The future of gaming
Is it just me, or does it seem like gaming's future may be short & bleak? It is true that gaming is more popular now than ever, but the way things are going, it seems that consoles are getting more & more powerful & using up more & more ideas that could just as well help make there next console succeed (see 3D gaming, Kinect & PS Move). Not to mention that the graphics are getting so good that it is basically one step away from playing as another human inside your TV. I just can't see where they can possibly go from here... especially when they are wasting perfectly good (albeit slightly ripped off) ideas on a console that they will most like abandon in 2-3 years. It just seems like they are thinking in the now & not realising how these little decisions can negatively effect them in 10-20 years.
BTW... Don't even think about starting a PC vs. Console war. PCs are just as guilty from a graphical standpoint.
BTW... Don't even think about starting a PC vs. Console war. PCs are just as guilty from a graphical standpoint.
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Most games today suck. Gaming nowadays is all about a certain gimmick. Every game has one and exploits the crap out of it. Then other companies copy them and add all the different flavours so that everyone's tastes are represented (ie- LA's The Force Unleashed to SM's God of War, the newer Medal of Honour games to Call of Duty etc). No thought is given to the gameplay anymore just the concepts. Sandbox games are the worst for this I think with their "Oh wow! Look, you can even do this!" sensationalist reactions. But that's all it is. Fluff. A shallow experience.
Either eventually people will realise this and the market will inevitably crash again and be reborn once more or more and more companies will create meaningful, interesting, and above all FUN products and overtake the market. Some game companies have great design philosophies like Telltale, Valve, and a few others. Hopefully these philosophies eventually knock some sense into all the money hungry business-minded game publishers. If it doesn't we do indeed have a bleak future.
Be it Streets of Rage & Final Fight, Final Fantasy & Breath of Fire, Street Fighter & Art of Fighting or even Monkey Island & Sam and Max... Games have always used similar mechanics to others. I think you just have your nostalgia glasses on.
- not made by a big, well-known company
- not part of a well-known series
- are on a small amount of consoles
I think what would make gaming better would be going back to non-motion control. The Wii is just a motion-control upgrade from the Gamecube but is a seperate console instead.
Some day publishers, like record labels, are gonna find themselves in hot water, when that happens we'll see the landscape change drastically
This is an art that's not going anywhere.
Like with the modern state of film, you have to look to the arthouses, the smaller markets, the developing artists to find anything of value. Most of the large, established "big names" will fail you, unless you like the fact that video games have become something that you watch.
There is value to things like challenge, balance, and competition. There is value in gameplay, in mechanics, in basic design philosophy. Why can't more ads be like this, showcasing gameplay elements and challenging possibilities as something exciting? Is it because the people with the money, the people who fund the creation of our games, simply don't care about games?
It's not even completely their fault. The gaming public has fallen in lock-step with this way of doing things. Gaming magazines rate big-budget titles on a scale of 80-100. Major gaming publications see minor graphical imperfections as major scandals.
"I like video games" is simply not descriptive enough anymore, with games whose challenge is making sure you click on a thing once every 5 hours fall under the same umbrella label as a major high-budget title or indie creations like World of Goo or Penumbra, or mid-range developments like Telltale's episodic releases.
Once developers stop putting so much effort in graphics and more in gameplay games can be better, cost less to produce, and as a result need less to sell to make profit.
That by itself can lead to more creativity without being "punished" for it by heavy losses.
But until gamers and developers alike learn that graphics make no difference (If I read reviews of games like Alpha Protocol there is still a looooooong way) we're stuck in this upward spiral, until it just collapses upon itself, which can hardly be a bad thing IMO.
Agreed.
People always worry that a certain artistic medium is going to "die out" just because corporations have got their hands on it, but in my opinion, that's nonsense. The same thing is always said for music - "music is dead", "all music nowadays is just regurgitated corporate crap". It's just not true.
If you're an artist of any medium, be it music, visual art, film, games, etc., your creativity isn't going to be extinguished by the mere existence of companies who try to exploit art for money. It just won't happen. Just because games that are built exclusively for money do exist doesn't mean they're all that exists.
Also, roberttitus, to combat your original point, here's a quote from Charles H. Duell, the commissioner at the US Patents office: "Everything that can be invented has been invented." That was said in 1899.
WOOOO!!! PENUMBRA!!!! Wait, what was this thread about?
Oh ... um, all I know is that I hope Activision isn't the future of gaming.
I kind of agree with what you're saying, but I do disagree with a few points.
Just because a movie was funded by a big-budget company doesn't mean it's impervious to being good. Some of the best films ever made have been big budget productions and some of the worst have been indie films.
Similarly, just because a game was funded by a huge company like EA doesn't mean it's going to be a poor game. For the sake of example, Dragon Age was funded by EA and that game was brilliant.
I understand that you're more talking about games that were designed specifically with money in mind, though. Again, I would say that this doesn't necessarily affect the quality of the product. You should look at the product itself as a measure of quality rather than the way in which it was made.
There's a very common misconception that the method by which a piece of art is made directly affects how good it can be. A lot of people think, for example, that if a piece of art is worked on by a thousand people for two years with millions of dollars behind them, it's guaranteed to be better than a piece of art that's worked on by one person in under a day, but we all know that this isn't true. A lot of people also think that if a piece of art is worked on by someone who cares a lot about what they're doing, it is guaranteed to be better than a piece of art that's worked on by someone who doesn't care and just wants money, but this is no more true.
I disagree with the notion that graphics make no difference. I agree that the importance of graphics is often overestimated, but there's a large leap between "overestimated" and "unimportant".
Go watch this, if you still think that gaming is lacking in future potential. Video games are increasing their audience through Facebook games, motion controls, among other ideas. You still get your Call of Duties, FIFAs, Mass Effects, hell even STALKERs.
I put it to you that if you think games aren't going somewhere, you are playing the wrong games. I've had my mindblown a load of times recently, particularly by Minecraft: something that looks incredibly simple, yet can inspire incredible emotion.
In the sense that it's not going to up and disappear yes, hopefully less in the sense that it will stay exactly as it is, otherwise it wouldn't be an art.
The difference being that in one case the finished product would be good because of genuine effort and in the other the finished product would be good as a total fluke.
Technically they've enhanced almost every aspect but that's not the core of what makes a game important to me. I've written this a couple of times on this forum already but it's just true, i'm really happy that the indie scene exists as the majority of the output of the big players is frighteningly trivial since many years.
Form my personal experience as a player, TTG makes at least some of those mistakes as well. Technically they've pimped the graphics, the animations, the poly count and so on but i don't see this improvement in fields like the riddle design at all. There things remain static. I would love to play an adventure where a larger chunk of the ressources are spent on the riddles, the story and the characters instead. They've improved on the dialogues, music got worse or stagnates as well, talkie has improved, ... anyway, could you imagine how an adventure would feel like where aspects like the riddle quality have improved by factor 3 instead of aspects they more care about?!
Not total fluke, good business. Business doesn't have to be evil and soulless. And I'd much prefer a quality game that came about through good business than a poor game with a lot of effort put into it.
I can appreciate what you're saying but I will say that you should remember that everyone has different tastes.
Personally, I'd much rather Telltale improved their games' graphics than their riddle design because I value graphics more highly than I do puzzles. I play adventure games to immerse myself in a world and story while others play more for the puzzles.
I've heard people complain about CMI's puzzles being too easy, but in my eyes the puzzles being any harder would have damaged the game, and the graphics were, and still are, breathtaking. For me, CMI is a perfect video game, but others would disagree. Similarly, some people see Modern Warfare 2 as a perfect video game. While I disagree, I have to do so respectfully of their different values and tastes when it comes to video games, and I have to be mindful of what led MW2 to be seen by them as perfect. They probably grew up on games that aimed for that very brand of perfection. I, on the other hand, grew up on games that aimed for Curse's brand of perfection. You could very easily argue that Curse was a soulless continuation of a profitable IP, but I don't think any of us would do that because we're generally all adventure gamers, just like nobody on a MW2 forum would see that as being a cash cow because they're all FPS gamers. To them, that game is soulful and perfect.
and since more and more people are making vidja nowadays, i don't think i have to worry so much.
Sure, a company looks at reviews for their games, but must also keep in mind what their future looks like.
Example: Team Fortress 2 is a great multiplayer game, nay, expierience. However, it is near perfection, and the addition of a sequel may be too much.
Left 4 Dead 2 is also a great game, and while I do say it could have some additions, I wouldn't want a sequel. The storyline is pretty wrapped up here as the U.S is completely infected, and to have a completely new game would be a little ridiculous when it could easily just be an update.
(Apparently from reading this thread, Valve and Telltale are really good companies. Can anybody say, team-up?)
Care to elaborate? I'm a little bit out of the gaming loop, and I haven't played a big-budget title in years, but apart from Heavy Rain, what games have tried to be "interactive experiences?" Aren't most big-budget shooters and whatnot still games, just not very good ones?
These things come and go. Remember that whole genres have at points basically died out -- the CRPG was basically dead through much of the nineties and is now one of the most popular genres (to say nothing of the graphic adventure game). New types of games will be created, and bloated blockbusters will continue to be produced and overrated.
I'm not really interested in gimmicks like motion controls or 3d (this has all been tried before, remember. It is not "new"). I am however eternally looking forward to seeing in what ways games continue to evolve. You can look back with rose-colored glasses, but there's no reason not to look forward in the same way.
Can I change my response to this?
No, it is miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine.
Or I had forgotten >.> It sounds kind of familiar now that I think about it.
Check out the interview with Scott Murphy, co-creator of the Space Quest series, for an example that's already happened:
http://www.adventureclassicgaming.com/index.php/site/interviews/234/
What I found interesting is that he claimed the VGA remake of SQ1 "sucks donkeys" because it didn't use a parser interface. He goes on to decry the icon-based interface. But obviously, MANY people love the remake of SQ1, and see it as far superior to the original version. So when parser interfaces left, did you see gaming as dead? Scott Murphy did.
But I bet TellTale Games would disagree...
And the same thing will continue to happen. Gaming will change, the old guard will decry it, but a new crowd will embrace it. One day, that new crowd will become the old guard for THEIR gaming heyday. It's an unending cycle.
However, companies copy it the exact same, with style, graphics, and gameplay, like with the upcoming RAGE.
I am, however, looking forward to Brink from Bethesda Softworks.
Very well said.
I think if someone took your original vision and remade it in ways you did not like or ever intend, you would have less than polite things to say about it as well.
I thought Scott Murphy worked on the remake as well?
Of course everyone has their own taste, that's the reason i wrote it from my perspective, although a lot of the adventure gamers i know would love to see the same, maybe it also has to do with that we are all grown ups and played many adventures.
Asking for better riddle design doesn't automatically mean harder riddles, although personally i also would welcome more complex ones as well. It's more about unique, fresh and fascinating riddles, not offering trivial, boring, replicate or the standard three times delivery boy stuff over and over again.
The De Singe riddle in TOMI 1 was great and refreshing for instance; i would love to see much more of those more unique riddles. Obviously it's harder coming up with something like this but that's what i'm asking for. For me it would push the adventure experience a lot more than having some grain filter.
In the end all comes together but the riddles beside of the characters and the story, are the weakest parts in TTG's adventures in my opinion. I'm also not fond of the hamster wheel location reusage but they annoy me less than the riddles.
Check out these articles.
What I found interesting is that they claimed Farmville "could destroy consoles" because you can "Give most of that casual gaming market a choice between buying a next-generation console for $300 or an iPad for a little more than that, and many are going to pick the Apple (AAPL) product and shift their gaming to that device." But obviously, MANY people love Farmville and Mafia Wars, and see it as far superior to Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, and Sam & Max. So when challenge, story, and gameplay left, did you see gaming as dead?
But I bet Zynga would disagree...
And the same thing will continue to happen. Gaming will change, the old guard will decry it, but a new crowd will embrace it. One day, that new crowd will become the old guard for THEIR gaming heyday. It's an unending cycle.
By using my exact text, I can't tell if you're flattering me or just being snarky.
However, if taken literally, you are completely correct. Games like Farmville COULD destroy console games. But guess what? It's still gaming. The games WE liked will be gone, and gaming continues on in a newer (although in my old guard opinion, stupid) form. But there will always be people who see the joy in challenges, story, and gameplay. Perhaps a disruption of the status quo would be a GOOD thing, by forcing game and console developers to try something new and inventive to keep their audience.
Or, if all mainstream gaming was replaced by Farmville-like Social Networking titles, gaming would effectively be dead. If you say you love cheeseburgers, and then suddenly the beef and cheese industries tanked and the patties are replaced with ground chicken and the cheese is replaced with a thin slice of pure fat but they continued to call them "Cheeseburgers", you can't just say "Oh, we still call something a Cheeseburger, therefore we still have Cheeseburgers."
Good point!
True. But your analogy is totally out of proportion. To correct it, you could say we still have FOOD, but no longer have CHEESEBURGERS. In the same way that you could say "Traditional console platformers are dead, but gaming itself still goes on." GAMING will not die, but perhaps the flavors of gaming that we enjoy will.
A valid point. I was merely expanding on your own analogy.
In that case, before ANY meaningful discussion can occur over whether or not "gaming" will die, we need to establish a mutually agreed-upon definition of "gaming". Otherwise, the original point is irrelevant.
Your analogy's not right. You're seeing "Cheeseburgers" as "the gaming industry" when it's really "adventure games" (or whatever genre you happen to defend).
You have too narrow a view of "gaming". You see games as the things that YOU like, and any form of interactive entertainment that doesn't fit that bill can't be called a game, but that's a logical fallacy. The definition of a word can't be relative to the preferences of an individual.
And besides, what you're saying still isn't true. Adventure gaming has existed which means it will indefinitely have the capacity to be imitated and therefore continue to exist. Just because the mainstream of games promotes one genre doesn't mean no other genre can exist, that's another logical fallacy. The prevalence of one genre cannot permanently cancel out another genre. People still create classical music, people still sew clothes with their hands and people will continue to make the games you like. Minorities will always exist. If they didn't, there'd be no such thing as a majority. Don't worry about it.
That's exactly my point.
Well, the point I made earlier, not the one I'm making in this post
Ahem >.>