Gaming and industries, does great success ruin everything?

[phoneyLogic]

Hi folks,

 

browsing YouTube I stumbled uppon this video:

 

It inspired me to make up this topic for a debate.

 

Some of us may have played and loved Fallout 1 and 2. It is one of the most immersive games I ever played. Even reading the manual, the Vault Dweller's Survival Guide, is more immersive to me than most other games which doesn't manage to keep my attention.

 

Now the Fallout series has been revived. Not necessarily with all the elements this series made so s.p.e.c.i.a.l., which are the amazing user interfaces with all its buttons and switches, its artworks, the Fallout mood, the clever humour, its travel system, gameplay, talking heads, very good writing of dialogues and story, lore, plots, shady morals, choices and consequences... to name a few.

 

Please note, I'm not talking or ranting about Fallout: New Vegas or Fallout 3 in all its aspects, I particularly mean the old Fallout stile which to me is its own category of immersion.

 

Do you think, that the success of games like FO3 and FNV just ultimately ruined the great and immersive gameplay of its own predecessors? Or is Bethesda just not capable to make such a s.p.e.c.i.a.l. game?

 

Are we domed to get the average common run?

 

Is a game not to be measured by its financial success?

 

Shall we?

 

 

Please feel free to think about and dabate.

Edited February 16, 2013 by tortured Tomato

[JimboUK]

The industry has defiantly become risk averse to the point where it's strangling creativity, there are a few reasons, games are so expensive to make that failure could spell the end of the company and there's good old fashioned greed pushed by bean counters who understand nothing but the bottom line for the next quater. The guy in the video singles out WOW, I'd have singled out Call of Duty, publishers and developers have seen that success and have become fixated on getting a cut of the mindless gamer market, companies like Bioware and Bethesda have thrown away what used to make them unique in their desperation to get a slice of the COD pie.

 

On Fallout I'd separate FO3 and NV, NV is very much a continuation of the series, FO3 is a post apocalyptic shooter aimed squarely at the COD crowd Bethesda have become so fixated on, it's still a good game, it just a bad Fallout game. The Elder Scrolls is another example, compare the slow but very immersive Morrowind with the very pretty but ultimately vacuous Skyrim.

[sukeban]

I've never actually played any of the Fallout games so I can't comment on them exactly, but I definitely think that you get this with many other big-name franchises made by previously "enthusiast" studios--TES, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Diablo (surely there are more).

 

I wholeheartedly agree with what jim has said about the state of the industry. Sadly, these types of games (big on style, short on substance) are the types of games that you get when accountants are put in charge of game development rather than actual designers, that you get "lowest common denominator" games that are assured to move units at the expense of actual innovation and creativity. The only innovation that we really have these days seems to be in the graphics department (or gimmicky things like Kinect)--and that seems to exist in a zero-sum relationship to most everything else. So for TES, we have the loss of edgy humor, storytelling, dialogue, interesting quests, in-depth game systems, in-depth lore, in-depth character customization, and game difficulty. Skyrim, Oblivion, and the later Mass Effect games are still "good games," but that seems to be the highest that studios are willing to aim these days; as jim says, they are risk averse and unwilling to roll the dice on a potentially revolutionary game that the casual gamer might not understand.

 

And I guess that is what happens after a studio reaches a certain size and the dollar amounts to be gained from going this route begin to seriously gnaw at the initial "idealism" of the developer. Just like LeBron leaving all his devoted fans in Cleveland and taking the "guaranteed championship" option in Miami, we can't really "blame" developers for doing this either... just sort of sigh in dissapointment as another one of the "good guys" ends up being just another dude.

 

...................

 

On a TES note, I've recently watched some Let's Plays of Redguard, Daggerfall, and Battlespire and I have been simply BLOWN AWAY at some of the amazing RPG elements of those games that have... fallen out (keke) of TES since then. I get that those systems (backstory generator, forbidden weapons/armor, weaknesses, conversation options, skills, etc.) might have been less than straightforward for new players, but they are just so much cooler and more RPG than most anything currently left in the series. Kind of makes me wish that TES was based on a hard-and-fast "game system" like the Forbidden Realms games were based off of AD&D, something that, no matter what else happened in the game, would keep the game a true RPG. In TES, we don't even have stats anymore....

[JimboUK]

I don't think all is lost, there's still innovation with indies and Kickstarter is an excellent way of removing the publishers and their tick boxes. It's kind of going the way of movies, you have Hollywood churning out formulaic garbage designed to appease the masses but if you look at smaller low budget productions there's still some excellent stuff being made. Without the big budgets small independent producers have to rely on story, their creativity and the characters, a lack of funds can actually lead to a far better end product.

[Vagrant0]

It's all because nobody yet has been willing to take me up on my offer to hand them a world and the exact mechanic designs to revolutionize the MMO as we know it... Just for the sake of them doing the actual coding and art resources and giving me back a portion of any profit and retaining rights to the IP and some core mechanics. I don't do a "this is my dream game" thing, but rather a "this is something that could actually be done within the capability of an independent team and hit many points right enough to keep people addicted for years". Most of the basis for such a game comes blending mechanics already hinted or present in other games, but which was either poorly implemented, ignored by nature of more beneficial mechanics, or implemented without much end purpose (not uncommon you say? But can you blend it and still make it work?). But what do I know... I've just played games most of my life, sent far too much free time online (playing a vast array of online games), done some light study in game theory, sociology, psychology, gotten training in project planning and management (albeit for construction), spent several years modding (file systems, game mechanics, resource management, version control), several more years exposing myself to a broad range of cultural themes and elements, and am, in general, reasonably competent.

 

But hey, maybe one of these days I'll have the time to sit down and actually learn programming.

[Maharg67]

 

One of the very disappointing factors in many games is that they even fail to properly utilize the resources already found in the games such as graphics, animations, possible characters and some actual real story telling and background work. Modders have proven again, and again, that this is true as they have used such resources to create wonderful mods. There has even been large mods that do so much it is like playing a new, improved game.

 

I would point out the Lost London people who have done wonders, with much hard work, with the poor old original Hellsgate London game.

 

As a writer I have been amazed by the holes in quest story lines of Bethesda games. In Fallout the children in the Lamplight Caverns have been there for ages but how is that possible? With no replacements would they have not died out. My own solution was to state that the children were a product of an exotic immortality project. The project failed in that it only worked on young children and they staid young though now and then 'immortality' would fail and somebody would grow up before being forced to go to Big Town. The children did not remember the truth because of side effects of the immortality treatment and their being over 200 years old. The change in story lines could have led to a new quest.

 

In Oblivion Kvatch is attacked, by a whole daedric army, to kill Martin. Why do that when it just took a few assassins to kill the Emperor, and his sons, who were far better protected than Martin was as a priest. The answer is, in a changed storyline, that Mehrunes Dagon wished to use 'shock and awe' tactics on the Empire and its people. This idea is supported by the already existing NPC voice dialogue through out the game that speak of people fearing that what had happened to Kvatch could easily happen to their cities. It also explained the reluctance of city leaders to send reinforcements to Bruma.

 

Neither of these changes in story lines would have taken many resources or much effort.

[Ihoe]

Some of us may have played and loved Fallout 1 and 2. It is one of the most immersive games I ever played. Even reading the manual, the Vault Dweller's Survival Guide, is more immersive to me than most other games which doesn't manage to keep my attention.

 

Please note, I'm not talking or ranting about Fallout: New Vegas or Fallout 3 in all its aspects, I particularly mean the old Fallout stile which to me is its own category of immersion.

 

Do you think, that the success of games like FO3 and FNV just ultimately ruined the great and immersive gameplay of its own predecessors? Or is Bethesda just not capable to make such a s.p.e.c.i.a.l. game?

 

Are we domed to get the average common run?

 

Is a game not to be measured by its financial success?

 

 

I think most older games left a lot of the possible scenarios to the player's imagination. for example I could never jump in Fallout 2, but when I saw an NPC, I would imagine what they'd look like when that 15px^2 portrait of his got a makeover. Now all games spoon feed the player all they need know or do. and Then there's nothing left to imagine to make the game feel big and in the same context, immersive. And spoon feeding players their imagination is just Really hard if even possible, I think that's why newer games have less of a mojo compared to older good games.

 

IMO most new games lose their artistical feel and mystery as time goes by and there's more demand to have a Hollywood experience. (and It's silly, I am already living in reality, why would I want a realistic game? and I could pay 8 bucks for the hollywood experience...) Just like the difference between poets and pop singers, one is dumb and glamourous, the other humble and intelligent. Poets are from old times and Pop singers are new, I could guess a fan of poetry would be as annoyed as we are. (!)

[HeyYou]

Games get simplified to appeal to the 'casual' gamers..... as that is where the big money is. Why make a truly excellent game, that will only appeal to a small segment of gamers, when you can make a mediocre game, that will appeal to the masses, and therefore, turn MUCH more profit?

[bben46]

 

Games get simplified to appeal to the 'casual' gamers..... as that is where the big money is. Why make a truly excellent game, that will only appeal to a small segment of gamers, when you can make a mediocre game, that will appeal to the masses, and therefore, turn MUCH more profit?

Iif a game has an enhanced version for serious gamers and a dumbed down version for the masses of casual gamers, the majority of casual gamers would mostly opt for the enhanced version - because they do not realize they are casual gamers and believe themselves to be the elite gamers the advanced version was made for. Then whine because 'It's too hard' and it sux. - then the reviewers - who are mostly casual gamers because they MUST cover a new game every week so never really get into a game that deeply - echo the too hard sentiment. Then, the sheep who follow whatever the reviewers and big subsidized gamer sites say pass it by. Leading to poor sales and a 'cult' following that has problems finding the critical mass of users necessary to push the game over the threshold between a viable money making game and a might have been good if ... game. :whistling:

[kvnchrist]

Are we talking about success or greed here. Success is like progress. It builds upon itself and is only good if you continue to create an outstanding product or service. Bean counters and politicians will bleed a good idea dry because their focus is upon the well being of the institution instead of what it's supposed to stand for.