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[MoLAoS]

Here's the problem, MoLAos. I can provide evidence for my beliefs and claims, pretty trivially. Do you want me to? That's a bit off topic, in my opinion, but I certainly can.

You can't do so for yours.

So why do you believe video games are worse today? It's clearly not a belief based on the evidence, evidence you indicate you've made no evidence to uncover despite how passionately you appear to hold your opinion.

Then again, the opposed argument I would make is pretty well supported by fairly obvious element, that being "The video game industry does not suck, as they still manage to turn out a number of high quality titles every year (I simply need to produce a list of high quality titles each year to support this, a much lower burden of evidence, admittedly, than the stance you are taking), and they are obviously not in decline because they are releasing more titles and making more money every year."

Before I bother to provide any of that evidence, I would like to make sure if evidence of reliable yearly output of quality titles is enough, in your opinion, to demonstrate that an industry does not suck, and if it's not enough, what criteria would you consider to be valid for determining whether or not an industry sucks?

The evidence my stance requires to be "true" is a good deal less than yours, on account of how I'm making a much less strong claim (not that the industry is better than it was in the 90s, or that it is worse, merely that it still produces quality products and therefore does not suck), but then, that's the benefit of deciding which claims to support after looking at the actual evidence.

Ronin:
It's relevant to what he actually posted, which was a comment about himself, so maybe you should read what I'm responding to before criticizing.

It's not my problem if you want to stand blindly by a viewpoint you can't find sufficient evidence to support.

Okay, so, it appears you don't actually understand what "evidence" means, but that's okay, we can work on this. It needs to be something that relevant, for one - posting the scores for three games in three different years isn't, on account of how there's a large number of games produced every year, and one can undoubtedly find high and low games from any year. It's a pretty blatant example of cherry-picking, and only supports the argument "bad games have been made recently" and "good games have been made in the past". This is something a lot of people feel passionately about, so I'm sure you can find an argument that is at least *relevant*, if not valid.

(Mind you, I thought the original Diablo was utter shite, but I'm willing to accept, for the purpose of argument, that the "quality" of a video game is independent of my personal opinion, and go by the metacritic scores. Is this acceptable as an assumption by other parties, or would you prefer a different one?)

Having opinions that are easier to justify isn't a virtue.

Metacritic scores are bad because of score inflation. I wouldn't accept that as evidence.

As far as making some titles that don't suck, I would like to see the % of games made that are bad vs not be higher, as well as a control for the amount of money spent vs total titles as well as quality titles. I would accept a % value of good vs bad that was 5% lower now than then, merely because I don't consider that likely. I'd also suggest that we don't consider graphics. Which of course screws over most modern games that rely heavily on graphics for appeal. That might be hard to score though.

[MoLAoS]

Well, as long as we're exploring why Platonic Ideals of suck matter for a product whose quality is wholly subjective, I'll grab popcorn, too.

I'd say something, but I find that my opinions have already been stated, and that watching is more amusing.
So...
*grabs popcorn*

Modern popcorn is of lower quality than the popcorn of the past. It uses low quality ingredients which it compensates for by added salt and butter. I had many other complaints on my blog, but I had to shut it down because I'm poor.

[Rez]

Possibly from all that vintage popcorn you had to buy.

[Shadowlord]

Nobody's going to convince anybody of anything by insulting them, their opinions, their thinking, and their logic.

[Rez]

You're just saying that because your opinions are wrong.

/sarc, just to be clear.  It was getting way too cereal in here.

[MoLAoS]

Possibly from all that vintage popcorn you had to buy.

I will live in the streets but I will have quality popcorn!

[MoLAoS]

Nobody's going to convince anybody of anything related to identity, under any circumstances.

FTFY.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

As far as making some titles that don't suck, I would like to see the % of games made that are bad vs not be higher, as well as a control for the amount of money spent vs total titles as well as quality titles. I would accept a % value of good vs bad that was 5% lower now than then, merely because I don't consider that likely. I'd also suggest that we don't consider graphics. Which of course screws over most modern games that rely heavily on graphics for appeal. That might be hard to score though.

I was thinking of doing something like this. Take the best selling/grossing titles of each year. [I'm not sure where to find comprehensive data of unit sales dating to the 80's. 90's would work too.] Maybe just the top 20 for each year. I'd like to cross-check that with averaged critic/review/metacritic numbers for each title, if applicable. If the critic review number is lower over years, maybe there is something to say about generally decreasing [or even increasing] quality of the best-selling titles.

But that would still likely be subjective, as some people like games that others don't. And doesn't take into account that even some of the best games haven't been the best sellers, go figure [citation: that was an opinion].

[GlyphGryph]

Having opinions that are easier to justify isn't a virtue.

Having opinions that are justified is a virtue. The alternative is magical thinking, where things are true regardless of the reality. If you hold beliefs without justification, I'd consider that an anti-virtue, at least (a sin, perhaps?).

Metacritic scores are bad because of score inflation. I wouldn't accept that as evidence.

Is there any metric you would accept?

As far as making some titles that don't suck, I would like to see the % of games made that are bad vs not be higher, as well as a control for the amount of money spent vs total titles as well as quality titles. I would accept a % value of good vs bad that was 5% lower now than then, merely because I don't consider that likely. I'd also suggest that we don't consider graphics. Which of course screws over most modern games that rely heavily on graphics for appeal. That might be hard to score though.

Okay, so this reveals a significant underlying problem, and is why I'm glad I didn't go right to evidence. Why does "% good vs % bad" matter, to you or to me? We're not going to be playing every game that comes out every year, I imagine we're only going to be playing the good ones, why does it matter how many bad ones get released as long as "enough" good ones are?

If only 3 video games were made last year, and all of them were pretty good, but 100 were made this year, of which 10 were pretty good and 5 were absolutely amazing and mind-blowing, and the rest were pretty bad, you'd honestly consider this years game industry to "suck" compared to the year before? Because if so, this is a fundamental difference in assumptions that we will have to address before we can make any progress, and takes priority over questions of what evidence you would accept, since a mismatch here would blatantly render any evidence irrelevant since it would be based on my own priorities and not yours.

From my point of view, I would consider the second year significantly better -
Assuming I want to play more than three games in a year:
-In the first year, only three games were made, which wasn't nearly enough to meet my yearly and consumption, and the first year outright sucks, for me, since it can't keep up with my rate of consumption
Assuming I only want to play three games in a year:
-If I limited myself to this, the second year would still be better, since I'd end up playing three absolutely amazing games instead of 3 pretty good ones

If you think we should go with another criteria for a "sucky" year, please explain what it is and why.

Nobody's going to convince anybody of anything related to identity, under any circumstances.

FTFY.

If you consider "modern video games suck" to be a part of your identity, I... err... I might decide to back out of this conversation after all. I was under the impression we were arguing about reality, not religion, and I'd rather stay out of debates on the second. It suddenly makes a lot of the stuff you've said so far make a helluva a lot more sense, though.

Because I was getting quite excited about the possibility of finding a solid nook within an acceptable shared context, lying out the evidence, and discovering which of us was most likely to be correct based on those assumptions after analyzing the evidence, but if you consider this belief to be a part of your identity, I honestly don't see that happening.

[Frumple]

Y'know, I'd call a good measurement of suck to be cash invested vs. total sales, adjusted for inflation and GDP fluctuation. That would, I believe, let you know whether the industry as a whole is getting more efficient at providing the product the people want, which is about as an objective a measure of health as I can imagine for an entertainment industry. If the ratio goes down, it's decline -- the industry is getting worse at doing its job. If it goes up, it's ascension.

Now someone with more energy and will than me go crunch the numbers, plox

[GlyphGryph]

Y'know, I'd call a good measurement of suck to be cash invested vs. total sales, adjusted for inflation and GDP fluctuation. That would, I believe, let you know whether the industry as a whole is getting more efficient at providing the product the people want, which is about as an objective a measure of health as I can imagine for an entertainment industry. If the ratio goes down, it's decline -- the industry is getting worse at doing its job. If it goes up, it's ascension.

Now someone with more energy and will than me go crunch the numbers, plox

Well, personally I see the industries job as to produce more high quality games for me to consume - none of those seem relevant to that goal. The reason I see it that way is, I would hope, obvious (pure self-interest) - I'm honestly curious as to why the criteria you suggest above should be relevant as to our opinion on the industry?

I guess it could make sense from an industry, rather than consumer perspectiveAlthough even there, one could argue that the strict actual size of the margins is more important than their relative size.

Would you consider yourself to be better off if you earned 100,000,000 dollars every year at the cost of 99,999,999 OR if you earned 50,000 dollars every year at the cost of 25,000. In your scenario, you'd consider the second situation to be "less sucky", but I'm not really sure I would agree with that (I'd rather the net of 1,000,000 instead of the net of 25,000, to be perfectly honest). The same is true of most companies an industries as well. You could argue that the second case is more efficient, sure, but I'm not sure how directly that translates to "not-sucky".

[Frumple]

Yeah, I was looking at it from an industry wide measure more than personal or consumer viewpoint. Way I see it, if the industry's becoming more efficient, it's getting better. That efficiency may not manifest in a way that's congruent with my personal tastes, but I'm willing to admit coherence with the preferences of a niche market does not a healthy industry make. If they're getting better at making bank per buck, they're getting better at providing desired product per dollar invested. That might not necessarily manifest as more higher quality games -- it may just mean less low quality ones are being produced (/invested in), which I would still accept as a sign of less suckage.

[Toady One]

Things are a bit heated up there, but now a bit of chill has been mixed into the thread.  Hopefully it will help.

[MoLAoS]

Y'know, I'd call a good measurement of suck to be cash invested vs. total sales, adjusted for inflation and GDP fluctuation. That would, I believe, let you know whether the industry as a whole is getting more efficient at providing the product the people want, which is about as an objective a measure of health as I can imagine for an entertainment industry. If the ratio goes down, it's decline -- the industry is getting worse at doing its job. If it goes up, it's ascension.

Now someone with more energy and will than me go crunch the numbers, plox

This is a terrible metric. Humans are not a monolith.

[GlyphGryph]

This is a terrible metric. Humans are not a monolith.

I don't understand what this is supposed to communicate.