Poll: The decline of high quality games.

[LuckyClover95]

I think games are getting better and that while there are cash-ins there are many great games too. Plus due to production costs we're probably paying for the right amount.

 

[starwarsgeek]

I hope i'm not the only one seeing many game company's focus on getting cash rather then delivering quality games as of late.

Well, considering the goal of business is to make a profit, it's not surprising to see them trying to make a profit.

Of corse they should want to make a profit, but shouldn't they want to release high quality games rather then focusing only on the quick buck?

EDIT: Whoops.. To finish that off added.. "rather then focusing only on the quick buck"

I'm sure most want to make a quality profit, but it ain't always going to happen. Not every movie, book, song, painting, statue, burger, chair...well, any product, is going to be good. Besides, it's not like games have suddenly had crap showing up--there are plenty of bad games on each platform, but only the good...and the really, really bad are remembered, so sometimes it seems like there was a better ratio of quality in the NES and SNES days.

 

[Waffle_Man]

I think people who claim that games are getting worse are either wearing rose tinted glasses, or simply don't want to be bothered looking into anything that isn't sold in their local Wal Mart. Gaming has become bigger, and most of the large studios don't make games for the same audience that game studios of yore did. Just look at the indie scene. A lot of small companies are producing games of far higher quality and polish than "large game studios" back then did, with smaller teams.

Id est, games aren't becoming worse, more games are being created. Even if the ratio of good to bad stays the same, or even changes in the favor of better games, more uninteresting games are going to be created.

 

[Hyper-space]

No i did get it but your acting like that's alright. That the more important features, like gameplay, should suffer for the sake of graphichs.. No, that is NOT ok. Yes, reaching the apex will be good, but two things:
One, everything else should come first, if they really are suffering because of cost's due to graphics, then they need to focus less on graphics. Good graphics alone does not equal a good game. Although it helps it sell.. Everyone likes things perty, dont we?

Get it through your thick head, THEY WON'T STOP FOCUSING ON GRAPHICS UNTIL IT REACHES IT APEX AND BECOMES NO LONGER PROFITABLE. Fuck.

Telling them to stop focusing on graphics won't work. Deal with it.

Two, look at any company. Just because something becomes cheaper to produce, does not mean the cost to us will go down. If anything, yes, that could entail more money for production yata yata, better games, but the same thing can happen from a hit game, or have the reverse affect from a flop of a game.

Yes.it.will.

Do you know what happens when a company has the opportunity to undercut its competitor? it undercuts the competitor. It would be complete stupidity (money-wise) for EVERY company to ignore the potential to sell games at a much lower price than their competitors, and that includes smaller developers and indie-size studios.

Imagine if Activision had the opportunity to sell its newest COD installment for 10 to 20$ dollars less than EA's Battlefield, don't you think they would do it? You also have to take into account smaller publishers who would gladly want to become the top-dog in the industry, undercutting the big publishers (if they were to keep the prices the same) would help them a great deal. So EVERYONE has something to loose by keeping the prices the same, for keeping the prices the way they are could provide ammunition for the competition in terms of advertising ("why pay 60$ for a game when you could pay 40$?").

 

[Pyramid Head]

Actually for most mainstream titles released, $30 would be too steep a price. Especially with Nintendo and FPS titles. $60 for another Modern Warfare clone or $60 for stupid gimmicky bullshit or a port? If i wanted to waste my money i'd buy a gun and shoot myself in the foot and play mobile games while the hospital tries to fix my foot.

 

[Jay_The_Beast]

No i did get it but your acting like that's alright. That the more important features, like gameplay, should suffer for the sake of graphichs.. No, that is NOT ok. Yes, reaching the apex will be good, but two things:
One, everything else should come first, if they really are suffering because of cost's due to graphics, then they need to focus less on graphics. Good graphics alone does not equal a good game. Although it helps it sell.. Everyone likes things perty, dont we?

Get it through your thick head, THEY WON'T STOP FOCUSING ON GRAPHICS UNTIL IT REACHES IT APEX AND BECOMES NO LONGER PROFITABLE. Fuck.

Telling them to stop focusing on graphics won't work. Deal with it.

Two, look at any company. Just because something becomes cheaper to produce, does not mean the cost to us will go down. If anything, yes, that could entail more money for production yata yata, better games, but the same thing can happen from a hit game, or have the reverse affect from a flop of a game.

Yes.it.will.

Do you know what happens when a company has the opportunity to undercut its competitor? it undercuts the competitor. It would be complete stupidity (money-wise) for EVERY company to ignore the potential to sell games at a much lower price than their competitors, and that includes smaller developers and indie-size studios.

Imagine if Activision had the opportunity to sell its newest COD installment for 10 to 20$ dollars less than EA's Battlefield, don't you think they would do it? You also have to take into account smaller publishers who would gladly want to become the top-dog in the industry, undercutting the big publishers (if they were to keep the prices the same) would help them a great deal. So EVERYONE has something to loose by keeping the prices the same, for keeping the prices the way they are could provide ammunition for the competition in terms of advertising ("why pay 60$ for a game when you could pay 40$?").

..Yes, i know it can be more profitable, so dude, chill. Just because its more profitable does not mean its better for the game itself though, and THAT is what i'm mad about. You're also DEFENDING the high cost and them focusing on graphics rather then gameplay. YES, I KNOW, they get less cash then but is it right??

Indie games get off fine for less graphics and cheaper cost by focusing on gameplay.. Am i right, or am i wrong?

And i hope they do that, i mean, lowering price to beat competition, but they wont for one simple reason.. If someones a COD fan, they wont buy Halo because its 10-20 bucks off. But with that being said, i do hope your theory is right and prices will go down when said apex is hit, but i just don't see it happening man.

 

[Alphakirby]

Call me a cynic but I do think that game quality has suffered quite a lot for the most part. Some games do manage to be good,but most suck. I personally have high hopes for Catherine though,because it has a thought provoking story (I.E. Vincent needing to decide between Katherine who wants him to commit and may be carrying his child or Catherine a blonde bombshell that randomly walked into Vincent's life and just wants to have fun) and some challenging gameplay in the form of the nightmare sequences (I know this because I played the JP demo on my Xbox 360 before)
Another good game I know is Super Meat Boy,tight controls,creative levels and bosses,and lots of dark humor.
But I think things like Modern Warfare 2 are boring because of the way it's built (Play more to unlock better things to kill people with) I just never got into it.

 

[mattttherman3]

It depends on what you buy and when you buy, just bought brutal lgend for 9$, I only buy new games that I know will be good or that I think I will enjoy. Although one fateful Tuesday last November I wasted 180$ on Fable 3 and SW TFU2 IN THE SAME DAY.

 

[Katana314]

All right, here's what I'd like to take away from this.

1. Average quality of games is no worse than in early days. We have nostalgia goggles. We still once in a while get our gems of gaming, and most is shit that will be forgotten quickly. This was never different.
2. Game production prices have gone way, way up. Almost out of control; at the point where the industry needs to find ways to bring it down. This is often misdirected focus (making games graphically amazing while they can't solve their gameplay issues, and then sell 1% of what Minecraft did)
3. We have many, many more gamers. We can appeal to a wider, more interested audience to sell many more copies even with a mildly shitty game.
4. Many games are already FREE. Just TRY giving money to a Korean MMO developer; you'd have to get to level 5 with your character before they even let you.

What I can take away from it is that game prices certainly COULD go down, and in the end I think it would benefit everyone. More people would be involved in a single game, more readily able to try it out and decide if they like it before recommending it to friends. When it's not such a huge investment anymore, the market gets much more room to expand to people who just don't drop $50 at a moment's notice.

Don't believe me? Take it from the horse's mouth; Turbine Interactive, a developer local to me, said they definitely earned MUCH more money when they made their massively multiplayer games entirely free. A big audience helps. Your game isn't awesome until it's popular, and it's not going to be popular if it's out of 90% of your potential audience's price range. Heck, I'm a hardcore gamer and it's outside of MINE. At least, now that I can get a million indie games twice as awesome as any AAA game for $10 each.

 

[BeerTent]

Persoanlly I find more games under the "Triple-A catagory" are essentially the same thing. I got my fill of GTA back when GTA 3 was new, now it's all shit to me with Saints Row 2 the only thing worth going back to in that genre of games. "Bioware Games" got old five minutes into ME2 and I'm tired of the samey shooters with Regenerative health. (Halo 3, CoD2, Front Mission Evolved, ETC...)

I've started to look to Independent games once I decided to get the balls to look at the ugly Minecraft only to find out it's actually quite beautiful. Why are these games so amazing? Two reasons... 1. They're underprices, and 2. Indie games need to be different from mainstream games. It's all they have. That's why I love Sol Survivor, Minecraft, Terreria, Spiral Nights, Sanctum and Decker.

With that said, I still love my Source Engine, Forged Alliance, Stalker and Borderlands. Classify them as you will, but I believe that they're somewhere in-between AAA and indie.

 

[Jay_The_Beast]

All right, here's what I'd like to take away from this.
1. Average quality of games is no worse than in early days. We have nostalgia goggles. We still once in a while get our gems of gaming, and most is shit that will be forgotten quickly. This was never different.
2. Game production prices have gone way, way up. Almost out of control; at the point where the industry needs to find ways to bring it down. This is often misdirected focus (making games graphically amazing while they can't solve their gameplay issues, and then sell 1% of what Minecraft did)

This.

I dont have nostalgia goggles, its just that looking at minecraft kind of makes you go.. What the hell. Companys are focusing on graphics rather then the game, then say, oh hey, its worth 60$! Back when we didn't have the tech to make it graphic focused, it wasn't. They only could focus on making the game as best as it could be for the time.

That's the decline, quality in comparison to the growth of the field, if that makes sense? lol..

 

[Mr Somewhere]

I think people are being short-changed as a result of this online multiplayer phenomenon, the developers merely add copy & paste multiplayer ripped straight from any given popular shooter, sometimes they may throw in a gimmick or two, then set it off to ship, half finished with a crudely rendered and disjointed single player supported by the most subpar of Hollywood storylines.
This multiplayer sensation has resulted in an overly weak justification for the price at which these games are sold...

Of course this is only a specific section of bloated mainstream games. There's still some great stuff going on. If you're playing only these games then...

*ahem*

You're doing it wrong.

 

[MAUSZX]

I think is good to have games so called "rip off" because they are really not. In the 90s there were a lot of platform games, and that didn't mean it was mario ripoff or anything like that. The gameplay was pretty similar to mario but with their own style.

Same with brink and team fortress 2. It is pretty similar yeah, is that bad? I don't think so, why because it kind of open the market, forcing the developers to improve the next game, make it better and refresh thinks.

For example COD is copy/paste basically of the last COD with minor changes and different campaign of course, I think people notice that and it's playing new games like battlefield.

Now in the main question you have..... I think WE the costumers put the price on the product... for example F3AR i heard that is a short game, overall not bad if you have online service at the price of $60 dollars, $100 for collectors edition or something. If people is buying the product is beecause they agree with the price of the product... but if the game doesnt sell that well the price will go down until it starts to sell fairly well.

So if you buy games is becuase you agree that the game worth your money.

Sorry for the grammar, english is not my first language

 

[Hyper-space]

..Yes, i know it can be more profitable, so dude, chill. Just because its more profitable does not mean its better for the game itself though, and THAT is what i'm mad about. You're also DEFENDING the high cost and them focusing on graphics rather then gameplay. YES, I KNOW, they get less cash then but is it right??

If the budget for the game is much less then that means they can take more chances, for the number one reason most triple A titles do not take more chances with their game and its direction is because of the incredibly high development cost.

So yes, for the moment i am defending the industries' focus on graphics as i want them to reach the apex as soon as possible. Think long-term.

Indie games get off fine for less graphics and cheaper cost by focusing on gameplay.. Am i right, or am i wrong?

Wrong, indie games have yet to reach their full potential because of graphical limitations. Not all indie devs want to make a game with either 2D sprite-art or low-res cartoony graphics and its a shame that their vision might be hindered by such. Imagine if an indie dev could make a game of such caliber as L.A. Noire with graphics that match the tone of the game (and not whacky-highly-stylized graphics), wouldn't the industry as a whole benefit from seeing the COMPLETE prospect of the indie market?

And i hope they do that, i mean, lowering price to beat competition, but they wont for one simple reason.. If someones a COD fan, they wont buy Halo because its 10-20 bucks off. But with that being said, i do hope your theory is right and prices will go down when said apex is hit, but i just don't see it happening man.

They won't keep the prices the same just because a small portion of their demographic is fans of the game, but because they are looking for those who normally don't play video-games (that's where the money is) and lowering the price would lower the barrier of entry (money-wise) for newcomers. So, the pros of keeping the prices the same do not outweigh the cons of doing so, as they would risk alienating casual gamers (for price is what puts off most casual gamers, why do you think stuff like 5$ app games are so popular?) AND other more serious gamers that might not be fans of the series. Theres too much to loose by keeping the price the same.

So it is with complete certitude that i say this: reaching the apex of graphics would be the single greatest boon to the industry both financially AND creatively, as it would allow every developer (from triple A to indie) to reach its full potential.

 

[kuroshimo]

I don't think that it's a "decline." I think that, for much of gaming history, it has been the same.

Recently, for some games, perhaps, but now that we have free updates that older games didn't have, game-breaking glitches tend to be less of a problem.

The thing about that is: game-breaking glitches almost never happened before it was excusable to release an incomplete/untested game and then promise to fix it after getting paid.

I'd say games are on the decline because devs have shifted the focus from new ideas and innovation to prettier graphics. The other big problem that I can see is that, because of the man-hour and resource black holes that said graphics represent, it is too financially risky to produce a game that isn't "safe".

 

[Jay_The_Beast]

The thing about that is: game-breaking glitches almost never happened before it was excusable to release an incomplete/untested game and then promise to fix it after getting paid.

I'd say games are on the decline because devs have shifted the focus from new ideas and innovation to prettier graphics. The other big problem that I can see is that, because of the man-hour and resource black holes that said graphics represent, it is too financially risky to produce a game that isn't "safe".

Pretty much this ^. dev's focusing on it being safe rather then innovative is an issue

 

[Mauro Carrizales]

Codemasters Destroyed the Operation Flashpoint series with Dragon Rising and Red River. They took a great tactical simulator shooter and dumbed it down for 10 year olds.

 

[zarix2311]

No, but than again I've never wasted my money a game I KNEW I wouldn't like. I only pay for games I ether know I like will or games I want to give a chance because I think they have potential.

 

[Blackpapa]

Ok, so good or bad is totally subjective. So, Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust is obviously the best game made so far, so OBVIOUSLY games are getting better.

Or you know we could draw a baseline based on critical acclaim... yea sounds like a good idea.

As a recent EC episode pointed out the current reviews industry is awefully short on critics.

If you will, the today's reviewers are the kind who'd give an 8 out of 10 to Expendables or Fast or the Furious V.

Both of those movies were box office hits, so apparently people liked them. Does that make them good movies? In my opinion no, but in the opinion of all the people who payed to see them, apparently yes.

The game industry is still young and it'll still be a while before critical acclaim means anything, as it does in the movies. There's no reliable way to measure game quality so instead of arguing about tastes I'll just agree to disagree. If you want to name Lesuire Suit Larry as your best game ever be my guest.

That's not true, primarily because the basic gameplay mechanic of an rts lends itself to more depth, so while some FPS will beat some RTSes, RTS it's usually a failing of the RTS to be that simplistic. Yes, I've played System Shock, but most RTSs I would define as good surpass it in complexity and depth of it's gameplay. Of course it drew a great deal of it's depth from the story and plot, the overall presentation, which an RTS can do equally well, but with it lending itself to more complex mechanics, again in terms of depth and complexity an RTS should win out.

Just so that we're talking about the same thing: depth isn't just the complexity of game mechanics but also the narrative. Shallow gameplay mechanics with a deep narrative gives you Heavy Rain, the reverse would give you, say, Darwinia. Games with depth, in my book, are those that have deep gameplay, deep narrative and a solid idea and design fusing all it's elements into a cohesive piece.

Speaking of which, I'm pretty sure there's far less people playing Jagged Alliance now then will be playing the games you mentioned 12 years down the line.

I'm pretty sure you're off on that one. No, you're just wrong, period.

Even today new mods for JA2 are being developed and there's quite an active community. If it's any indication, a bunch of fans added online multiplayer to what was otherwise a single-player game. That alone says a lot.

This is in no small part due to the genre being effectively dead. If there aren't any new works being published from a particular genre then gamers start tinkering with existing products and adapting them. The last/best games of a dead genre will ALWAYS have gamers playing it. FreeAleg, OpenTTD, Oni: Aniversary edition, JA 2 1.13.

All it takes is a new, shinyer Arkhan Asylum - ish game to hit the shelves and one console generation shift for that game to become obsolete. Also linear, heavily scripted or storyline-reliant games have little replay value. I didn't choose those games by coincidence.

You realize that presentation is part of the package, right? Aesthetics is a major part of the art, that's a major part of the reason why morrowind is one of the greatest games ever made, it had nearly unmatched aesthetics.

A good narrative and fun gameplay is timeless. Graphics always age and no matter how good a game looks today, eventually it will look like a relic. If graphics serve an utilitarian purpose then they will be just as good in twenty years as they are now. Take a look at the original Transport Tycoon Deluxe. The game is ancient (1995) but thanks to it's purely utilitarian graphics it has aged remarkably well. Eye-candy on the other hand does not. This is an important distinction you missed.

Regardless, I can't say much about planetscape tournment because I regrettably missed that one and I have yet to find and purchase a copy. However, when compared to other games from that era, I find that Mass Effect SEEMS simplistic at face value. However from all angles it is a remarkably sophisticated game.

Also

This made me lol so hard. Even if you have the lowest opinion of every game that I listed, there is absolutely no way you could say EU3 lacked in depth in any way shape or form. Obviously, you have no idea what the game is so you assumed that it was "like the others on the list".

True that. EU3 goes along with SC2. An obvious error on my part.

I do get the feeling that EU3 and SC2 are the exceptions that prove the rule. Both are PC titles very reminiscent of the 1990-2000 decade. What's more interesting, both are sequels to games from the 1990-2000 period, not new IPs, which supports my original argument.

Then quite frankly, your priorities are misplaced, and while Deus Ex has complex gameplay for an FPS, I can guarantee you (as somebody who has played it endless times), what gives it more depth and complexity then even most RTSs is not the gameplay, it's the vibrant living breathing world. Things like it's plot that accounts for almost every possible decision the player can make. Touches like that.

Please look up my definition of "depth" above and let's get that sorted out, lest we start arguing about semantics.

Except there are a number of ways you can get around that, the fact that additional complexity will make the game less accessible generally.


Easy to learn but hard to master is a simple example, just make the game so the basic mechanics are very simple, but applicable to so many different ways in many different situations that a single easy to learn mechanic grants depth. Portal is probably the Ur example of this, in that the mechanic is incredibly simple in theory, but because of all the things you can do with it, you can create the most incredibly complex puzzles based on it.

Easy to learn but hard to master is a simple and bad example. Take a game of pressing a single button as soon as you see a light flash. It doesn't get simpler but you can always press the button faster.

Just because there's potential for improvement (in this case reducing response time) doesn't give any more depth or quality.

Ironically Portal is a pretty bad example of "Easy to learn hard to master". It has a lot to do with it being a puzzle game where the only way to measure skill is level completion time, which is directly tied to the puzzle in question. I'll let you figure out the rest on your own.

Frankly, I can name a number of games that would be much more accessible if a good tutorial was involved.

True, there's absolutely no reason for any company not to include a decent tutorial, regardless of how hardcore they think their playerbase is. Shout-outs go to CD-Projekt RED, who've outdone themselves at creating the worst tutorial ever. Even if I'd try I couldn't make it worse, because not including a tutorial at all would probably result in a player-made ones which, since they couldn't be worse, would only be better.

See Dwarf Fortress and it's wiki for a great example of this - the community created a invaluable wiki and tutorials way beyond what the author himself could ever hope to do.

But overall your argument is not so much that games are worse, but that the particular type of games that you like to play are less prevalent. Why you try to qualify that as games with depth, you are limiting it to only gameplay AND drawing from the entire history of video games which in the end makes it a non-representative sample when compared to simply games from this console generation due to the differences in raw number of games. Furthermore, you're attempting to limit it to just triple A games, which again doesn't actually say much about the state of gaming as a whole. I guess if you wanna argue triple A games have gameplay mechanics with less intelligence and depth then they used to be.

My argument isn't that games are getting worse because it's subjective. I won't argue taste. If you find Leisure Suit Larry X to be the best game ever (regardless if you really do) then there isn't really argument to be had. Me personally, I think games are getting worse. Far far worse in fact.

the particular type of games that you like to play are less prevalent

And that is just a fancy way of saying "you think games are getting worse".

I enjoy games of almost all genres. Too bad I didn't include Freespace 2 in my previous post.

And why AAA? Because all the games I mentioned were, in fact, AAA games. Planescape Torment, Freespace 2, Transport Tycoon, Oni, X-Com Enemy Unknown, System Shock 2, Deus Ex 1, Jagged Alliance 2... all of those, all the games I mentioned were AAA titles. That's why.