We chat about videogames and videogame accessories.

Depends on the action really, some of them are a bit more flavour heavy.

And yeah, it seems a few legal departments at companies think they are being exceedingly clever when they come up with agreements like this, apparently oblivious to the fact that even if you had explicitly agreed to any such agreement (and are not just told that you have agreed retroactively) it doesn't actually remove any rights from you.

Gotta wonder why the video game industry went from "Let's make games that are fun to play" to "Let's churn out as many cash cows as possible"

oh well
maybe somebody will kick them all in the ass and make them stop being pricks

Gotta wonder why the video game industry went from "Let's make games that are fun to play" to "Let's churn out as many cash cows as possible"

Answer:


In all seriousness, it is an industry, so I don't really know what you expect. I am glad that games have a fairly large and accessible indie scene, though; while it doesn't solve the problem entirely, it means that new companies and independent creators can more easily reach an audience.

Gotta wonder why the video game industry went from "Let's make games that are fun to play" to "Let's churn out as many cash cows as possible"

That kind of happened with the animation industry too.

Even though I have a really pessimistic view on the future of the video game industry, I do believe there'll always be those companies that "make games that are fun to play" just for the sake of making them, like Valve and Rockstar. The companies that make as many cash cows as possible are just something you're gonna have to deal with.

Well I meant that more in the sense of "When they felt that it was more important to actually make a good game and give the fans what they want than to keep milking those damn cows until they finally dry up and die"

I'm no nostalgia master, but y'know there was a day when Capcom actually LISTENED to people and wasn't a terrible place to work, from what I hear

of course, with games, they take up enough time that you actually need to cherry pick which ones you choose to play in order to actually complete them, so it's easier to overlook the crap unless there aren't enough of those to hide them

the same can be said for most media

nostalgia makes fools of us all, though

I do believe there'll always be those companies that "make games that are fun to play" just for the sake of making them, like Valve and Rockstar.

I disagree, they're just smarter than the average company and actually listen to what the consumers want. You really can't say Valve makes games just for the hell of it when you look at all the promotional items for tf2.

the items are made to promote both game sales and tf2 at the same time

the hats have more meaning than a lot of other throwaway exclusives offered by other companies (which tells you something about the throwaway exclusives) while building off of an already strong brand

steam is always willing to give more intangible shit for your buck where others seem to hold those things dear, and that's where they succeed

their early days of fighting to win consumer trust were hard earned, and they seem to understand that more than others

I'm probably just being bitter about the fact that I remembered the Megaman series is probably dead forever

Nostalgia or no nostalgia, there were /more/ independent video game developers in the past.

I seriously don't think a 13- or 14-year old today could name Broderbund, or Humungous Entertainment, or the Learning Company, or hell, Maxis - mainly because they've all gone defunct or been absorbed by a parent company, then shoved behind a screen and forgotten.

...

But now that I think about it, that statement's a little facetious - there aren't less independent developers now, but rather...their slice of the market's a lot smaller, I'd propose. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't remember the genre of 'indie' games existing in common parlance a decade ago - hypothesis: because there wasn't anything to be independent /of/? Everyone was sort of independent in themselves, competing for an expanding market.

Which of course leads to the economic inevitability of those with money make more money, and the world we live in today. Which is sad. Because I loved videogames.

well, at least 3ds games have maintained face despite people thinking mobile gaming was more of a threat to consoles, of all things

also the 3d pokemon app is just their assets from developing xy but put into a thing, which was free the first time around because that was basically an open beta

it cost them almost nothing additional to put that up so they did

if anything the dream radar was the more blatant cash grab

What there is a lack of in the industry is simply listening to consumers, which goes hand in hand with the video game journalism industry's favoring over the businesses than the consumer. While large companies will continue to listen to only sales numbers, it really shows when the third largest business in the industry gets voted for Worst Company In America over Bank of America for the second time in a row. As much as they can attempt to blame it on conservative issues over LGBT characters and ME3's ending, it won't work. Because that's not what the consumer is voting them for, and the consumer knows that.

We as consumers have consistently proven to developers and publishers that listening to us is an entirely superfluous endeavor: players did practically nothing but wail and gnash their teeth about Diablo 3 and its DRM and its onlininess and its totally inadequate starting infrastructure; huge commercial success to the tune of 400 million dollars. We complain constantly about stagnant franchises and lack of significant innovation; more than 26 million copies of New Super Mario Bros. Wii sold while Call of Duty: Black Ops II (the ninth game in the call of duty series) grossed a billion in two weeks. The gaming industry has no reason to change; it's only on the decline from the perspective of a small minority that they don't need to bother courting because they're not the ones that spend the big bucks on new titles (or if they are, they tend to do so anyway even if they complain about it).

Companies will only do something so long as it stays a good business model, and it's a hell of a good one now. What should they care if they're voted terrible as long as everyone keeps buying their terrible games? We have only ourselves to blame. A business is a totally reactive entity in this respect.

i thought that was mostly because of the preorders, and then not being able to return the game post finding out it was shit

ofc if you're referring to people who say they will boycott a game and then buy and play it anyway then yes

I would argue that the main problem is the Lowest Common Denominator, to wit: the people who want quality games that go bold new directions are substantially outnumbered by the people who purchase a game solely by virtue of "whoa those guns are cool! ZOMBIES TOO LET'S DO IT" There's a sort of echo chamber effect (as there is with a lot of things) because when you're a Yahtzee-watching, game-dissecting connoiseur type you tend to discuss video games with similarly high-falutin' individuals, thus getting the impression that obviously the industry should be following what is clearly the majority opinion.

Then again, part of that might be said to be a vicious circle, in that established franchises are proven to do well, thus get more marketing; the combination of the marketing and brand recognition means more casual enthusiasts buy them, not bothering to research their actual quality (which, as mentioned, many mainstream game publications don't exactly help with in the first place); which in turn means that the established franchise remains more successful than new IPs.

A primary issue that is being raised here and related to that is that we seem to have dropped below a critical threshold of quality, whereupon it's clear that actual quality is no longer a focus of game manufacture (translation: they're not even trying). And the plebians are still buying them. Of course, eventually, it'll hit some plateau and hover around the lowest-possible-quality-while-still-making-profit margin. As 'immutable' and 'inevitable' as such outcomes are, a gigantic ocean of low-grade games nearly totally dominating market share, constantly eroding at the last bastions of worthwhile quality, is not exactly a great future to look forward to.

Huh. I agree with you (that would be SleepingOrange, I've had this reply up for a while) in a lot of ways, although I disagree that sales numbers are everything a developer listens to. Public opinion still puts that pressure on the company whether or not they make bank, because it always risks future sales and customer loyalty. You can be the most evil company on the planet and utilizing the most devilish schemes to nickel-and-dime your customers, but the risk of losing future sales will always cause a disturbance.

In instances like SimCity and Diablo III's DRM, it encompassed everyone who bought the game in the first few days. Loyal customers would fall within those first few days, and those loyal customers can be lost.

Ultimately I agree that my opinion can fall by the wayside easily because I don't fall within the majority, but nobody wants the industry that their hobby falls within to be extremely stagnated and absolutely terrible just because of evil corporations and capitalizing sales.

Making a Triple AAA video game has got to be in the Top 5 of "Great Ways to Embezzle"

One way would be to encourage people to make and sell games for free, and spread awareness (especially among people who aren't online) about how there's an active community of free stuff that people can turn to if they're sick of the traditional gaming market. One could ask for donations from those who can give and are thankful--but not beforehand, though; that's not a donation but investment and still relies on the marketability of an idea before the implementation has shown whether the idea has merit. Tindeck is one such free platform for music; it also allows people to set up money and whatnot.

Maybe, if there ever happens to be a platform with a big enough consumer base (or, donator base?) that could actually support the people making the game. But the thing is that the sort of games that would seriously be able to draw money away from huge companies (as in, not the kind of shit you'd see on Newgrounds) all require a pretty substantial investment of both time and money. If a person or company can seriously manage to draw up enough attention to their game that they can really afford to release a project that represents several months or years of their life FOR FREE, than that's great. But for the vast majority of developers, that doesn't sound even remotely feasible.

It seems to me that a better solution, at least on an individual level, would be for people to quit buying games on the very day they come out all the time. Maybe just wait a couple days for some decent reviews to come out, or wait a few months and buy it for 75% off on Steam instead. Don't blindly throw money at a company if it turns out they're just releasing more creatively bankrupt garbage.

I know more than a few people who complained about problematic issues in the upcoming Bioshock Infinite game for months, and then went ahead and bought it on the very first week it came out anyway. And that huge Simcity fiasco wasn't even an issue for everyone who decided against paying Sixty US Cash Dollars for a game that hadn't even been released yet. (And an EA game at that.)

For the indie studios/gamemakers, I guess the solution here would have to be "Make better games than the Triple A companies", but I guess that's a lot easier said than done.

wow

so many word walls

it's like a flood
but with text

personally, I just want to believe that there's a better way for the game industry to move forwards than things like the horrible employee abuse scandals, terrible franchise abuse, and generally stupid bullshit that it seems the industry is anymore

That's where crowdfunding comes in. Unfortunately, crowdfunded games haven't seen a lot of exposure, that doublefine game made more noise when it got funded than when it actually came out. Then you have the really disappointing ones like the princess panic rogue-like or the highly mysterious homestuck game that are kind of giving crowdfunding a bad rep. Also, the ones that do get funded and aren't a joke have been fairly modest so far.

That's where crowdfunding comes in. Unfortunately, crowdfunded games haven't seen a lot of exposure, that doublefine game made more noise when it got funded than when it actually came out. Then you have the really disappointing ones like the princess panic rogue-like or the highly mysterious homestuck game. Also, the ones that do get funded and aren't a joke have been fairly modest so far.

But... none of those three games have actually come out yet?

What do you know that we don't, Ed?

for a more recent example involving simcity

note the wording in this memo

just take a good look and see how much spin has been applied to the game compared to how it actually works. you are expected to accept that THEIR way was the only way, rather than asking why it had to be this way, and why it still resulted in so many issues. the role of the dissenter is downplayed (and referred to in the way one would refer to bigfoot sightings) in the face of vaguely described evidence which stems from the assumption that having this many players automatically means that they're enjoying the game.

instead of making sure the game works, they just pay people like her to write this stuff

edit: for the record, legend of dungeon is both fun, and unrelenting when you make a miscalculation on your risk taking, and also i guess it was on kickstarter before but that doesn't matter???

oh yeah, also didn't say this but triple A games are terrible ways of getting lots of money overall due to the reasons wheat mentioned (stupidly high overhead with poor payoff ratio)

Wheat

I already torrent things
I just don't do it exclusively because some games that are in fact fun require, to my dismay,a dreaded PRODUCT ACTIVATION CODE
also handheld games. are a thing

in addition please stop the pyschobabble and theories can we go back to talking about games
and not psychoanalyzing the industry

seriously can we I haven't understood half of the past two pages and something tells me that if I did understand it would just make more desperate to go back to this topic's original purpose

to be fair this is the group that thought a robot dog was better than giving megaman his own jets

he's a fucking robot

upgrade his legs

what are you talking about, the logical answer for what to give to megaman in order to allow him to reach greater heights is a dog