I feel like I'm the only one who likes AAA games [rant]

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archabaddon

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j-e-f-f-e-r-s said:
This is the trouble with the triple-A industry, and particularly our expectations of it. We are constantly demanding developers to make better looking games.
I think the indie guys are proving that awesome graphics != game play. Look at Angry Birds, or The Binding of Isaac. Heck, you can still make simple games with good graphics, like Strike Suit Zero, one of the latest KickStarter-fed indie darlings (not a AAA studio fare). I don't think every gamer is into "tech porn". Certainly, some are, but the AAA market is getting their teeth kicked in by the casual market; people who want simple gameplay without all the glam. Even "hard core" gamers are finding refuge from the micro-trans storm with indie titles that emphasize gameplay.
 

WanderingFool

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ShinyCharizard said:
The only correct solution is to just enjoy the games you enjoy and don't give a fuck what other people think. Works for me.
You know what this post is?



That what it is...
 

archabaddon

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archabaddon said:
From my PoV, I definitely think all the micro-transaction stuff is negatively affecting my enjoyment of some titles. Especialy MMOs that have had to go F2P in order to survive in today's gaming market.

Here's my personal example: Star Trek Online. I have a Lifetime Sub to that game, and I'm thankful that I got as much enjoyment out of it as I did. However, as of late, with the game going F2P and Perfect World (an Eastern publisher notorious for micro-trans MMOs) now owning the game, the direction of it has not gone they way I would have liked.

Between grinding for Dilithium, grinding for faction Marks, and grinding out projects for Starbases and Embassies, the game has become, well, a massive grind at the high end. Of course, you can mitigate this by buying Zen with real money and converting it to Dilithium on the fluctuating player exchange, but it won't help you with getting Marks or commodities for projects. And beyond that, all the premium ships cost Zen.

Some will argue that you can convert Dilithium earned in-game into Zen, but either way, your looking at spending a lot of time grinding Dilithium, or a lot of money just buying Zen outright. And that goes for F2P players and players paying the optional sub, which only provides a 400 Zen stipend per month (with most higher-end ships costing 2000+ Zen, or $20 US).

I wonder what happened to just buying a game and playing it, or in the case of MMOs, just paying a monthly sub and going to town. Now I have to worry about bankrolling characters, budgeting, etc. It feels like a 2nd job. If I wanted a 2nd job, I'd drive a taxi after work. And that's why I haven't touched it in almost two months. I've been spending my time with games that don't ask me to pay a continuing tax for their upkeep (and not even being MMOs with servers and staff to maintain them), like XCom and Strike Suit Zero.

I don't mind DLC, as long as it's not paying for something that's already on the disk. If I can pay to add more content to a game I enjoy, it's like a boxed expansion for EQ: it's new code, it's new places to go, it's new systems, etc. But I *don't* like getting nickled and dimed for every last items, costume piece, consumable, etc. in a game. That's where I have to draw the line.
Let the Perfect World micro-trans gauging continue:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/121783-Neverwinter-Founders-Packs-Cost-Up-To-200

"Furthermore, the game's website insists that these packs offer value well in excess of their asking prices: up to $549 for the Hero of the North Pack."

In other words, if you were to piecemeal all of the included items in this pack out of the in-game store after it launches, it would cost you $549 to do so. $549. Why the hell would I pay $549 to play a video game, unless it comes with virtual reality goggles, or it's sort of simulator that comes bundled with a huge controller? I'm looking at you, original Steel Battalion, and you didn't cost anywhere near $549.
 

TrevHead

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thesilentman said:
Vault101 said:
I feel kind of frustrated, when I play games I play for a certain expereince, the big worlds, cinematic storys, and (in a perfect world) fun gameplay, do all games tick thesse boxes? no of coarse not, but I sure as hell did not spend as much as I did the other day on a new computer so I could play "retro graphics indie wankfest"
The second post of the thread brought up the Dark Souls easy mode controversy. Welcome to the club, where we'd like good GAMES rather than the borderline movies the triple AAA industry is putting out.
B B But Hardcore / Niche games don't count, It's the tastes of the majority that do!

j-e-f-f-e-r-s said:
While I do know that high production values mean big bucks, but I often get the feeling that these huge block buster games don't NEED such massive teams, they just need to be more frugal with their resources and act more like mid tier devs. like the makers of Hawken, Strike Suit Zero and other PC devs that seem to do a hell of alot more with much smaller resources.

I would say that Grass hopper, Platinum Games and From with their Souls games gets the balance right, it's a shame that Bamco / From are throwing money at Dark Souls 2 and increasing the dev team by a substantial number now the IP is a hit. I just hope the increased sales match and they don't start nickle and diming too.

Personally I blame the current climate on console which hasn't been a great place for mid tier devs for years. Either they sell it as retail and the game makes the bargin bin within weeks or sell it as a £10 game on XBLA which is crap compared to steam, gamers either don't bother buying from or are as tightfisted as hell, moan that 1200msp is too much for a New game rather than a PS2 era rerelease, and compare it unfairly with £60 games, like what happened to Skullgirls.

Personally I'd rather consoles did away with the $60 pricing model and charged accordingly for what content is in the game. But I doubt that would end well with gamers who put too much in a games length rather than the quality of the content. A MP game that's just a few maps and guns is considered Great Value for money because they have limitless playtime, while a SP game with enough art assets and voice scripting to make 5 MP games is considered a rip off because it can be finished in 10 hours.

Rather than nickle and diming, I'd rather see some SP games at $70 which is what many JRPGs were back in the day or tone down on the candy and make a cheaper game like Dark Souls 1. But I doubt $70 will fly with many ppl who are used to buying games at dirt cheap prices, playing them for a hour or 2 before moving on. Compared to the pre internet / Gamestop era where games cost more and we made sure we got our moneys worth from each one.
 

Sonic Doctor

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Vault101 said:
Yeah, I never understood the down with AAA, stop the evil company stuff. All the "boycotts" and big complaining I see flung at big companies, just seems like people shooting peas at grizzly bears.

I say, play a game, state your opinion to the developer, if you really feel the need to, and move along. Making "movements" to petition developers to change their games and such, just seems really stupid to me. I find it sad when something people have created is changed, not because the creator wanted to change it, but the money men backing it say it has the change because there are gremlins growling at their door, saying they want refunds and won't buy future games.

I one of those people that loved Dragon Age 2 and thought the people that did the zero bomb campaigns were stupid. And of course, I thought the same for ME3. Yeah, the ending wasn't that good, but seriously, it wasn't bad enough to warrant "movements" and such. Though I seriously think that no bad ending or story is worth such a thing. I'm of the mind of, if you don't like it, move along, don't buy from the company again if you feel that strongly, but don't go acting like you have a creative say in it. If you want to have that power, get a job at the place where that particular game is created, then you have the right to try and get things changed.

But whatever, such things don't concern me right now. Because I'm not buying newly made games now. At least not for a few months.

Since I don't have a good PC, my main platform was my Xbox 360, but Microsoft pissed me off when they hosed up and locked my account. It happened because they tried to take money out of my account for live, but the debit card I had attached to it had expired, and I know I had set it to where my account wouldn't auto sub, but apparently for some reason it had reverted back to auto.

Since there was no proper way for them to get money, they didn't re-up my sub, but for some strange reason, I could still play on live. I played for at least a month because I thought I was still subbed. I had never got a warning or anything saying that my sub/account was screwed up until a month later. Of course when I found this out, I did have money and a new card to switch the account to pay with, but when I tried that, I found that they had froze my account, and said that I needed to contact them to get things settled.

The reason I decided to stop with them for now is because they made it so that the only way to deal with the problem was to call them. I said fuck it, because I'm the type of person that hates having to call and deal with people, so I said no.

That was when I ended up using a large chunk of my Christmas money on E-bay over the course of three weeks, to buy 32 old games ranging in era from NES to N64(mostly NES and Gameboy).

So since the Microsoft fiasco, I've been playing the games of the past, along with a little play on my PC with LotRO.

I will end by saying that this thread of yours brought to light your blog, so I now know I have something I need to look at. I need to work on my blog, I started mine last year through Blogspot(url on my profile here). Interestingly enough, the last thing I wrote about was Mass Effect 3 launching and the people complaining about the day 1 Prothean DLC.

Hmm, with as much as I've been writing in my Escapist posts of late, I should just refocus that energy and some of those post thoughts to my blog. But of course now my fingers and brain are a little tired from this post, so I guess I will take a break =P. Time to play some NES.
 

Fiz_The_Toaster

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Personally I couldn't give a rats ass if people hate the fact that I dare to like AAA games.

I like what I like and I will enjoy what I like and no one can tell me otherwise.
 

RobfromtheGulag

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First off, as has been oft uttered before, people get vocal mainly about stuff they care about. I don't hate Justin Beiber. I don't give 2 $#!#s about Justin Beiber. I don't go on message boards maligning him because I don't know anything about him. I do go on message boards maligning Crysis 2, or Dragon Age 2, or other games from series I initially liked that I see heading in a bad direction.

Secondly, as you perceptibly noticed, Jim stated that he liked Dead Space 3. These people already like this stuff to some degree otherwise they wouldn't know what was wrong with it, much less be ranting on the internet.


I love to create effigies to burn, but when I look at my game collection all the games I go back and play several times a year are triple A releases. Indies are fun, but personally I haven't found any besides Minecraft (which is questionably Indy at this point) that I can spend real time on. Generally I play it, say yea that was nice and store it away on a dusty shelf. So while I dislike a lot of the stuff AAA's do, I'm hoping they'll just shape up and fly right. And of course I set a few of them on an alter (Bethesda) and pray to them.

Mikejames said:
I don't like completely generalizing the state of Triple A gaming, but I can't help but feel a tinge of resentment when I see original and heartfelt ideas go under the radar instead of the new shooters that we've seen a dozen times over.

It's the idea that there are titles that publishers will never take a chance on because they try to break the norm and won't guarantee mainstream success.
This is kind of a catch 22 of logic for me. It's true that certain genres are woefully oversaturated and show no signs of slowing down. But at the same time these genres are fun, and thus they sell. Dear Esther looked to have good graphics but the game just looked interminably boring. Even if I beat it and I sat back and said 'woah that story floored me' it doesn't seem like the kind of thing that I'd be playing again in a month, whether it was polished to a AAA level or not. I'd like to see AAA's branch out, but I (and certainly they) want something that's going to be fun (sell well).
 

Vault101

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j-e-f-f-e-r-s said:
Is that so? You know, there are plenty of people who would say that anyone who denigrates the entire Indie Gaming movement as
"retro graphics indie wankfest" would equally deserve to be called an idiot, and they'd be just as right to say so as your apparently are. What gives you the right to call others idiots, yet also gives you the right to complain about being called an idiot yourself is beyond me.
it was hyperbole....a counter point to "brown COD clone" I'm well aware making sweeping generalisations its never the best thing for ones argument

as for the "idiots" remark that was also toung in cheek...I dont think I often called other people idiots, I could have asked for examples but figured it was beside the point


[quote/]It's quite simple. The cost comes from time, and manpower.[/quote]
I dont know what the answer is...I wouldnt mind if they toned things down a bit in order to make the whole process afforadable..but eh


[quote/]Out of all the hardware developers, Nintendo seems to be the only one with the right idea- it's not about pushing development costs to frankly absurd levels in order to appease a certain demographic's lust for tech-porn. It's about using technology to serve the needs of gameplay.[/quote]
Nintendo? what they fuck have THEY done? are you talking about the Wii mote? that peice of crap that no one liked and what potential it did have was wasted?

ok then...lets talk about the Wii people dont like to admit it but for whatever benefits it had it was outweighed by bullshit, the casual crowd it pulled in got bored with wii sports and moved on to angry birds on their iphone....as a gaming platform the wii died an undignified death buried under shovelware...oh...ok Nintendo make a good zelda game? a good mario game? a good metroid game? you know what? NO screw you Nintendo, thats not enough you want an A? you dont deserve an A for putting a few good games from your holy trinity of IP's...you get a C

now as the for Wii U? well mabye they DO have the right Idea...I dont get what that Idea is but you never no, I'm not going to condemn it,

but untill the Wii U's fate is sealed your not convincing me that Nintendo is doing anything other than fucking around
 

ElectroJosh

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The perception of all the AAA game hate comes from a perfect convergence of several factors (oh yeah, this is my opinion not gospel truth):

A: Doing the Numbers
1) Higher visibility and marketing budgets mean more awareness.
2) This, in turn, usually means more sales.
3) More sales = more people who will like the game and more people who will hate the game.
4) So the odds are a bigger game will get more hate without even taking quality into consideration.

B: Venting
1) Most gamers use the net and are willing to express their opinions on it.
2) As a general rule people complain about what pisses them off far more than extol the virtues of what they like.
3) So, again, the haters will appear with greater frequency.

C: Counting the Cost
1) AAA games are more costly.
2) That Indie game which cost $10 and wasn't fun doesn't bother people that much.
3) The AA game that cost $60 and wasn't fun seems like a travesty in comparison.

Obviously there are other factors but they have been dealt with a lot already so I thought it's worth bringing some more arguments into play.
 

Kurai Angelo

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Vault101 said:
actually I think my point is the frustration felt when somthing I like (I guess you could say somthing kind of important to me) is met with such hate and negativity,
Fair point...

Vault101 said:
"retro graphics indie wankfest"
and then you went and ruined it.

Contradiction much?
 

babinro

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The vast majority of my games are still AAA titles and I love em.

Diablo , Batman Arkham ____, inFamous, Final Fantasy, Bioware RPG's are much higher on my list of best games this generation than non-AAA.

I had plenty of fun with Recettear, The Watching Dead, Limbo, Defense Grid and Plants vs Zombies but they just don't have the same impact. Even The Watching Dead. I look at that as an excellent t.v show more than I do a video game.

I want AAA to prosper. They totally have a place in the gaming market just like blockbust movies have their place in the movies.
 

TehCookie

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Let's see what things The Escapist are talking about (first two pages, excluding hate threads):
Witcher 2
Skyrim (x5)
GTAV
TES online
Super Smash Bros Wii U
Final Fantasy XIII
Dark Souls
Dynasty Warriors 8 (well there's a thread, no replies yet not sure if that counts)
Dwarf Fortress

So how did you come up with the conclusion you're the only one who likes AAA games and everyone else only loves indie titles? More people hate on them because more people play them. Not to mention people hate them for silly things like "I enjoyed the game, but it had a bad ending so now I hate the series". If someone is bitching about the ending to a trilogy, they obviously liked it enough to play through all of it. Same with Dead Space, if you didn't like the game you wouldn't care about their micro transactions (as long as other companies don't follow suite) since you're not going to play it either way.