Is there about to be a great shake up in the gaming industry ?

richymcdermott

I am saying this despite well knowing Gta 5 sold a bajillion copies , watch dogs selling really well for a new ip and destiny becoming the fastest selling games in opening week but with all this I cannot help but feel a drastic change is going to occur in the gaming industry thats going to leave alot of pissed off consumers.


Game cost is too high , we all know this and maybe its the reason why big publishers and console manufactures are banking in on the whole indie scene , hoping the different variety in games and unique experiences would be enough for publishers to release there aaa titles or as I see in the console sides use indie games for people to sign up for there services like psn and xbla to entice people into seeing the value in said games.


Does this create a double edge sword though ? we have finally moved past to the cave man practices for up and coming developers for instead having to own a building can easily do it as a side project and have there game accepted to undermining the value of there games just to benefit console manufacturer services.

Sony and microsoft being hush hush about how they pay the developers leave me thinking its very cagey.


then we move onto the advertisement of things and how said publishers , developers over hyping games and under delivering on there promises two of which are current gen titles watch dogs and destiny , neither have I played but judging by my friends opinions and listening to others impressions they are very poor.


This has never been new though , Battlefield 3 suffered from word out of Ea and Dice mouth themselves it was going to be the call of duty killer , throwing millions into advertisement and when it came to Bf3 release despite selling really well did not meet there expectations and backed away from the claim that they ever made that it was going to kill cod.


We all know how advertisement works by now but is this going to kill consumer trust ? if people keep falling for the hype and keep getting burnt how long is it going to be before people walk away ?.


I made a thread awhile back saying will sony playstation not be as know it ? I was labelled a troll , talking out of my ass and a bunch of other **** despite given articles backing up my claim that sony are hurting badly.

but fanboys cannot see through fog and all that coperate smug clouds there mind and judgement , seeing things for they rightfully are.
sony had to break it to there stockholders very easily that recently they are going to tke a 2.1 billion loss and they do not know how they lost that much.


so this leaves me to consoles

yes ps4 is selling crazy ( 10 pushing 11 million as it currently stands ) but sony themselves are broken , beaten and on life support.

microsoft xbox one has taken a hit on xbox one and rumours have been circulating around that they will back away from consoles after this generation if xbox one does not do as well as they hoped.

Nintendo want to be so far away from everyone else and isolated that 3rd party want nothing to do with them.


so if anything happens to one of the big 2 sony or microsoft how exactly are 3rd party publishers going to survive with ?

pc after all the years of been a doomed platform seems to be thriving in all this thanks to low development cost and the increasing popularity of moba genre.


what sort of future is the gaming industry going to be like in the next 5-10 years ?

I cannot help but feel its going to be very dark times which i do hope I am wrong.

Sand

richymcdermott wrote: »

if people keep falling for the hype and keep getting burnt how long is it going to be before people walk away ?.

They'll never walk away - even if some individual does, there will be 10 more who haven't heard the hype before and will swallow any crap they're served.

I cannot help but feel its going to be very dark times which i do hope I am wrong.

I wouldn't worry about it. The death of the PC has been announced about a dozen times in the last 20 years, an its still thriving as a gaming platform. There will always be a market for high performance, (basically) open platform gaming. Platforms might shift (between consoles, or consoles and PC) but there is money to be made in games.

Randall Floyd

Never buy into the hype and don't pre-order, Watchdogs and Destiny had meh written all over them for months before release, gameplay footage or demos are the best way to decide if a particular game is for you or not.
As for the future of the industry, its the inevitable push by publishers towards a streaming service business model that worries me the most, but that's a fair bit off yet...I hope:pac:

K.O.Kiki

I'd be more worried about all these touchscreen kids growing up with IAP-heavy shovelware and/or not learning how to actually use a real computer.

ShadowHearth

I am not sure where the big boys are steering their ships, but I love where the small guys steer their boats.

Just look at something like Wasteland 2 and Xenonauts. Its like I am back in love with gaming. I heard Original Sin is fantastic too. Something I will look in to very soon.

Console not going to go anywhere and PC will not go anywhere by a long shot! Its just a dry spell right now and we got a lot of dooms day theories in the air. Just wait for games poping out, not overhyped crap.

krudler

Stop pre-ordering. Seriously stop it, everyone who whinges about unfinished buggy games on release, dlc, store exclusives and all the other nonsense that goes with new releases. You're the cause of this if you pre-order everything coming out . GTAV was an exception as it actually did sell out in a lot of places, but hardly any games sell out these days.

Am I the only person who doesn't think games are too expensive? If you wait until after launch most titles drop drastically, and if you wait for reviews and word of mouth then day one buying overhyped games falls too.
Gaming by and large has never been better value these days if you pump hours into multiplayer or play open world/lengthy games. Look how much cart based 16bit games cost back in the 90's, most games you could finish in one sitting. Gamers these days are mostly spoiled beyond belief, want everything their own way. Innovation, big budget, high production value games but oh no we don't want to pay too much for them. If you buy online most new titles are less than the cost of a night on the beer for something that could feasibly get you 50+ hours of entertainment from it.

richymcdermott

I get annoyed at the people who bitch and moan about there being too many sequels and not enough new ideas from aaa games but dismiss indies when all the best games are coming from them.

I can easily say journey , binding of isaac , super meat boy , hotline miami guacamelee , stanley parable are some of the most refreshing gaming experiences I had in quite sometime but a the dismissal of these games because people feel they are not worth buying a new system over is frustrating.

DellyBelly

Yes. I think there might be!

krudler

richymcdermott wrote: »

I get annoyed at the people who bitch and moan about there being too many sequels and not enough new ideas from aaa games but dismiss indies when all the best games are coming from them.

I can easily say journey , binding of isaac , super meat boy , hotline miami guacamelee , stanley parable are some of the most refreshing gaming experiences I had in quite sometime but a the dismissal of these games because people feel they are not worth buying a new system over is frustrating.

Indeed, every month on the psn+ thread people complain the indie games are crap, when many of the psn titles are some of the best games on the consoles. Velocity X2 is absolutely brilliant, and it looks gorgeous to boot. Resogun is one of the best titles on ps4 too.

It's the equivalent of people complaining there's no good movies being made anymore, when all they watch is whatevers on at the local cinema, and wont go near subtitled films or anything that isnt a Hollywood blockbuster, branch out a bit ffs.

richymcdermott

krudler wrote: »

Indeed, every month on the psn+ thread people complain the indie games are crap, when many of the psn titles are some of the best games on the consoles. Velocity X2 is absolute brilliant, and it looks gorgeous to boot.

It's the equivalent of people complaining there's no good movies being made anymore, when all they watch is whatevers on at the local cinema, and wont go near subtitled films or anything that isnt a Hollywood blockbuster, branch out a bit ffs.

Cinema snobs are the worst the fact people still to this day dismiss animation and subtitled movies you miss out on some of the best movie experiences.

for every great studio ghibli movie , subtitled or indie movies people would rather have transformers make over a billion in the box office and then bitch and complain how sh!te of a director he is and how he is killing there favourite childhood medium.

and do not get me started on the horror group who kept watching the paranormal activity ****e.

Pans Labyrinth easily my favourite movie of all time made less in cinemas than most recent adam saddlers movies and that in itself is shocking.

gizmo

richymcdermott wrote: »

Game cost is too high , we all know this and maybe its the reason why big publishers and console manufactures are banking in on the whole indie scene , hoping the different variety in games and unique experiences would be enough for publishers to release there aaa titles or as I see in the console sides use indie games for people to sign up for there services like psn and xbla to entice people into seeing the value in said games.

You mean development costs here, right?

As for the availability of indie games on the respective platforms, there's a number of factors at play here. The indie game resurgence happened fairly early through the last console cycle, it evidently wasn't foreseen by each of the major platform holders and I think their varying response to it over the processing years demonstrates that rather well. As an aside from that, MS did, despite their more (or overly, if you will) corporate approach to developer relations, hit the ground running and managed to successfully get a number of stand out titles on their platform. For the only company requiring a subscription to their online service, this proved rather smart as many people pointed to the availability of these games, often available at a discount, as positives to the service.

Towards the end of the generation, Sony not only revamped their indie relations policies but also released PSN+ and used some of these games in catalogue of included "free" titles each month, also bolstering the popularity of the service. You also have the simple fact that these games were helping to give digital distribution services such as Steam a lot of positive press and the other platform holders wanted a piece of that pie. Finally, the actual development process of these titles has also become easier as more developer-friendly engines have been released which allow you to build to a variety of targets without many of the massive headaches generally attributed to multi-platform development. This has lead to more games and, as a result, more variety in the kinds of experiences offered. Enticing a wider demographic of gamer with these titles is also in the best interests of the platform holders.

In general, however, I'd see such availability as having absolutely nothing to do with their AAA efforts. In fact, the handling of these titles is generally dealt with completely separate teams internally.

richymcdermott wrote: »

Does this create a double edge sword though ? we have finally moved past to the cave man practices for up and coming developers for instead having to own a building can easily do it as a side project and have there game accepted to undermining the value of there games just to benefit console manufacturer services.

It's worth noting that I've never seen an indie dev say they've shipped a game onto a console while only working on it in their spare time. Sure they may have begun work as a side project but in order to complete the hardest part of any project, finishing it, they generally go full time. That being said, that point is largely separate from Nintendo's old policy on requiring a "secure" location for development materials. Dan Alderman talks about it a bit in his interview with Gamasutra here.

richymcdermott wrote: »

Sony and microsoft being hush hush about how they pay the developers leave me thinking its very cagey.

When it comes to distribution, they're no more hush hush than any of the other platforms out there, whether it's on console or PC. Actual publishing agreements have always been hush hush so the only new variable in this equation is the amount of money the developer gets when their game is made available for free on PSN+ and Games for Gold.

richymcdermott wrote: »

then we move onto the advertisement of things and how said publishers , developers over hyping games and under delivering on there promises two of which are current gen titles watch dogs and destiny , neither have I played but judging by my friends opinions and listening to others impressions they are very poor.

Here's the thing though, opinions aside I can't see how anyone could say any of these games are "very poor". They may be disappointing given the press build up before release or they may be average or above average based upon their own merits but actually calling them poor isn't going to be conducive to reasonable debate on this particular subject.

Aside from this, the large advertising budgets behind these games is certainly worthy of discussion. Personally I think it's perfectly understandable given the nature of these games. Destiny is a big budget follow up from the creators of Halo. Activision have invested a hell of a lot of money in both development and promotion and see it as their next big franchise. Does that mean it's automatically going to be fantastic though? Of course not. Similarly, Watch_Dogs was the next big IP from Ubisoft and yet while ultimately disappointing many, if the AC series is anything to go by, it's sequel should hopefully develop the core concept better in the sequel which is almost guaranteed to happen given the sales figures of the original.

Yet, none of the above facts are going to make me rush out to pre-order or buy them without waiting to see how it reviews upon release. Despite being from established developers they're new IPs focusing on new mechanics, some of which aren't even really my thing. I don't want to get into the blame game here but if people had a bit more patience and spent a little more time looking into what they're buying not only would they be less disappointed with their purchases but they'd also slowly see the industry change around them.

richymcdermott wrote: »

This has never been new though , Battlefield 3 suffered from word out of Ea and Dice mouth themselves it was going to be the call of duty killer , throwing millions into advertisement and when it came to Bf3 release despite selling really well did not meet there expectations and backed away from the claim that they ever made that it was going to kill cod.

I don't really see anything wrong with them calling it a CoD-killer though, primarily because it was their precise intention for it to be their answer to that franchise. Their lack of success in that regard doesn't really change that fact. As for backtracking on that point after release, EA are a public company, they're not going to admit their chances of tackling the gargantuan sales of CoD are slim with such a new release. The fact that they didn't actually use those numbers as sales targets is testament to that fact.

richymcdermott wrote: »

We all know how advertisement works by now but is this going to kill consumer trust ? if people keep falling for the hype and keep getting burnt how long is it going to be before people walk away ?

I don't think they'll walk away but hopefully they'll just think about their purchase a little harder, maybe waiting a week after launch to see how reviews pan out before settling on it.

richymcdermott wrote: »

what sort of future is the gaming industry going to be like in the next 5-10 years ?

I cannot help but feel its going to be very dark times which i do hope I am wrong.

As to your general point, no one knows what the future is going to hold exactly yet. The only thing that is for certain is that it's going to be different. Look at how we consume games on not only the PC but consoles now.

For instance, if you asked me back in 1998, as I furiously clawed the cellophane off my copy of Half Life, that I would require an internet connection and an account on an online service in order to activate its sequel, I would have laughed you out of the room. If you asked me back in 2004 as I furiously shouted at Steam for its failure to correctly authenticate my copy of Half Life 2 whether I'd go on to own over 450 games on the service, I would have again laughed you out of the room. In the present or near future, on the other hand, when Half Life 3 is eventually released there's a chance I would have the game already purchased and pre-loaded via Steam, ready to go on the day of release. When it comes to playing it I even have the option of doing so at my desk in front of my PC or in front of the TV downstairs while sitting on my couch while it streamed across my network onto a small form factor PC from my main rig.

As for the console platform holders, they're not going anywhere for now at least. The rumours of MS selling off the XBox division were put to rest when Nadella reiterated his support for them earlier in the Summer. Sony, on the other hand, may be hurting in the consumer devices arena but their entertainment division is still extremely strong. Regardless though, even if one were to fall there would always be another platform there who would only benefit from such an event.

Consoles aside, the PC will always be a viable platform for development. It may not be actually cheaper as you suggest but due to the flexibility of the hardware, it can be adapted to fit something more suitable to home gaming. We've already seen the software advances in that area such as Steam Big Picture Mode, the hardware advances as small form factor becomes more popular and more more peripherals are being planned and/or released which cater to this crowd and the platforms advances as digital distribution services across a variety of companies continue to grow and expand their offerings.

So yes, different times ahead. Different, but not necessarily dark.

COYVB

No.

Because most people buying games are either unaware of the things you mention, or simply don't care.

Baked.noodle

I suspect the Indie market could crash before the established giants will. The market for indie games is saturated, and many people buy these games as part of a very cheap bundle, and many of these games aren't even played by the consumer. It must be difficult to promote a game when nobody has heard of it and it get buried quickly by another avalanche of releases. I suspect many indie developers are almost unknown by the general public so sequels or new indie IP's may be overlooked. For a small developer getting their games to run on many platforms such as mobiles, various consoles and different PC OS's must be expensive and frustrating. In the long run many developers may not be able to stay afloat.

I think the problem with the next gen consoles is it's more of the same, just a bit more spit. It would seem Microsoft and Sony designed their respective consoles together and pushed them to market together, and neither have a unique vision of where gaming will be in ten years, just more of the same. That's OK for business as usual and they will make plenty of money but ultimately rich developers are going to want more independence from publishers and reap a larger chunk of the rewards. If a platform will facilitate this it will happen, such as it is happening on PC with Diablo/Starcraft, Elite and Star Citizen. Perhaps they will mutate into developer/publisher as Valve has. The Steam Box etc.

richymcdermott

gizmo wrote: »

You mean development costs here, right?

As for the availability of indie games on the respective platforms, there's a number of factors at play here. The indie game resurgence happened fairly early through the last console cycle, it evidently wasn't foreseen by each of the major platform holders and I think their varying response to it over the processing years demonstrates that rather well. As an aside from that, MS did, despite their more (or overly, if you will) corporate approach to developer relations, hit the ground running and managed to successfully get a number of stand out titles on their platform. For the only company requiring a subscription to their online service, this proved rather smart as many people pointed to the availability of these games, often available at a discount, as positives to the service.

Towards the end of the generation, Sony not only revamped their indie relations policies but also released PSN+ and used some of these games in catalogue of included "free" titles each month, also bolstering the popularity of the service. You also have the simple fact that these games were helping to give digital distribution services such as Steam a lot of positive press and the other platform holders wanted a piece of that pie. Finally, the actual development process of these titles has also become easier as more developer-friendly engines have been released which allow you to build to a variety of targets without many of the massive headaches generally attributed to multi-platform development. This has lead to more games and, as a result, more variety in the kinds of experiences offered. Enticing a wider demographic of gamer with these titles is also in the best interests of the platform holders.

In general, however, I'd see such availability as having absolutely nothing to do with their AAA efforts. In fact, the handling of these titles is generally dealt with completely separate teams internally.



It's worth noting that I've never seen an indie dev say they've shipped a game onto a console while only working on it in their spare time. Sure they may have begun work as a side project but in order to complete the hardest part of any project, finishing it, they generally go full time. That being said, that point is largely separate from Nintendo's old policy on requiring a "secure" location for development materials. Dan Alderman talks about it a bit in his interview with Gamasutra here.



When it comes to distribution, they're no more hush hush than any of the other platforms out there, whether it's on console or PC. Actual publishing agreements have always been hush hush so the only new variable in this equation is the amount of money the developer gets when their game is made available for free on PSN+ and Games for Gold.



Here's the thing though, opinions aside I can't see how anyone could say any of these games are "very poor". They may be disappointing given the press build up before release or they may be average or above average based upon their own merits but actually calling them poor isn't going to be conducive to reasonable debate on this particular subject.

Aside from this, the large advertising budgets behind these games is certainly worthy of discussion. Personally I think it's perfectly understandable given the nature of these games. Destiny is a big budget follow up from the creators of Halo. Activision have invested a hell of a lot of money in both development and promotion and see it as their next big franchise. Does that mean it's automatically going to be fantastic though? Of course not. Similarly, Watch_Dogs was the next big IP from Ubisoft and yet while ultimately disappointing many, if the AC series is anything to go by, it's sequel should hopefully develop the core concept better in the sequel which is almost guaranteed to happen given the sales figures of the original.

Yet, none of the above facts are going to make me rush out to pre-order or buy them without waiting to see how it reviews upon release. Despite being from established developers they're new IPs focusing on new mechanics, some of which aren't even really my thing. I don't want to get into the blame game here but if people had a bit more patience and spent a little more time looking into what they're buying not only would they be less disappointed with their purchases but they'd also slowly see the industry change around them.



I don't really see anything wrong with them calling it a CoD-killer though, primarily because it was their precise intention for it to be their answer to that franchise. Their lack of success in that regard doesn't really change that fact. As for backtracking on that point after release, EA are a public company, they're not going to admit their chances of tackling the gargantuan sales of CoD are slim with such a new release. The fact that they didn't actually use those numbers as sales targets is testament to that fact.



I don't think they'll walk away but hopefully they'll just think about their purchase a little harder, maybe waiting a week after launch to see how reviews pan out before settling on it.



As to your general point, no one knows what the future is going to hold exactly yet. The only thing that is for certain is that it's going to be different. Look at how we consume games on not only the PC but consoles now.

For instance, if you asked me back in 1998, as I furiously clawed the cellophane off my copy of Half Life, that I would require an internet connection and an account on an online service in order to activate its sequel, I would have laughed you out of the room. If you asked me back in 2004 as I furiously shouted at Steam for its failure to correctly authenticate my copy of Half Life 2 whether I'd go on to own over 450 games on the service, I would have again laughed you out of the room. In the present or near future, on the other hand, when Half Life 3 is eventually released there's a chance I would have the game already purchased and pre-loaded via Steam, ready to go on the day of release. When it comes to playing it I even have the option of doing so at my desk in front of my PC or in front of the TV downstairs while sitting on my couch while it streamed across my network onto a small form factor PC from my main rig.

As for the console platform holders, they're not going anywhere for now at least. The rumours of MS selling off the XBox division were put to rest when Nadella reiterated his support for them earlier in the Summer. Sony, on the other hand, may be hurting in the consumer devices arena but their entertainment division is still extremely strong. Regardless though, even if one were to fall there would always be another platform there who would only benefit from such an event.

Consoles aside, the PC will always be a viable platform for development. It may not be actually cheaper as you suggest but due to the flexibility of the hardware, it can be adapted to fit something more suitable to home gaming. We've already seen the software advances in that area such as Steam Big Picture Mode, the hardware advances as small form factor becomes more popular and more more peripherals are being planned and/or released which cater to this crowd and the platforms advances as digital distribution services across a variety of companies continue to grow and expand their offerings.

So yes, different times ahead. Different, but not necessarily dark.

I always enjoy your opinions , we may often not agree at times but I do enjoy an different opinion.

With destiny and watch dogs is hard for me to judge for myself since I never played those games because I did not like the look of them.

In truth the shooter market has become so clustered I lost interest in the genre when you had some really enticing fps like fallout 3 , half life and bioshock the genre tried to hard to capsulize on call of duty success I lost interest , main reason why I never bothered to pick up destiny.


even outside of my friends , likes of angryjoe as much I prefer the way he presents his reviews than the reviews itself made a 40 min video and alot of his complaints seemed nonsense that he felt content was held back from expansions.

while I have fallen out of the stigma that companies purposely hold back content just for us to purchase with season passes , sometimes you do have to wonder what exactly goes on.


not sure if there is such a thing but I would love a documentary like the indie movie that talks about what exactly is the strategy of how games are made and what exactly is the method of dlc and how its decided when most times its worked on along with the game to see what in the game itself and whats cut.



alot of this discussion is brought up when I watch boogie2988 video on is a gaming crash is coming and while I feel its not that severe I do feel that if people keep buying into this hype non sense when they see banners on internet sites , youtubers hyping games up or tv ads that plaster 10/10 over 700 awards people will continue to feel like they bought a game they were not told they were getting.


Alot of it is there own fault cause very much like the amazing spiderman 2 in cinemas people still went to the cinema and watched it.

as bruce campbell once said if you are sick of the same old stuff and want something new vote with your wallets.

Adamantium

krudler wrote: »

Stop pre-ordering. Seriously stop it, everyone who whinges about unfinished buggy games on release, dlc, store exclusives and all the other nonsense that goes with new releases. You're the cause of this if you pre-order everything coming out . GTAV was an exception as it actually did sell out in a lot of places, but hardly any games sell out these days.

Am I the only person who doesn't think games are too expensive? If you wait until after launch most titles drop drastically, and if you wait for reviews and word of mouth then day one buying overhyped games falls too.
Gaming by and large has never been better value these days if you pump hours into multiplayer or play open world/lengthy games. Look how much cart based 16bit games cost back in the 90's, most games you could finish in one sitting. Gamers these days are mostly spoiled beyond belief, want everything their own way. Innovation, big budget, high production value games but oh no we don't want to pay too much for them. If you buy online most new titles are less than the cost of a night on the beer for something that could feasibly get you 50+ hours of entertainment from it.

johnny_ultimate

Almost every medium has its commercially driven, mainstream side and its more niche offshoots. Literature is so much deeper than Dan Brown and JK Rowling. Cinema is infinitely more diverse than the latest Marvel film. Gaming has so much more on offer than Destiny and Watch_dogs.

Is it ****ty that more ambitious, experimental titles don't do better commercially while mediocre AAA titles break records pretty much every time a new one is released? Yes, but I don't think it's worth getting up in arms about - that's simply how it is, and barring radical societal change always going to be. Commercial popularity is an extremely limited barometer of quality, and as long as even niche markets are supporting more artistically diverse works, then there's no need for doom-mongering. And hey, we all occasionally fancy something big and stupid from time to time anyway

Do get worried when there's a legitimate drought of worthwhile games. It's the opposite of that the moment - there's a damn near surplus of the things to keep track of. If there's going to be an 'indie crash', it's going to because of saturation, but I'd be confident many great games will continue to plough through the noise. Gaming is too popular now for it simply disappear or 'crash' completely.

As almost a rule, around six months into every year we get a thread in the film forum bemoaning 'this is the worst year ever for new releases!'. It never is, because there is always interesting, exciting, brilliant films being released, on a near weekly basis - you just wouldn't know it if you refuse to look beyond the blockbuster. Gaming is still undergoing adolescent growing pains in some respects, but for every AAA release there are easily three, four, five smaller titles doing something far more interesting. Even in mainstream titles, games like The Last of Us are developing in exciting ways, and often shaming Hollywood efforts, and the attention the likes of Sony is paying to more experimental titles is a super-exciting trend.

Play the games you want to, ignore what you don't want. As of right now, the gaming scene is a lively and innovative one, and honestly I have a whole lot of optimism about its future.

Generic Dreadhead

krudler wrote: »

Am I the only person who doesn't think games are too expensive?...

...Look how much cart based 16bit games cost back in the 90's, most games you could finish in one sitting. Gamers these days are mostly spoiled beyond belief, want everything their own way. Innovation, big budget, high production value games but oh no we don't want to pay too much for them.

Donkey Kong Country was 50 Irish Punts at launch at takes about 6 hours to finish

richymcdermott wrote: »

I can easily say journey , binding of isaac , super meat boy , hotline miami guacamelee , stanley parable

Oh i was soooooo with you until you mentioned the Stanley Parable, which is ****king dumb whatever way you slice it. It's the gaming equivalent of some portentous art like a Banana on a plinth and people are like "oh it symbolises something"

Also lay off the double line spacing will you Richy ffs :pac:

DellyBelly wrote: »

Yes. I think there might be!

I love when series threads get answered that are short then the question itself

COYVB wrote: »

No.

Because most people buying games are either unaware of the things you mention, or simply don't care.

+1 for this, most people are kids or idiots or both

johnny_ultimate

Cormac... wrote: »

Oh i was soooooo with you until you mentioned the Stanley Parable, which is ****king dumb whatever way you slice it. It's the gaming equivalent of some portentous art like a Banana on a plinth and people are like "oh it symbolises something"

You're going to have to give us something meatier than 'it's pretentious' Cormac :pac:

Even putting aside the fact that it very clearly does have much to say and deconstruct about game design and (lack of) player agency, what it definitively isn't is portentous or self-serious or sombre. In fact, it's riotously self-depreciating and playful, constantly traveling off on zany tangents for pure laughs (as well as some biting yet affectionate commentary on gaming tropes along the way). It is, after all, a game where you march along a yellow 'adventure line' where the most gloriously ridiculous piece of music imaginable plays in the background. It is a delightful cocktail of smarts and silly fun, as close as gaming has come to achieving a Monty Pythons style of comedy.

Criticise its humour or thematic intentions - but one thing The Stanley Parable is not is portentous

Generic Dreadhead

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

You're going to have to give us something meatier than 'it's pretentious' Cormac :pac:

...

Criticise its humour or thematic intentions - but one thing The Stanley Parable is not is portentous

I'd agree with all of this, but it offends the fibre of my being when it shares the same sentence with Journey :pac:

richymcdermott

Funny I did not like stanley parable , but it was very clever. It did fantastic with linear design we have grown accustomed to but broken it up and made in a way that had lots of layers. Short but straight to the point , humour can be very subjective. In the end it was a great experience but not a very good game , its weird.

BloodBath

richymcdermott wrote: »

I am saying this despite well knowing Gta 5 sold a bajillion copies , watch dogs selling really well for a new ip and destiny becoming the fastest selling games in opening week but with all this I cannot help but feel a drastic change is going to occur in the gaming industry thats going to leave alot of pissed off consumers.


Game cost is too high , we all know this and maybe its the reason why big publishers and console manufactures are banking in on the whole indie scene , hoping the different variety in games and unique experiences would be enough for publishers to release there aaa titles or as I see in the console sides use indie games for people to sign up for there services like psn and xbla to entice people into seeing the value in said games.


Does this create a double edge sword though ? we have finally moved past to the cave man practices for up and coming developers for instead having to own a building can easily do it as a side project and have there game accepted to undermining the value of there games just to benefit console manufacturer services.

Sony and microsoft being hush hush about how they pay the developers leave me thinking its very cagey.


then we move onto the advertisement of things and how said publishers , developers over hyping games and under delivering on there promises two of which are current gen titles watch dogs and destiny , neither have I played but judging by my friends opinions and listening to others impressions they are very poor.


This has never been new though , Battlefield 3 suffered from word out of Ea and Dice mouth themselves it was going to be the call of duty killer , throwing millions into advertisement and when it came to Bf3 release despite selling really well did not meet there expectations and backed away from the claim that they ever made that it was going to kill cod.


We all know how advertisement works by now but is this going to kill consumer trust ? if people keep falling for the hype and keep getting burnt how long is it going to be before people walk away ?.


I made a thread awhile back saying will sony playstation not be as know it ? I was labelled a troll , talking out of my ass and a bunch of other **** despite given articles backing up my claim that sony are hurting badly.

but fanboys cannot see through fog and all that coperate smug clouds there mind and judgement , seeing things for they rightfully are.
sony had to break it to there stockholders very easily that recently they are going to tke a 2.1 billion loss and they do not know how they lost that much.


so this leaves me to consoles

yes ps4 is selling crazy ( 10 pushing 11 million as it currently stands ) but sony themselves are broken , beaten and on life support.

microsoft xbox one has taken a hit on xbox one and rumours have been circulating around that they will back away from consoles after this generation if xbox one does not do as well as they hoped.

Nintendo want to be so far away from everyone else and isolated that 3rd party want nothing to do with them.


so if anything happens to one of the big 2 sony or microsoft how exactly are 3rd party publishers going to survive with ?

pc after all the years of been a doomed platform seems to be thriving in all this thanks to low development cost and the increasing popularity of moba genre.


what sort of future is the gaming industry going to be like in the next 5-10 years ?

I cannot help but feel its going to be very dark times which i do hope I am wrong.

Gaming is and will continue to be the biggest entertainment industry in the world. It's still a growing market that hasn't even reached all age/sex demographic groups yet.

Most indie games are released on PC first, only with success there do they see the light of day on console. Originality stems from these indie games and trickles up to the AAA titles. Big publishers aren't willing to risk big budgets on original triple AAA titles.

These big publishers do allow for some amazing experiences with the budgets they give but can seriously damage good game development studios by imposing strict time constraints on development and demanding regular sequels and dlcs. This is why the like of call of duty and battlefield have really gone downhill as game franchises.

Battlefield is and has been a far better franchise than COD has been for many years imo. Battlefield 2 was the pinnacle of the franchise though imo as was the original cod modern warfare. These games were developed for PC in mind though. They have been watered down for console releases since then.

Sony are a huge company with consoles being only a slice of the pie they were deeply invested in. Their other markets failed. Playstation is about the only thing keeping them afloat.

PC was never a doomed platform. It's been at the forefront of game design since the 90's and will continue to be. It's a continuous growing market with game revenues that exceed all of the consoles combined.

However PC's are still too complex for your average Joe so until we see a shift away from proprietary DirectX to OpenGL or another open platform you will be stuck with windows. SteamOS and other similar linux based simplistic console type interfaces cannot succeed without DX support or a shift away from DX.

With VR becoming a reality in the next year I can only see the market growing even more as it will be a genuinely new and potentially massive jump, the likes of which we haven't seen since the jump from 2d to 3d games.

Retr0gamer

I don't believe there's a big shake up coming in the industry because the industry has already gone through a massive shake up already. The industry is divided between big developers spending millions on big games and not taking any chances at all and small scale indie coders. Unfortunately last generation killed off the developers that lie somewhere in between. Unfortunately that's where a lot of the more exciting and unique gaming experiences came from and while indie games are filling the void they just aren't the same (I'm not saying indie isn't as good, I'd just rather both existed at the same time).

Japans influence has shrunk greatly with Capcom floundering, Konami doing god knows what outside of Metal Gear etc. Most of the japanese studios belonged to that middle of the road category and have either gone handheld, mobile or are no more. There's a few exceptions like Platinum and Nintendo in the big leagues and Access games and grasshopper hanging on and creating the weird, interesting yet technically inept games they always did but they are the exception rather than the rule.

The industry has stabilised at the moment and with next gen being only a very minor update to the previous gen I don't really see things shaking up that much. However I could have said the same at the start of the last generation and that became a big game changer for the industry.

If there's going to be a big shake up it will be handheld. The 3DS is doing strong but there's the real danger that mobile will take over which would be a very bad thing. While mobile started off promising and with very low barriers of entry attracting some very talented developers it has since run itself into the ground with copy cat developers copying the latest crazy and dreadful exploitative f2p models.

BeerWolf

A big culprit of games being more expensive is everyone wants better looking graphics now... and that takes a LOT of time now, compared to 'back in the day', with high resolutions and polygon count for character models and maps... and the animations to go with them.

And obviously complexity of programming now, the more time spent searching for bugs... which is why a lot of game developers are opting them "Founder" incentives of players to play games in ALPHA and do the testing for them, while getting money in the process.

So, it's a catch-22 for gamers...

Gamers are being spoilt now - they want games with jaw dropping graphics, and they want more game releases... which just isn't possible. Every year I'm noticing less and less "Big" titles being released.

This is one of the big reasons why Phone game Apps are doing so well -- the graphics are simpler, and the programming isn't too complex for it, so churning out games on a device everyone and their grandmother has is a no brainer.

Personally, I ain't a fan of playing games on a tiny screen...

Sarky

Cormac... wrote: »

Oh i was soooooo with you until you mentioned the Stanley Parable, which is ****king dumb whatever way you slice it. It's the gaming equivalent of some portentous art like a Banana on a plinth and people are like "oh it symbolises something"

u ok hun?

Optimalprimerib

The way destiny was marketted and distributed was terrifying. You're given half a game with the promise of additional content to keep the game alive for 10 years? What if the interest weans and the lobbys become empty? Are they guaranteeing that we will not have to shelve out on a sequel every 2 years? They will just add to this game?

The questionable reviews to this point paint a picture of a failed experiment. In a market where hype can add 10% to your score, and anything under 90% is considered an average game not worth looking at, 77% in metacritic is poor for one of the biggest releases this year.

This game should also never be made for the 360 (which I bought it for) or ps3. It makes it a next gen hybrid that looks slightly shinier on the new generation. The hype alone may have forced the more cautious of us to empty our pockets for the new console. The development money used for the old gen could then be used to give us a finished product.

Titanfall and watchdogs are carbon copies of this framework. Incomplete shells of games, glorified demos tbh, underlining the fear of the developers to give too much at the start as there is a safety net of additional content and dlc promised.

I can forgive a broken game being released at start-up as it can be patched, but releasing a game with a handful of maps (titanfall) or a missing story (destiny) is unforgivable.

I do trust that the watchdog sequels could be ones to watch, however as ubisoft tend to have a good feedback model in their sequels looking at what worked, what failed, what can be added, what else is needed etc. Assasins creed and the far cry series are good examples of this.

Retr0gamer

Destiny does have a story though, it's just awful. But sure who needs a story if you are having fun with the game? Not every game needs a story.

nesf

A great shake up may happen. The Indie market might have a minor collapse as the oversaturation forces a lot of the less successful players trying to do it full time out and leaves the devs who got lucky or whatever. Since it's not tied to any one platform and since the entry costs into the genre are so low people might not really notice it happening though as new Indie games will keep appearing. Something similar will/is happening to the glut of mobile developers.

Kirby

Two weeks earlier, in a thread not far from here

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Games are not about story

Kirby wrote: »

I think this should read "SOME games are not about story" or perhaps "I don't like games that are about story".

Some of us like games that are heavily story based.

And now.....

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Not every game needs a story.

I'm so proud of you Retr0. That's some quality growth.

Generic Dreadhead

Sarky wrote: »

u ok hun?

Mailed u der