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[freeformschooler]

(VVVVVV was the height of 2d puzzle platformers)

While we're talking about the game industry, a question: what happened to 3d platformers? You know, sonic, nights into dreams, malleo, that sort of thing. Is it dying off because consoles are dying off, or did most of the devs that made stuff for the N64 universally decide "this is stupid and a fad?"

As incompatible third-person-3D was with platforming, the genre was pretty awesome while it lasted.

[Hugehead]

Nintendo's still making 3D Marios, and Sega 3D Sonics, Mirror's Edge 2 is coming, and Cloudbuilt released on Steam in the last couple days. There's not a huge number like there were during the N64 era, but they're still being made.

Third person action games also usually have varying amounts of platforming in them.

[Arcvasti]

This thread has thoroughly outmaneuvered my constructive involvement. How about we just burn an effigy of EA games and call it quits?

[scrdest]

I still don't understand how Mirror's Edge... happened. An original IP, published by EA, that was actually good (SHUT UP, IT WAS!), with a color palette that wasn't dropped in the mud...

[freeformschooler]

Nintendo's still making 3D Marios, and Sega 3D Sonics, Mirror's Edge 2 is coming, and Cloudbuilt released on Steam in the last couple days. There's not a huge number like there were during the N64 era, but they're still being made.

Third person action games also usually have varying amounts of platforming in them.

whoa I didn't hear about those last two

awesome

[GlyphGryph]

Isn't Project Spark like... an *engine* for creating 3d platformers, with lots of awesome 3d platformers released in it already?

2d platformer puzzlers are getting beaten to death. Every single indie dev of note is making one, or has made one. I swear Incredipede has like 12 clones. When I see that as a game pitch, I am immediately turned off. Short of a theme I absolutely adore, there's very little that will get me to try them. If you don't believe what I'm saying, just go read the last 2 months of RPS articles and see how many 2d puzzle platformers you spot.

No more than FPS games have been getting beaten to death for the last two decades, where everyone felt the need to push out a shitty FPS, or Adventure Games in the 90s, where they were easy enough to make that you could find dozens and dozens of different crappy adventure games in every single bargain bin (although I don't know anyone who ever tried most of them aside from me).

I don't think there's anything wrong with a genre being popular among devs, it tends to lead to the development of some shining crown jewels in the sea of the crap, and to be honest... a lot of it is simply that 2d platformers are easy to make.

2d platformers have always been the go-to for aspiring game developers, since the 90s at least.

Hell, you know what the Doom guys started out making and originally got famous for? 2d Platformers. A chunk of the people on their team didn't even *like* their 2d Platformers, but it was just so goddamn easy to do fun stuff with them that from a development standpoint it was and is almost always going to be the genre you "cut your teeth" on, and the easiest to introduce new "gimmicks" to and thus stand out from the crowd - and if you've got artistic rather than game ambitions, it's the genre that provides perhaps the easiest entry point that still allows you to communicate the idea you want to communicate.

They generally go over a lot better at the fledgling developer and artistic attempts at the FPS that happened in the early aughts. Blech.

[Rez]

I wouldn't bother looking at any kind of ratings for video games as a way to measure merit.  For one thing, /v/ bombs metacritic user ratings for games the zeitgeist is against.  For a second, most reviewers are total hacks.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

I think there are some good games coming out still, and the indie games coming out are sometimes better than AAA titles - and that's not new. Back in the day there were fewer game developers (and they were all small companies or individuals) and without the Internet of today we had little access to information about the games people were making. With limited space between magazine covers and on store shelves we only saw what had advertising money behind it.

You also had a lower barrier to entry with the technology. While we have better development tools now, we also have more complex expectations. The difference between making a basic 2D point-and-click adventure or roguelike and making a 3D vehicular FPS is huge. Then again, almost all of what we consider "a good game" around these parts has to do with game design, writing, and creative ideas - meaning we would generally be more likely to lay down $10 on a mind-blowing ASCII roguelike or text adventure than a tepid and formulaic WW2 FPS.

But I suspect bright days are ahead.

1) Online retailing is becoming easier on marketplace sites. This makes it easier to get a game out there and also sort the games by rating - so crap games get buried as they should and great ones rise to the top. This creates an erroneous impression for the gamer that only great games exist.

2) Libraries of code and graphics are always expanding. As an established base of structural components expands, it becomes easier to build using them. This means there are more games out there being made, which means more bad ones and more good ones. With less time spent on developing these shared components, each game developer can either put their games out faster or spend more time developing good content.

3) Game engines that are easier to use will encourage indie developers who have big dreams and great ideas but are short on technical skills. As the years pass more of these become available and the older ones become less buggy and more fully-featured, and better-supported in the form of developer forums and technical documents.

4) The differences in visuals for new technology each year are becoming smaller and smaller. This is just because you can only get a stone wall looking so realistic before there's no point adding more graphical updates to it. There's a point when working on the leaf doesn't make any more sense. Then to differentiate their new game a developer will have to turn to some other feature - such as story, breadth and depth of choices, voice acting, writing, etc. Up to recently we've been in awe of big new engines coming out of id or whoever and excited in the leaps in visuals we're seeing. I predict new engines will focus on better background components that make for better gameplay.

5) The casual mobile phase of game evolution is in full swing. When developing for smaller, weaker devices you have fewer processing resources to use, meaning a graphics-race will last only so long before hitting hardware limitations. Working within limitations is where a lot of good art and science occurs. Instead of brute-force graphics the focus must be on efficiency and gameplay, which will inform and benefit PC gaming. Additionally it's possible that some developer will realize that some people don't just want a 10-minute casual game, and they don't just want to extend that 10-minute period by another 50 minutes of grinding the same activities: some people want a mobile game with depth that will take several dozen two-hour train rides to fully enjoy. These may be good enough to play as a port to a beefier platform like a laptop or console.

6) As people invest their ideas into games, they occasionally create something new. Other games take the idea and run with it, growing it in new directions. Most of these branches will wither and die because they suck. Others will bear fruit. Some ideas that have lain fallow for too long will be unearthed by new developers and dusted off in surprise and glee. This continued expansion of the communal storehouse of ideas, and synthesis with old ideas, will give creative people a greater and greater vocabulary they can use.

[nenjin]

Isn't Project Spark like... an *engine* for creating 3d platformers, with lots of awesome 3d platformers released in it already?

2d platformer puzzlers are getting beaten to death. Every single indie dev of note is making one, or has made one. I swear Incredipede has like 12 clones. When I see that as a game pitch, I am immediately turned off. Short of a theme I absolutely adore, there's very little that will get me to try them. If you don't believe what I'm saying, just go read the last 2 months of RPS articles and see how many 2d puzzle platformers you spot.

*snip*

But I can deal with plenty of top-down, ascii roguelikes. Because they're not trying to sell me a visions that is anything but.

Compare the marketing for a lot of these indie platformers though. They're trying to sell you an art experience more than a game, because the game has been thoroughly re-trenched 1000 times already. I'm not saying FPS are any different. But I feel like they're a bit more honest about what they're doing. What really sells 2d platformers isn't the game anymore. It's the art aesthetic and the music. The engine is just a platform for doing that. Put another way, FPS are about shooting shit, and I can dig that, generally regardless of the theme. 2d platformers, not so much, because I don't find jumping and puzzles fascinating. There's plenty of new indie games I'd be willing to try, based on the theme alone. When they're tied to platforming because it's the only format they're capable of working in......I don't feel like spending money on it.

[MoLAoS]

So this thread seems, to be, an equal mix between

Nostalgia Goggles: "Everything was better back in the day, because I've forgotten everything that sucks!"
Entitlement: "I don't understand why every game being made doesn't appeal to me, anymore! Damn these... these OTHER people getting games made for them!"
Blinders: "All the games today suck! What? Counter-examples? I've never played any of those, they don't count!"
Experience: "I've already *seen* this. I've already *done* this. Why isn't everything new and exciting any more?"
Changing Tastes: "I used to like this stuff - the fact that I don't any more clearly indicates something has changed about the games, not me! And no, I don't want to go back and play more of the retro stuff, I don't enjoy that anymore either, why does that matter?"

In my opinion, while there were some rough spots in the aughts, we're currently in a second golden age of gaming - I haven't seen this many awesome games coming out this quickly since the 90s. For all of the problems the game "industry" might be experiencing, there's a lot of good stuff coming out of it for anyone who cares to look, and doesn't approach things with the assumption they are going to be terrible.

Ooh, someone made a whole list of video game themed fully general counterarguments. Great. Fabulous. Discussion isn't going to be ruined now, not at all. I swear I'm not being sarcastic. Okay I lied, I am.

[Neonivek]

Entitlement: "I don't understand why every game being made doesn't appeal to me, anymore! Damn these... these OTHER people getting games made for them!"

No, I am with the entitled people.

I am tired of mass produced garbage, I want some quality products and not something so bland it will be inoffensively popular. Why should I be happy about this?

Ohh wait but entitlement is a bad thing because you say it is...

[MoLAoS]

Entitlement: "I don't understand why every game being made doesn't appeal to me, anymore! Damn these... these OTHER people getting games made for them!"

No, I am with the entitled people.

I am tired of mass produced garbage, I want some quality products and not something so bland it will be inoffensively popular. Why should I be happy about this?

Ohh wait but entitlement is a bad thing because you say it is...

I posted this somewhere else I think but it bears mentioning here.

Blandness is the essence of popularity. How do you make a genre of media popular? Tone down what makes it unique. Punk pop? Less politics more food and girlfriends songs with poppier hooks. Science fiction, less philosophy, more teen drama. The actual purpose of the genre becomes a backdrop for the tedious and banal concerns of the average consumer.

Media is a zero sum game at this point. Back in the day when not everyone had computers it wasn't, but now that they are ubiquitous it is.

[Tawa]

So this thread seems, to be, an equal mix between

Nostalgia Goggles: "Everything was better back in the day, because I've forgotten everything that sucks!"
Entitlement: "I don't understand why every game being made doesn't appeal to me, anymore! Damn these... these OTHER people getting games made for them!"
Blinders: "All the games today suck! What? Counter-examples? I've never played any of those, they don't count!"
Experience: "I've already *seen* this. I've already *done* this. Why isn't everything new and exciting any more?"
Changing Tastes: "I used to like this stuff - the fact that I don't any more clearly indicates something has changed about the games, not me! And no, I don't want to go back and play more of the retro stuff, I don't enjoy that anymore either, why does that matter?"
d
In my opinion, while there were some rough spots in the aughts, we're currently in a second golden age of gaming - I haven't seen this many awesome games coming out this quickly since the 90s. For all of the problems the game "industry" might be experiencing, there's a lot of good stuff coming out of it for anyone who cares to look, and doesn't approach things with the assumption they are going to be terrible.

You forgot me.

I was more like "There are still decent games, you just have to stop pretending indies and FPS'es are the whole genre".

Seriously, Nintendo makes a lot of "kiddie" games, but they have quality in them alright. The older titles have some merit as well, sometimes more than the new ones. (I.E. Link to the Past, Mario 64)d

Also, my "reads", to use a mafia term, on the two genres:

Indies: Indie games vary widely in quality-- heck, DF is an indie game. Look how great it's been. On the other end of the spectrum is the absolute crap, which tends to be either horrible first person shooter games, RPGs with no story, or platformers with glitchy controls.
First Person Shooters: In general, they suck, but the only real problem with them, in my opinion, is that most of them are Call of Duty ripoffs or generic alien shoot-em-ups.

There's my two cents on the matter.

[GlyphGryph]

Entitlement: "I don't understand why every game being made doesn't appeal to me, anymore! Damn these... these OTHER people getting games made for them!"

No, I am with the entitled people.

Yes. This is perfectly clear from your post history. Glad you can be up front about it, anyway.

It's a bad thing because you've done nothing to earn it. You're entitled simply because you've had it good in the past - well, tough luck. You're "problem" isn't that good things aren't getting made anymore (they are) or even that things aren't being made anymore that target your demographic (they are), but rather that things *are* being made that target *someone else*.

Ooh, someone made a whole list of video game themed fully general counterarguments. Great. Fabulous. Discussion isn't going to be ruined now, not at all. I swear I'm not being sarcastic. Okay I lied, I am.

Yes, a discussion based on crappy image memes, vague analogies, cherry-picked irrelevancies, generalizations and nostalgia has been ruined! How could it have possible come to this?

I read the thread - was there a singly actual argument being made about the "videogame industry" being any worse now than it was at some point in the past? Any evidence presented, any coherent arguments made? Because I just reread the thread (again) and I couldn't fine them. Certainly a lot of claims have been made, but the "it sucks" proponents seem to be a bit averse to mounting an actual concrete defense of those claims.

Want some advice on how to do that? Pick two years  - 199x and 2013 would work, I imagine - and then establish a set of criteria by which you think things might have been "better" on the earlier date. Then cite some actual evidence that those claims were true - perhaps comparisons on the number of games released, or something, I don't know, I'm not the one making the claim, I don't have to find the evidence, and I don't even know what specific claims would be made anyway.

Then explain how the evidence presented supports the claims, and then we will respond by pointing out any potential flaws, and accepting the argument if the evidence is strong enough, agreeing with your claims. We may then dispute whether or not those claims are actually representative of the general critique offered by the OP, but that's another level of conversation there.

You forgot me.

Sorry, I was mostly referring to the arguments of the people supporting the threads premise, rather than those opposed.

[Neonivek]

It's a bad thing because you've done nothing to earn it.

No one "deserves" anything GlyphGryph.

Me siding with being "entitled" is more of a "So, actually wanting to play something we like is terrible?"

You're "problem" isn't that good things aren't getting made anymore (they are) or even that things aren't being made anymore that target your demographic (they are), but rather that things *are* being made that target *someone else*.

How many I put it GlyphGryph...

My problem is I like Pizza... and a while ago I had it good because the only people who liked pizza was me and an audience who were Pizza Connoisseurs, so Pizzas were marketed towards an audience who generally tried a lot of pizza. Yet slowly over time people started to catch onto how good Pizza is.

Now everyone is eating pizza... but instead of making the pizzas with any flavor, they have to make it to sell to as many people as possible and be as easy to swallow as possible.

So Pizzas are now bland and mushy, because they are there to appeal to everyone instead of this select group... and I am not happy because I didn't grow up on bland pizza, I grew up on tasty pizza. So Bland doesn't cut it for me.