What's happening to the gaming industry?

[netstrider]

{-n()rx-},

I am from South Africa too, turning 19 next month and have also played comp since I was 4 and also some old "TV games" (not sure what console it was) as we used to call them here.

I remember I used to remember some basic dos commands like cd cd\ cls and so forth just so I could run my games like Keen which I was very fond of back then as a toddler. Space Quest was amazing, I liked the idea that you could type in what your character should do and in any strange circumstance where he would refuse to do it the character would always make a funny remark.

Same as Leisure Suite Larry of old, the new one is bullsh!t imho. The only thing Saffers play lately (at least my group of friends here in the Cape) is WOW, Counter Strike and CoD4 all of them online - so I guess that is a detrimental factor as well.

Back in the day when Mortal Kombat used to be on the video games by the video store I used go there and beat the hell out of folks older than me..

Those were the fun ol' days...

[jan1024188]

There are still good games out there in developent. The problem is in idea. No ideas left.

You see, 15 years ago there were super cool movies and when a new movie was released, millions watched it in same day.
Today, movies turn more and more boring.

Same with games. It looks like people just don't have any more ideas what to do.
I personaly like Valve's innovative ideas (Like Portal).
Valve

[bigtomrodney]

I wouldn't say that there aren't ideas left...what I would say is that the same few ideas have been pursued to death so that everything feels familiar. Gaming (like the movie industry you mentioned) is now being turned into a machine that produces instead of a creative outlet. There are good ideas that are being pushed aside to facilitate quick risk-free projects. What's worse is that the big budgets go to guaranteed wins rather than into researching new approaches. For every $100m summer blockbuster there are ten better indie films with a fresh approach.

[techieMoe]

For every $100m summer blockbuster there are ten better indie films with a fresh approach.

I agree. Some of the most interesting games I've played in recent years were independent efforts. One I'm playing now is Okami, which was made by an offshoot company named Clover that was swallowed up by Capcom.

I've also enjoyed Aquaria, which doesn't have a native Linux client, but the developer has patched it so that it works perfectly in WINE.

[K-Spaz]

I'm new to the Linux forums so when I got my registration email and it had a link to this forum, I figured I'd check it out and it just happens this thread caught my eye. I have in the last two years gone from a long time gamer to never even opening one up.

The last game I played to any extent was America's Army. I think my experience with AA pretty much sums up the decline of the gaming experience as a whole.

The timeline went like this.

Money was appropriated.
Quality Programmers/Developers were found.
Development began with a plan set up by those developers.
Inexperienced management accepted ideas from devs.
Game was released before it was finished, just like all games.
Game was stricken with bugs. No time was afforded the Devs to fix the bugs. They were too busy adding "features" that management demanded went out the door with the next release.
Management got too smart for thier own good. Thought they knew how to make a game better than the Devs did. Stopped listening to devs.
Any Devs worth thier salt, quit, as any self respecting programmer would when told to ship faulty code.
New people were brought in to fix what was broke but were not familiar enough with the project to do so.
Game continued getting worse until finally an unplayable update was released and sealed the fate of the gaming community. They all left.

All this time, system requirements were increased to make up for the fact that the developers could not make efficient code to save thier lives. The exact same maps that had played fine on a P500 now were crippled on 3Ghz machines with high end video cards. Worse yet, they looked identical or worse. In 2005 I bought a system with a 4000+ Athlon and X850XT. Three years later that card is still faster than a New HD2600Pro and could not handle America's Army any more. Besides the horrifying netcode in the game that basically made it impossible for anyone not living in a population center to play the game. Games are written so that hardware and internet service determine the winner. This could be fixed but nobody wants to.

Moving on to any other game and gaming history:

In the early days, programmers could sit down and begin work on a game. Those days are over. Talented people like that no longer can do that. Now, you go spend a few million dollars to license one of the big game engines and go make some graphics up. The better your graphics, the better the game sells. Does it matter how well it plays? No, not in the least. Only that a screenshot looks good. Why is that? Because there will be another game made and the person who just bought game A that was no good will now go buy Game B that is equally no good and not complain a bit.

Nowadays, that game that requires a big name big dollar game engine comes standard with the same management mentality that killed AA above. Nowadays there is not the slightest interest in making a good game that works and is fun. Only that it sells until they can get another one out. Fact is, if people like it too much, they loose money, so making a good game is contrary to good business practice.

Rarely will you see a game with a storyline that captivates you. In fact, many do not even make an effort to have a story. Long term survivability of a game in my mind requres a story, kinda like Half Life (the original).

Add in Copy protection that is so restrictive that even the person who paid the price can't play the game.

Now go buy a game that requires you to have "Steam" on your system and run that resource hog/spyware 24/7.

Get something from UbiSoft that crashes literally every time you open it. There's no need for them to put in a close button on any of their programs. It's just a matter of time.

It's just become a money-grubbing deal and most of the games aren't worth $5. I think that it's a natural progression of a gamer to begin really enjoying a game, then want a new one and need new hardware to run it. Then, after that happens enough times, they say enough is enough. They get burnt a few times on games that don't work. Then a few more on ones that run like thier in the mud. Pretty soon, they get tired of it.

Many games now are also too complicated for the casual player. A good example is Battlefield II. When a keyboard does not have enough keys, something is wrong. Only a serious player will take the time to get proficient on something like that. You must invest too much time for anyone except those who can play all day.

I bought Quake 4 and Star Wars Battlefront II a year or more ago but have not played 4 hours of either one. Both obviously came from long lines of great games but it's as if the relaxation and fun left gaming.

Perhaps I've just lost my competitive drive, and it's just me.

[thesimplecreator]

oh how i loathe indie films....................

[{-n()rx-}]

@netstrider, I'm from Johannesburg, and yeah@WoW & CS, although no one I know from SA plays CoD4. I used to play Mortal Kombat 4. Spent days playing, just so I could annihilate the friend I used to play with. Sub Zero and Scorpion FTW

I agree with the movie industry as well. I remember watching movies like Lawnmower Man, the Cube series and other weird sci-fi and fantasy releases that kept me hooked. Now days I can't seem to find anything remotely worth while. Only recent release that caught my attention was Gene Generation, which was anything but new and original.
The same is also very much happening to the music industry. Production and products designed to make quick cash until the next "major" product (artist) comes along.

Oh well, I guess it's just the corporate world. Ironic how it's all coming up on a linux/open source forum...

[cayalee]

i have to say i disagree with a lot that has been said about games with no story line, you only have to look at some recent games such as Mass Effect and Oblivion that have set the standards extremely high for immersive plot, yet let you have an influencing factor on the progression.
If anything i would say that big release titles are getting more plot conscious whilst pushing graphical/technical boundaries.
you've got hardware innovations from nintendo which have massively opened up the market and diversified the range of games hugely to appeal to all sorts of different gamers, to mums and dads, to pensioners and little kids. look at some of the big up-and-coming games, Fallout3/Final Fantasy XIII/Prototype and they are all storyline-centric. If anything, i'd say the industry is getting bigger and better.
Of course theres a lot of crap, but there always has been!