IGN - 10 Trends That Are Destroying Videogames

[Dhruin]

Yep, another list. This one does make some good points, though. IGN AU's Ten Trends That Are Destroying Videogames points the finger at dud writing, sequelitis the promise of future patches and DLC and more. Here's a bit on Too Human and Mass Effect being a little arrogant:

Lesson learned: there are few things as needlessly arrogant as announcing a trilogy before the first game is out the door. Too Human, Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect, Gears of War and Half-Life 2 Episodes, we're looking straight at you. Speaking frankly, look – there's nothing wrong with ambition. You want to make an epic, sprawling universe? That's totally fine. But start with getting the first game right and then let the market decide if it actually wants a sequel, let alone a trilogy. If your team is stuck under the thumb of three games in a row, you're looking at potentially between five and ten years of development time – which means you might be spanning two console generations – or more.

More information.

 

[Thaurin]

I think there's nothing wrong with announcing a trilogy. If the first game fails miserably, then you can always cancel it, I reckon. As a consumer, knowing their plans of a continuous story and their dedication to it excites me. Writing a story and then adding onto it is different from planning a big story and dividing it into three parts.

Mass Effect did not disappoint me, but of course if it did, I wouldn't be very interested in the remaining parts. But personally, taking into account what I'd heard and read about the game, knowing that they'd release two more parts did sound as a positive to me and it still does.

On the other hand, it's marketing bliss. Everyone even remotely interested in the series will be compelled to buy the sequel. Just to finish the story, you know? It's like reading half a book. You want to know how the story ends.

 

[JuliusMagnus]

I think an announcement of a trilogy isn't always down to a developer. When a publishing deal (or exclusivity deal) is struck, de publisher often demands a number of games to be made by the developer.

In the music industry a contract with the Record Company usually states that the artist is obliged to at least produce a set number of CD's with the record company.

I don't mind trilogies, as long as each part can stand on it's own merits. I just hope it isn't used as an excuse for cutting content and saying they'll add it in the sequel.

The DLC offerings of Mass Effect turned out to be very meagre. I guess they really weren't ready for that type of content delivery. Bioware seems to working on 3 projects at the same time, maybe that had something to do with it.

Also the DLC for GTAIV, was long overdue, unless you see it as a 'modern' expantion-pack which traditionally did get released 6 months after release.

 

[JemyM]

Interesting list though.

 

[NFLed]

I want 2 more Mass Effect games!

 

[JDR13]

It seems like we see a different 'Ten Trends That Are Destroying Videogames' list every year.

 

[GothicGothicness]

My trend is dumbing down, making easy, and disregarding gameplay.

It is not destroying videogames, neither is the things they listed. Especially the WII craze, it has made videogames stronger than ever, this is the best year for videogames ever thanks to the WII.

It is just destroying the joy for us hardcore gamers who want to do something more than picking a guys nose with a wii-mote, or combat which requires clicking one button every 500 ms to perform combos.

 

[Prime Junta]

Not bad. Especially gratifying to see my pet peeve (unambitious and downright bad writing) head the list. I disagree about many of the specifics, though, and I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that anything is "destroying" videogames.

 

[JemyM]

Videogames need to be recognized by artists as a possible tool of expression, a tool that present the artist with audio, visual output and interactive input.

Imagine if books were written, statues were crafted and paintings were drawn by publishers rather than artists, the output would be as generic and as empty as the writing in most games. Imagine if Alfred Hitchcock or Steven Spielberg was ignored since "they just made movies".

 

[txa1265]

Not bad. Especially gratifying to see my pet peeve (unambitious and downright bad writing) head the list. I disagree about many of the specifics, though, and I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that anything is "destroying" videogames.

OMG GAMING R D0M3D!!!!!!111111one

I think that lists of things that are destroying gaming are what is destroying gaming!

 

[zakhal]

Early 80s boom of video games ended when public got tired of crappy games that companies like atari pushed out endlessly:

The Great Video Game Market Crash of 1983-1984!
It's Video Game history's darkest time! The time when the all powerful Atari fell from grace and virtually ended Video Games as we know it. It all started in 1981 with the Atari 2600 version of PAC MAN. Pac Man, of course, was a huge mega hit in the arcades and Atari was lucky enough to score the license from Namco to do the arcade game on home release. Atari was hoping to sell over 20 million copies of Atari Pac Man thus making the Atari 2600 VCS even more popular than it already is. Unfortunately, Atari Pac Man (considered to be a awful translation to most critics) only sold 7 Million copies, a sure fire hit by today's standards but a disappointment to Atari's expected sell figures.

Atari needed another hit to recover from the loss of Atari Pac Man, so Atari got the rights to create a game based on the movie E.T. (sounds like a good idea on paper, eh?) This time the E.T. game needed to sell 25 million copies to make up for the cost of buying the rights to the license. "People HATED it!" The E.T. game only sold a mere million and Atari had tons of unsold games on the store shelfs. With two huge multi-million dollar disasters from the leader of video game sales, most stores discoutinued all video games sales and discounted all they had left (mostly for a dollar). That meant ALL video games too; ColecoVision, Intellivision and everyone else were ruined. By 1984 the whole video game market crashed. Atari was ruined and they never really recovered despite there best efforts.

Will somthing like this happen again if companies are unable to keep up the quality of games along with the growth of the industry?

 

[DogInARocket]

11. People buy bad games.

 

[BillSeurer]

Videogames need to be recognized by artists as a possible tool of expression, a tool that present the artist with audio, visual output and interactive input.

Imagine if books were written, statues were crafted and paintings were drawn by publishers rather than artists, the output would be as generic and as empty as the writing in most games. Imagine if Alfred Hitchcock or Steven Spielberg was ignored since "they just made movies".

Anyone can write a book for the cost of a pencil and a pad of paper and its quality (in all respects) may be as good as writers using the most expensive computerized word processing equipment available with scores of people helping them out. The cost of entry for writing a book is almost 0.

That doesn't work for videogames unfortunately. Imagine if the teams that made Fallout or Baldur's Gate 2 or such had instead been one guy at a coffee shop. They wouldn't have happened.

Now the difference is narrowing a bit (look at some of the indie developers) but it's still pretty daunting.

 

[wolfing]

I think there's nothing wrong with announcing a trilogy. If the first game fails miserably, then you can always cancel it, I reckon. As a consumer, knowing their plans of a continuous story and their dedication to it excites me. Writing a story and then adding onto it is different from planning a big story and dividing it into three parts.

I think this applies more for console games, which is clearly what the article is about. When you announce a trilogy, the customer doesn't know if he/she'll be able to play the whole thing. There are market and political/strategic decisions that might make game #2 appear in a different platform, and game #3 in yet another platform.
Luckily, for PC gamers, this doesn't apply (unless Apple decides to screw us up and buy their way into exclusives and delayed exclusives like Microsoft is doing in the console world)

 

[Bundyo]

Advent Rising anyone?

 

[Yeesh]

11. People buy bad games.

Yeah, that's about it.

This list intrigued me before I read it. But it sucks. So. Bad.

Bugs,
piracy (because all I care about is the PC),
ridiculous production costs,
and of course the buying public making big sellers out of crappy games.

There, the real list is 4 items long, and the IGN list of ten somehow manages to omit them.

Sequel-itis? Sorry, are you new to video games? Or are you just stupid? How many of the best games of all time have been part of series? Warcraft III is ruining gaming? Wizardry VIII? BG2? Civ IV? M&M VI? Ultima IV? Final Fantasy VII?
Ultima IX? Ok, maybe.

Announcing trilogies? Who cares?
Making promises? I don't think it's the promises that are the problem.
Wii games sucking? That's killing gaming somehow?

And Wii Fit somehow makes your list of things that are destroying gaming? Are you kidding me? For two decades video games have been making us fatter and weaker, and along comes a game that tries to start making amends, and you're going to point to that as an example of what's WRONG with video games these days? Is there some way that ANY aspect of Wii Fit is somehow rubbing off onto games from other genres to the detriment of the industry? I mean, what do you even mean?

You mean nothing. You're making no sense. Your list is teh suxx.

 

[Zephyr]

I'm strictly a PC gamer. The trend/practice I don't like is every new game is written on and for bleeding edge equipment. Not all of us can afford to plunk down mucho dinero for upgrades every time a new game comes out.
Is there really something wrong with producing games that run and look good on a mid-range PC?
I would think you'd be able to boost sales by possibly 20%-25% by making your title more accessible instead of restricting it to the high-end PCs.
Which brings me to another related peeve: Eye-candy at the expense of story and engaging game play. There's a reason many of the 8-10 year old classics have such replayability. It sure isn't the graphics and sound.

 

[Corwin]

I well remember making the same complaint about Origin years ago; every time a new Ultima was released, I had to get an upgrade to be able to play it!! That's called progress.

 

[txa1265]

I well remember making the same complaint about Origin years ago; every time a new Ultima was released, I had to get an upgrade to be able to play it!! That's called progress.

The problem is that a decade ago there was a 'payoff' for being on the upgrade rollercoaster as *everything* needed more horsepower every new version. As it stands now my old Dell from late 2001 will run most everything *except* new games.

 

[Gorath]

As it stands now my old Dell from late 2001 will run most everything *except* new games.

I doubt this. Even simple web surfin' needs some horse power nowadays due to Flash and other crap. A P4 2GHz and 1 GB RAM is okay I would say. Was your PC in 2001 that fast?

Today you hardly need a state of the art PC for gaming. A machine with a 50$ CPU, a 100$ graphics card and 4 GB RAM can play most games on a quality superior to the consoles. For most other hobby tasks the CPU will run almost idle.