Joined Jul 2004
1K Posts | 1+
Bmount
Technology and software are in two totally different places right now. I've been contemplating this every since 3d's rise and fall. At least 50 years we've flirted with 3d technology and its always been the technology's fault until this past effort. Expensive battery powered glasses aside, we finally got it right, and found no use for it. It was eye candy but it did very little to truly expand the experience. 3d gaming died quicker than 3d tv all because gaming did even less with it than tv. It's still neat, and still being done in theatres but its dead.
Now comes VR. Its beautiful, works pretty well, but again we're doing nothing with it. Show me an actual game. The stuff that ships in with the cell phones are hokey roller coaster rides and effects, no game play to speak of. The console and computer gaming platforms have games but there's nothing big anyone is taking about. People got VR for Christmas because they were too big for Hatchimals and no one could find a NES classic.
Every great Nintendo had Mario's and Zelda's propping it up. Sega Genesis had Sonic (the other segas could be considered failures), xbox had Halo, ps1 and ps2 had an insane library, 360 had a good library and an over priced competitor, ps4 xbox one -- verdict is still out. All the really loved systems have enjoyed either a massive library or must have 1st party titles, with an exception or two.
AAA titles are pumping out quality games but getting the same game year in year out sucks. Serial stuff is better left for comic books and television. Call of Duty was a great game with a multiplayer experience that was a must play but it comes out every year now. It'll retain a percentage of its followers and pick up first timers but droves and droves of people aren't coming back. Madden, Tiger Woods, COD, Titanfall, Halo, GTA, Assassians Creed, Just Cause, Battlefield, all fantastic games that I and countless others have stopped buying every offering.
Indie titles have crowded the markets and for someone like me it's a pain in the butt digging through the trash to find that one or two gem. Steam has a weekly sale of 400 plus games ive never heard of and don't really care to play. For every Terraria there's a billion copycats that just aren't as good. I've learned to wait until the indie gets "discovered" and becomes three times the price and available on every platform. Out side of minecraft these titles usually burn white hot and fall off faster than the latest AAA release.
I wasn't around in the 70's but I can imagine how gamers felt then. Atari did some really amazing stuff with technology but never was it attached to any meaningful software. Pong, Galaga, PacMan, ... awesome games but the home versions were sub-par. Pacman on the VCS was returned to Atari and ultimately buried in that New Mexico landfill with ET. Consumers were offered nothing but garbage and unsupported peripherals.
Nintendo brought about that renaissance in the form of Mario. The controller was a vast improvement over Atari's controller, the zapper had several games and worked well, and especially towards the end the software was getting everything it could out of the NES in the form of games like SMB 3. We didn't tire of the super Mario bros titles either. instead of pushing something out every year 1, 2, and 3, spanned 5 years.
The major brands marched on with the same winning formula of technology and matching software and failed when they deviated.
Look at 3do, sega cd, and phillips cdi - disc format was awesome and killed for sony but no one wanted to watch a movie occasionally pushing a few buttons. There's NO replay value to that. disc technology made great improvements in music, voice, and video cut scenes and sony had software that worked with that, the others had poorly acted movies you occasionally interacted with.
The Saturn could have been something but sega botched the release and screwed up relationships with both the retailers and 3rd party developers. The DC didn't stand a chance after sega's poor management of the consoles before it.
Back to today. We're saturating the market with same old same old, with AAA developers spending more and more money on games making them less and less. Crap is flooding in from all angles in the form independent developers and the technology is innovative but has outpaced the software being developed for it.
The video game crash of 1983 happened because of unsupported hardware, waves of crappy software, and really crappy business decisions (if you don't believe me look up atari's rise and fall). These were some dark times but they did bring about a revolution in the video game industry. Activision came from atari's pissed off programmers. They became the first third party software developer and are still the biggest today. Maybe a crash is just what we need. Something equivalent of a forest fire to burn off all that crap so new life grows. Everything has become so convoluted and mired in turning a quick profit that the overall experience has become lost.
Now comes VR. Its beautiful, works pretty well, but again we're doing nothing with it. Show me an actual game. The stuff that ships in with the cell phones are hokey roller coaster rides and effects, no game play to speak of. The console and computer gaming platforms have games but there's nothing big anyone is taking about. People got VR for Christmas because they were too big for Hatchimals and no one could find a NES classic.
Every great Nintendo had Mario's and Zelda's propping it up. Sega Genesis had Sonic (the other segas could be considered failures), xbox had Halo, ps1 and ps2 had an insane library, 360 had a good library and an over priced competitor, ps4 xbox one -- verdict is still out. All the really loved systems have enjoyed either a massive library or must have 1st party titles, with an exception or two.
AAA titles are pumping out quality games but getting the same game year in year out sucks. Serial stuff is better left for comic books and television. Call of Duty was a great game with a multiplayer experience that was a must play but it comes out every year now. It'll retain a percentage of its followers and pick up first timers but droves and droves of people aren't coming back. Madden, Tiger Woods, COD, Titanfall, Halo, GTA, Assassians Creed, Just Cause, Battlefield, all fantastic games that I and countless others have stopped buying every offering.
Indie titles have crowded the markets and for someone like me it's a pain in the butt digging through the trash to find that one or two gem. Steam has a weekly sale of 400 plus games ive never heard of and don't really care to play. For every Terraria there's a billion copycats that just aren't as good. I've learned to wait until the indie gets "discovered" and becomes three times the price and available on every platform. Out side of minecraft these titles usually burn white hot and fall off faster than the latest AAA release.
I wasn't around in the 70's but I can imagine how gamers felt then. Atari did some really amazing stuff with technology but never was it attached to any meaningful software. Pong, Galaga, PacMan, ... awesome games but the home versions were sub-par. Pacman on the VCS was returned to Atari and ultimately buried in that New Mexico landfill with ET. Consumers were offered nothing but garbage and unsupported peripherals.
Nintendo brought about that renaissance in the form of Mario. The controller was a vast improvement over Atari's controller, the zapper had several games and worked well, and especially towards the end the software was getting everything it could out of the NES in the form of games like SMB 3. We didn't tire of the super Mario bros titles either. instead of pushing something out every year 1, 2, and 3, spanned 5 years.
The major brands marched on with the same winning formula of technology and matching software and failed when they deviated.
Look at 3do, sega cd, and phillips cdi - disc format was awesome and killed for sony but no one wanted to watch a movie occasionally pushing a few buttons. There's NO replay value to that. disc technology made great improvements in music, voice, and video cut scenes and sony had software that worked with that, the others had poorly acted movies you occasionally interacted with.
The Saturn could have been something but sega botched the release and screwed up relationships with both the retailers and 3rd party developers. The DC didn't stand a chance after sega's poor management of the consoles before it.
Back to today. We're saturating the market with same old same old, with AAA developers spending more and more money on games making them less and less. Crap is flooding in from all angles in the form independent developers and the technology is innovative but has outpaced the software being developed for it.
The video game crash of 1983 happened because of unsupported hardware, waves of crappy software, and really crappy business decisions (if you don't believe me look up atari's rise and fall). These were some dark times but they did bring about a revolution in the video game industry. Activision came from atari's pissed off programmers. They became the first third party software developer and are still the biggest today. Maybe a crash is just what we need. Something equivalent of a forest fire to burn off all that crap so new life grows. Everything has become so convoluted and mired in turning a quick profit that the overall experience has become lost.