Are Gamers Being Forgotten?
Written by BigPete7978 
A while back I wrote an article called “Are Games Regressing?” It was published again during our Greatest Hits celebration. The original publication of this article can be found HERE.
I have been thinking about this long and hard ever since I wrote the article. I’m not necessarily retracting my statements in that article, because nowadays gaming has become so big that developers almost don’t care it seems. They will rush the product out the door even if it is broken. Haze is one of the most recent titles that comes to mind. It was so hyped up yet in the end it turned out to be another mediocre shooter in an already flooded market of shooters. This brings me to my next point, just because people like shooters does not mean everyone likes shooters. Every time I turn around there seems to be another shooter coming out. The sad part is that most of them flop when taking on juggernauts like Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare or the Halo series. If you can’t outdo those games or even match them for that matter don’t put the game out. In the end it just becomes shovelware or a quickly discounted game.
But really what happened to companies that decided to take their time on their games, and actually have some form of pride behind the title that they are working on. It seems at times that those days have come and gone. Everything during this day and age seems to be all about money, which is understandable seeing as how it does fuel economies. But still there are a few gems out there that take their time and put out hits still. Some that come to mind are Insomniac, Naughty Dog, Atlus, Level 5, Kojima Productions, Epic Games, and last but not least Team Ico. EA has also been stepping their game up as of late after a while on the “bad list” so to speak. But when it comes down to it what causes developers to become so arrogant and selfish? Well it’s quite simple actually, money. The single most important factor nowadays. It seems that it is all a lot of developers have begun to care about. No longer is any pride taken at times by these companies. Take SquareEnix for example. You guys have no clue how much I miss Squaresoft. Anyone else out there remember the PS1 days where everything they put out was a hit, and it was an actual deserving hit. Fast forward to present day and all we get at times is delays, broken promises, and basically betrayal. Yes I am bringing up the FFXIII on 360. Also don’t call me a fanboy by any means, I own both the PS3 and 360. Personally I didn’t feel betrayed, but I am speaking for Playstation gamers as a whole. A lot of people felt like they had been stabbed in the back by SquareEnix. I know several people that buy Playstation systems for Final Fantasy games alone. So I can defnitely see where they are coming from with that aspect, but I am the type of person where I think the more people get to play it the better as long as sacrifices aren’t made to accomodate a console. But in the end we know some sacrifices were made or will be made for both GTAIV and FFXIII. Rockstar already stated they had problems fitting things onto the 360 version. Here is a quote from Dan Houser to 1up.
One of the problems with the 360, and it affects games like Grand Theft Auto if you think about how much content we put in the actual machine, is the fact that they don’t have a significantly larger storage medium than the previous systems. It’s a slightly bigger DVD disc
When I see things like that it bothers me a lot. For them to hinder the performance on one console to cash in on both consoles I find ridiculous. One could only imagine how GTAIV would’ve been if it would have been a PS3 exclusive, maybe we would actually have something to do after we finished the game rather than play pool and go bowling. I mean it’s supposed to be a sandbox game afterall. Don’t get me wrong, GTAIV was a blast to look at, but playing was a different story all together. When I see more satisfaction in blowing something up in a buggy game like Mercs 2 there is something wrong there.
Microsoft is a main contributor to this problem as well seeing as how they seem to have all of the money in the world. They seem to want to just buy everything in sight with their deep pockets. This is a main contributor in what has begun to slowly kill the gaming industry quality wise in my opinion. They bought rights to downloadable content for GTAIV for 50 million and then proceeded to pay to make Final Fantasy XIII multiplatform. There is no telling how much that second move cost them. Microsoft needs to realize that money doesn’t not bring out the best in companies. Typically it brings out the worst in them, and in people in general. Rather than throwing countless millions into these games they should really fix their hardware, but considering the install base just keeps growing that will not happen. Hopefully by next generation they come out with a better hardware because they do have a good library. If they didn’t I wouldn’t of bought a 360.
This now takes me to the Wii. Nintendo has the biggest market out there and it is a beast in it’s own right, but for crying out loud where are the games? If someone were to look at the wall of Wii games that are available over 80% of them are garbage and fall into the shovelware. No Nintendo is by no means stupid or blind, they just seem to be ignoring their loyal fans. They seem to be focusing on the “casual” market. Which is ok, there is nothing wrong with going that route, but atleast get some games out there that your loyal fans will love. Yes I realize that it is by no means all Nintendo’s fault. These developers see this huge install base and they just figure if they throw something out there someone will pick it up. That’s why it’s called shovelware.
Last but not least is Sony, and don’t even remotely think they are perfect either. Especially after their arrogance they demonstrated to us gamers at launch. They were so cocky that I almost didn’t buy a PS3 at all. Finally they got their act together because they realized if they didn’t they would be screwed. But still with the Microsoft is throwing money out there like it’s nothing and Sony not willing to put anything out there it is causing the Playstation brand to lose some of it’s most valued exclusives. Then they seem to be getting to much into the being perfect route that they delay everything left and right. For example Home. They finally set a date and it was only because XBox’s new interface is launching then too. So Sony wants to go head to head with them. I guarantee if the date was never set Sony wouldn’t be launching Home then. Also why hasn’t Sony stepped up and gotten some RPG’s out on the system or even in development within their own department? The PS2 was an RPG gamer’s haven. Now all we have is Enchanted Arms and Folklore, no Oblivion is not an RPG. Nor is it that good of a game to be honest. But that is for another discussion (no real main character=failure). Here is my final argument with Sony as well. Most Final Fantasy gamers want it, and we all know what I’m going to say here. Sony needs to put up some money to get us a remake for Final Fantasy VII. That would sell a ton of consoles and everyone knows it. But with SquareEnix’s recent track record it might not even turn out to be that good of a game, but it would still sell, that’s a guarantee.
If you have actually read this far I want to thank you. It took me quite a while to write this editorial, and it turned out to be a lot longer than I thought it would be. The gaming industry has really gone downhill with it’s shift to the mainstream focus. Rather than in the golden days where gaming was that big and quality was focused on over quantity. The sad part is that it’s probably only going to get worse as time progresses.
31 Responses to “Are Gamers Being Forgotten?”
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October 18th, 2008 at 6:23 AM
God I miss the SNES days man…*sigh*. I really hear you though. Word for word. Ive been thinking about that for the past couple years, most recently when I just finished Chrono cross (I am now moving onto to Chrono trigger for the 26th time xD). Money makes the word spin and the people who live on it as well. Great article pal.
October 18th, 2008 at 8:46 AM
Soz about the typing! Hate the itouch spell checker!!
October 18th, 2008 at 8:47 AM
Soz about the typing errors! Hate the itouch spell checker!!
October 18th, 2008 at 8:44 AM
I completely agree as well man. I’m only 17 but I owned the n64, ps1, ps2 and now the ps3 and if I’m
Honest, the n64 and ps1 have been the best in my opinion. Games like banjo kazooie, goldenye, the zeldas ( I hated the new for no real reason), mario and on the ps1: mgs is my favourite game of all time. Sure I was only bout 12 and shouldn’t have been playing it but it blew my mind. Story gameplay ingenuity (mantis’ controller move LOL!, took this idiot a foodminute of crapping myself to realize!!). Others were final fantasy 7 and 8, the best RPGs I have ever played. There’s so few nowadays that show the true labour-of-love quality, the only ones that I can think of would be Mgs, which I was almost in tears in the 4th one, because I literally grew up with snake. Ultimately, today there are far too many cash cows and technical showcases that I feel a bit down sometimes. Of course, there are still masterpieces like cod4 etc but still… Put it like this. I made sure to get the backwards compatible ps3.
Jams
October 18th, 2008 at 2:02 PM
You are absolutly right, I can’t imagine where we will be in 2 years (let alone a year) but I hope someone notices and steps up to resolve this crisis in gaming. It has gotten to big to just crumble now. Don’t let it fall into the obyiss of Fabs and Trends, it may never come back.
October 18th, 2008 at 2:24 PM
Its all about the money now days.
October 18th, 2008 at 3:32 PM
trapp ur right it is all about the money for those small time game companies to release mediocore games. HOWEVER!!!!!! it has become wayyyyy better. i don’t know if any of you have seen the angry video game nerd videos but back in the atari and commodore even the nintendo, sega era there were games that were horrible for their time. you can’t say they didnt have the technology for some of these games too its just a lack of creativity. most of those games like ET led to the video game Crash luckily paperboy and mario got gaming out of the gutter. nevertheless even in the ps2 era u could find ps2 games like corvette, monster truck, and pinball collection. you don’t see this many mediocore games now because as trapp said Money. it costs lots more money to create the next gen games and the rate of mediocore games has fallen since genesis. I’ve done lots of reasearch on video game history. lol i own a collection of books and written numerous reports on gaming history lol
October 18th, 2008 at 4:01 PM
Great, great article.
October 18th, 2008 at 4:29 PM
Great article. A companion piece which might be worthy of consideration: ” Why are some people willing to buy a game they know is going to be bad?” I’m looking at you, SOCOM “Vets” The beta showed the game wasn’t ready, and yet some people were defending it like their mother’s virtue. Release day comes, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many complaints and calls for class action law suits. I told my brother in law about all the complaints, and said he might want to hold off until it was fixed. He went right out and bought it anyway. Why? And why do these companies think, simply because the systems are networked, that they can put out buggy product and patch it later? They obviously learned it from PC gaming. What other business model allows a company to put out faulty product, and take their time fixing it, while the loyal customers just deal with the garbage?
October 18th, 2008 at 4:32 PM
Exclusive FFVII Proper Remake all the way.That’s the bigger,the last card for PS3.
October 18th, 2008 at 4:32 PM
Thanks for that great article. I’ve got to say that I agree with you 100%. These days, quality games are far too few in between. Before I got BioShock (PS3) I found myself replaying a lot of older generation games. Not PSX, PS2 or xBox, rather NES and Sega Genesis games. Games link Zelda 1&2, Mike Tyson’s PunchOut, even Altered Beast. Those were the heydays for games that played well. They had to play well. Their graphics weren’t amazing, so the dev’s had to make the games fun to play, otherwise nobody would buy them. GTA:IV looks wonderful, but doesn’t play very well. Saint’s row looks pretty good, though not as good as GTA:IV, but I’m alright with that because the game is so damn fun to play. THQ is a great game company. The majority of their N64 games (WWF wrestling games for example) were all immensely fun. I could go on and on, but my point is… If games aren’t fun, nobody’s going to play them, no matter how good they look and that the old games had to play play well, or else nobody would buy them. The developers these days should go back and play the older classics to remind themselves just what makes a game fun.
October 18th, 2008 at 5:22 PM
[...] Article here [...]
October 18th, 2008 at 6:31 PM
Great article
October 18th, 2008 at 7:25 PM
Best article Ever.
Well said.
October 18th, 2008 at 8:39 PM
Great article
October 19th, 2008 at 2:08 AM
I enjoyed your article. Thank you for listing names and finding differnent faults with all parties.
@ TheMadGreek
I too was thinking about SOCOM while reading this article. I was really hoping /6 would delay the delivery after the horrible public beta. And here we are – Yuck.
I’ve always said: Quality, Cost (profit), Speed (to market) – pick two because you can’t have all three. I prefer to delay the product and get the quality (but even that has limits: HOME and the LBP silliness).
October 19th, 2008 at 3:33 AM
The Nintendo Seal of Quality was nixed for this reason- they didn’t know how the public or developers would take to their severe change of direction in gaming. Now known as “The Nintendo Seal”, something that says “hey, I’m legit” rather than “I’m legit QUALITY.” Nintendo saved gaming in the 80’s with the quality seal (no one knew what games were good, next to no one was reviewing and publishing a legitimate review), now they peddle in shovelware, something they stood so strong against in the beginning. They know it too- my friend bought a Wii because his SNES broke years back and sold his games, and now owns most of his collection again via download. Doesn’t own a single game on disc.
Microsoft wanted to rule the market (and how else to win a race than jump the line by a year?), but like the stock market, the faster you rise the harder you crash. (on a side note, I was insulted the other day for owning a PS3 and not a 360, solely on how much I paid for it. He was on his 3rd bought and paid for system- all bricked outside warranty without the RROD. I told him i can’t afford a system that costs a grand to play for 3 years. I support gaming of all types: as long as it’s quality gaming.)
The PS3 has taken the slow and steady approach, which is fine, but I’d like to see a bit more push to get the quality companies producing for the system. Just because Sony’s being a turtle doesn’t mean that 3rd party can’t kick it up a notch. We all want our “major” titles (Final Fantasy, etc.) which aren’t under Sony’s immediate wing, and we see the sheer content that the 360’s pulling, but I don’t recall the 360 having more than one title I wanted to try at 2 years of being on shelves (excluding the ones that were also on the PS2 at the time).
And speaking on quality because of cross platforms, the PS3 is becoming the “main platform” for upcoming games, something that I would assume would mean if they can’t fit it on a smaller disc, that smaller disc’s content will go through graphic and content compression, while the PS3 version will remain in tact. If I were to develop a game I personally would push to get as much of my quality content out as possible, even if not everyone can see or play it. example- If Crysis was made for everyone we’d have a basic flash game with isometric shapes.
that’s my piece.
October 19th, 2008 at 5:05 AM
Great article
October 19th, 2008 at 3:45 PM
One great article. I This article is everything I’ve been thinking about the industry, Microsoft only to get sells. Nintendo, to get the attention of casual gamers leaving the hardcore out, and Sony practically going slow and letting other companies to get their exclusives. Interesting that Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft are being demanded because of their consoles. PS3, Blu-Ray; Wii, Violeted a Trademark; and 360, it seems Microsoft knew about the RROD and anyway they release it.
It’s weird that Sony doesn’t want to protect their exclusives, but FFXIII loss should’ve open their eyes or maybe if L.A. Noire is loss that needs to really open their eyes (Brendam McNamara, Team Bondi’s head, worked for Sony on directing The Getaway), Sony has already expressed their insatisfaction in “giving” money to companies to have exclusive stuff, it’s practically “support us without us giving you money”, maybe Sony did give money to EA for the DLC of Mirror’s Edge.
Talking about the quality, EA has proven itself to develop great games (except Mercs2), something that amazes me is that developers that would’ve never be associated to EA 5 years ago are developing games for the future years. Something that dissapoints me is that big companies are just selfish, take for example Activision Blizzard, they skipped AAA titles, for franchises that actually lost their shine, and small or medium companies are actually giving quality games, look Take-Two and Ubisoft with titles like L.A. Noire and Shawn White Snowboarding.
Again, this was a great article maybe one of the best I’ve seen in the industry.
October 19th, 2008 at 6:01 PM
I have to say one thing really bothered me about your article. At the beginning when you asked for people who were developing shooters to just stop trying to compete with games like CoD 4 (great) and Halo 3 (meh). It is competition that makes those games or any games great. Developers make games to make money, and even if they are making a crappy game, which i doubt any developer will think when they are making it, they still have their own obligations to investors to produce a product. However when an influx of optional titles to the big names are on the market we see smaller game companies working harder to distinguish themselves as something worth.
Prime example is braid. A fantastic game where the creator didn’t go, hmmm why should i make a mario clone when mario on the ds does it so well. Yet they took the platforming the obvious homage to mario platforming and made one of the best games of the year, for less than a big mario game is made.
I would never ever encourage people to stop trying to make games better, competition fuels innovation and drive to make better games.
Thats right folks, crappy games make games better for everyone.
October 20th, 2008 at 5:03 AM
I totally agree with this article for the fact/reasons why I no longer support SCE for letting developers put thing trash out as well I notice that Sony does it now as well (example) Resistance 2, Motor Storm 2, and of course Socom are all sux ass developed games now and people buy them anyway… Fanboys please wake-up because the more we accept this the worst it will get. Already companies are getting people to buy sux ass games for the love of trophies. The PS3 network is being turned into XBOX live. Where no one plays games for fun but for rank and rewards. Not to get off the topic but the 2.50 update is a problem. It brings new things and makes problems with old things (example) single type tap freeze system up, No more sign off online, etc. We need to start BOYCOTTING developers…..
October 20th, 2008 at 6:28 AM
[...] Are Gamers Being Forgotten?- This article is resonating with many people out there because the author is wondering why he is feeling the entire game industry is declining in quality. He isn’t complaining about ‘casual games’ (as many articles did), but he is complaining about the seemingly lack of quality on all the consoles. What the author is really trying to say is that the customer is no longer what games are crafted around. Instead, games are crafted around business models, quarterly earnings, marketing, and large install bases. While he doesn’t articulate this, I suspect he wants games to be designed around the customer again. So say we all! [...]
October 20th, 2008 at 9:33 AM
I agree with that as well.. Companies are focus on sales and not the CUSTOMERS!!!! ITS ABOUT US NOT THE MONEY.
October 20th, 2008 at 9:34 AM
So lets get back to doing that…
October 20th, 2008 at 1:25 PM
“For them to hinder the performance on one console to cash in on both consoles I find ridiculous.”
Welcome to the world of Gamecube and Xbox owners, ca. 2001-2005. GTA still sold a jillion copies, so apparently, the customers didn’t mind too much. Companies will make what customers will buy. If you’re dissatisfied, do what I do–play old games. There are hundreds of old console and PC games out there you’ve never played that are quite fun.
October 20th, 2008 at 2:44 PM
i think you just materialized what i’ve been doing subconsioucly all along in a way.
when a new game comes out- unless its a game that i’ve really been waiting for (LBP-cough-fallout3-cough-) i wait a good while before i pick it up until its price drops either significantly (i can pick up haze now for 20$ and not feel bad cause it didn’t live up tot he hype) or still stays at or very close to the original 60$ launch price (uncharted?)
in this way i can easily see which games were great- and which weren’t so great.
October 20th, 2008 at 7:16 PM
I don’t totally agree with this opinion. I can’t remember have so many great games to play. According IGN’s ratings, we have two 10/10 games this year in GTA and Metal Gear and I hear that we might have another in Fallout. Couple that with Little Big Planet and other in the 9/10 range and this year is looking pretty cool.
I completely agree with the statements regarding multiplatform releases resulting in worse overall quality than the qualify level possible. I can’t help but believe that the industry would be so much better for gamers if the 360 didn’t have their large user base to attract developers or at least if the 360 matched the capabilities of the PS3.
October 20th, 2008 at 11:45 PM
@c-drive
I do agree that MGS4 deserved to be in the 9-10 range easily. The only complaint I had is that it left me wanting more, but is that really a bad thing? But when it comes to GTA I couldn’t disagree with those reviews more. There is no way that it deserves a 10 or even a 9 IMO. It is a solid 8-8.5 though I think. But this is just my opinion, but isn’t that what reviews are anyways.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:59 AM
@BigPete7978
Agreed. I actually am not a fan at all of the GTA series, but I think that if IGNs ratings are a measure of the industry as whole, I don’t think we’re doing that bad at all. If you look at all the games at 8/10 and above there is enough to satisfy everyone’s taste and is an indicator of significant progress in the industry. So I think your rant is a little harsh IMO.
I think the differences in the two “hardcore gaming” platforms (PS3 and 360) has had a detrimental effect on the the quality of high-end games and the fact that the Wii is creating a new sub-category but still being measured against the rest of the market confusing less informed consumers.
In light of that, I share your frustrations in the fact that we don’t have many more high quality games, like MGS4, that push the boundaries of the industry. I don’t want to hate on any system, but I think this has to do with the following:
1. The fact that the Nintendo went in a different direction which took away a lot of market size and capital away the main market participants. (Good on them for helping themselves and contributing to shareholder value, but not great for industry.)
2. And the so call harcore systems being so differnt. You can choose to blame that on Microsoft for not delivering a system that is as cutting edge as possible which sets the quality of cross platform games at a low level or blame it on Sony for introducting a system that was too cutting edge which exceeded the price range of the majority of the consumer market and the cost range of the developers, take your pick.
November 28th, 2008 at 1:00 AM
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May 30th, 2009 at 11:19 AM
@ SignOfZodiac
i disagree R2 and M2PR were good games there just not GREAT games. i know a few people who really like R2. i think its just a personal preference.
The biggest problem is MS buying game makers instead of directly hitting the competition with there own studios. They haven’t released anything big outside of Halo and Gears of war.. with Gears not being there own studio. Yes, that move forced Sony to step up there game, which has payed off but its slowly getting better. Nintendo is another animal on its own,with its own fan base. There issue, is that they cant make anything thats not Mario, Zelda, starfox.. now there doing nothing besides releasing classics with new graphics but still the SAME. There as much to blame for not innovating new IP’s.
3rd parties need to separate the capabilities of the system. If the 360 lacks memory than TO BAD they lose out and not use the storage medium of the weaker system as a stopping point. if one system has the extra memory and more capabilities than go for it.. don’t hamper the original design just to make them the same.