4173 said:
What are your examples that games/film SHOULD be about message/sytle? The new MoH failing I suppose. You give some examples of good XBLA games, that shows games with a message/style can be successful, but not seeing the SHOULD.
It shows that not monetizing every single aspect of a game by recycling the same shit over and over CAN be successful and fun.
I recall a quote from a fellow gamer "Creativity isn't a profitless enterprise, it's simply a difficult one."
What we're seeing right now is the death of creative thought because why innovate when yesterday's product will make millions in profit? There's plenty of stupid sheep out there who will buy yesteryear's game as long as you tack on some new graphics or change the weapons up a bit.
I mean, what happened to just making a game that was meant to be fun? Why does it HAVE to include these massive bloom-lighting effects, regurgitated and homogenized elements?
Why do we HAVE to include those worthless quick-time-events in every action title now?
Why, because those distract from the fact that they copped out on the gameplay!
Check out FF13, a game that actively tries to involve the player as little as possible, while looking absolutely brilliant in design.
Are those XBLA games supposed to show that those sorts of games will make as much money as the status quo? I'm willing to concede they may make better games if they didn't worry about making money, but I don't see a reason they should. If MoH type failings continue to happen, then sure they should change their strategy, but that will still be about money.
Take a look at Activision and EA's approach.
They milk the shit out of franchises, to the point where they finally stop being viable (Guitar Hero's sales have tanked in recent years, primarily due to stagnation).
These people don't give two shits about the creativity or gameplay design as long as the profits meet expectation.
Want an example of this principle in action?
Exhibit A:
Hellgate London.
That game was shat out almost three years ago and almost exactly to the day today; it was a Halloween release strictly for marketing purposes.
Hellgate lasted maybe a year online and then collapsed.
Why did it fail so quickly? Because EA wanted that re-investment money NOW. They had to have that Halloween release, despite the game allegedly being on schedule but not ready for another 7 months at least.
But to EA, the game had become second-fiddle to their profits.
Nobody won out there; Flagship died out, and a cool game concept died with it.
Ok, how about a less-obtuse example.
Exhibit B:
Modern Warfare 2 and the Infinity Ward debacle.
You know, that little case where
THE GAME'S ENTIRE CORE DEVELOPMENT TEAM LEFT THE COMPANY, and it's very VERY strongly rumored to be because of money-royalty reasons.
I must say "rumored" because it is still officially in court, but there is no other logical explanation; the game turned record profits this time last year. What the Hell else can cause such a wild schism? These people should have been celebrating like they won the lottery!
Perhaps I should rephrase my statement to say that games shouldn't be ALL ABOUT the money, because no matter how you slice it, anything that is purely monetized tends to lose sight of what matters.
And yet, that is precisely what is happening today. These mega-games are shiny bling-shit.
They lack depth, but make up for it in convenience.
They lack interactivity, but make up for it with quick-time-events and cool kill animations.
They lack longevity, but make up for that in sequels and achievements.
Truly, I'm not trying to sound condescending or pretentious here, but I have fucking had it with these hyper-conservative, money-milking titles.
