The Games Industry thread.

[child of Thor]

With the OT awash with everything from cosmic catalysims to Iraq and requests for porno, I wanted to start a thread here in Games section about the Games Industry in general(in short i dont think the OT is big on games, like we are here).

I know we cover certain aspects in the various discussions about specific games(the recent RTW non-patch news for example), but as this is restricted to a specific title it soon fades into the depths as new titles come along.

So i decided to do this thread - partially cause i love computer games and have done from the early days, and partially cause i feel its an important issue to discuss, after all the "Games Industry"(tm), makes the stuff many of us consider our hobby/passion etc

Anyway i'll get the ball rolling with this article from the bbc:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4182455.stm

Its about the responses from developers(in this case specificaly in the uk, but it would also apply to others i'm sure) to the new wave of next-gen consoles.

All of it seems fair enough - we've heard it before and it makes sense for the most part. Then i get to this bit at the bottom:

Fred Hasson, head of Tiga, which represents independent developers:

"There are still some developers who were involved in games from the bedroom coding days. Some of them are still making games for peer group approval - that has to stop."

hmmm......for someone who is meant to represent the indies, this seems a strange thing to say? Maybe the bbc quoted him out of context(i dont know why it would want to?)? But does this mean in the brave new world of super consoles that guys like Paradox should just shut up shop and leave it all to the EA's of the world?

Or maybe he meant to say "....that would stop"? which would make more sense, anyway it got me thinking.

If anything the harder the big guns squeeze(could read rip off) the gamers, the more companies like Paradox will survive and prosper, atleast i would hope so.

So when looking at that new shinny $200 something games machine in the store window - have a think of where you want your game playing to go.

[Jamski]

He's saying that gamers should stop making games for other gamers, but instead aim for the Sunday Gamer/Console market - I think his point was that depth and thought don't sell.

[:) Smiley]

With that kind of logic, maybe we should do away with independent movies, experimental music, and other art forms as well.

[General Ludd]

Well, we have Britney Spears and The Sims. What more could anyone possibly want?

[Kuciwalker]

Halo 3

[LDiCesare]

The last sentence is indeed not very clear. What does he mean by that? That games should be developped using middleware instead of trying yo do everything from scratch? That they need to target a wider audience? That they must stop making games with dated graphics, technology and gameplay?

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Jamski
He's saying that gamers should stop making games for other gamers, but instead aim for the Sunday Gamer/Console market - I think his point was that depth and thought don't sell.

Some people have been arguing that companies think this way for some time now.

[Jamski]

...instead aim for the Sunday Gamer/Console market...

Halo 3

Oh Wesley

[dunk]

Re: The Games Industry thread.

Originally posted by child of Thor
Fred Hasson, head of Tiga, which represents independent developers:

No, I think it means just what you've thought. The preceding sentance is:

"Mr Hasson said games developers were beginning to realise that they had to be more "business-like"."

So, that means they need to target the big bucks, ie 13-18 year olds who are more attracted to bling-bling than content.

So, we'll probably see the same old stuff just rehashed with better graphics.

What's the last really original game anyone here has played?

[Standup]

I'm not sure it's quite as bad as remakes of the SIms but i think he is saying that developers have to be realistic in what they do. Designing text adventures (for example) may get you postive posts from that small bunch of dedicated fans but it's not enough.

I'm thinking of hex, turn based war gaming as another example. I like this genre but i have certain expectations in terms of graphics and sound (not especially high) as well as gameplay but some of the games i've tried could have been written in 1995. Claiming that they're aimed at niche markets isn't a good enough excuse.

[Grandpa Troll]

Re: Re: The Games Industry thread.

Originally posted by dunk


No, I think it means just what you've thought. The preceding sentance is:

"Mr Hasson said games developers were beginning to realise that they had to be more "business-like"."

So, that means they need to target the big bucks, ie 13-18 year olds who are more attracted to bling-bling than content.

So, we'll probably see the same old stuff just rehashed with better graphics.

What's the last really original game anyone here has played?

Maybe SWAT4 with its original concept of good ai and good gameplay with team concepts versus shhot em up with power ups and such

A pleasant change from simple first person shooters

[Spiffor]

Re: Re: The Games Industry thread.

Originally posted by dunk
What's the last really original game anyone here has played?

EU2, which I discovered only a week ago.

I could make a case for X2-the threat as well (although it's the third release of a series that began in the late 90's). It looks like Elite, but a number of serious innovations give a very distinct feel to it

[lord of the mark]

1. Its getting harder to develop for consoles, and so that means less indie games for consoles (and more for PCs?) Yup, no surprise.

2. Middleware to make development easier - a logical response, and IIUC happening on the PC side as well.

3. Middleware to let gamers make their own content - see Spore, etc. One way to deal with the cost of making more and more art. Will work for some types of games.

4. Make it for gamers not peers - I dont think this is the casual vs hardcore, so much as customer vs developer - but it wasnt explicit enough to say for sure.

5. Indies need biz sense - this is a meme thats going around, apparently. Not that indies need to become biggies, but that they DO need to focus on channels of distribution, understanding their niche and what it needs, etc. A not unreasonable idea, IMHO. Look, indies CANT afford to do a Halo3, or Doom4, or whatever. That takes lots of bucks for art, etc, established distribution channels, and is the domain fo the bigggies. Indies need to think about what they can do well AND make money at.

6. Knock the Sims all you want, but its brought an entire new audience to gaming, and is giving Will Wright the freedom to try new things like Spore.

[lord of the mark]

Another thing to consider about the industry - while we think mainly of console and PC games, there are several other markets
A. Truely casual games - internet games played via a browser, etc - I think Bejeweled is the big one - yesterday POTM played "snowmuncher" on the neopets site - this is a large and growing market, with a non-traditional audience, and is a big potential source of revenue for indies who cant get shelfspace for conventional games.
B. "Serious" Games - IE games developed as training or simulation tools for businesses, govt agencies, and nonprofits, rather than for commercial distribution - this enables developers to avoid the whole distribution, publisher, piracy scene - just sell the game to one customer who contracts for it. Of course some of these games may end up released later to the public. The US army has one such game, IIUC, and ive posted about a non-profit effort wrt to peaceful political change.

[child of Thor]

One of the trends in this recent(last couple of years it seems to me) shift to the mega-publisher and using more 'business sense', is that we get much less of a gaming experience for our money?

Its not a hard and fast rule and doesn't apply to ALL games published these days(as i'll show below), but its becoming a pretty pointless experience, from my point of view; to find it worth investing my £40 in a game that i'm going to finish in less than 15 hrs imho.

Its actually one of the prime decideing factors in if i'm going to buy a game or not, and one of the reasons my purchasing quantity has fallen in recent years.

If this is part of this new 'business sense' that many in the industry are talking about, then i'm not 100% convinced this is in gamers longterm interests.

Ok maybe you have a short attention span, or have never read a book in your life? I guess these are the people that the financial wizards have decided to target?

Still it has been proven that there is space available in this kind of artificaly geared market(and i'm sure its a deliberate shift by the big guns to force gaming in this direction).
Games like Morrowind, KOTOR etc show there is still a market for games that offer lots of content and hrs of gameplay.

Partly i think its because the more the film industry has become involved in games, the more 'film guys' have jumped into the games market, particularly in management positions - and coming from that background just get incredibly confused when you tell them about games like Daggerfall for examplehttp://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/el...lls-daggerfall , which ok was buggy as hell, but wow! did it offer a huge gaming experience if you got into it!

To them the thought of giving the customer +100's of hours of gaming is just crazy - i mean you watch a film and for your £5 you get a few hrs of entertainment. Games are entertainment right, just like interactive films right?

So to them offering us 12-15hrs of gaming enertainment for £40 is a fair trade, in the movie framework.

Blah! - rip off merchants more like i say