A frank opinion of the game industry

[AgentExeider]

@OP - The only way to do things is less talk, more walk. In this case, vote with your wallet.

 

If you don`t like a game, or a dev, or a publisher, you don`t buy their games. Is that simple. That`s as far as theory goes.

 

In reality, there was a certain COD boycott that failed and there will be others. The same players that say on the forum "I will never buy GTA again, or a Take-Two game, or Rockstar" WILL buy the next 50 games. You CANNOT turn an idiot into a thinker, no matter how hard you try. Idiots outnumber thinkers by a large margin.

the issue with that is, the companies literally have hundreds of millions of dollars at their disposal, and just simply not purchasing their game doesn't make a dent.

 

really the only way to even get them to flinch is to start a movement, and even then it doesn't always succeed.

[Phyxsius-]

 

@OP - The only way to do things is less talk, more walk. In this case, vote with your wallet.

 

If you don`t like a game, or a dev, or a publisher, you don`t buy their games. Is that simple. That`s as far as theory goes.

 

In reality, there was a certain COD boycott that failed and there will be others. The same players that say on the forum "I will never buy GTA again, or a Take-Two game, or Rockstar" WILL buy the next 50 games. You CANNOT turn an idiot into a thinker, no matter how hard you try. Idiots outnumber thinkers by a large margin.

true but getting the information out there helps in ways that some times we don't see.

 

One of the reasons EA for example is having trouble getting new studios, and that the attitude by the consumers has caused game studios to think twice before selling themselves to EA, plus the whistleblowers from inside help too. as a result EA is having a hard time buying new studios, so they are forced to work with what they have, but of course their business strategy is a failing one and eventually it will catch up with them.

 

Bioware agreed to sell to EA. We all know how it turned out now.

 

But that still gives power to the player. Because, regardless of who EA buys, or if it`s EA to begin with, we, the consumers, decide if we want to give them money or not - aka voting with our wallet. The problem is convincing a volatile community to punish a company, which is simply impossible.

 

There would be a chance if countries would legalize games as merchandise products, or put laws of conformity, but that`s a long shot and players are still seen as pimpled 14 year old google eyes. Because that is how forums are, or any attempted discussion - tantrums and immaturity.

 

the issue with that is, the companies literally have hundreds of millions of dollars at their disposal, and just simply not purchasing their game doesn't make a dent.

 

really the only way to even get them to flinch is to start a movement, and even then it doesn't always succeed.

 

Not entirely true. EA, from the giant that was bigger than Activision that it was, is now fighting for its life, with franchises that tanked and players moving to other ones that didn`t. Their bad decisions, made over several years, led them here. And while they still are vaguely profitable, they are no match to Activision-Blizzard. Their SWTOR experiment did have some notable people get fired.. I mean retire...most notable a certain Riccitiello.

Edited February 26, 2014 by Phyxsius-

[Aero Dynamo]

 

Previous thread was locked, so you decide to do it again? I suppose I should be used that logic on these forums by now...

 

the previous thread was locked because it degenerated, moreover it was focusing solely on GTAOs shortcomings, This thread is looking at the game industry in general.

 

 

You do know this a GTA Online Forum Right? There is a General Discussion Thread too on this website.

[pnut87]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Previous thread was locked, so you decide to do it again? I suppose I should be used that logic on these forums by now...

the previous thread was locked because it degenerated, moreover it was focusing solely on GTAOs shortcomings, This thread is looking at the game industry in general.

 

Most if not all threads here tend to degenerate quickly. Before you ask, yes, I did read through it. Frankly, this topic doesn't really fit here if it's supposed to focus on the gaming industry in general. Simply mentioning GTA as is doesn't justify the argument to not lock it.

 

 

the Microcosm of the shortcomings of GTAO is comparable to the Macrocosm of the Game Industry's shortcomings as well.

 

-Æ

 

 

What, disc locked content? Delays on DLC? Micro transactions? Lackluster programming? GTA5 is a nice example, but hardly the only game to feature these shortcomings, and is by no means the worst case of such. Ever heard of Advent Rising? Look that one up and tell me why a game like that can have such incredible potential only to bomb in the worst way possible. Then there's the mobile game market.

 

This topic doesn't belong here, that's why it got locked.

 

I was speaking in general terms, as these things are often major controversial things that publishers elect to do, and consumers get angry about.

 

But disc locked content is a MAJOR point, because it's already there, but you need a 50-500k file just to unlock it, and that file costs X amount of money to do so.

 

 

Went ahead and fixed your edit of my post.

Also, you speaking in general terms, reinforces why it doesn't belong here. It's a topic about the gaming industry, not GTA specifically.

The only reason I haven't started trolling this thread myself is because I agree with quite a bit of the topic. But again, this is not the place to post it.

Try posting this on a developer forums. or writing for a website with renown. This isn't the place to do it.

[Kracus]

Comparing the development of games 25 years ago in comparison to today isn't really something that's comparable. This is a case of apples and oranges.

 

The scope of creating a game like GTAV 25 years ago would have simply been impossible, hence why it didn't exist. It wasn't for a lack of trying though, there simply wasn't enough ground work done to achieve what we have today and that's part of the problem. Ultimately games today have thousands of individuals that work on them where 25 years ago a team of 2 people created games like Doom and many of the games we played on Sega or Nintendo.

 

The more games try to push boundaries the more we're going to encounter stuff people hadn't thought would happen because you have to rely on someone elses work in order to create your vision. If you don't do it that way then guess what? It's going to take you 25 years to create what you're looking to create. You go on to critisize how publishers are now forcing developers to release buggy software without once thinking that without this dynamic we wouldn't have the games we have today at all.

[AgentExeider]

Comparing the development of games 25 years ago in comparison to today isn't really something that's comparable. This is a case of apples and oranges.

 

The scope of creating a game like GTAV 25 years ago would have simply been impossible, hence why it didn't exist. It wasn't for a lack of trying though, there simply wasn't enough ground work done to achieve what we have today and that's part of the problem. Ultimately games today have thousands of individuals that work on them where 25 years ago a team of 2 people created games like Doom and many of the games we played on Sega or Nintendo.

 

The more games try to push boundaries the more we're going to encounter stuff people hadn't thought would happen because you have to rely on someone elses work in order to create your vision. If you don't do it that way then guess what? It's going to take you 25 years to create what you're looking to create. You go on to critisize how publishers are now forcing developers to release buggy software without once thinking that without this dynamic we wouldn't have the games we have today at all.

How so?

The same development strategies used 25 years ago are still used today, it's just a case of planned mediocrity at this point. Back when publishers were controlled by developers, the games and the industry didn't suffer the issues they are dealing with today.

 

also creating GTA 25 years ago, well I believe there is a version of that actually.

Edited February 26, 2014 by AgentExeider

[AgentExeider]

 

 

@OP - The only way to do things is less talk, more walk. In this case, vote with your wallet.

 

If you don`t like a game, or a dev, or a publisher, you don`t buy their games. Is that simple. That`s as far as theory goes.

 

In reality, there was a certain COD boycott that failed and there will be others. The same players that say on the forum "I will never buy GTA again, or a Take-Two game, or Rockstar" WILL buy the next 50 games. You CANNOT turn an idiot into a thinker, no matter how hard you try. Idiots outnumber thinkers by a large margin.

true but getting the information out there helps in ways that some times we don't see.

 

One of the reasons EA for example is having trouble getting new studios, and that the attitude by the consumers has caused game studios to think twice before selling themselves to EA, plus the whistleblowers from inside help too. as a result EA is having a hard time buying new studios, so they are forced to work with what they have, but of course their business strategy is a failing one and eventually it will catch up with them.

 

Bioware agreed to sell to EA. We all know how it turned out now.

 

But that still gives power to the player. Because, regardless of who EA buys, or if it`s EA to begin with, we, the consumers, decide if we want to give them money or not - aka voting with our wallet. The problem is convincing a volatile community to punish a company, which is simply impossible.

 

There would be a chance if countries would legalize games as merchandise products, or put laws of conformity, but that`s a long shot and players are still seen as pimpled 14 year old google eyes. Because that is how forums are, or any attempted discussion - tantrums and immaturity.

 

the issue with that is, the companies literally have hundreds of millions of dollars at their disposal, and just simply not purchasing their game doesn't make a dent.

 

really the only way to even get them to flinch is to start a movement, and even then it doesn't always succeed.

 

Not entirely true. EA, from the giant that was bigger than Activision that it was, is now fighting for its life, with franchises that tanked and players moving to other ones that didn`t. Their bad decisions, made over several years, led them here. And while they still are vaguely profitable, they are no match to Activision-Blizzard. Their SWTOR experiment did have some notable people get fired.. I mean retire...most notable a certain Riccitiello.

 

But wouldn't that be more of a case of giving EA enough rope to hang itself?

 

The problem with voting with our wallets, is the game industry like many other "volatile" industries, is that it received subsidies from the government to stay afloat, especially EA, I kid you not, I had to look it up for myself to believe it.

 

So when we "vote with our wallets" by not giving EA money, then they just simply ask the government for a bail out check, with our tax money, in effect forcing the US citizen, who may or may not even be a consumer of video games to back a company that is suffering financial loss BECAUSE the consumer is trying to vote with their wallets. Thus negating the whole exercise.

Edited February 26, 2014 by AgentExeider

[Phyxsius-]

But wouldn't that be more of a case of giving EA enough rope to hang itself?

 

 

The problem with voting with our wallets, is the game industry like many other "volatile" industries, is that it received subsidies from the government to stay afloat, especially EA, I kid you not, I had to look it up for myself to believe it.

 

So when we "vote with our wallets" by not giving EA money, then they just simply ask the government for a bail out check, with our tax money, in effect forcing the US citizen, who may or may not even be a consumer of video games to back a company that is suffering financial loss BECAUSE the consumer is trying to vote with their wallets. Thus negating the whole exercise.

 

It can also mean that EA will either disband the studio responsible for the game that tanked, or fire some and better motivate the remaining ones to push a better product. Or push microtransactions, which you, the player, can still elect to avoid and bankrupt the studio. They will get closed down and the franchise will be given to somebody else: win - win If neither is a win, others might learn and push a better product.

[AgentExeider]

 

But wouldn't that be more of a case of giving EA enough rope to hang itself?

 

 

The problem with voting with our wallets, is the game industry like many other "volatile" industries, is that it received subsidies from the government to stay afloat, especially EA, I kid you not, I had to look it up for myself to believe it.

 

So when we "vote with our wallets" by not giving EA money, then they just simply ask the government for a bail out check, with our tax money, in effect forcing the US citizen, who may or may not even be a consumer of video games to back a company that is suffering financial loss BECAUSE the consumer is trying to vote with their wallets. Thus negating the whole exercise.

 

It can also mean that EA will either disband the studio responsible for the game that tanked, or fire some and better motivate the remaining ones to push a better product. Or push microtransactions, which you, the player, can still elect to avoid and bankrupt the studio. They will get closed down and the franchise will be given to somebody else: win - win If neither is a win, others might learn and push a better product.

 

I think the last part is what has been happening more, other game studios have learned to not join the collective. hopefully this will starve out EA.

 

and my hope is that if that happens this will be a watershed moment and others in the industry change their courses of action into a more positive approach of the 90's

[Zwenkwiel]

Comparing the development of games 25 years ago in comparison to today isn't really something that's comparable. This is a case of apples and oranges.

 

The scope of creating a game like GTAV 25 years ago would have simply been impossible, hence why it didn't exist. It wasn't for a lack of trying though, there simply wasn't enough ground work done to achieve what we have today and that's part of the problem. Ultimately games today have thousands of individuals that work on them where 25 years ago a team of 2 people created games like Doom and many of the games we played on Sega or Nintendo.

 

The more games try to push boundaries the more we're going to encounter stuff people hadn't thought would happen because you have to rely on someone elses work in order to create your vision. If you don't do it that way then guess what? It's going to take you 25 years to create what you're looking to create. You go on to critisize how publishers are now forcing developers to release buggy software without once thinking that without this dynamic we wouldn't have the games we have today at all.

 

who's to say

maybe we would have a lot better games

it's always easy to point at an existing situation and attribute it to a single variable,in this case, the relationship between devs and publishers

but it isn't always right, perhaps we have these games despite this changed relationship, or it has little to no influence and there's a whole host of other factors that are causing it (the rise of casual gaming,the proliferation of the interwebz and even Iphones all play some role in the changes we've seen in the game industry)

 

but that's not really an argument for anything so lets make it a bit more concrete and realistic

take game development 5-10 years ago, which is a lot more comparable to modern game development than the 8-16 bit era.

I don't recall ever having to download patches to address game breaking bugs on the ps2 or the old XBOX (or old pc games for that matter)

patches were only used to finetune and fix minor bugs (most patches didn't even make a noticable difference)

and since a lot of people didn't have access to these patches a game had to be in working condition at launch or it would fail miserably.

but if you look at the game industry today and take games like the latest sim city, diablo or gta online you can see that the number of game breaking bugs in aaa titles has increased by a lot.

and DLC or microtransactions didn't even exist in their current form. all we had were expansion packs, actually new content made after the game's release. it was something worht buying, instead of having to buy a few levels that were ripped from the game during the original development or even worse buying in game currency.

as you mentioned the increased complexity of games and online components does add to all this, but you can't totally exclude the rising pressure on devs by publishers and shareholders

 

 

so you are right by saying that without the growth of the industry in general, the ever increasing complexity of games and added costs that come with it we wouldn't be playing games like these.

but that doesn't mean that these factors don't have some negative impact on gaming at the same time.

Edited February 26, 2014 by Zwenkwiel

[Phyxsius-]

I think the last part is what has been happening more, other game studios have learned to not join the collective. hopefully this will starve out EA.

 

 

and my hope is that if that happens this will be a watershed moment and others in the industry change their courses of action into a more positive approach of the 90's

 

By the looks of things they are moving into microtransaction territory. Some will do it right, by offering only vanity items, some will do it wrong, by offering pay to win items. I really don`t think the 90`s are coming back.

 

So, we are stuck with incomplete games, day one patches and paid DLC`s for content that should have been there to begin with, which we can easily access at a later date if we pay a Premium of about 60% of the original game`s value.

[Daz]

Ok, I am not going to read the topic as I only have 30 minutes for a lunch break.

 

However I will say a few things take it for what you will.

 

The issue with microtransactions doesn't bother me too much, (if it is done right). For example I have no problem with someone wanting to pay to unlock all weapons in multiplayer in Battlefield. Though it is kind of lame they offer that, it does not effect my gameplay experience as weapons are more of a preference rather than ones that are obviously so much better than others. Same goes for any kind of DLC or exclusive clothing items and such. Also, I think it is pretty lame they have to do this to take it away from everyone else, espcially as it is on the game disc everyone has purchased. However I can get over it. And if I REALLY want the item I can pay for it. As despite how stupid that seems, just like with the XBL avatar system, sometimes I would rather pay, just to not look like a fool if I dislike all other options available to me.

 

However the worst by far is GTAV. Now I won't go into everything wrong with the game, but I will quickly mention why the microtransactions ruined the game.

 

Firstly. Last year Defiance was released, a pretty decent MMO TPS. It had microtransactions, but it did it right. It separated the currency from in game findable/earnable cash, and 'bits' which were pretty much it's in game MS points system. This was a good idea. But in GTAV the currency is the same as what you earn and find in game, as what you pay for it with real money. This puts a value on the actual in game currency.

 

What does this mean? It means that any time someone glitches, finds an exploit, even if it was totally innocent or they found it on accident. Rockstar acts like it is fraud and treat them like thieves, hackers and people trying to ruin people's fun. Which is quite the contrary. It seems way too overboard to ban or put them in a cheaters pool for someone who just wants to play and enjoy they game they paid for. I believe we should have full control over the game we have bought. I managed to accidently stumble upon one of the early duplication glitches. I used it to my advantage. Because I had already lost a whole character, a whole apartment (before character loss) and numerous glitches which drained me of my cash. Buying vehicles and having it not save but still losing my money. Having reasonable ways of gaining money by simply replaying a mission. They nerfed all of that and refused to refund what we had lost, to put pressure on us to buy GTA Dollars. Even in the Beta for GTAOnline there was a prompt nearly every minute informing us of GTA Dollars we could buy. It is a complete and utter scam, and the whole design of the GTAOnline economy is designed to drain you of your cash so you either have to waste more time playing the game, or to entice you into buying GTA dollars. And note this is implemented before the game is fully fixed and people have still lost items until very recently. Such as removing an assortment of vehicles they deemed "story based" and essentially robbed players of their money.

 

Now to me that is a gamebreaking world that has a negative effect on the gameplay and gamers alike. You can't opt out, there is no unranked mode for you to play the multiplayer and do anything you would like to. It does not exist. It essentially becomes a pay to play game, and you pay with your precious time, or real money if you see fit.

 

 

Secondly, similar to above, freemium type games. Free to play and so forth, generally are a good thing, but I think there needs to be some more rules here, because there are a lot of things locked out unless you pay. I agree there should be a portion of the game locked unless you want to buy it, but there should be at least a base standard game available for everyone if you claim it is free.

 

 

Thirdly. I must remind people that even though gaming seems to have gone downhill, I feel it may be due to the fact more games are being released now. So much more. Even before games are fully completed, which is another bag of worms, as why really have a release date if you can just patch it over time. Just like Minecraft, is that ever fully finished? When would you consider that was a full retail game, at what version?

 

But my point is that there were a lot of quality games in the old days, because they had to be. Now developers can get away with unfinished work. Which is definitely a bad thing, but it is just a sea of bullsh*t we have to wade through to find the really good gems.

 

After all, we used to have microtransactions in the form of arcade machines, asking us for money in exchange for lives.

 

However at least they were games you really wanted to play, and it was worth it. And most importantly it is not like we even had an alternative. We do now. I see that alternative as the indie games market.

 

I feel anything worth playing these days short of a very small few of amazing games are going to be small or indie developed games.

 

All I have to say on that for now.

Edited February 26, 2014 by Daz

[Kracus]

 

Comparing the development of games 25 years ago in comparison to today isn't really something that's comparable. This is a case of apples and oranges.

 

The scope of creating a game like GTAV 25 years ago would have simply been impossible, hence why it didn't exist. It wasn't for a lack of trying though, there simply wasn't enough ground work done to achieve what we have today and that's part of the problem. Ultimately games today have thousands of individuals that work on them where 25 years ago a team of 2 people created games like Doom and many of the games we played on Sega or Nintendo.

 

The more games try to push boundaries the more we're going to encounter stuff people hadn't thought would happen because you have to rely on someone elses work in order to create your vision. If you don't do it that way then guess what? It's going to take you 25 years to create what you're looking to create. You go on to critisize how publishers are now forcing developers to release buggy software without once thinking that without this dynamic we wouldn't have the games we have today at all.

How so?

The same development strategies used 25 years ago are still used today, it's just a case of planned mediocrity at this point. Back when publishers were controlled by developers, the games and the industry didn't suffer the issues they are dealing with today.

 

also creating GTA 25 years ago, well I believe there is a version of that actually.

 

 

No, development of games today is nothing like it was 25 years ago. Not even close.

 

Take the game you're listing here as an example. 25 years ago, that game would have taken perhaps something like 10 - 20 people to make over the course of a year. Today, 1 person with knowhow made that game using the GTA 3 engine and that's exactly my point. Games today are built off the work of our predecessors. We aren't making stuff from scratch because the groundwork has already been done by someone else. Creating an isometric engine is a lot of work, ask me how I know.

 

This is part of the issue you're ignoring. You're assuming everything is done from scratch but it isn't. Not even GTAV. The engine for example wasn't developed by rockstar, that engine alone took years of development. (it's a brilliant engine btw)

 

This is why you can't really compare to games that were published years ago. There's a lot of other stuff too that I'm not discussing here that has a huge effect on game development like CPU speeds, memory, the programming languages and dev kits avialable today, the actual architecture of the machine you're working with. All of these factors have evolved over time on the shoulders of the previous systems and work done by those before us.

 

On top of which, if there's one company you can't really fault in regards to taking their time to release a game it is in fact Rockstar. They're one of the few companies that take their time. Look at EA for example, their games are released almost every year and they die out about as quick. GTAO on the other hand will be a game that's played for YEARS down the road. If history is any indication rockstars games tend to have a 5 year lifespan, not many games achieve this.

[Misbegotten cad]

Well, I'm sure you are entitled to your opinion, although I'm rather at a loss as to what your opinion was.

 

All I can say that you should run for a political office, for the government is always on the lookout for people who can say a lot without actually saying anything much.

 

Personally, though, I would say that the visionary protagonism of modern genre defying definite, immersive as it might be, is rather derivative of the pejorative expression of multilevel industy being attuned to the trendy today as a way that is verbally translated to the mostly isolated arguments of the era.

 

Cannot really say it more plainly than that, eh?