Modern Games Industry: How'd We Get Here?

[ElkinFencer10]

The biggest threat facing indie games right now is lack of quality control. It's getting harder for gems to rise to the top while buried in garbage.

That right there is my chief problem with the indie scene these days. The barrier to entry is so low now, that everybody and their mother is making games. That might at first seem like a good thing, but the signal to noise ratio becomes exhausting when you're trying to parse the current output.

The Wii U eShop is a great example of this. The Letter, Meme Run, Bigby's Revenge....Seriously, Nintendo made a name for itself BECAUSE of quality control. Why have they completely abandoned that? Are they THAT desperate for eShop exclusives?

[Fragems]

Basically I feel like the bigger publishers are playing it safe anymore. They are in the business of making money and really there is no need for them to go out of their comfort zone anymore. If I were in their position I would probably do the same thing.

There are a variety of factors contributing to the current market. First off the indie scene has exploded over the last decade which is great for publishers and devs because they no longer have to take as many risks. They can simply watch which ideas float and sink then recreate or acquire the games that are deemed profitable. Also there is a massive wealth of games out there and many publishers are sitting on huge libraries which they can re release and/or port upgraded versions of to various systems both digitally and physically with minimal effort for a solid profit. Why gamble on a new IP when you can spend a fraction of the money porting an already complete game with a strong following to a new system maybe with a hand full of bells and whistles added to encourage a repurchase for those with the "lesser" version. Finally sequels are hot at the moment because like with the remakes/ports why bother gambling on a new IP when you can just make another sequel for a game series that already has a huge following.


As for indies it's become a real shit show. It's getting to the point that for every great indie game there are 100 piles of shit to shovel through, and then to make matters worse a 100 more piles of cloned shit pop up trying to steal some of the success.

[Erik_Twice]

I don't think there's any issue with there being more games, there are far fewer games being made than comics, books, movies or paintings by several orders of magnitude yet it's not an issue for any of those mediums. In fact, there are only slighty more games being made right now than during the late 80s, which was the last peak so it's not even much of an increase. And there were far, far, far more clones back then.

I think it's a huge, positive change that more people can actually make and publish their games and I'm kind of dissapointed by calls for retailer gatekeeping, specially since so many of the games we love would be kept out of the circle. Remember, Mushihimesama was rejected on GoG and it's not the nichest of games.

I also don't think you have to "shift through" any number of games unless you are window shopping. And at that point...well, I don't think it matters, does it?

[Ack]

Seriously, Nintendo made a name for itself BECAUSE of quality control. Why have they completely abandoned that?

You mean the excessive quality control that pissed off many of the most important third party devs, causing them to favor the likes of Sony, leading to criticism over the loss of games or even whole genres on Nintendo consoles? The same control that heavily censored numerous games and forced developers to create shell companies to allow for more releases? The control that throttled production by effectively giving Nintendo a monopoly on the production of their game cartridges until even US congressional representatives suggested federal investigations regarding antitrust laws?

Yeah, I'm sure they'll get right on that.

[Sarge]

Yeah, it used to be that Steam was more curated. Not anymore. GOG is better in that regard, but they also ignore some titles that seem like they'd be a shoo-in.

No question that the tools have made it easy, and I understand some of the ire at professional developers seeing folks having it "easy" because they didn't have to put forth the same kind of effort. It makes it really tough to sort through what's good and what's not, and you really start having to rely on word-of-mouth. Those Steam positive/negative splits actually become useful. You wouldn't think that a simple binary yea/nay would work well, but it seems to.

Still, in a lot of ways, the indie scene is like an extension of the old shareware/freeware scene on steroids. You're going to sort through a lot of junk to get to the good stuff. Or maybe it's more like sifting through Mario Maker levels. Either way, aggregating data from people that actually play the games is really important these days.

[ElkinFencer10]

Seriously, Nintendo made a name for itself BECAUSE of quality control. Why have they completely abandoned that?

You mean the excessive quality control that pissed off many of the most important third party devs, causing them to favor the likes of Sony, leading to criticism over the loss of games or even whole genres on Nintendo consoles? The same control that heavily censored numerous games and forced developers to create shell companies to allow for more releases? The control that throttled production by effectively giving Nintendo a monopoly on the production of their game cartridges until even US congressional representatives suggested federal investigations regarding antitrust laws?

Yeah, I'm sure they'll get right on that.

I didn't say it was perfect, but I'll take totalitarian quality control over no quality control. Indie games are reaching 1982 Atari level of shit.

[LensOfTruth]

I think I'm beginning to understand. The rapidly-growing PC and Mobile spaces made console gaming seem less relevant, so Triple-A was the way to differentiate.

Before this topic, I didn't see why games couldn't be like the HD Remasters -- Not that much better in terms of graphical quality, and, therefore, less costly to make. Not to mention more game-like and fun.


Digital is a big concern, though. Not just the "Digital Only" factor, but the way developers can change content too. Bionic Commando Rearmed had its difficulty and a few levels radically butchered. It's scary to think the game you enjoy may not always stay the same.


Indie's are great. Without an indie scene, we wouldn't have Cave Story. Not all indie releases are that level of quality. Hype Trains and fads that flood Steam User Reviews hurt the system that should be earning the trust of the consumer. Beyond that is the fact that most indies are indies because they're inexperienced. I still don't know where the big names in the industry went after all the big developers consolidated for the Triple-A setup. The ones we do know of are the result of crowdfunding projects, like Mighty No. 9, Bloodstained, and NightCry.

Indie's are great, but indie's are indie's. To me, their quality levels don't replace the Single-A/B/C games from the big Japanese developers. Decades of game design experience just seemed to vanish, and that's not easy to replace. That's how I see it, anyway.

[chuckster]

Most things are bad or mediocre generally, that's why good things are considered good, after all.

Indie games are bad on average, but then again I feel that AAA games are generally pretty stale too, and I mean in their gameplay and story lines, not even considering crippling bugs. I'd say for indie vs big studio games, the absolute number of good quality titles have fallen in favor of the indies for the last few years, even if the percentage makes them look bad (think metacritic).

Furthermore, I can understand buggy, unbalanced, or story-lite games when you and 5 other guys made it on your days off from Target, but when a game is developed by a team of 200+ people (who are forced to work long hours for marginal pay, with little hope of outliving a project before being laid off) and a budget of tens of millions, I do expect to be able to have a complete, enjoyable experience. If there are minor glitches or bugs I understand, but when you look at what happened with the Master Chief Collection, AC: Unity, and Arkham Knight, it really brings questions like "was there any playtesting at all?" and "How did this make it pass QA?"

Some may feel this is entitlement, saying "This game should be this or that for MY money," but I just look at it as a company doing a bad job, and if you look into it you can tell whether or not you will like a game, so the decision of buying is on you (and you can always return it, right?). Vote with your wallet.

I'm not going to throw off on CoD. I don't like those games, but they're not bad per se, just stagnant and shallow (to me). For those that go in knowing what they want, they're great. Same with Battlefield or Street Fighter or Far Cry or GTA, even if you don't like the games, plenty do. If they were broken or not appealing, they would be dropped.

This isn't a modern phenomenon really, if you've ever blindly dove into any console library though, you know the crap far outweighs the cream. It's just higher profile because fewer and fewer games are being made for console, because of higher and higher costs. This makes every big AAA game you don't care for seem like a much bigger opportunity cost (how many Dark Souls or Alien: Isolations could have been made if stupid ole' CoD would have skipped a year?).

The PC is a different beast, but now that the gaming world has turned into an "industry", I don't see small-team, low-budget experimentation making a comeback any time soon except for mobile and PC indie games. That is unless there's a major collapse like we saw back in the 80's, where there was a total teardown-rebuild paradigm shift.

[Exhuminator]

In fact, there are only slighty more games being made right now than during the late 80s

No way that's true. Just looking at the rate of indie PC and iOS/Android mobile releases alone right now dwarfs that time period.

I also don't think you have to "shift through" any number of games unless you are window shopping. And at that point...well, I don't think it matters, does it?

So you think it's frivolous for someone to attempt to browse huge libraries of games trying to find the couple of gems worth buying?

That is unless there's a major collapse like we saw back in the 80's, where there was a total teardown-rebuild paradigm shift.

This day is coming for the indie scene.

[ElkinFencer10]

That is unless there's a major collapse like we saw back in the 80's, where there was a total teardown-rebuild paradigm shift.

This day is coming for the indie scene.

As much as I love me some indie games, I hope that day hurries the fuck up. Indie games are like anti-biotics; they're fantastic, but when you oversaturate all of existence with them, they end up creating a bigger problem than they tried to fix.