The end of Big Developers
April 22, 2006 8:47 AM Subscribe
The next next gen of video games. With the rise of digital distribution models for video games, and the rapid increase in development costs, Raph Koster has predicted an end to the big publishers, with a new system of online content aggregators. Others in the industry agree, but will this really be the end of large epic games?
Lack of alternative revenue streams? Claptrap, sir!
For the first time ever, the 18-30 male demographic spends more hours per week playing video games than watching TV. (according to UK statistics, anyway) Improvements in graphics and mass online capabilities make in-game advertising and/or sponsorship an obvious way to go. Critically, unlike television commercials, gamers tend to view certain types of in-game advertising as a positive addition, lending authenticity to real-world environments.
Big epic games will continue to be produced, hoovering up ever-larger amounts of cash, as long as large numbers of people buy them. The Dragon's Quest series, for example, shows no signs of running out of steam.
Which reminds me, I've got to go and see a man about a cursed king...
posted by RokkitNite at 9:46 AM on April 22, 2006
For the first time ever, the 18-30 male demographic spends more hours per week playing video games than watching TV. (according to UK statistics, anyway) Improvements in graphics and mass online capabilities make in-game advertising and/or sponsorship an obvious way to go. Critically, unlike television commercials, gamers tend to view certain types of in-game advertising as a positive addition, lending authenticity to real-world environments.
Big epic games will continue to be produced, hoovering up ever-larger amounts of cash, as long as large numbers of people buy them. The Dragon's Quest series, for example, shows no signs of running out of steam.
Which reminds me, I've got to go and see a man about a cursed king...
posted by RokkitNite at 9:46 AM on April 22, 2006
Koster has one success and one flop under his belt--with the former arguably the result of having been first to the marketplace--and works exclusively in the medium he is trumpeting. Brian 'Psychochild' Green nurses a decade-old MMOG on perpetual life support. Lack of consistent track record + wishful thinking favorable to self = take with a grain of salt.
Until graphics become photorealistic, the day will never arrive when the gaming public ceases to equate progress with prettier pictures and rewards publishers accordingly. One of the fundaments of Koster's perceived paradigm shift is that ever-increasing graphical requirements in 'AAA' games lead to budgets so large that flops can destroy publishers. But do AAA games flop? I'm not aware of any big budget failure since the days of Daikatana, and that was a long, long time ago in computer years. On the other hand, the creators of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion or the GTA series are hardly crying in their beer over their success.
Have gaming types been surprised in the last few years over the success of 'bite-sized games' like Bejeweled or the runaway popularity of World of Warcraft? Sure, but there's no need to sound the death-knell of epic single player games as a result. As gaming becomes (if it isn't already) the dominant form of entertainment, we'll see more dollars migrating from other sectors of the media, which should allow 'epic' gaming not only to survive but to flourish well into the future. People want to play them; until they don't, they're not going anywhere. As much as Raph might like to see the economic equivalent of a nuclear warhead blast computer gaming back into the Dark Ages of little games and MUDs, it just isn't going to happen.
I do agree with him that brick and mortar game stores are probably doomed; but it doesn't follow that games-as-product will vanish in favor of games-as-service, unless someone is arguing that Steam (the model for digital distribution) isn't selling a product to you when you download Half Life 2.
posted by Makoto at 10:15 AM on April 22, 2006
Until graphics become photorealistic, the day will never arrive when the gaming public ceases to equate progress with prettier pictures and rewards publishers accordingly. One of the fundaments of Koster's perceived paradigm shift is that ever-increasing graphical requirements in 'AAA' games lead to budgets so large that flops can destroy publishers. But do AAA games flop? I'm not aware of any big budget failure since the days of Daikatana, and that was a long, long time ago in computer years. On the other hand, the creators of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion or the GTA series are hardly crying in their beer over their success.
Have gaming types been surprised in the last few years over the success of 'bite-sized games' like Bejeweled or the runaway popularity of World of Warcraft? Sure, but there's no need to sound the death-knell of epic single player games as a result. As gaming becomes (if it isn't already) the dominant form of entertainment, we'll see more dollars migrating from other sectors of the media, which should allow 'epic' gaming not only to survive but to flourish well into the future. People want to play them; until they don't, they're not going anywhere. As much as Raph might like to see the economic equivalent of a nuclear warhead blast computer gaming back into the Dark Ages of little games and MUDs, it just isn't going to happen.
I do agree with him that brick and mortar game stores are probably doomed; but it doesn't follow that games-as-product will vanish in favor of games-as-service, unless someone is arguing that Steam (the model for digital distribution) isn't selling a product to you when you download Half Life 2.
posted by Makoto at 10:15 AM on April 22, 2006
Spore is the future of video games. Watch the video overview of the game. Simply amazing. I can not wait.
posted by Mr_Zero at 10:22 AM on April 22, 2006
posted by Mr_Zero at 10:22 AM on April 22, 2006
You mean large epic games like the Police/King/Space Quests that Sierra used to make? Large epic games like the ones that LucasFilm/Art Games used to make?
And when he mentions the end of big publishers was he talking about big publishers like Vivendi Universal which forced Valve to delay the release of Half Life 2 on Steam?
Que sera sera. No need to make fanciful claims as to what the future holds. As long as games continue to outsell movies you know big money is going to be involved.
posted by furtive at 10:29 AM on April 22, 2006
And when he mentions the end of big publishers was he talking about big publishers like Vivendi Universal which forced Valve to delay the release of Half Life 2 on Steam?
Que sera sera. No need to make fanciful claims as to what the future holds. As long as games continue to outsell movies you know big money is going to be involved.
posted by furtive at 10:29 AM on April 22, 2006
Mr_Zero, if an epic game that is made up of a progression of smaller subgames that mimic popular genres of the day (RTS, action-adventure, beat 'em up, turn-based strategy, RPG) is the future of video games, then the future was seventeen years ago.
I'm not complaining, of course. The Sword of the Samurai approach--for lack of a better term, since I'm sure there are earlier games similarly structured--is one that I've felt has been unfairly neglected as games have become more rigidly genre-based over the years. And Will Wright's developer's touch is just as golden as Sid Meier's, if not more so.
posted by Makoto at 11:06 AM on April 22, 2006
I'm not complaining, of course. The Sword of the Samurai approach--for lack of a better term, since I'm sure there are earlier games similarly structured--is one that I've felt has been unfairly neglected as games have become more rigidly genre-based over the years. And Will Wright's developer's touch is just as golden as Sid Meier's, if not more so.
posted by Makoto at 11:06 AM on April 22, 2006
If you watch the video I think you will see some significant differences between Spore and a game that is 17 years old. The other *things* in the game are created by other players. Using their method the people gaming create the content, content that evolves. Super cool I think.
posted by Mr_Zero at 11:16 AM on April 22, 2006
posted by Mr_Zero at 11:16 AM on April 22, 2006
To my mind, Oblivion and Spore are the games that will define where we go from here.
I think that Oblivion, for instance, shows that we've reached the limit of pre-generated content. A fairly massive world, beautifully rendered, hand-crafted with a contextual AI system, but it still feels hollow and empty.
Now, Oblivion is easily the best game I've played since, maybe, Baldur's Gate 2, but it is still just a cold, empty world with limited choices and a linear plot.
What shows us the other side of the coin is the Oblivion Construction Kit. The game has been out a month now, and the mod community has already released over a thousand mods by some counts. I use no less than thirty distinct mods when I play, and it really has taken the game to the next level.
Spore is a great example of the 'real' next-gen. Asynchronous distribution and collection of player content, vast scale, procedural generation of animations, landscapes, skins, etc...
When we combine the two, just imagine the possibilities. A large scale world with procedurally generated areas/races/plots that allows you to swap hand-crafted components.
Imagine an RPG engine that plays a different game every time you start over. It loads different character races/classes/equipment from a mixed pool of random and pre-made types, creates a world map on the fly, populated by random encounters and pre-made events, with a plot that changes every time. Every character you talk to has an AI that is contextually aware, and can procedurally create dialogue and quests based on what objects/locations/items/events were loaded or created when you started the game. Towns and cities develop different architectural styles based on their random location and the materials and races that are nearby.
I know this is easier said than done, but I don't think anyone will be able to top Oblivion for sheer amount of content, and I don't think Spore will have gameplay that is 'directed' enough for the average gamer. The sweet spot will be somewhere in between.
posted by WinnipegDragon at 1:13 PM on April 22, 2006
I think that Oblivion, for instance, shows that we've reached the limit of pre-generated content. A fairly massive world, beautifully rendered, hand-crafted with a contextual AI system, but it still feels hollow and empty.
Now, Oblivion is easily the best game I've played since, maybe, Baldur's Gate 2, but it is still just a cold, empty world with limited choices and a linear plot.
What shows us the other side of the coin is the Oblivion Construction Kit. The game has been out a month now, and the mod community has already released over a thousand mods by some counts. I use no less than thirty distinct mods when I play, and it really has taken the game to the next level.
Spore is a great example of the 'real' next-gen. Asynchronous distribution and collection of player content, vast scale, procedural generation of animations, landscapes, skins, etc...
When we combine the two, just imagine the possibilities. A large scale world with procedurally generated areas/races/plots that allows you to swap hand-crafted components.
Imagine an RPG engine that plays a different game every time you start over. It loads different character races/classes/equipment from a mixed pool of random and pre-made types, creates a world map on the fly, populated by random encounters and pre-made events, with a plot that changes every time. Every character you talk to has an AI that is contextually aware, and can procedurally create dialogue and quests based on what objects/locations/items/events were loaded or created when you started the game. Towns and cities develop different architectural styles based on their random location and the materials and races that are nearby.
I know this is easier said than done, but I don't think anyone will be able to top Oblivion for sheer amount of content, and I don't think Spore will have gameplay that is 'directed' enough for the average gamer. The sweet spot will be somewhere in between.
posted by WinnipegDragon at 1:13 PM on April 22, 2006
I'm sorry, but I disagree with just about everything said in that post. The jist of it seems to be, "the industry is changing, and the big studios won't know what to do!" There will be too much "noise" from little developers? The big ones can shout louder. Not enough profit from selling to EB and GameStop? Fine, the developer will sell it themselves. Costs are rising? No kidding. Maybe they'll wake up and start following real software development practices, instead of this "make it up as we go along" plan they have now. It's easily fixable, they just haven't had the motivation to do so yet, because they're still making so much money.
I'd love it if there was more of a focus on gameplay and smaller studios, but you can't just wish the big guys away. They have the money, the prestige (to lure in the new talent), and they own the rights to the Halos and the GTAs.
But I'm nobody in particular, so you probably shouldn't listen to me.
posted by Sibrax at 1:26 PM on April 22, 2006
I'd love it if there was more of a focus on gameplay and smaller studios, but you can't just wish the big guys away. They have the money, the prestige (to lure in the new talent), and they own the rights to the Halos and the GTAs.
But I'm nobody in particular, so you probably shouldn't listen to me.
posted by Sibrax at 1:26 PM on April 22, 2006
I think that Oblivion, for instance, shows that we've reached the limit of pre-generated content. A fairly massive world, beautifully rendered, hand-crafted with a contextual AI system, but it still feels hollow and empty.
Having not seen Oblivion, I can't be sure, but what from what other MeFites have said about its resemblance to Morrowind (jump ten thousand times to build acrobatics skill, etc) then no wonder it feels hollow. Try Fable. People who rave about Morrowind/Oblivion seem to be underestimating the extent to which their op is about graphics and little else.
posted by dreamsign at 1:38 PM on April 22, 2006
Having not seen Oblivion, I can't be sure, but what from what other MeFites have said about its resemblance to Morrowind (jump ten thousand times to build acrobatics skill, etc) then no wonder it feels hollow. Try Fable. People who rave about Morrowind/Oblivion seem to be underestimating the extent to which their op is about graphics and little else.
posted by dreamsign at 1:38 PM on April 22, 2006
Fable was a terrible RPG, in my opinion. It was fun and I liked the style with which the game was presented, but the 'RPG' component was exceptionally weak.
Oblivion is guilty of this too, in places, but you can't really knock it's leveling system. You level skills by using them. Some skills (like acrobatics) are just odd to level. With the new level scaling system and corrections to the 'cast a 1 point fireball a million times to level' design mistakes, Oblivion is a far better game than Oblivion.
Besides, they give you far more flexibility than Fable did, and you can't complete Oblivion in twenty hours of playing, and that's before any player-created mods.
I miss the real RPGs though, where you needed a calculator, a scratch pad, a few two liters of Mountain Dew, the manual and about sixteen hours just to roll up your party.
posted by WinnipegDragon at 2:50 PM on April 22, 2006
Oblivion is guilty of this too, in places, but you can't really knock it's leveling system. You level skills by using them. Some skills (like acrobatics) are just odd to level. With the new level scaling system and corrections to the 'cast a 1 point fireball a million times to level' design mistakes, Oblivion is a far better game than Oblivion.
Besides, they give you far more flexibility than Fable did, and you can't complete Oblivion in twenty hours of playing, and that's before any player-created mods.
I miss the real RPGs though, where you needed a calculator, a scratch pad, a few two liters of Mountain Dew, the manual and about sixteen hours just to roll up your party.
posted by WinnipegDragon at 2:50 PM on April 22, 2006
It sounds like wishful thinking to me -- NextGen consoles are going to kill gaming? Development costs are certainly heading to $30MM plus, but that the response will be the collapse of large publishers and the rise of the PC seems farfetched. Instead, independent developers are going away, and more and more power is in the hands of the large console publishers.
posted by blahblahblah at 2:51 PM on April 22, 2006
posted by blahblahblah at 2:51 PM on April 22, 2006
I think that Oblivion, for instance, shows that we've reached the limit of pre-generated content. A fairly massive world, beautifully rendered, hand-crafted with a contextual AI system, but it still feels hollow and empty.
...in the same way that, say, Macbeth showed we'd reached the limit of pre-generated writing? I'm not trying to be needlessly adversarial, but that really is one of the most perplexing things I've ever seen written about videogames.
An awful lot of the writing I see about the future of games comes from a single subsection of players - American pen-and-paper roleplayers who treat the medium as if the only advances can be made by Americans, and the only games that matter or can be counted as progressing the medium are those that ape the structure of Dungeons and Dragons. It's depressing to think people with a similar outlook might actually be steering the industry's direction across the globe.
If the end is nigh for carefully crafted stories and artistic worlds, I guess someone had better tell the 2,000,000+ gamers in Japan who're playing Final Fantasy XII, or the million-plus people who've bought Kingdom Hearts 2 there and in the US. If we can't hope for new experiences beyond being told we have to use the Sword of Arack'aj'nnnngh to slay the evil wizard G'dunk yet again but procedurally this time, I guess we'd better recall all those copies of Shadow of the Colossus, Animal Crossing and Guitar Hero. I'm really enjoying Oblivion, flawed and hollow as it can feel at times, but if this is genuinely the closest a videogame can get to emulating the experience of playing a pen-and-paper RPG, maybe US developers need to shed their obsession with trying and set their sights on the things games are infinitely better at depicting.
I miss the real RPGs though, where you needed a calculator, a scratch pad, a few two liters of Mountain Dew, the manual and about sixteen hours just to roll up your party.
Why miss them? They haven't gone away and videogaming can't and shouldn't replace them - there's more variety now than there's ever been in the p&p field.
posted by terpsichoria at 4:17 PM on April 22, 2006
...in the same way that, say, Macbeth showed we'd reached the limit of pre-generated writing? I'm not trying to be needlessly adversarial, but that really is one of the most perplexing things I've ever seen written about videogames.
An awful lot of the writing I see about the future of games comes from a single subsection of players - American pen-and-paper roleplayers who treat the medium as if the only advances can be made by Americans, and the only games that matter or can be counted as progressing the medium are those that ape the structure of Dungeons and Dragons. It's depressing to think people with a similar outlook might actually be steering the industry's direction across the globe.
If the end is nigh for carefully crafted stories and artistic worlds, I guess someone had better tell the 2,000,000+ gamers in Japan who're playing Final Fantasy XII, or the million-plus people who've bought Kingdom Hearts 2 there and in the US. If we can't hope for new experiences beyond being told we have to use the Sword of Arack'aj'nnnngh to slay the evil wizard G'dunk yet again but procedurally this time, I guess we'd better recall all those copies of Shadow of the Colossus, Animal Crossing and Guitar Hero. I'm really enjoying Oblivion, flawed and hollow as it can feel at times, but if this is genuinely the closest a videogame can get to emulating the experience of playing a pen-and-paper RPG, maybe US developers need to shed their obsession with trying and set their sights on the things games are infinitely better at depicting.
I miss the real RPGs though, where you needed a calculator, a scratch pad, a few two liters of Mountain Dew, the manual and about sixteen hours just to roll up your party.
Why miss them? They haven't gone away and videogaming can't and shouldn't replace them - there's more variety now than there's ever been in the p&p field.
posted by terpsichoria at 4:17 PM on April 22, 2006
That spore video was amazing. My question is about the asynchronous multi-player. Can someone talk about the reasoning behind this? I'm guessing it's to make the game more fair/fun (i.e., so a powerful player can't just nuke you before you've even started) and to manage the different stages of the game...?
posted by kensanway at 4:56 PM on April 22, 2006
posted by kensanway at 4:56 PM on April 22, 2006
There WILL, I'm sure, be a rise in smaller, indie games. Especially on consoles which will allow for easy distribution. The X-Box 360 already has such a system - IF Microsoft allows independents in, which is iffy - and from everything I've heard, the Revolution would be perfect for it.
Check Xbox Live Arcade right now. There's a new version of Mutant Storm available on it - written by PomPom games, which is nothing more than a pair of developers doing it all. Pretty darn independent if you ask me.
posted by evilangela at 10:54 PM on April 22, 2006
Check Xbox Live Arcade right now. There's a new version of Mutant Storm available on it - written by PomPom games, which is nothing more than a pair of developers doing it all. Pretty darn independent if you ask me.
posted by evilangela at 10:54 PM on April 22, 2006
you can't really knock it's leveling system. You level skills by using them
Knock, knock. Great idea conceptually. Terrible idea in practice.
posted by dreamsign at 11:36 PM on April 22, 2006
Knock, knock. Great idea conceptually. Terrible idea in practice.
posted by dreamsign at 11:36 PM on April 22, 2006
> Imagine an RPG engine that plays a different game every time you start over. It loads different character races/classes/equipment from a mixed pool of random and pre-made types, creates a world map on the fly, populated by random encounters and pre-made events, with a plot that changes every time.
That game (mostly) already exists, and has for 20 years. It's called Nethack.
posted by neckro23 at 2:43 AM on April 23, 2006
That game (mostly) already exists, and has for 20 years. It's called Nethack.
posted by neckro23 at 2:43 AM on April 23, 2006
terpsichoria - Ug. Final Fantasy? Kingdom Hearts? Those are not role-playing games. They hand you a pre-defined character (or group of characters) with pre-defined leveling paths and hand you a huge railroad of a main plot. Might as well read a book. Heck some games of the 'Japanese RPG style/genre' practically are books. Xenogears anyone?
I'm not sure where you came up with the 'American only' thing though. I don't care who develops the next great CRPG.
The problem with pre-generated content is the cost of development and the storage medium. MacBeth was not the end of pre-generated writing because one author could still turn out several hundred pages of good material for minimal cost, and books aren't limited in size.
And we are talking CRPG here, not PnP. I still play tons of PnP and it's that sort of game that I think the CRPG realm is missing.
dreamsign - To each their own. Makes more sense to me than the Wizard who spends a whole level swordfighting suddenly knowing new spells. I think the execution is difficult to do properly, but it still makes more sense to me.
neckro23 - Kinda, sorta. A graphically modern nethack would never sell though, it's not mainstream enough, thius it would never be produced. Yet another curse of the current developer/publisher channels.
posted by WinnipegDragon at 8:08 AM on April 23, 2006
I'm not sure where you came up with the 'American only' thing though. I don't care who develops the next great CRPG.
The problem with pre-generated content is the cost of development and the storage medium. MacBeth was not the end of pre-generated writing because one author could still turn out several hundred pages of good material for minimal cost, and books aren't limited in size.
And we are talking CRPG here, not PnP. I still play tons of PnP and it's that sort of game that I think the CRPG realm is missing.
dreamsign - To each their own. Makes more sense to me than the Wizard who spends a whole level swordfighting suddenly knowing new spells. I think the execution is difficult to do properly, but it still makes more sense to me.
neckro23 - Kinda, sorta. A graphically modern nethack would never sell though, it's not mainstream enough, thius it would never be produced. Yet another curse of the current developer/publisher channels.
posted by WinnipegDragon at 8:08 AM on April 23, 2006
makoto:
Lack of consistent track record + wishful thinking favorable to self = take with a grain of salt.
Then why are any of us daring to criticize Bush? We've never been president, and we all (well, many of us) wish the Democrats were in charge. It's good to consider the perspectives they speak from, but that is not enough to discount their opinions.
Until graphics become photorealistic, the day will never arrive when the gaming public ceases to equate progress with prettier pictures and rewards publishers accordingly.
I am not certain of the truth of your statement. Before we reach the level of photorealism we'll reach the point of diminishing returns. Eventually we'll hit a place where it takes ever-increasing resources to improve models and textures for less of an effect, and the wall, she is hit.
Photorealism is one of those goals that everyone says we'll see soon, but the more I look out at next-gen titles, the more I think we could possibly achieve it soon, were it not for the assets in use. The uncanny valley requires a significant push to cross, and most people will be happier on the far side of it anyway. In many ways, a at-least-slightly stylized, cartoon-proportioned character is more appealing than strict realism. It certainly hasn't hurt World of Warcraft any.
But do AAA games flop?
It's a bit dependent on what you call a "AAA game," but yes they do, and frequently. It's just you rarely remember them when they do. Oblivion != all AAA games. Daikatana was an extreme flop, but a game can fail to meet expectations without being the gaming version of Plan 9 From Outer Space. Essentially you're begging the question: if the game's successful, it's a AAA game, if it's not, it must not have been AAA.
Mind, I don't disagree with your main statement, just your means of reaching it: I don't think single-player epics are necessarily going away. I'm unsure the best direction to go now is bigger bigger bigger, though.
kensany, on Spore: Actually, I get the sense that it's not real multiplayer. The game uploads your creatures in their various forms during play, and when it comes time to encounter other species, instead of taking them from an internal list or creating them randomly, it selects those other others have created in playing through their own games. So it's not really multiplayer at all, it's something more akin to Nethack's bones levels.
And speaking of Nethack....
Winnipegdragon: Kinda, sorta. A graphically modern nethack would never sell though, it's not mainstream enough, thius it would never be produced. Yet another curse of the current developer/publisher channels.
I'm uncertain. Remember Diablo and Diablo 2? A game with that level of graphics (plus a bit more to compensate for age), combined with genuinely Nethackian game depth (difficult to achieve but not impossible) could make it past management and marketing by pointing to the D games and saying "like them but better."
posted by JHarris at 9:53 AM on April 23, 2006
Lack of consistent track record + wishful thinking favorable to self = take with a grain of salt.
Then why are any of us daring to criticize Bush? We've never been president, and we all (well, many of us) wish the Democrats were in charge. It's good to consider the perspectives they speak from, but that is not enough to discount their opinions.
Until graphics become photorealistic, the day will never arrive when the gaming public ceases to equate progress with prettier pictures and rewards publishers accordingly.
I am not certain of the truth of your statement. Before we reach the level of photorealism we'll reach the point of diminishing returns. Eventually we'll hit a place where it takes ever-increasing resources to improve models and textures for less of an effect, and the wall, she is hit.
Photorealism is one of those goals that everyone says we'll see soon, but the more I look out at next-gen titles, the more I think we could possibly achieve it soon, were it not for the assets in use. The uncanny valley requires a significant push to cross, and most people will be happier on the far side of it anyway. In many ways, a at-least-slightly stylized, cartoon-proportioned character is more appealing than strict realism. It certainly hasn't hurt World of Warcraft any.
But do AAA games flop?
It's a bit dependent on what you call a "AAA game," but yes they do, and frequently. It's just you rarely remember them when they do. Oblivion != all AAA games. Daikatana was an extreme flop, but a game can fail to meet expectations without being the gaming version of Plan 9 From Outer Space. Essentially you're begging the question: if the game's successful, it's a AAA game, if it's not, it must not have been AAA.
Mind, I don't disagree with your main statement, just your means of reaching it: I don't think single-player epics are necessarily going away. I'm unsure the best direction to go now is bigger bigger bigger, though.
kensany, on Spore: Actually, I get the sense that it's not real multiplayer. The game uploads your creatures in their various forms during play, and when it comes time to encounter other species, instead of taking them from an internal list or creating them randomly, it selects those other others have created in playing through their own games. So it's not really multiplayer at all, it's something more akin to Nethack's bones levels.
And speaking of Nethack....
Winnipegdragon: Kinda, sorta. A graphically modern nethack would never sell though, it's not mainstream enough, thius it would never be produced. Yet another curse of the current developer/publisher channels.
I'm uncertain. Remember Diablo and Diablo 2? A game with that level of graphics (plus a bit more to compensate for age), combined with genuinely Nethackian game depth (difficult to achieve but not impossible) could make it past management and marketing by pointing to the D games and saying "like them but better."
posted by JHarris at 9:53 AM on April 23, 2006
I agree somewhat, though I've been predicting such a "console" correction for 5-6 years now, so we're likely wrong.
It seems like an all-in-one PC-based entertainment system is going to push the consoles out. Now whether that system will be a modification of some Microsoft console is tbd, but, for example, that Mutant Storm game has been on PCs for probably 10 years or so. It's an *asteroids* clone, albeit a good one.
The flexibility and customizability of the computer games will eventually take down the consoles, or the consoles will have to open up for user-based development.
posted by mrgrimm at 11:03 AM on April 23, 2006
It seems like an all-in-one PC-based entertainment system is going to push the consoles out. Now whether that system will be a modification of some Microsoft console is tbd, but, for example, that Mutant Storm game has been on PCs for probably 10 years or so. It's an *asteroids* clone, albeit a good one.
The flexibility and customizability of the computer games will eventually take down the consoles, or the consoles will have to open up for user-based development.
posted by mrgrimm at 11:03 AM on April 23, 2006
re: big budget flops - It's not a great article, but I think the general idea is valid.
Also think about the conventional production cycle for games. It seems dependent on 70-80 hour weeks from programmers in the last month before release. Tenuous business strategy.
Much like publishing, the video game industry succeeds on the blood and sweat of a large group of people who love their work and are willing to accept certain sacrifices to do it. Also, like publishing, that allure may fade, with significant consequences.
posted by mrgrimm at 11:10 AM on April 23, 2006
Also think about the conventional production cycle for games. It seems dependent on 70-80 hour weeks from programmers in the last month before release. Tenuous business strategy.
Much like publishing, the video game industry succeeds on the blood and sweat of a large group of people who love their work and are willing to accept certain sacrifices to do it. Also, like publishing, that allure may fade, with significant consequences.
posted by mrgrimm at 11:10 AM on April 23, 2006
WinnipegDragon Absolutely, levelling only used skills makes sense. I tried to implement it way back when in P&P, but the same kinds of difficulties cropped up.
Those are not role-playing games. They hand you a pre-defined character (or group of characters) with pre-defined leveling paths and hand you a huge railroad of a main plot. Might as well read a book.
Seems to me that you really are expecting a P&P experience on the screen. Even D&D has a plot -- as rigid or flexible as your DM/GM permits.
Screw photorealism. Morrowind was beautiful but felt like a science fair project.
posted by dreamsign at 12:27 PM on April 23, 2006
Those are not role-playing games. They hand you a pre-defined character (or group of characters) with pre-defined leveling paths and hand you a huge railroad of a main plot. Might as well read a book.
Seems to me that you really are expecting a P&P experience on the screen. Even D&D has a plot -- as rigid or flexible as your DM/GM permits.
Screw photorealism. Morrowind was beautiful but felt like a science fair project.
posted by dreamsign at 12:27 PM on April 23, 2006
Ug. Final Fantasy? Kingdom Hearts? Those are not role-playing games.
I didn't say they were role-playing games, but you've perfectly illustrated the point I was making - that an awful lot of people seem to think only Western, open-ended role-playing games that try to offer the player freedom of choice without a human GM present to cope with the fallout count as progress towards 'the future of gaming', and treat anything that tries to offer a carefully-crafted, linear experience instead as a mild diversion or child's toy.
What I'm saying is that, for all the heroic efforts made by games like Oblivion, I think the videogame medium's future lies in the opposite direction to games that try to ape the freedom of choice something like D&D offers. I think we've seen enough attempts fall flat by now to be able to say that that kind of freeform experience just doesn't really suit single-player videogaming. It tends to strip roleplaying of many of the things that make it, well, roleplaying - meaningful character interaction beyond hitting things with a stick, genuine freedom of action with consistency maintained by a human rather than an inadequate set of rules, and so on.
I can safely say I've had an order of magnitude more fun playing through, say, Shadow of the Colossus - an utterly linear experience with no scope whatsoever for free choice, but a linear story in which the player is involved, than I've had at any point during Oblivion, Morrowind, Planescape or any of a million other 'freeform' games. If I want a deep, intricate roleplaying experience I can play a pen-and-paper game with a decent group rather than an anaemic attempt to squeeze the same experience from a medium that doesn't suit it. Videogaming cannot and never will replicate that experience, but to be honest I don't know why some people are so determined that it should. The videogame medium is infinitely better at other things, and provides experiences that absolutely nothing else in life can. And that is the future of the industry, not the latest product in a long line of attempts to be something the medium is not.
Oh, and if you don't see the difference between playing a linear JRPG (or linear platformer, or adventure game, or anything else) and reading a book, I don't think you understand why people play videogames at all.
posted by terpsichoria at 1:10 PM on April 23, 2006
I didn't say they were role-playing games, but you've perfectly illustrated the point I was making - that an awful lot of people seem to think only Western, open-ended role-playing games that try to offer the player freedom of choice without a human GM present to cope with the fallout count as progress towards 'the future of gaming', and treat anything that tries to offer a carefully-crafted, linear experience instead as a mild diversion or child's toy.
What I'm saying is that, for all the heroic efforts made by games like Oblivion, I think the videogame medium's future lies in the opposite direction to games that try to ape the freedom of choice something like D&D offers. I think we've seen enough attempts fall flat by now to be able to say that that kind of freeform experience just doesn't really suit single-player videogaming. It tends to strip roleplaying of many of the things that make it, well, roleplaying - meaningful character interaction beyond hitting things with a stick, genuine freedom of action with consistency maintained by a human rather than an inadequate set of rules, and so on.
I can safely say I've had an order of magnitude more fun playing through, say, Shadow of the Colossus - an utterly linear experience with no scope whatsoever for free choice, but a linear story in which the player is involved, than I've had at any point during Oblivion, Morrowind, Planescape or any of a million other 'freeform' games. If I want a deep, intricate roleplaying experience I can play a pen-and-paper game with a decent group rather than an anaemic attempt to squeeze the same experience from a medium that doesn't suit it. Videogaming cannot and never will replicate that experience, but to be honest I don't know why some people are so determined that it should. The videogame medium is infinitely better at other things, and provides experiences that absolutely nothing else in life can. And that is the future of the industry, not the latest product in a long line of attempts to be something the medium is not.
Oh, and if you don't see the difference between playing a linear JRPG (or linear platformer, or adventure game, or anything else) and reading a book, I don't think you understand why people play videogames at all.
posted by terpsichoria at 1:10 PM on April 23, 2006
After a bit more thought:
I'm not by any means saying that free-form RPGs are a bad thing, or that the perfect videogame re-creation of the experience of playing a good pen-and-paper RPG wouldn't be amazing. It's just that I don't think it's possible, or that it ever will be in the foreseeable future, however far technology advances. Games like Oblivion are immensely wide but shallow, and they haven't got any deeper since the days of, say, Baldur's Gate, just broader and more visceral. There's been no significant increase in the things you can do - have simple, repetitive conversations with largely static NPCs, fight monsters, find treasure, follow quest-lines in which you either succeed and are rewarded or fail and get nothing, with no consequences and no greater impact on the world - just an increase in the amount of places you can do these things in. Based on that, I can't help but see the whole 'CRPG' field as a bit of an evolutionary dead end, and think that the places where the real 'future of videogaming' lies - the vast range of experiences that only videogames can offer, rather than those they can attempt to ape - are in a different direction. Oblivion and its ilk are marvellous, intricate, absorbing follies, but follies - and a dead end - they still are.
posted by terpsichoria at 2:12 PM on April 23, 2006
I'm not by any means saying that free-form RPGs are a bad thing, or that the perfect videogame re-creation of the experience of playing a good pen-and-paper RPG wouldn't be amazing. It's just that I don't think it's possible, or that it ever will be in the foreseeable future, however far technology advances. Games like Oblivion are immensely wide but shallow, and they haven't got any deeper since the days of, say, Baldur's Gate, just broader and more visceral. There's been no significant increase in the things you can do - have simple, repetitive conversations with largely static NPCs, fight monsters, find treasure, follow quest-lines in which you either succeed and are rewarded or fail and get nothing, with no consequences and no greater impact on the world - just an increase in the amount of places you can do these things in. Based on that, I can't help but see the whole 'CRPG' field as a bit of an evolutionary dead end, and think that the places where the real 'future of videogaming' lies - the vast range of experiences that only videogames can offer, rather than those they can attempt to ape - are in a different direction. Oblivion and its ilk are marvellous, intricate, absorbing follies, but follies - and a dead end - they still are.
posted by terpsichoria at 2:12 PM on April 23, 2006
I haven't had a chance to pick up Oblivion (yet), but I've been keeping an eye on all the extra content that's been made by the players. This is one of the things I really liked about Morrowind which was a steadily expanding world of player-made content. (My one pet peeve with Morrowind is the majority of the colour scheme was too 'brown'.) An example of this was one mod that put an island of the dead off of the western coast. This, I found, really added to the game - similar to Neverwinter Nights which was on my computer for about 2 1/2 years with all the player made mods and dungeons. Some were brilliant (such as the Penultima series), some not so much. I've always thought that there should be more easily modded games as it increases the possibility of depth and scope. The only other way is dynamic content, as was mentioned before by WinnipegDragon. A combination of these two elements would be fantastic to play, but I haven't seen any evidence of that happening. A limitation of.... programming? Thought/vision? Hmmm...
terpsichoria - "If I want a deep, intricate roleplaying experience I can play a pen-and-paper game with a decent group rather than an anaemic attempt to squeeze the same experience from a medium that doesn't suit it."
I agree, which is why I see playing a Morrowind or a NWN mod as playing a story, with a beginning, middle and end, and nothing more, which is too bad, but that's the limitation we're dealing with. With a live group of players and a GM there's always dynamic content. When I DM'ed a group of friends, I had a spiderweb of a plot, and the PC's did whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted to, which led to them travelling everywhere and me trying to fit the plot in there somewhere, which can't really be duplicated in a video game, unfortunately. Yet.
posted by Zack_Replica at 2:28 PM on April 23, 2006
terpsichoria - "If I want a deep, intricate roleplaying experience I can play a pen-and-paper game with a decent group rather than an anaemic attempt to squeeze the same experience from a medium that doesn't suit it."
I agree, which is why I see playing a Morrowind or a NWN mod as playing a story, with a beginning, middle and end, and nothing more, which is too bad, but that's the limitation we're dealing with. With a live group of players and a GM there's always dynamic content. When I DM'ed a group of friends, I had a spiderweb of a plot, and the PC's did whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted to, which led to them travelling everywhere and me trying to fit the plot in there somewhere, which can't really be duplicated in a video game, unfortunately. Yet.
posted by Zack_Replica at 2:28 PM on April 23, 2006
The opposite of course is to play something with real interaction, like Guild Wars, but anyone who's spent time roaming around on there knows that it's probably less immersive than any straightforward linear RPG. Wandering for its own sake is fun... for a little while. I'd rather have a story grab me. (though that all being said, I want exactly the opposite in any space game, a la Starflight/Starflight 2)
posted by dreamsign at 4:37 PM on April 23, 2006
posted by dreamsign at 4:37 PM on April 23, 2006
JHarris - I have high hoped for Diablo 3, and I'm waiting/praying for an announcement that it's in production. I think that Blizzard can draw on their experience with WoW and deliver something stunning.
dreamsign - Yeah, that is what I want. I want a game like NWN that will let me play in a procedurally generated world like Diablo, be nicely hard-core in it's rules and character gen, but still have the engine flexibility to support mini-modules, events, campaigns, plots, races, classes, whatever from other players.
That can't take more than a few days to code, right?
terpsichoria - See, this is where we differ in opinion. I think FF and the like are good adventure games. They are not good RPGs. One tells a story, the other lets you create your own story. The problem for me is that they are marketed as RPGs, and everyone refers to them as RPGs. It's diluting the market for true RPGs.
My 'western' concept of what constitutes and RPG is primary because the grand-daddy of all RPGs was designed in that style. Gygax and friends produced a set of rules, not a set of stories. The concept of an RPG is all about mechanics and open-endedness, and the story is just an extension of that.
I think Zack_Replica picked up the essence of my argument. I'm saying that the more plot linearity and control you provide, the less your game is about the characters and more about the story. It becomes an adventure game, not an RPG.
This is what I meant with my book reference. Your character's path is determined, the story is set in stone, you have no real choices to make, so you are just along for the ride. IT'S BORING. The only difference is that there is no challenge in a book, everything just happens.
So, my point is that procedural content provides a solution to the problems of needing to generate too much content. Will Wright is dead frikkin' on in his presentation. We need systems that can improvise and create on the fly for those moments when fully hand-created content is available or needed. Games like Darklands did this to a degree, creating various missions in towns as they were needed, although they ended up being very cookie-cutter. We have a lot more horspepower to throw at it these days.
So having rambled on through all that, maybe the solution is this:
Why not create a persistent world MMORPG/player hostable mulitplayer game, with a strong rules set, extensibility, good modding tools and the ability for players (not just GMs) to generate in-world content? Why not let a player create his or her own scripts, events, maps and items and upload them into a persistent realm for others to consume?
posted by WinnipegDragon at 7:40 PM on April 23, 2006
dreamsign - Yeah, that is what I want. I want a game like NWN that will let me play in a procedurally generated world like Diablo, be nicely hard-core in it's rules and character gen, but still have the engine flexibility to support mini-modules, events, campaigns, plots, races, classes, whatever from other players.
That can't take more than a few days to code, right?
terpsichoria - See, this is where we differ in opinion. I think FF and the like are good adventure games. They are not good RPGs. One tells a story, the other lets you create your own story. The problem for me is that they are marketed as RPGs, and everyone refers to them as RPGs. It's diluting the market for true RPGs.
My 'western' concept of what constitutes and RPG is primary because the grand-daddy of all RPGs was designed in that style. Gygax and friends produced a set of rules, not a set of stories. The concept of an RPG is all about mechanics and open-endedness, and the story is just an extension of that.
I think Zack_Replica picked up the essence of my argument. I'm saying that the more plot linearity and control you provide, the less your game is about the characters and more about the story. It becomes an adventure game, not an RPG.
This is what I meant with my book reference. Your character's path is determined, the story is set in stone, you have no real choices to make, so you are just along for the ride. IT'S BORING. The only difference is that there is no challenge in a book, everything just happens.
So, my point is that procedural content provides a solution to the problems of needing to generate too much content. Will Wright is dead frikkin' on in his presentation. We need systems that can improvise and create on the fly for those moments when fully hand-created content is available or needed. Games like Darklands did this to a degree, creating various missions in towns as they were needed, although they ended up being very cookie-cutter. We have a lot more horspepower to throw at it these days.
So having rambled on through all that, maybe the solution is this:
Why not create a persistent world MMORPG/player hostable mulitplayer game, with a strong rules set, extensibility, good modding tools and the ability for players (not just GMs) to generate in-world content? Why not let a player create his or her own scripts, events, maps and items and upload them into a persistent realm for others to consume?
posted by WinnipegDragon at 7:40 PM on April 23, 2006
Hum. Maybe what we need is an RPG that starts with:
-Randomly generated maps
-Randomly generated locales
-Randomly generated NPCs
-Randomly generated monsters
-Randomly generated quests
So when you start playing, you might find yourself in a jungly island with a ruined temple, and encounter a tribal leader who sends you on a quest to recover a sacred idol from the Lizard People. You play the same locale until you're bored with it, then tell the game to travel you to a different place - and the next time you play, you might have the same basic quest - recover Item X from Enemy Y - except the location, maps, baddies, and persons are different. Even better, if the starting point is different based on which NPCs you talk to in which order: Say you ask the tribal witchdoctor for directions, and his quest is to overthrow the tribal chief - but you ask the chief, he sends you for the idol.
Take this idea, add in the ability to put in user mods (character, map and quest creations, for example) and run with it. You could have a single-player, pre-mapped sort of adventure, more like Diablo, and a multiplayer, free-form sort of thing, where Quest A can be abandoned at any point in favor of Quest B or C or what have you. What would make a game like this great would be the similarity to the old P&P RPG experience - you decide to drop your allegiance to the NPC and attack them, the game compensates and pulls up another plot or quest as a result. Don't know how hard it would be to code in the sorts of triggers required, but it would be pretty cool. One minute you're hunting for an idol, the next you're saying "to hell with this, let's ask the Lizard People to help us destroy the tribal village."
I'd buy it.
posted by caution live frogs at 9:54 AM on April 24, 2006
-Randomly generated maps
-Randomly generated locales
-Randomly generated NPCs
-Randomly generated monsters
-Randomly generated quests
So when you start playing, you might find yourself in a jungly island with a ruined temple, and encounter a tribal leader who sends you on a quest to recover a sacred idol from the Lizard People. You play the same locale until you're bored with it, then tell the game to travel you to a different place - and the next time you play, you might have the same basic quest - recover Item X from Enemy Y - except the location, maps, baddies, and persons are different. Even better, if the starting point is different based on which NPCs you talk to in which order: Say you ask the tribal witchdoctor for directions, and his quest is to overthrow the tribal chief - but you ask the chief, he sends you for the idol.
Take this idea, add in the ability to put in user mods (character, map and quest creations, for example) and run with it. You could have a single-player, pre-mapped sort of adventure, more like Diablo, and a multiplayer, free-form sort of thing, where Quest A can be abandoned at any point in favor of Quest B or C or what have you. What would make a game like this great would be the similarity to the old P&P RPG experience - you decide to drop your allegiance to the NPC and attack them, the game compensates and pulls up another plot or quest as a result. Don't know how hard it would be to code in the sorts of triggers required, but it would be pretty cool. One minute you're hunting for an idol, the next you're saying "to hell with this, let's ask the Lizard People to help us destroy the tribal village."
I'd buy it.
posted by caution live frogs at 9:54 AM on April 24, 2006
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Same basic thing with video games. The big game makers are about to half-crumble from their huge overhead, and people are going to get sick of playing John Madden Presents John Madden's Poop in a Box XX. There WILL, I'm sure, be a rise in smaller, indie games. Especially on consoles which will allow for easy distribution. The X-Box 360 already has such a system - IF Microsoft allows independents in, which is iffy - and from everything I've heard, the Revolution would be perfect for it.
That said, though, a lot of the problems are ones the industry has brought on itself. Like when he talked about games not having alternative revenue streams. And whose fault is THAT? They don't have alternative revenue streams because their tie-in products invariably SUCK. The companies had such contempt for video gamers - which, I'm sure, they envisioned as all being pimply 13-year-olds - that they couldn't be bothered hiring decent writers for the tie-in books. Or good directors for their movies. Or putting good music in the soundtracks. (exception there: GTA. And look how many copies of their OSTs they've pushed) One needs only look to Japan to see how much alternative revenue can come in based off games, with the right marketing and a little eye towards quality.
I think the real winners won't be the tiny underdogs, but rather mid-sized studios that can keep real Talent on staff, but are big enough to promote themselves and get in on cross-marketing.
posted by InnocentBystander at 9:10 AM on April 22, 2006