"Hey, is gaming in decline?"

[KodiaX987]

I had started this on Reddit before noticing I was off-topic and the subject dealt with PC VS console, rather than gaming as a whole. I didn't want to get rid of all that text, so instead I'll post it here.




PC gaming is moving forward, technically. Graphics always get better of course, and the tools to make PC games improve as well.

For the remainder, it's not really moving in a direction I'm comfortable with.

Big-name games milk the franchise as long as it can go. Most of franchise games are re-hashes with prettier graphics, and people gobble this up no questions asked. To a degree, I agree that there aren't four billion ways to create a war shooter, but I nonetheless get the impression that the publishers push out sequels at a rate I find too quick to be natural. What I find frightening is that there's some sort of social mass effect. *It works.* New game that looks like the old one except with prettier visuals, people buy it, prompting their friends to buy it, and so on and so forth. Sure, I could keep up, wouldn't make that much of a dent in my paycheck, but I'm not really interested out of principle. I don't want to jump into this river of people who move from sequel to sequel with the only difference between them being cosmetic things.

And this brings me to graphical advances. Crysis initially infuriated me because it sold itself on graphical power alone, and it worked. People were growing extra cocks just to express how much of a boner they were having at the visuals. The game got hyped to hell and back, and in my opinion simply because it looked *pretty*. People repeated this with Gran Turismo 5, and the Forza games, and lately with BF3. Nobody seems to have learned that in all those instances, the screenshots are either pre-rendered or are taken using the game's photo mode, which is made to produce a much nicer-looking picture than usual. But people just don't seem to remember. Or they don't care. I find both prospects deeply worrying.

I took a look at the offering of indie games, at least at what's available on Steam and XBLA, and I noticed a large portion of them appear to follow the coin-op model. You get to play a few minutes of a frantic game before the game-over screen shows up. This worked back when arcades were all the rage. This worked during the 8-bit and 16-bit era. But gaming today is meant to be longer-lasting. A single-player experience must keep a player entertained for upwards of 50 hours. A multi-player game must find ways to constantly renew itself and provide an experience that seems fresh and unique each time. It seems to me that many indie games miss this aspect, and instead stick to an outdated 'design model' so to say, and I find that the indie games that shine are those that actually manage to cater to this "long-lasting" model. A gamer today expects his game to be more than a simple arcade port.

I think the biggest problem when consoles come into play is that you either find yourself torn and wondering if grabbing a console for some game is worth it, or you pick up a PC version that you realize too late was shoddily ported and if your setup is even remotely esoteric, you'll have all the problems in the world trying to get it to work for you. This outlines a cash-cow initiative that is logical and expected, but still uncontrolled. It's like nobody checks whether the PC port is up to snuff, and the buyers end up paying for it.

[Rock Eastwood]

Because money?

Because indie games are probably made by 8-bit/16-bit era fans? (Though it's sad seeing a game with 8-bit in the title and it's ms paint stick figures that wouldn't even qualify as a 4-bit art style.)

Because PC games don't exist to the average person, other than PC gamers?

D-duh-'iono-I don't know...

[Randomness]

Yeah...

At least there's still some good games getting made...

[BIG OLAF]

I think gaming popularity is at an all-time high. The quality of most games is a little on the lackluster side, though.

[Katrina]

Bethesda's Todd Howard cited 90% of the revenue received was from console sales, prompting the announcement that the 360 was the lead design platform for the upcoming TES4, with a PC port. No doubt the large stack of money MS placed in Beth's lap was the contributing factor in demo exclusivity and initial DLC priority, but the percentage, regardless of how 'embellished' was shocking and a bit eye opening (to me) in terms of console revenue for the studio.

The whole console war deal is entirely played out, the arguments and points have been hashed, and re-hashed to the point that validity becomes lost in translation of the same re-processed points being addressed and argued et nauseum.

As long as developers and studios are making profit from nickle and dime DLC, Pay to Play, Free to Play / pay to win, and shoddy ports the trend will continue. Money rules the day, and no amount of public outcry will facilitate change as long as profits remain handily in the black.

The only surefire way to facilitate change is speak with your wallet. Unfortunately the majority will simply 'settle' and deal with the consequences citing enjoyment and the entertainment value taking precedence over individual principal. At most some will express dis-satisfaction in a public medium, accomplishing nothing more then a simple venting of frustration, at best accomplishing a minor inconvenience to developers or studios in the form of bad press.

Is gaming on the decline? I don't think so. While there will always be outlets and aspects in the industry I don't agree with, the trends will continue to evolve and ultimately direction and control dictated by the consumer, despite the 'settle' factor.

[Zarode]

Real gamers just wait out the good releases, honestly.

Rimjob, on the otherhand, isn't what I consider a good release.

[Kent]

Well, the fact of the matter is, gaming is mainstream now. It's not some semi-niche thing like it was back in the first few generations of gaming. You know how movies have gotten to the point where most of the summer blockbusters are action-packed movies with, no doubt, plenty of shooting and explosions? They're the Call of Duty of cinema, just without a coherent brand name tying them together.

It's an unfortunate inevitability with any mass-appeal industry, that while there will still be innovators, there will also be that one piece of crap people love to chew on over and over again. Like Dragon Quest and Call of Duty and Mario Kart. This is why we've seen an uprising in the popularity of indie games in the past few years - because there's a much higher percentage of them making games of under-used, under-appreciated or original gameplay styles and artistic directions.

With the advent of mobile phones coming into being their own legitimate gaming platforms, with experiences bigger and more advanced than merely being time-wasters, I more than welcome this as the huge chance for smaller and independant developers to create their own original games that may have yet to be proven enough to warrant big-budget contract from huge publishing companies. Same for services like Xbox Live Arcade and Indie Games and Steam, which provide some great opportunities for companies to get a game out there and get some great exposure for their products.

As for the whole console realism vs. PC denialism thing... Yeah. To have a balanced viewpoint on this, you have to realize that people, in general, prefer to game on either consoles or smartphones. Outside of Japan, dedicated gaming handhelds are on the decline, and PC gaming is moving distinctly away from commercial, on-the-shelf retail titles by large, favoring free-to-play games overall. To say that the extreme piracy rates among PC games hasn't been a major contributing factor to this would just be pulling the wool over one's eyes at this point.

Of course, I'm not stupid, so I'm not saying PC gaming is dead or dying, it's just being severely mitigated and, perhaps ironically, highly-specialized when it comes to the high end of the commercial spectrum - kinda like what happened (in the US, at least) with shooters of various sorts. My thoughts on this microtransaction stuff... might be a different topic.

But anyway, no, gaming is not in a decline. It's bigger than it ever has been (fun fact: Six years ago, when this console generation started, the gaming industry was generating more revenue anually than the commercial movie and music industries (in the US) combined. Think about that. And it's only been growing since then. In a way, the placement of gaming into the mainstream has only benefitted the industry, because of how it has affected and enabled so many independant developers to get creative and start making their own things, keeping that element of the industry alive, even if the high-end of it remains more-or-less exclusive to big names and decade(s)-old IPs that are still running strong.

[W0LB0T]

Game developers have always been about rehashes and milking sequels to make a quick buck.

[ShinMaruku]

I think gaming popularity is at an all-time high. The quality of most games is a little on the lackluster side, though.
The second part I disagree on. The same proportion of shit is always made, just they are far more visible and marketed. Plus trends are much more visible.
You point out NES and I can point to the oodles of shit that were made. Gaming is not in a decline, it's just that it has slowed in variation for a little while before the next diversification burst. I would rather blame this issue on people who have no real experience in gaming are the money men. And they are easily predictable.

[Sagasu]

On the plus side, Kodi, the content creation tools have become so powerful over the last few years, that even a relatively small group of people can create a really polished product.

As the tools themselves become more powerful, there is less call for technicians and more need for designers. Like the 8-16 bit era, where everyone was more or less on the same ground when it came to their tools, the race goes back into who can design better worlds (vs who can push more polygons)

And I'm not just talking about over designed niche stuff, either. It'll be easier to push the envelope when it doesn't require millions and millions of $$ to do so.

[Cloud Strife]

gaming died in 2004 when FPS blew up for some reason.

[RLbitClassica]

Most things stated in this thread I am in near total agreeance with. Gaming is now a mainstream media that thrives off of constant rehashes of the same shit(yes I am talking about you Call of Duty). That said, not every gaming juggernaut is following that path.

Halo Reach, for example, is a prime example of a mainstream franchise that provides you with fresh new game modes/gameplay and great bang for your buck(forge world/campaign/matchmaking/custom games/firefight) . Other examples: GTA 4, Skyrim, Red dead redemption, super smash bros. These are all mainstream games that don't sacrifice quality of game in order to get quick cash.

I also like a lot of the lesser known titles: Phantasy star zero, Moon(DS), Dementium 2, Dark Souls, N+.....

Bottom line: Games are not on the decline. Because they are now officially mainstream, The good titles are just having to share shelf space with all the other junk

[Selphia]

It's not that the quality of games is going down, but that the standards of mature players are always going up, coupled with rose-tinted nostalgia glasses.

The same game could be the best thing since sliced bread to a 10 year old, and yet another boring, uninspired clone of something else with pretty graphics and a bunch of extraneous bolted-on features to a jaded 20 year old.

Sequel-itis has always been around. Wing Commander ran for tens of games, Super Mario too, and King's Quest etc etc.

When I play a game, I try not to hold any expectations about it apart from basic technical requirements, i.e. the game must not crash every 5mins, bug out or have memory leaks. That, and personality wise I have a high receptiveness to new experiences. So I have a feeling that I get more fun out of a game than most people. While many people hated certain "red-haired stepchild" sequels, spiritual or otherwise: PSU, Dragon Age 2, Red Alert 3 for example. I actually liked those games quite a lot because they made some effort to change and keep things fresh.

Strangely, I hated Starcraft II. It felt like more like Super Starcraft HD Remix with one third of a plot. The other games that I don't like much tend to be low budget Korean F2P MMO grinders. Also hated C&C4. Felt like a copy paste of Company of Heroes with oversimplified unit balance. Waiting for Deus Ex and Skyrim to drop in price before I try those.

[Rock Eastwood]

I still say the real problem is that the games we grew up with isn't what's big on the market anymore...

If you grew up in the 90's with zelda, megaman, platformers and JRPGs. Sure it's easy to say those suck now...

But obviously Megaman games aren't being made EVERY SUMMER anymore like in the 2000's. Nintendo and Square spending half a decade on their biggest RPGs to uphold that maximum award winning quality... Platform games just aren't as cool anymore

To a Sonic fan generations should be beaten in one day, hours even. That's how used to our favorite games we "jaded 20 year olds" honestly are. So we're either going to hate it because it's the same old crap. Or hate it because it tried something new that didn't come out of our nostalgiac wet dreams...

Like (still using sonic as an example) HOW CAN PEOPLE LITERALLY COMPLAIN THAT THEY DIDN'T RECYCLE A 20 YEAR OLD GAME'S ENGINE?! WHEN IT'S OBVIOUS THEY'VE ALREADY BEATEN THOSE GAMES 200 TIMES!!

You can't make old styles cool for a new generation without tweaking it a little bit. It's the same with everything, even clothes. Watch a movie from the 80's then go to the mall and see that everyone's dressing like people from the 80's... (Which was basically like wearing your parent's clothes, INFLUENCED FROM THE 50'S)

People assume older is better so much that they forget all the flaws of the old, or include those flaws in their nostalgia disorder! Except Anime, modern anime STILL sucks... worse than cartoons/tv shows that are designed to sell toys. But gaming isn't looking THAT bad.

[Scejntjynahl]

The problem with modern gaming is that they are spoon feeding you what they think you want. In short, what they think sells. But some few games get the right mix where they allow the gamer to be immersed in the game. Even if it is a fps game. Because simply they made a character we can all "pretend" to be or can relate to. Like in Halo, if they ever take Master Chief's helmet off... the illusion of you been that person will be gone.

In the older games we (the gamers) made up a whole lot of stories behind our favorite characters, and frankly we came up with some damn good stories. It is partly a reason why PSO is so dear to us, the side quests where so whimsical that we could make up our own stories to go with it. Hell, even the main story was left to interpertration. But comes along PSU where we are told EVERYTHING and anything... we are no longer in control of our own characters stories, we have to make it fit somehow to what they (developers) tell us.

Yes platformers where once the highlight of the 80s, and they can be again if they make a character that is deemed worthy of it.

But things should progress no doubt. And things will get recycled over and over again. But somethings should be left for the gamer's imagination as well.

Another thing that I believe has made game decline is youtube and the internet. I am quite serious about this. Whenever a gamer is "stuck" first thing they do... google the answer. Which in my opinion really takes out a huge chunk of the gaming experience. And youtube ruins any good story by allowing people to skip right to the ending... no more "ah, wtf was that, omg, I didnt see that coming" well... because someone else took the time (or used the nets) to finish it and decided to ruin it for everyone else by posting it up. Jokes on you.

So if you were a developer, wouldnt it just be easier to cash in on the milk cow instead of wasting so much money and time on making an awesome game just for it to be completely made pointless by internet walkthroughs and youtube already showcasing the best of the game?

People laughed at me when I used to make my own graph paper maps while playing Metroid Prime... in my defense... it made me enjoy the game that much more. It was a personal win for me no to turn to the internets/ youtube just because I happened to get lost.

I have high hopes for the new Zelda game, even though I know next to nothing about it. I made it a point to avoid clips/articles on it. I intend to enjoy the game as it was meant to be, a self discovery.

[Rock Eastwood]

The problem with modern gaming is that they are spoon feeding you what they think you want. In short, what they think sells. But some few games get the right mix where they allow the gamer to be immersed in the game. Even if it is a fps game. Because simply they made a character we can all "pretend" to be or can relate to. Like in Halo, if they ever take Master Chief's helmet off... the illusion of you been that person will be gone.

In the older games we (the gamers) made up a whole lot of stories behind our favorite characters, and frankly we came up with some damn good stories. It is partly a reason why PSO is so dear to us, the side quests where so whimsical that we could make up our own stories to go with it. Hell, even the main story was left to interpertration. But comes along PSU where we are told EVERYTHING and anything... we are no longer in control of our own characters stories, we have to make it fit somehow to what they (developers) tell us.

Yes platformers where once the highlight of the 80s, and they can be again if they make a character that is deemed worthy of it.

But things should progress no doubt. And things will get recycled over and over again. But somethings should be left for the gamer's imagination as well.

Another thing that I believe has made game decline is youtube and the internet. I am quite serious about this. Whenever a gamer is "stuck" first thing they do... google the answer. Which in my opinion really takes out a huge chunk of the gaming experience. And youtube ruins any good story by allowing people to skip right to the ending... no more "ah, wtf was that, omg, I didnt see that coming" well... because someone else took the time (or used the nets) to finish it and decided to ruin it for everyone else by posting it up. Jokes on you.

So if you were a developer, wouldnt it just be easier to cash in on the milk cow instead of wasting so much money and time on making an awesome game just for it to be completely made pointless by internet walkthroughs and youtube already showcasing the best of the game?

People laughed at me when I used to make my own graph paper maps while playing Metroid Prime... in my defense... it made me enjoy the game that much more. It was a personal win for me no to turn to the internets/ youtube just because I happened to get lost.

I have high hopes for the new Zelda game, even though I know next to nothing about it. I made it a point to avoid clips/articles on it. I intend to enjoy the game as it was meant to be, a self discovery.

This is why I say the silent protagonist was a genius idea, even if people say "lol get with the times voice acting or gtfo" It's people saying stupid like that, in that mannor that forces developers to try too hard to give people what they THINK they want.

Which is partially why video gaming has gone full blown hollywood, making crap to TRY to appeal to a larger number of people. Which wouldn't be a bad thing, if they didn't do it in such cheap and shallow ways that'd make you want to call it hollywood in general. Instead of actually making a game... they're just making a shitty movie, focusing on graphcs, special effects, audio, and trendy characters.

And to be purely honest, the internet has done some severely serious damage to pop culture and the media in multiple ways than one that there's almost too many examples to describe...

I can make some stupid internet meme tomorrow, and the second it goes viral I'll see a reference to it on some Disney preteen targeted TV show. Both video games and movies. having 8 different TRAILERS that spoil all the best parts. Being able to look up pretty much every inch of a game MONTHS before it even comes out, and when you get the game finally it won't be a huge surprise anymore. I mean how fun were Mario or Sonic games when you didn't know what world you were going to go to next?

But now you know the order, All the bosses, The Last boss, what all the worlds look like, JUST from watching 3 trailers. Over the 80's-90's where it'd be a 15 second commercial and maybe an article in a gaming magazine. OR HEARING about it because you'd only know if you had enough coins to survive it on an arcade machine. Which now you'd probably have to have hipster knowledge to find an Arcade machine anywhere in America.

I'm still anxious to see what the next generation will bring.. What we can't make up for in imagination and creativity maybe we really CAN make up for in more advanced technology. But so far I'm not impressed with the handhelds, Wii-U I'm hoping won't pull a Sega Saturn/Dreamcast. And Playstation 44/Xbox 1080720lol460 rumours are kinda lame.

[MESeele]

I agree about current trailers/commercials giving away too much. Half the time they use shots of cutscenes that would have been considered huge spoilers elsewhere.

My favourite trailers are still the old budget ones nintendo used to make. People dressed up as the characters doing something (or people with horrendously over the top acting), flashes of second long action clips, and the nintendo logo to finish up. You learn the genre, get an idea of the gameplay, the protagonist, and that was about it. You'd start it up without even an inkling as to what the story was. Now a single trailer will give most people a damn good idea about what's going to happen. No digging or searching required.

[RLbitClassica]

As long as good games are made, the industry will live on; and good games do still exist.

[NegaTsukasa]

Game developers have always been about rehashes and milking sequels to make a quick buck.

you could say the same about the entertainment industry as a whole. lol

[Akaimizu]

Quite true. This has been an issue, off and on, for pretty much every published thing you see or hear. Though the "how much we can get away with, for the least amount of effort" goes well beyond the entertainment industry.

[PlinderD]

The problem with modern gaming is that they are spoon feeding you what they think you want. In short, what they think sells. But some few games get the right mix where they allow the gamer to be immersed in the game. Even if it is a fps game. Because simply they made a character we can all "pretend" to be or can relate to. Like in Halo, if they ever take Master Chief's helmet off... the illusion of you been that person will be gone.

Nope, doesn't work that way.

You know who took off her helmet back in the 80's? Samus. Not only did Nintendo "distance" the player from the character at the end of the first game, they did something completely ballsy and made their protagonist a woman. That was back when women weren't a part of the demographic for videogames.

And yet the Metroid series was successful. The intro of Super Metroid clearly shows that Samus is a woman. From the very beginning.

Bayonetta is one of the most widely acclaimed games to be released recently. Female protagonist.

Lots of popular video game series establish from the get go that the player is just controlling their character.

This whole illusion that the player is the character isn't necessary. And it's not always the more preferrable route. Separating the character from the player has been going on before. And people still get immersed. Why? Because the gameplay is that good.

See that's what matters, the gameplay. I don't care that Samus is a woman, because dodging lasers, shooting enemies, making giant jumps, learning boss patterns, getting powerups and new abilities, that's what draws players in.

I can even make a case for the "hollywood" effect, Bayonetta's ridiculous finishing move is just ****ing amazing. The Command & Conquer series has been lauded for their campy mission briefing videos.

Banpresto has taken Super Robot Wars series to new heights with better graphics, voice acting, in-jokes between voice actors, etc. SRW Z2 topped the video game sales charts off all consoles when it was released. And what were the Japanese raving about? The graphics. Well the story too, but the over the top graphics was a big factor.

Also companies have been taking short cuts even back in the NES era. There were the same bad movie/TV based games back then too with horrible gameplay just trying to ride the success of their source material.

Oh and walkthroughs and guides existed long before sites like GameFAQs entered the mainstream of the videogame community. I remember browsing through a flea market with some friends when one of them showed me a magazine from the 90's that had a walkthrough for Sonic 3. Every single secret was detailed along with screenshots. How to beat bosses, stage layouts. Even shots of the ending. The ending.

Comic books had ads for the Game Genie. There were tip hotlines people could call to ask about secrets in games (although how effective those were I don't know) All that's different know is that the information is available for free and compiled in websites. It's still up to the player to access those sites and look things up. So players can still do blind playthroughs as they did back then. Almost every game I played in the past decade, my first playthrough most of them was without heading first to GameFAQs and looking up walkthroughs.

If the player gets spoiled about a game's secrets because they looked up a walkthrough. Well, that's their fault. Not the community's. Or gaming in general.

Also hated C&C4. Felt like a copy paste of Company of Heroes with oversimplified unit balance.

C&C: Red Alert (1996) & C&C: Red 2 (2001) had even worse balance. In RA1 the multiplayer evolved from Soviet Heavy Tank rushes to Allied Light Tank rushes. RA2 it was Soviet tank rushes all to the end.

And to bring up other games in this era, Warcraft II (1995) while seemingly balanced at first (since Humans and Orcs buildings and units were just perfect copies of the other, can't get any simpler than that) ended up with everyone maining Orc for Bloodlust. Granted that both sides played almost equally until Tier3, but once Human and Orc got there, Orc would pulverize Human with Bloodlust. Mage Bombs were outperformmed by DK bombs.

If you think balance is a problem now, RTS's had horrible balance back then.

[Kyrith_Ranger_Pso]

Gaming is dying because of the iPod and iPad, curse you apple curse you!

[Randomness]

Nostalgia is pesky sometimes. From a numerical standpoint, gaming is stronger than ever. Ultimately, this is a subjective matter, so... yeah.

[PlinderD]

The iPad is an amazing gaming device.

It's perfect for portable RTS games for instance, or other genres that would sacrifice way too much to be to be playable given the DS/PSP/Vita/3DS's screensize. The iPad and Tablets in general fill that gap in portable gaming.

Its great that developers are taking the iPad seriously. I'd be totally stoked if Blizzard decides to make a "-craft" or Diablo style game for the iPad. Those would be perfect for it.

[Akaimizu]

The iPad doesn't really compete in the same way, as far as I'm concerned. Due to the way they excell at certain specific genres, where the console portables excell in others; the iPad is more like a PC where a Nintendo or Sony machine is more like a console, at least in terms of the split of genres each seem to promote the most. Maybe not all the same genres, though. The dual physical analogue sticks of the Vita may prove superiority in the First person action/shooter category. Especially since there is no official blue tooth hard control hardware for iOS or Android. RTS style gaming seems to be the main older genre which excels on a big touch-screen interface.

[Mitz]

I think with the advent of cloud-based gaming, we'll be seeing a huge surge in popularity in games for years to come.