Making games more like DVDs

[aaron]

Games should also remain an elite pursuit. If they became as popular as movies there would be more money available to make new games, but that does not mean quality would rise. How many great, original games has EA made since its early days? They publish way more games now but the percentage of crap has risen. Games made for a small, dedicated audience are almost guaranteed to be great. I think that since 2D shooters fell out of the mainstream, almost every game made in that genre is awesome simply because the makers know they are creating something for a very particular kind of gamer.

If games reached the level of cultural relevance found in movies and pop music, I would be very sad. But, there would probably still be an underground of dedicated designers who don't care about mass appeal, making extremely difficult curtain-fire shooters...and I will be there playing them. And all the grandmas and celebrities can go play their shovelware and waggle-games.

can you tell me how you put together the flux capacitor for this post? i feel like we just went back to 2001.

[Doctor Fugue]

I may be an elitist, but it doesn't mean I must play unknown games, or only listen to local indie bands. Choosing something simply because no one else does is stupid, and I certainly don't do this. I choose whatever games or movies or music I please, no matter who makes them or who else enjoys them. I happen to love a lot of things that are enjoyed by lots of people. Being an elitist to me means that for some things I want to understand them at a level that only comes from life-long study, and to share that with other people that have similarly extreme specialization.

If I didn't feel strongly or care about the things I am devoted to, then I would be wasting my time. Then again, isn't this a retro gaming site? Aren't we all pursuing something a little unique? Not everyone in the world has the time or the desire to play older games, but we choose to do it because we enjoy it and we believe this is worthy of our time. Maybe I am too proud about my choices, but I also respect everyone's right to follow any pursuit.

Back on topic, I'm just saying that games or anything else becoming more mainstream is usually not a good thing since the developers will have to cater to the general public instead of the dedicated and more discerning few.

[Funk, E]

And...that's already happened. Hell, it's been that way since the medium BEGAN. What's changed, other than sales numbers? Certainly not demographics. I'm just really not sure what your argument IS. There's always going to be niche gaming, just as there's always going to be niche movies. The medium becoming more mainstream will, if anything, increase the amount and quality of indie and niche game studios.

[lordofduct]

yey, that way game prices and costs go further up making it even harder for newb to get in the market and leaving the game world to the 3 uncreative powerhouses and a small handfull of companies who release a quality title like every 5 years.

YIPPEEEEE!

/sarcasm

[Funk, E]

There's no precedent for that. In fact, with the newer delivery systems like Xbox Live Arcade and Steam it's even easier for the new indie company to get market exposure and saturation.

[lordofduct]

There's no precedent for that. In fact, with the newer delivery systems like Xbox Live Arcade and Steam it's even easier for the new indie company to get market exposure and saturation.

Have you even seen the hoops one has to jump through for those 2 markets?

Now my statement was actually more sarcastic. But really the ease to enter the market hasn't really gone up at all. It is very difficult unless you are making online popcap style games.

[Funk, E]

And again, that hasn't really changed, all that much. It's always been difficult to get wide retail distribution. But it's easier nowadays than it ever has been before.

[lordofduct]

And again, that hasn't really changed, all that much. It's always been difficult to get wide retail distribution. But it's easier nowadays than it ever has been before.

You said to different things there... "hasn't really changed"... "But it's easier".

I'm saying it isn't easier. It's roughly the same in amount of work to put together all the connection to get the licenses, notoriety, certifications and the sort to be published. BUT the costs in development have gone up immensely. Indie's are in a bigger ditch now a days if they want to break away from toybox cheap games.

it's kinda like the movie industry. Today you see more indie films getting released via some big time studio's indie branch. But the cost of making the film sky rockets in doing so as well. The Quality in indie films thusly goes up, but the Quantity dribbles down to nothing unless you go into the underground where it is more of an art of passion then a labor of art. And when I say quantity I mean the over all quantity goes down... you just see more in the theatres because they were released by said large big time studios. Gone is the day of the Silver Screen where I would go and watch a new indie project that popped up at least once a week. Compared to the live dramatic scene, I can go catch a new play any day of the month... yet I see two or three film festivals in my area a year.

Same kinda fits into the game world. Long gone is the handful of game devs hiding in their closet pumping out big games. They are left to Flash and other online distributable markets (XBLA and Steam excluded due to their near corporate standards).

It's never been easy to get mass distribution in stores. But now with increased costs, and high bars to leap over the indie developer is left doing it as an art of passion. (this is not a reference to the technologies at all... it is not that complicated to make a game if you know what the hell you are doing).

[edit]
some minor proof:
check out the SNES and Genesis and the MASS amounts of indie crap games that were spewed all over those machines like those stupid bible games and the sort. Then compare to the number of indie crap games released for the PS2 or XBOX and XBOX360. Nothing alike.

Higher expectations from a gamer means higher demands on the developer. Now I'm not saying we shouldn't have better games... we most definitely should. But come on now, my sarcastic remark about a trivial extension of games like "Making of Features" is just going the wrong direction. My point is why add this trite BS to a game when we could demand much more from the developers like a new freaking game that isn't some rehashed MMO or FPS.

[Ivo]

(...) games that end with the letter 'z' (wtf is next Crabz!?) (...)

That was funny. I was picturing in one of this Bratz games one of the Bratz getting Crabz somehow.

Ivo.