Is gaming pioneered towards mainstream medium?

[Ryoso]

Without a shadow of a doubt, the level of innovation in the gaming industry has plummeted massively, to the point that the best selling games are generic war shooters that come out on a yearly basis. Companies like EA and Activision have become so big, that taking a risk is too much of a risk. I was not expecting EA to announce Mirror's Edge using the FrostBite Engine 3 as well as being an open world game. As happy as I am about it, it's obvious that this was a lucky break for ME fans. If they didn't show the amount of demand for a sequel, there is no way in hell that EA would let DICE create that game with the scale it's going to be on. The really innovative stuff now comes from the indie devs, the ones with a very limited budget to spend on a game, yet reach success to the highest order. Prime example? Minecraft. A game with graphics worse than the early games that came out of the N64, but has sold massively and is still being played frequently to this day. Indies have shown a lot of innovative ideas and try to separate themselves from the status quo, which has been rewarded in some way.

The most recent example of this is none other than Mighty No.9, a game from a Japanese company called Comcept. Many of the people involved with the project are former employees of Capcom a Japanese gaming company who molded many people (including myself) into the sort of gamer they are today, but only have 152 million in the bank. The thing with the Japanese industry right now is that they've been putting games with massive potential on mobile devices, which could very well be realised at a much larger scale on consoles or even handhelds. Keiji Inafune separated himself from that and is now putting Mighty No.9 on basically everything apart from smartphones and did it all through a Kickstarter.

More than ever, the main investment that most
publishers are making for their games are good
graphics and while I do like good graphics, they do not matter as much as gameplay by any means. Now with some companies, we get both, but from others, it's about making a game look pretty but play like a bumpy road. A huge focus on graphics has also killed a lot of studios off the generation (I think about 150 notable studios this gen). Example: Team Bondi. They succeeded in making a huge world with amazing detail and mocap, but the end result cost them their studio. I like my good textures. I like my good animations. But I'm not gonna cry if I can't see the nose hairs on a character model. While most console gamers have this mentality, the mainstream media will judge a game completely off of it's graphics.

The hype machine annoys me to no end. GTA5 is an example of a game that has such as huge hype
machine behind it. We didn't even see any gameplay for the first 2 years and that game was probably the most anticipated for the gen. It was a well crafted game, but the hype machine made it seem so much better than it actually was. Also, as for whether the industry is going to crash... well that's for you to decide. Personally, I think that the industry is too big to crash. I can see company after company failing and becoming the next Konami's but not a full on gaming crash.

[MiTT3NZ]

Isn't it crazy that corporations want to make huge profits? I mean, what are they? Capitalists?

[St. Elmo's Fire]

Also, games are complicated and take a lot of time to make now, which means they cost a lot to produce (most of the time), so they'll be more interested in taking a safe path to guarantee a return on the large investment too...

[MiTT3NZ]

I wouldn't even call it a safe path. Gamers typically moan when too much is changed, they moan when shit's too similar, and they're always askin for sequels. Then when companies give em what they want on a regular basis, they get moaned at and accused of "ruining the industry".

If you go to a hot dog van n ask for a hot dog, is gettin a hot dog playin it safe? Is it bollocks. If I asked for a hot dog n ended up gettin some experimental dish with diced sausage, breadcrumbs, a leaf of lettuce n tomato sauce squirted in the shape of a question mark I'd squirt chilli sauce in his exhaust pipe so it burns his nob off when he gets home n starts shaggin it.

[St. Elmo's Fire]

Well yeah. If we're talking about sequels and re-launching of franchises, which is closest to your "Asking for a hot dog" analogy. If the market wants FPSs and racing games, then that's what they'll make.

I was meaning the expense of "trying something different" will be high enough that it's a less-taken risk than it used to be back in the days when "they" say that "gaming was for gamers".

Anyway, hasn't the sequel thing always had so called "serious gamers" complaining? It's not like the gaming industry could be any different anyway, since pretty much every other major market is run the same way nowadays...

[Ryoso]

The mainstream media is without a doubt the bane of any medium. Gaming gets it worse for some reason. The media leads people to believe that gaming makes people violent, even though the game has a freaking rating on the front cover, gaming is the first thing that peoply jump on. I've also heard people on N4G say that photo- realism in graphics will make the mainstream take gaming more seriously. Gaming would be blamed and labelled even more for different things. Plus,
game development costs would not be sustainable. But then again, it's what the mainstream bros want, so devs have been focusing on GRFX GRFX GRFX! PC elitists certainly aren't helping with the situation, yet they say indies are now the future. Games that can have 8-bit graphics. Next thing you know, they're bashing consoles for not destroying 1080p and running BF4 at ultra settings, even though it terms of gaming, consoles are the main source of revenue for publishers.

[Henry Spencer]

Of course it is. That's why we had to Kickstart Shenmue 3 and Yakuza 5 (and 0) had to be demanded through petitions/fans asking for it. Still plenty of good stuff coming out this year, so I ain't complaining. Honestly it was far worse a few years back for this than they are now, imo.

[AnimeGamer183]

The gaming industry sold out last gen, and took many steps back, and had to do what it had to do to survive, we had bad consoles, that werent easy to develop on and had shady hardware so devs had to become "creative" to make other profits on the side, also demographics and demand changed last gen from the previous gen. Luckily now we have much better hardware this time around and have taken a couple steps back forward, but by no means has made up for the digression from last gen. There are glimmers of hope here and there, but gaming will probably never be the same as it was before the PS3/360 era when devs were pouring their heart and souls into projects to make legitimately good games instead of making games that will sell well. Money has ruined gaming.

[St. Elmo's Fire]

WE change just as much as industries do. Of course everything was new and exciting aged 12-say 20-ish? Then we get past that and the awareness of the stark realities of life hit us, and nothing is ever as good as it was when you were 12-20-ish?
Called nostalgia. It doesn't mean everything since then has been shite, it's just we don't really appreciate it as much. In fact since they actually want them to sell in a tough and crowded market, there are far less "shite" games now (as in really badly gameplay wise) than there were back in our nostalgic years...

[St. Elmo's Fire]

Oh dear, looks like the topic creator got banned. Was Henry Spencer or Peter in a bad mood again?

[AnimeGamer183]

Wonder who it was? I would assume it was an already banned member trying to sneak in through the back door again.

[St. Elmo's Fire]

We seem to see lots of people secret-policed away now!

[Mr357]

We seem to see lots of people secret-policed away now!

Kristallnacht is coming. Prepare yourselves.

[goaliefrk]

Don't forget that some people simply do not have as much time now that they're older to invest in the deeper aspects of games. They sometimes more want the immediate style gratification of COD-like games. A game where you can pick up anytime and "shoot off some steam," so to speak.

[Raithos]

lol I had a feeling this was someone already banned before after the first post.