https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCmmYF4rOwo
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This video is spot on. My thoughts exactly. Gaming going mainstream helped the industry, but hurt the games themselves. As an old school gamer i notice this even more.
One thing that really has ruined games for me due to trends, are all of these Skins and extras you can buy with micro transaction in game.
What happened to when all that mattered was how the game play was, not how flashy you look while trying to play. CSGO and Dota are good examples!
I feel the same way. At least we still have the Indie scene. Although, man all those pixel art games :p Starting to annoy me a bit. It's like in order for your game to be Indie, you have to use pixel art. :/Quote:
Originally Posted by ClockworkNinja
I don't really mind when cosmetic skins being sold as microtransactions, especially in F2P games. Because you don't need those. It's when actual tangible enhancements are sold for money, and in single player games, then it bothers me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Flex
Very Very true yes!Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Imp_ZA
I agree that microtransactions (to a degree) in general have not boded well for gaming in general, especially considering how persistent they are. I do disagree with Dota as an example of these games though, because you'll see 2 main types (as far as I can tell) of microtransactions in games. The first being microtransactions that affect gameplay in the form of better loadouts, better heroes, and the like; the second being microtransactions for items and benefits that are purely cosmetic.Quote:
Originally Posted by Flex
The first microtransactions are exactly the kind of the microtransactions I usually have a problem with because it feels, more often than, that there's a pay wall for progression in terms of gameplay, and sometimes multiplayer games end up being pay to win. Granted, they can be done right where the pay vs grind payoff doesn't feel too skewed to favor those who'd rather pay, but in general I feel these are microtransactions that are becoming a problem in gaming (EA's Dungeon Keeper is a good example of how not to do it).
The second, I feel, aren't actually pervasive because they have no actual bearing on gameplay, because they are purely for cosmetic purposes. They offer no advantage to those willing to pay for cosmetics, and there is no disadvantage for those not willing to shell out their money for these items (and you'll find that some games will give free drops anyway to reward players for the playing the game). I guess it could become a problem if the generation and creates of these items takes priority over polishing the game, but that's a different argument.
And that leads me to Dota 2. This games has one of the best free-to-play models in gaming (I bring up free-to-play since this model is riddled with microtransactions, even though AAA have also adopted these in the past few years). Why do I say it has one of the best free-to-play models? Well, for one there is no pay-gate to anything gameplay related (heroes or game modes, and yes LoL and Infinite Crisis, I'm looking at you buggers). In terms of development priority, Valve doesn't even create most of the items available as drops or through their store and community market (they just approve, and only really get involved during big events), which means any fine-tuning in terms of gameplay takes priority with Valve .So Dota 2 is honestly, IMO, the best example of free-to-play and microtransaction done right.
Yes, microtransactions can be a problem, but they can be done right as long as they don't impede on actual gameplay and progression.
I agree 100%, it ruins the game if it stops you from playing the game fully, the way it was intended to play. Dota2 is a F2P game, so they probably do also have to make some money in some other way! But CSGO is a game you have to pay for. Now you get kids/Russians that literally play the game just to acquire skins! Scamming and hacking their way to get these skins worth 1000$ +.Quote:
Originally Posted by Saint_Dee
I mean there have been PRO CSGO team getting banned and suspended because they Match fix and bet on themselves... for skins... That ruins a game and a community for me
I agree with the premise of the video, dev's are too scared to try something radically different for an AAA title, there is just too much risk involved. The only thing I didn't agree with in that video is the "i haven't gotten frustrated with a camera system in years" and the "shoot with the same L & R buttons", I don't see a good camera system as a downside, that really used to ruin games for me, and I can almost guarantee that if they change up the "shoot" buttons on a controller some reviewers will just say "why would they change the shoot buttons?!".
I suppose the problem could also be that the industry has been around for so long and that making games is so accessible at the moment that it's hard to make something that seems really different for the big dev's. All the innovative cool games are coming out of the indie studio's, because they aren't bound by their shareholders and what makes money.
The big studios now worry about the money, what they know will sell, it's almost like they have a template for a 3rd person shooter, which comes stock standard with a basic stealth, crafting and inventory system, and they just throw on some new skins and a half assed storyline.
The problem is because they're big studios they know these games will sell so they can keep churning them out. Games like Watch Dogs had an awesome concept, but they just couldn't take a big enough risk on something completely new to make it stand out.
The issue is related to more than just risk/reward. It's also a huge technical and resource issue.
In the past, video games were made for far less powerful machines. Which in turn means that it required far less resources than it does now to eke out the maximum potential available from said machines.
Nowadays with systems that are radically more powerful than before; simply making a game that barely falls into the AAA margin has is a gargantuan task. Not only in terms of effort applied to the expenditure but also to fiscal resources required to make it happen.
So although we can argue here or there if the creativity of game developers has changed for better or worse; we cannot argue that the process of making a game is more difficult than ever before.
And from the other side of it games are becoming preposterously expensive to make. There was a time when a game that had the same budget as a blockbuster movie was the exception not becoming very quickly the norm. With such vastly ballooning budgets; it is becoming harder to finance a game of exceeding magnitude because attaining such funding comes with a litany of corporate oversight that can stifle the development teams' vision. This in turn also means that the goalposts have been narrowed in terms of acceptable margins of error.
The sharp decrease in the error margins makes it appropriately more difficult to attempt to try imprint your own ideals of what a game should be, especially when those ideals are in contrast to industry standards. So that means that developers have to carefully measure exactly what they want to do with a game versus what they will be allowed to.
Everyone has made the point that studios make what they know will sell these days. A greater issue arises from that however. It is commonly understood that to make a game that is purely innovative or ground-breaking, one must become an indie developer. If you want to work on games that are large in scope and are technical marvels then you go to mainstream studio. The problem this then creates is that there isn't enough crossover channels between the two which means the industry suffers overall. Without an effective medium in gaming anymore; it becomes harder to make big games that have brand new ideas simply because the people whom are driven by generating new ideas aren't working for the studios. It also becomes difficult to make an indie game that is amazingly technical because finding the resources to do that these days is a gargantuan task, (the exception being Star Citizen and it's ilk). This one or the other divide is also represented by the fans of either type of game; which isn't necessarily a bad thing; but at the end of the day being locked into this mode will make it more difficult down the line to make a meaningful game that can also be considered AAA.
He makes a good point, but I think it's an issue that affects some more than others. I don't get to play all the latest releases, and due to time and budget constraints I have to be much more picky. I just don't get to see the same trends and tropes repeating themselves. Of all the games that were the focus of the video, I've only played one. So at least that is still fresh for me :p