The Battle For the Game Industry's Soul 272
An anonymous reader writes "The NY Times has a story about the imminent release of Battlefield 4 on 29 October, as it's one of the most highly-anticipated video games of the year. The most interesting part of the article is where it highlights what a mammoth undertaking such 'AAA' games have become. There are hundreds upon hundreds of people working full time on it, and hundreds of millions of dollars tied up in its development. These number have been rising and rising over the years; how big do they get before it becomes completely unfeasible to top your last game? The article also points out that the PC platform is beginning to wane in popularity. Nobody's quite sure yet whether it'll level out or go into serious decline, but you can bet development studios are watching closely. With bigger and bigger stakes, how long before they decide it's not worth the risk? Even consoles aren't safe: 'Electronic Arts is nevertheless trying to extend franchises like Battlefield to devices, because it must. But at the same time, it has to grapple with the threats undermining traditional gaming. Though the classic consoles are getting reboots this fall, there is no guarantee that new models will permanently revive the format's fortunes.' And of course, the question must be asked: do we even want the 'AAA' games to stick around?"
Re:And they're all shit (Score:4, Informative)
They're NOT all shit. But the ones that aren't shit, are almost totally from small indie studios. Sometimes 1, 2, maybe 5 people working on their game.
AAA gaming is shit, yes. Big-budget games. But the scene is in indie gaming now, and that's where most of the people who value actual gameplay over shiny graphics are. As a bonus, they are almost entirely DRM free, and the authors are truly appreciative for your 20 or 40 bucks that you send their way.
PC indie games is where the fun is.
Re:Paradigm Shift (Score:2, Informative)
The new games are still fun, but they feel 'tinny' [youtube.com], or less substantive than I'd come to expect for millions of ducats dumped in to a piece of software. With many modern shooters, I feel like they are evolving into a caricature of what a decent shooter would be.
I'd have to agree with this.
The major change seems to be the death of creative-vision. Older games from 1990-2000 were basically cool ideas hammered into the shape of a game, there were quite a few crappy and derivative games but even some of the bad games at least had a glint of something new and interesting whether it was the setting, story or mechanics.
Modern games seem to be frustratingly "safe" for want of a better description. It's as though every games needs to consciously make an effort to capture as wide an audience as possible. The phrase "niche game" or "niche appeal" is seen as some sort of horrific curse word. Everything needs to appeal to a general audience, including people who do not like the type of game in question (See Plants vs Zombies as a Shooter for this sort of nonsensical garbage cranked to 11).
Really, when people say "indie developers make better games" it is not literally true. Big studio games are always better in the general sense, but they are also always an unfocused mess that does their absolute best not to alienate anyone. [This is also why modern games are "easier" than they used to be, actually challenging the player with a difficult puzzle or a competent AI is too alienating to be allowed] Ultimately, what you end up with is mediocrity; not bad per se, but not noteworthy, special or memorable either.
Re:PC Games waning death spiral (Score:2, Informative)
PC Games are doing just fine. PCs themselves are going down in popularity due to white collar workers switching from cumbersome laptops to tablets. But games have nothing to do with this. Steam is running strong and with Valve soon releasing a dedicated gaming OS for PCs (yes, Steambox is a PC too) things are only going to get better. What's quickly becoming a third class citizen is the publishing industry, putting their faith in the gaming toys (consoles and mobiles) instead of a one, true, open, stable gaming platform.
But things will work out. What media will soon call "a re-emergence" of PC gaming will in practice be just another day for PC gamers, and a catastrophe for other platforms. But that's how the industry works - it follows the loudest one, not the smartest one.