Gamers Anonymous

[quzar]

Just read this interesting article by Alex Rose of if:book (http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/) which deals with the stagnation in gaming from the point of view of the book. Here's a first chunk:


I am not a gamer.
I do not consider myself a gaming enthusiast, I do not belong to any kind of "gaming community" and I have not kept my finger on the proverbial pulse of interactive entertainment since my monthly NES newsletter subscription ran out circa 1988.
Save a few momentary aberrations--a brief fling with "Doom" ('93), a torrid encounter with "Half-Life" ('98), a secret tryst with "Grand Theft Auto III" ('01)--I've worked to keep my relationship to that world at arm's length.
Video games, I'd come to believe, had not significantly improved in twenty years. As kids, we'd expected them to evolve with us, to grow and adapt to culture, to become complex and sophisticated like the fine arts; rather, they seemed to remain in a perpetual state of adolescence, merely buffing-out and strutting their ever-flashier chops instead of taking on new challenges and exploring untapped possibilities. Maps grew larger, graphics sharpened to near-photorealistic quality, player options expanded, levels enumerated, and yet the pastime as a whole never advanced beyond a mere guilty pleasure.
Every time a friend would tug my sleeve and giddily drag me to view the latest system, the latest hyped-up game, I'd find myself consistently underwhelmed. Once the narcotic spell of a new virtual landscape wore off, all that was left was the same ossified product game producers had been peddling since 1986. Characters in battle-themed games still followed the tired James Cameron paradigm--tough guy, funny guy, butch girl, robot; stories in "sandbox" games were as aimless and hopelessly convoluted as ever.
This is to say nothing of the interminable interludes that kept appearing between levels, clearly designed by wannabe action movie directors. Fully scripted scenes populated by broad stereotypes would go on for five or even ten minutes at a time, with the "camera" incessantly roving about, punching in, racking focus, jump-cutting., as though an executive had instructed his team to "make it edgier, snappier, more Casino."
Where was the modern equivalent to the Infocom games, those richly imagined text-based worlds that put to shame any dime-a-dozen title from the Choose Your Own Adventure series? This isn't nostalgia talking. Infocom, like its predecessors in BASIC, put out games written by actual authors; not only did they know how to construct engaging stories and fleshed-out characters, they foresaw the opportunities presented by non-linear narratives and capitalized on their interactive potential.
Was it me, or had "refinement" in the subsequent years become a dwindling pipe-dream, like accountability in broadcast journalism?

Full article here (http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/04/gamers_anonymous.html)

[Darksaviour69]

he clearly hasn't played Rez (or Braid).....

[quzar]

Despite how much I love Rez, it wasn't really revolutionary in any sort of gameplay sense it was just very well made. Also, if you look at the shelves of any store stocked with videogames, odds are you won't see something like Rez taking up much space. In fact, and I believe this is the biggest point he makes, you'll still see just about the same spread as you would have in '90 or '95 or '05, FPS RTS 4X RPG ... things so common that we can fit them into 3 letters a piece ;)

[kojiro7]

Games now are far worse than the old days.
I play only emulators now,8-16bit era were the only real videogames

[Darksaviour69]

True, but its that not the same in all mediaums, look at the dung that are box official hits, No. singles, top selling books, they are just clones of hits of the past hits. True originality, quality and commercial success together, is very rare in any medium.


But i would say games like Braid, portal and bioshock are successful and are real improvement on their genes if not completely original/revolutionary

[staticshade]

dats deep but i have to agree

@darksaviour69 i don't really see the big deal in braid it simply did a good job of mechanics that where already available (time manipulation has been around for ages prince of persia, max payne e.t.c)

[quzar]

True, but its that not the same in all mediaums, look at the dung that are box official hits, No. singles, top selling books, they are just clones of hits of the past hits. True originality, quality and commercial success together, is very rare in any medium.

Ah yes, but that's part of the point. We buy new systems and what does it get us? We got CED and LD above VHS and Beta and it gave us multiple audio tracks, non-linear playback, and, when the Criteron Collection got to it, commentary. DVDs gave us more of the same but in a more managable size and for the first time in a format that can look identical on every machine that plays it. Now we've hit a snag like we're in with videogames, bluray and HD DVD give us just ... more of the same again, faster sharper clearer bigger, but the same.

At the very least, in my opinion, the Wii breaks out of this sort of cycle by giving us another method to interact with the games, however banal and pointless it may be in some.

[Darksaviour69]

dats deep but i have to agree

@darksaviour69 i don't really see the big deal in braid it simply did a good job of mechanics that where already available (time manipulation has been around for ages prince of persia, max payne e.t.c)

time manipulation has been about for a while, but never had it been used in this way, plus the last level in braid was mind blowing (i thought anyway)


Ah yes, but that's part of the point. We buy new systems and what does it get us? We got CED and LD above VHS and Beta and it gave us multiple audio tracks, non-linear playback, and, when the Criteron Collection got to it, commentary. DVDs gave us more of the same but in a more managable size and for the first time in a format that can look identical on every machine that plays it. Now we've hit a snag like we're in with videogames, bluray and HD DVD give us just ... more of the same again, faster sharper clearer bigger, but the same.

At the very least, in my opinion, the Wii breaks out of this sort of cycle by giving us another method to interact with the games, however banal and pointless it may be in some.

well if you look at a game like braid, and portal and bioshock, those games could not have been done in older consoles because of technical limits. You might think bioshock could have been done on an older console but you would have to cut a lot of the texture details and audio logs that creates the the incredible environments and atmosphere of the game.

Also the technical improvements you mention to media players while improve the the user friendless and quality etc of the media, does it really improves the "art" of the art of the media? (movies like sin city are only ones that come to mind that weren't really possible in the past.)

also if you consider XBLA, PSN, WiiWare and Steam now offers users a more convenient way to purchase and play games (no need to chance discs etc)


edit:

I will admit that generally games are more of the same, only bigger, shinier HD-er, and while compared to other media and it may seem that they are not evolving, but I would argue that there are games that are evolving, and the game industry is still very young compared to other media's and its unfair to expect it to evolve so quickly

[jp_zer0]

Shadow of the Colossus

but the article author is doing it wrong, you can't just grab the first casual game that comes your way to judge gaming as a whole. You're always gonna get what he describes as an adolescent and flashy game.

[mike_jmg]

maybe it's unfair to expect game industry to evolve quickly.

But I think it is going on the wrong direction, maybe even taking a step backwards. Cause IMO developers are focusing too much on the graphic aspect of this gen games.

I mean, yeah the games look awesome, but they are leaving behind the story and mostly the gameplay, while in the past it was the thing that mattered the most.

Two weeks ago I was playing a hacked version of pokemon gold, It was really refreshing and fun, I couldn't believe a game that old gave me a better time than some of this gen games.

Even a friend of mine was really engaged on a homebrew fighting game featuring an old TV series Characters, he was having more fun than with RE 5 on his PS3.

And also, this gen games are mostly sequels from last gen games, I mean, RE 5, Halo 3, DMC 4, Burnout Paradise, Tekken 6, DOA 4, DOA Xtreme 2, Ninja Gaiden 2, Disgaea 3, Soul Calibur 4, God of War 3, GTA IV, Fallout 3, COD 4. What's up with that?, there are some exceptions, but nothing as original as what these games were on their first iterations.

[FireStag]

One of the most original games I've ever played was the first Tribes for PC. If that game had a campaign it would have been much more popular, but in 1998, what you could do and how fun it was blew me away. First real MMOFPS where you had to use tactics and junk, vehicles that flew and shot rockets, and you used jetpacks to get from place to place. Teleporters, deployable walls and force fields, turrets... I don't think I've ever played a game more...

[staticshade]

Shadow of the Colossus

but the article author is doing it wrong, you can't just grab the first casual game that comes your way to judge gaming as a whole. You're always gonna get what he describes as an adolescent and flashy game.

i only played that game a few weeks ago i was blown away i felt like a kid. the sense of adventure in that game was epic especially the fight with the centipide/flying colossus in the desert wow!!!

but then i think there are only a handful of games in this generation that are anything as spectacular as this game

[stanfy86]

And thats why my favorite platform is the hacked PSP, i can play all of the GOOD games of yore whenever i want....

That said i do think there are a few examples of good games that are more recent: zone of the enders 2, oblivion/fallout 3 etc. but i do feel that one previously valued metric for scoring a games overall value s the replay factor, im lucky if i get 1/2 - 1 week out of a game.

[Emulation_Chief]

Hello:

I have to agree and disagree about what this "non-gamer" said about video games.

The agree part. Certainly the hardware and software "evolved" to the point of high realism and high definition. But the game genres didn't changed much. an action game has the same style since the 80's. The main character is always a bad-ass, outnumbered and most of the time the boss level is always bigger than the playable character. RPGs uses pretty much the same formula since Final Fantasy and Legend of Zelda from NES.

The disagree part. Games DO EVOLVED during time. Although the companies today doesn't want or really need to reinvent the wheel in terms of game styles, small and big developers do create games that really push the imagination and, most of the time, begin a complete revolution. I will start with the most common of the games: Tetris. Who would believe that a simple and challenging game made in Russia become a phenomenon and begun the puzzle genre in video games? What about the 90's? Explored only by few developers and finally took form in Capcom's Street Fighter 2 begun the fighting genre to the popularity it has today. What about the new millennium? What about other genres? Sega brought us their greatest masterpiece. Redefining what an RPG could become, Shenmue hit the stores to a Dreamcast near you.

In conclusion, games will always be that, games. They're fun, distracting and challenging. Unfortunately, oversaturation of the same genres and high budget projects, big companies doesn't take much time to really start something that revolutionized the industry. Looks like small developers will work on that evolution more than the big ones.

[drunkenmonkey]

Arguing that any of these industries or media is stagnant or isn't evolving fast enough ignores the basic nature of what these things are: products sold by businesses.

These businesses, whether they be small indy developers or global empires, are trying to make money (no matter how much some indies protest that all they care about is the art - without money, they go back to being unemployed/overeducated artists). They make money by putting products up for sale. When they can get their hands on ingenious, groundbreaking material, they run with it: Myst, for example, used new technology and a pretty innovative game concept to sell more copies than just about any other game.

The same thing goes for other industries. The Harry Potter books sold so ridiculously many copies (despite writing of a quality that I'd consider mediocre at best) my first post: I'm testing the waters (i.e. I think mediocre is pretty generous) in part because they were a relatively new treatment of a well-established genre/story. There's a similar concept behind remarkable movies like 300/Watchmen (everyone's familiar with comic books/graphic novels, and everyone's seen Batman/Superman/X-Men/..., but 300 and Watchmen - along with Sin City, which someone else mentioned - explicitly sought to transplant the aesthetic of the original work into a new medium in a way that hadn't really been done before), or remarkable blah like Blah (it's getting late, I have to get to work in the morning, and no great examples come to mind right now - but I know they're there).

The new book by Dan Brown (the guy who wrote The Da Vinci Code) has a planned first print run of 5 million copies. Is there something brilliant and innovative about it? Probably not. But he's sold an absurd number of books (and movie tickets) before, so the publisher is (understandably) counting on making a lot more money off of his work, even if it turns out to be thoroughly formulaic and predictable. Sound like a familiar scheme? I'm a turn-based strategy guy, so the first games-name that comes to mind is Sid Meier: legend, sure, but when was the last time he released a game you thought was totally new? Civilization, 1991? Even so, he still turns out games, and we keep buying them.

So what can we do to encourage the industries we patronize to innovate? If nobody buys Dan Brown's new book, no publisher will take another chance on him. If nobody buys third or fourth books by the same authors we've all heard of, publishers will eventually catch on (if they're still in business) and maybe go out and look for that new thing out there. They may even find some good writers with really original things to say or really original ways to say old things. But do you want to sit back and not play the next four iterations of Grand Theft Auto or Civilization because you hope game developers, at the prompting of their falling sales, will come up with something new? Or do you want to keep checking out the newest graphics and special effects, all the while whining that there's nothing really new about each new game before it even comes out?