But it makes it unavoidable, especially since this happens for basically everything ever created.
That is if such a product succeeds. People limiting what they buy and making sure they get maximum gain for their money spent will look more intensively at games and decide off more important, deep factors.
Which will pretty much force innovation, quality and even good customer sales.
As for indie games, that's partially because they don't have a budget the size of a large developer or publisher, so trying something unconventional is not nearly as risky.
I'd say it's just as, if not more risky -- but they do something unconventional because if they attempt the same thing they could not have it at the same standard, purely due to the lack of manpower, funds and technology at their disposal.
Obviously SOMETHING seems to be working compared to *generic COD clone game*.
Well, I'd say it is working (in terms of business) but that's not the point I'm trying to make.
Minor changes can be MASSIVE, depending on just how tight your gameplay is -- the main thing I'm thinking of here is Starcraft 1 or 2, where each unit has its role and removing one of them could break many others.
Stupid, abused fanboys buying a sequel doesn't account for constant growth like this.
It's not the game that they keep buying, it's that their friends also buy it as well -- or rather, it's the "hype" from each game that makes them want to get it, because they don't look past it.
And Duke Nukem Forever conveys your point much better anyway, seeing that the drama storm it caused was much bigger when it was released.
A valid point, especially considering their marketing ideology of black listing reviewers who gave a bad preview for future reference.
Of course, examining DNF and Portal to find out why one works and the other doesn't is a fascinating point of game design.
Portal was unique by design -- not saying that constitutes much of an argument but working with portals the way you could was mind-boggling on many occasions, feeling. . .
quite ingenious.
Pop culture evolves, so Duke tripping over himself after a decade was hardly a surprise.
How would DN fall flat at this point, I'd imagine? It wasn't really the style or the character -- it was the things that was the actual flesh of the game that failed to support that, making it feel like a hyped up and narcisist piece of trash.
Except not really. The sequels trimmed down the RPG elements and were more focused on Action, which seems to have been positively received in general
Definately, although one thing I must point out that's great about Mass Effect is that it doesn't seem so confusing or frustrating, where I found add-ons and such just generally difficult to adjust to on Mass Effect 1 although in ME2 it was. . . possibly too easy.
And even if COD came up with a mind-blowing story, I'm fairly certain people would complain about the gameplay anyways.
You wouldn't buy CoD for that though, it would give you a complete false impression if it attempted to.
Eh? TES is actually very conventional, since they're very reminiscent of old first person RPG like Eye of the Beholder and Wizardry, which in turn all draw their roots from Dungeons & Dragons, but explaining that in detail seems like too much of a thread derail.
Don't think it's too much of an issue, although it makes sense to say that they're less conventional presently -- although there isn't much of an RPG system going around. . . You've got Fable, TES and Mass Effect -- that's pretty much it.
The point? To shift the discussion away from the endless tirade about COD in a subtle way, mostly because that particular discussion is horribly overdone.
I think it's overdone because I end up doing it with several different people xD
Now as for the problems as I see them:
All 6 of your bold points raised I feel like I can agree with to some degree -- being as you made a significant effort (evidently), it makes sense to go through them as well. ^^
Not that you ever could effectively stop piracy to begin with.
This especially, being so centered around obtaining the money it seems is quite terrible, and it's quite annoying to see a lot of honest customers lose from that as a result.
At its core, DLC really isn't a bad idea, seeing as its just the modern concept of ye olde expansion packs.
Expansion packs were awesome mind -- dare I say I even preferred them.
Look at Age of Empires III's expansion packs -- The Warchiefs and the Asian Dynasties.
They both presented 3 new civilizations -- each, all unique and a campaign that (at least the Warchiefs did) linked with the primary story loosely.
As well as many other changes / upgrades / additions to the current game. Whilst a DLC kind of only adds a certain interchangable thing as opposed to a key new mechanic for some things (such as BF2's expansion that featured a Crossbow that you could shoot, and slide down the wire).
The actual *problem* arises when you continue to pay more and more, for less and less (which I'm guessing you were trying to express earlier, ala "overpriced mappacks".
That's half the reason, but if they attempt to cough it out after release when it was made before release, unless of course it featured a bored design team who's work was done and thus could do a little extra for the Collector's Edition or something.
WHen a new expansion pack came out, you knew it'd cost around 30 bucks
Around £25 for me, so that's about right. Although now the vast majority of expansions -- due to age -- are incredibly cheap (SC1 + Brood War for around £8, Age of Empires III and its two expansions for only £18).
If there was a "template" of sorts, for different kinds of DLC, I think the situation would improve.
Being a relatively new system we need to wait for the paradigm to settle -- with that in mind lots of people don't mind getting the most overpriced DLC as they often feel it's required to complete the game.
Then come the likes of On-Disc DLC and Day 1 DLC which can have serious legal implications (like not owning what is on the disc despite having PAID for said disc, which I find to be a ridiculous argument).
If I remember right (which could very easily not be the case, here), you only pay for the license to use the property, and the disc itself is just giving the ability to do that (so playing music on your iPod when you bought it's album is pretty much the same thing, in terms of law).
The whole DLC thing is large enough to deserve its own thread, although I'm sure not many people here would actually argue for the current model we have right now. xP
Sadly a lot don't care -- and even if they did many I couldn't really rely on to stick with me in not buying it which would be effectively giving / showing support.
I'm sure you can agree that more often then not, "rofessional reviews" seem more like advertisements than actual honest critique.
Don't know, as I stopped reading them oh so long ago. ^^
The tone of the game-related media seems very condescending.
I believe that it was the Boston post or some sort that considered Anonymous "Cyber-bullies" once they threatened to bring hell to earth as soon as PIPA and the other one (whom's name I cannot remember) made their ugly heads visible. Disgusting, quite honestly.
If you really look at it, you'll realise there's no scale from 0-10 anymore, but instead from three distinct "ratings", those being 0-8,8.1-9 and 9.1-10. Because anything below 8 is considered crap these days, which just goes to show the scaling is garbage.
Ratings are poor anyway -- and writing is done by anyone on their team, not really anyone with experience of understanding of the genre / game they're playing (which can really harm reviews). The ratings are arbitrary and the writers unskilled at their work sometimes, because they likely have the skills in literature but not the knowledge of what they're talking about -- in which case, why bother?
Of course, there are some great people who know what they're talking about but for the most part, any form of reviews, previews and general discussion that protrudes from "
rofessionals" like IGN, Eurogamer and the like have some form of bias or objective that does not cater to the reader.
Would you take a potential risk of fail on an "original" game project when you have invested 100 million into it? I think not. This leads to "lack of originality".
I agree. This is one where I figure you can really only target the playerbase at this point -- whilst most of the efforts made could be done from the developers' side, there is no real reason to unless the standards and requirements are imposed by the playerbase, which they do not.
In this case I'd say it's the requirement or judgement of the graphics / detail etc that can harm many peoples' views.
The most sales of any AAA game occur in its first 2 weeks, and this is the reason. After those are over, cue the hype train for the next big game and the cycle continues.
Sadly. Is BF3 good to me? Sure. Is it as good as made out to be? Certainly not. Do I still play it? No. Does that mean it's bad? No. I just don't decide to invest the time (especially considering I have Starcraft II honestly).
That wasn't really there for any particular reason. . . half of it is an agreement and half of it is just saying why I don't play it honestly. xD
Once again, COD still going strong seems to directly contradict this, despite being called unbalanced.
It almost seems like people are addicted -- my brother-in-law can often "rage" at the game and I just question why he still decides to play. The general fun from it I tend to see is laughing with friends and if so -- why not do it doing something else (especially if it's more productive)?
This all seems hypothetical.
In terms of CoD -- certainly so, although CoD4 ProMod is great from what I've seen, if based a fair bit on chance (the tactics you choose at random could directly counter theirs. . . you can't really scout or prepare effectively in some cases from what I know).
Besides, going pro isn't exactly something that is easy to do and compared to a "normal" pro athlete, not nearly as well-paid either.
I don't know how good the pay is -- although with sponsors from different companies (which also improves their face value) it wouldn't surprise me if they live well playing games for a living.
It's still a minority and the points you mentioned would only appeal to the core game, not someone new to the medium.
Not much of CoD players I'd say are all that new. Of course I lack statistics and many of the new sales clearly seem to point towards them being "new players" but I think for the most part it's just the same people buying them.
But I think knowing "Holy-- this game is played as an eSport?" constitutes a form of seriousness that the palyer needs to take as opposed to casting it aside.
and do you accuse bethesda of keeping content back from the public?
Given the quote you took, he didn't accuse Bethesda for keeping content from the public.
bethesda is never changing? bethesda is always innovative.
Not necessarily -- sure, there's still plenty of hours into the game you can spend and all, but if you played Morrowind, you could reap say 300 hours. If you played Skyrim after that and got 200 hours, you could easily have played TES:V first and got that extra 100 hours, where Morrowind was the "second time around" where you already tried new things, so you only got 200 hours.
They're quite similar, and whilst the most miniscule of changes can have the largest of impacts, a lot of the time -- especially to the casual gamer, you actually need sweeping changes.
they might do but the also give you a editor whit the game (for free) so you can make things yourself and then share those things. so you can also not create and get a massive amoutn of costumer made content. (for free)
This I can never understand CoD for not doing (aside from CoD4). WHY remove modding? Are you insane? I can't imagine what made them ascertain the almost-criminal idea of taking out such a brilliant trait. . . the longevity it provides ALONE is worth adding, the amount of variance that you can find from mods can entice many players who would previously be left unturned!
i think it's their good right to ask money for what they create.
But that is not the standard of previous developers / games and furthermore it's bad for customer goodwill / business practice (unless it's just profits you're talking about). . . furthermore, why isn't there an objectively established term for "release dates"? I mean, why bother having one if you could just sell off each piece for £5, making the full game 6 months later for £40? As it would've been as new?
btw if you don't want to pay for their DLC's, you can always make them yourself whit the free editor. =P it would even be legal to spread that mod then =P
You cannot gets mods for CoD, which would be my primary example here. Legal ones in any case (as far as I know).
- H
