The industry is getting too samey every year we get 'new' games which are exactly the sameas other games from the previous year (barring a few exceptions) call of duty being a perfect example of this infinity ward and (sort of) treyarch have done amazing jobs on thier series but I think it's time for less perfecting (call of duty 4 being perfectly balanced CoD 5 looking less so. flamethrower and swords anyone?) andmore revolutioning getting genres. merging genres with others works well giing a fresh feel to most franchises but it seems every developer has some moneygrabbing leader determined to live a life taking no risks other than to occationally release a game that isn't an FPS. people don't seem to understand the potential the industry has often releasing remakes without anything new or new ideas which areother games in differant skins things like the wii which is on the verge of exploding with the potential bottled up inside it is being kept in the dark and (in my eyes) thats not nintendo's fault with games like mario galaxy, metroid and smash bros showing the wii can do hardcore while retaining tight controls while not forgetting the old pad.

games like halo habe been made fresh (okay halo 3 was pretty unrevolutionary) with bungie changing the genre completely withan RTS way into development and a rumoured ghost recon style game about the lives and pasts of the marines, imagine if activison had done this first a CoD RTS would be awsome and a ghost recon style spin-off would suit it perfectly. it doesn't take much to revolutionize a franchise and yet next year I bet we'll be drowing in FPS's to accomodate for the same people after tat 10th prestige level.

and those of you thinking 'well lucky te game I'm designing is an RPG' if you have ten or less people wrking on it dn't bother RPG's have to be huge. also if there is less than five unigue or revolutionary things about it it will be average as hell although knowing me I've probably yelled at everyone already.

rant over but where o you think the industry is going?

bladerz666:

rant over but where o you think the industry is going?

Down the toilet, but in all seriousness I agree the industry is getting monotomous. Well at college I'm working on the design of a fps merged with rpg, we're only a few days in and at the moment its just powerpoints so don't expect much from me.

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Now I am Death, the destroyer of worlds.

The industry doesn't have to change. Not as long as simple games that are trite and formulaic in every aspect, like Halo, keep selling like crazy.

And there already is a Call of Duty RTS. It's called Company of Heroes.
As far as a Halo RTS, I don't feel that one was really needed. I mean, we already have StarCraft and C&C. They're close enough, unless you're a serious fanboy. But I guess there are enough of you for Bungie/MGS/ES to justify saturating the market with more of the same.

But to answer the question, I think the 'industry' will stay stagnant. At least the big, corporate side. Indie companies, like Taleworlds, will break some new ground.

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OMG I <3 dis gaem guys!

sounds insteresting are we talking an elder scrolls style outing a mass effect style sci-fi or a modern day approach? if it involves guns please involve some sort of gun customization in terms of look and prformance like the need for speed customization on a gun... only less "gangsta!!!!1!!!!"

bladerz666:

sounds insteresting are we talking an elder scrolls style outing a mass effect style sci-fi or a modern day approach? if it involves guns please involve some sort of gun customization in terms of look and prformance like the need for speed customization on a gun... only less "gangsta!!!!1!!!!"

As I said its just a college project so it will probably never be published. I've not played elder scrolls or mass effect so... no comment As for customization they'll be some but I hadn't considered custom guns, thanks for the idea

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Now I am Death, the destroyer of worlds.

Rebalious:

bladerz666:

rant over but where o you think the industry is going?

Down the toilet, but in all seriousness I agree the industry is getting monotomous. Well at college I'm working on the design of a fps merged with rpg, we're only a few days in and at the moment its just powerpoints so don't expect much from me.

Take a look at STALKER, Bioshock, System Shock, and Dues Ex then.

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OMG I <3 dis gaem guys!

Jazzhat:

Take a look at STALKER, Bioshock, System Shock, and Dues Ex then.

I have played none of those but have heard that bioshock is a steampunk version of system shock. Looked on wiki system shock is 14 years old and dues ex is 8, thats hardly modern (depending on self perception of time) so 2 possibly modern games out of a multitude of how many modern fps's? I could argue blood omen 1 (coincidently I never played it) was a great game but it doesn't seem to be affecting the games industry today.

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Now I am Death, the destroyer of worlds.

Rebalious:

Jazzhat:

Take a look at STALKER, Bioshock, System Shock, and Dues Ex then.

I have played none of those but have heard that bioshock is a steampunk version of system shock. Looked on wiki system shock is 14 years old and dues ex is 8, thats hardly modern (depending on self perception of time) so 2 possibly modern games out of a multitude of how many modern fps's? I could argue blood omen 1 (coincidently I never played it) was a great game but it doesn't seem to be affecting the games industry today.

'Course not. Games like Halo sell millions and millions more than games like STALKER or Bioshock.
There just isn't a reason for corporations to try to make an FPS with RPG elements, when recycling the same old games will bring in infinitely more money.

TBH, I'd rather just have 2 or 3 games I can really sink my money and time into, rather than a plethora of clones to do the same with, no matter how they are.

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OMG I <3 dis gaem guys!

Jazzhat:

'Course not. Games like Halo sell millions and millions more than games like STALKER or Bioshock.
There just isn't a reason for corporations to try to make an FPS with RPG elements, when recycling the same old games will bring in infinitely more money.

TBH, I'd rather just have 2 or 3 games I can really sink my money and time into, rather than a plethora of clones to do the same with, no matter how they are.

Well at least we are in agreence on small gem versus torrent of cheap porridge, I apologise for that anology it was terrible.

Corporations! Damn you, damn you all to hell!

Actually its an rpg with toggable fps elements. Sort of like the C+C: renegade third person toggle. Also it makes fun of cliches such as post apocalyptic settings.

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Now I am Death, the destroyer of worlds.

I meant era wise if it has RPG elements does that mean open world? multiplayer? or-rails sections (e.g. fantasy on a dragon shooting enemies) maybe you character unlocks armour for leveling up?

bladerz666:

I meant era wise if it has RPG elements does that mean open world? multiplayer? or-rails sections (e.g. fantasy on a dragon shooting enemies) maybe you character unlocks armour for leveling up?

Ohh, I see. Well era wise its in the future, plot wise I suppose you could call it science-fantasy. Well primary it will be single player but if I ever get that far it will have multiplayer wars. As for armour I'm not sure to have it invisible and just be a player creation thing or like fable where your naked and have visible armour, as I said its just a college project.

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Now I am Death, the destroyer of worlds.

what about story?

play mass efffct it could inspire you and it is awsome once you get passed the slow start

The problem with the games industry now, is that the masses don't care if they're playing a game, just as long as the graphics are realistic, so you end up having sort of 'jock' games. They look nice and have a bit of muscle, but lack where it really counts. (brain and penis size )

I'm hoping LH will keep away from this like a tramp on fire, and they seem to be trying to mix a game with graphics (a rarity these days) with Fable 2, which is to see in these bad times for the games industry.

What's clear is that most of the massively hyped games seem to fail in gameplay. Bioshock and Assassins Creed are two examples. Both have excellent graphics, but both lack in story and gameplay. The Bioshock story was mediocre at best and I, personally found it a very boring game. Assassins Creed, well, what can I say? Once you've assassinated the first target, you've assassinated them all. The story is extremely repetitive. You find out about your target, kill him, go home, find out who your next target is, find out about him, kill him, go home and it goes on...

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exactly but slowley average gamers are starting to notice wether a game is or not gradually throwing out another FPS to the masses won't work and then developers will be stuck.

another things developers could do is buddy up with other and combine two games e.g. ubisoft and DICE could join for the next assassins creed and make a mirrors edge (looks stunning)/oblivion style game.

I just found out that gearbox (brothers in arms guys) may be working on the new halo. why them they should have given it to infinety ward yeah it wouldn't be very original but it would go down as the best FPS of all time.

bladerz666:

exactly but slowley average gamers are starting to notice wether a game is or not gradually throwing out another FPS to the masses won't work and then developers will be stuck.

Evidently, they won't;

bladerz666:

I just found out that gearbox (brothers in arms guys) may be working on the new halo. why them they should have given it to infinety ward yeah it wouldn't be very original but it would go down as the best FPS of all time.

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OMG I <3 dis gaem guys!

why the look?

Inconsistency, or some poo poo like that.

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OMG I <3 dis gaem guys!

the reason I wanted a perfected one was so it could never be beaten and all this FPS stuff would be over

bladerz666:

the reason I wanted a perfected one was so it could never be beaten and all this FPS stuff would be over

Then that would cause true stagnation of part of the industry.

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Now I am Death, the destroyer of worlds.

I don't think the industry needs to change at all, you talk about games like CoD and Halo like they are these lumbering beahemoths of games that have always been around and always will be. I have never really been a fan of First Person Shooters, however I found CoD to be a great little game and had a wonderful online aspect to it (played it on my PC). I tried to play Halo but got bored after about 10 minutes (I don't like FPS remember ).

There is a reason I don't like FPSs though, they are all the same. They have always all been the same, I remember playing DOOM when it first came out and then Quake. The only difference I feel between now and then is that some games have much more indepth stroylines - RFoM and Halo - and some have much more improved mechanics - CoD - but the premiss is still the same - aim - shoot - boom - It's not a genre that lends itself to inovation easily, however it is a genre that lends its traits to other genres readily, anything with a first person perspective tends to touch on elements of an FPS - GTA, Crackdown, Fallout, Dead Rising, Condemned, Mass Effect and Mirrors Edge - They all incorperate little bits of FPSs style into them.

I think people forget why some of the popular franchise FPSs as popular, Halo and CoD were ground breaking games, you can't expect all their sequels to be ground breaking, you wouldn't want to play a franchise that completely changed everytime you played it, they work because it is "more of the same" and people generally like "more of the same". That isn't to say that the entire industry should stagnate, and it has far from stagnated, but it is always to keep pumping out a winning forumla, like they do with movies - Slasher movies for teens, Guy Ritchie films, Goofball comedies - People like to watch things that they know they will like. They don't like watching things that they don't know they will like. This isn't to say that they should stop making new franchises and IPs, it is simply saying that as a means to bring in the cash to push forward new IPs then they need to regurgitate the crap that people seem to like to play.

All the industry needs are people that are willing to inovate and imaginate (I am copyrighting that word for pure awesomeness!), if you look at movies, for every 10 generic romantic comedies and 5 generic action movies we get something really special - Sin City, Kill Bill, City of God, I want Candy ... ok scratch that last one if you aren't British you wont understand it - The point is that if you want to find the hidden gem games you have to scratch the surface of the games industry ocassionally.

I for instance have just got Eternal Sonata (picked it up nice and cheap as well), but in a couple of years alone we have seen or will see the release of:

Little Big Planet
Dead Space
Spore
Mirrors Edge
Fallout 3
Skate
Mass Effect
Bioshock
Dead Rising
Overlord
Fable 2
and a lot more besides.

You could easily tear each of them apart, but then games evolve out of other games, you rarely see someone bring out a truely unique game that has no similarities to other games, all they do is build on previous games, looking at the list:

Little Big Planet - Only one that I can safely say doesn't remind me of anything else.
Dead Space - Reminds me of The suffering, Resident , Aliens vs preditor etc etc
Spore - each stage reminds me of different aspects of other games - tribal for instance reminds me of populace ... >.>
Mirrors Edge - Crackdown and therefore GTA
Fallout 3 - Oblivion
Skate - Tony Hawks
Mass Effect - KOTOR
Bioshock - Resident
Dead Rising - Resident with a sense of humour
Overlord - Fable funnily enough
Fable 2 - Fable

You see if you look for the similarities they are there, but that is because games take their inspiration from other games. Or failing that then they take it from movies or even literature. I would like to see more complete inovation, but building engines from the ground up is expensive from what I hear, so it is likely that the truely inovative ideas will utilise an engine used by other games and therefore it'll still have that "samey" feel to it.

I think the industry is a lot better today than it was 5 years ago to be perfectly honest, there hasn't really been a lot out that captured my attention 5 years ago, there were of course a few things and most of them came out of LH, but to be honest, I like the choice we have now in gaming, the big games developers have realised that haemogenising games companies into one big developer office doesn't work, it stiffled inovation.

We will never get back to the glory days of the NES and the SNES when it seemed anyone could pick up and code a game, and to be honest it is probably for the best, most of those games were crap, there were a few gems, but with the advent of PSN and Live Arcade I think that the indie games developer has a medium to get their games out on at the same time as allowing the "proper" games to keep advancing at a pace. It costs a small fortune to create a new game now with the team sizes involved, inidie companies don't stand a chance against that kinda clout, so it is up to them to find other means to get recognized.

Some can take their cue from the movie industry, creating games that have a brilliant story or perhaps just a really unique style of play/graphics, something that whilst never being a "block buster" will still become a cult classic - think of City of God or The Crow - That's how they get their recognition and should they want it, their funding to create a bockbuster.

Just incase my inane waffle has lost you:

Industry is fine, no need for change, have a lot of new inovation and indie devs have a lot of options available. We are a lot better off than we were 5 years ago.

forum_wh0re:

The Bioshock story was mediocre at best and I, personally found it a very boring game.

No offense, but I am glad that the games industry doesn't always listen to everything people say, if you can call Bioshock boring and the story mediocre then I am seriously worried as to what you are looking for in a game? This isn't a dig, it's just that your opinion goes against everything that 99% of gamers have said, be they hardcore, casual or heaven forbid sports fans. Bioshock is a tremendous game and it has a gripping storyline that plays out in a unique way (I am talking how the story is presented, with very few "cutscenes" and simply being told or shown to you as you progress through the game, in game.

You can't please all the people all the time, but most will appreciate something is even if it isn't their thing. The few that don't shouldn't be listened to as they clearly can't see things from an objective point of view.

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Mortalitis_Infinitas:

You have gained enough renown to purchase the "Creative Director of European studios at Microsoft Games Studios" title.

Bioshock - Resident ?

We dont need revolutionary ideas of gameplay in each game but it isn't impossible to give us a story in every game, if the story and art direction is it doesnt matter if the gameplay is old, I loved bioshock but if yout cut away the story and the art style of the game it would have been horrible average.

If just more devs would bother making a story it can easily suck me in and it becomes much more easy to overlook gameplay flaws, a bit of originality with the story and it improves hugely - Bioshock, Psychonauts, final fantasy-  take away their stories and they wouldnt be memorable at all but because of the story and characters it's some of my fav games, of course there is the games with bad stories that are still great like COD4 but there isnt many of them, i didnt even bother finnishing COD4 because i didnt care for the story and what happened.

But one thing for sure is that there is alot more potential in the industry than it's showing, it doesnt need to change but we need more ideas that doesnt just follow the random FPS guide, only games i am really looking foward to are Heavy Rain, Alan Wake and Little big planet, 5 years ago i looked foward to many more games, i really think the creativity of the industry has gone down, mostly with stories.

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maggot:

Bioshock - Resident ?

I couldn't remember off the top of my head what it's "spiritual" predecessor was - Systemshock - however I do stand by the fact that the "shock/horror" of Resident is something that Bioshock has with the Splicers ... (when they jump out at you) ... and it has the same dark and gloomy feel to it with massive lulls in action full of suspense and mutterings followed by a frantic few minutes of action before you go back to the quiet suspense again ... I am talking not about ripping off of ideas, I am talking about how the game feels and where it feels they got inspiration from in the game.

Fable 2 for instance has been influenced by Final Fantasy VII and Bioshock (Peters words), you would think "they are nothing alike" except maybe that they will have a fantastic story *shrugs* not sure about that as I haven't played Fable 2 ... yet they are influences on the game, and as long as the story is delivered without cutscenes in a manner that engages the gamer then it has been influenced by Bioshock, and as long as there is a profound feeling of attachment towards the dog then it has been influenced by FFVII ...

The games industry needs totally revolutionary ideas, but it also needs a marked improvement in plots and stories ...

The irony is 5 minutes after I posted the last post I picked up the PSM3 magazine and read a quick article that was exactly about FPSs and their generic "Americanized" holywood style ...

some choice quotes:

On comedy;
Almost every squad based war game features familiar movie stereotypes; the wise-cracking black guy, the geeky coward, the braying jock, the fiery Latino dude. It's all infantile one-liners and straight to DVD action film dialogue.

In general;
Games have the potential to be better at telling more detailed stories than films; developers just need to grow up and think about how they can imerse the player in different ways and thread the narrative sensibly through the gameplay.

The alternative;
Or they could just continue to copy Spielberg and Scorsese, filling their cut-scenes with relentlessly jabbering, one-dimensional stereotypes.

Think that hits the nail on the head with where I think the industry is flawed, but that doesn't require a large change from the industry, just a bit more thought from the games studios about plot.

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Mortalitis_Infinitas:

You have gained enough renown to purchase the "Creative Director of European studios at Microsoft Games Studios" title.

The only way the industry will change is if consumers stop buying the crap that's getting put on the shelves.  If that happens then companies won't make money and the developers will be forced to innovate or die.  However, since a SUCKER IS BORN EVERY MINUTE, I don't see that happening.

 

JUST SAY NO to sequels!

 

Or you'll get pie in your face.

 

*except Fable 2, since it's not really a sequel but the game we wanted all along.

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There will always be a market for what feels familiar (i.e. first person shooters, platformers, action RPGs, CRPGs, JRPGs, etc.) but with new graphics, new stories, or new twists. I don't have a problem with that as, when done well, some of my most beloved and memorable games have been the result over the years. Nevertheless, I do agree that there needs to be more innovation and creativity in game design.

I can't even remember the last time I played something that really defied comparison to existing games or genres. Don't get me wrong. I love all the games I'm going to give as examples, but while they feel familiar and of high quality, they don't feel new.

Fable II? Zelda with more content and a fantasy, large-world version of The Sims. Halo 3? Every other first person shooter with a faceless, endearing hero and a somewhat interesting story if you go for it. Don't even get me started on the yearly sports and wrestling titles. (When developers became required to release one every single year, with updated graphics at the expense of extensive content rather than waiting a year or two so as to develop a truly great sports game, I don't know.) Mass Effect? Every previous Bioware RPG with better graphics and arguably better NPCs. Fallout 3? Oblivion with guns (I know there's more to it than that, and I'm planning to buy it as I love the Bethesda RPG formula, but it just isn't revolutionary or new.)

As I said before, I love those games as well. They're games I'd never pass up, and are only a handfull of examples of many, many more games I wouldn't miss. They just don't make me feel like I'm having an entirely new experience the way that the first FPS I ever played did; the first Mario game I played; the first space shooter; the first arcade game; the first RPG; the first JRPG. I'm sure when I played those games, they weren't the first of their kind either, but some game before them was. We desperately need this sort of "newness" again in my opinion. It would be such a breath of fresh air.

Some of the innovation I've seen, surprisingly, has been in unexpected places like Live Arcade. Puzzle Quest is a great, old school grind-fest of an RPG in my opinion, without feeling tedious because the battles are entirely comprised of a fun, quick puzzle game. Braid's temporal mechanics were something I've wanted to see for years but never did until now for some inexplicable reason. I'd love to see bigger blockbuster titles use time, reversing it, manipulating it, etc. in ways that encourage emergent play and behavior.

In fact, I think emergent gameplay and behavior are precisely the way forward. If developers are out of ideas, then put the creativity and experimentation in our hands as we play.

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My apologies for any typos as I currently cannot see the screen well. This will be temporary.