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This only gave grief

3 (6.1%)

Grakelin is not stupid

6 (12.2%)

Are you happier now?

1 (2%)

------ Haiku, the encore -----

17 (34.7%)

Disagreeing, Fine

0 (0%)

Why you make a fuzz 'bout it?

3 (6.1%)

Lets just be happy

19 (38.8%)

Total Members Voted: 48

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

And you're not repeating the same drivel?

You said Episode 2 was consolized (To indie gamers what "terrorist" is to Republicans) because the combine gave their close combat troops markings to designate them as such.  I was dumbfounded when I saw you do that.  More importantly, you bring this stuff up constantly, on every video game thread that could possibly warrant it.

Moreover, I never said anything resembling what you just said, even on a deliberately exaggerated basis.  I play Dwarf Fortress too, remember?  I like complex games, and I'm bothered by excessive streamlining (Automaps, minimal aim assist on controllers, and the like are not excessive.  Quest-pointers in games like Oblivion, however, are).  What bothers me even more is when people declare a blood vendetta against all things modern, and nitpick the most insane things as examples of game makers trying to sell to a larger market (Which is hardly a bad thing, and it's where the elitist vibe comes from)

You're assuming that anyone who doesn't exactly like something you do is some sort of psycho who thinks video games are a secret club.  You don't pay attention to what people are actually saying, only what your assumptions tell you based on some vague general impression.  Then you repeat your secret club line.

Firstly, Ioric, why are you being so antagonistic to Cthulhu? He's being civil, and I don't think it's unreasonable for you to reciprocate that civility.

Also, for the game industry to become something that produces things more experimental and doesn't need to risk fortunes to deviate from the norm is to become very consumer-based during production.

Now, what I mean by this is that things like demos need to become MUCH more common, and that they be made readily available to potential consumers as easily and cheaply as possible.

Now, what I fully mean is: when an idea is made, small prototypes and demos can be made, and these can be made available to the general public, and data can be collected by the bigwigs financing the production of these, and they can decide more reliably whether a certain idea is worthwhile to produce wholly. I think that if a system like that were set up, then more experimental and unique games could be produced more often.

Now, the way things are now, consumers are forced to either pirate, or if they want to vehemently stick to the law and buy games, then they have to rely on the few reviews that are online or the rare demos before shelling out ludicrous lumps of cash to buy a game, which I think is very harmful to the consumer side, and helps to rationalize pirating.

I'm being no more antagonistic towards him than he is towards every single person who hasn't agreed with his general outlook and has been labeled (by him)as an elitist lunatic who thinks gaming is a "secret club" that only certain special people should be allowed to have access to.  I was only trying to show him just how ridiculous that is by taking a similar stance for the opposite side.

A lot of what you're saying is a lot like how it used to be before it became an industry.

[Virtz]

Firstly, Ioric, why are you being so antagonistic to Cthulhu? He's being civil, and I don't think it's unreasonable for you to reciprocate that civility.

Calling people elitists and then saying "if it pisses you off, it's because you disagree" is now civil, lol.

[Aqizzar]

Firstly, Ioric, why are you being so antagonistic to Cthulhu? He's being civil, and I don't think it's unreasonable for you to reciprocate that civility.

Calling people elitists and then saying "if it pisses you off, it's because you disagree" is now civil, lol.

Compared to Ioric repeating "you're not reading what I'm saying and spouting nonsense" with every post?  Yeah, he is being civil.

A lot of what you're saying is a lot like how it used to be before it became an industry.

Newsflash buddy, it's been an "industry" since about 1982.  The problem is your tastes refining down, and you're begrudging people who don't like the games you do because they move the market away from what you like.  There was no big meeting at E3 one year to say "hey, from now on, we're only going to make games for stupid people".  There have always been crap games, and the focus of game development as a whole has always been to approachability and appeal to a interest of some size, because making a product for a tiny audience is a good way to tank.

You want people to make good games that have no way of returning the cost of development?  That's what "indie" gaming is.  That's why you're here remember?

As long as I'm dropping in, I'd like to say that the "vote" itself is pretty indicative of the egotism in this thread.  I voted for Load Times because loading pisses me off.  It's also the only one of the "problems" listed that's even a definable issue, let alone a technical problem.

[dragnar]

While I don't like the direction the gaming industry is going now, I am also very hopeful for the next decade or so. At this point better consoles will make less and less difference, and developers won't be able to get away with releasing bigger shiny versions of old games. I don't really care who they try to sell to, the problem is how they are selling them: Marketing and graphics, instead of making something with gameplay that speaks for itself. What I would prefer would be a massive, huge-budget game with all that money going toward developing the gameplay. Toady has made DF alone, with very little budget and it's still better than almost all of the big blockbuster games released recently. Think what a large company could do if they re-prioritized their spending a bit.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

Firstly, Ioric, why are you being so antagonistic to Cthulhu? He's being civil, and I don't think it's unreasonable for you to reciprocate that civility.

Calling people elitists and then saying "if it pisses you off, it's because you disagree" is now civil, lol.

Compared to Ioric repeating "you're not reading what I'm saying and spouting nonsense" with every post?  Yeah, he is being civil.

A lot of what you're saying is a lot like how it used to be before it became an industry.

Newsflash buddy, it's been an "industry" since about 1982.  The problem is your tastes refining down, and you're begrudging people who don't like the games you do because they move the market away from what you like.  There was no big meeting at E3 one year to say "hey, from now on, we're only going to make games for stupid people".  There have always been crap games, and the focus of game development as a whole has always been to approachability and appeal to a interest of some size, because making a product for a tiny audience is a good way to tank.

You want people to make good games that have no way of returning the cost of development?  That's what "indie" gaming is.  That's why you're here remember?

As long as I'm dropping in, I'd like to say that the "vote" itself is pretty indicative of the egotism in this thread.  I voted for Load Times because loading pisses me off.  It's also the only one of the "problems" listed that's even a definable issue, let alone a technical problem.

Sure...  Making pointless insulting sarcastic comments about everyone who doesn't share your views is a lot more polite than pointing out that someone is making pointless insulting sarcastic comments about everyone who disagrees with them.

And you, just like Cthulhu, are making up all sorts of crazy things you seem to think people who disagree with you believe.  Now I think that a bunch of corporations got together at E3 to decide to screw me over?  Cool, I can't wait for you to tell me what crazy conspiracy theory I believe next!

Video game development has become increasingly more about making a product to sell rather than making games to be played.  It wasn't like this as much before as it is now.  It's not binary.  There are multiple levels to this.  It's not just last year things were perfect, and this year they suck.  It's a progression.  Games are becoming simpler and less creative.  Like they're devolving back to an earlier state, but with shiny graphics.  Why is that a good thing?

[Sensei]

I voted for Load Times because loading pisses me off.  It's also the only one of the "problems" listed that's even a definable issue, let alone a technical problem.

That's kind of funny- I've always remembered long load times as a thing older games were prone to. To the most extreme, waiting five minutes after switching discs. What newer games are you having loading bothers with?

[Aqizzar]

I voted for Load Times because loading pisses me off.  It's also the only one of the "problems" listed that's even a definable issue, let alone a technical problem.

That's kind of funny- I've always remembered long load times as a thing older games were prone to. To the most extreme, waiting five minutes after switching discs. What newer games are you having loading bothers with?

Console games are the problem here, but I don't blame developers so much for this.  It's mostly just the limitations of laser-disc reading technology.  We can fit more information on DVDs than ever on CDs sure, but actually reading that information hasn't gotten much faster.  There are ways to get around this with fancy game design, and I'm not a fan of loading the textures while the game is in progress, but I'm no expert on the subject.

On PCs and the more expensive consoles (which more than ever are just gaming-dedicated PCs with proprietary hardware), loading times are gotten around with hard-installation.  The problem there is the rapidly exploding content size and installation times.  Medieval Total War for instance is 12 gigs, with another gig or two for each expansion, takes the better part of an afternoon to install (and obviously requires a DVD reader to do so), and for all that doesn't look much nicer than 3D RTSs ever have going back Warzone 2100.

Video game development has become increasingly more about making a product to sell rather than making games to be played.  It wasn't like this as much before as it is now.  It's not binary.  There are multiple levels to this.  It's not just last year things were perfect, and this year they suck.  It's a progression.  Games are becoming simpler and less creative.  Like they're devolving back to an earlier state, but with shiny graphics.  Why is that a good thing?

You know, you'd save yourself a lot of arguments if once, just once you actually pointed to some concrete examples.  When exactly was this magical time when game companies, which have always been game companies and always been the prime producers of games, favor design elegance first and market appeal second?  When was the big change over between gaming for gamers and gaming for tards?  What games can you tell me of demonstrate a clear decline in gameplay quality overtime compared to production values, made by the same producers?  What are your actual, definable metrics for complexity versus simplicity, or creativity versus the lack thereof?

I have no doubt you can do so.  I have no doubt a case can be made.  It's way you just argue on, endlessly repeating the exact same insults and falling-sky whinging about quality, without ever once actually explaining what it is you want, and what it is you're worried about.  Just the same empty generalizations over and over.

Also, you'd do well to stop defending your radical insults and oversimplifications as "matching the tone" or whatever and then ignoring the same when it's sent to you.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

As I just said in my last post there isn't an exact specific time when things suddenly switched.  It's been a gradual process over the years.

If you want a good example of the process look at Bethesda.  Specifically the elder scrolls series.  Arena was fairly simple and primitive.  Daggerfall improved upon everything, but because of it's ambitiousness wasn't very stable.  Morrowind was simpler but more stable, and then Oblivion went all out with presentation and accessibility over depth, actually rewriting the lore into something more generic for the express purpose of making it more generic, and removing major features purely to cater to the console market.

C&C is another good example from what I've heard of the recent games, and it's not even just gameplay. I mean Red Alert 1 actually took itself seriously.  Now look at Tanya the bleached blond bimbo.

[Aqizzar]

Well, I hope we can maintain some civil discussion then over specifics.  Not that I plan to argue about specific games much.  Like everything else in this conversation, it all eventually comes back to taste, but I'll disagree with you on a couple.

C&C is another good example from what I've heard of the recent games, and it's not even just gameplay. I mean Red Alert 1 actually took itself seriously.  Now look at Tanya the bleached blond bimbo.

I don't know where you're getting that idea.  The original C&C and Red Alert were action-movie all the way too, Tanya included.  Only her hair color changed, and it all got a little more obvious, especially with that Commando game.  But having played all the C&C's over time, I don't see them declining in complexity at all.  I think they've stayed the same, or even got tighter and more rounded if anything.  In the early games, infantry were all but useless and factory spam was the deciding factor.  Turning infantry into squads instead of individual dudes was something I wished for while playing Red Alert, because it removed a lot of unnecessary micromanagement but still worked out the same in gameplay.

Where C&C has had problems, I believe, is going overboard on the lessons from Starcraft, like the RTS field as a whole has done.  Partly it's the rock-paper-scissors unit relationships that all too often are blown out of proportion, although C&C has stayed varied enough in it's unit designs.  The other is the ever increasing speed and Korean-reflexes needed to survive, especially in mutliplayer.  But I think that's more than just an evolution of the market.  When C&C began, computers just couldn't handle "fast" gameplay like that, and multiplayer barely existed, so the focus was on single-player experience out of necessity.

Daggerfall improved upon everything, but because of it's ambitiousness wasn't very stable.  Morrowind was simpler but more stable,

I fail to see how Morrowind was in any way more simple than Daggerfall.  It had everything Daggerfall had, and a lot more functionality.  More spell making, more meaningful (if nowhere near enough) factions and quests, actual area and quest design instead of leaving everything to random generation.  And lets not forget the best and most important part of Morrowind, the editor.  I think that's a great sign of investing faith in your customers' use of your product.

Oblivion was a trainwreck, I won't dispute, and even Fallout 3 was a step backward from Morrowind, but for a different reason.

I'm surprised that the vote doesn't have an option for my real gripe with modern gaming - downloadable content, and the razor-and-blades model.  I get and appreciate the theory, it's no different than expansion packs or even sequels.  But the way it's gone from being a chance to expand on a successful product, to a way of optionally buying part of the same game, just pisses me off.  Just look at Day One downloadables; clearly a completed product exists and is ready to ship, but you have to pay more to get all of it.

In a way, I'm proving the speciousness of this entire argument.  That's the exact same business model that cars, appliances, homes, and God knows how many other industries have always operated on, to excellent business effect.  I'm just pissed off that it's being applied to an industry that long spoiled me to getting a complete product options for one price at the door, because the infrastructure to run the videogaming business any other way didn't exist.  It's not that there's really anything wrong with the DLC model (except the pricing can get pretty outrageous, and it encourages the "Day One Patch" problem of rushed releasing), I'm just upset about things changing without my say-so.

[Soulwynd]

Software production comes with the same problem of any media dependent production. While you can easily put a price on something physical, pricing something that can be copied with little to no expense (ie, movies/music/software/comedy/etc/etc) is a bit more difficult. They are at whim to us but they don't really seem to realize it anymore.

On a practical example. You can say a game cost the publisher $10M to produce. Sold at $50 bucks and considering the reseller profit is probably around 10%, they need to sell at least 222k units to cover their expenses. The problem is, they want to stay in the market, so they actually need to make $20M in return at least, so they can invest in the next game. So they gotta sell 444k units for a $10M game. Anything beyond that is profit. If they don't cross the line between 222 and 444 units, they will probably be stuck with a lower budget game next time around. So, a $10M game that sold 0.5M copies made them $2.5M profit.

Now, the problem is, ubisoft, for example, goes and say a ps3/pc/xbox game nowadays costs them like $30M. At 50 bucks they really want to sell something around 1.5 million units to at least keep in business. Reason why they milk DLC, resale (with drm to make it difficult), blame pirates, yell at reviewers, buy said reviewers, and so on.

Next thing they do is blame pirates, as if they were hurting the market. But nope, the problem is, like someone pointed out, they want to wag the dog due to their production costs. They gotta re-realize that media dependent products were and still are pretty much donation-ware.

Mister Bard sets up a stage, costs him 30 millions and then he expects at least 1.5 million people to show up no matter what and when they don't, he blames everyone else but himself, saying his show is great and that the next one will bring even more people, being a greater show! He also gets mad when someone listens to a record of one of his songs, but wont go to his show. "It's a good song, but Mister Bard, you're not a great performer and I really can't go watch you right now. But you know, I might go to this show later when I can or watch your next one." Then he goes and calls his fan a flamboyant high-sea crew-member, losing a fan, instead of rethinking his methods and actually get people to come to his show.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

What I don't get is why otherwise seemingly intelligent consumers are so happy to be ripped off by gigantic corporations who make games they don't even like that much.  It just goes against all reason I can think of.  It's certainly not motivated by self interest, they're actively helping companies rip them off.  It's not motivated by any common morality.  The corps don't give a crap about them and sometimes even their own employees.  EA regularly fires entire dev teams before the game they're working on is even finished and buys up and destroys every smaller dev it can get it's hands on.  Ubisoft has ridiculously invasive DRM and constantly disapoints, and Activision is run by an unrepentant asshole who constantly talks about how he's going to screw us over next.  So what is it that makes people who seem to understand they're being ripped off so desperately defend the industry?

[Aqizzar]

What I don't get is why otherwise seemingly intelligent consumers are so happy to be ripped off by gigantic corporations who make games they don't even like that much.  It just goes against all reason I can think of.  ...  So what is it that makes people who seem to understand they're being ripped off so desperately defend the industry?

This is the kind of thing where I have to ask, what the Hell are you talking about?  Because I really have no idea.  A company makes a product and sells it for profit.  People want that product and buy it.  What about that seems strange to you?

Where are see people go out of there way to buy things they don't like?  No, that doesn't make any sense, which is why it doesn't happen.  Everyone buys stuff they regret later, because they didn't know what it would be like until they buy it.  What are you even asking for here?

I know there's plenty of recrimination about insults, and really don't want to start them again, but it has to be said.  That entire paragraph was you shouting, "People buy games I think are dumb and keep the companies that make games I don't like in business.  Clearly they must be irrational idiots, because I think those games are dumb but they keep buying them.  Does not compute!"

Software production comes with the same problem of any media dependent production. While you can easily put a price on something physical, pricing something that can be copied with little to no expense (ie, movies/music/software/comedy/etc/etc) is a bit more difficult. They are at whim to us but they don't really seem to realize it anymore.

You preface your explanation with an empty call to solidarity in piracy, then explain the logic of basic market principles making a rather obvious defense of anti-piracy measures.  Good going.  I really not getting how you can understand companies needing to make sales to stay in business, and then begrudge them for trying to make people not get their product for free.  There's plenty of rational debate to be had over the efficacy and reasonableness of one method or another of ensuring companies get paid for their work, but you're approaching the question absolutely confident that piracy never equates lost sales, and that companies have no right to call it out or do anything about it.

[narskie]

I agree with you guys up to a point.  I think the reason for people's frustration is because the market is dysfunctional by Adam Smith's standards.  Like good ole Noam said, a capitalist economy is supposed to be based on informed consumers making rational choices, but our economy due to advertising is based on uninformed consumers making irrational choices.  We're misinformed by the advertising and also the graphics, which in a way in part of the advertising.  The hype and anticipation causes us to make the irrational choice of buying a product we actually know very little about.  The result is we lose our money to a not-so-good game and the corporation decides to spend more on advertising than product quality. 

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

Aqizzar: What I'm talking about is how you can just mindlessly defend the modern gaming industry despite your grievances with it, you seem to have a bigger problem with people who actually seem bothered by the problems you yourself have admitted to having.  And it's not just you.  I've met tons of people online who'll desperately defend the corporations they themselves admit are screwing them over.

[Aqizzar]

Then allow me to explain.  I am not defending anyone.  I am attacking the anti-industry arguments (specifically yours and Soulwynd's) as oversimplifications and specious quibbles of taste.  Whether or not major game-making companies are trending toward (what you would call) simpler gameplay or predatory business practices is irrelevant to the hollow and egocentric way you define your criticisms.  That is what I'm arguing about.

As for the piracy thing and my "defense" thereof: Welcome to the real world, where businesses exist to make money selling a product, and will take whatever measures they think are effective to do so that the law allows.  Sometimes they make bad decisions, sometimes they over- or under- react.  Whaddaya know, they're run by humans.  I'm not arguing in defense of anybody, I'm explain what things are and the way the situation works.  There is an objective reality to how the gaming-piracy (and software piracy in general) works.  So often, especially here, I see it described in a way that has very little to do with the real world, and the "solutions" proposed to the issue, when at all, are usually ridiculous.

I don't know why I subject myself to this, but I have an urgent need to set the facts straight and encourage, rudely if need be, rational observation and understanding of issues.  And hey, I can be as wrong as anyone.  But don't you dare try to conflate me with the nonspecific evils of your perceived adversaries.