Decline of twitch shooters, blame multiplatform development.

[hideinlight]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/02/21/tr...m-development/

Tribes Ascend dev on the decline of twitch shooters: blame “multiplatform” development
Owen Hill at 04:17pm February 21 2012
Comments 51
Tribes Ascend thumbnail

“People have maybe forgotten about the adrenaline rush of the old school shooters like Quake, Unreal Tournament and, of course, Tribes.” Executive producer on upcoming free to play shooter Tribes: Ascend, Todd Harris, misses the twitch shooters of old.

We asked him why he thought they were less popular these days. “I think a lot of it is the multi-platform consideration,” he said. “Games have this huge marketing spend so many of these shooters look to go multi-platform, meaning not just the PC but at least two consoles as well.”

Todd says controllers don’t offer the same freedom of movement as a mouse and keyboard, making it harder for devs to put an emphasis on raw dexterity: “The control scheme on the consoles does limit somewhat the speed and the twitch in which a game can operate – I mean your turn distance is only so far.”

“That’s not to say that someone couldn’t make a fast twitch game for those consoles,” says Todd, “But it’s easier to go to a lower common denominator – not having to turn as fast, not having to look 360 degrees in an instant – to make more of a hide-and-seek style, corridor-based, tactical shooter,” he says.

You should be excited about Tribes. It’s superb, and currently in closed beta. Luckily, the latest issue of PC Gamer comes with a beta code and 350 gold – that’s enough to unlock a specialist class or pimp out one of you existing ones. Subscribe, or grab your copy of the March issue.

[m3n4ce]

I miss those type shooters. I can recall the buckets of hours we spent playing Unreal Tournament on lan parties!

[HavocXphere]

I miss those type shooters. I can recall the buckets of hours we spent playing Unreal Tournament on lan parties!

Same. In fact I miss LANs in general. (At someones house, not the organized ones).

Strategy games that last 6 hrs etc. Plus then something fast paced just for variety. WANT...

[Tsar]

Yeah unreal tournament was my fav arena shooter. Then quake 3. I really miss those fps games. getting a little tired of military shooters(except bf 3 )

[Isengard]

I'm getting too old for twitch shooters, my reflexes aren't what they used to be. I'm more at ease with the pace of games like Battlefield 3 at this point.

[Jase]

Haha, after the punishment I took last night I think I am too old for BF3!

[axon1988]

We still play UT1999 at work on lunch. Every single day and I still love it.

[Maplassie]

Nobody seems to have played Painkiller with the PK++ mod. Saw it on videos where Fatal1ty and VoO played it, think it was on a NAG, and got addicted to it. SO much underestimated awesome there!

[judgefredd_za]

Yeah yeah, everyone misses twitch shooters but servers here in SA would be empty even if there was a Tribes Ascend one. It's freaking mission to get players away from military shooters, even at LANs.

[hideinlight]

Yeah yeah, everyone misses twitch shooters but servers here in SA would be empty even if there was a Tribes Ascend one. It's freaking mission to get players away from military shooters, even at LANs.

I don't know, Tribes Ascend is pretty damn awesome and getting better. There's just nothing like it out there atm. It's surprisingly easy to get into, but hard to master.

The trick is getting people to try it, the international player-base is increasing each day, Total biscuit approves of the game which means more players. This is the first twitch shooter in years that actually stand a chance to become "popular". Having local servers for a "f2p(freemium) game in South Africa could make a game like Tribes huge if everyone would play along, including magazines, ISP's and major LANs and most importantly the devs.

But something like that is never gonna happen South Africa, everyone already in their comfort zones.