Thoughts on innovation during the next console generation

[Forlorn Drifter]

FUUU- I keep losing this post because of power outage. I'm going to rewrite it this last time. NO MORE.

This thread passes over the fact a game has to prove itself before becoming a AAA title that sells. Look at all the big names in gaming currently. Bioshock, Mass Effect, God of War, etc. They had to prove they were good before they became universally accepted as good games. They had the content to sell, and they did. Many people were skeptical of Mass Effect, believing that Bioware wouldn't sell it, and that it would do poorly. Now, the series is sitting on its high horse, saying "Look at me now." Games still have to prove themselves.

Indie games? I'd love to buy them on disc, but think about it. To sell effectively, most would only cost somewhere in the 5-20 dollar range, and a game would just need to be especially good to be worth putting on a disc by itself. After buying packaging and burning discs, there isn't a lot left to make money on. They'd have to jack up the prices to a point where noone would buy them, leaving the companies high and dry. Compilation discs? If I only want one game on it out of six, I'm not going to buy it, and neither would most people. Downloadable titles allow the developer to gain the money they need to make the next game even better. Look at Behemoth games. Alien Hominid sold fairly well, but not nearly as if it had been a larger game. Castle Crahsers? Sold millions, and their next game looks as though it will only improve on sales.

Niche titles are larger in volume this gen, and selling fairly well. Look at shmups. Sure, their arent' many in the US, nor Europe. However, they still sell well, and more and more companies are considering localization. Hell, look at Catherine. Huuuge sales. I think a large part of this is the stronger communities of small sites, who spread news of these games through the interwebs and manage to even get COD dudebros interested. (It happens, trust me.)

Then, there's the titles that don't prove themselves. Look at Dark Void. Lots of potential, could have been a well selling game.... it got too rushed, and the loads of glitches that left it with no standing.

I know this isn't as well thought out as it should be, but I lost what I was typing ~4 times, so meh.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

I've been working all day, and I don't really have much to add, but I pretty much agree with dsh. There's plenty innovation and original stuff coming out right now. Just because not every single AAA release has it doesn't mean it's not there. I enjoy modern and retro gaming a lot. I think it's silly for somebody to try and say "X is better than Y" in this case.

To those that complain about the large amount of FPS games on the market, this sort of thing isn't new. In the early 90s it was platformers. In the PlayStation era it was all about 3D whatever. There will always be game fads that will come and go. It's just how the industry works.

[ATARI800XLfan]

To me it's just going to get worse and more over-saturated. I don't see the next generation being a great one.

I'll always be a gamer and keep up with the current stuff, but I haven't been happy at all with how many trends have popped up this generation, from "sequel fatigue" (going off our thread name for that), to DLC nickel and diming, the dying single player experience, Japanese developers really falling behind, etc, it goes on. I was never this grumpy during the PS2/GC/Xbox/Dreamcast era, even if it wasn't up to par with the N64/PSX to me.

I definitely can't see the next generation being that radical or anymore genuine than the current one. If there's any "innovations" to come, the 3DS and motion gaming are testaments that it'll just more than likely be more junky gimmicks.

The next line of consoles will also more than likely just be semi-PC's / social media hubs. This all might be convenient for some, but I'll miss the simplicity of slapping in a disc and getting into my game instantly. When an ad for the new Adam Sandler movie is on the front page of the 360 dashboard, you know things aren't heading in the right direction.

Fixed.

[Zing]

Googling out how much employees Naughty Dog had in 1996 and then finding out how many people it took to take Red Dead Redemption seems a bit redundant to me.

This is a good comment.

Graphics and programming tools these days are surely much more efficient than in 1996. Hell, in 1996, they wrote their own graphics and programming tools. Yet, they were able to produce Crash Bandicoot with exponentially fewer people. The production was significantly less efficient, with overnight compiling, hand tweaking of levels, rewriting of API subroutines, and reverse engineering of the hardware and API. Two years later, we get an absolutely amazing game.

It seems to require the same amount of time or more to create a new game (the industry would refer to this as a "new IP" these days). Why does it require so many more people and so much more money than 15 years ago? The tools are much more advanced. The target platforms are much more familiar (the Xbox 360 is literally an x86 PC).

What are all of these people doing?

[RyaNtheSlayA]

Googling out how much employees Naughty Dog had in 1996 and then finding out how many people it took to take Red Dead Redemption seems a bit redundant to me.

This is a good comment.

Graphics and programming tools these days are surely much more efficient than in 1996. Hell, in 1996, they wrote their own graphics and programming tools. Yet, they were able to produce Crash Bandicoot with exponentially fewer people. The production was significantly less efficient, with overnight compiling, hand tweaking of levels, rewriting of API subroutines, and reverse engineering of the hardware and API. Two years later, we get an absolutely amazing game.

It seems to require the same amount of time or more to create a new game (the industry would refer to this as a "new IP" these days). Why does it require so many more people and so much more money than 15 years ago? The tools are much more advanced. The target platforms are much more familiar (the Xbox 360 is literally an x86 PC).

What are all of these people doing?

For the record, the 360 is actually a PPC machine, not an x86 like the original. Very similar to the PowerMac G5s.

Games also have much more writing, are generally larger in scope and sometimes longer, and more refined.

Graphics in particular are extremely expensive. This is the reason nobody writes their own graphics system anymore and just license one (idTech, Unreal Engine etc.). Creating graphics of the quality we have today and doing it well isn't easy, even if you license an existing engine, and it is in fact the most expensive part of new games.

[o.pwuaioc]

Again, I'm not sure why you thing it's wrong for a person to say "X video games are better than Y video games".

Because X and Y are entire decades, and those kinds of claims can't be substantiated in any way that would even approach some level of consensus. "I prefer" is fine and defensible. "Are better" is neither.

Pointless thread is pointless.

What's pointless is the inability to accept subjectivity as a reasonable position. Why can't I say "are better"? If I were to add up every Xbox game I've played and every SNES game I've played, the top of the latter beat out the top of the former in my opinion.

There is no difference between "I prefer" and "I think are better". No one is trying to get consensus, and the harping about such is merely a red herring.

More to the point, that's not even what OP was asking, so calling it pointless is a strawman on top of that.

There has NEVER been a time in gaming history with a more profitable market for indie games.

There's also never been a time when there's been more gamers.

[dsheinem]

There is no difference between "I prefer" and "I think are better". No one is trying to get consensus

No argument from me here. My problem is when the "I think" isn't stated. It is an important qualifier. I have no problem at all with subjectivity. I think that the games of the 16-bit era are better than those of the VCS/Intellivision days, I think the PS3 has better exclusives than the 360, etc. The problem comes when people leave out that qualifier and/or fail to provide reasoning that something IS better.

More to the point, that's not even what OP was asking, so calling it pointless is a strawman on top of that.

That's somewhat fair, but as I indicated the discussion was reminiscent of the same one I've seen play out again and again about how retro games are somehow inherently better than modern games. There's no objective way to measure that, but multiple people have suggested otherwise in multiple threads.

[o.pwuaioc]

No argument from me here. My problem is when the "I think" isn't stated. It is an important qualifier. I have no problem at all with subjectivity. I think that the games of the 16-bit era are better than those of the VCS/Intellivision days, I think the PS3 has better exclusives than the 360, etc. The problem comes when people leave out that qualifier and/or fail to provide reasoning that something IS better.

Anytime someone says that anything is better, unless they mean it in a very specific context, the "I think" is always implied. Pizza is better than mashed potatoes. New York City is better than Orlando. Coke is better than Pepsi. These are all about personal tastes, and as such no one actually needs to state such.

If you want to call someone out on why, then by all means do so! Merely stating opinions, except to see generally to which people are inclined,

That's somewhat fair, but as I indicated the discussion was reminiscent of the same one I've seen play out again and again about how retro games are somehow inherently better than modern games. There's no objective way to measure that, but multiple people have suggested otherwise in multiple threads.

Is anyone really saying that it's objectively better? I mean, how can they? If someone prefers Halo-type first-person shooters, are NES games really better than Xbox ones for that person? Obviously when someone says that for this generation of games the video game industry (which really ought to be separated from indie almost by definition; cf. "the music industry" v. a local garage band) is stale, they mean that the most of the games which are most popular do not appeal to that person and are similar to each other. That's fair! They obviously don't like linear first-person shooters. It's not nostalgia when their taste dictates that the platforming fun of Mega Man 2 is more enjoyable than Modern Warfare 3. You might like that game immensely, but for those who don't, when the most popular games are similar to that, they get a sense that the industry is stale.

As an addendum, just because they think that SNES games as a whole are better than e.g. 360 or 2600 games doesn't mean that every SNES game is better than every 360 or 2600 game.

One final word: calling love for "retro" merely "nostalgia" is certainly inflammatory and is tantamount to trolling, since many here only later came to like retro games, and the majority of retro games I play now I never played when I was young. I'm not sure how me liking Robotron 2084 better than Modern Warfare can be pinned down to nostalgia since I actually played the latter game earlier and the former game later.

[dsheinem]

The 1990s...there was more room for innovation, risk taking, smaller game studios and so on.

PC gaming is dying.

do you think that the future of console games is becoming a bit more bleak as a result of 3 companies achieving permanent status quo?

I do not think that Nintendo can ride on that nostalgia gimmick forever.

truly awful games dont get released and officially sold anymore these days

games like Portal...those games arent really meant to compete with ”proper” games anymore.

all those generic shooter games that are flooding the market right now

All of those claims or implied claims in the OP were suggested as fact, not opinion, which is what made me get pissy at the outset. There is no "implied 'I think'" in any of this, especially since "I think" and other qualifiers were used in other sections of the posting. Those are all different than saying "Pizza is better than Mashed Potatoes" because they aren't just suggesting personal preference that can be substantiated.

One final word: calling love for "retro" merely "nostalgia" is certainly inflammatory and is tantamount to trolling, since many here only later came to like retro games, and the majority of retro games I play now I never played when I was young. I'm not sure how me liking Robotron 2084 better than Modern Warfare can be pinned down to nostalgia since I actually played the latter game earlier and the former game later.

I never said nostalgia was bad, just that it isn't in and of itself a tenable argument for something's inherent/objective value, which is how I have seen it deployed. It certainly stands as grounds for someone's personal opinion, and of course it isn't the ONLY reason that someone has to like retro games (or to argue for their value compared to recent games). FWIW, I have no nostalgia for most of the retro games I now play, either. I had no intention of being inflammatory in my use of the term.

[o.pwuaioc]

All of those claims or implied claims in the OP were suggested as fact, not opinion, which is what made me get pissy at the outset. There is no "implied 'I think'" in any of this, especially since "I think" and other qualifier were used in other sections of the posting.

So take him at his claims! If he says he doesn't like generation w for reasons x, y, and z, where x, y, and z are factually wrong, then he is misinformed and needs correction. But too often the phrase "that's subjective!" or "that's the nostalgia speaking!" is used to immediately shut down the opinions of those who truly don't find modern games to be that impressive...as a whole.