Are we setting our standarts too high?

[Imbechile]

snip

Hell no! Our standards are quite low. Because of that gaming is shit these days.

 

[Strife17O7]

I..think I mostly just play what I like. Granted I don't always think outside a sort of box as much as I used to these days, but I think that's mostly because my wallet's a lot thinner than it used to be for this sort of thing than in past ages. So...yes, I've been more selective...but only out of necessity. Not because of any particular disrespect for the smaller release. /:> Besides, there are a number of games in the past that are derided into the ground, but I still enjoy from time to time. (Perfect Dark:Zero, Over-G Fighters, etc.)

 

[somonels]

No.
For $50? I expect quality in multiple areas, including some originality. Your game does not have that? Lower the price.

 

[senordesol]

I don't think standards have been set too high, I think the focus for devs is off.

I played Chrono Trigger for the first time when I was in college (for perspective, CoD4 and ES:IV:Oblivion also came out while I was in college) and I loved every second of it. The sound was jarring at first, but I got over it. The battles were fantastic, the story was interesting, and the characters felt like dear friends. AND IT JUST KEPT GOING. After the battle with Magus, I thought 'Oh, OK that was a pretty good game; guess we're done now.' NOPE! There's another 40 hours on this roller coaster, my friend.

The point is that our standards are LOWER now, not higher. Sure, we demand the prettiest graphics now and perfectly balanced multiplayer, as well as realistic scripts and mocap -all of which takes years worth of development. But for a campaign to be as long as CoD4's or MW2's or Homefront's or Medal of Honor's or Dragon Age 2's would have been an INSULT just 10 years ago.

And the thing was: developers weren't afraid to try new concepts and then refine them to the point where they actually worked. I can't help but get the feeling that, while we're still getting very high polish games, we're lacking in high *quality* games.

We're due for a gaming renaissance. When smaller developers, in an effort to get someone to notice them, create titles that take risks and pay off in ways we never new games could.

 

[BRex21]

Just because something isn't universally popular does not make it a failure, it depends so much on personal taste you probably won't find anything universally accepted as good. Quite frankly i think that the quest for universal popularity is what is holding the medium back. Firefly was not popular outside of its niche audience yet you will find very few people here who wouldn't praise it, why? Because we were the target market. If game manufacturers focused on there targets and said to hell with the people we aren't trying to reach we would see much better more focused efforts, but instead manufacturers look at what made money in the past and try to clone it with better graphics and whatnot in some sort of lame plot to make money.
I think if we raised our standards people would either need to focus on their target market or find ways to make games better and more universal, however, so long as the things im finding are fun, i don't really care.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

High standards need to be maintained, or the entertainment industry will be ruined.

There's a reason the crash of '83 happened.

 

[random_bars]

What? Our standards are utterly incredibly low. When was the last time a game was released that:

- didn't directly rip off another game's mechanics
- was made with the intent to do something new, to tread where no game has trodden before in at least some aspect or other
- was well designed and structured
- had a variety in its locales and gameplay and visuals
- was well written, with lots of interesting characters and dialogue
- took its concepts just as far as they needed to go and then stopped, ending the game when all that could have been explored was explored but before it started to get repetitive

I actually... Well, I'm not actually sure I can think of ANY games like that. I can think of several that did most of that, but within the last few years, there's maybe, one...? Two possibly...?

No, we are setting our standards way, way too low, and giving games huge amounts of credit for doing nothing more than being polished, which is extremely unimpressive considering any game can be polished if you throw enough money at it.

 

[the9trances]

How am I the first person after two pages to point out the irony of "setting our standarts too high" contains a hysterical misspelling?

 

[GarryIsTheHero]

Taking and idea from a game and re-vamping it too make in work in your game is a great idea, but it happens to often! Game companies have become lazy, Bioware (who are my favorite company ironically) Use the same dialogue trees, combat systems, "good & evil" meter and general gameplay in most games, which is just plain lazy! But, I digress. I don't think peoples standards are too high I just don't think modern games have been meeting our expectations. I blame this on fans of mega popular franchises e.g CoD, WoW etc. If they release a new Cod for example, with minor game-play changes and short, crap single player campaign with the depth of a wall and just make the multiplayer good people will buy it! The games industry is supplying what the masses will buy, Which is a God Damn shame!

Sir i must say that just means you misunderstand how game development works. See that good/evil meter is not lazy its part of the engine bioware developed. Much like the source engine always having the same ammo counter and save system, the odyssey engine which bioware uses has things like this too, and it works for them. if you want every game to look dramatically different then release times would be much longer since you would also have to write new framework for said game. Which takes much much longer to do. This is why most games by the same company look the same and why most shooters now look alot like half-life, because engines are whatmake the entire game industry easier.

Edit:for reference, bioware is now using the eclipse engine which is similar to the odyssey engine since it was based upon improving the old one. Which is what they did for the engine for neverwinter nights 2 who's engines name i forget right now.

Yes, true I do know very little about game development, Ignorance is not always bliss lol. Thank you for clearing that up

 

[Lilani]

-snip-

I think SOME people have issues with unreasonable expectations, but I'm not so sure it's an epidemic. I mean, Valve releases gold all the time because they playtest the SHIT out of their games every step of the way, and they will not hesitate to completely overhaul any aspect of it up to the very last moment if that's what it takes. Not every developer has the resources to take those sorts of risks. Valve sort of has a "cost and time are no object" approach to games. That is why, at the last count I heard, they have never released a game at the first release date they set. Every one of them have gotten pushed back, for further development. It mostly has to do with how they are structured, and I think they have a very good rapport with their investors, who understand their goals and the lengths they will explore to achieve them.

So naturally, that level of dedication to the quality of the product can get rather addictive. Valve puts so much effort into details that players don't even notice. So when they play games that don't cater to those details, it can feel like something is missing. It's like getting used to Pixar movies and then watching Jimmy Neutron. The attention to detail is scaled down, simply because they have less time and money to hammer them out.

I think we should expect quality from our games, but the primary gauge of a game should be how enjoyable the sum of the experience is, not based on how pretty or detailed it is. Of course we should never excuse things like poor voice acting or flow-breaking bugs, but at the same time the bar should never be set at "perfect." That's just idiotic.

And as I said before, this isn't really an epidemic in the terms of the whole gaming community. There are an outspoken minority of those here on the Escapist forums ho have expressed they expect nothing less than perfection from major developers, but you only really see them around here because the Escapist community tends to attract "elitist" crowd and this is an open forum for them. As a whole, I think gamers tend to be rather easy to please.

Though I haven't played too many popular current gen games as of late, I have heard voice acting clips from a few (Dragon Age, in particular) that sound hilariously bad. And voice acting tends to be one of the main make-or-break points for my enjoyment of a game. I mean, how am I supposed to believe in this world if even its own denizens don't seem to be too sure about it? Yet Dragon Age's fanbase is quite vast and dedicated, and more or less give that issue a free pass. It's almost as though they feel they're betraying the game and the developer if they voice such grievances. Like they can't be a true fan of the game unless they wholly accept every aspect of it, bad or good.

 

[boyvirgo666]

Taking and idea from a game and re-vamping it too make in work in your game is a great idea, but it happens to often! Game companies have become lazy, Bioware (who are my favorite company ironically) Use the same dialogue trees, combat systems, "good & evil" meter and general gameplay in most games, which is just plain lazy! But, I digress. I don't think peoples standards are too high I just don't think modern games have been meeting our expectations. I blame this on fans of mega popular franchises e.g CoD, WoW etc. If they release a new Cod for example, with minor game-play changes and short, crap single player campaign with the depth of a wall and just make the multiplayer good people will buy it! The games industry is supplying what the masses will buy, Which is a God Damn shame!

Sir i must say that just means you misunderstand how game development works. See that good/evil meter is not lazy its part of the engine bioware developed. Much like the source engine always having the same ammo counter and save system, the odyssey engine which bioware uses has things like this too, and it works for them. if you want every game to look dramatically different then release times would be much longer since you would also have to write new framework for said game. Which takes much much longer to do. This is why most games by the same company look the same and why most shooters now look alot like half-life, because engines are whatmake the entire game industry easier.

Edit:for reference, bioware is now using the eclipse engine which is similar to the odyssey engine since it was based upon improving the old one. Which is what they did for the engine for neverwinter nights 2 who's engines name i forget right now.

Yes, true I do know very little about game development, Ignorance is not always bliss lol. Thank you for clearing that up

And thank you for taking that with grace, i realize i might have been abit rude in my phrasing. I know people dont like recycled art and game systems sometimes but my philosophy is 'If its not broke dont fix it'. I dont think there is a problem with reusing the morality system and all that but i do think more developers need to learn from mistakes. Like Developers who make single player insultingly short in favor of multiplayer. Which is not acceptable.

 

[Randomperson9999999]

people just expect every game to be a 10/10 when a 7 or 6/10 is still okay

 

[Zhukov]

You just come across as sore because everyone isn't in love with a game you like. If it's any consolation, the Escapist just put up a glowing review of Space Marine chock-full with praise.

And you really can't remember the last time people liked a game? I can. It was a few weeks ago. Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Granted, it wasn't liked by absolutely everyone, but that's kind of how subjective experience and the resulting opinions work, for better or for worse.

As for standards being too high... no. Sweet Jesus, no. This guy already summed up my feelings on the matter:

(To focus on something that specifically irks me) Have you seen some of the shit people label as good writing and/or storytelling in games?

People's standards definitely aren't too high, and its a problem.

Although, chances are, he's thinking of one of my favourite games/developers when he says that. But I agree nonetheless.

 

[DasDestroyer]

Our Art Stands are on the perfect height, thank you very much.

OT: For every person that likes something there are 10 people who hate it, and they are often more vocal.

 

[Rack]

Different people have different tastes. Collectively their standards will always be impossible.

 

[wolf thing]

high standers are good it forces the quality of work to improve, they should be higher, we should jude games more harsher in hope if making it better