We Need Better Video Game Publishers - By Anonymous Game Developer

[Sdric]

I can't confirm most of was he says since I'm neither a developer nor a publisher; however I completely agree with his statement that games have traded good gameplay for 2 minute cinematics.

Why is FF7 still so popular today?
Why does everybody who ever played it get nostalgic about FF Tactics War of the Lion &Advance?
Why is the most common game students play in lectures Pokémon?
I don't even have to mention Tetris, do I?

None of those game had good graphics, but all had superior gameplay.
Games that shine for their graphics die within two years, games with good gameplay live forever.

Instead of improving those you either got cheap cash-ins (modern ages FFs, Pokémon) or the games got discontinued (FF T).


Another aspect is that people start playing earlier in their lives than former generations did, age restrictions don't mean anything anymore.
Thus games have to be made easy in order to keep the customers.
Not being challenged at all they cry and rage whenever something gets difficult, forcing the developers to make games more flat and boring than ever before.
I don't want to offend anybody, but look at all the Nim cry-topics.
I for my part was kinda disappointed to beat him at the first try after all those people announced him to "the hardest enemy I ever faced" and "a nearly unbeatable task" - but this just proves my theory right.

R.I.P
Gameplay
Cya lads I gonna play some FF3.

[Pyth]

This is why the rise of Indie games and publishers who also develop (Bethesda and Trion to name two) is such a big deal. Crowd funding is also helping make publishers less relevant.

Bethesda Softworks is owned by Zenimax. There's always a bigger fish. I don't know about Trion though, this is my first experience with them.

As for the article, it's an interesting perspective. Perhaps these kinds of practices are here to stay or perhaps we're witnessing the beggining of the second gaming market crash.

[Taaltos]

I can't confirm most of was he says since I'm neither a developer nor a publisher; however I completely agree with his statement that games have traded good gameplay for 2 minute cinematics.

Why is FF7 still so popular today?
Why does everybody who ever played it get nostalgic about FF Tactics War of the Lion &Advance?
Why is the most common game students play in lectures Pokémon?
I don't even have to mention Tetris, do I?

None of those game had good graphics, but all had superior gameplay.
Games that shine for their graphics die within two years, games with good gameplay live forever.

Instead of improving those you either got cheap cash-ins (modern ages FFs, POkémon) or the games got discontinued (FF T).


Another aspect is that people start playing earlier in their lives than former generations did, age restrictions don't mean anything anymore.
Thus games have to be made easy in order to keep the customers.
Not being challenged at all they cry and rage whenever something gets difficult, forcing the developers than making games for flat and boring than ever before.
I don't want to offend anybody, but look at all the Nim cry-topics.
I for my point was kinda disappointed to beat him at the first try after all those people announced him to "the hardest enemy I ever faced" and "a nearly unbeatable task" - but this just proves my theory right.

R.I.P
Gameplay
Cya lads I gonna play some FF3.

Let's be friends forever!

[ironhands]

And the project will just fund itself now?

kickstarter.

[Sanguinesun]

Saw this tweeted by our own Dahanese.

Wow. Great Article.

Over the past eight or so years, we’ve all seen a worrying increase in the number of Western game development studios going bankrupt. We’re told this is due to the economic climate and that modern games cost more to make. Much of that is misdirection and plain old-fashioned ********.

Yeah I saw her tweet on it too but didnt stop reading/watching about the boston incident long enough to repost here. Good that someone got to it. It is an article Im not suprised on in the least though I still feel confident that developers are not 100% innocent on things either in comparrison to the publishers.

[Taaltos]

kickstarter.

Kickstarters are great! As well as Steam's Greenlight Project.

[Taaltos]

Yeah I saw her tweet on it too but didnt stop reading/watching about the boston incident long enough to repost here. Good that someone got to it. It is an article Im not suprised on in the least though I still feel confident that developers are not 100% innocent on things either in comparrison to the publishers.

I saw her tweet before the Boston stuff. really don't want to watch the boston stuff.

[JMadFour]

And the project will just fund itself now?

of course not.

but until Dev houses can afford to publish their own games, none of this will change.

Kickstarter is a possible start to self-publishing, but it's only a start.

[Fuzzy Skinner]

I'm going to give an uneducated opinion as I haven't read the article and, and I don't know the details of the ins-and-outs of the gaming industry, but hear me out anyway. I'll read it later but bit busy right now.

I think the reason so many game companies are failing is that they are trying too hard to cater to the casual market. The thing is most casual gamers are only going to buy maybe 2 or 3 games a year, maybe less. I don't know how many times I've played a game such as CoD (not bashing it, just an easy example) or something and saw a user name, leave the game for a year, come back and that same user is playing day in and day out just that one popular game. The other devs feel they need to copy the formula of the more popular AAA games and often alienate their core "hardcore" audience in favor of gaining new consumers from the casual market. The result ends up being that they piss off the hardcore audience who shun the game, and the casual players ignore it as well when it doesn't get any acclaim.
It's a case of trying to appease everyone, but you end up just ruining it.

[Fuzzy Skinner]

Hrmm, maybe change where I said "devs" to "publishers". I could see how they would get dollar signs in their eyes when another company sells a game and they decide to tell devs to just copy those who sold well.