Ominous thoughts for the future of games development
The advent of multi format games never struck me as being anything but a good thing back in the day…
I remember i Bought an X Box just so i could play knights of the old republic,
and damn it it was worth it!
Of course a few years later Knights of the old republic was readily available on PC, I remember the console wars, Sony had Final fantasy, X Box had Halo, PC had almost everything RPG, It was a great time, there was always a reason to have one console or another, I had a Ps2 a PC and an Xbox, and each of them had their own charm, they each had their own identities. Then as games became more and more popular GTA!!! everyone in the world plays GTA!!!
The lines began to blur, the consoles began releasing all the same titles, and even releasing them in and around the same dates, and then a strange things happened, console games began appearing on PC… this was pretty cool i thought; GTA3 on PC! madness! but the doors were openb now, and this poison chalice had unleashed a new wave of games… games designed for every format for shitty consoles, poorly ported to PC, Games who’se final features were decided not by the games designer but by popular demand.
This lead to the new era of shabiness we currently find ourselves in, With games being designed not only so that they’ll run on every platform but so that they’ll appeal to every type of user. The ultimate fail. Universal design, a theory that makes no sense, even less practical than communism; more well wishing then a hippy liberal war protester, and even less effective.
First of all universal design doesn’t work its stupid, it makes no sense, people are different this is one of the good things about the world, to attempt to design something so that everyone can use it in the same way displays a level of ignorance thats hard to understand. there’s nothing wrong with something being different. Fucking idealists.
Secondly, How can you design a game for every platform effectively, how much extra unnecessary pressure is that? anything that detracts form developers time on the game is counter productive, if i’m building a game i don’t want to have to worry about how the Xbox will handle the games processes, and at the same time how the PS3 will work the multi player. Problems like this are just some of the reasons why games come out buggy, or late, or missing features. To me the most obvious example is in PC gaming, particularly RPG games, If you’ve played classic RPG games, you’ll notice they’ve got one thing in spades: Detail! This detail is the true heart of RPG games, not the story, or the quests or any of that, its this detail that bring the world Alive, that makes you remember the game forever.
The sad fact is that the detail i mention isn’t necessary to the story, or the characters progression, it isn’t going to really sell the game any more or less, people will buy what you tell them to buy, whether the effort is put in or not. and thus this detail, is being weened out of games, People don’t want to look at text or data in games, they want it all and they want it fast, and they want to stop playing the game and move onto the next release…. A classic RPG isn’t something you forget about and move on from, you remember it because it involves you and immerses you like no other type of game.
Modern games are becoming so bare by comparison, and they lose their timeless quality, I mean if you want someithn timeless you play any of these a hundred times, and you’ll always find something new:
- Fallout 1 & 2
- Planescape Torment
- Baldurs gate 1&2
There are tonnes of others, of course, but these are my favourites, others i’d definitely say are good, but not as detailed:
- Vampire the masquerade bloodlines
- Risen
- Morrowind
- Oblivion
- Knights of the old republic 1 & 2
- Mount and blade series
- might and magic series
- gothic series
The dumbing down of titles is a chronic affect of modern games 
(((
Console limitations aside, Dumbing down certainly occurs in modern games, Mainly due to the fact that Gaming has become so popular and so big that its not just immersion loving nerds playing games anymore, its joe soap and the other guy… you know the one.
Anyways my point is that Modern games demand less of you; and do more for you because thats what suits the larger market, an obvious example would be re generating health in shooters, GPS and fast travel in rpg’s as a aforementioned immersion nerd, these things bother me severely.
So in a horrible way games have become much easier, but also much less timeless and much less replayable. Its sad because modern games now have to do everything for the player, because some gamers don’t have an imagination, i mean floating head speech is virtually gone!
Because games studios put more effort into scripting every scene or voicing every line of dialogue they actually spend less time developing the other aspects of the game, and end up having to restrict the size of the gameworld, or what you’re able to do in it.
i wouldn’t say its that games are dumbed down for consoles, i’d say games are built with consoles in mind for the larger market, and as a result the PC releases of modern games are an afterthought…
If games were designed exclusively for formats we’d all be much happier, and that’s a fact.
To greedy cunt CEO’s of all major Consoles: “Remember i used to own an xbox, a ps2, a pc, and a ds; so its much more profitable for console sales when there’s reasons to buy each console “
So Bring back Exclusivity you cocks! start the Halo versus call of duty versus PC’s are much better conflict!
You console guys can have all crappy first person fallout games, PC can have the finished Van Buren and the next fallout tactics.
Everyone wins, all the worlds nerds will have one less thing to moan about.
