Life After the Video Game Crash 608
codecasting writes "There's an interesting, very satirical story over at David Wong's Pointless Waste of Time where he makes a good case for the upcoming death of the video game industry. His key points include gaming platforms largely reaching a technological plateau, the aging of the 'Original Gamers' audience, and the slew of games that are just copies of the same game from last year, but with a new title and different cars/guns/bikinis/etc. An interesting and humorous read."
Agreed. (Score:5, Insightful)
Recently there has been almost no inovation whatsoever. Every new game which comes out belongs to an already existing category (strategy, 3d fps, simulation, etc), with the only difference between them being slightly modified sprites.
The way I see it, the future probably will lie in Massive-multiplayer. As residential connections get faster, and protocols are improved to cope with lag better, it might be possible to design games where hundreds of thousands of players compete in real time in one virtual environment. That would be awesome.
Re:Agreed. (Score:5, Insightful)
1) How you describe video games as beeing the same can also be applied to movies. The same "stories" are done over and over. The characters, places,... are all that changes. Will the movie industry ever be complete wiped out?
2) If all the games go massive multiplayer, won't those themes also be come standard and people will complain about seeing the new games all before, just with different places, guns, bikinis?
Re:Agreed. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Agreed. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Agreed. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Agreed. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Agreed. (Score:4, Insightful)
Man Against
Re:Agreed. (Score:4, Interesting)
That said, 5-8 years is a long time in game terms. Expect a lull in sales of big budget games 'til then.
Anm
Must concur. His article Misses so much. (Score:5, Interesting)
But, what can be done with improved processing power from now on?
1. BETTER AI. We can improve AI at range. Instead of monsters staying in one place in a game till they hear the player, they can ALL be moving around in the level, ALL the time. If you never know exactly where they are, the game gets more exciting. One time you go through, sure, they might be right around the corner - the next, they're NOT right there, and instead they're sitting back waiting to ambush you somewhere else.
This is not to say that better AI is killer AI, by the way. Better AI is the AI that CLOSEST APPROXIMATES WHAT THE CREATURE SHOULD DO. If I'm in a D&D adventure and killing Orcs, I expect them to ACT like Orcs. If they're some devious wizard, I expect run-and-snipe tactics. If they're a brawny brawler, I expect to be charged. The better processing power you have, the less you have to cut corners, and the deeper you can make the AI such that a creature not only looks and sounds as expected, but ACTS like one might expect it to.
2. EXPANDED LEVEL SIZE. This is one of those biggies. Doom, for all its technological prowess of the time, relied on sending players back and forth through levels a lot. Hexen, with its "hub" setup, even more so - reusing content to make things SEEM much bigger than they were.
The PS2 can't handle the size of areas we want these days. Best example is the PS2 port of Deus Ex, where every level got chopped up into 5-10 areas with load zones in order to fit them together, as compared to the original PC version (which still rocks, BTW).
3. Multilinear gameplay. THIS is where the "in the movies" feel comes from - where YOU, the GAMER, are picking what the story is. Choosing your side and defining what your character thinks/feels is a level of immersion that makes pencil-and-paper gaming still survive and even thrive today, and video games are finally going expand out from the "reading a book" format of the Final Fantasy 'roleplaying' idea, into the TRUE Roleplaying idea where you have a control over your character's destiny and placement.
4. Finally, he misses out on where video games are going. Look at Hollywood: how many pathetic, bad, annoying sequel movies or just bad premises with bad actors are put into theaters or straight to video each year? TONS. The Video Game industry is the same way, and the reviewers are important in both industry in getting people to buy in - but the number of games is a sign of long-term health, not a signal of impending doom.
Three Points. (Score:5, Insightful)
1) We're starting to see more and more action games merge with elements of role-playing games. I thought that GTA: Vice City was really moving in this direction, where instead of physically growing stronger you get more influence and wealth to do whatever you want but you can take it in whatever order you want. Granted, there are several aspects of RPG that could be incorporated into that game if someone felt like it (control your own fate, have some kind of karma scale that causes people to react differently towards you, etc.), but expect to see many more games incorporating both these aspects in the coming years. Some of these will be retreads of VC or any number of already existant games (note similarities between Fallout: BOS and Dark Alliance 2 for Xbox) but others will forge new frontiers (Crimson Skies?).
2) Online gameplying is *burgeoning*. My brother plays Star Wars: Galaxies almost every other day and has two characters. He knows people from around the world just by playing with them and interacting digitally. Look at Final Fantasy XI and the huge number of Japanese and American players on it: the companies involved get $(X)/month without having to do much more than upgrade the system and its option every so often. I predict that this will turn into a mainstay of the video game market, especially for the true RPG fans.
3) Like it or not, the advanced military projects of VR and newer man-machine integration systems will eventually become incorporated into video game systems and maybe even the Internet. Imagine video games in a 3-D setting either by VR or "plug-and-play" a la Matrix from Shadowrun. Predicting where technology will go is tricky, but developments in holograph technology and other *exotic* computer applications are already being worked on. Maybe we've hit a temporary plateau, but that doesn't mean it is permanent by any means. How long is it before we could see a quantum processor running a fully interactive video game system with either Resident Evil 13 (where you can feel the zombies attack you and maybe play as one yourself?) or Grand Theft Auto: 7.0 in the city of your choice with fully accurate maps. The possibilities for technological advancement are endless and should not be automatically discounted just because things have "slowed down" in the last few years.
Re:Must concur. His article Misses so much. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Must concur. His article Misses so much. (Score:3, Interesting)
For now I
Re:Agreed. (Score:4, Informative)
If you take this analogy, the gaming industry can come out with a new iteration of the same game every five years. So while the gaming industry would probably never be wiped out, it would have to cool down a bit: there are not so many different game types, and the current upgrade frequency might not be sustainable once the novelty wears off.
If you think about it there is a huge variety of different movie types, video-game diversity is not that big. I don't think that video-gaming will go the way of the dodo, but there will be some adaptation from the current model. I hope this will bring out new interesting games.
Re:Agreed. (Score:5, Funny)
Yep, we are going to have to to do something drastic to add novelty to games. Girls, I am afraid your going to have to lose the bikinis. Desperate geeks of the world unite!
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Agreed. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:MMO (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Agreed. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah well, I'm still on dial-up and so are a lot of other people. So don't hold your breath. Granted, any innovations (hardware or software) are going to make video games more popular. And this article is trying to say that "Everything in video games has already been invented" and that's obviously wrong.
Re:Agreed. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Agreed. (Score:5, Interesting)
Clearly, there is a reason of this polishing trend. I don't think this is good but it is what people want.
Look at GTA for example, it doesn't have anything new but still it is one of the most popular games.
On the other hand, maybe lack of new ideas is related with increasing cost of producing a new game (number of designers, programmers etc). Publishers don't want to risk their money with completely new ideas.
Re:Agreed. (Score:4, Insightful)
As for GTA though I feel that that is one of the few games that had a new style of gaming. I played that all the time until my PS2 was stolen
We are at the point in gaming however that the graphics are excellent and the computing power can and should be put toward more gameplay things like AI, advanced plot devices etc. Graphics get old fo me pretty quickly, but solid gameplay with open ended gameplay is what keeps me away from my homework and in from of my computer or tv.
Re:Agreed. (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe because they aren't readily available ?
I have a collection of early 80's arcade games in my basement [westnet.com] (Asteroids, Tempest, Battlezone, Centipede, etc). Any time kids are over, we can't get them out of the basement. They go nuts over the old games.
My cousin now has a Ms. Pac Man and Rally X for his kids, in addition to all the "classics" collections for their
Re:Agreed. (Score:3, Insightful)
I've been playing Planetside, on and off, for about six months. The concept of fighting in large, organized battles with hundreds of other gamers was very appealing. Still, as the novelty of large gr
Re:Agreed. (Score:5, Insightful)
Thats ok if you just want the choice between;
A) Waiting for a bunch of griefers to come along and fuck your game up
and;
B) Joining a bunch of griefers and going around fucking other peoples games up.
Re:Agreed. (Score:5, Funny)
mod parent up (Score:3, Insightful)
When we started, we got tagged constantly. Now that we have some skills and power, we tag others (and still get tagged by those more powerful than us).
Really, the only appeal is for those who are Obsessive compulsive and like slow
Re:Agreed. (Score:5, Insightful)
You're not playing the right games. The Sims introduced a whole new idea to gaming, and in the process introduced a whole new market. Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles on the Gamecube introduced the idea of using 4 GBAs as "inventory" screens, while also controlling the game on the TV. I challenge you to put Pikmin into a category. I challenge you to put Cubivore into a category. I challenge you to put Animal Crossing into a category.
You're just not playing the right games. If you want innovation, choose Nintendo.
Re:Agreed. (Score:3, Insightful)
None of these games are 'innovating', per se, they're just improving on previous games or mixing genres. MMORPG was the last new genre, but that isn't to say that more won't be created. What really needs to happen to open up mo
FOR THE LAST TIME... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Agreed. (Score:5, Interesting)
Before people go flaming me, I fit into this category! I've both outgrown gaming (for the most part) and played through my favorite games more times than I probably should have.
But I still recognize that new games are enticing, complex, and most definitely innovative. Especially on the GameCube. Personally, I won't be playing the GC until I can emulate it (I emulate all my console games as a matter of principle), but just because I'm quirky like that doesn't make me respect modern games any less.
I don't agree with the grandparent and I don't agree with the article. Modern gaming is fine. If it doesn't interest you, find another game, or find another hobby.
nothing's the same anymore (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:nothing's the same anymore (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:nothing's the same anymore (Score:5, Insightful)
Today even the smallest children doesn't seem to be so fascinated by computer games. They have seen it all before, and they are used to the high quality so they demand so much more.
I miss the Commodore 64 [c64.com]...
HL2 did it for me, and then killed it (Score:3, Insightful)
I had some mild excitement for the previously-upcoming Sam & Max sequel, but that got cancelled. (a new adventure game! MAN I miss that genre. Thank you, ScummVM.)
I think part of the lack of neverending salivation over upcoming games is that I can
Not age, longevity. (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's a few old-school examples:
When I started in games id Software's Wolfenstein 3D was in full stride and I enjoyed the hell out of it. Then came DOOM. For me DOOM was one of the best games ever made, with Wolf3D being among the other top ten contenders.
A year or so later ROTT came out. Technically it was somewhere between Wolf3D and DOOM and a LOT of people who were just getting into gaming thought it was the best thing around. I thought it was crap (and I still do). Was it crap? Objectively, no. Subjectively? For me it was.
Nothing in the FPS world interested me much until Quake 1 came out and we all got real 3D. Since Quake 1 it's mostly been refinements and prettier environs. Nothing has wow'd me like Quake 1 except for Half-Life and that wasn't because of the graphics.
Are these new FPS games (and I use these example because these are what I play) not well done? Are they bilge? Do they suck? Some do, but many are very well made games. They just don't dazzle me anymore because I've been there and seen that. Now there are just more colors and rounder asses on the women.
It's very hard to recapture the wonder you felt when you first started playing games.
Dying (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously, the media exaggerates EVERYthing because it makes for more entertaining reading.
Video Game Crash (Score:5, Insightful)
The XBOX and the Gamecube were failures? The graphical upgrades between consoles is getting narrower to the casual observer, so the game industry is going to take a nose dive? Instead of, say, the more reasonable outcome: they change to fit the new environment? We're not talking about the slow-to-move Recording Industry here, the videogame industry is in its infancy in comparison.
TFA looks more like an excuse to come up with some creative insults, and play with pictures in an attempt to be humorous. The arguments remind me of conversations I heard at lunch in junior high!
Re:Video Game Crash (Score:4, Insightful)
Gamecube has made Nintendo money however. While not as much as previous consoles, their first party lineup of games has turned them a profit.
Re:Video Game Crash (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Video Game Crash (Score:5, Informative)
What percentage of the video game market is Japan anyway? 25%?
Of the 3 big markets in the world, Japan/Asia is the smallest.
The following figures will be total sales as of the end of 2003 (Jan 13, 2004, for PS2).
North America
PlayStation 2 - 29.26 million
Xbox - 8.6 million
GameCube - 7.46 million
Game Boy Advance - 23.78 million
Japan / Asia
PlayStation 2 - 16.18 million
Xbox - 1.4 million (~425,000 Japan alone)
GameCube - 3.37 million
Game Boy Advance - 12.66 million
Europe / PAL
PlayStation 2 - 24.56 million
Xbox - 3.7 million
GameCube - 3.11 million (~3 million Europe alone)
Game Boy Advance - 12.98 million
Worldwide
PlayStation 2 - 70 million
Xbox - 13.7 million
GameCube - 13.94 million
Game Boy Advance - 49.42 million
Re:Dying (Score:3, Funny)
After a seemingly endless run, stories about an industry, trend, or style dying are dying.
Some attribute this to the cyclic nature of punditry, others claim that, in fact, everything will stay exactly the way it is now forevermore.
-Peter
Re:Dying (Score:5, Funny)
Experts attribute the downfall to the rehashing of old stories over and over again, as well as the exageration of "EVERYthing because it makes for more entertaining reading."
No way (Score:5, Insightful)
The Market is growing, not shrinking. Games are becoming more mainstream, which leads companies to produce "safer" tried and true games. Don't worry, there will still be innovation but there will also be more and more "safe" games as video games grow as a real business.
Re:No way (Score:5, Insightful)
Back in 1982 it was easy to impress people with a blue square shooting red dots at a green square.
Games aren't becoming "safer", and the medium isnt dying.
People have been saying the same shit about movies, every movie has been made, theres no more innovation to do! Well, sure, there are a lot of crappy movies being made, but a handful of standout ones.
Which is the way it is with media/artform. Music, books, TV, movies, and video games.
Re:No way (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed. The next big innovation (before immersive VR that doesn't suck) will be cheap, easy to use game engines. Big Game makers are just going to keep cranking out Resident Evil clones and GTA sequels. When independent devlopers can take a good looking game engine and use some imagination to make a good game then the industry will take off again. A good example is, How many poeple still play Half-Life (1), almost no one but how many ppl play Counterstrike and other HL mods?
What MMO really need beside more immersion is super-servers that can host 100k + players instead of a bunch of little servers that hos 5k players. So everyone who plays a game is literally in the same world.
Re:No way (Score:3, Interesting)
WHat MMOs need are to separate playstyles and allow niche markets. For example- I'm a role player. I enjoy pvp and other aspects of the game, but the main fun is interacting with other rpers. If I need to deal with a bunch of people talking about the baseball game every time I log on, it quickly takes the fun away.
What MMOs should do is make a lot of targeted s
The movie analogy begs the question... (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong -- I appreciate both blockbuster Hollywood movies and indie films in their own ways. I'd be interesting to see that kind of balance and contrast come to another entertainment industry.
It's the Truth (Score:3, Insightful)
As long as the public continues to reward movies and games done "by the numbers" that is what will continue to be produced. And every time reviewers hype some piece-of-crap
I've seen similar arguments about books (Score:3, Insightful)
There are parallels between the book people and the video game people who say the sky is falling for whatever reason. I don't think so, at least with books, which I'm more familiar with: th
Underestimating creativity (Score:5, Insightful)
But I think he's badly underestimating the creativity of the companies that do survive -- whoever they happen to be.
Take board games as an example. How many ways can you move a playing piece from point A to point B? Isn't Life just the same as Monopoly, which is no different from Trivial Pursuit, which is an obvious ripoff of Chutes and Ladders?
You get the idea. Those four games hugely different variations on the same "platform" -- a flat piece of cardboard. What's more, they're still around after decades. Monopoly keeps coming out with special editions that are no more than "different cars" in GTA-LXXVI -- but they still sell.
And a stroll down Toys-R-Profit's game aisle shows a dizzying variety of board games. Many of them are lame variations on the theme (roll 1d6 to see if Barbie gets a good parking space at the mall) and won't last a year. But while they're around, someone will buy them, and next year we'll have another lame variant.
What's sad is that we're seeing the end of the beginning. We 30-somethings watched video games go from homebuilt to primitive to amazing... to commodity. I expect the children of the 1860s experienced the same thing with board games.
Re:Underestimating creativity (Score:5, Funny)
Okay, driving skills proficiency check! Roll 1d20 and... Whatever, character is female and female characters and driving proficiencies are mutually exclusive. The light post ( +1, +5 versus Lexus ) rolls a natural 20 and has a critical hit on the engine! Barbie's car ( Level 3, Chaotic Neutral Lexus SUV, 25 HP ) is dead...
How is this time any different? (Score:4, Insightful)
The only difference could be that most people 30 and younger have grown up around video games, so they are more likely to continue playing/buying games. Other than that, the game scene sounds remarkably similar to the time just before the crash. Rehashes, remakes, same old, same old...
A bit of a rant, but some observations (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember the first video game to gross $1 billion? NBA Jam, before it even made it into the home. This was after one of the prior 'crashes' in the home market. We all got burned out on Atari 2600/C64/Apple][ games and headed back to the arcade.
The video game industry may or may not be putting the player into the 'movie', but does it have to? My most feverish moments of gaming usually involved a text CLI interface. Some used a joy stick. The game is what you make it, IMHO.
The game industry will grow. It's just waiting for the next big thing, which may actually be some old thing redone to be fresh or just captures the imagination of players. The failings of the game industry isn't so much the tired old games redone, it's simply the lull between the peaks. There will be another peak, and another and another... as he said, Something truly new and different and novel, dammit. The market is ripe for it.
It always will be. In the meantime, I continue to play treasures from the past.
Yes, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
It might also be the case that video games have a fairly solid place in modern life that will endure even if we are on a technological plateau. Broadcast TV hasn't changed that much. Even though it's struggling it's still holding in there.
Won't be the first time (Score:5, Informative)
Sports Games Versus... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not so sure comparing sports games to other types is a fair comparison. Sure, Madden 2004 has a limited amount of improvement....but that doesn't mean newer, fresher, more interesting games can't be developed. Saying "Creativity" is dead seems too simple to me, especially when your example is a sporting game. Think of games like Tetris or Snood: before they were created no one would've thought they'd be so addictive. While I agree that a limit to "realism" may occur soon, I certainly don't think that a lack of new games will occur.
Re:Sports Games Versus... (Score:3, Interesting)
This sentiment is another breathtakingly naive statement. I still have a copy of Quake 3 demo version that I play from time to time. It's tons of fun. Unreal Tourn
Re:Sports Games Versus... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, seriously. On one hand, he complains that the only difference between this year's releases and last year's is the graphics quality and bemoans the lack of an increase in gameplay quality.
However, he completely ignores games like Madden, which are constantly improving the accuracy of their simulators. Every year, the players act and move like real players. The opposing team makes better decisions and doesn't run the clock out on itself. Using the increased processing power to have a better AI is exactly what this franchise has done and why it has always been so sucessful. And it's exactly what the author wanted to see in modern games.
I guess pointing this out wouldn't suficiently pander to his target-demographic of doomsday naysayers.
Disagree (Score:3, Interesting)
Repetition is demise? (Score:5, Insightful)
Everything worth expressing has already been expressed. That doesn't mean we can't enjoy the new incarnations. Society changes, things move out of favor, then back in again. At which point old ideas get rehashed and become popular once again. I don't think the gaming industry is in any danger of flopping, in fact I'll bet its only going to become a more and more pervasive part of world culture.
Pretty funny (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, though, I think that console games will probably take over from PC games. It must be a lot easier for developers to not have to try making everything compatible with all of the various pc hardware components.
Re:Pretty funny (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the only explanation I can think of, persistently viewing everything in extreme terms of "total success or total failure", and since nothing ever hits "total success"... well, I guess it's dying. Video games aren't exponentially growing, they're dying. TV is losing ground instead of holding constant, it's dying. Our economy isn't exponentially growing, it's dying. Anti-drug programs aren't 100% effective, thus they are useless. Crime isn't zero, therefore all anti-crime measures are totally ineffective and all hell will soon break loose. (Extends beyond entertainment too, you see.)
This is the normal state of affairs, though; exponential growth is unsustainable; the tech industry growth, and more specifically the continuing success of Moore's Law, are the exceptions, not the rule. Perhaps if we didn't have such unrealistic expectations, or perhaps more accurately if our sick, diseased journalistic process didn't have such unrealistic expectations, we wouldn't feel the need to panic so often.
Re:Pretty funny (Score:5, Insightful)
It is a fact of life that you can't grow forever (faster than the economy, anyway). Do the math yourself. How many consecutive years can you grow at 15%, starting with a 20% market share? 11, before you absorb the entire market. It's at this point that your average CEO will try to branch out into new products and new lines of business that the company has no experience in, as often as not failing and destroying enormous sums of capital. The correct answer is to stick with what you're good at, churn out cash, and return it to your shareholders. There are plenty of people who get quietly rich in "stagnant" industries.
After all, if it weren't for static industries we wouldn't have food, clothes, paper, etc, etc.
Re:Pretty funny (Score:5, Insightful)
You misunderstand. "Eternal exponential growth is impossible, you will eventually top out and be limited to the growth of the external economy" isn't a "philosophy", it's a fact. It doesn't matter what the shareholders think.
The only way around this is to engage in a form of the Broken Window fallacy and continuously burn down the successful companies for the sole purpose of allowing other companies to exponentially grow, which has the same basic issues as the Broken Window Fallacy.
If the shareholders don't understand reality, it's their own damned problem. It won't change the ultimate outcomes.
Wait for the ET video game... (Score:5, Funny)
Bloated Industry (Score:3, Interesting)
I paid $75 for Sonic the Hedgehog, but I also paid $75 for Railroad Tyocoon 3. I am damn sure that RRT took an order of magnitude more money to develop, and this is only going to continue.
What's really interesting is what's happening in the handheld sector. Game Boy Advance is making a killing, and games on cellphones are everywhere. These games are much simpler to develop as far as I understand, and more and more people are playing them. Simpler is often better... When the industry moved full steam ahead into 3D, I don't think it was realized how much of a challenge it would be to continue to make games look bigger and better while selling them for the same price.
In a word: (Score:3, Insightful)
Come on. We've heard the "there's nothing new under the sun" "gamers are getting old" arguments before.
Hell, we've even heard the "limits of hardware" argument before.
Thousands of years of human history has shown that there's always something new under the sun, and human interests are constant.
Video games will go away when something else becomes more fun and not before.
2 out of 3 (Score:5, Funny)
porn is dying (Score:3, Funny)
PWOT is not to be taken seriously (Score:4, Informative)
Congratulations on being trolled by a troll that tells you it's trolling before it trolls you.
Good stuff (Score:4, Insightful)
Luke's X-Wing approaches the surface of the Death Star.
"Red Five, begin your attack run."
Luke swoops down into the trench. "It'll be just like Beggar's Canyon back ho-"
Turret laser bolts tear his X-Wing apart.
So true, how many times do you have to die a horrible death to finally get all the way through a game that was supposed to make you feel like a hero, but instead ensures that you never leave your cushy chair, your cold pizza, or your virginity.
I find that games only requiring a short period of time to throughly enjoy are my favorite. UT2004 is a blast in Onslaught mode (everyone should know this by now) and I can play with my brothers across the country. And a few good matches takes less than an hour of my life.
I like to play Simpsons Hit & Run with my wife when we want to just relax for an hour or so on a rainy day.
But I probably will not be willing to ever fork over the bucks that some of the upcoming all-in-one gaming/movie/theater systems are going to cost. I'll just get a cheapo PS2 and some decent games. I don't want gaming to be my life.
Video game industry growing exponentially! (Score:4, Insightful)
Take a look [hollywoodreporter.com] at my research. It says that the video game industry is growing at 11.7% compounding growth. Thats exponential.
So, he's just plain wrong.
the "Clerks" factor. (Score:5, Interesting)
If you poke around online, you can find TONS of independant groups creating entirely new games on their own, for little to no money.
This is similar to what kevin smith did in producing the movie "clerks." He, on his own, made some money, and produced his own film. It became a smashing success and lead to the creation of several new, highly innovative and creative films.
There is no reason this trend cannot continue in game producing. Yes, mainstream games will MOSTLY be a rehash of the same thing. But there will still be the occasional gem that falls in from outside. I doubt gaming is going to die.
Make that the "Pulp Fiction" Factor (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, it sounds a lot like what happened to John Carmack and John Romero after DOOM came out. And it happened about the same time. Curious....
What about FOX? (Score:3)
> There's a reason why people still go to operas while live gladiator contests and public witch burnings are both rare and poorly-attended.
Paging FOX executives... if our government's going to ban GTA4 before it hits the shelves and force us to watch TV to get our fix, can you guys at least buy some legislation to change the unfortunate situation described here?
Uh, no (Score:5, Insightful)
And his argument about the original game generation getting older? Man, that's just moronic, IMO. Someone may want to let this guy know that people are still having kids, these kids are still growing up, and --- guess what? playing video games. Not only that, but more are playing these days than ever before, especially as gaming is no longer seen as a lonely geek thing with all the associated stigma of that.
I do agree with certain aspects of his article, but we all have to remember that we were blessed to live through the birth stages of videogaming. Of *course* after that period of rapid change things are going to solidify and we're going to end up with less pure innovation -- this happens in every industry and even in every creative medium. But that doesn't mean new ideas and new technologies wont burst through every now and then to revitalize things... That's just the normal cycle of how these things work, get used to it....
Actually, it's just the beginning. (Score:5, Interesting)
There is no reason storytelling cannot be as powerful in video games as it is in movies. Every couple of months I fire up Halo just so I can play through the last level in "Legendary" mode and watch the easter egg cut scene. It's funny. It makes me laugh.
The only limitation faced by today's game companies is that they just don't have very good storytellers. Great programmers, brilliant artists, and fiendish level designers. But terrible writing. The fact that 16 year olds are the target audience doesn't help, either. But that is changing.
Neverwinter Nights has almost hit upon the right combination: a toolset for allowing others to tell stories. Besides a few technical limitations, their biggest mistake has been in their business model. By not allowing authors to sell content the are creating a disincentive to anyone pouring in tons of time. The best stuff I've seen, and in fact the only good stuff I've seen (and admittedly I haven't looked at a whole lot) was written by a guy who is basically using NWN to create a portfolio to find a job after he graduates from college. He's invested the time because he does plan to get 'paid', if indirectly, for his work.
Or take a look at Red vs. Blue. Done with the Halo engine, it's freakin' brilliant. Non-gamers I know, non-gaming GIRLS even (well, according to 3rd party reports; I don't actually know any girls like that) think Red vs. Blue is a masterpiece.
The point is that the story telling quality of most games is still terribly primitive, and it won't take technological innovation to make it better. We just need better story tellers to try their hand at it. When that happens the best of the best will be classics for a long, long time, regardless of how out-of-date the fog effects in them become.
Assuming our descendents can find the hardware to play them, of course.
Girls (Score:5, Funny)
From the article:
Samus is a girl, dumbass.
Re:Girls (Score:4, Funny)
VG won't die for the same reason that Chess doesnt (Score:3, Insightful)
Ehhhh maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
1. The technological plateau he speaks of is merely a graphical one, and it only seems like a plateau because new game consoles don't come out every month.
There's also the consideration that there are many places for the technology to expand. GTA3, despite what one may think about its gamesplay, hints at what is possible. Maybe the graphics won't improve much, but the world will get bigger and more detailed. The fascination of GTA3 for me was the ability to just wander around, down alleyways that had nothing to do with the missions and find stairways to rooftops, trash bins- all sorts of real world details. Lots of the world reacted to your actions. That's a neat thing. When your video game is an entertaining toy outside of the core gameplay, you've really accomplished something.
There's more to games than polygon count. Most of the game worlds, even the likes of Halo, are still fairly primitive compared to what could be done with ever more processing power. The end of graphical improvement might be a GOOD thing, and force developers to focus on gameplay, computer character AI, and other things that are a bit lacking these days.
2. He didn't really seem to have an argument in this section. ??? His view of the types of enjoyment derived from video games is a bit limited.
3. His horizon is limited. The video games may (or may not) be reaching upwards of 90% penetration into the current market, but the *market* is exapanding. Technological civilization is creeping into parts of the world not yet elevated to such.
He also seems to oddly forget that new generations are being born, and *everything* is new and novel to them.
4. Are the Gamecube and X-Box really complete failures? They've all sold millions of units. They didn't sell as well because [A] the PS2 got there first and [B] not as many good games. The X-Box especially only had maybe two decent titles for a long time.
As for age, he's entitled to his opinion, but I play games in my late 30's. I know people in their 40's and 50's who regularly play PS2 games and PC games. To use his belabored Hollywood comparison, most people seem to realize that, just as there are movies for children and adults, there are also video games for children and adults.
5. He might be right here. I already have home theater stuff. I want a game console to play games. I don't need a jack of all trades, master of none. That's why I expect a minicrash when these All In One systems fail to sell.
6. Agreed on the online play. I know Final Fantasy *fanatics* who have zero desire in FF11 Online. The reaction is usually, "Wait, I bought a game and I have to keep paying every month?"
7. was just a rehash.
Re:Ehhhh maybe (Score:3, Insightful)
His point was that adults don't have the time to play games that high school and college guys do. I agree. I'm 32 with a wife, kid, and job. Everytime I read a great review of a
The Facts (Score:5, Insightful)
Gaming has a long past and even brighter future regardless if gameplay isn't massively different in the future. A game is about passing time, escaping, a hobby, and plain ole fun.
There are millions of games out there for all types of preferences and all types of attention spans. There is something for everyone. Even though there seems to be a lack of original content in the last few years there has been an advancement in gameplay. More interactivity (HL2 environments), a move towards team based play and operating vehicles (CoD, BF 1942, UT2k4), and this is just in FPS's. MM's are also evolving into more of a FP view with much more depth not including SW Galaxies.
Things don't evolve overnight and some people just like to whine about the current state of affairs but I see it simply evolving at a slower pace because there's a lot more companies making games these days and orginality is harder to come by.
FYI- the author stated that people these days don't play the recent older games and I disagree. There's plenty of Q1, Q2, HL players out there. They are still creating new content (maps, models, etc.) so those scenes are still alive although not as large as they used to be.
The last thing I'll say is I totally disagree about once you're over 35 you can't game because you're a loser or manchild or somthing along those lines. I was on a blizzard board a while back and some guy stated that he thought most gamers are in the 15-20 year old range. Gamers came out of the woodwork to tell their age and why they game. The average gamer was over 40 and the oldest was 72!
Don't let people who do no research and simply speculate convince you of something that is completely untrue.
Gaming is here to stay even if games stopped evolving from this day on.
It's simply a part of our lives...
Good points, but unfounded conclusion (Score:3, Interesting)
There's no two ways about it: Yamauchi has a point. Too many developers are relying on technology instead of creativity. But does that really mean that the videogame industry is going to crash again? Mr. Wong really doesn't show the connection. All he has managed to truly establish are the following points:
That's really not establishing much that we don't already know. In fact, those two problems have been a consistent problem for videogaming since the 16-bit days. All this article does tries to do is shut up (or incite) gamers that don't intelligently examine their own hobby.
What his article misses is that videogaming is maturing as an artistic medium. The only problem, as with any medium, is that you have to take the bad with the good. For every innovative, creative game like The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, you'll have five NBA Jam titles. Not only that, but some of the best stuff (like Wind Waker) will get ignored by the general populace in favor of crap. Hence why the list of the top-grossing films of all time does not include gems like The Shawshank Redemption (but Titanic is near the top), and why Wind Waker was not as successful as Nintendo would have liked.
Videogaming is not going anywhere because, despite its faults, it offers a form of entertainment that no other medium can: interactivity. In other words, people love Mario because, when you're holding the controller, Mario is you. [wordyard.com] The Sims offers a better dollhouse experience than any "real" dollhouse ever could. Ridge Racer tops Hot Wheels any day. And few films can provide the same depth, the same experience as Wind Waker or Final Fantasy VII.
Recommended reading: Wolf, Mark J.P., ed. The Medium of the Video Game. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 2001.
Because I love you so much... (Score:3, Insightful)
"I assert that technological novelty is the sole driver of the gaming market. I cannot seem to see, from where I am standing, any new technologies on the horizon that meet my exacting requirements for 'novelty.' Therefore, WE WILL LIVE IN A GAMELESS FUTURE AHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
He also seems to be using some stratospherically high standard for "success," in that he calls the Xbox and the Gamecube failures.
He also equates "bad," with "anything I don't like."
Indeed, gaming, much like BSD and Apple, is dying.
I think I'm gonna cut out of work early and go play me some Windwaker.
(P.S. "An interesting and humorous read." Yeah, if you're 13 and like heavy-handed bathroom humor.)
-Carolyn
His reasons aren't why the game industry will die. (Score:4, Informative)
The real reason the game industry is going to die, though, is going to be me, the original gamer parent. All of us with Ataris and NESs and SNESs are now having kids.
I plan on playing video games with my kids.
How many times is my 8 year-old going to have to get beat down by me in Street Fighter 6 EX Alpha Plus+ before he chucks the controller across the room in disgust for having lost the 537th game in a row? How many UT2k12 frags and gibings before he breaks down and cries? Will I have to score 300 points in Madden 2011 before he finally gives in to my superior hand/eye coordination?
My kids are going to *hate* playing video games because dad is either using the system already, or they're going to get their noob ass handed to them each and every time they play.
Sounds mostly like grouching... (Score:3, Insightful)
It just doesn't work that way with games anymore. I can't write a 3D freeform alpha-blending shader-using multipass-filtering DX9 game photorealistic backgrounds, models and textures with 3D sound effects at CD+ quality, Internet multiplayer code, customization and expansion tools, UI design, AI design and whatnot. There'll only be a few games like that, and they'll be "mainstream".
That's the way every industry is. Look at any "major Hollywood production". It's basicly synonymous with "rehash of some similar story, or the same story (sequel)". Maybe you can find yourself some films you really love among the thousands of low-budget or no-budget movies out there, but they won't have the polish or special effects like the bigshots. That's no indication that big, professional and mainstream movies are dying though.
Kjella
While I agree, I think the best is yet to come! (Score:3, Insightful)
See, we started out with only integer units in 2 dimentional space. As time progressed, we got into bigger 2D space (from 4 bits to 32, now 64) We also got floating points thanks to FPUs. (Games were why FPUs became standard issue). But we were still in 2d space. Some were side scrollers, some were top-down, some were persective. Then Wolfenstien 3D came out. Doom then Quake pushed 3d accelerators to the desktop. But then we could interact in a world that we relate to in very real ways.
Next up we'll find theres more challenge in moving in 2 dimensions than 3. That'll help preserve the novelty. But they must remain challenging.
That brings me to the non-retro gaming success story. Masting 3d space is easy, master 2d space a easier (as a subset of 3d space) but 4d and 5d space will be where the fun is.
Video games a are all about challenge. Once you get your physics model and coordination down, you are left with one thing: solving the intelectual challenges. This is why so amny people play RPS still. Generally it's kill, loot, goto kill, level, repeat. EQ has quests which are mildly intelectually challenging.
All of 3d gaming can be rendered easy via circle-strafing. Strafe side-to side while turning and you'll always face your target and circle them. I have not seen a 3d shooter that isn't rendered easy by this technique. Once it no longer works, I'll be intelegtualy challenged to find the bug in the AI or physics model (grenade jumping) that trivializes the game. (I used to be a sniper in Quake - TF - and a good one at that, but what I did became proceedural, nd I lost intrest. Grenade and rocket jumpers were all the same. I'd get them in mid-air 99% of the time.)
Indeed the industry has been relying on glitz and glamor to sell, much like a hot whore. But no one marries a whore, they marry people that are intelectually stimulating. ANd that's going to be the next games. The mind-puzzles. Tomb Raider, Tetris, etc. They all have sppeal for a long time, until the *DESIGNERS* turn it proceedural. It's not the fault of the tech, it's because the designers get lazy.
Escapr from reality, the use of imagination, is why people turn to video games. I predict in 10 years that no video game will ever do the same game twice (like they do today) I bet they won't keep staff around either. Every game is a new team, and no one is allowed to be on the same type of game project as they were on in the past 5 years. This will keep innovation and imagination high.
The other idea is working with other people. When C&C has IPX multiplayer, we played it non-stop weekends at a time. Quake was plaued for weekends at a time. I spent most of my nights on TF maps with my clan. Human interaction is unpredictible (well, a lot less than a computer) (Imagine basketball vs chess, what is more popular)
Killer app of today: The Sims Online. Features imagination, creativity and human interaction. Runner Up: EQ.
Killer app of tomorrow: solving puzzles with other humans online. But the puzzles can't repeat, not even the same type. Maybe a puzzle is to make a puzzle for others to solve - taking turns between puzzlemaking and solving. (An offshoot of this is OpenSource... )
He's right. He's wrong. (Score:3, Insightful)
But just because I plateau has been reached doesn't mean the genre is dying. He is missing the fact that to each new generation, video games will be a novelty. When a newborn of today discovers video games, it will be a complete novelty. There is a first time for everything. This is why I hear 11 year olds laughing at jokes that I first found funny 25 years ago. Yeah, I don't find them funny anymore, but the kids of today do because they haven't heard them before.
So the video game "Blow Up Everybody 2015" will sell jsut fine. It might play just like Halflife, and *I* might find it boring. But the kids of 2015 will think it rocks.
My analysis (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet the players still swamped the arcades - something the president of Nintendo realized before releasing his NES onto the American market. The problem with the Atari was not that all the games stagnated. There was still innovation, even in the 1983-1984. The problem was cartridge glut. No one could find those great games under the mounds of useless trash. Everyone could make games for the Atari and everyone did - even ppl who had no right making video games (Colgate anyone?). That is one of the reasons why the magazine Nintendo Power and the Nintendo License was so mind-boggingly important. It was an assurance of quality. Now we have the Internet. You are truely gutsy for buying games now without looking for reviews first. We have a similiar environment to 1983 now, but the difference is we can tell what is good/crap. As such, his analogy to the 80's fails. Just becuase we are mired knee deep in trash doesn't mean we will see a similiar crash.
On a greater note, there is just something about video games that keep pulling people back. I still go back and play Mario 3. I still spend hours on end sometimes playing Keystone Kapers and Laser Blast. It is more than just the novelty that draws people to games. It is more than just something to do. It is an experience that transcends your current reality. As the author said, it allows you to be Luke Skywalker - but just becuase you don't want to permantely be Luke Skywalker does not mean that no one will ever replay the game. The games keep bringing people back. While I agree with him that in fact the market for 'Buy this game cause we have modeled dust particles' is going to die, the whole market won't. Games that are good and inventive will still survive. A lot of companies will drop out, no doubt. But the ones like Nintendo that can still be inventive with gameplay and still bring about a great experience will still go on.
As for the movie analysis, there is a difference he hasn't taken into account. The Internet. Not only can we have games that involve ppl in stories but we have games that can involve people in stories with their friends. When you add the fact that not only you but your friend can play, the possibilities grow exponentially larger. Look at WoW and Everquest. They may not even be games anymore. Rather they are environments the user can interact in. You don't get the same with a movie. With a movie you are forcefed the producers/directors vision of what he wants you to see. With games you get a choice. You get to skip shit you don't like and focus on stuff you do like. And with the birth of the Internet, those choices will multiple with future games, not decline. And the 'online gmers' he talks about are by far a minority in my experience. I know a lot of people that play games online just for fun and not becuase they have a need to boost their self esteem by zerg rushing noobs. In addition, with improving AI's we also are losing the predicatble games. The Future? In one game, the opponent may be down a hall, in another he may have moved a different direction. We are quickly moving away from bound points and set patrol paths. In the future, you will be attacking units of enemies, not just pre defined defenses. Take a look at the plans for Thief 3 if you don't believe me.
In additon, if his analogy was true, we would have never watched movies as long as we have. Afterall, there are only so many romances you can watch, only so many war movies right. The novely of seeing them on the screen should have worn off and left us all back with our books. So why hasn't it? Hollywood and books gives us experiences that are different and hence they both can exist together. T
Re:My analysis (Score:5, Interesting)
Nintendo did two interesting things here. One, they declared that they were the only source for carts. You wanted a Nintendo cart, they had to be the ones manufacturing it.
Spin-off of this was also that carts are expensive to make, and they take a while; do you order a few, and risk it selling out, and lose the momentum while it takes three months to make a new batch? Or order a lot and risk having a bunch of unsold merch on your hands?
The second thing they did was limit companies to a few titles a year; five per company, I think, was the number. This forced the companies to make damn sure they released good product.
Compare this to the Playstation model; several hundred thousand CDs could be pressed in a weekend for pennies apieces, and any old pile of crap you can think of, you can shovel onto a PS disc.
Sony, however, picked the right time to move to a non cart based format, as the N64 vs PS1 slaughter showed.
Neat trivia fact: the PS1 was originally supposed to be a addon to the SNES.
The wrong people are in charge... (Score:4, Insightful)
What made good games in the past is different then what makes a good game now.
Consider the programming restrictions that a C64 game had compared to any modern game. The programmers knew that they could only do so much with the graphics so they consentrated on plot/level design.
Most modern games only get harder because the AI is instructed to "shoot straighter". Take any FPS game and the only difference in levels is that the AI is a better shot.
RPG's suffer a similar fate (although a bit more understandably) where the bad guys have more health and more powerfull weapons/spells BUT (not understandably) heal quicker too.
Consoles by nature should always have more exciting game-play (same reason for quality on C64), while PC's should always have a wider range of games available (using more horsepower).
Maybe I am just getting too old for this anymore, but I miss the days of playing a game that kept me captivated. RPG's have just become boring, FPS are repetative twitch-fests (I only play T2 anymore), strategy games have been done to death. Moo2 & Civ are still excellent, but I can win on any setting because I have played them so much I know the games limitation and advantages in the tech-tree.
RTS are just Turn-based games for the twitch players. Whoever builds more units wins.
The original D&D C64 games were winners, so were most turn-based strategy. The only original quality FPS was Descent (everything else was an evolution of Wolf3d).
Here's an idea: let writers create game ideas, not programers. Too many big-biz software publishing houses only make "safe" games. This is the same reason that 90% of the Hollywood movies suck too.
There is no creativity left.
It's all a bunch of crap. (Score:3, Insightful)
Regardless, the fact remains that video games are rarely anything more than pushing an avatar through virtual space. That virtual space and graphics for the avatar will typically remain at the current cutting-edge of graphics, so it will tend to look similar to other games of the same generation.
Before the 3D revolution, most 2D titles had the same basic appearance, colors, audible tones, etc. Grass was GREEN and water was BLUE. Most old gamers can tell you which console/arcade system a game was for after simply looking at a screen shot.
My advice: Quit complaining and taking gaming so seriously. Don't be a fanboy for one developer or hardware company (Nvidia, for instance) -- as these leaders today will be gone tomorrow.
Consider the source? (Score:4, Interesting)
The New Generation (Score:4, Insightful)
I won't waste time arguing about how games are repeating their formulas, which you've all mentioned already that Hollywood does the same; that like Hollywood, games will simply refine and re-tell. I won't waste a good rant on how fucked up an argument could be that gaming, indeed technology, has reached a graphical plateau.
There is one good point, however: the aging First Generation and the New Generation.
Someone earlier mentioned that most of the First Generation, defined by me as anyone who *remembers* when the NES was rolled out (or any earlier console), are getting on with their lives, getting married, having children, and basically getting weighed down with other responsiblities. I'm 25, consider myself a First Gen Gamer (my first 'console' was a TI-99/4A, with speech synth!!), married, have a baby boy, a house, a career, and the other crap. Gaming these days isn't like it used to be. Along with that, I find myself drawn to only the best of the best of games. I don't have time or money to buy and sift through the crap games from the greats.
Personally, I think its the switch to the New Generation of gamers thats gonna be the problem, not the industry itself. Most of us First Gens gaming will slow to a crawl, and the New Gens will be the ones screaming to the developers as to what they want. Most of the New Gens aren't as wowed by ever-increasing technology as us First Gens are. For us, the novelty is still there while the New Gens mostly expect it.
The industry isn't going to know how to deal with the New Gens at first. They're a completely different breed. And us First Gens are only gonna slow in our gaming (tho we may not necessarily slow down in the purchasing of them
Then again, the switch could be seamless. Who knows.
Just watch Japan. If it happens in the game industry, it will happen there first.
Not as funny as it should be (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, OK - Red Faction 2 wasn't much different than Goldeneye, especially if you aren't counting texture depth, level size, polygon count, vehicles AND geomod technology. Just because two games can produce screenshot of blockish rooms doesn't mean they're even remotely similar.
Which kinda pulls the rug out of the "tech plateau" which seems like, if there is a foundation for a logical argument, is the only one.
If technology has plateau'd so much, how come game requirements keep going up at nearly the same rate? I'm guessing his next article is "The Radeon 9800 is a capitalist conspiracy!!"
Games aren't Demos (Score:4, Insightful)
We're on a technological plateau. The next real leap, the next real difference in how we play games via sensory suits or neural inputs or whatever, is still too far away and too expensive.
Yes, a fair amount of time will likely pass before the next technological innovation that makes a significant change in computer based games, and even more time will pass before that technology is cheap enough that it's widely distributed.
That said, the computer game industry seems to me to be subset of the larger game industry more than of the technology industry. The reason that game designers are different from demo designers [mlab.uiah.fi] is that a game is not indended to display how a creative person can push the limits of technology in an appealing way; rather games are intended to be fun to play. There might be a "holy crap, how did they do that?" element to a computer game, but that's not really the point.
Take MMORPGs, for example. A technological advance was required for these games to be possible, but they're not popular because networking technology is cool...they're popular because they're a new, fun kind of game to a lot of people. (And yes, I know that they're basically not new in any sense, either from a game design or technology perspective, but you know what I mean.) In all the cases that I've seen, in fact, the gee-whiz graphics factor has been noticeably lacking...the cool technology is invisible from a gameplay perspective.
The SIMS became absurdly popular for a while. Pretty FPS games were big before that. "You Don't Know Jack" had its day in the sun. Myst and its knockoffs ruled the world ages ago, and we haven't even come close to far enough back to hit the Age of Atari discussed in the article. In all these cases, the popular game or games presented something new, or offered it in an intriguing new way...technology almost always played a role in that, but in my opinion the tech was rarely the primary factor. Gameplay, basically, rules.
Hmmm...I started this post about three hours ago and just now got back to it. Eh, you all get the idea of my ravings...no point in finishing it... :)
Hrrmmmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry but thats not exactly the whole 'Video Game" ladscape. Back in the mid and late 70's arcades arose, and blossomed at a ridiculous rate. This large growth in the "Arcade" market spawned home consoles. Atari 2600 being the first in the US to really penetrate a large percentage of US homes (sorry don't know about the rest of the world, simply relying on my memory as a kid). This set up the downfall of arcades, as well as parent groups wanting these arcades to be shut down for reasons that are still beyond me.
See I don't think the home console market crashed, I believe the entire Video game market crashed because of the growth in the home market cannibalized the arcade market. This sudden and abrupt shift was too much and poeple lost alot of money, Warner Communications (who bought Atari with greed in their hearts) started firing people left and right, and thats around the same period that retarded ET game came into being.
Anyway, Arcades imploded in the early and mid 80's, and dragged the home market along with them.
The current situation is no where like that today. There is no similiar, yet competing industry to destabilize the current dominance of video games as a whole. PC and consoles are the closest markets and they are so similiar that there really is no difference at all.
off to play some SOCOM II...
-a 34 yo gamer
"Hear someone complaining about something..." (Score:4, Insightful)
--My grandpa.
That's great. Who cares? (Score:3, Insightful)