Diversity of Western Games (Looking past the Brown)

[Soviet Heavy]

Because they're all about uber macho men who run around grey environments wearing two tanks worth of armor plating while engaging in disgusting bromance and glorifying uber violence. Because there are no children fighting in the warzones, and because every time it's just a guy shooting things.

And all those RPGs, being so popular! Why can't I talk about my own games, because they'll just be drowned out by the popular RPGs that everyone talks about, with all their macho men in power armor shooting aliens. Just like those first person shooters I hate!

How come the western games market doesn't make anything colorful, like Ratchet and Clank (oh wait), or Viva Pinata (oh wait), or Psychonauts (oh wait), or Sam and Max (OH WAIT)? It's all just macho shit with ugly art that all sucks and none of it appeals to me!

..... sorry, with that out of the way, I want to talk about the variety of art styles and genres that are underrepresented in the Western Games market.

Platformers, from the likes of Naughty Dog and Insomniac are some great examples of less than realistic uber masculine games that are seen as the face of the western market. If I had to use one word to describe a Naughty Dog game, it would be colorful.

Spoiler

And none of these games are in the FPS genre.

Strategy games, another staple of the western market, are extremely colorful as well.

Spoiler

What am I getting at with this? Well, the top selling games are the FPS titles like Call of Duty or Battlefield, which give the impression that they represent the western market. But to get the good stuff, you need to look past the surface, just like how a lot of the more acclaimed eastern games can be found by looking past the likes of final fantasy when searching the jrpg genre.

And even within FPS titles themselves, there is a lot of color to go around. Bioshock, Crysis 2, Borderlands, FAR CRY. These all have very vibrant palettes, even when one of them is in the standard concrete jungle.

There is color everywhere, and to write off an entire market based on the appearances of the few compared to the many, well, it's just shallow.

Feel free to bring up some other genres or colorful games that you feel get looked over because of the derisive "it's all brown" argument. Why do you like these games? What about their art style and color choice works well?

 

[ChupathingyX]

You pretty much stole all of my favourite examples.

Except for the PC games I played when I was younger, such as...

Spoiler: Pajama Sam

 

[Grygor]

Feel free to bring up some other genres or colorful games that you feel get looked over because of the derisive "it's all brown" argument. Why do you like these games? What about their art style and color choice works well?

The way I see it, when someone says "it's all brown" what they really mean is "I'm an idiot".

For example, I read several reviews of Final Fight: Streetwise that criticized the game for starting you off in a brown environment (with the implication that there's nothing more to expect than more brown). The first area has a predominantly bluish-green color palette...

Never mind that, notwithstanding the fact that brown is one of the most common colors in the real world (in both natural and man-made environments), a google image search for "grey and brown shooter turns up practically no predominantly brown screenshots that aren't from Quake (the prototypical brown shooter) or a Gears of War or Killzone game.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

You pretty much stole all of my favourite examples.

Except for the PC games I played when I was younger, such as...

Spoiler: Pajama Sam

Spy Fox was obviously superior!

Spoiler

 

[endtherapture]

I honestly don't see how people just generalise modern games as uncolourful and brown and ugly.

Look at this example from the RPG genre:

Spoiler

Simply beautiful, it looks even better in motion.

 

[Nickolai77]

I don't think there is much of a problem with diversity in Western games. As in the OP, we see strategy games such as Shogun Total War and adventure games like Uncharted. All of which are major Western games.

I could probably count all the "brown" shooters on a single hand, but those few games do dominate the market because of their popularity. I think the simple reason for this is that FPS's work very well when it comes to multiplayer- the multiplayer on many FPS's is highly addictive and that's why people buy these games.

 

[Kotep]

Spoiler: Oh

Spoiler: I

Spoiler: think

Spoiler: Western

Spoiler: games

Spoiler: are

Spoiler: fine.

Seriously though, I don't think brown-and-bloom is all that egregious, especially now that it's becoming more and more discredited. Hell, even games born as the brownest of the bloomiest shooters (Resistance) are getting fairly colorful.

 

[dimensional]

All games have diversity dosent matter where they are from its just people like to generalise things it easy to say all western games are about shooting guns as a big burly macho man in a brown environment and all eastern games are about little kids swinging a sword in a colourful environment because thats the perception.

Its not true of course but the truth hardly matters to the masses who have harnessed the power of ignorance.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Spoiler: And on the other end of the spectrum, we have...

Still, black, white and red is at least somewhat unique.

 

[Pink Gregory]

I really don't know what people are expecting when they choose to play a 'realistic' military shooter (or whatever) and then complain about everything being brown. War isn't blue.

Frankly the only thing I can see being perhaps rightfully blamed for the 'brown explosion' (teehee!) is Gears of War, but that's just three games out of...how many?

 

[Soviet Heavy]

I really don't know what people are expecting when they choose to play a 'realistic' military shooter (or whatever) and then complain about everything being brown. War isn't blue.

Frankly the only thing I can see being perhaps rightfully blamed for the 'brown explosion' (teehee!) is Gears of War, but that's just three games out of...how many?

Not even three. While the first two are accountable for brownness, numbah 3 (da Cole Train baby!) was very green.

Spoiler

It's funny, along with Killzone and COD, Gears of War makes up the trio of brown shooters, when each series has their own lush installment, with Gears of War 3, Killzone 3, and Black Ops.

 

[Eddie the head]

An interesting aside to my knowledge one of if not the most popular western developed games in Japan is Ratchet and Clank. I thought it was kind of cool.

 

[DoPo]

Frankly, this is the first time I've heard people call all games "brown". I even came to the thread to call you out on it. I thought only the shooters deserved this title to the point where "brown shooter" is almost an official description of a game. And one I've seen the most often.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

An interesting aside to my knowledge one of if not the most popular western developed games in Japan is Ratchet and Clank. I thought it was kind of cool.

I remember seeing a Japanese promo picture for Ratchet somewhere, actually.

Interesting that they like it so much.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Frankly, this is the first time I've heard people call all games "brown". I even came to the thread to call you out on it. I thought only the shooters deserved this title to the point where "brown shooter" is almost an official description of a game. And one I've seen the most often.

Well, now that you're here anyways, what do you think? I've pointed out that even the shooters that most often get accused of Brown are actually much less so than the detractors would have you think. Games like Killzone or Gears of War have pretty varied color palettes, and even Call of Duty has its greens.

 

[DoPo]

Frankly, this is the first time I've heard people call all games "brown". I even came to the thread to call you out on it. I thought only the shooters deserved this title to the point where "brown shooter" is almost an official description of a game. And one I've seen the most often.

Well, now that you're here anyways, what do you think? I've pointed out that even the shooters that most often get accused of Brown are actually much less so than the detractors would have you think. Games like Killzone or Gears of War have pretty varied color palettes, and even Call of Duty has its greens.

There are shooters that seem to add more brown (or grey) for the sake of brown (or grey). That doesn't mean they have no other colours but that this is the dominant one. The problem is that Real is Brown [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RealIsBrown] and all that. Also there are some technological reasons. But the bottom line is this - the game just looks dull (not gameplay-wise or fun-wise. Maybe) when the brownish tint is added. It is enough to bother people and when they realise exactly what is it that gnaws at them when they look at the game, well, it can't be unseen. So there is that. They still have their greens and blues but it's the dull colours that (ironically) stand out.

 

[piinyouri]

snip

I'm very curious, which ones are the third, fourth and seventh pictures from?

 

[Hazy992]

Can't have a thread like this without mentioning Rayman Origins or Trine 2

 

[Kotep]

snip

I'm very curious, which ones are the third, fourth and seventh pictures from?

Divinity II: DKS, a quite good but lesser-known RPG, Prince of Persia, the 2008 reboot, and Venetica, a kind of crappy RPG.