation

Well, a possible solution was presented over at Extra Credits: copy the business model of films where an indie branch is funded by the mainstream company. I find the arguments in this video as quite objective. Mainstream companies aren't portrayed as purely evil entities, nor are indies presented as uber-genius autistic artists whose works always turn out to be innovative.

 

[Murk]

I think you will be disappointed to learn that AoD will have nothing on Fallout (we already know that combat sucks - if VD & crew put as much effort into everything else - well...).
Copying Fallout's interface does not make Fallout.

Oh god, just shut up

 

[kingcomrade]

Example: take regenerating health. It was not made to make the game easier for the player first and foremost, but to make games easier to be developed without balance issue

Not true, and the regenerating health fits hitscan style games (shooters where your enemies use guns) better than a set health bar does simply because there's no way for a player to dodge hitscan attacks, it's RNG. For the popamole shooter type of game it's a more appropriate system. If you don't like the popamoles then that's fine, but the mechanic itself isn't horrible.

 

[FeelTheRads]

So teams are bigger, cost more money, but the games are worse. And yet, that is fine and dandy because... teams are bigger, man. Think about those big teams who need money next time you want a good game, mkay?

 

[MetalCraze]

SOMETIMES I HEARD THAT GAMES HAVE BIGGER TEAMS MAKING THEM AND I HAVE HEARD OF A TERM CALLED INFLATION I DOIN'T KNOW IF I BELIEVE IT IT MIGHT BE A POPAMOLE COVERUP

You mean like the 1000%-2000% inflation?
Because that would be a perfect explanation how a few $mln were perfectly enough to develop huge 20 hours long FPS with interesting gameplay and top-notch graphics 10 years ago but today you need $25 mln to develop short crap like MW2 that you can complete in a single evening with 5 years old graphics and a very primitive gameplay.

Quite a few big devs already said that the biggest part of the budget is marketing. Stuff like Halo and CoD sells only because retards hear from everywhere that the game is totally cool - and that costs lots of money.

So teams are bigger

Teams aren't bigger either. If you'll check out Westwood's or LGS' credits you will see that they had more people than many studios today during their time. In fact LGS could even handle developing several games in parallel over 3 years development cycle with games today taking 1-2.


Devs are just lazy - why work when you can just make a Console Shooter #1492 and pour all money into marketing and sheeple will buy it en masse despite it being as long as demos of 10 years old games?
Isn't that how business works? Trying getting more for less?

 

[Darth Roxor]

BACK WHEN I PLAYED GAMES I HAD TO WALK UPHILL BOTH WAYS AND IT WAS MANDATORY TO LEARN CALCUKLUS READ DOSTEOEVSY AND DO AN OIL PAINTING IN BETWEEN EACH GAME IT WAS A TIME OF CULTUIRE AND RENASSAINCE

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Skyway is just talking out his ass again. Tripe A console games these days are a lot more complicated and technically sophisticated to make than older games. Back then in the time of Doom, you had a guy who designed and textured a room in 5 min. Today you need a bunch of guys for that working days on it.

Stop being an idiot Skyway.

 

[MetalCraze]

A console games these days are a lot more complicated and technically sophisticated to make than older games

Yeah you just take a free multiplatform Unreal Engine 3 with updates for it being provided by other studio and start developing right away. Very complicated.

Back then in the time of Doom, you had a guy who designed and textured a room in 5 min. Today you need a bunch of guys for that working days on it.

Doom was 17 years ago. Try a better strawman.

Also funny thing - I was just checking Dark Messiah credits and noticed that it has much less people developing it than those that did CoD MW. Yet DM is much longer, superior graphically and has a more or less varied gameplay (and not only when compared to CoD). Somebody also can't spend money properly huh?

 

[SCO]

Example: take regenerating health. It was not made to make the game easier for the player first and foremost, but to make games easier to be developed without balance issue

Not true, and the regenerating health fits hitscan style games (shooters where your enemies use guns) better than a set health bar does simply because there's no way for a player to dodge hitscan attacks, it's RNG. For the popamole shooter type of game it's a more appropriate system. If you don't like the popamoles then that's fine, but the mechanic itself isn't horrible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToBdzV7w ... re=related

 

[SCO]

He did actually die once (even on normal difficulty, shameful), so it obviously needs to be simplified some more.

 

[Twinkle]

Today you need a bunch of guys for that working days on it

And? How many next-gen monkeys does it take to design a level on par with, let's say, Thief?

 

[BLOBERT]

BROS LOLOLOLLOLOLL WE ARE ON THE SAME SIDE WE ARE PERHAPS THE ONLY SMART PEOPLE IN THE WORLD THE SHEEPLE ARE RUINING EVERYTHING

BROS I DONT WANRT GAMNES ALL BASED ON TOP NOTCH GRAPHICS FUCKING GRAPHIC WHORES RUINING GRAPHICS

THE PROBLEMS WITH GAMES NOW IS THAT THE GRAPHICS SUCK MODERN WARFARE LOOKS LIKE IT BELONGS ON THE FUCKING ATARI WE DONT NEED THESE SHIT GRAPHICS

BROS THE PROBLEM IS MAKING MONEY MAKING MONEY IS EVIL PEOPLE BUY SHIT CAUSE CORPORATIONS ARE EVIL AND MAKE THEM BUY SHIT

BROS I AM JUST RANDOMLY SPOUTING OFF THINGS

 

[BLOBERT]

BROS TO BE FAIR WE WONT KNOW HOW GOOD GAMES OUT RIGHT NOW ARE UNTIL THEY ARE OLD ENOUGH TO BE COOL TO LIKE ALSO ENOUGH COOL PEOPLE HAVE TO LIKE YOUR GAME CAUSE SAY IF YOU LIKE NWN 99 PERCENT BEST GAME EVER OR YOU PLAY THROUGH KOTOR FOUR TIMES BUT THEN LATER FIND OUT THE GAMES SUCK YOU ARE SCREWED

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

BROS THE PROBLEM IS MAKING MONEY MAKING MONEY IS EVIL PEOPLE BUY SHIT CAUSE CORPORATIONS ARE EVIL AND MAKE THEM BUY SHIT

No one said that making money is a problem. Almost everyone needs to make money to live. Focus on making tons money at all cost (greed) without bothering to create something really valuable for these money is a problem.
Marketing tends to be evil. One thing that I have learned when learning to make advertising is that it's based on psychomanipulation, psychomanipulation and more psychomanipulation. So, instead of creating something inherently desirable, they are working on artificially creating creating the desire (hype).

 

[Sceptic]

Not true, and the regenerating health fits hitscan style games (shooters where your enemies use guns) better than a set health bar does simply because there's no way for a player to dodge hitscan attacks

So the developers are lazy and can't be bothered to implement proper physics for bullets, therefore the solution is to be even lazier and implement health regen? Yeah that makes perfect sense...

 

[desocupado]

Not true, and the regenerating health fits hitscan style games (shooters where your enemies use guns) better than a set health bar does simply because there's no way for a player to dodge hitscan attacks

So the developers are lazy and can't be bothered to implement proper physics for bullets, therefore the solution is to be even lazier and implement health regen? Yeah that makes perfect sense...

Even if you do proper bullet physics, you still can't dodge bullets. In a FPS, the player will get hit, the issue is how you deal with that.

 

[DragoFireheart]

So any predictions on when this game bubble might burst? Maybe in the next generation or two? Would the DLC becoming morbidly uncontrollable accelerate it further? Do you think publishers would be stupid enough to try and make people pay for patches/bug fixes/updates?