Quote:Original post by QuantifyFun
Before you ask me or any other employed game designer to "break the mold", I'll ask you to lead by example and do that first.
When a game gets released and the Metacritic average is 60, go buy it, and tell all your friends its wonderful.
When the next 95+ rated game hits shelves, take the hype goggles off and explain to your friends that its fun, but not the best thing EVAR!
When announcement trailers show up on GameTrailers and there are pages and pages and pages of bastard hardcore gamers talking shit and saying things like "this game looks like crap, it's not MGS4!!!" tell them to eat a dick.
Because unless you do all of the above and more...
...games will trend based on the marketplace and there are no two ways about it. If people want sequels, we will make sequels, period. And BTW, sequels are not intrinsically bad. Fable 2 is better than Fable 1, and Fallout 3 is pretty damn amazing, Call of Duty 4 was better than Call of Duty 3, and just to throw a curve ball in there, I enjoyed GTA4 -LESS- than San Andreas, even though everybody else thought it was mindblowing.
You're she sheep. Not us. We break our brains and our backs to bring quality and innovation to the demand that -YOU - THE CONSUMERS- create. The sad truth is that you really don't want the kind of artistic expression and art that you say you do. This is why Ico sold for shit and why Shadow of the Colossus struggled as well. Oh, and don't forget the studio that Okami broke. Hell, people even pulled their eyeballs out because Zelda: Windwaker -DARED- to try something new.
So please... take your so-called wake-up call and shove it up your ass. Hardcore gamers are a bitter bunch of proper jaded morons that shit the bed any time the next game they play isn't the best game ever made. You approach every single box you open with the expectation that it will be better than the last, and you actively look for things to hate. You refuse to open your tiny little mind and simply have fun. You're basically useless.
The gaming industry is expected to grow to a $69 Billion dollar business by the year 2012. That's based on more people buying games. More people playing games. Different people with different tastes, interests, backgrounds, living in different parts of the world. People other than you. Don't fight it. Accept it. Because the more diversity we have in the business and the economic landscape, the more risks we can take, the more things we can try, the more you might actually see the kind of games you like.
But until then, -YOU- are actually part of the problem. So please. Grow up. |
I have to disagree here. You are judging this person without knowing them. YOU in general is the problem but not him specifically. I think what we really mean by "dumbed down by the masses" has been mentioned in yet another trend that has been mentioned in posts I'm sure. It is this.. the gaming audience has expanded tremendously, this is both good and bad and, it is due largely in part to the increasing popularity of console gaming. People who aren't gamers are playing games. It's sort of like the movie industry, people who are not movie enthusiasts demand less from their movies but more in terms of action, violence and all the stimulators. Whereas a movie enthusiast looks to foreign and independent films for a source of more fresh, innovative, and intellectual material. The same is true for games.
Perhaps there is a connection to the dumbing down of society as a whole but is it me or are games becoming more like action movies with tired old plots and constant remake retreads. This is not to say that all games and movies are this way. However I believe it is because of the staleness of the industry that creative games will work in our favor. An original idea is really set to stand out as a gem amongst rocks for those companies that really care about quality. Back to the movie examples, take a look at the Dark Knight...it was a great film that dared to be different in so many ways and it was mainstream. Looking closer though you will see director Christopher Nolan began as an independent with films like Memento. He did not make the typical movie and what could have been seen as an enormous risk in my opinion. But people, really took notice. Here many were thinking that the masses would not appreciate something good if they saw it, even those who are satisfied with less notice when you give them MORE. It's disillusionment with the industry and the audiences that is our enemy. Game companies go for what they know will sell when crafting most of their products, it's just like pop music - mostly formula.
So it may take somebody standing outside the mainstream to create innovation. This is good news for independent game developers...as such we are poised to potentially take the industry by storm. Just as long as we hold fast commitments to quality. The difficult part here is money and resources. This is where we are now, another selling point of games is modern graphics. People love beautiful visuals, sometimes at the expense of story and gameplay, or often as seems to be the case. When was the last time you watched a non-stop action flick ridden with special effects but intellectually vacant in terms of story and character development? They make them all the time. I think many of these games are out there now but we still need to be convinced as a society that graphics don't make a game, and I think we are heading in the right direction. We can thank cell phones and handhelds for that in fact, because they force people to play games with graphics that are outdated in relation to their console counterparts. I have noticed that certain gaming companies in general are concerned with a fun gaming experience in general as opposed to just making a buck, I'm talking to you EA.
This is beginning to sound like a speech. Sorry about that fellow gamers. But in conclusion, I'd like to state than in the gaming industry there is a lot of diversity and also a lot of stagnation. But there is ample opportunity both now and in the future invigorate the industry. Some old games need to be reworked, even if they were classic. The best musicians need to "reinvent" themselves in order to continue to be successful. Madonna is a good example here, I think Spielberg is not. Most of his more memorable work is in the past, Indiana Jones, Jaws, Schindler's List, etc. Adaptation is the name of the game. Even if Deus Ex 3 turns out to be a dud. We need to stop looking to the past and moving with the tide of the future. Go out and play more games, big and small. If you don't like the direction games are heading - go out and change it. That's what I plan to do.
