Let me just say right now that I love video games. I love the hours of entertainment they've given me, I love how different they can be from other mediums and I love the community it's created.
But that doesn't mean I love absolutely everything about it. Once in a while, something about video games, the people who make them or even the people who play them, will bother me. It may be something small, or something massive that affects gamers everywhere.
As such, I've decide to put forward a few things that I would do if I was running the game (pardon the pun).
Now I know fully well that the games industry is not a single group. It's a collection of competing businesses with vastly different ways of doing things. But this is simply a hypothetical. A "what if" I was in charge of the whole thing and what would I change.
So then, there goes.
1 - Heavy monitoring of online multiplayer:
You all know what I'm talking about here. Go onto any multiplayer sessions on any game (largely FPS's but by no means exclusive) and sooner or later you'll find abusive language or behaviour. Whenever mainstream groups or media talk about the negative sides of gaming, this is usually one of the first things they point to. Trolls, racism, ganging up on new players. It really does look like all of the worst in our community just congregate in these places, and it needs to be dealt with.
Now I've never been a big fan of censorship, but if letting people have this level of freedom means that this sort of abuse is allowed to go unchallenged, then something needs to change. So I propose that those involved in that behaviour are removed from the sessions for a set amount of time, maybe a couple of weeks, before being let back in. repeat offenders may be banned from online multiplayer altogether.
You may say that?s going too far, but from where I?m standing I say that the people who?ve been on the receiving end of this abuse should not have had to put up with it fro as long as they have.
2 - Greater support for independents:
I'm a big fan of the kinds of small-budget titles that have been coming out lately. Games like Limbo, Braid and Bastion are all well-made and incredibly entertaining to me. So it's always a shame that not only do they get so little recognition, but also far less of the success some of their bigger cousins are getting.
My proposal here is to treat independent games and their developers with the same level of respect, right down to the advertising. I mean think about it, when was the last time any of you saw an independent game advertised anywhere other than in a gaming website or magazine. I mean to get their names and their brands in the public face, with TV adverts, poster, the works. These games seems to be where the vast majority of video games' innovation and new thinking is coming from and it's time they were treated as such.
3 - Ban IP hoarding:
This subject was already covered far better by Jimquisition, so if you want to know what I'm talking about, watch his videos. But basically, this is the practice by companies to hold onto copyrights for various game franchises and ideas and never using them. In the right hands any game idea can be made into something good, and it's not fair that such IP's are being withheld from sight by people who have no intention of doing anything with it.
As such my action would be to impose laws on those who hold IP's. They must use those copyrights and make mages out of them, rather than letting the titles gather dust in the cupboards. They must make games based on these IP's at least one every four-or-five years. Failure to do so will result in those IP's being taken from them and put in the hands of someone who's actually going to do something with it.
4 - Removal of IP's from bad game makers
Those of you who read point 3 will probably be thinking the same thing. "But what if the people who have IP's just make bad games with them? They can just churn out unimaginative and cheaply made titles to get around those laws you put on them." And you'd be right, that would indeed be a way they could get around it.
However, I have an idea to counter that method. Those who have IP's must be careful not to simply make an unintelligent waste of a game. They must be well-made and they must be liked. Being unsuccessful in making money is not the big concern for me here, being good is. If they consistently make bad games out of these IP's, then the result will be the same, it will be taken from them and put in the hands of others.
I'd say the "three strikes and you're out" rule should apply here. Make three bad games in a row, as judged by the gaming press and community, and your right to make games based on that character/story/etc will come to an end.
5 - Rewards for innovation:
As I said earlier, independent games makers seem to be where the vast majority of innovation and new thinking in the games industry is coming from. But that it by no means the only place it comes from. Plenty of big-name groups, such as valve, have come up with interesting and ultimately successful innovations that have made them both money and popularity.
And that's something that needs to be encouraged. While plenty of big titles make the industry millions, the ones that make that money tend to be variations on a theme, brown-/grey FPS's, retro revivals etc. So I suggest that financial incentives be offered to those who can come up with new things to do with video games. Maybe some new kind of visual style or gameplay mechanic.
And just to make sure no-one tries to cheat us of our money, it needs to be innovation that the gaming community likes as well, either through good sales or just general positive press.
6 - No movie games:
I know plenty of people have beaten on games based on movies over the years, but the fact is that the two are very different mediums and very rarely have the come together well. For every Spiderman 2 that comes along we get about a dozen ET's. Given that ratio I suggest it's time we bring an end to the whole thing. Sure, plenty of kids are going to be upset that they can't play as their favourite movie character anymore, but given the sheer number of badly made or sub-par games based on movies out there, it's a type of game that no longer has any value or place in the modern industry.
7 - Greater care with portrayal of religions, races and minorities in games:
I don't mean to sound preachy here, but this is an issue that's been going on for far too long now. In many big-name titles, minority racial and religious groups are either not portrayed well, or not portrayed at all. I'm not going to bring up the spectre of Resident Evil 5 as everyone under the sun has already said what needs to be said about it.
But there needs to be better and wider representation of these groups in games. The Persona games did a good step forward in this by portraying a person coping with their sexuality, but we need to go further. How about a game where the main character IS the person with a different sexuality. Or how about someone involved in a mixed-racial marriage?
And what about all those groups and nations that have no representation at all? Where are the games to show people of Mongol origin? Or people who follow individual branches of major religions, as opposed to just broadly using Christianity, Islam etc?
We need to focus on this, because the fact that so many peoples have been ignored by video games is nothing short of a travesty.
8 - Fair pricing:
Pricing is something that video game companies have been getting away with for far too long. We've all seen this at some point. A big game costing full price and then it turns out that it only takes a weekend or so to finish. Many of us have been made pretty upset over these actions, often feeling cheated out of our money for relatively short games.
So here's my plan. Price games based on the avergae length it takes to play them. Games that take ages to finish, like Skyrim, are okay to charge at full-price. FPS games whose single-player campaign lasts a weekend? Those get charged less.
I can already hear many naysayers out there about this. "But what about multiplayer? That can give people hours of fun?" And I will concede to that, it would indeed be fun, for the people who can use it.
But remember, not everyone has access to the internet. And even those who do don't always have the kind of 24-hour availability that many of us possess. And then of course there are those who don't use multiplayer at all. It's not right that so many people should be charged full price simply because of an element of a game that they may not be able to use, or even WANT to use.
9 - An end to DLC "hostage taking":
As many of you may know, there's a general policy among big games to make it impossible for those who buy video games second-hand to get DLC for those games. It strikes me as a rather unfair policy as it forces people to buy the games new and at full price in order to get all of these other features. This is a practice that needs to end. As far as I'm concerned, DLC is something that should be made in such a way that second-hand game buyers can access it.
10 - Game-makers get profit from second-hand games:
Once again, this is an issue that's been talked about far better by someone else. In this case it's MovieBob, in his Game Overthinker episode "Revolution". Basically it's an issue wherein game makers receive none of the money made from used or second-hand titles. Because of this there is an issue for smaller developers because it makes things financially difficult for them to create new titles or be innovative. More often than not people will buy games their unsure of second-hand and the "sure thing" titles like Mario or whatever brand new.
This situation is incredibly unfair to game makers of smaller or independent titles. As such I suggest that they start to see some of the money from second-hand games. Say, for example, a game's maker receives 10% of the profit of any individual game that's bought new. That percentage doesn't need to change. Just continue to give them that 10% if it's bought second-hand. The proportions remain the same.
11 - Greater risk-taking:
I think I talked about this before but there's a tendency in the games industry to play things safe to reject ideas out of hand because publishers are unsure of whether or not it'll make money. And while this is a model that makes sense from a business point-of-view, it's also a model that makes an very harsh environment for those coming into this industry with fresh new ideas.
As such I propose that these new ideas be given a chance to prove their worth. Maybe it's unreasonable to give them the massive kind of attention that triple-A games get, but if they're thrown a bone, maybe given the resources they need to get their game on Steam or something, they can see how successful it is. If it proves a hit or relatively popular, give those people more attention, a bigger budget etc, and see where they go from there.
I'm not saying that publishers should throw buckets of money on every new idea that comes along, but just giving those people some care and attention could do wonders for the industry.
12 - Proper conclusions to games:
Now before anyone asks, let me say right now that this is not to do with the controversy surrounding Mass Effect 3's ending. My concern is that of an issue that both video games and media in general seem to do on a frequent basis. But this is about the games industry not media as a whole so let's talk details.
I'm sure at some point we've all come across some game that had a disappointing ending largely because it was deliberately left open as a means of promising a future sequel. This is a policy that needs to end because there's never a guarantee that a sequel can be made. Good sequels can be made in spite of resolutions at the end of the previous games. You don't need to leave stories open-ended to make a sequel. And doing so often leaves people frustrated.
And it's especially nerve-wracking when you consider that not every open-ended game leads into a sequel. Sometimes years can pass and nothing ever comes of it. Dante's Inferno comes to mind as an example but there are plenty of other games out there that have done this. So the policy here is to have all games end in such a way that it's not blatantly obvious that the game's makers want a continuation out of it. If they're good story-tellers then they can make a sequel despite that.
And those are all the proposals I have in mind. I'm sure you've all got your own ideas on things that can be changed and I'd love to hear them.
But that doesn't mean I love absolutely everything about it. Once in a while, something about video games, the people who make them or even the people who play them, will bother me. It may be something small, or something massive that affects gamers everywhere.
As such, I've decide to put forward a few things that I would do if I was running the game (pardon the pun).
Now I know fully well that the games industry is not a single group. It's a collection of competing businesses with vastly different ways of doing things. But this is simply a hypothetical. A "what if" I was in charge of the whole thing and what would I change.
So then, there goes.
1 - Heavy monitoring of online multiplayer:
You all know what I'm talking about here. Go onto any multiplayer sessions on any game (largely FPS's but by no means exclusive) and sooner or later you'll find abusive language or behaviour. Whenever mainstream groups or media talk about the negative sides of gaming, this is usually one of the first things they point to. Trolls, racism, ganging up on new players. It really does look like all of the worst in our community just congregate in these places, and it needs to be dealt with.
Now I've never been a big fan of censorship, but if letting people have this level of freedom means that this sort of abuse is allowed to go unchallenged, then something needs to change. So I propose that those involved in that behaviour are removed from the sessions for a set amount of time, maybe a couple of weeks, before being let back in. repeat offenders may be banned from online multiplayer altogether.
You may say that?s going too far, but from where I?m standing I say that the people who?ve been on the receiving end of this abuse should not have had to put up with it fro as long as they have.
2 - Greater support for independents:
I'm a big fan of the kinds of small-budget titles that have been coming out lately. Games like Limbo, Braid and Bastion are all well-made and incredibly entertaining to me. So it's always a shame that not only do they get so little recognition, but also far less of the success some of their bigger cousins are getting.
My proposal here is to treat independent games and their developers with the same level of respect, right down to the advertising. I mean think about it, when was the last time any of you saw an independent game advertised anywhere other than in a gaming website or magazine. I mean to get their names and their brands in the public face, with TV adverts, poster, the works. These games seems to be where the vast majority of video games' innovation and new thinking is coming from and it's time they were treated as such.
3 - Ban IP hoarding:
This subject was already covered far better by Jimquisition, so if you want to know what I'm talking about, watch his videos. But basically, this is the practice by companies to hold onto copyrights for various game franchises and ideas and never using them. In the right hands any game idea can be made into something good, and it's not fair that such IP's are being withheld from sight by people who have no intention of doing anything with it.
As such my action would be to impose laws on those who hold IP's. They must use those copyrights and make mages out of them, rather than letting the titles gather dust in the cupboards. They must make games based on these IP's at least one every four-or-five years. Failure to do so will result in those IP's being taken from them and put in the hands of someone who's actually going to do something with it.
4 - Removal of IP's from bad game makers
Those of you who read point 3 will probably be thinking the same thing. "But what if the people who have IP's just make bad games with them? They can just churn out unimaginative and cheaply made titles to get around those laws you put on them." And you'd be right, that would indeed be a way they could get around it.
However, I have an idea to counter that method. Those who have IP's must be careful not to simply make an unintelligent waste of a game. They must be well-made and they must be liked. Being unsuccessful in making money is not the big concern for me here, being good is. If they consistently make bad games out of these IP's, then the result will be the same, it will be taken from them and put in the hands of others.
I'd say the "three strikes and you're out" rule should apply here. Make three bad games in a row, as judged by the gaming press and community, and your right to make games based on that character/story/etc will come to an end.
5 - Rewards for innovation:
As I said earlier, independent games makers seem to be where the vast majority of innovation and new thinking in the games industry is coming from. But that it by no means the only place it comes from. Plenty of big-name groups, such as valve, have come up with interesting and ultimately successful innovations that have made them both money and popularity.
And that's something that needs to be encouraged. While plenty of big titles make the industry millions, the ones that make that money tend to be variations on a theme, brown-/grey FPS's, retro revivals etc. So I suggest that financial incentives be offered to those who can come up with new things to do with video games. Maybe some new kind of visual style or gameplay mechanic.
And just to make sure no-one tries to cheat us of our money, it needs to be innovation that the gaming community likes as well, either through good sales or just general positive press.
6 - No movie games:
I know plenty of people have beaten on games based on movies over the years, but the fact is that the two are very different mediums and very rarely have the come together well. For every Spiderman 2 that comes along we get about a dozen ET's. Given that ratio I suggest it's time we bring an end to the whole thing. Sure, plenty of kids are going to be upset that they can't play as their favourite movie character anymore, but given the sheer number of badly made or sub-par games based on movies out there, it's a type of game that no longer has any value or place in the modern industry.
7 - Greater care with portrayal of religions, races and minorities in games:
I don't mean to sound preachy here, but this is an issue that's been going on for far too long now. In many big-name titles, minority racial and religious groups are either not portrayed well, or not portrayed at all. I'm not going to bring up the spectre of Resident Evil 5 as everyone under the sun has already said what needs to be said about it.
But there needs to be better and wider representation of these groups in games. The Persona games did a good step forward in this by portraying a person coping with their sexuality, but we need to go further. How about a game where the main character IS the person with a different sexuality. Or how about someone involved in a mixed-racial marriage?
And what about all those groups and nations that have no representation at all? Where are the games to show people of Mongol origin? Or people who follow individual branches of major religions, as opposed to just broadly using Christianity, Islam etc?
We need to focus on this, because the fact that so many peoples have been ignored by video games is nothing short of a travesty.
8 - Fair pricing:
Pricing is something that video game companies have been getting away with for far too long. We've all seen this at some point. A big game costing full price and then it turns out that it only takes a weekend or so to finish. Many of us have been made pretty upset over these actions, often feeling cheated out of our money for relatively short games.
So here's my plan. Price games based on the avergae length it takes to play them. Games that take ages to finish, like Skyrim, are okay to charge at full-price. FPS games whose single-player campaign lasts a weekend? Those get charged less.
I can already hear many naysayers out there about this. "But what about multiplayer? That can give people hours of fun?" And I will concede to that, it would indeed be fun, for the people who can use it.
But remember, not everyone has access to the internet. And even those who do don't always have the kind of 24-hour availability that many of us possess. And then of course there are those who don't use multiplayer at all. It's not right that so many people should be charged full price simply because of an element of a game that they may not be able to use, or even WANT to use.
9 - An end to DLC "hostage taking":
As many of you may know, there's a general policy among big games to make it impossible for those who buy video games second-hand to get DLC for those games. It strikes me as a rather unfair policy as it forces people to buy the games new and at full price in order to get all of these other features. This is a practice that needs to end. As far as I'm concerned, DLC is something that should be made in such a way that second-hand game buyers can access it.
10 - Game-makers get profit from second-hand games:
Once again, this is an issue that's been talked about far better by someone else. In this case it's MovieBob, in his Game Overthinker episode "Revolution". Basically it's an issue wherein game makers receive none of the money made from used or second-hand titles. Because of this there is an issue for smaller developers because it makes things financially difficult for them to create new titles or be innovative. More often than not people will buy games their unsure of second-hand and the "sure thing" titles like Mario or whatever brand new.
This situation is incredibly unfair to game makers of smaller or independent titles. As such I suggest that they start to see some of the money from second-hand games. Say, for example, a game's maker receives 10% of the profit of any individual game that's bought new. That percentage doesn't need to change. Just continue to give them that 10% if it's bought second-hand. The proportions remain the same.
11 - Greater risk-taking:
I think I talked about this before but there's a tendency in the games industry to play things safe to reject ideas out of hand because publishers are unsure of whether or not it'll make money. And while this is a model that makes sense from a business point-of-view, it's also a model that makes an very harsh environment for those coming into this industry with fresh new ideas.
As such I propose that these new ideas be given a chance to prove their worth. Maybe it's unreasonable to give them the massive kind of attention that triple-A games get, but if they're thrown a bone, maybe given the resources they need to get their game on Steam or something, they can see how successful it is. If it proves a hit or relatively popular, give those people more attention, a bigger budget etc, and see where they go from there.
I'm not saying that publishers should throw buckets of money on every new idea that comes along, but just giving those people some care and attention could do wonders for the industry.
12 - Proper conclusions to games:
Now before anyone asks, let me say right now that this is not to do with the controversy surrounding Mass Effect 3's ending. My concern is that of an issue that both video games and media in general seem to do on a frequent basis. But this is about the games industry not media as a whole so let's talk details.
I'm sure at some point we've all come across some game that had a disappointing ending largely because it was deliberately left open as a means of promising a future sequel. This is a policy that needs to end because there's never a guarantee that a sequel can be made. Good sequels can be made in spite of resolutions at the end of the previous games. You don't need to leave stories open-ended to make a sequel. And doing so often leaves people frustrated.
And it's especially nerve-wracking when you consider that not every open-ended game leads into a sequel. Sometimes years can pass and nothing ever comes of it. Dante's Inferno comes to mind as an example but there are plenty of other games out there that have done this. So the policy here is to have all games end in such a way that it's not blatantly obvious that the game's makers want a continuation out of it. If they're good story-tellers then they can make a sequel despite that.
And those are all the proposals I have in mind. I'm sure you've all got your own ideas on things that can be changed and I'd love to hear them.
