Why I don't play the newer games.

[Manibrandr System]

Nearly a month ago, at New Years day, I was shopping for a good wireless USB laser mouse. I came across a computer supply store next to a video game store whose owner was kind enough to fix up my PSX a while back. He was quite amazed by how uninterested in the newer games I am compared to the ones released in the last decade. He asked this question which followed me around for days.

"Don't you ever get bored of the old games? Why don't you play the newer games?"

While I did initially gave him the answer involving the rise of DRM that screw over legitimate customers. There is a lot more to it than that, which I will get into.

The biggest aspect I saw in games released nowadays is that they tend to be uncreative and homologous in design. Often when I see a new upcoming game release, I think that it is just a game from another franchise, just with this franchise's grille slapped all over it and with a graphics makeover. The biggest offenders I saw of this example is Fallout 3/Oblivion and Dead Space/System Shock 2. While I have no problems with a game franchise taking a successful formula from another and assimilating it into its own, it is very often done with very little consideration as to how the franchise's signature feature would translate into the new formulae. Sometimes, this would result in intrinsic gameplay elements turning into a clunky unnecessary gimmick.

There's even some franchises that are just plain generic, like Halo, that simply does a good job of repeating the same features other games of the same genre has while adding a couple of gimmicky new features that are done not out of genuine creativity, but because of creative laziness. You see the regenerating shield power in the Halo games? Well that is because the map designers are so inept, they couldn't even properly decide where the health pickups should be, if the bland level design in the campaign mode isn't telling enough.

Even within its own franchise, it seems that the people in charge of it aren't even trying any more to keep it fresh and interesting in each release. It could be due to a change of hands, like in the case of the System Shock and Painkiller series. (Bioshock is merely a graphical and mood upgrade to SS2 and Painkiller : Overdose is simply an expansion pack of the original, but with a half-demon and a lame collection of one-liners.) More often than not though, the companies who own the franchises just got lazy. Nintendo and EA Sports are the biggest offenders of them all, every single one of their franchises' current instalment is simply the previous instalment but with updated graphics, not-so-original new content and lame gimmicks slapped on top of it that add nothing to the overall gameplay experience. Some franchises, like the Sonic series, eventually and ultimately cocked itself up due to this. It's all a big sellout.

Speaking of which, why haven't the fad of movie-to-game adaptations gone extinct yet? So far, only two games, in a sea of sad pathetic attempts, has ever been successful in adapting a movie into a game, and that is Batman Returns for the SNES and that Final Fight game based on the horrible movie for the Neo Geo. Yet, we keep seeing game companies today attempting to translate movies to video games and failing because too much effort is spent perfecting that one gimmick that appeared in the movie without any consideration to the plot of the movie, the logic of the movie, or even making the game fun to play. The Matrix games are the prime example of poor movie to game translations. The reasons why Batman Returns is successful and the Matrix games failed are quite numerous, but to cite the biggest ones, Batman Returns did a really good balance between faithfulness to the movie plot and a solid gameplay mechanic while the Matrix games did not, Batman Returns made the franchise signature features a useful part of the gameplay (Batarang, knocking thugs' heads together etc.) while the Matrix games just slapped them on as a useless gimmick and while they both borrowed formulas from well-established gameplay archetypes, Batman Returns executed them very well while the Matrix games just cocked them up.

So, where am I going with this? You may ask. Well see, I noticed these problems popping up and becoming more prominent as the game industry matured and aged on. Even the FPS genre, which came a bit later than other genres of games to blossom into a beautiful rose of blood and guts, have already shown signs of creative decay. I remember the 8 & 16-bit era, and even the Playstation/Saturn/N64 era, how every other game is an A+ experience while most of the rest are pretty enjoyable even if they weren't the cream of the crop. You may think that I am putting on nostalgia glasses, but you know what? Fuck you, you're wrong. I am perfectly capable of telling whether or not a game has aged well. I have no problem in admitting that there are a lot of crappy games in that era, as long as it is recognized that they are greatly outnumbered by good games that have withstood the test of time.

So with the game industry slowly resigning its fate to creative bankruptcy and releasing games of mediocre quality and lazy design, one has to wonder how it became that way. However, with a brief primer on the history of video games, a picture starts to form in one's head that could tell them what had happened to cause it to degenerate so much. It's pretty simple, when Nintendo rebooted the industry with the NES or Famicom, everyone wanted in on it because it is like the promised land for aspiring programmers, but they kept in mind the importance of releasing a quality product. So they did for a while, some failed and died off, some took the world by storm and some even got lost in the zen of their own projects. That is all good, for us gamers at least. Ever wondered why the rivalry between Genesis/MD and SNES/Super Famicom owners was so intense? It is because both systems had so much awesome games, it was a neck-to-neck race of how many quality titles for each system we could add to our collection. Then some company made a game, it was a pretty mediocre one compared to previous instalments in terms of gameplay, but it was the first in the franchise to have unprecedented graphical features. The game took the world by storm, and the reaction was so positive that it forced the whole video gaming industry into the spotlight of mainstream entertainment. This can not be good, not only because it gave developers the false impression that they can make bad games and still turn a profit as long as it has a famous franchise label, but because it also left the door wide open to companies from other areas of the mainstream entertainment industry, companies who had no experience making, marketing and selling games and only cared about making a quick buck, to infest. (This is probably why movie to game adaptations still exist. You've seen what that did to the Atari-era video game industry.) This philosophy of turning a quick penny without consideration for customer satisfaction slowly took hold of the video game industry, slowly eating away at its integrity ; games began to suffer greatly from it. Then, it got to the point where companies feel justified in treating their customers like criminals, as seen by the ever-increasingly draconian DRM measures being employed in games and here we are today.

Of course, there are exceptions ; All throughout this post, I have been tarring the entire industry with a very large brush using very wide strokes and up until now, I have failed to mention Valve. Valve has my respect for being pretty much the only video game development company to continuously try new things with their franchises and doing so successfully, while being opposed to the ridiculously draconian DRM measures, like SecuROM, employed in newer games as well as being actively in support of modding projects involving their games. On numerous occasions, I have had fellow gamers ask me if Valve is the only developer to try new things with their games, and I am very much inclined to say yes as I could not think of any other company acting alike.

So here is what I think of the video game industry today. Hopefully my voice will reach someone in the industry who can, would and will make a difference for the better.

What are your thoughts?

[psychokind]

I agree almost completely. as you said, there are some exceptions (NwN 2 for example), but most of the games today lack creativity. although there have been some great games, the money-making purpose of sequels is just too overwhelming. besides that there is the problem of the publishers putting the creators under so much pressure in financial terms that bold new games are always a great risk for developers.

[EverPhoenix]

thats quite the essay. i have to say i do agree for the most part, modern games are slowly going to shit. most modern games are copies of other games previously released - most (if not all) xbox games, for example, are clones of their predecessors. gta4, doa (whatever they are up to now), halo, *insert random shooting based game*.

nintendo also do their fair share, with mario 64, mario sunshine and mario galaxy being pretty much the same game each time with a different way of getting to the levels. same 120 stars, same layouts that begin to feel like a chore after 30-40 stars. some nintendo games (for example ssbb and twilight princess), as much as they are copies of previous games, build upon the success of the previous game, and add to the rich gaming experience. all the new stuff in brawl does make it seem like a different game (even though its still not that difficult to get bored of it), and the depth of the twilight princess gameplay... i have yet to hear of a single player adventure game (not rpg) to have such a captivating and immersive environment (even if it is the classic reused zelda formula of find x artifacts each in their own dungeon).

although i do look at the new games in the hope that something new is worth buying these days (in particular i have my eye on the distant release of diablo 3)

i made the point once, in a conversation, that modern attempts at creating a gaming experience are very much a compromise- compromising good gameplay and plot in order to get flashy graphics. although big guns and massive explosions do look awesome, i would so much rather play an old game (at the moment it is ff6) because of the thought that was put into making the game a good one - not the processing power.

to respond to my previous point, one of my friends pointed out that since graphics arent really going to get much better, maybe more emphasis will be put on gameplay and story in future releases. i do hope he is right, i need some epic eye-candied story to immerse myself in.

[tay120n64]

More than anything else, it has to do with the advancement of hardware. When the NES came out, it could do so much more than the Atari/Colecovision/Intellivision, that alot of companies jumped onto the excitement of just what all you could do with the hardware. What experiences can we add to our games? This continued on through the next few console generations, but once games went into 3-D and everyone saw the popularity of games like Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Final Fantasy, and Metal Gear Solid, I think what everyone realized that it wasn't enough to just have gameplay like them...

They needed the same level of presentation. Games had to look good, not just play good, and that became the primary factor in 3-D game development. What can we do to make games look and feel more real? Not only that, but as the game market has expanded, companies look for easy ways to make money and grab attention, hence all the genre clones.

Now, I don't feel it's fair to single out any game in a series (ie Halo, Devil May Cry, anything Nintendo) because those games are meant to be similar. As an avid Zelda and Kirby fan, I get agitated when the formula gets changed. Games like Phantom hourglass and Kirby Canvas Curse were very disappointing. That being said, trying new things is occasionally welcome. Case in point: Majora's Mask and Kirby: Amazing Mirror were both excellent once you took the time to look past the sudden shock of altered gameplay. And as for the Mario series? Yeah, the last three have been the same in formula, but the gameplay has been vastly different each time. It may get tedious trying to go for 100% completion, but honestly, if you're a completionist, you have no right complaining about tedious gameplay.

However, games that are not in a series, like a new IP, don't get that excuse. When Dead Space and Fallout 3 start ripping off older games, that's inexcusable; even if the new games are good. It's ok for every Zelda to be the same, that's what Zelda fans want. But fans of genres, for instance an FPS gamer, doesn't want five Halos, six Dooms, and twelve Quakes. When a gamer plays games for a sepcific genre, he wants a new experience every time. That's why he picks a different game. If someone wants to play an FPS, and he really liked Halo, he'll pick up Halo 2. If he liked Halo, but wants something different, he'll pick up another game. But what happens when all the other games are clones of the popular games? This is where the problem lies.

Companies are taking fewer and fewer risks nowadays, focusing on what's popular and what looks best. Well guess what? We've advanced graphics to their limit (or at least close enough). How about, instead of focusing on how much animated CG you can fit into a game, you take out some of that, and start putting in more content. Can you imagine how long and advanced a game would be on a Blu-Ray disc if it had 32-bit graphics? Just look at what they did with Zelda: Four Swords Adventures for the GameCube. By making the game full 2-D (ala A Link to the Past) with a few 3-D effects (ala Wind Waker) they were able to fit massive amounts of information on the screen at once. You would play as four Links while fighting off anywhere from a few to as many as a few hundred enemies at once. Granted, the game was rather short, but it did something no one else is really doing; at least on consoles anyway.

And regarding innovative games, are there really fewer now than there were before? Because if you think about it, there have always been clones of popular games. Think about how many innovative games came out each year in the early nineties. Compare it to the number of innovative games that have come out in the past three years. There's a slight difference, but not much of one. There's just way more clones and sequels now then there were back then. So it's not so much that there are less good games now, as it is that the ratio is much, much wider.

And with the addition of Nintendo Wii and DS, there are suddenly more creative ways to physically play new games. Granted, the Wii mostly caters to a more casual audience, but the DS has brought a whole slew of innovative titles.

[Blade]

Wow! Now that's an interesting topic, filled with interesting reads!

Since I have almost no background on nowadays games/whats going on, its shocking to hear this from you guys & gals, and I can kinda understand it.

A personal experience: When the Lord of the Rings movies came out, I became a huge fan of the whole middle earth stuff...read the books, got the Special Extended DVDs, and also, I was eager to play the games released for it.
So we got the LotR 2 game. And I was vastly disappointed. Cheap graphics, it followed the movie piece by piece and left no space for "the feeling", the "experience" you'd expect from a game, dedicated to these monuments of fantasy literature.
I played so many stunning, mindblowing games that this piece of generic crap felt like it -tried- to spit in my face...

I guess I'm doomed to play all the old SNES, N64, GB classics and the PC gems over and over again...I recently thought about upgrading my PC, since CPU & GPU are quite outdated nowadays....but seriously, what for?

[psychokind]

Blade wrote:

A personal experience: When the Lord of the Rings movies came out, I became a huge fan of the whole middle earth stuff...read the books, got the Special Extended DVDs, and also, I was eager to play the games released for it. So we got the LotR 2 game. And I was vastly disappointed. Cheap graphics, it followed the movie piece by piece and left no space for "the feeling", the "experience" you'd expect from a game, dedicated to these monuments of fantasy literature.

bad example, LotR on SNES sucked like hell too

[tay120n64]

Ah, yes, movie-tie-in games. I completely forgot to hit on that. The biggest problem with it is that most movie studios will build their own video game studios (ie Disney Interactive). The reason that this is a problem is quite obvious: the new studios have little or no experience in game design. Back in the 2-D era, movie-tie-ins were handed over to actual video game studios. Before Disney Interactive, for instance, Capcom made all the Disney games. Which is why games like Ducktales and The Magical Quest were so good.

It's getting better nowadays, though. Movie studios are starting to take interest in the quality of their games. Warner Bros. for instance is attempting to purchase majority stock in Eidos for this very reason.

[chicken]

Valerie Valens wrote:

The biggest offenders I saw of this example is Fallout 3/Oblivion and Dead Space/System Shock 2.

heh, yea, when i started with fallout3, i thought like "hm, is that oblivion just with a new landscape and new weapons?" therefore QFT

[Azure Phoenix]

hmm, reminds me of marble madness for the NES, ah good times good times

i do think that newer game are becoming bad but i don't think all of them are going bad, maybe gameplay and story could definitly be a hell of a lot better but i think it'd be better to focus on gameplay and make sure that it's got multiplayer, that would be the only reason i still play halo (the 1st one on the PC, i'm not getting halo 2 or 3 for two reasons: vista sucks and i'm not getting an xbox)

i'm sorry, i think i should've thought more about what to say on that paragraph, so here's a clearer picture:

i agree, games are going bad but some still have hope, i believe RTS games still have a lot of potential but when it comes to RPGs and FPSs i think they might just be starting to die out...

that's just my opinion, i could be wrong.

[tay120n64]

It's not that FPS and RPG genres are dying out, it's just that companies are taking fewer risks. Everyone seems content with ripping the popular shooters, and every JRPG in the past decade has been a face-lifted FFX.

But there have been some positive ventures. It wasn't AMAZING, but Mirror's Edge did something entirely new with First-Person games. I think that we're going to see good things resulting from that project in the future.

[SoulBlazerFan]

I agree completely with everything that has been said so far, however, we are all missing one important thing; Game companies don't really care about their audience (Save for a few- Valve, as Valerie said, being amongst them), they only care about the final outcome- money. Truth be told, the gaming industry is one of the few that is outlasting this economic crisis, reason being, if you shell out ten dollars to see a movie in the theaters, you get a less-than two hour experience, and nothing more but memories, really. You buy a twenty dollar DVD, what do you get? A movie, two hours of entertainment, and the ability to rewatch it whenever you want, and any bonus materials that come with it.

But in both of those instances, paying for either you'll always get the same thing; the movie can never chance, and neither can the content of a DVD.

However, with a game, you're shelling out 60 dollars for entertainment that is (usually) no less than 10 hours of entertainment, and could exceed as much as 80 hours (Oblivion comes to mind, not even including the expansions).

However, the thing is we as a culture try to stick with what is safe- Mario, Zelda, Metal Gear Halo- established franchises that with guarantee us at least a good game- not necessarily a great one, but a good one. There are exceptions, of course, as there are to anything. The gaming companies can claim up and down that they do it for us, they do it for gamers- but when it comes down to it, they want their money, to make more money than they spent on it. If you spend, say, 30 million to produce a film, and make back 60, either in film or games, it's a moderate success- you spend ten million to make the same film or game and make 60 million, you got yourself a bona-fide hit.

These companies don't care to take chances with new games, that's why you have a slew of Final Fantasy games (Not to knock them or anything) and games like the Soul Blazer series get the shaft; the quality of the games doesn't necessarily matter, it just matters how much money it produced for the company that made it, and the investors that put up money for it.

Valerie mentioned the film-to games, and I agree whole-heartedly there. They ruined what could've been good games (I'm sad to say I played Enter The Matrix and weeped over the lost twenty dollars, and while I did enjoy Path of Neo, the final boss fight really just shit all over everything that came before it, and ruined the game), but I don't find the future of gaming to be all that bleak.

Take the Resident Evil (Or Bio-Hazard series, as it is known outside of the Americas). The first three were all rehashes of the game essential game engine, with graphical enhancements. When four came out, they completely changed everything, new enemies, new game engine, stronger voice acting. I'm expecting them to improve upon RE4, but I wouldn't be surprised if Capcom pulled a fast one on us, and gave us RE4 with a face lift for the fifth game. Lord knows they repackaged the Street Fighter games enough (How many versions of SF 2 are there now? 8? 9?)

The only other game I'm really waiting for is Ghostbusters: The Video Game due out in June. It was supposed to have come out October, but due to stupidity (And a merger between Activision and Blizzard), the game was delayed until this summer. I've been a fan of the series for as long as I can remember- I was born two years after the first film was released, and a year after the cartoon show came out. Ghostbuster funs, believe me, have eaten more shit over the last twenty years than any other (Promises of a sequel, failed cartoon series, promised but never finished products and overall weakness in the ones that are released).

This year marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first film and the 20th of the second. The game features, with exceptions, the entire original film cast; missing are Sigourney Weaver (Aliens) and Rick Moranis (Honey, I Shrunk The Kids). This is going to be the third official story in the franchise- should there be a third film (Which is now finally getting real buzz) the game would be where the film picks up from. The recently released trailer looks great, and the game looks promising. I honestly hope it doesn't go to shit, as they had an extra 8 or 9 months to do more work on it (Delayed games, fantastic huh?).

The interviews I've read for this game, everyone says the same thing- there's something special here, in this game adaptation. It isn't a game version of a film, this isn't that Scarface game or The Godfather, where there was little to know involvement of the original cast and crew; everyone who was willing is working on it, and they all talk about how great it was to return to this material again, which really makes me unwilling to wait to play it.

Sierra is the company that developed the game, and I think their there with Valve amongst developers who are willing to try new things, and actually care for the gaming community.

On a final note, this topic really opened my eyes, and I can't remember this serious of a gaming discussion ever (With the exception, of course, of which is better, FF7 or FF8... I'm still saying 8 stomps all over 7, but that's just me).

[Azure Phoenix]

SoulBlazerFan wrote:

Game companies don't really care about their audience, they only care about the final outcome- money.

that says it all about EA, i think EA should burn, anyone who knows about EAs response to SecuROM complaints will know why

[tay120n64]

Yeah, but EA actually toyed with alot of new IPs this year, so they get my forgiveness. Even if they're cooperate cash cows.

[Azure Phoenix]

no forgiveness! they either called us dumbasses or pirates! said by the manager himself!

[tay120n64]

I must have missed that one...

Do you have a link to it? That sounds like an interesting article.

Like the time that one of the heads of Nintendo in Europe said that the only people who care about software storage space in the Wii are tech-geeks and antisocial Otaku gamers.