Editorial:Current Generation Focus

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by user Rbrtchng

Money:

The game industry is growing at an extremely fast pace in terms of userbase. The larger the userbase, the more money there is to be made; thus, the industry grows larger with more expensive games and smaller independent developers. However, current generation games have evolved so fast that the mass userbase can no longer support the high production cost; thereby, we see a lot of multiplatform games that are $60 each. With the increase in production cost, large companies can no longer support a "hit and miss" game. Such high production cost forces the publishers to force each developers to create games that will sell instead of games that are fun. Creativity has been replaced by fear of losing money. Focused on profit instead of games, developers will make sequels instead of new IPs. Because of this, most gamers expect the sequels and are willing to buy the sequels because they are proven to be good by the prequels before the sequels. Consequently, whenever there is an innovative game, or not even innovative, whenever there is a new IP, most gamers and the gaming community welcome it and support it greatly (granted that the game doesn't suck). The developers failed to see the fact that the gaming community wants new IPs just as much, if not more, than mediocre sequels, that if they develop a whole new franchise, the expectation is much lower than making a sequel to their successful games, and that if their new IP succeeds, they can make more sequels from that, ergo more money. In my opinion, developers should focus on new ideas and new games, instead of trying to rehash the old games in a different way. They could make more money, more support, and more creativity. That's better for everybody in the gaming community. The large developers and publishers fail to see this possibility and still are more willing to put more money on old games. Therefore, independent developers starts to thrive. Independent developers can survive in this age of high production cost because of their creativity and their lack of sequels. With less than a million dollars, independent developers can easily compete with big name brands who put millions of dollars to make Madden 2008.

Usercreated Content:

It seems to me that developers are more focused on user-created content and allowing users to make the game for the developers. As much as I like the idea of creating games myself, I, personally, detest the fact that we, the gamers, are making the games so that the "developers" can make the money off of what we did. To me, it just seems as if the developers got lazy or ran out of ideas and decides to make the gamers do their job for them, all the while just waiting for the money to be poured on them. But most people like to create their own content, so I guess this generation is great for those who seeks to make their own things and spread it throughout the digital world. With Playstation Home, Sony could potentially allow a lot of user-created content and easily spread throughout the virtual world since it literally is a virtual world. LittleBigPlanet seems to be the great game that is almost fully supported by user-created content; however, i have less beef with that because it seems like the user who creates the content gets to sell their content for money, therefore the gamers get what they deserve instead of just the developers getting the user's money.

Multiplatform:

Because of high production cost, many games that were touted to be exclusives began to turn multiplatform. This has been especially prevalents for the Playstation 3 library. Many developers choose to call their games "exclusive" or give the impression of exclusivity by not naming any other platform except for one *I'm looking at you Ubi's Assassin's Creed* and then announce that the game will actually be multiplatform. This is just a way for the developers to get attention and generate hype for their games. If they called it multiplatform in the beginning, it wouldn't have gotten nearly as much media attention as if it was exclusive. To me, it seems like Sony has been slacking off on their "lying to consumers" reputation so the developers decide to "lie to consumers" for Sony. The real problem with being multiplatform is that games will not take full advantage of the Playstation 3 system and will cause the media to call the PS3 weak because of multiplatform games. Multiplatform games must take the lowest denominator in terms of capabilities; therefore, BD will not be fully used in multiplatform games, nor will the Cell. Because the games are not made specific for the PS3, the game will not look or play nearly as well as those tailored for the PS3. But the developers don't care about making their games as best as they can for the gamers, all they care about is that they can make more games if they lie about exclusivity and go multiplatform. A great game is a small price to pay compared to the money they'll be making especially with Microsoft tossing money at their front door at the same time.

Online:

If I become a developer, I would absolutely hate Live just as I do now. As a gamer, I cannot justify paying $50 a year for the most fundamental features such as playing games online. As a developer, I cannot justify supporting a platform that will rob my online gaming income with $50 a year. I could be making that money instead of Microsoft. Hell, online gaming should be FREE. But gamers and developers seem to like Live because of its features, ignoring the fact that those features should be free for gamers and developers. However, I really like Nintendo's idea of Miis as long as they take out the Friend Code system. That is a very great system because it combines the online community with the games by allowing gamers to take their Miis in the game. And it is Free. Nintendo also uses the online functionality to allow users to buy old classic games. Kudos to Nintendo for offering an innovative service for free as it should be, but please take away the Friend Code. Sony has also stepped into the online world. So far, besides the fact that gamers can play for free, there's nothing spectacular about their online capabilities. In fact, their friend system is bad since it isn't unified for every game and some games don't have voice chat. However, Home will hopefully remedy all that, thus Sony's online capabilities hasn't really been revealed and will be revealed as early as this coming October.

It is a sad generation when all developers are more concerned about making money than about making games, more concerned about media attention than about telling the truth, more about robbing the gamers due to greed than about giving the gamers the freedom and what they deserve.