Modern Games Industry: How'd We Get Here?

[marlowe221]

Yeah. I mean, it's great that we have the ability to fix bugs that slip through (I wish that was available for Lufia II back in the day, in that area that's corrupted right at the end), but it also allows for folks to be lazier about fixing things. When you know that carts are expensive to produce, you're going to put in that time to make sure things are working properly, because there's no do-overs unless you're a mega-seller like Nintendo.

I've said it, and I know others have said it, but the current consoles are basically midrange gaming PCs, with some of the same pitfalls as the PC space. The only real advantage is that the hardware is absolutely known, so devs can code for a particular configuration.

The thing is, known hardware doesn't always seem to help the consoles all that much. Look at how many games still come out a horrible mess! Microsoft still hasn't fixed the crash-inducing bugs in the Master Chief Collection on their own console...

I know that there are a lot of people who don't want to fool around with ini files and crap on a PC but at least you can try to fix some things yourself in the PC space with a little google-fu. On the consoles, you're just hosed.

[ElkinFencer10]

Patches and DLC are a perfect example of a great idea that causes more problems than it fixes. Patches have allowed, as Sarge mentioned, developers to get lazy and release unfinished games (Assassin's Creed Unity or Arkham Knight for PC, anyone?), and DLC has allowed developers to release half a story and expect us to pay anywhere from 30% to 100% of the price of the base game again in order to get the whole thing (Shadow of Mordor is a great example of this).

IMO Nintendo does both right by and large. I know I'm a bit of a Nintendo fanboy sometimes, but just hear me out. At least from my experience, Nintendo has never released a game that is straight up broken without patches. Their DLC, as shown in Mario Kart and Smash Brothers, isn't required for a complete experience but is a purely optional add-on that, in most cases, is either based in part on consumer feedback or takes it into account (Smash characters. They're by no means perfect - I'm not thrilled with the price of the Fire Emblem map pack or that Mario Kart was released with DLC already announced - but they're definitely the best about it.

[Sarge]

I think it helps more than you'd think. I see more problems with general PC releases just because hardware configurations are weird sometimes. I always have to do more troubleshooting on PC just to get things running, even if it's better than it used to be.

As for games being buggy messes, yeah, that happens a lot more. Usually they end up buggy messes on multiple platforms, though, and it's a result of either bad QA (or ignored QA to push the game out). Games have also become a lot more complex, so I'm not surprised to see more weird behavior pop up. I'm actually often surprised they're as stable as they are.

Now, there are exceptions, too, like Arkham Knight for PC. That was apparently rooted in problems with the company handling the port.

You're absolutely right, though, that being on PC gives a lot more options to actually fix the problem compared to more closed systems.

Oh, speaking of patches, there have been a few instances where Nintendo's had some bugs slip through (Skyward Sword and Other M), but there's no question they're a good example of doing it right.

[ElkinFencer10]

Oh, speaking of patches, there have been a few instances where Nintendo's had some bugs slip through (Skyward Sword and Other M), but there's no question they're a good example of doing it right.

I completely forgot about Skyward Sword's game-breaking bug. I think Pokemon X and Y had one, too, now that I think about it. I'm not familiar with one for Other M. Thanks for pointing those out.

[marlowe221]

The other thing Nintendo seems to do right is to manage costs better than a lot of other AAA developers seem to do.

Nintendo catches a lot of flak for not keeping up with the times, but I imagine that has enabled them to keep their development costs in check and keep required sales targets in the realm of reasonableness.

They may not have the fanciest graphics or super-duper voice acting but they also aren't selling millions of copies of game X and then calling it a failure either.

[Sarge]

It was definitely a weird condition, I think it had something to do with defeating Ridley but not going through a certain door, backtracking to a save point, then coming back to find the door permanently locked. (It's been a while since it came up, and thankfully it's not something I experienced.)

As far as Nintendo's being "behind the times", I still think their games look fantastic. I question how much a more powerful system would actually bring to Nintendo's aesthetic, anyway.

[ElkinFencer10]

It was definitely a weird condition, I think it had something to do with defeating Ridley but not going through a certain door, backtracking to a save point, then coming back to find the door permanently locked. (It's been a while since it came up, and thankfully it's not something I experienced.)

As far as Nintendo's being "behind the times", I still think their games look fantastic. I question how much a more powerful system would actually bring to Nintendo's aesthetic, anyway.

Nintendo doesn't go for photo-realism. There's a place for that, to be sure - I think Legend of Zelda and Metroid would benefit from as-realistic-as-possible graphics (at least, in Zelda's case, depending on the art style chosen), and I think Xenoblade Chroncles X DEFINITELY could have benefited from beefier hardware (though holy shit, the environments are beautiful). Generally, though, I totally agree. Nintendo's games don't have to be beautiful because, unlike most AAA titles these days, they're legitimate great games all around.

[Fragems]

What kills me is all these companies who spend millions on beefing up their games graphics and nabbing famous actors for characters roles then spending $5 on a shit flinging monkey to write the script.

[ElkinFencer10]

What kills me is all these companies who spend millions on beefing up their games graphics and nabbing famous actors for characters roles then spending $5 on a shit flinging monkey to write the script.

Like Destiny's $500 million budget? And how about its getting a sequel two years later?

[MrEco]

Also, when it comes to game preservation, digital is the ultimate solution in the long term. I love my original hardware in most cases. But I recognize that there will come a day when there is no longer a working NES or Genesis out there in the world. There will come a day when the cartridges no longer function. CDs and DVDs are very easy to damage and the systems that use/used them have more moving parts and seem to be even more prone to critical hardware failure than the older, cartridge-based consoles.

This is true. But the problem is there is no really good digital distribution platform that allows for both good preservation and ownership for the consumer currently in existence. Except maybe GOG-chan.

On consoles the life of your games is tied to how long your physical console lasts, and how long the online infrastructure stay's up. For example, at a certain point it will become unprofitable for Sony to keep up PSN support for PS3. When that happens, they'll stop updating it and eventually shut it down. Meaning any digital PS3 games you own but haven't downloaded yet will be locked out. You'll only be able to play the ones already downloaded, and then those ones will disappear when your console itself get's bricked over time.

On PC we have Steam, Origin, and UPlay. All three of those are store fronts masking DRM-locked game "licenses." Even though they advertise it as a purchase of a product, not a rental of a license, and should at least in theory be at risk of fraud, but that's a discussion for another time methinks. Point is, with all of those services you don't really own the games. They can be taken away at the behest of the game publisher, game developer, or whatever company runs the particular store front. Or they can just disappear if any of those companies decides "lol, we're losing money doing this because the other store is more popular, we're closing down now, kthnxbye." I wouldn't be surprised at all if EA did that to Origin in fact, they shut down online games all the time, why not their online store?

Then the big exception is GOG. Digital games tied to the service, but it's completely DRM free. So in theory, it could last forever (assuming that they never go out of business for any reason of course). But even then, again, the games are ultimately at the control of the publisher/developer. Games can be, and have been, removed from GOG due to copyright malarkey or business disagreements. It's the best option we have (I really do love GOG), but it's still not perfect.

Digital games potentially becoming the standard. Fuck, please no.

I hate it as much as anybody, but it's the inevitable future.

Yeah, you make a lot of good points and you're probably right. But I think it isn't necessarily "inevitable." And it has to do with this very part at the end of your post:

As it stands then, for average joe gamers (many more of them then there are of us) and greedy publishers, digital is win/win.

Yes, there are many more of them than us. But I think there might be enough of us that publishers may keep catering to the market of people who prefer to own physical copies of games. It's all a matter of how much they'd have to spend vs. how much they stand to make of course. So the digital market being bigger isn't enough to make them stop making physical games, if they can still make more money total by doing both. It would have to reach a point where they aren't making enough profit from physical games to even be worth paying to print the discs.



But whatever. In the end it might not even matter. Maybe I'm getting "old" (I'm 23, lol) and grumpy, but the general quality of video games seems to be dropping each year in my opinion. If that trend continues then by the time we reach an entirely digital game market I'll just stop playing modern games (aside from the occasional PC indie) and stop buying modern consoles.