What happened to the good games!?

[AndyFromMonday]

I don't understand this "trend" to make games "has realistic has you can". I mean you buy a game to have fun, not to go all "wow this game is realistic".

We play games to escape reality, and reality is pretty boring. So why put something boring like reality in something that was fun like video games?

 

[Baby Tea]

That developers are in it for the money is half-true. Some developers do it for the same reason that musicians do good music or painters make beautiful drawings; to make a piece of art. If we're gonna name some here, my award for ambitious and great company goes to SquareEnix. The FF series and the Kingdom Hearts series are seriously the best games I've ever played. The well done game-play, the immersive story (although KH can't possibly be taken seriously for it's story, but who cares, it's still awesome!), the beautiful graphics (for it's time I do keep in mind when you look at the older ones). If I'm to blurt out my favourite games, 3 out of the top 5 are made by SquareEnix, and those games are Chrono Trigger, FFVII, and KH2. Now I'm being shown off as a JRPG fan, but if you can tolerate it for what it is, you'll love it. There are those who make games just for money, but they are cheap and idiotic bastards who can't commit to a something that could possibly be good. 90% out of the 90% bad rip-offs were actually ideas that could have possibly become something good, but the developers never did anything about it and made another crappy game for us to pay for, when we could've used the money for other things, like wiping our asses with it!

See, and I'd say Square is a perfect example of what I'm talking about.
Every Square game I've played has the same general storyline: Troubled/badass male lead off to save the world from an evil corporation/villain. Throw in a troubled romance that could 'never be' with a 50/50 chance of the love interest dying, multiple meetings with the villain that ends in your barely escaping/villain sparing your life, and tired dialogue and voice-over work and BAAM! You've got Square!

Now that may be my opinion, but the point isn't that I don't like them. The point is: That's their niche. That's their hook. Storylines focused on a rebellious leader with an impossible chance of winning coming out on top. The similarities between every Square game is uncanny to me, with parallels for nearly every sidekick, NPC, and villain. But like I said: That's their hook! Fans expect it, and if you do something that sells then why do something different?

Of course every good developer wants to make a 'good game' that people will genuinely enjoy. But a musician will rarely go outside their genre, because that's what they know best. A painter will rarely jump to sculpting because painting is what they do! Likewise, developers will stick with a franchise or a hook in order to keep fans, build a bigger fanbase, and make more money.

 

[oktalist]

I recently noticed that games nowadays have no creativity.

A bit late there, Barbie.
[/Dr. Cox]

I notice this now, cause now I'm more fastidious about games (all thanks to Yahtzee).

To borrow a line from your favouritest video game video reviewer, while you may occasionally find sultanas while rummaging around in rabbit droppings, you'd probably have better luck in a dried fruit shop.

I blame the super-awesome graphics and physics engines which, to regurgitate ZP again, means it takes about 500 tedious man-hours just to make a character walk across a fucking room, leaving no room for creativity and basically making everyone in the industry hate their jobs.

 

[The_Rev]

"I Love Lucy" was, according to my parents, the best show ever made. I think it's complete schwag. That's where nostalgia gets factored in. I long ago figured out that the memories are better than the old games themselves, and you're better off keeping them on the shelves than reinstalling them and letting the crappy graphics and sound (by today's standards) destroy that memory.

When the idea of an FPS was original, all FPS's were good, although some just better than others. Now it seems like all the base ideas have been done and everything that comes out feels like some combo of the base game types; FPS, RPG, RTS, casual, puzzle, simulation. The only thing the dev's have any influence over is execution and storyline. Some spend their time working hard on those, others stick to the tried-and-true purist approach, which requires the least amount of time and $$ and could see the biggest profit.

It's left up to the indie game builders to find the new genre, to push the limits and find the new frontiers. People driven not by the cash but by the experience and adventure of building something new. New music didn't come from RCA, it came from the bottom where the money wasn't. While the options seem limited, there's more out there, we just have to promote the work of indie builders when we can.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

I wish that people would stop buying boring games but there isn't much that I can do about it. Necessity is the mother of invention so in order to force game publishers to make games for me I need to make it so that mostly only people with my taste buy games. Not going to happen. I can understand a basic normal distribution and Venn diagram.

On the other hand I can hope that there is a minority of game developers who are only willing to make the sort of game I want. Buying these games and encouraging them in other ways isn't such a bad idea. Some of these people will want to make games even if they have to do it on a shoestring from their bedrooms. My relationship is with them and the industry is only worthwhile when it enables tham.