|
|
| Page 1 of 2 |
Epsilon
Dr. Strangelove
Posts: 9240
Location: War Room
|
 Posted: Tue, 4th May 2010 02:59 Post subject: Games are becoming too big and too hard |
|
 |
| Quote: |
Conventional gaming wisdom thus far has been "bigger, better, MORE!" It's something affirmed by the vocal minority on forums, and by the vast majority of critics that praise games for ambition and scale.
The problem is, in reality its almost completely wrong. The vast majority of gamers don't need more. They don't have the time or the inclination to invest enormous amounts of time and effort with a game.
This isn't the kind of conclusion that can be reached through surveys or questionnaires, because when it comes to our behavior we all have far too much pride, we're all greedy, and we all lie.
If someone asks us, collectively 'do you want more or less game?" it's fairly safe to say we'd all go with the former rather than the latter.
Also, when someone asks us if we want to coast through something that's just challenging enough, we'd say "oh no, I'm a gamer - I need the challenge."
So what does this mean for the future of games? Well, before we all get our panties in a bunch over the inevitable endumbening of games, it seems that games will become increasingly modular in order to accommodate different tastes. Currently, Microsoft's development guidelines tell developers and publishers that the optimum time to release DLC is "within the first 30 days" of a game's release.
The problem with that though is that it's not enough time to gather enough data about the audience's behavior and then generate content that reflects it.
Content delivered in the first month has to be pretty much finished and sitting in the first party approval queue before the actual game comes out.
So right now, that first bunch of DLC we see for something is usually based on a hunch, rather than the way we actually play.
For some games that appeal to specific tastes, that's easier (I guess) to anticipate.
But as games are increasingly under pressure to achieve monstrously huge sales, the whole system will have to change.
|
Source
Maybe the problem is they reach too high and thus need a bigger audience, or is it the right thing to create games for the "majority".
It's perhaps a bit scary that Microsoft guidelines is a big factor in deciding how to create games and what to include in a final product, or not.
To me it seems as if games from the last 7 years have become increasingly smaller and easier, obviously thats just personal opinion though, which is why I feel this is an interesting subject to discuss. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Tue, 4th May 2010 03:19 Post subject: |
|
|
err wat confused, self contradickting bundle of emotion wrote this?
emo rant disgusing itself as thoughtful imo.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Tue, 4th May 2010 03:22 Post subject: |
|
|
what a load of horseshit, game are getting shorter and easier!
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Epsilon
Dr. Strangelove
Posts: 9240
Location: War Room
|
| Posted: Tue, 4th May 2010 03:39 Post subject: |
|
|
Obviously it's a very console centric viewpoint, but these kind of people and the ones they collect their data from represent the very reason that games such as Splintercell: Conviction, Far Cry 2 and Gears of War are made - and are successful to boot. Gamepro is a site that is often read by so called people "in the know" like "game designers" and "game journalists".
Obviously it's to the advantage of such companies like Microsoft, who provide much of the data this is based on, that shorter games are made.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Wahad
Posts: 406
Location: Lebanon
|
| Posted: Tue, 4th May 2010 03:56 Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: | | Games are becoming too big and too dumb |
fix'd
Desktop: Athlon BE7750+ @ 3.01, 2gb, 4850 512mb gddr3, 120gb+500gb WD
Toshiba Satellite L500-126 - T6500 - 4GB of ram - 4650 1gb gddr3 - 320GB HDD
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
sausje
Banned
Posts: 17716
Location: Limboland, Netherlands
|
| Posted: Tue, 4th May 2010 03:58 Post subject: |
|
|
Games are becoming too big and too hard
Games are becoming too big and too hard
Games are becoming too big and too hard
too hard 
Proud member of Frustrated Association of International Losers Failing Against the Gifted and Superior (F.A.I.L.F.A.G.S)
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Epsilon
Dr. Strangelove
Posts: 9240
Location: War Room
|
| Posted: Tue, 4th May 2010 04:15 Post subject: |
|
|
| sausje wrote: | Games are becoming too big and too hard
Games are becoming too big and too hard
Games are becoming too big and too hard
too hard |
It's intended  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Tue, 4th May 2010 04:16 Post subject: |
|
|
| Epsilon wrote: | | Gamepro is a site that is often read by so called people "in the know" like "game designers" and "game journalists". |
I would hope that such people are capable of coming to their own conclusions instead of believing the crap I just read in that article.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Epsilon
Dr. Strangelove
Posts: 9240
Location: War Room
|
| Posted: Tue, 4th May 2010 04:18 Post subject: |
|
|
| Kyorisu wrote: | | Epsilon wrote: | | Gamepro is a site that is often read by so called people "in the know" like "game designers" and "game journalists". |
I would hope that such people are capable of coming to their own conclusions instead of believing the tripe I just read in that article. |
Thats a matter of debate, looking at recent games "AAA" games I'm inclined to think not. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Tue, 4th May 2010 05:07 Post subject: |
|
|
| Epsilon wrote: | | Kyorisu wrote: | | Epsilon wrote: | | Gamepro is a site that is often read by so called people "in the know" like "game designers" and "game journalists". |
I would hope that such people are capable of coming to their own conclusions instead of believing the tripe I just read in that article. |
Thats a matter of debate, looking at recent games "AAA" games I'm inclined to think not. |
No that just seems like the normal money making machine in work and not something that would relate to anything discussed in that article. What game designers do you know that get to make the big money decisions?
The reality is here is your budget and timeframe for title X and it's what developers can do in those limited time frames and limited budgets that produce most games. AAA titles are hardly any different. I think people wanting less is a hilarious thing to say, people have and always want more for their money not less but hey if you can get away with giving people less for more and they still love you for it (see MW2) then you've hit the bloody jackpot.
Last edited by Kyorisu on Tue, 4th May 2010 05:19; edited 4 times in total
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Tue, 4th May 2010 05:10 Post subject: |
|
|
Lol wut?
These guys are retarded, games are becoming smaller, and easier not bigger and harder.
Less content + better graphics + simplifying controls for console users + making games less adult so they can rake in kids money = bigger harder games.
Facts & figures on obesity: Obesity is one the major health challenges worldwide and has become an epidemic over the last decades. Europe has the highest number of overweight and obese people in the world. The number of obese people has in fact tripled over the last 20 years in the Europe, according to the WHO. Today, over 130 million people are obese in Europe; approximately 10%-20% of men and 15%-25% of women. In addition, 400 million people are overweight in Europe.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Tue, 4th May 2010 06:50 Post subject: |
|
|
either it's satire (in which case it's bad at it) or the writer is a tard
if he meant 'games are getting bigger' in the way of too big budgets, which automatically means 'easier' in the way of safer design choices, then i would agree with that
smaller, less detailed worlds are better if it means the focus can be put on gameplay and level design instead without compromise
probably over half of the games i've bought during the 2000s have been indie games that have done that and succeeded
while the mainstream industry pours millions of dollars into a pile of shit and then whines people won't buy their pile of shit they paid big money on
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Tue, 4th May 2010 07:51 Post subject: |
|
|
Here we go with the common heavy words and self-declared thruth on this forum.
"Those guys are retards", "load of horseshit", "crap in this article".
For those who jumps on the "I know better, they are soooo stupid" bandwagon, did you go and read the complete article?
They don't mean games become bigger (longer, more content) than games in the past. They mean: nowadays, in average, people don't have enough time to invest in games to finish "long" or "complex" ones => games ARE too big or too hard for them, from that perspective.
To discuss about that, now, we'd need figures that we don't have. But I can well say that around me, that statement is true.
Interesting, there is that part in the article:
| Quote: | How do we know this? Because an increasing number of games incorporate telemetry systems that track our every action. They measure the time we play, they watch where we get stuck, and they broadcast our behavior back to the people that make the games so they can tune the experience accordingly.
Every studio I've spoken to that does this, to a fault, says that many of the games they've released are far too big and far too hard for most players' behavior. As a general rule, less than five percent of a game's audience plays a title through to completion. I've had several studios tell me that their general observation is that "more than 90 percent" of a games audience will play it for "just four or five hours." |
Four of five hours? Only? That surprises me, and I woudl'nt buy a full-priced game for such a short gaming time.
Last edited by Lemmings on Tue, 4th May 2010 08:06; edited 1 time in total
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
DaLexy
Posts: 3041
Location: Germany
|
| Posted: Tue, 4th May 2010 08:05 Post subject: |
|
|
lol i play almost every game till the end, i like to play games more than a couple of hours...
so gimme high five, im one of the less 5 percent
My SysProfile ッ
I ΓУPΞ LIҜΞ Д БФSS, УФЦЯ ДЯGЦMΞИΓ I$ IИVДLłD
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
MapHtH
Posts: 74
Location: Enclave Oil Rig
|
| Posted: Tue, 4th May 2010 08:17 Post subject: |
|
|
Well, games have become smaller and easier, there's no doubt about it. But the only ones to blame are console players (didn't mean to offend, but I know a lot of consolers personally, so I'm speaking from my own experience). When you develope a game for PC you have a lot of options since there are no limits for what you can do, you can do just about anything (in the sense of complexity) and there will always be someone who will like the game and play it. That was how developers thought 7-8 years ago; today they only want to make as much money as possible in as little as time as possible (if not developers themselves, than their publishers want to do that).
Now about the console part. You can't make a complicated game that is meant to be played with a controller only. You are extremely limited with the number of buttons the controller has. People that only play on consoles usually aren't to willing to learn all of the possible button combinations just to make a basic move, they want it simple. When I made my console playing friend play Witcher, he was overwhelmed with all of the menus and all of the stuff you can make. It's not a game where you just go ahead and mash buttons.
People who play on consoles also don't like when the games are way to long since (if they are old enough to remember what consoles were like a few years ago) they wan't shorter games that can be replayed over and over again. They aren't interested in something that is like 50 hours long since they can't finish it in one or two goes. For some of the console games you get special rewards when you finish them in under 4,5,6... hours. That's just what consolers are used to.
And also, the biggest "problem" is that most of the new consolers are yopung kids around 13 years whoose attenting span is not that great so that they could play long games and remember everything that happened in that game when they stop playing. They also don't like iot when you have to keep track of the story, what you have to do, etc... Assassin's Creed is straight forward, you can literally go forward and kill people, The Witcher isn't. You can't just go and kill everything that moves, the game reveals its wonderful world in all the texts you can read in the game (books, quest texts) and you have to read what the quests are about to understand what you have to do. One of my friends didn't eve want to try to play RPG on PC because they are "way too complicated for him", and he didn't want to play FPS against me since "I have a mouse and because of that am a lot faster than he is".
Bottom line, developers want to make games that more and more people would play so that in turn they could make more and more money. Publishers today put quantity over quality. Luckly, there are a few developers that care that their games have some decent level of quality (e.g. Witcher, Mass Effect, Dragon Age...) but there aren't many of them.
"... and the world will become my playground."
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Tue, 4th May 2010 08:18 Post subject: |
|
|
What I think most of you are forgetting is that not only games change, the audience changes as well. We might be of the type that still lives in moms basement while gaming all day (Not true, I know. Trying to make a point. Get yer panties out of a knot). The general gaming public has become much, much more mainstream. Obviously, because of this, games get targetted at the largest common denominator and that's not previously mentioned basement dwellers like us....
And even amogst us there are people that fall in the larger catagory. I have a severe case of gaming ADD myself, and rarely play a game for more then 3 or 4 hours, yet I have a huge stack of original Xbox 360 titles here. 99% I never finished.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Tue, 4th May 2010 08:39 Post subject: |
|
|
| Lemmings wrote: | Here we go with the common heavy words and self-declared thruth on this forum.
"Those guys are retards", "load of horseshit", "crap in this article".
For those who jumps on the "I know better, they are soooo stupid" bandwagon, did you go and read the complete article?
They don't mean games become bigger (longer, more content) than games in the past. They mean: nowadays, in average, people don't have enough time to invest in games to finish "long" or "complex" ones => games ARE too big or too hard for them, from that perspective.
To discuss about that, now, we'd need figures that we don't have. But I can well say that around me, that statement is true.
Interesting, there is that part in the article:
| Quote: | How do we know this? Because an increasing number of games incorporate telemetry systems that track our every action. They measure the time we play, they watch where we get stuck, and they broadcast our behavior back to the people that make the games so they can tune the experience accordingly.
Every studio I've spoken to that does this, to a fault, says that many of the games they've released are far too big and far too hard for most players' behavior. As a general rule, less than five percent of a game's audience plays a title through to completion. I've had several studios tell me that their general observation is that "more than 90 percent" of a games audience will play it for "just four or five hours." |
Four of five hours? Only? That surprises me, and I woudl'nt buy a full-priced game for such a short gaming time. |
well too bad for the person who doesnt have enough time for the game they paid for, i dont feel anything for them. I buy games, I have a life and work schedule but yet I find time to game because I enjoy gaming.
If people are complaining, "oh i bought this game and i dont have time to finish it because my life is so busy" well fuck them, who cares? that is some bullshit excuse if i ever heard one.
Phenom II X4 965 @ 3.8 // 4GB DDR3 // GTX 285
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Tue, 4th May 2010 10:02 Post subject: |
|
|
Games are simply becoming more mainstream with every day passing. Games used to be for the few "childish" adults. Nowadays its culturally accepted to play games beyond the age of 16 and sometimes even appraised, this has been so for some time. The gaming industry is simply catching up by making the content of games more mainstream aswell. The wii is the perfect example of something that has been made available by the acceptance by the mainstream of gaming.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Tue, 4th May 2010 10:03 Post subject: |
|
|
| HunterHare wrote: |
well too bad for the person who doesnt have enough time for the game they paid for, i dont feel anything for them. I buy games, I have a life and work schedule but yet I find time to game because I enjoy gaming.one. |
^This
Plus: what does it mean you don't have enough time to play? It's not like you must complete a game in one sitting, you can play whenever you want, if you have little time it's maybe gonna take you a month to finish a game, but so what? It makes no sense, it's like saying "books should be shorter, because I have little time to read", it's just a selfish statement... people with passion for games should sacrifice because some console kid or casual games tard doesn't have enough time to play? If you don't have time to play just buy less game and take the time you need to finish them, instead of pretending shorter, shittier products for all of us.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Tue, 4th May 2010 10:19 Post subject: |
|
|
| Ragedoctor wrote: | | Games are simply becoming more mainstream with every day passing. Games used to be for the few "childish" adults. |
it's so ironic that now when games are accepted for adults, they are more childish than ever.
there aren't really any games of actual adult depth anymore
no games like xcom or rainbow six where i actually have to carefully study the tactical situation before doing anything
the future is of the indie industry.. doing more for less
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Tue, 4th May 2010 10:29 Post subject: |
|
|
| HunterHare wrote: | well too bad for the person who doesnt have enough time for the game they paid for, i dont feel anything for them. I buy games, I have a life and work schedule but yet I find time to game because I enjoy gaming.
If people are complaining, "oh i bought this game and i dont have time to finish it because my life is so busy" well fuck them, who cares? that is some bullshit excuse if i ever heard one. |
Fully understandable. However, it's from a personal point of view that, according to them, does not reflect the average gaming wish.
And the problem is that publishers naturally tend to be more interested in pleasing the "most common crowd".
But are they right in their interpretation of their collected statistics about gaming? For sure, like said by some, gamer needs is a thing, but money to earn or to save is another thing that counts for them. Shorter game = less development = saving, if people with 5hours a game are happy with that.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ankh
Posts: 23342
Location: Trelleborg
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Tue, 4th May 2010 16:30 Post subject: |
|
|
I'm not trolling, I just want to say that this is the most idiotic serious article I've seen lately.
Complaining about not having time to finish a game ?! That's like buying a movie and complaining you don't have the time to watch it, so it should be shorter !
Also, most games aren't hard, they're easier than ever, you can also cheat if you aren't a console turd. Every time I try to play older platformers etc on emulators I get pwned hard.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Tue, 4th May 2010 16:44 Post subject: |
|
|
Well, if you look at a game like HL2 EP1, only 38% actually completed the game.
The stats can be found here, http://www.steampowered.com/status/ep1/
Our data indicates that while 52.03% of the players have reached the final map (as noted in the Highest Map Played graph below), only roughly half of those players have completed the game. This leads us to believe that either players are quitting before they see the credits, or there is a bug in how we collect this data.
Thus I foresee a future where games only last two-four hours at the most, simply because people never complete their games. Games are becoming movies pretty much.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Tue, 4th May 2010 16:47 Post subject: |
|
|
Come on, there is no way, those people that paid for that short-ass game, didn't finish it. I call bullshit, or rather the bug they suspect !
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
LeoNatan
☢ NFOHump Despot ☢
Posts: 73196
Location: Ramat Gan, Israel 🇮🇱
|
| Posted: Tue, 4th May 2010 16:54 Post subject: |
|
|
Well what you want, console  with 5 sec attention span can't be expected to play games for hours, let alone days! 
| VGAdeadcafe wrote: | | Complaining about not having time to finish a game ?! That's like buying a movie and complaining you don't have the time to watch it, so it should be shorter ! |
You'd be surprised how many nubcakes say that. 
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| Page 1 of 2 |
All times are GMT + 1 Hour |
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
Powered by phpBB 2.0.8 © 2001, 2002 phpBB Group
|
|
 |
|
