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[The13thRonin]

Let me start off by saying that many people will enter this topic who have made up their minds already just from the title that they are going to launch into a defence of gaming. If you read nothing else then I hope you at least read this first paragraph. I don't WANT the videogame industry to suck, heck I have spent the better part of the last five years trying as hard as possible to convince myself that things have become 'different', not worse. As someone whose first memories were based around DOS prompts and gaming and who has spent at least every second day since with a controller or keyboard and mouse in hand there is nothing more in the world that I would like to believe than the idea that videogames are getting better. But I don't feel that I can lie to myself any longer and so this post was born as much to get my thoughts down on 'paper' as to open up discussion. For the sake of avoiding any misunderstandings I feel that starting with a short FAQ would be best:

Q. Boring... Read this all before... PC gaming is dead... Blah, blah, blah... Pack up your keyboard and go home Ronin.

A. I'm sorry that you feel bored. I wrote this post primarily for me, you do not have to read it. As someone that feels that a large part of my identity comes from gaming [being a huge part of my life for 20+ years now] I really felt the need to put this all down on 'paper' if for no other reason than to vent.

Q. So you think all videogames that have been produced over the last 5 or so years and are being produced today are terrible? Have you lost it completely?

A. Certainly not. There are occasionally still good games made [heck Minecraft came out in the last 5 years and that was fantastic] but I do believe the overall quality of the industry and games has dropped dramatically.

Q. You are wrong!

A. You are certainly entitled to believe that. I can understand why you would feel that way... I certainly spent a lot of my time trying to convince myself that I was wrong too. I wish I could still convince myself most days.

The Rise of Gaming for Me:

The first gaming rig I owned was a rig that ran DOS. I loved the crap out of that computer and managed to amass quite a collection of floppy disks. It certainly wasn't convenient or easy to be a gamer... Hardware cost a small fortune and I remember some games being up to 8 floppy disks. Later on I acquired a Super Nintendo and then after that an N64. I remember fondly a bunch of games that I can no longer remember the titles of. One game that particularly caught my fancy was Harvest Moon for the Super Nintendo.

It was an exciting time to be a gamer. Everything was always constantly improving, game design, technology and game developers seemed to respect gamers. Games made you learn and master the mechanics before you could win. Expansion packs actually extended the game. Developers were willing to try innovative and new things. It was an exciting time because you couldn't even imagine the absolutely ridiculously good games that were over the horizon. Many people will claim that I am nostalgic but I challenge those people to really think about how the industry worked... Putting aside the technical limitations have things necessarily improved?

The Focus on Graphics:

Somewhere along the way... It's hard to pinpoint an exact date the focus for developers shifted from game design to graphics. At first this wasn't such a bad thing... The blocky graphics of DOOM and Half Life 1 while having a certain retro-charm were not exactly easy on the eyes by any stretch of the imagination...

Graphics are an important part of a game. I won't argue that. You will notice I said PART though. Graphics are only one part of the experience. Think of it like restoring a car... Not many people enjoy a slow car do they? But if you blow your whole budget on a massive twin-injection V8 engine [that's probably not a thing... I'm not a car guy] and the rest of the car is still a wreck does that make it a good car?


What's this Ronin? Last gen graphics? WHERE'S MY BLOOM?

If graphics are advancing at the cost of every other single part of the game then there is a problem... A serious problem. I think that the focus on graphics became a problem when we hit the 'bloom' generation of graphics... Let me state this right now... Bloom is not making anything look better... What it is doing is making my eyes bleed.


Bloom... The reason why our children will eventually live in caves under the Earth...

It seems like there's always 1 graphical gimmick of the day that every game MUST have... 99% of the time that graphical gimmick actually makes the game look WORSE.

These days developers don't even bother to advertise FEATURES of the game anymore... They just show things exploding and then fart out their brand name afterwards. You just know somewhere there's a CEO in an office yelling at a group of guys because their modern FPS shooter had three less explosions in their ad than the other teams modern FPS shooter had in their ad.


IF YOU'RE NOT RENDERING EXPLOSIONS THEN WHAT AM I PAYING YOU FOR? TO HELP PEOPLE MAKE AN INFORMED DECISION ABOUT OUR PRODUCT? YOU'RE FIRED SMITH!

The Casualisation of Games to Appeal to a Wider Market:

Let's get this out of the way straight away... Game developers [at least the big ones] believe you are an idiot... It's OK they believe I'm an idiot too.

Game developers think we don't want deep experiences... We want to drool at the graphics on display and complicated things like BEING ABLE TO OPEN DOORS should be left to the AI companions. And when you look at the AI companions it truly is an insult to think that game developers give them more respect than the player.



What's completely astounding is that gamers do not want to be treated this way... Games that do not hold your hand [Minecraft, Portal, Dwarf Fortress, etc] have been crazy successful.
I might be alone in this but if I'm playing the game I want more than just an on-rails experience... Let me wander the halls... Let me call the shots... LET ME OPEN THE GOSH DAMN DOORS.


First level boss battle.

The Rise of Consoles + Mobile Games and the PC Port + DRM and Always Online:

You know what I love? Spending $2000 on hardware so that I can play a terrible port... Why... For the love of all that is good in the world would you not start development on the platform with A) the best hardware and B) the most possible variations of hardware... Common sense would dictate porting to a simpler, fixed specifications platform would be easy from that position... I really have nothing more to say on this... I'm perfectly happy for consoles, I know that a lot of people love them but that's really not an excuse for developers to abandon the PC almost entirely.

Remember when playing a game was as simple as putting a CD key in? Now you need to go through five extensive background checks, report to your local government agency, show them your passport, pass a drugs test, qualify for the Winter Olympics and then after all that you can play.

Oh wait no you can't because the servers aren't up...



Kickstarter and the 'Indie' Scene:

Some people claim that gaming was in fact saved by the rise of Kickstarter and the 'Indie' Scene [note the sarcasm marks please]. Let's get Kickstarter out of the way first...

Dear Kickstarter... I hate you... You are a land of broken promises and failed dreams... The cake was a lie.

Kickstarter has produced SOME [some in this case meaning VERY LITTLE] worthwhile stuff. For the most part though you have simply given a platform to 'ideas people'. Before I go any further... I do not make games therefore I guess I am an 'ideas person' myself. There's nothing inherently wrong with 'ideas people'... Until the 'ideas people' decide to try to make a game... Then $200,000 backer-dollars later a half-finished, unsatisfying game is given up on and left perpetually in alpha in all but name. I can't think of one game that was Kickstarted and has actually properly finished production... There probably are some out there but the fact remains that most are not.

Moving on to the 'indie' scene. You know what you were lacking games industry? Hipsters... Well worry no longer! Because now we have an army of indie developers and just look at the armada of interesting games it has created:

Braid - retro style platformer
Fez - retro style platformer
Super Meat Boy - retro style platformer

Hang on a second... I'm noticing a pattern here... There is a disturbance in the 'indie-force'...



What's more worrying than the fact that a large part of the 'indie' scene is even less creative than AAA games is the extreme dickishness of the developers:

Example: Phil Fish, creator of Fez: "PC's are for spreadsheets". Phil Fish also told critics to "go die".

If anyone here has seen Indie Game: The Movie they'll know what I'm talking about... Some people consider games art... Well games are supposed to be fun as well. If you game is not fun calling it 'art' does not make it a good game.

The Future of Videogames?

From my perspective it doesn't look bright. Every day I lose a little bit of hope. One day I hope I can get excited about the future of videogames again. Until then I guess I'll always have Dwarf Fortress.

I could spend all day posting more but to be honest I am exhausted and thinking any more about it will just make me even more sad. So I will cut it off right here... Over to you for discussion/criticism.

Things I will cover if I come back to this post... DLC... Freemium... Paid-Reviewers... Etc...

[Levi]

Man, I completely disagree with you about indie gaming.  Its not just for hipsters and it really has improved gaming as a whole.  There pretty much wouldn't be platformers and puzzle games these days if it wasn't for the indie resurgence(and I LOVE those genres).

And its not just platformers.  There are indie 3d shooters, indie shootem ups, indie point and click adventure games and more.  Honestly I think we are pretty much in the golden age of gaming.  I buy almost every game I play off steam on sale for 5 dollars, and I can't even keep up with them.  They are producing more interesting games faster than I can plow through them.  And I play a LOT of games. 

I've been gaming since the commodore 64 as well, so its not like I haven't been there for most of the evolution of gaming.

And I loved both Braid and Super Meatboy because they were both great games, not because of some hipster label.    

(and everybody knows what is really wrong with gaming is microtransactions).

[BFEL]

Well Ronin....I'm not gonna say I disagree with you, because for the most part you're right. Gaming has flown into a Bermuda Triangle of Action Adventure God of Duty Call to War and its in a messed up point right now.

But, good news: That's pretty much on the verge of exploding. The crazy AAA games are slowly killing themselves with a economically unfeasible businessplan (pretty much everything they make costs more to make then they make back.) and more then that, gamers are getting more aware of how ridiculous it all is.
We're tired of this bullshit, just like you are, and that's gonna eat into the profits of the corporate shitsacks until they all jump off a building. Its a self-solving problem at this point. Granted its solving itself SLOOOOOOWLY, but its getting there.

As for the Indie thing, don't forget that Minecraft started as an indie game too, as did the great Kerbal Space Program. Indie games are basically "lets let everyone have a try" and yeah, that's gonna throw a lot of bullshit out there, but its gonna give us some great things too. I would say the indie scene isn't gonna kill gaming anytime soon.

The main problems I think gaming has right now boil down to: Consoles, and "Free-to-Play" games.

Now consoles in and of themselves aren't a problem, it was a great idea to make a system that starts pretty much instantly and you don't have to check the specs of. Note that the games you started with, the Super Nintendo and N64 are consoles. The problem is that Microsoft and Sony are comically missing the point.
They're both making really terrible PCs and calling them consoles, and that's retarded.

As for Nintendo....they're alternating between being stuck on their past successes and making gimmicky "innovative" hardware that adds nothing to their games.

As for Free-to-Play, its being mishandled. Hilariously so. You probably heard about the "Dungeon Keeper" fiasco, and that's ridiculous.
Granted even its more benevolent uses can be pretty insane if you look at it purely by the numbers. A game I enjoy is Star Trek Online, and while its free and completely awesome, I did the math and the amount of money one would need to buy all the possible ships and other optional crap is utterly insane.

Ok I didn't do all the math, but it comes out somewhere in the range of thousands of dollars, so its kinda crazy. I still love it, and I don't feel all that exploited by it as-is, but jeez.

[werty892]

*grabs popcorn*

[alexandertnt]

Warning: Hastily written mega-post inbound.

If graphics are advancing at the cost of every other single part of the game then there is a problem... A serious problem. I think that the focus on graphics became a problem when we hit the 'bloom' generation of graphics... Let me state this right now... Bloom is not making anything look better... What it is doing is making my eyes bleed.

Bloom as some good uses. It can help produce the effect of an increadibly bright light, for example. Much nicer than having your high-powered light being a small collection of underwhelming white pixels.

But Im not sure what the big deal is. Most games let you turn it off and its not like it costs money or time to develop (its a trivial post-processing effect (like 30 or so lines of shader-code), you can download a bloom shader from the internet for free).

Yeah, bloom can be annoying, but it seems like a far too minor thing to consider part of the "Decline" of the video game industry.

Im suprised you diddn't touch on SSAO, thats an effect thats been abused more than bloom, and generally looks much more nasty than the innocent little bloom effect.

Most of the technology behind the graphics are handled by a third party engine, so its generally a suprisingly small part of game development. Making the art is generally done inhouse, but is assisted by the fact that it is often harder to make lower quality graphical art (requires abstraction, special considerations, special tools, particular approach, sculpting high-poly models frequently easier than box modelling a decent model), and improvements in CAD software.

These days developers don't even bother to advertise FEATURES of the game anymore...

yes they do. For any game its easy to find a gameplay trailer or something like it online. Looking at games on the steam store page, I can almost always find a description of the game play and a set of dot points outlining the game.

Most of the advertisements on TV "back in the days" spent most of their time showing off their flasy visuals too.

We want to drool at the graphics on display and complicated things like BEING ABLE TO OPEN DOORS should be left to the AI companions

Stuff like this is done to keep the game flowing, not because players are dumb or some strawmanny nonsense. Some players dont want the game to abruptly slow down just because there is a door in the way. Enabling the AI to do stuff like this also gives a better sense that the AI exist as characters and are not just fleshy gun turrets.

I have no idea what your image here has to do with modern games, most earlier games either did not contain AI at all, or their AI was equally as broken.

The Rise of Consoles + Mobile Games and the PC Port + DRM and Always Online:

Console games are developed on the PC, you can't develop on the console itself.

the best hardware

If you spend 2000 dollars, than yes. most people have not spent 2000 dollars on their PC. If you develop on a super-pc, then its going to be a pain in the ass to make your game work on %97 of the PC market. You develop for your primary platform (the one that is expected to make the most money), that is common sense.

that's really not an excuse for developers to abandon the PC almost entirely

It sort of is. PC's dont have some inherit right to have games ported to, or developed for them, and companies are only going to do so when their is a reasonable business oppurtunity.

Remember when playing a game was as simple as putting a CD key in?

Every. Single. Time. I. Wanted. To. Play. And then the game pauses and asks me to enter the 5th word of the 14 page of the manual. Truely, the golden age of gaming. Now, I just double click the game in my steam list and up it pops, even without an internet conneciton (for 99% of single player games).

Games with online DRM have been fairly limited, and its becomming less popular still (Ubisoft announced that they are not using it, for example).

Kickstarter

Kickstarter has just brought to light the crap that has always existed. Sturgeon's law and all that.

Hipsters

Because those games cant be genuinely enjoyable games in their own right.

Braid - retro style platformer
Fez - retro style platformer
Super Meat Boy - retro style platformer

Are you implying that those games are all the game? They are all interesting, fun and original games.

Some people consider games art... Well games are supposed to be fun as well. If you game is not fun calling it 'art' does not make it a good game.

No, but it doesnt make the game, or games in general crappier either, so I dont see how this is related to the idea that games are in "decline".

DLC

Sucks, but genrally improving in quality.

Freemium

Sucks, I can't defend that.

Paid-Reviewers

Sucks, but has been around forever. Back in the time when it was harder to find alternative reviews it was even more devistating.

From my perspective it doesn't look bright. Every day I lose a little bit of hope. One day I hope I can get excited about the future of videogames again. Until then I guess I'll always have Dwarf Fortress.

What about KSP? Or is that a hipster indie game?

gimmicky "innovative" hardware that adds nothing to their games

the motion sensor stuff has been abused to hell and back (wriggle games), but there certainly exists games that have made genuinely innovative stuff of them. Sports games on the Wii are often very responsive and satisfying.






So yeah, I completely disagree with you (and I started gaming on DOS/NES). Games have been getting much better. Less clunky, more immersive, more varied etc.

[The13thRonin]

To the claim that developers want to 'keep the action flowing':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOHyD49DaeA

I don't see the 'flowing'.

[BFEL]

that's really not an excuse for developers to abandon the PC almost entirely

It sort of is. PC's dont have some inherit right to have games ported to, or developed for them, and companies are only going to do so when their is a reasonable business oppurtunity.

This is really the only thing in your post I find serious fault with. To quote Jim of Jimquisiton fame: "When did making money become a holy quest above scrutiny"
Just because a company is expected to care about making money doesn't mean it "has a inherent right" to actively exclude what is quite simply a more advanced platform. Could putting their game out for PC hit their figures? Sure, but its still a nice thing to do, probably isn't going to bankrupt them anytime soon, and will help make them look less evil in the long run, so there is benefit there.

[Glloyd]

Despite many of the sweeping generalizations you make, I agree with you in general. However, I largely disagree with your section on indie games.

[Arcvasti]

On some level, you're right. Many AAA games are trash. A lot of MMORPGs are trash. Freemium games are usually bad too. I don't game on console a lot, so my knowledge might be lacking there, but you seem to be overgeneralizing a tad. I personally see Kickstarter and indie games as the light of the future of gaming. FTL was awesome, Antichamber was awesome and a fair portion of indie games are innovative. Plus there's games like Clockwork Empires, Portal 1 & 2 and Skyrim from larger companies which are really good. Some of them know their buisness. I'm with you about the over-focus on graphics lately and I honestly don't care about the difference between text-based, ASCII, Half-Life 1 graphics and the latest 3D super realistic game which came out. I am of the opinion that the bad games are the result of more less-talented people getting into the gaming industry because of the absurd profits really good games got. It seems like games are more and more like fanfic these days: The majority are horrible, but the really good ones are to die for.

TL;DR: Basically what Glloyd just said, but more words.

[Hugehead]

Super Meat Boy and Braid are retro? I guess Braid's genre existed in a small sense before it was made, but I don't understand that comparison at all. And Super Meat Boy... Super precise platformers like it never really existed back in the 80's and 90's either, so I'd like to know what you're referring to there as well.

[Shadowlord]

To quote Jim of Jimquisiton fame: "When did making money become a holy quest above scrutiny"
Just because a company is expected to care about making money doesn't mean it "has a inherent right" to actively exclude what is quite simply a more advanced platform. Could putting their game out for PC hit their figures? Sure, but its still a nice thing to do, probably isn't going to bankrupt them anytime soon, and will help make them look less evil in the long run, so there is benefit there.

Perhaps when most of the companies making great games went out of business or were swallowed up by larger companies after releasing them, for example, Microprose (Sid Meier and co went on to found Firaxis), Looking Glass Studios (whose employees moved to Ion Storm Austin - both branches of Ion Storm later shut down as well after releasing several games that were commercial flops), Maxis (became part of EA), Westwood (bought and largely destroyed by EA), Origin (bought by EA, ceased to exist in 2004 although since 1999 or so they only still existed to support UO)? Or perhaps just when the costs of making games started to go up, and businesspeople started to helm game development companies, which is different times for different companies.

[Frumple]

I'm with you about the over-focus on graphics lately and I honestly don't care about the difference between text-based, ASCII, Half-Life 1 graphics and the latest 3D super realistic game which came out.

Apropos of nothing, reading this made me have flashbacks to like the late 90s. It's amazing I've been reading basically that exact same line for over a decade and a half.

That... that might say something about the actual existence of a recent over-focus on graphics. Unless we're talking recent in the, like, centennial sense or something.

[Cheedows]

Like others have said, even if it is a generalization I completely agree about fremium games, pc ports and emphasis on graphics. Currently there is this mentality that graphics make the game rather than the gameplay, games with old graphics automatically become shit. But I disagree with you on the indie gaming scene, sure some is bad but the thing is there are so many that of course you'll get bad games. But then you get amazing games that are indie, indie gaming gives more choice to the games you play.

[freeformschooler]

The sheer amount of good video games in existence right now is outrageous. If gamers were to go back and play the ones that already exist, Renaissance style, discovering every last bit of them, no one would have time to complain about "modern gaming" or "the future of gaming." We don't need innovation in game mechanics or less focus on graphics or a paradigm change. We need to change

[Neonivek]

I feel like 13th Ronin is more exaggerating then flat out wrong.

I mean who hasn't seen Indie games, what was once heralded as the savior from triple-A boredom, fall into the same stagnation that every other game fell into because of "follow the leader" and "Nostalgia bait".

Does that mean indie games are entirely without merit now? No...

But it is genuinely rant worthy.

I am not personally in the mindset that videogames are irredeemable and that truly great games will ever stop being made or stop being made with any frequency.

Honestly my belief of why there are soo many gems in the really old games was more that they had to take risks because no one knew what constituted a great game back then... and heck during the Golden Age of Videogames the most amount of absolutely dreadful games were made at the same time.

Well ok that and the "Primary people who played videogames" back then were "Gamers" and not "people who played videogames".