What I have noticed

[DotCom]

What I have nocticed is that game doevelorpers and publishers alike throw crappy games at us and expect it to be a classic. Take gameboy advance, it is filled with crappy movie adaptations, yet the companys think all of the kids who saw the movie would buy the game. They are wrong, for the game flops. And same withother games. Point is, gamers would be much happier if we just had GOOD games...

[crashdummycow01]

nuh uh

[Mr. Smashy]

Shouldn't that title read "What I have noticed, presumed, and blindly concluded for no evident reason"?

[Achika]

The problem is, I don't think anyone can agree on what makes a "good" game. The gamers have a different idea of what is good from gamer to gamer. When compared to publishers, developers, etc. that idea changes yet again. And when those people are compared to each other, it changes again and again and again. It's a never ending cycle.

Take a look at Space Channel 5. Some people loath the game and everything associated with it and think it's trash. I on the other hand, love the game, love the girl, and think it's a great, challenging rythym game.

No one can really know until a chance is taken. Look at the Lord of the Rings games. I believe those had nominal successes being translated from movie to game.

When I think of "kids" I think of the 8 year olds that come in with their parents to Gamestop to buy GBA games. Most of the games that do sell to younger audiences (for any system) have been those with cartoony mascots, movie or tv franchises, etc.

Just because the game does not appeal to you, does not mean it does not appeal to someone.

[Kejoriv]

I learn a new thing every day... x_x

[Raccoon Lad]

It's not the developers, it's the publishers.

Much like the movie industry's studios/distrubutors; they want anything as long as it makes money, and thusly, that's what they pay developers to make.

If only there were more independent games.

[Cmosfm]

http://www.freehomepages.com/linkspgames/scurred.jpg

[Graham Mitchell]

Much like the movie industry's studios/distrubutors; they want anything as long as it makes money, and thusly, that's what they pay developers to make.

This is a good point, but I think there is a little more to it than that. You see, around 1995, Sony decided to do something rather revolutionary. Instead of selling video games to people who already played them, they decided to try and sell them to people who DIDN'T play them. And they did so very successfully. Now the market is saturdated with games designed for people who actually DO NOT LIKE GAMES. This has been going on since RoboCop came out for the NES, but it has gotten much worse in recent times.

Case in point: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. Who the hell cares about this series? It's not that great of a game, but the people buying it are not gamers. The general public likes things like skating, BMX's, cars (which is why I can't stand Gran Turismo--it's not made for people interested in gaming. It's made for people who like cars. It's not fun. it's a simulation.) These people also like the Matrix, Mary-Kate and Ashley, or whatever. The publishers know that they can only sell people things they think they already want, so give 'em hollywood in the form of a playstation 2 disk.

It's also fair to say that most people are stupid, and will buy any crap you put in front of them if you TELL them it's good. (Look at American Idol, or the music business as a whole in it's present incarnation.)

GameBoy Advance is a big target for this because the portable market has long been known to be popular with children, who are way more likely to buy something that correlates with a cartoon or a movie or an activity than a 25-year old.

[Sph1nx]

That last post is such an ignorant crock.
Gamers can't like a Tony Hawk or a Grand Turismo?
Yeah....ok....yeah.

[Flack]

Someone should contact all the videogame websites and magazines and tell them to quit giving awards to the Tony Hawk franchise.

[Graham Mitchell]

That last post is such an ignorant crock.
Gamers can't like a Tony Hawk or a Grand Turismo?
Yeah....ok....yeah.

Gamers can like what ever they want. I didn't intend it to be a blanket statement. Shit, I bought Tony Hawk when it came out. Remember Aladdin for the Genesis? Good game!

The post reflects MY personal preferences. But I've been playing for 16 years and the habits I formed and the tastes I've developed are very old, and they are tastes that the industry doesn't cater to very much anymore. That's why I'm on here reading about long dead Genesis games.

And you know what? I'm sure that there are people around that agree with me. But that's not the point.

And, also, making a quick buck off a quick trend isn't all bad--Shenmue cost 80 bazillion dollars to make. Sega will never break even on it, but they learned a lot by making it, and it was probably somewhat funded by that old Jurassic Park game :) .

[kai123]

You think Tony Hawk and Gran Turismo are crappy? They are the best in both of their genres for almost any system. So every nes game that came out was pure gold? No, there will always be crappy games this isn't something new.

[Graham Mitchell]

Good point. Maybe I just feel there are more bad games coming out because, well, there are more games coming out, period. The industry is huge now.

But I don't despise those genres. I just prefer, say, Ridge Racer to GT. The focuses of the games are different. GT's complexity is a relatively new thing for console racing games, and maybe it's not for everybody.

And no, I don't hate complex games, either.

[kai123]

I get what your saying I just don't like it when people act like there were no bad games made before this current generation. No hard feeling meant towards you though. :wink 2:

[Graham Mitchell]

No problem. I said some harsh things...bear with me. I'm in medical school and my girlfriend is out of town. Isolation makes you say wierd things.

But what's most disturbing is that all the replies I'm getting are in regards to the fact that I knocked 2 bestselling games (which proves some of my points :wink 2: ) and nobody's responding to the actual points I tried to make! C'mon, peeps! Who lived through the Playstation generation and saw all the frat guys who threw rocks at you in 6th grade becuase you played Nintendo suddenly trying to talk to you about Playstation? (And did they usually bring up games you couldn't give a crap about?) Sony honestly did make an effort for this to happen. Playstations were on display in high-profile dance clubs all over Seattle, and places in Europe, I hear. They even almost snuffed out their long-time gaming market by not allowing Castlevania: Symphony of the Night to be released in the US on account that it wasn't in 3-D. Geeks everywhere had to petition Sony to allow Konami to bring it stateside.

[DotCom]

OK OK I know that was poorly written, but my point is that companys only want to make money and don't exactly care about the game itself. Take nintendo, they put great effort into their work, but dovelopers like..THQ, which makes a lot of movie-games, don't put much, onky a couple of months, and while nintendo games have good graphics and gameplay, tHQ games have terrible, blocky graphics and even worse gameplay. All i'm saying is that companies should put more effort inot their games.

[portnoyd]

That last post is such an ignorant crock.
Gamers can't like a Tony Hawk or a Grand Turismo?
Yeah....ok....yeah.

MY OPINION is that gamers should get tired of 'Tony Hawk Extreme Wearing of Hats' and 'Gran Turismo: It looks better this time', and sales should reflect gamer's wanting something new. I can deal with a sequel or two, but Tony Hawk 5 (and rising) and Gran is on 4. Even older mainstays need more than facelifts to make it more than it was. As much as I like Megaman, they needed to end it before 8, and they did not need Megaman X7, that's for damn sure.

I dunno... I feel innovation is not on the best footing these days....

dave

[hu6800]

What I have nocticed is that game doevelorpers and publishers alike throw crappy games at us and expect it to be a classic. Take gameboy advance, it is filled with crappy movie adaptations, yet the companys think all of the kids who saw the movie would buy the game. They are wrong, for the game flops. And same withother games. Point is, gamers would be much happier if we just had GOOD games...

And you just now noticed this?

Here is what will make you feel better.
Go throw in Warhawk for the psx and play the Volcano level.

[Push Upstairs]

What I have nocticed is that game doevelorpers and publishers alike throw crappy games at us and expect it to be a classic.

To be honest, crappy games are a necessary evil.

Why?

Without the crap games how the hell would we judge what is a *GOOD* game?

[tholly]

It's all just a matter of personal preference. If a game only sells one copy and the person that buys it thinks its a good game, nothing you say is going to change their mind and make them think it is bad if they already like it.

[wberdan]

Much like the movie industry's studios/distrubutors; they want anything as long as it makes money, and thusly, that's what they pay developers to make.

This is a good point, but I think there is a little more to it than that. You see, around 1995, Sony decided to do something rather revolutionary. Instead of selling video games to people who already played them, they decided to try and sell them to people who DIDN'T play them. And they did so very successfully. Now the market is saturdated with games designed for people who actually DO NOT LIKE GAMES. This has been going on since RoboCop came out for the NES, but it has gotten much worse in recent times.

Case in point: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. Who the hell cares about this series? It's not that great of a game, but the people buying it are not gamers. The general public likes things like skating, BMX's, cars (which is why I can't stand Gran Turismo--it's not made for people interested in gaming. It's made for people who like cars. It's not fun. it's a simulation.) These people also like the Matrix, Mary-Kate and Ashley, or whatever. The publishers know that they can only sell people things they think they already want, so give 'em hollywood in the form of a playstation 2 disk.

It's also fair to say that most people are stupid, and will buy any crap you put in front of them if you TELL them it's good. (Look at American Idol, or the music business as a whole in it's present incarnation.)

GameBoy Advance is a big target for this because the portable market has long been known to be popular with children, who are way more likely to buy something that correlates with a cartoon or a movie or an activity than a 25-year old.

im a gamer and i bought pro skater 2,3,4, and THUG.
I think its a great game series.. sure, the series has gone downhill slightly, but I find that game to be addictive like a good puzzle game.

willie

[Cmosfm]

What I have nocticed is that game doevelorpers and publishers alike throw crappy games at us and expect it to be a classic.

To be honest, crappy games are a necessary evil.

Why?

Without the crap games how the hell would we judge what is a *GOOD* game?

The man speaketh thy truth

[Mr Mort]

What I have nocticed is that game doevelorpers and publishers alike throw crappy games at us and expect it to be a classic.

To be honest, crappy games are a necessary evil.

Why?

Without the crap games how the hell would we judge what is a *GOOD* game?

I agree with that statement to a certain extent, but when the ratio of good to crappy games gets more and more skewed, there's a problem.

Yes, thanks to bad games, we know what a good game is.

But when you have so many craptacular games coming out, the good ones seem more and more scarce.

You can flame me to death for all I care, but I honestly feel that Sony and the PS are partially responsible for the amazing boom in the video game industry since the 16-bit era, and making video games a mainstream form of entertainment on the same level as movies and music. On the downside, I also feel they are partially responisble for the stagnation of the industry and lowering the bar of quality and making mediocrity the norm.

Much like Graham Mitchell pointed out earlier, Sony made their core audience not the folks who are already gamers, but instead targeted the rest of the population who were not gamers. Using the Sony brand name, it was easy. Sony was/is a household name, and no one traditionally thought of them as a toy manufacturer. Making a video game system, they targeted adults, and if it's a video game system by Sony, than in the public's eye it was a toy for adults. By introducing a whole new audience that had never had experience with gaming to the industry, they were able to take mediocre titles, and market them as the best the industry has to offer. Since many of the mainstream public did not have much experience with gaming, they believed these half-ass titles were in fact A+ calibur titles. How would they know what a good game is if they never really played one? If you had never seen a motion picture before, and I made you watch Attack of the Killer tomatoes, and told you it ws the best movie ever made, you would have no basis of comparison... They (Sony) lowered the bar for all of us, making mediocre titles now the top-selling titles. Coutnless sequels and uninspired knock offs later, here we are.

Yes, gaming is more popular now than ever, and yes there are many more games coming out than ever, but I truly feel that there are fewer and fewer quality and innovative titles coming out when compared to the mediocre and poor titles. That is the price for having video games being in mainstream culture.
No offense, but the music you hear on the radio and on MTV is not the music you want to hear, but only the music that is presented to you. No different with gaming. Remember the recent thread here regarding Sony and their reported snobbish attitude towards 2D games? There is a basis of truth there, and it has been documented in the past. I recall during the days of the PS, when Capcom had a number of 2D titles slated for the PS, including Mega Man 8 & X4, along with a few Street Fighter games, Sony was pushing developers to develop 3D games only, and there was a bit of bad blood between Capcom and Sony, and Sony finally backed down, and let Capcom release their games. I remember it clearly. It's no different now with Playmore/SNK, particularly Metal Slug 3. Do you really think it's a coincidence that MS3 no longer has a PS2 release date, and that SNK has just announced a number of titles on the Xbox? Again, it's someone else deciding what games we want, and Sony alone is not guilty of this. Remember Bernie Stolar of Sega, and his 5-star quality policy regarding domestic Saturn releases? That one worked great. Wave after wave of awesome japanese games got axed by SOA, while Sony was trying to axe some 2D titles...

As with music and movies, some executives are sitting down thinking which titles will appeal to the broadest audience possible in order to sell the most units. The easiest way to do that is eye candy, in-your-face marketing, and selling a product that is already established and accepted. Not innovation, not creativity. Developers are not encouraged to try new things, they are told to keep rehashing the same things because they are already established and accepted. They are not willing to risk the money to try creative or innovative cocepts.

If Sony had not brought gaming to the mainstream, then surely someone else would have, but nevertheless, they did, and in the process IMHO, made gaming a little lamer in the process.

If this post doesn't make sense to you, my apologies. If you're going to flame me, elaborate beyond the usual "YoU SuXXORz!!". If you feel my views are wrong, tell me WHY you feel they are wrong.



P.S. : Don't even try the ol' "you're a PS hater" routine. I have 48 PS games, 37 PS2 games, 2 PS systems, 2 PS2 systems, I don't discriminate when a good game comes out, I buy it & play it happliy.

[jdc]

You've gotta understand what's being said here.

For the first time ever, the casual gamer rules the roost. The hardcore gamer went into hiding some years ago. Casual gamers tend to drift towards buying what everybody else is playing, perhaps then they can "relate" to being a "gamer". It's the trendy thing for Mr and Mrs Average to have a home theatre with a next gen system hooked up "for the kids".....even if they don't play anything more than Tetris or Pacman on the thing.

You know those guys who wear suits from Monday to Friday, then on the weekend they throw on their black-sleeveless-t shirt-and black grubby jeans "biker outfit" and ride their spankin' new Harleys around the suburbs? Same thing.

"Look at me, I'm a biker....look at me I'm a gamer." I'm cool, I'm trendy, I'm "in the know".

The industry would be crazy NOT to cater to these people.......these are the ones who are currently spending the bux.....and fueling the industry. Make hay while the sun shines.....because one day the "fad" will end as the casual gamer latches on to the next hula-hoop.

As far as Tony Hawk is concerned? I can't count the number of times I've heard the series referred to as "Tommy Hawk". Or Grand Theft Auto referred to as "that game where you go around and kill people". Yep....you're a gamer!!