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[Alec]

Although it's going to take more than just Costikyan and his people (which I was at one point)...

dagger in heart

[progrium]

dagger in heart

Not that I don't encourage and applaud his effort... that's why I signed up to help way back when. However, Manifesto isn't going to be some indie silver bullet if it succeeds. And of course, what if it doesn't?

We really need multiple efforts on multiple fronts.

[Dan MacDonald]

There are no silver bullets...

[Anthony Flack]

One thing I don't think I heard though was about the persistence of individual games. Whereas, say, a film lasts quite a while, a game doesn't last very long.

Oh! Yes. This is probably the thing that saddens me most of all.

A game is only considered a big deal before it is released. A week after it hits the shops, the dream is over. Three months later and it's "that old thing" in the bottom of the bargain bin. And these are creations that people laboured over for years; I find it all pretty discouraging.

And even people like me who do care about older games just as much as the latest release, there is no support. I can go into a record shop or a book shop and order, new, just about anything that has come out in the last few years. I can browse through a fairly comprehensive back-catalogue right in the shop. Not so with games. The disposability; the rapid obsolescence of games is heartbreaking.

[Alex May]

I think that a much larger proportion of modern games are enjoyable as compared to twenty years ago.

I agree, they also used to release me-too games, clones, and hollow stuff back in the days. You can't help that.

...

Today someone releases something that sells, and soon all the clones start to emerge from under the rocks. They are less willing to take any risks.

Er... yeah. Designs that really work will always (always have, always will) spawn clones and design evolutions. My reasoning for the statement quoted above is that over time these designs have been refined and are much better now. You're complaining about being able to save often? That's a bad thing?

Have you got any figures to back this statement up? Have you?

You can see some numbers here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_computer_and_video_games maybe there's not much difference in brute numbers, but the percentages is what matters. If you take into account the number of consoles sold, what was the avergae budget for a NES game compared to a PS2 one, price, and everything you will see that today they invest more and they need to sell more copies in order to make a profit, if to that you add there's more companies and games out there, you see what the problem is. And this is affecting not only the business side, but also the final games we get to play.

OK, seems like the length of the lists for each console is roughtly the same, except longer for PS2. Yes, some of the older systems have astronomical sales of a couple of titles, but we are (or should be) talking less about the extremes and more about the average game.

In fact, it would seem that overall the best-selling games are selling more now than they used to, with the top PS2 games in the tens of millions, PS1 approaching 10m, N64 just under that, SNES similar to N64, and NES (discounting the behemoth SMB) way under there at like 6-7m.

The graphics were more than anything else the reason I'd be excited about the game.

I think graphics are important, but there's two sides to it. One thing is graphical quality -technically speaking- (resolution, colors, number of polygons, filters, etc) and the other is graphical quality -artistically speaking- (styles, designs, innovation, variety). The industry seems so focused on the former, that's boring. For me an 'amazing looking game' is the one that has style, the one that seems unique. Not the one that's so high res and high poly and realistic but has no soul, that's boring. And you don't need the latest technology to show you've got style. That's the good thing.

I know, though, that the ones that are just getting into gaming see the industry as I saw it back in the NES days. That they can't stand NES just as I could never stand Atari. That happens. I'm not blaming anyone, it's a natural thing. Those kids will be ranting here 15 years from now complaining how the PS5 is not as good as the PS3 and I hope Derek Jr. is arround to ban the mothafuckers J/K.

I think there are tons of games with a unique graphical style and tons more that attempt it. I could give you a list but I don't have time right now. I think you're right in that it's easier for a  developer to get a technically good-looking game out there with very little in terms of art style, and I think that's because working with constraints in low-res forces one's hand to create a unique style. With the transition to higher resolutions and adding an extra dimension there is more that can go wrong and there are fewer limits constraining artistic style. I don't think there is an industry bias towards generic-looking games, I just think it's harder to make a strong visual style with this increased fidelity, hence you are seeing fewer games with a unique style. But they're out there.

edit: P.S. you're totally right about JRPGs though: tired, shitty, archaic 80s game designs that were never fun in the first place. The genre needs nuking from orbit

[PoV]

There are no silver bullets...

I found some.

[Abadox]

are you sure those are bullets?

[Gargantua]

Er... yeah. Designs that really work will always (always have, always will) spawn clones and design evolutions. My reasoning for the statement quoted above is that over time these designs have been refined and are much better now. You're complaining about being able to save often? That's a bad thing?

And refinement has a limit. I don't think that saving often is necessarily a good thing, games have a lot to do with skill and allowing wars of attrition against the mechanics doesn't really make for fun games. Sure you could just not allow yourself to save, never hit that quicksave button so conveniently placed as f5 now, but I don't see anyone turning down a tool handed to them by the developer. Roguelikes are amazingly addictive to me because of their perma-death features, or what is essentially a very limited save system. I'm not asking for developers to outlaw saving, just pointing out there are other mechanics.

I think there are tons of games with a unique graphical style and tons more that attempt it. I could give you a list but I don't have time right now. I think you're right in that it's easier for a developer to get a technically good-looking game out there with very little in terms of art style, and I think that's because working with constraints in low-res forces one's hand to create a unique style. With the transition to higher resolutions and adding an extra dimension there is more that can go wrong and there are fewer limits constraining artistic style. I don't think there is an industry bias towards generic-looking games, I just think it's harder to make a strong visual style with this increased fidelity, hence you are seeing fewer games with a unique style. But they're out there.

edit: P.S. you're totally right about JRPGs though: tired, shitty, archaic 80s game designs that were never fun in the first place. The genre needs nuking from orbit

The fact that you just give leeway to generic looking games because they're harder to make is ridiculous. You're absolutely right that with higher resolutions, more polygons, etc. it's going to be harder to come up with good stylistic art. If a company is going to attempt a game with those qualities, though, they had damn well better be sure that they've got the talent on board to utilize such technology. It should not be an industry standard to put out a game that requires man-hours, but not thought.

[Anthony Flack]

It should not be an industry standard to put out a game that requires man-hours, but not thought.

That's acually a pretty good working definition of the industry standard!

[Abadox]

I just think it's harder to make a strong visual style with this increased fidelity

I'd say it's easier not to.

edit: P.S. you're totally right about JRPGs though: tired, shitty, archaic 80s game designs that were never fun in the first place. The genre needs nuking from orbit

Earthbound.

[Matt]

What I would really love right now is if somebody would start another thread where we can synthesize ideas to change and build a better industry. Enough talking about what's wrong, let's do something about it, right?

I have to agree. It's easy to bitch about the industry and point to what is wrong.
I believe that Indy development is a means of showing how things can or should work. Games like Geometry Wars are shedding light on Indy games in the mainstream and on another way to do things. Although, it might be difficult to say something under Microsofts looming shadow, so we need to make and publish games on our own terms.

[FARTRON]

A major element that's only lightly been touched on is distribution.  I went to a GameStop recently only to find that they didn't even carry PC games anymore.  Admittedly, when they were called EBGames and they had walls of PC games displayed, there was little recourse for an independent developer to have their work put up next to Sierra and EA.  But that slim path of entry has been narrowed nonetheless.  XBox Live is nice, but is hardly a replacement for the wide open plains of PC development.  And certainly, the internet is a fine medium for distribution, but it cannot wholly replace the benefits of a local space full of physical artifacts; just ask cory doctorow.

In his slipstream essay, bruce sterling claims that science fiction's biggest asset is the shelf space that every book store turns over to it.  An asset carved out by years of struggling authors and devoted fans.  He goes on to describe the judo throws that purveyors of the genre could use on this asset to improve science fiction as a whole.

Of course, games are plagued by problems that affect all software, including obsolescence and incompatibility with modern hardware.  This makes archiving older games more difficult than it is with books, but it is not a task that is impossible.  It took ages of chiseling livestock figures in clay before some people cared enough to become archivists, but we've already got Home of the Underdogs and the whole abandonware and emulation scenes.  Mainly we lack shelfspace.  Perhaps the american library association will come out in favor of archiving video games one day, because I don't think it's going to be the stores that do it first.  Barnes & Noble would just as soon stock only the newest and best sellers, but they have libraries and people's perception of what a book store should be to compete with.

EDIT: On reading I realize I failed to touch on just why this isn't only the fault of store owners, and how EA and the other big companies push them around and negotiate distribution of the shelf space and the advertising standups and what not.  But yeah, there's that too.