Long time gamer apathy.

[craftomega]

A question for the old timers here.

Latly I have been very disenchanted with gaming, and I have been gaming for 16 years. I noticed though that a few years back I just kind-of lost interest; It was rather sudden. I have been trying to figure out why. My search has led to some very interesting feelings towards the gaming industry.

First off, I know this is dated, but i feel hurt and betrade by bioware. Like a good friend stabbed me in the back. They stopped cattering to there fans and went with the popular crowd. As in they changed the basic formula of there games to something that many of the long time hard core fans did not like. Then they did nothing to fix it. To explain lets look at ME2 and DA2. ME 1 is a RPG exploration game in a 3rd person shooter setting, where as ME 2 is a 3rd person shoot with RPG elements. Now thats a big shift, and for a fan of the NWN 1, and KOTOR, it was very tramatic. Then DA 2 took it even further. DA 1 is a semi-linear story driven RPG; where as DA 2 is a Story driven action adventure RPG.

Now I know that these seem to be semantics, but the game play changes were in the extreme. I know many of the newer fans loved those changes, but since when is aleinating your hardcore fans a good idea?

The second thing that I learned was that Im just sick of the bullshit that the industry is pulling off: Ridiculas DRM, publishers going at there competitors, the consumers being treated like crap, the list goes on.

I know this is nothing new, because some genuis is going to say "This is nothing new" or some unproductive crap like that. All I have to say is "your welcome that I could help boost your post count."

SO because of these things I have been unwilling to trust new games and there devopers, with a few exeptions. (Saints Row, Elder Scrolls) This has led to me playing and enjoying fewer games.

Now the question that i have been alluding to is this, does anyone else feel the same way? Does anyone whom gaming is a BIG part of there life feel like the industry is just treating us like cattle?



PS: sorry im not talking to the guys who ONLY PLAY ONE GENRA or only buy from one developer. Im talking to the guys who play alot of different kinds of video games. The reason I make this disciction is because chances are your experience is limited in this area.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

I've been gaming since 1991, and I love gaming now as much as I ever have.

But then again, apathy seems to be a popular attitude nowadays.

I shall remain forever the optimist.

It hasn't steered me wrong yet.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I don't consider myself an "old-timer" even though I'm nearing 20 years of gaming under my belt, since 23 is quite a bit below the average gamer age of 32 but I can sort of help here.


You see, I never cared about bioware, my first game of theirs was dragon age, so their subsequent decay has had nothing to do with my view on gaming as a whole. I play mainly Jrpgs and 2-D fighting games with a few Japanese style action games in the mix. Back when you were playing KotOR and BG I was playing final fantasy and tekken and metal gear solid, later in more resent years this has evolved into persona, guilty gear/blazblue and, well....more final fantasy .


To me it has been a step up, so I don't share your feelings towards gaming as a whole, though I can clearly see why someone like you would think as you do.


As for something helpful...well...how about trying new genres of games or games by new developers? Maybe you need more Japanese games in your system lol.


Disgaea 4 should be a good bet if you wand unsurpassed complex deep strategy rpgs. You can get up to level 9999 (yes, nine thousand nine hundred ninety nine ) in that game .

 

[MammothBlade]

I've played games intensively for 8 years or so. I'm not getting this sort of apathy. I can get bored of a particular genre or game, but gaming is such a wide medium that a change in your lifestyle or outlook on life is probably responsible rather than some sort of inevitable apathy resulting from playing games for a long time.

 

[NickCaligo42]

To explain lets look at ME2 and DA2. ME 1 is a RPG exploration game in a 3rd person shooter setting, where as ME 2 is a 3rd person shoot with RPG elements. Now thats a big shift, and for a fan of the NWN 1, and KOTOR, it was very tramatic. Then DA 2 took it even further. DA 1 is a semi-linear story driven RPG; where as DA 2 is a Story driven action adventure RPG.

See, where I think the trouble comes up is that you can actually sum up Mass Effect or Dragon Age that way at all. I know, it's an industry, we've gotta have lingo to break this stuff down and easily describe it, but are those really the traits that we want to stand out most about them?

"Mass Effect is an RPG exploration game with 3rd person shooting elements!"

My goodness, such a compelling sales pitch. And people wonder why gaming isn't more mainstream! Come on, this is supposed to be one of the GOOD ones? I don't mean to belittle it to its fans, but there's a couple of things that should stand out to me a lot more clearly than "shooter/RPG" when we're tossing around a game about being the commander of a space ship.

Like being a commander of a space ship. But nobody would describe it to you as "the game where you command a space ship," because you don't command the space ship or manage the crew much, if at all. They'd describe it as "a sci-fi shooter/RPG." But it's "the game where you command a space ship" which is appealing to me. I wanna be the captain of the gorram Enterprise! Instead I'm just the commander of these two dudes I got with me and sometimes a car. Weeeeeeak.

I think the problem is that developers, or perhaps publishers, have gotten a kind of a sense of tunnel vision about their work and their market. They forget the appeal of the core experience of their games in favor of gaming jargon. They fail to find the sense of focus, depending on fine details that only genre enthusiasts could appreciate to differentiate themselves from the competition over just having a nice, easy-to-parse premise for interactions and trying their best to deliver it and let it stand on its own.

For instance, "What do we want out of a shooter" has become a lot more important than "what do we want out of a sci-fi game where you captain a ship?" "What do we want out of an RPG" has become the bigger issue than "what do we want out of a game that's about time travel?" Hell, it's the fundamental issue behind licensed games. "What do we want out of a Thor game" took a pretty hefty back seat to by-numbers hack-and-slash conventions.

Eh, this is gonna turn into a rambling tirade pretty soon if I don't stop myself--but that's a good summary of how I see things these days. There's a lot of waste going around, a lot of disappointing, samey, un-compelling copycat games. I'm pretty damn jaded myself.

PS: sorry im not talking to the guys who ONLY PLAY ONE GENRA or only buy from one developer. Im talking to the guys who play alot of different kinds of video games. The reason I make this disciction is because chances are your experience is limited in this area.

You're sounding like a bit of a pompous jackass.

 

[craftomega]

You're sounding like a bit of a pompous jackass.

Ya i know but if i didnt say that i would have gotten 10 usless people saying "I only play COD/BF/JRPG's/ect.... so i dont have a problem" Because people love to say usless crap on threads where they have nothing to contribute.


On a lighter note, I agree with you completely.

 

[everythingbeeps]

Eh...this hasn't happened to me on a grand scale, but it's certainly true that there's a lot of ways I don't enjoy gaming as much as I used to.

For one thing, I used to live and die by JRPGs, and could spend hours at a time playing them, but for several years now I just haven't been able to get into them. I think part of it is that I just don't have as much time to play video games, so I'm more picky about timesinks. Playing a JRPG for 80 hours just isn't as fulfilling as playing something like Fallout 3 for 80 hours.

But obviously a lot of it is just that the magic's died. The NES and even SNES were magical machines and I couldn't get enough. But during the PS1 era, video games just became old news and it was hard to really get excited by a lot of things anymore.

 

[nickd007]

...betrade by bioware. Like a good friend stabbed me in the back. They stopped cattering to there fans

Ridiculas...

GENRA

Oh dear. What the actual fuck.

OT: That's not apathy. Apathy is where you don't care. You obviously care very much. I don't have that problem. I liked dragon age 2. I thought the story was intriguing, though I didn't like it near as much as dragon age 1. Even so, I don't feel betrayed that it wasn't as good, or that it was catering to a new crowd. I don't like it, but that's where the money is, my friend.

 

[Chezza]

I firmly believe its the innovation issue within the gaming industry. Indeed, games continue to get more complex, intensive, enhanced graphics and improved narrative but these features are actually not the primary reason we were all were originally inspired to play such games early in the day. Granted, back then we may of imagined the mentioned improvements in awe and get excited to think that day will come but unfortunately something went missing along the way once we got there. Again, Innovation.

I am probably only connecting with a portion of gamers here but I bet back in the day playing a constant stream of unique game types and features continue to impress and stimulate your interest of gaming. First Person Shooters were unique because there were fewer however accompanied with Syndicate wars, Dungeon Keeper, Battle-zone, Renegade, worms, scorched earth, UFO, X-wing, Lemmings etc, just kept everything fresh. In addition these classic gametypes accompanied with the original installments of the series of Warcraft, other quality FPS, RTS and RPGs etc made the world of gaming so much more stimulating! Especially back then when the small budget and market of games forced developers to use their full potential and creativity at the same time.

Right now, I watch the indie and mod market develop with pleasure because I see that same potential happen. But now they can implement their creativity with engines released to the public.

 

[UlytimateDestruction]

Been gaming since 2004 and let me tell you there will always be developers that like to screw their loyal fans over simply because of money-making purposes and those are developers you shouldn't give your money to because they don't care about you or even their own game, so why should you care about their game?. This has been happening since the Atari and NES days when players were alluded without the aid of the internet into buying games for the sole reason that the front cover looks cool and then we're severely disappointed by a half-assessed effort. This is why I put my trust in loyal companies like Rockstar who never disappoint and make a good effort to venture into something new and unique.