Anybody else done with video gaming?

[tgr]

Yes, indie games are where the interesting things happen now.

Its where all the interesting things have always happened.

Its just now mainstream enough for many of you here to notice.

What you mean to say is, we're back to the doom era of games development, where a small number of people make games that are actually games, whereas those that used to make games back in the doom era of games development, have moved on to make AAA games, and have all moved on to consoles, where people want graphical glitz more than content.

In other words, we've just done a 20 year circle in gaming.

[Bunk]

Game playing goes through waves for me. Sometimes its about releases, sometimes its other things popping up in my life, sometimes its just about the weather. I highly doubt I will ever be "done" with video games - the level of interest just fluctuates.

This week I spent a total of maybe two hours playing games for the whole week. Next week, I'm taking Wednesday off so I can stay up all night on Tuesday getting my Femshep on.

[Mrbloodworth]

What you mean to say is, we're back to the doom era of games development, where a small number of people make games that are actually games, whereas those that used to make games back in the doom era of games development, have moved on to make AAA games, and have all moved on to consoles, where people want graphical glitz more than content.

In other words, we've just done a 20 year circle in gaming.

You could say that yes.

You could also say that most people Ignore indi games, or pass them over just because they are indi. I have seen people here, on this site, completely Ignore games because they were not done by big name AAA houses. To the point of bashing them. MMO's especially, with some valid reasons, sure. But the only ones praised are from the big houses, or former big house developer employes.

This includes the staff, and writers, a quick glance at the front page going back shows this.

The resurgence of indi games in mainstream thought is because of a few rags to riches stories bring them back into the spotlight. So now its cool. Now they are noticed. Now an industry has sprung up around the notion.

[Rasix]

Yes, indie games are where the interesting things happen now.

Its just now mainstream enough for many of you here to notice.

Fuck right off with that shit.

[Mrbloodworth]

Indeed.

[ghost]

I thought this place was more about the "riches to rags" pathway, e.g. Warhammer Online.

[Lantyssa]

I disagree its never been a better time to be the small guy.

I'm not saying it's a bad time to be the small guy.  I'm saying our perceptions of gaming going to shit is because the big guys make all the noise, and gaming has become mainstream.

If you're in to the indie games and know where to look, it's a wonderful time.  You just have to be in the know (and have the energy to pursue it), or else you don't know about all the little gems out there.

[Mrbloodworth]

You just have to be in the know (and have the energy to pursue it), or else you don't know about all the little gems out there.

Eh?

Xbox Indie Games?
Facebook?
PSN?
Humble Bundles?
Steam?
XNA?
Indi game chanels?
Kickstarter?
PCgamer?
Flash?
Crome Store?
Independent Games Festival?
Indie Game Jam?
rockpapershotgun?


Yeah, hard to find now! By golly!

[Lantyssa]

(and have the energy to pursue it)

I'm also talking in generalities about the mainstream and psychology behind why "there's nothing out there".  Gamers aren't some niche breed anymore.  It's more like the music scene where you've got super pop stars, a couple of big names everyone loves, and little indie genres that only a small number of people follow.

I know where to look.  Joe Blow does not.  Nor does he give a fuck.

[ezrast]

I've been feeling lately like gaming for me has been more and more about passing time and less about enjoying the experience. Because of that and a serious talk with my girlfriend about whether my habits were addictive, I haven't touched a game in two weeks, save for a couple rounds of Smash Brothers one night for the sake of my friend's nostalgia.

It's a little weird participating in the culture (posting here and watching League of Legends streams) and not doing the actual gaming, but staying on the wagon hasn't been that difficult so far. I don't plan on avoiding games forever, and Diablo 3 could break me if I get in the beta. But hey, nothing's going to come out that won't be here in a few years. Except MMOs.

[Sjofn]

Not done, but I don't think I was ever the same sort of gamer as some of you guys are describing. I have very specific tastes in gaming, and I will play the ever loving fuck out of games that appeal to those tastes, long after I suspect most normal people would stop (exhibit A: The Sims and all its derpy children). Plus the kinds of games I really like (city builders, for example) don't change as much or have the baggage of those changes the way, say, FPS games have.

It helps, of course, that Ingmar is also a gamer, and we enjoy gaming together. Plus no kids. Just cats.

[apocrypha]

What I have found is that as I age I just get more picky. Which is only natural I suppose, I've been gaming for 30 years now, I'm very, very used to the way games are done.

Games rarely surprise me these days. I do appreciate a game that's done well, but I honestly can't remember the last time I saw something that was truly new to me in a game - except for Katawa Shoujo, which I haven't played myself, only spectated RK47's radicalathon.

You can call that either jaded or experienced, which depends on your frame of mind I suppose. The gaming industry is no different from any other entertainment industry in this respect - it's mostly about making profit and investors don't like excessive risks being taken with their money. We all love a good car crash story when that equation goes wrong (DNF) and that's the kind of shit that keeps big developers playing safe.

And this is why the indie gaming scene is the best chance of being surprised. We all know the next Radiohead album/Halo game/Terminator movie is going to be predictable and formulaic, which is why we pin our hopes on funny little upstarts who are still doing it for the love of whatever genre we're talking about.

[MahrinSkel]

In all truth, until Tribes Ascend, I hadn't been playing much.  There just wasn't much coming out that I liked, most shooters had been hopelessly consolified (I'm looking at you, Deus Ex) to the point I just couldn't stand them.  If I have to hook up a XBox controller to my PC, you're doing it wrong.

I was playing games as a sort of professional duty, because I needed to stay current, not because they were fun.  Even the few bright spots (Oblivion, Mass Effect series, GTA series) were lacking something.

T:A was the first game that I sat down and played for 8 hours straight just for fun in years (since I dropped out of Eve).  And I was starting to think I was just too old for games.  Now I think it's not me, it's the games.  They *suck*.  They are homogenized tasteless piles of pap with designs produced by taking "Franchise + New Graphics + Focus Group Plot = Shit in a box".

--Dave

[lamaros]

I haven't played much for a long time, apart from BB and Skyrim, and not really at all in the last few months.

Just don't get as much out of it anymore, and the time commitments dont work with my current life.

[Kail]

 Now I think it's not me, it's the games.  They *suck*.  They are homogenized tasteless piles of pap with designs produced by taking "Franchise + New Graphics + Focus Group Plot = Shit in a box".

Just in the off chance that anyone hasn't seen it, this got a chuckle out of me:

If Quake Was Done Today

[RhyssaFireheart]

 Now I think it's not me, it's the games.  They *suck*.  They are homogenized tasteless piles of pap with designs produced by taking "Franchise + New Graphics + Focus Group Plot = Shit in a box".

Just in the off chance that anyone hasn't seen it, this got a chuckle out of me:

If Quake Was Done Today

LOL!  I haven't seen that before.  "Rocket jumped to school, both ways, in BOILING LAVA!"   

[murdoc]

I just don't have a lot of free time to game, and that time comes at the expense of sleep.  Still, I have a lot of fun. I just don't buy as much stuff and I don't play mediocre games unless I'm already invested in the series.

Wife that doesn't game.  Young child.  Srs bzns job.  No time.

This is me, too.

The gaming time I have comes at the cost of something - sleep, sports or other things I like to do in my spare time like watching movies. Most of my gaming time is an hour or two at a time at most and i'm usually doing a couple things at once.

[Margalis]

Not done, but I don't think I was ever the same sort of gamer as some of you guys are describing. I have very specific tastes in gaming, and I will play the ever loving fuck out of games that appeal to those tastes, long after I suspect most normal people would stop (exhibit A: The Sims and all its derpy children).

Most people only play Big Important Games. (TM) I think the internet and the fact that you can know exactly what everyone else is playing has done a lot to destroy personal taste. Like back in the old days if you picked up a game for SNES called Shadow of the Ninja you might have thought it was awesome and be completely unaware that nobody else had heard of it and was playing Super Mario Kart instead. These days you go to some gaming website or forums and see a 100 page thread about Mass Effect and a million cover stories and a 2 page thread about Infinite Space with zero press coverage and think to yourself "where there's smoke there's fire, clearly ME is the space RPG to be playing." There's a snowball effect where "event games" rise to the top and everything else seems irrelevant.

Of course the Big Important Games are typically the blandest shit imaginable. When I see people list what games they are playing and it's all event games I feel sad. IMO gaming is a lot more fun when you don't give into that hype BS and play games and genres you enjoy, rather than going from GTA to Mass Effect to COD to Uncharted.

[Margalis]

Xbox Indie Games?
Facebook?
PSN?
Humble Bundles?
Steam?
XNA?
Indi game chanels?
Kickstarter?
PCgamer?
Flash?
Crome Store?
Independent Games Festival?
Indie Game Jam?
rockpapershotgun?


Yeah, hard to find now! By golly!

Hard to find? No. Hard to find something good in tremendous mountains of shit? Yes.

[Sjofn]

Not done, but I don't think I was ever the same sort of gamer as some of you guys are describing. I have very specific tastes in gaming, and I will play the ever loving fuck out of games that appeal to those tastes, long after I suspect most normal people would stop (exhibit A: The Sims and all its derpy children).

Most people only play Big Important Games. (TM) I think the internet and the fact that you can know exactly what everyone else is playing has done a lot to destroy personal taste. Like back in the old days if you picked up a game for SNES called Shadow of the Ninja you might have thought it was awesome and be completely unaware that nobody else had heard of it and was playing Super Mario Kart instead. These days you go to some gaming website or forums and see a 100 page thread about Mass Effect and a million cover stories and a 2 page thread about Infinite Space with zero press coverage and think to yourself "where there's smoke there's fire, clearly ME is the space RPG to be playing." There's a snowball effect where "event games" rise to the top and everything else seems irrelevant.

Of course the Big Important Games are typically the blandest shit imaginable. When I see people list what games they are playing and it's all event games I feel sad. IMO gaming is a lot more fun when you don't give into that hype BS and play games and genres you enjoy, rather than going from GTA to Mass Effect to COD to Uncharted.

You're sort of assuming no one actually likes those "event games," which is silly. I enjoyed the Mass Effects, for example. I didn't play them because ME is clearly the space RPG to be playing (I don't generally give a fuck about "space RPGs" to start with). I played them because people I knew played them, and enjoyed them, and thought I would enjoy them too. And hey, I did. Woo?

Honestly, your post is just a weeeee bit "this hobby was AWESOME until it got POPULAR."

[tgr]

There is something to be said for the way the games I used to like have changed pretty dramatically the last 5 years, and some of that is due to how it's become popular.

[Paelos]

I love games still, but I find I rely much heavier on the modding community than I ever have before. Games like Total War, Mount and Blade, and Elder Scrolls have found new and wonderful rebirth time and again for me through mods.

[Merusk]

Honestly, your post is just a weeeee bit "this hobby was AWESOME until it got POPULAR."

Personalities drawn to something when it's niche and different getting upset when it changes because of popular influence?  That's never happened before! 

It's not surprising to see the ennui.  Games are different now and it's not just chasing the graphics dragon on dev's part.  It's all been touched on in this thread already.  The audience shift, the market research, needing to get a bigger audience to make-back the increased budget.  It's Hollywood II, Electric Boogaloo and it's going to have all the same problems.

Yes, games have changed because they're popular now.  They're only going to get simpler and more watered-down, you're just seeing the start of it.  You can continue to play your old catalogs and cherry pick the few games that still focus on play vs. revenue streams and market research or find a new hobby until everything collapses again. (Don't hold your breath.)

[ghost]

In a large part, the problem is that most of the stories have already been told.  I can think of very few of the great themes that haven't already been used up, e.g. Star Wars, LOTR, Star Trek, D and D, Dune, etc., and even the great ground up themes like Diablo and Warcraft and Starcraft are getting on up there.  There's nothing new theme wise that doesn't just suck.  Sure, there's a few gems, like Arkham Asylum/City and Demon's Souls, but for the most part there are no original ideas any more for theme. 

Additionally, until there is a great step up in the technical side of things, there's nothing really to innovate any more.  It's all been done, for the most part.  That's why you have a decent story, like Dragon Age, pasted onto a very typical UI/game system. 

DLC is an interesting deal.  Most DLC feels pasted on.  There have been very few DlC's that I've gotten for games that I truly love (like Fallout NV) that add something to the basic gameplay that is interesting.  The Sierra Madre DLC for that was one of the worst implemented that I've dealt with, even though the story was decent.  It just doesn't feel like part of the game at all.  I distinguish true content DLC from "new guns" DLC, which I won't buy. 

[Merusk]

In a large part, the problem is that most of the stories have already been told. 

I'm going to let you think on that for a moment then you can come back to it.

[Soln]

For the original question,  yup pretty close to done, which is ironic for me right now.

[ghost]

In a large part, the problem is that most of the stories have already been told. 

I'm going to let you think on that for a moment then you can come back to it.

Don't try and get all intellectual about this.  It's fucking video games. 

There's nothing original coming out at all. 

[Velorath]

In a large part, the problem is that most of the stories have already been told. 

I'm going to let you think on that for a moment then you can come back to it.

Don't try and get all intellectual about this.  It's fucking video games. 

There's nothing original coming out at all. 

I can't help but shake my head when people say there's nothing original coming out while a game like Journey goes virtually unnoticed here.  Out of 17 posts in the thread about it, maybe 4 people actually seemed to have an interest in it despite the fact that it's one of the best reviewed games I've seen in a long time.  I think the problem here is more than people hate to step out of their comfort zones and then complain that there's nothing new for them to experience.  When you look at the fact that the MMO forum has an almost equal amount of posts as the forum to discuss all other PC and Console games, I'd suggest that maybe the issue isn't entirely with the games being released.

[Margalis]

You're sort of assuming no one actually likes those "event games," which is silly. I enjoyed the Mass Effects, for example. I didn't play them because ME is clearly the space RPG to be playing (I don't generally give a fuck about "space RPGs" to start with). I played them because people I knew played them, and enjoyed them, and thought I would enjoy them too. And hey, I did. Woo?

Honestly, your post is just a weeeee bit "this hobby was AWESOME until it got POPULAR."

You misunderstand.

I'm not talking about gaming being popular. It was popular in the NES days too. I'm talking about the market being dominated by a thin slice of titles. Sales are very top heavy with very little apparent expression of personal taste.

I'm sure everyone skipping from one event game to the next enjoys them, but I also find that those people are the most likely to make threads like this where they just sort of lose interest. A lot of people don't seem to like any style of game or developer, they just like the biggest games of the year that are ostensibly the "best" in terms of hype and metacritic scores.

Most of these games are pretty good in terms of craft, it's not like these big event games are quite obviously pieces of shit. However a lot of them are basically big budgets married to competent craft and little in terms of design. Basically empty calories. So it's no wonder people get burned out.

It's like if you look at the Transformers movies, they have a certain element of craft and obviously have large budgets. But they have bad acting and terrible scripts, all that money doesn't make the design of the movie good, it just glosses over the problems. Certain elements of the craft are very well done but others are neglected. A lot of big games are the same way - they have a lot of money and put in on the screen, which is audience pleasing. But the actual design (take Uncharted for example) is weak.

As opposed to good indie games (or really just good games), which typically have some sort of novel design hook or compelling gameplay mechanic as the primary element since design hooks are cheap and production is expensive.

[Kail]

I can't help but shake my head when people say there's nothing original coming out while a game like Journey goes virtually unnoticed here.

It's a PS3 exclusive title that's not even out yet.  Dark Souls had the same problem here.  It's not that we don't like interesting games, it's just that PS3s are not as omnipresent as PCs on this board.

[Ingmar]

I'd wager a guess that PS3 is the least-owned 'major' system out of f13 posters, yeah.

[tgr]

I can't help but shake my head when people say there's nothing original coming out while a game like Journey goes virtually unnoticed here.

I'll take notice when it's on a platform I actually game on.

[Velorath]

Replace the Journey with something like Vessel for example.  Journey just happens to be the example most on my radar.

[Kail]

Replace the Journey with something like Vessel for example.  Journey just happens to be the example most on my radar.

What's supposed to be the big deal with Vessel?  It looked like a fairly generic puzzle platformer to me.

Not trying to be a smartass or anything, I'm genuinely curious since I'm between games at the moment.  I didn't see anything on here about it, and the trailers looked boring.

[ghost]

In a large part, the problem is that most of the stories have already been told. 

I'm going to let you think on that for a moment then you can come back to it.

Don't try and get all intellectual about this.  It's fucking video games. 

There's nothing original coming out at all. 

I can't help but shake my head when people say there's nothing original coming out while a game like Journey goes virtually unnoticed here.  Out of 17 posts in the thread about it, maybe 4 people actually seemed to have an interest in it despite the fact that it's one of the best reviewed games I've seen in a long time.  I think the problem here is more than people hate to step out of their comfort zones and then complain that there's nothing new for them to experience.  When you look at the fact that the MMO forum has an almost equal amount of posts as the forum to discuss all other PC and Console games, I'd suggest that maybe the issue isn't entirely with the games being released.

Since you bring it up, I'll probably check it out.