f13.net

Scuttle butt is that they seem to want to be bought up by a private equity firm, which if this goes through, probably means even more hilariously bad decisions.

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/374794/20120817/electronic-arts-ea-games-sale.htm

I think they realized that trying to make a profit in gaming based on Wall Street's rules of profit-generation is folly.  Esp. when it's practically/stupidly easy for one person or a small team of people with the right stuff can make a smash hit that cuts into market that their board members and stock holders expect to own.

If anything, they should break it up.  Although, with all the the companies they've assimilated over the last two decades, who knows how that'd pan out.

Maybe they figure that by selling themselves, they can reclaim the "King Evil Corporate Asshole" crown from Activision.

Their brand of AAA gaming is dying.  We've reached a plateau on sound and graphics capabilities and that and Version++ is what's driven their properties for the last 12-15 years.   People just don't feel like blowing $70 a game every year on that anymore.  Recession, wisening-up, growing-up, moving on to smartphones.  Whatever it is things are changing and they can't adapt.

That's the major problem. They never saw the value in making better games through multiple niches. They wanted to cram the same crap down America's overloaded snackhole repeatedly.

How does it even work if a company has private equity AND public stocks?

Unless I'm misunderstanding, this would take them private?

I think that's right.  They're looking for someone with enou cash to buy up the outstanding stock.  Considering how far the value has fallen that won't have the price tag it once did.   There's evidently 318.2 million shares outstanding and their price is 13.77 right now.  That'd make them ~4.5 billion.  Pretty cheap for a company with a history of proven revenues and if you know how to fix things, even better.  (Hint: Don't spend 200 million on an MMO.)

If you're trying to make money through the traditional AAA development publisher model, your future isn't good. EA, Ubisoft, THQ et al are all suffering badly.

The gaming companies that are succeeding are starting to own the retail channels and aren't relying on the sales of their own games to keep them afloat (Valve and Steam, CD Projekt and GOG) or moving to small development budget titles that may span the mobile platforms as well as 'standard' platforms like PC and consoles or still receiving a large revenue from subscription titles (Blizzard Activition, who Vivendi was reportedly looking to sell as well earlier this year).

EA also has the problem that they went for a small target strategy - only publishing titles that would be 'guaranteed' hits - when they would have been better served by more diversification in their development offerings.

The private equity firm that is buying them is only doing so because they believe they can increase value. They'll either do this by improving efficiency within the company and improving the bottom line, or by liquidating the assets/components for a larger net than the cost. The ironic thing is that assuming the company isn't obliterated, it will probably be run in a much more sane fashion. Equity firms aren't in the business of doing particular kinds of business really, they are in the business of making money and they're very good at it. EA might actually improve.

I haven't seen any details of the deal, but it's usually very nearly impossible to fully take a public company the size of EA private. More likely a firm is acquiring a majority stake, at which point the company is still public but they still hold all the power.

Not bad if you ignore the market's complete inability to understand game companies. I mean you've got Blizzard who have  literally been pissing cash for the past 6 years with trivial stock growth.

The stock market doesn't reward slow and steady profit. They reward INSANE, SHORT-TERM EXPLOSIVE GROWTH before dumping the shit out of the stock so it can settle into a realistic pricing model. That's because the market is full of idiotic sheeple and outright con men working the press for pump and dump scams.

Equity markets aren't quite as evil as you think they are. If that were all the market consisted of it would have 100% collapsed a long time ago. Besides, EA is a long-established company with predictable revenue streams, there is not going to be any insane, short-term explosive growth no matter who buys what.

That's the tech sector, or unestablished companies. There are good places to put your money, but I would never suggest putting in companies you don't plan on being around for 30 years, or companies that never pay dividends.

Over the long haul of the market, it's not a bad place to put your money. Example, the DOW has quadrupled in the 20 year period between 1972 and 1992, and quadrupled again from 1992 to 2012.

If you were investing $20,000 in long term companies back in 1992, and I'll use a blue chipper like Coca-Cola as an example, your value would be 4x what you paid for it today. In addition, you would have picked up at least 2% a year in dividends, and you would have received a 2:1 split in 1996.

While these firms might be adept at streamlining things in general, it remains to be seen whether their decision making process actually suits game making. Most games are already late to begin with, if some equity firm is pointing even more shotguns at you than you're used to, this isn't exactly a positive thing.

Wut?  Maybe for high-risk, high-reward ventures, but this just isn't true across the board.  Paelos example is a good one, and there are numerous other examples.  Publix and Apple come to mind.

But, this is a gaming thread.  We can derail into stock market talk in Politics!   :uhrr:

It really is amazing to see the variety of offerings on Steam compared to other publishers out there.  I'd love to find the time to get to know some of the more peculiar titles out there.  I think this is part of what's missing from EA's repertoire.

Shit, I already know more or less how NHL13 will play.  HOORAY WHIPSHOT.    :awesome_for_real:

I'll posit that most games are overbudget and overtimeframe because of designers.  They don't know how to let things go and just push through to completion, it's not in the mindset of a designer and why they make terrible managers from a business perspective.

Yes, you have a brilliant idea on how to fix something.  Let's get this one out and then iterate in an expansion or create a new game that utilizes that idea. Then we'll have two games instead of one.

Well I think a lot of what we have to ask ourselves in these AAA games is where the majority of the time for development goes.

Does it end up in graphics?
Does it end up in gameplay?
Does it end up in testing?
Does it end up in a game engine?

I'm not really sure, but for some reason I'm guessing it's not in gameplay, controls, or user interface.

Nah, it goes to marketing and metascore critics investment.

I think it goes into poor management.

No, he's right.  A fuckload of it goes into iterating artwork.  The sheer number of artists you need to pay a reasonable wage over the course of development to make artwork in a AAA game is mind boggling.  But honestly, and I know I've been harping on this in another thread, do you really care about the art if the game blows?  I'm not about to advocate less good artwork in games.  But there's a difference between good artwork and expensive artwork. 

Dwarf Fortress, Farmville, and Minecraft.

That is all.

Thousands of indie games are made each year. Hundreds on hundreds would have to be massively successful to make a point like that.

Considering what a disaster SWTOR has been, I don't see how EA's management could be any worse under a private equity company's ownership.

Anyone who has a chance to shake up what is obviously some kind of flawed  management could be a positive...

No, that is not all.  I can easily name a hundred failed or underperforming low budget/indie games for every big success you can name.  EASILY.

Things like Dwarf Fortress (if it ever actually makes any money) and Minecraft are outliers.  You can't plan on copying their success, or if you do, then you're retarded, because 99% of the time you're going to fail.  Just because they don't have great graphics doesn't mean that your game with bad graphics is going to get the same level of success as them.  You need to have some way of attracting customers even if you don't end up on the front page of Penny Arcade, and graphics are important for that.

Analogy incoming:
I hang out a lot with amateur webcomic types, and just about every week we get someone new waltzing in through the door with some shitty stick figure comic thinking they'll be the next XKCD.  Same thing was happening five years ago with sprite comics.  The always say shit like "well, story trumps art" which is arguable, but the thing is that the comics with good art aren't setting out to make shitty stories, so unless you're SURE you can beat EVERYONE else in that department, you're losing on both fronts at once.

Same thing happens here.  It's great to say that you don't NEED graphics to put together a great game, and it's probably technically true, but the world is full of people with great game ideas that nobody played because they looked like shit.

 :oh_i_see:

Because I totally said that you can ALWAYS forsake graphical elements and focus on gameplay because it worked for three games.  You got me.  Easily.  Shit, you better go make sure you finish your law degree because YOU ARE GOOD AT ARGUING.  Wait though, I was simply pointing to some folks having success without a focus on graphics.

Your analogy sucks the shit out of assholes.  Iteration is a huge deal in the games industry.  Think it's not?  Games like L4D, DotA, and CS all would like to have a word with you.  And, if I could do a better comic than XKCD in the same style, guess what?  Sucks to be the guy who made it.  I just made his idea better.  I wonder if the first big budget shooter game (what, Medal of Honor?) cries moneyhat shaped tears at the inordinate amount of money the Modern Warfare franchise made.

What I'm saying is that people can overlook quality artwork if the gameplay is solid and it meets their gaming needs.  There's a sliding scale here.  Games like the original Assassin's Creed are in the middle, with solid artwork and decent gameplay:  initially breathtaking artwork only goes so far until you realize you're performing the same missions every time.  Games like dwarf fortress are the other way around:  unbelievably deep gameplay hindered by a clunky UI.

Here's the fundamental truth:  everyone in any facet of business is trying to do it better than the previous guy.  Some people choose to funnel their energies into different elements, whether it's gameplay, artwork, sound, or music.  And, if they excel in one above all else?  Well there's the base to a successful game.

I gotta admit, I did think that was roughly what you were arguing (without the straw man stuff), otherwise I'm not seeing your point.  Yes, Minecraft and so on are successful, I'm not sure what that has to do with EA, or musashi's post, though, if you're not arguing for EA to focus less on graphics.

I mean, yeah, people can overlook low quality artwork if the gameplay is solid and it meets their gaming needs, sure.  Are you arguing that EA is swinging too much the other way, focusing too much on gameplay?  Or something?  I'm not following.  :?

I'm trying to say they're missing the "is it fun" aspect and that it can take many forms:  artwork, gameplay, or storyline.

Examples to me would be:
Mirror's Edge:  Artwork
Minecraft:  Gameplay
Final Fantasy X:  Storyline (so sue me, I liked it.)

I feel that when game designers keep that thought in mind, titles tend to be better.

Ah, my bad.  Sorry.

Yeah, that I can pretty much get behind.  Things are definitely feeling a lot more corporate and rote to me for big name games these days, though I dunno if that's just me getting old and I just never noticed it before, or what.  More "we're making games to make money" than "we're making money to let us make games".

I'm sort of confused why what he said was an adversary to what I said?  Mirror's Edge and FFX are both examples of games I felt that had they spent less on developing visuals and more on developing fun gameplay would have been better games.  The other games he mentions aren't even AAA titles.

Are you saying they all work together?  Of course they do.  But the point is that to the degree that we are willing to sacrifice game-play for bleeding edge visuals, I think we do ourselves - and by proxy the game development that aims to fill our perceived needs - a huge disservice.

Speaking for just me... I dunno, FF X is not my cup of tea, but I hate JRPGs. I don't think you could make a JRPG into something for me. Same with Mirror's Edge; it's a platformer, which are like my kryptonite. So I can pretty much *only* comment on the visuals, you know?

Do JRPG fans and platformer fans generally hate either game for gameplay reasons?

Depending on how much fan-boy nerd ire the FF Franchise evokes in your very soul, neither one is especially bad game-play wise.  It's just that they're not especially good either.

I think this is a thread containing something that I was right about.  Hooray.

I'm not sure why it took so much money to make the next military shooter in the first place.  Then again, I'm not the target audience.

As a JRPG fan, FF X was, for me, the beginning of the end of the Final Fantasy series. It marked a strong shift in gameplay tone away from the "here's a big open map with cool shit hidden everywhere" of the first 9 games and towards the "walk in a straight line, fight a battle, watch a cutscene" of 13. In the previous entries in the series, there's always a moment when you get access to something (usually an airship) and suddenly you're free to go anywhere, find secrets, get to those inaccessible places you'd noticed, etc. that gave the games a sense of exploration and fun. In some of them, you get this multiple times per game due to different vehicles or world changes (Overworld/Underworld/Moon in FF4, Balance/Ruin in FF6, buggy > crashed jet > airship > gold chocobo in FF7). In FFX when that moment happens, you're given an airship with a list of places you can teleport to and that's basically it. If you know the coordinates of secret hidden things and input them, you can teleport to those as well, but you cannot actually fly around the overworld map because there is no such thing; the game is just a bunch of connected set-pieces instead of an actual world. You can't even fly your airship above the various set-pieces, just teleport in at the zonelines.

FFX is actually apt for the graphics vs gameplay argument because, as the series' first entry on the PS2 the focus seems to have been on presentation rather than gameplay. The graphics are a huge leap up from the previous high water mark of FF8, and X also features fully voiced characters for the first time. FFX was also a game very focused on storyline, which is why a lot of players hold it in high regard (the other reason being for a lot of younger gamers it was the first FF), but that's never been what drew me to the FF games.

That depends entirely on your age.  While I've seen disappointment at the ending of FFX I've also seen lots of love for the game.

Not that they haven't shit all over it with 12 and 13 in general.  FF10 was the last "good" FF game for a number of mid 20-somethings.  (Which I now see Rend also said)

Did you ever play final fantasy 12? I've long since felt many of the same issues with the FF series but I found 12 to be refreshingly open ended compared to other titles. Most areas were large "zones" and there was quite a bit to explore and find.

At the risk of turning this into a FF thread...

FF12 was weird. They did fix a lot of the issues raised in 10 (bigger zones, more sidequests, greater freedom to explore), but the combat system sort of screwed it all up. Once I got a lot of options for customizing the party's Gambits (somewhere around the 10-15 hour mark), I had my party running fully automated. All I had to do was walk my party from battle to battle, and the only times I needed to actually push buttons were the boss fights which simply required firing off limit breaks until they died. As a result I got bored of the game about halfway through since I wasn't playing so much as walking my characters between fights and cutscenes, and ended up dropping it. If they had made the same game with the traditional, turn based battle system I'm sure I would have loved it and, more importantly, if they had continued in FF12's direction with the series instead of going back to FFX's more directed approach I'd still be buying them.

What makes me sad is when I used to see that square, triangle and circle I knew I was getting something good. Now I know exaclty what I'm getting too of course.

The money in AAA development goes into studios of 50, 100, 200 people or more all working on one title for 2 to 5 years. It's very expensive to do, but has helped turn out the cornerstones of modern gaming. Gameplay, controls, UI - they all come at the end of the cycle. Even companies like Valve don't get the fun into a game until right towards the end (which is their story of TF2).

I know a lot of people will laugh a lot if EA (or any other big publisher) collapses but I'm not looking forward to the resulting future that ends up with hundreds of struggling indies delivering yet another platformer with delusions of grandeur. I want my VO'd cutscene playing over a shiny 3D graphics engine, thanks. I played 8-bit games when they were state-of-the-art; I'm not going to enjoy going back there.

I differ with that bigtime.  VO'd cutscenes?  GTFO with that crap.  Story driven replacement for television and movies?  It was a horrible idea in the first place.  I don't know why we've been clinging to it for 20 years.  The only, and I mean the very single, game that has had an even remotely compelling story in the history of games was Portal.  I have been moved more by finding another princess in another castle than I have literally anything that has come out since.  And graphics?  It's just a cycle that never ends.  We just keep figuring out ways to shove more pixels in the pipeline.  I just don't care.  I'll sift through a hundred freebie tower defenses before I get burned for 60$ by the EA's of the world ever again.

You can say that you don't get the fun in the game until the end all you want, but to me that just sounds like a culture built to fail.  And in reality, that repeated failure is what I see happening from my perspective, so it doesn't surprise me to hear that at all.

EA has been fucking up our passtime for as long as I can remember.  It's time for them to die.  Had they stuck to shitting out Maddens every year, they'd probably still be in decent shape.  But instead they've been destroying all that's right in the game world, and it just has to stop.  To defend what they have turned AAA gaming into is just a little bit intellectually dishonest.  And I, quite frankly, expect more from a poster on the internet with your normally high integrity.

I guess until that culture fails completely, I'll be over here killin' centipedes.

I have a rather huge library of RPGs of multiple assorted types that would very much like to disagree with you on this point.

Just because we buy them doesn't mean the story in them was good.

We're way, way deep into the realm of subjectivity here.

I'm fine with star VO work on extended cinematic cut scenes as long as it took no money away from the game-play.

It's possible to have a good story in a modern game without heavy use of extended cutscenes. Fallout: New Vegas comes to mind as an example.

Does it really have a good story? Great game, but the story is pretty much generic in my view.

It definitely doesn't have a particularly tight narrative; whether or not you prefer that your story in a game come in one form or the other is mostly a matter of, well, preference. I enjoy games like Skyrim and NV a lot, but more for the world-building than the narrative or characterization (Skyrim in particular has very weak characters). All of those things could reasonably be put under the heading of "story" though.

In a sense, yeah. I would have thought 'story' for a game would generally be used to apply to the central shared narrative elements that most players engage with in the same way (ie the plot and writing of the main quest). In general these types of games can have different levels of quality in the various 'side' areas, which can be interesting stories in their own right, and form an interesting imagined narrative for the player character, but they are not constructed in the same way.

In a sense the power of these stories is reliant on the world building and the imagination of the person playing the game - being able to turn skill choices into a personal narrative is both a product of game mechanics that allow it and a player who is willing to give it meaning.

Quality of writing on the other hand is easier to assess, which is why I would say that when people generally assess 'story' they are assessing the quality of writing (and voice acting) and plotting of the more central and/or linear parts of a game.

/blather.

For me FO:NV has some good writing, some good side stories, and some good voice acting. The wrold building and the player mechanics are very well constructed for the most part. However I find the main plot to be rather generic (which is in turn a product of the game type, I guess it has to allow everything at once) though and wouldn't say it has a great story, insofar as story is the narrative of the courier becoming involved with and resolving the major conflict between new vegas, the ncr and the legion.

Well this is all highly subjective, but the reason I cited NV is that it's the best recent example of a player-choice-driven story; the quests in the game all have branching possibilities and outcomes including (and this is the big thing) the main story. Player choice is the thing I most care about in a game's story, because that's the point of an interactive narrative; the ability to create your own story. It's the draw of everything from "choose your own adventure" books to traditional PnP RPGs, yet it's something that 90% of games shy away from. In games where the story is just presented via cutscene with no input from the player beyond them reaching the next story bit, I very rarely stay interested (in the story; if the gameplay is good I'll keep playing of course). If I wanted to just experience a story, I feel that reading books or watching TV/movies is a better avenue. It's the same problem I had in TSW compared to SWTOR; the writing might've been better in TSW but I had no patience to sit through it.

I played it right up until the game played itself, at which point I lost interest and stopped.  (Much like Rednacor says) The story wasn't compelling enough to finish and the mechanics, frankly, sucked.  I never discovered how much there was to explore or find because I realized it was pointless.

These aren't uncommon complaints about the game.  It's rated lower (by users) than 10 by a fair margin, and 13 is slightly above it.

On the current topic.. games and story are one of the bigger fights of the last few years.  (Hello, Mr. Ebert)   None of them are novelization-level and I think we all accept that.  Great writers aren't getting in to games right now, they're writing novels.  That doesn't mean that story doesn't draw you in.  Just because its pulpy doesn't mean it's not compelling and nothing has to be high art just to have value.  We read and watch plenty of drek as a culture so why should games be any different.

I've completed games where the mechanics weren't great, just to see the ending of the story.  Just about every RTS I've ever completed spring immediately to mind. No input from me could have affected those outcomes, but I still wanted to play to see them. (More than the game play since I've never legitimately completed an RTS.. cheatcodes ahoy!) 

God of War was another that, even though it was punishing, I pushed through to the end because I wanted to see Kratos' story conclude.  The gameplay was good but far beyond my normal abilities.  I spent far, far longer than I should have taken trying to complete that one because I really suck at platformers.

In the end it comes down to the individual user how much they matter.  It's in trying to be all things to all gamers that most games fail.  It's the rare gem that will accomplish store, gameplay, sound, polish and graphics in a way that will make it a classic.  The problem is publishers like EA are trying to always make that classic.  Every single game has to reach that pinnacle to "justify the cost." The cost that's driven ever-upward because they think that tossing money at development is the answer.   It's a vicious cycle.

Honestly if the gaming industry devolved into hundreds of independent studios putting out stuff similar in quality to spiderweb softwares titles, I would be god-damn ecstatic.

EXILE I LOVE YOU FOREVER AND ALWAYS.  The death shriek for the win! :drillf: :drillf: :drillf: 

Also, FFX was my mother (who's 56 now) gateway drug.  She'd never have played any Elder Scrolls, Mass Effects, or Dragon Ages if it weren't for the movie you played along with (which is how I used to describe FFX).

Anyone who liked FF12 should try Xenoblade.

F:NV doesn't really have a good story.  It has an interesting setting and presents itself as a breathing world you can create good stories in.  That's fun but it's apples and oranges.

I think you also need to consider audience and cost. If you are spending 100 million to make a blockbuster game / movie you need material that panders to the broadest possible audience. And that means it has to be loud, spectacular, have memorable quotes and set-pieces and be fast paced so no one gets bored.

So they don't necessarily want a great writer, they want a profitable one.

Vampire: Bloodlines.

True. Though that brings up the question of why people like Ebert, who point out the writing in games sucks, will hold up equally braindead movies as fun or entertaining.   I'm not sure they'd call them great writers but there's more forgiveness given there than to games.

Honestly I think F:NV story was pretty awesome, it was loads better than Skyrims.

I know it looks that way.  But it's really not so.  We've been trying to turn games into gametainment, where we use what could be generously described as an industry full of troglodytes with holo deck pipe dreams to code games into their favorite pulp genre.  It just doesn't work.  For one thing, it's a pulp genre in the first place.  For another thing, the guy who's writing it isn't a writer.  These things are objective.  It's crap in the abstract.

There is more fun in Rock 'n' Roll Racing than any Blizzard game that has come out since WoW - including WoW expansions.  And that's a fact, Jack.  It did not really surprise me to find out that Vivendi is looking to shop the whole shebang. 

And EA is orders of magnitude worse than Blizzard.  Die, I say.  I haven't felt like AAA gaming was worth the price of admission for ten years, with the notable exception of Orange Box.

Small games are kicking their asses, bigtime.  And it's fine by me.  Everybody wins, except... you know, shareholders.  You can have your shitty pulp genre games, because let's face it, the writing isn't going to get any worse.  You'll just have to suffer without your precious voice overs.  And I can continue to sample games crafted by people who craft games without the interference of corporate twats.

Speaking of which, maybe whoever ends up with EA can merge it with Blacktivision and we can literally watch the sun explode before our very eyes.  Delicious.

And Lantyssa...  To suggest that I would engage in anything with a vampire in it that isn't Gary Oldman...  You know me better than that.

 :uhrr:

I rather thought Starcraft II was worth the price of admission.  Also, Cataclysm wasn't awful and there sure are quite a few mouthbreathing forum types who'd love to sink a month of their time into explaining how The Burning Crusade was the best MMO gaming has ever been.

Also, EA has put out some excellent games.  NHL and FIFA franchises have been worthwhile games too.

Also, I like that you say "but it's really not so," and then "you felt like AAA games haven't been worth the price of admission in years."

When did that start?  Did you really feel like Assassin's Creed, Halo, Fallout, Mass Effect, Oblivion/Skyrim, Gears of War, Battlefield, Arkham Asylum, and Modern Warfare weren't solid?  I wonder how high your bar is set.

Edit:  I cheated Bethesda in my original post.

While I agree with you cmlancas, the WOW expansions were good for MMO-players.  MMO-Players are not wholly traditional gamers.

Yes.  It's set higher than that.  90% of that list is exactly the shit I'm talking about.

Also, have you played Rock 'n' Roll racing?

I want a strategy game that doesn't get buried under the weight of a poor engine that struggles to load. I want an RPG that's open ended with lots of ancillary options to the main story, and a combat system that's easy to use and tough to master. It's not even about graphics for me, as I continually load up Rome:TW to fill that strategy need. Mount&Blade also continues to be one of the most played games in my library on Steam because the controls are sharp.

The thing those games have in common are finely tuned controls, combat, and gameplay. They are what you make them, and they provide endless hours of play. Minecraft does this. Dragon Age did this pretty well. Skyrim certainly has the unique combo of gameplay and graphics where both got it "right."

This is just semantics.  You seem to have a particular taste not met by the market.  I get that.  What I don't get is why you act like someone should make a AAA big budget MMO based on the particular niche you seem to enjoy?  You can't possibly think an action MMO is going to fly with the sort of casual/non/whatever-gamers WoW has nurtured.

Ya no subjectivity here. None at all.

Then you should start hitting yourself in the face because you'll get done quicker and it'll accomplish the same goal.

 :facepalm:

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

I think nobody should make AAA games, MMO or otherwise, based on anyone's niche tastes.  I think my particular taste is satiated a billion times for far more value on Kongregate or Armor Games.  And then there's Steam whose sales allow pretty much any budget more games than there is time in the day.  AAA games are probably going to die as we know them.  And I'm pretty okay with that.  It took me a long time to cope with that.  So I understand if you (plural) aren't there yet.

The idea of AAA games was based on a false premise.  That being that they could meet the demand of a segment of the entertainment business.  I don't mean to suggest that games aren't entertainment.  Simply that they don't belong in the 'entertainment business' where the more dollars are involved the more the game has to pander to the least common denominator to minimize the risk involved in larger investments.  Games inherently live in niches.  A good game REQUIRES innovation.  And that sort of thing is stifled by big budgets - every goddamn time.

In short if I have a choice between two games, and all I know about them before I pay is that one is 60$ and made by 600 people while the other is 6$ and made by 6 people, I'm buying the 6$ game every time.

Which would be great for you. I would be less happy.

My favorite games are the big AAA western RPGs, with voice acting, visuals, etc. I'm not going to be happy with a diet of just indie games with no budget.

I think you could not be more wrong about games requiring innovation. As long as a few games innovate, that's enough.

I agree with Musashi, but understand it's probably a minority viewpoint.

What the story in Portal had that so many other stories lack is a strong sense of what I'm going to call irony and foreshadowing. Irony in the sense that expectations are toys to be played with, and foreshadowing as a matter of subtly setting up pins to be knocked down later. That the player's goals and their character's arc spent most of the game overlapping was just icing on the cake. Even Portal II didn't do nearly so well, as I think I described elsewhere.

Yeah, I like some of the stories in RPGs but most of the time I'd rather read them than have them shoved awkwardly down my throat in textdumps and cutscenes. Put them in the game. Let me discover them. Let me play them. If poor quality of interface means certain stories are hard to tell, then don't tell those stories yet.

Big budgets mean no risks. Blockbusters only.

Hey, I didn't say the innovation couldn't be stolen from something else.  :D

I guess at some level I'm also arguing that you think you're happier with those games, but the dope's all the same, man.  We could all be just as happy with smaller budget games.  I realize how presumptuous that is.  And how that presumption is insulting.  But it's really not meant to be an insult.  It's just that it's true.

If EA et al disappeared tomorrow, we'd both still be playing games.  It's what we do.  That's the only intrinsic part of this.  You'd just have more time to creep further down the list of unplayed and probably undownloaded Steam sale games.  I submit to you that there are probably a couple games on your very own unplayed Steam list that are categorically better than most big budget poo-paloozas.

I can tell you that's untrue because the genre of games I'm talking about specifically don't even exist in the budget/indie category. There's stuff that comes vaguely close, I guess, like Bastion (more of a flavorful ARPGish thing than a real RPG), but in general the western RPG world is AAA titles and utter jank, with nothing in between.

You need to be wearing a beret and banging a bongo when you say this.

How do you know I'm not?

1)  AAA games don't take risks.

Modern Warfare and Rockstar games (Red Dead and GTA4, specifically) drive really gritty storylines that certainly push the envelope.  I'm thinking specifically of senselessly murdering civilians in the airport while you're in deep cover and the damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't choices in GTA4.  I literally stopped playing after I had to decide if someone lived or died because it wasn't the type of entertainment I   was looking for in a game.  Max Payne comes to mind as well.  Shit, Bully is a risk when you think about it.

2)  AAA games don't innovate.

I'd say Fallout and Skyrim have set the bar very high for folks to enter into the sandbox arena.  Also, I think Bioshock did a lot for imaginative shooters.  Gears of War perfected cover fire mechanics-- better than any Clancy game before it.  Also, have you ever so breathtakingly assassinated someone like you did the first time you stealthily killed someone in a crowd as Altair?  You may hate Halo, but you can't deny it's a well-designed shooter.  And if you missed the Halo 1 experience on the computer, it was amazing.

3)  If AAA games didn't exist, we'd play something else.

Here's the thing:  people play what's fun.  For some people, that's looking at dots in space.  For others, they long for purple and orange loot.  Still, some enjoy a positive K/D that comes from a well-executed strategy in a team deathmatch shooter.  As long as there's industry and market competition, you'll always see a Blizzard/Zynga/EA/Apple/Dell/Microsoft/Publix/Wal-Mart/Kroger trying to make successful games you want to play, merchandise you want to buy, and apps you want to use.

So yes, we probably would play something else.  But that's like saying you don't appreciate the power and innovation of an iPhone because it's a big-budget, high-risk, high-reward technology.  It did innovate, better than any other ones before it.

Oh man.  Red Dead, GTA4, Fallout, and Skyrim have a lot in common.  Open world, "story" driven, explorey types.  Not a great example of taking risks or innovating, if you ask me.  In Portal, I had fun shooting a gun that didn't kill people.  That's innovation.  Those other games?  They're not really that much different than when they were called GTA3.  Way to go out on a limb.

I really can't explain Apple.  That's another thread.  Suffice it to say that I'm an Android guy.  I like to pay less and get more.  Call me crazy.

This is all sort of ancillary to the point that these AAA games are dying dead.  And we're better off for it, whether we know it now or not.  Does AA really sound that bad?  I have no doubt we'll get one or two of those every once in a while.  Hell they might even have voice overs.

AAA games innovate in the same way that Summer Blockbuster Movies innovate: More impressive action setpieces, better special effects.

This is so wrong for me personally it makes my head hurt. I don't buy every game that goes on a Steam sale, I only buy games I think I will enjoy, rather than "gosh this is only three bucks, I'm getting it even though it's in a genre I hate" or whatever. This means I don't actually have much in the way of a backlog. And while there are some little indie games I like just fine, most of them simply do not do the sorts of games I like playing.

I also don't have an innovation fetish, though. I'm not anti-innovation, obviously, but innovation for the sake of innovation doesn't do it for me, nor do I need something innovative for me to enjoy a game. Sometimes I just want to build my little cities, play an RPG character, or use guns on men in peace without the formula being shaken up, or whatever. Most of the time I just want the shit I do like to be done better.

There are lots of games like the lost vikings being made now.

Your complaint is basically that you are too lazy to find said games, or you want to force everyone else to play the games you like by denying them others.

Honestly you sound like someone who has probably lost a bit of their imaginative power and is wistful about the games they played when they were younger. Generally speaking the quality and breadth of games now is far greater than anything before.

Speaking of EA:

https://twitter.com/EdmundMcMillenn/status/238130909465939968


What's the deal with PopCap anyway? EA bought 'em for a gazillion dollars and... what've they done with them?

Aside from lay off 50 people, that is.

The parable of the frog and the scorpion applies here. In other words EA being EA.

Edit: As far as the breadth and quality of games now, any statement one way or the other is highly debatable and ultimately subjective, especially if you consider budget threshold a factor. Sure, there are still some survival horror games being made, but not at the same level of production and budget. The "AAA survival horror" genre is dead. The types of games that command high budgets are pretty narrow these days. And while it's cool that some guy made a spooky survival horror mod for HL2 that's not a proper substitute, any more than an RPG Maker rpg would be an adequate replacement for Mass Effect.

Flight / space sim is still a genre, but "AAA flight / space sim" is not. Personally I hate the term "AAA" but there is something to be said for games with a certain level of production value and scope.

Totally my subjective opinion here, but I have no idea how you could call Halo 1 for PC "amazing".  Especially compared to Half-Life, which pretty much set the bar for what people expected out of a story driven PC shooter, which had already been out for nearly 3 years before Halo even hit Xbox, let alone PC.  Unless you are talking about Co-Op or something maybe?

There is no doubt that trends have left some areas that were once popular neglected. But I dunno if there's such a golden age as when everything was equally popular anyhow. Any pining for a past is usually going to depend on what you like to play before you get to what period you choose.

I like rpgs with turn based squad combat. That boat has sailed in terms of 'top of the line' products. Hell, nearly any turn based squad combat is hard to find. But I'd be entirely subjective if I then turned that into a comment about how the industry is whatever...

I think it less of a stretch to say that as the gaming industry has gotten bigger more titles and more diversity has become available at the same time. Saying if those titles and genres and whatever are 'better' returns us to the subjective discussion. But I would certainly lean towards 'yes' myself.

I'd agree that the industry has gotten bigger, but argue it's gotten much less diverse. Almost every AAA title is beginning to incorporate COD style online multiplayer, even franchises that have long been exclusively single-player; RPG-lite ding-gratz mechanics are also being bolted onto a ton of games where it makes no sense. See also: zombies in everything, cover based shooting and the chest-high walls that comes with, horror games turning into action/shooting games, etc. The AAA landscape really feels like we're approaching some singularity where every game is a reskinned Call of Duty.

On the flipside, genres that were pretty popular a console generation or two ago are dying out. JRPGs in general were all over the place from SNES through PS2, while the current gen consoles haven't seen that many (Nintendo DS aside, but even that's been a last-gen system for more than a year now). Platformers are another example; Nintendo's still trying with Mario games and there have been a small handful but not a whole lot. It's even happening for sports games, to the point that baseball is the only sport that has two competing games release each year, with The Show being a PS3 exclusive.

The only "new" genre I can think of to appear within this console generation is gimmicky motion-controlled shit, but even that's a dying fad at this point; it never caught on with serious gamers, and the non-gamers who bought Wiis are playing Just Dance X and not much else.

In a way, I agree, but in another sense, that's only really true for the big name, mainstream stuff.  Small indie studios are pushing out titles that would put AAA studios of ten or fifteen years ago to shame.  There are a ton of niches that aren't being filled by EA or Actiblarg, but there are way fewer that aren't being filled by anybody.  The rise of digital distribution means that you can get this stuff pretty easily, even on XBox and PSN.  I can download titles for $3.00 on my 3DS which would have made my Genesis weep for joy.

And I can't help but wonder if these platforms, which are built on the foundation of AAA titles, would suffer if the big budget stuff got hit too hard.  I find it highly unlikely that the average fratBro is going to react to the news of Call of Duty being cancelled by going out and supporting Botanicula or something.  While AAA games night not be the greatest, I'm not sure we'd be better off without them.  A high tide lifts all boats, and all that.

Yeah, it was precisely about co-op.  And, I'd have to agree with you about HL1...I've never felt so happy to be armed with a crowbar.   :grin:

Aye, this is what I was suggesting, but worded a bit better.

If you mean our current crop of crappy mass market console games are going to die then yea.  Not only am I ok with that I'll dance on their graves.

None of that ties into your original crazy time post.


Everything you've said comes across as if you think that games like Kotor, Planescape, and their ilk are all a mistake and nobody actually wants to pay for them.  We're not all you.  Tower defense is fucking boring after a while.

There was quite a bit more than that.  Not a whole lot of shooters prior to that made good use of melee, grenades, vehicles, and co-op all at once.

Agree.  But I think co-op/team deathmatch tied it together nicely.  I can cheese through most single player shooters by perfecting a strategy the AI can't adapt to, but human co-op/deathmatch allows for incredibly dynamic gameplay

Not really.  I'm just implying that they're less games, and more bad movies with game elements shoe-horned in.  I think I've been at least somewhat consistent.  In fact, I kind of feel like a broken record.  If you like paying for them, that's fine with me. 

So maybe I'm also implying your days of enjoying these products are numbered.  And maybe a little, "Ha ha, shit blows anyway."  Don't be mad, baby.  It's party time!  Think about what a wonderful world it will be when our favorite studios are no longer swallowed up by behemoths, milked dry, and rendered asunder.  It's a good thing, man.

There's more to smaller games than Tower Defense or (insert example I made that's only relevant to me).  That's just an example of one genre created out of whole cloth that's good for the industry.  It's just a beacon of light at the end of a dismal AAA tunnel.

I don't particularly feel low brow if you label my shit "bad movies with game elements".  They still beat watching TV or playing an endless stream of Mario clones.


Why though?  These types of games aren't actually all that expensive when produced by sane human beings.

I, for one, miss the endless stream of Mario clones. More platformers, fewer shooters I say. At the very least they had substantially more gameplay variety.

Jump here, not there!

 :grin:

:heartbreak:

I suggest that the independent and small game industry is not accurately characterized in your statement.  (Again).

Why are AAA titles going away?  You sort of answer your own question.  Somewhere in the process of trying to turn their relatively inexpensive games into huge franchises, they lose their goddamn minds.  I'm not smart enough to tell you why.  All I know is that two of the biggest  AAA content providers are rumored to be on the block.  And that doesn't bode well.  I'd bet it has a lot to do with the development of the next generation of consoles, and the loss of market share to online distribution channels.  But hey.  What do I know, anyway?

Most of this thread should be re-titled "People have different opinions about what is good, news at 11."

Me for example, I still think Eve is the best MMO out their and a great game if you have time to play it.  :why_so_serious:

But Musashi is actually right, you know? Everyone else has opinions but he is right.

Can't tell if green or not...

I already mentioned this once this thread but I assume you are aware of: www.spiderwebsoftware.com   All the titles that guy has put out have been great from a gameplay and story perspective if you are willing to overlook clunky old graphics and sounds.

The latest remake of Avernum 1 and the New Avadon series both have better presentation and UI as well if that is a barrier to playing those games.

I don't think the idea of AAA games needs to go away. I think they need to fall off and reform.

Right now the AAA industry is mired in reactionary iteration in the hopes they can squeeze profit out of bloated overhead. The model they use is to release less games and produce more "franchises" which essentially means sequels. Here's the problem with that theory. There's no risk there, and there are no chances being taken. You can provide a predictable product and ride the highs and lows of consumership if you produce a commodity like soda, pasta, or work pants. People consume and replace those things with little need for change or innovation. The khaki pant will be the khaki pant 10 years from now. They will ride fashion trends to a degree, but they will still be around. Coke is the same, pasta will be pasta.

Entertainment is a different beast. The model of creating predictable entertainment is inherently flawed. People aren't entertained by predictibility. They are entertained by the unknown, the drama, the risk, the comedy, and the dynamicism. What AAA has tried to do recently is homogonize the Entertainment of games into the business model for Soda. That is why they fail, and why they need to rebuild. You can still create a big budget game, but you have to understand that you are cross-colateralized with other products. If anything, I'd say look at an industry that's heavily based on risk R&D, like drug companies, to model your goals for games. After all, aren't games just another fix?

No that's not what I was asking.  You've claimed several times that VO and cutscenes are going away.  That's pretty much saying they'll stop making Call of Duty.  :uhrr:

JFC, dude.  The original post I responded to was talking about how VO's and cutscenes were possible in part because the budget of AAA games is so high.  It's a relative thing.  The game-play for Call of Duty is not going away.  But it might have to exist with a smaller budget.  And if we're making cuts, what goes?  And though it's probably unlikely to die anytime soon, the CoD franchise is Blacktivision, iirc?  What happens if Vivendi really is selling?  What do the new owners do with Kotick and his merry men?  It's really not out of the realm of possibilities that CoD does die, at least as we know it.

Given that they've broken sales records every year for at least the last 3, I don't see the Call of Duty series going anywhere, sold off by Vivendi or otherwise.

When COD dies, it's going to be sudden because it's going to kill the annual-map-pack-disguised-as-new-game market stone cold dead for a generation and take a whole bunch of publishers with it so naturally said publishers are going to prop it up way past the point of no return.

I suspect the next gen consoles might just do it, assuming the cost to develop does the typical sort of jump expected with each iteration of shiny new console. It's all well and good selling X million copies of "Call of Duty: Surely We've Killed Everyone Foreign By Now 3" but if it's costing you more to make than the money you're pulling it, that doesn't matter.

Only somewhat. People generally buy the safe and familiar. Occasionally people venture out and buy something that is really new new (and there's a sub-group in every culture who lead the way) but the majority don't trailblaze, they go where is comfortable. See the abundance of sequels in movies, or adaptions of other sources (which has always been the way going back to serials of Buck Rogers) or writers who stick to one genre or even Kickstarters that fund remakes / updates of previously enjoyed titles or genres. Fifty Shades of Grey and Harry Potter were 'new' for only a short period of time before they became acceptable for <insert group here> to buy.

On top of this in game terms players appear to be increasingly less likely to pay $60 for anything less than a great game - good but flawed is no longer enough (unless they are a sequel e.g. Skyrim). Plus there are plenty of channels for buying such titles at less than full price, which is damaging to publishers (and the studios they have relationships with) because the bulk of titles at retail - still the bigger sales channel at this point - have only 10 weeks to make the bulk of their revenue before the game is forgotten / start to be sold used.

Some believe that killing the publishers will make things all better, and that studios will be free to truly do things differently... and some will. But a lot of studios may end up finding that publishers took over a lot of the risks they'll end up facing as indies, and that instead of relying on a publisher's credit to get a game developed, they'll now have to start self-funding. And / or move to low cost development options, like apps / mobile games.

So yeah, publishers suck. However, I'm not sure that getting rid of them is going to lead to a better outcome by default. The new boss doesn't have to be better than the old boss.

50 shades of grey was just twilight fan fic, and romance novels have sold really well for a long time, so the novelty there is not as great as it seems.

There is rarely something that genuinely comes out of nowhere, that's not how humans work: either in creating or consuming.

If Skyrim isn't considered a great game, but just a good-but-flawed sequel, I just give up even trying to have discussions about this stuff anymore.

The older you get the better games have to be to be good - because they don't compete with what is around now, or recently, but every single gaming memory the reviewer has ever had. And if they don't meet the best of them - they're crap!

Except it wasn't called crap, it was called "good but flawed" - which is pretty accurate. (Unless you are talking about the PS3 version, which apparently is crap)

It's totally fair to say that Publishers assume most of, if not all the risk involved in making larger games.  But that's no reason to be so pessimistic.  After all, the demand for good games is still the same.  We just have to make them differently now that we can't hide behind the weight of giant publishers.  That's not automatically bad either.  They just won't have all the bells and whistles.  And I think we may be too hung up on that crap anyway.  They don't by themselves facilitate a better experience.

I'm 38!  :heartbreak: Sometimes I wonder, though, if the fact that I regularly go back and replay the 'classics' gives me a different perspective on these games than people who are working off of their 10 year old memories - maybe explains why I always seem to be gentler on the newer RPGs, because the flaws of the old ones are fresher and haven't faded to just happy warm feelings or something.

How about "Skyrim with the mods that fix the UI, improve the textures a bit, and pretty up the faces" is a great game, but because the mods are fan-made, Bethesda only gets credit for a "good but flawed" game?  Would that work?  Cause, every time they patch I have to wait a week or so for SkyUI to work again, and I can't play the game without it (I tried), so I'm never going to give Bethesda a "great" rating.

Skyrim gets some credit for those mods though because their whole system for handling mods is just far superior to other games.  It's a lot more than simply releasing the creation kit.

Aye, same here. We're mid-gamelife-crisis resistant as a result I would say. Much easier to recognise why you do and don't like something when you have recent experience rather than memories of feelings or moments.