So here we are. After Red Letter Media made it clear with their Star Trek review that almost all movies today are sequels, prequels, remakes, reboots, reimaginings, or whathaveyou, is it any shock that video games are in the same state?
Over the last two years, the most "original" film was Avatar. Does that movie strike anyone as original? Well, Mass Effect, World of Warcraft, and aren't original either. We've been sold polish and presentation and that's all that's at the market. The problem is people are actually so misinformed as to call Bioware and Blizzard true storytellers. They aren't and they never have been. But we say they are because they tell the prettiest story but not the best story. What's a Krogan except an overweight Klingon? What's a Klingon except a Space Orc? What's a Protoss except a Space Elf? What are Orcs and Elves except racist stereotypes of Blacks and Norwegians?
You could say it's because the costs of production are so high - customers demand a visual quality and won't accept anything less - that taking risks is tantamount to suicide. To address this, I have to stray off-topic and make a political point about the value of planned economies:
Having the best also means accepting the worst. These companies will not do that - they have embraced mediocrity like a protective shield. The next big videogame to come out will be Modern Warfare 3, aka Call of Duty 8, and we all know it.
You'll buy it - I won't - because your friends will have bought it. You won't want to be left out. I don't have any friends so I don't feel that bandwagon. But what's new about that game, compared with it's Call of Duty (2003) ancestor? What are you purchasing?
Get to the point.
The point is, there is no future to video games, as we know them. Sony is pushing 3D gaming because that's what their television studios are pushing. Nevermind that the 3D film market is tanking, because it was only a stupid fad and 3D entertainment gives people headaches. Microsoft is doing something ridiculous with Kinect - is that the lamest incarnation of Lightsaber combat you've ever seen? The greatest prop in the history of film, and when they get within a hair's breadth of getting it right, at the same time you can't move your character, because there are no buttons to press to move him. What the hell.
And Nintendo has basically said, "We're just going to make a giant iPad. Done."
Only Nintendo is on the right track, and it's the path to their doom. $1 apps are the future. The most successful game, profit-wise, is Farmville. \
The future is smart-phone applications. Think of the benefits:
[ul][li]You already own the hardware. No $300 box to buy and plug-in.[/li]
[li]No accessories to buy - the extra controllers, peripheries, wireless antennas, etc.[/li]
[li]Cheaper games - $1-3 versus $50-60 per title.[/li]
[li]More titles with a meaningful diversity of selection. How many FPS are expected to release this year? How identical are all of them?[/li]
[li]Lower development cost per title. How much is The Old Republic costing, versus what it would take to produce Angry Birds 2? How many more people will play AB2?[/li]
[li]You can play them outside of your home.[/li]
[li]No DRM, ever. The end of GFWL.[/li][/ul]
Think of what you lose. You lose the AAA graphics - but were those ever really important to you? You lose the sound quality - same question.
What you lose are the little things that make a game shine. Personally, I didn't like Mass Effect 2. I thought the game was bloated, over-produced, and dumbed down from it's original. I thought the stories of both games were train-wrecks of cliches and stereotypes. And yet, I go on youtube, and I can find dozens of clips where ME2 made me smile or laugh. The little things, like the Asari Matriarch Bartender. Or Shephard telling the Krogan to stop whining like a Quarian with a bellyache, and Tali saying, "I'm right here!"
You'd lose those moments, those gems with a full transition to smart-phone gaming. And there is definitely a market of that type of big-budget production.
But if the console industry goes into the tank, as I predict will happen, then where will gamers get that content?
The answer is the PC.
The console wars will end, and you'll have your smart-phone, which everyone already has, and their PC or laptop. All the flaws that afflict the PC will still be there, but the people who want the AAA titles will put up with it, as they always have. If you think DRM isn't coming to consoles, think again, especially on the wake of the PS3 disaster. Now Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony are going to be pro-active where before they were reactive.
The advantages are clear: smart-phones have a greater conformity of processing power, so hardware issues stop being an issue. PCs are constantly marching forward, so developers don't have to worry about console-production cycles. Case in point: who else thinks the 360 is showing it's age?
And that'll be it. Inside of our lifetimes, we saw the rise and fall of an entire industry - I'm talking about renting movies. Do you even have a Blockbuster or a Hollywood Video near you? The ones by my house closed down. I have Netflicks. No new video rental stores will ever open again, because why would they?
We'll now see the beginning of the end of console gaming, because why would these companies suffer these obstacles when there is such an obviously painless alternative to them?
In Conclusion.
I think there are two types of games. The first are the ones where you turn them on and your brain turns off. This is your Halo 4 trilogy where it's all about eye-candy and twitch-based gameplay. That doesn't interest me.
And then you have your Fable: The Journey which doesn't qualify as a game. It is art. Gaming as it really is will exist on disposable handhelds because that's all its worth and that's all the economy can support, because again that's all its worth.
The art, the type of games that we uphold as the lifeblood of the hobby, will exist on the PC because that's the only platform that can afford to support it. The gamers who genuinely want this stuff will be asked to pay for it, and this is the cost.
Over the last two years, the most "original" film was Avatar. Does that movie strike anyone as original? Well, Mass Effect, World of Warcraft, and aren't original either. We've been sold polish and presentation and that's all that's at the market. The problem is people are actually so misinformed as to call Bioware and Blizzard true storytellers. They aren't and they never have been. But we say they are because they tell the prettiest story but not the best story. What's a Krogan except an overweight Klingon? What's a Klingon except a Space Orc? What's a Protoss except a Space Elf? What are Orcs and Elves except racist stereotypes of Blacks and Norwegians?
You could say it's because the costs of production are so high - customers demand a visual quality and won't accept anything less - that taking risks is tantamount to suicide. To address this, I have to stray off-topic and make a political point about the value of planned economies:
I recently read Atlas Shrugged and then read supplementary criticisms to help place the ideas in the novel in a context. The rebuttal to Ayn Rand's ideas is that an optimally efficient society leaves many people - the mediocre, the stupid, the lazy - to die. Forgive us our backward self-immolating philosophies, but Western society does not have it within itself to make such a radical transition. We like our welfare programs.
The consequence, however, is that to support the safety nets many of us in this recession have come to rely on necessitate a regulation of the highs to which our economy can achieve. Yes, there is a tangible cap on the amount of success any company can earn. This cap is the reason why America is no longer considered great, why no new interstate highways have been built, why new skyscrapers are only being built in foreign countries, and why foreign governments are increasingly being courted by domestic politicians.
Because we have accepted a moderate lifestyle, we are now forgoing the thrills and successes of being the best.
The consequence, however, is that to support the safety nets many of us in this recession have come to rely on necessitate a regulation of the highs to which our economy can achieve. Yes, there is a tangible cap on the amount of success any company can earn. This cap is the reason why America is no longer considered great, why no new interstate highways have been built, why new skyscrapers are only being built in foreign countries, and why foreign governments are increasingly being courted by domestic politicians.
Because we have accepted a moderate lifestyle, we are now forgoing the thrills and successes of being the best.
Having the best also means accepting the worst. These companies will not do that - they have embraced mediocrity like a protective shield. The next big videogame to come out will be Modern Warfare 3, aka Call of Duty 8, and we all know it.
You'll buy it - I won't - because your friends will have bought it. You won't want to be left out. I don't have any friends so I don't feel that bandwagon. But what's new about that game, compared with it's Call of Duty (2003) ancestor? What are you purchasing?
Get to the point.
The point is, there is no future to video games, as we know them. Sony is pushing 3D gaming because that's what their television studios are pushing. Nevermind that the 3D film market is tanking, because it was only a stupid fad and 3D entertainment gives people headaches. Microsoft is doing something ridiculous with Kinect - is that the lamest incarnation of Lightsaber combat you've ever seen? The greatest prop in the history of film, and when they get within a hair's breadth of getting it right, at the same time you can't move your character, because there are no buttons to press to move him. What the hell.
And Nintendo has basically said, "We're just going to make a giant iPad. Done."
Only Nintendo is on the right track, and it's the path to their doom. $1 apps are the future. The most successful game, profit-wise, is Farmville. \
The future is smart-phone applications. Think of the benefits:
[ul][li]You already own the hardware. No $300 box to buy and plug-in.[/li]
[li]No accessories to buy - the extra controllers, peripheries, wireless antennas, etc.[/li]
[li]Cheaper games - $1-3 versus $50-60 per title.[/li]
[li]More titles with a meaningful diversity of selection. How many FPS are expected to release this year? How identical are all of them?[/li]
[li]Lower development cost per title. How much is The Old Republic costing, versus what it would take to produce Angry Birds 2? How many more people will play AB2?[/li]
[li]You can play them outside of your home.[/li]
[li]No DRM, ever. The end of GFWL.[/li][/ul]
Think of what you lose. You lose the AAA graphics - but were those ever really important to you? You lose the sound quality - same question.
What you lose are the little things that make a game shine. Personally, I didn't like Mass Effect 2. I thought the game was bloated, over-produced, and dumbed down from it's original. I thought the stories of both games were train-wrecks of cliches and stereotypes. And yet, I go on youtube, and I can find dozens of clips where ME2 made me smile or laugh. The little things, like the Asari Matriarch Bartender. Or Shephard telling the Krogan to stop whining like a Quarian with a bellyache, and Tali saying, "I'm right here!"
You'd lose those moments, those gems with a full transition to smart-phone gaming. And there is definitely a market of that type of big-budget production.
But if the console industry goes into the tank, as I predict will happen, then where will gamers get that content?
The answer is the PC.
The console wars will end, and you'll have your smart-phone, which everyone already has, and their PC or laptop. All the flaws that afflict the PC will still be there, but the people who want the AAA titles will put up with it, as they always have. If you think DRM isn't coming to consoles, think again, especially on the wake of the PS3 disaster. Now Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony are going to be pro-active where before they were reactive.
The advantages are clear: smart-phones have a greater conformity of processing power, so hardware issues stop being an issue. PCs are constantly marching forward, so developers don't have to worry about console-production cycles. Case in point: who else thinks the 360 is showing it's age?
And that'll be it. Inside of our lifetimes, we saw the rise and fall of an entire industry - I'm talking about renting movies. Do you even have a Blockbuster or a Hollywood Video near you? The ones by my house closed down. I have Netflicks. No new video rental stores will ever open again, because why would they?
We'll now see the beginning of the end of console gaming, because why would these companies suffer these obstacles when there is such an obviously painless alternative to them?
In Conclusion.
I think there are two types of games. The first are the ones where you turn them on and your brain turns off. This is your Halo 4 trilogy where it's all about eye-candy and twitch-based gameplay. That doesn't interest me.
And then you have your Fable: The Journey which doesn't qualify as a game. It is art. Gaming as it really is will exist on disposable handhelds because that's all its worth and that's all the economy can support, because again that's all its worth.
The art, the type of games that we uphold as the lifeblood of the hobby, will exist on the PC because that's the only platform that can afford to support it. The gamers who genuinely want this stuff will be asked to pay for it, and this is the cost.
