QFE. The main audience is whatever audience will drive the most sales.

You may not like any of Angry Birds, Draw Something, or Modern Warfare 3 - but their profit margins demonstrate admirably that they did indeed find a suitable audience.

Yeah, sucks don't it

In my experience the most overrated game is shared by a multitude of contenders.

It usually begins with "I have the most awesomeness game ever, but I can't tell you what it' about because it is so awesome you will steal it"

A non-existant game but already being overrated by the ideas' inceptor I think qualifies for this. If not an acceptable argument, then the latest Duke Nukem...if only because they took a great legend and reduced him to earning achievements by scraping dung of his butt.

It's not hard to call any game (or any product) overrated when you take a look at its basic parts and compare it to the hype that it's received. I tend to avoid anything that feels like it's being crammed down my throat though I may give it a try when things settle down.

So I can't think of any games that I'd want to call "overrated". But when I was trying to critique games for awhile, what bugged me were so many physics games and pointless achievements. So many games just had to have these elements in them because they were trendy and new. I don't blame the developers for doing it (especially since I've never really released anything), it's just that it took going through a lot of the same ol' same ol' before coming across something that felt worthwhile playing. I guess in many cases I got what I paid for.

So I can't think of any games that I'd want to call "overrated"

yeah but if you had to pick just one

CoD series and Angry Birds are certainly at the top of my list.

I never understood the appeal of Angry Birds. I have played that game, got 3 stars on many levels, and my verdict is that game is frustrating. 1 degree difference can make a 1 star or 3 stars.

Master of Orion 2.

There, I said it. Why is this game so overrated? Because whenever a new 4X space strategy game comes out, people compare it to Master of Orion 2, and complain about missing features that existed in MoO 2, and complain about the extra features added that didn't exist in MoO 2.

"MoO 2 had leaders! Why not this game?"
"MoO 2 had better tech system, this system sucks"
"I just want MoO 2, but with upgraded graphics!"
and so forth.

If you like MoO 2 so much, go play it. Don't degrade the other 4X games because they didn't deliver the exact gameplay that you want. Play them as their own game, not something that "replace" MoO 2.

The irony of this is that I'm working on a game that's inspired by MoO 1/2, but that's because I liked a lot of features from the series. It didn't prevent me from enjoying other 4X strategy games.

Angry Birds is probably the most underated game of all time. The fun casual gameplay has kept me playing for a long time. It perfectly balances difficulty allowing players to progress while at the same time incorporating acheivements for added gameplay. Don't even get me started with Angry Birds Space. The best game ever? Probably second to Skyrim. The polish really seals the deal. The flash games that came previously were fun also, but not as well thought out personally.

Angry Birds is probably the most underated game of all time.

3/10 you almost got me

[quote name='swiftcoder' timestamp='1334675668' post='4932152']The main audience is whatever audience will drive the most sales.

Yeah, sucks don't it[/quote]Not really, that's just business.

McDonalds doesn't make 5 star food!
5-star restauraunts don't have cheap take-away!
Holywood summer blockbuster action movies don't have deeply layered sub-plots!
EA blockbuster games with $100,000,000 marketing budgets don't have highly innovative mechanics!

If you don't like mass-consumer products, don't buy them. Stop buying or caring about games where the marketing team (who's job is to subliminally influence people into buying products that they don't need) has a larger budget than the development team (who's job is to make the thing you're buying).

[quote name='J03_b' timestamp='1334678705' post='4932172'][quote name='swiftcoder' timestamp='1334675668' post='4932152']The main audience is whatever audience will drive the most sales.

Yeah, sucks don't it[/quote]Not really, that's just business.

McDonalds doesn't make 5 star food!
5-star restauraunts don't have cheap take-away!
Holywood summer blockbuster action movies don't have deeply layered sub-plots!
EA blockbuster games with $100,000,000 marketing budgets don't have highly innovative mechanics!

If you don't like mass-consumer products, don't buy them. Stop buying or caring about games where the marketing team (who's job is to subliminally influence people into buying products that they don't need) has a larger budget than the development team (who's job is to make the thing you're buying).
[/quote]

First of all, I DON'T buy bad games, because I'm not stupid

Also those aren't good examples. McDonalds offers their crappy product at way reduced prices, and vise versa for 5-star restaurants, and (typically) bad movies don't sell (as much as 'bad' games). What sucks is that that doesn't apply to the game industry for whatever reason. Maybe I didn't elaborate earlier, but are you denying that its bad that the public isn't intelligent enough to support innovation and expansion in the game industry? Sounds like you just want to argue