Bobpie
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Like most of technology, gaming is evolving at a startling rate; It seems like yesterday when state-of-the-art graphics were sprites. Now, you have the PS3, which can inarguably provide the most "Realistic" graphics (Note: When exclusivly made) and the Xbox360(Which isn't far behind). As of now, it costs $20 Million dollars to put out a current gen game, but only a third of that to make a Wii game. If these trends continue, it is reported that a next gen game will cost 3X as much. (Sources Here and Here2).

So what does this mean for the future of gaming? Will we see a graphical recession just to turn out a profit? Will they just triple the cost of the game to make the ends meet? Or maybe games will become purely downloadable? Discuss.

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[Last edited by Bobpie at 08-04-2009 01:56 PM]

NiroZ
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Games are a billion dollar industry, and thus everybody is competing with everybody to make people buy their game. Thus it doesn't matter if it's graphics, dialogue, gameplay, it's always going to improve as long as the market is big enough.

Sure, graphics are a particularly superficial example of this arms race, and I think that we will hit a time when it reaches the uncanny valley, but we've got a long way to go till then.

Snacko
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I think its certainly hurting the industry now, but that this will eventually cause a reemergence of gaming for gaming's sake. You can still see a few games that use next-gen right ala MGS4's massive, multi-tiered environments, Dead Rising's hordes of zombies, Disgaea 3's incredible breadth of content (D3 was sold at a budget price, in fact) and GTAIV's immersive (if empty), seamless world. It's still amazing to load it up, walk out of your apartment and see the city already fully loaded.

It's also worth noting that occasionally graphics are important, and not just in an aesthetic sense. Play Wipeout HD for a while and then try to go back to Pure, which runs at half the framerate, and that means the game only has half the number of chances to read your input.

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Bobpie
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NiroZ wrote:
Games are a billion dollar industry, and thus everybody is competing with everybody to make people buy their game. Thus it doesn't matter if it's graphics, dialogue, gameplay, it's always going to improve as long as the market is big enough.

Sure, graphics are a particularly superficial example of this arms race, and I think that we will hit a time when it reaches the uncanny valley, but we've got a long way to go till then.

True, but I am talking about the repercussions of such actions. If this prediction comes true and games do cost 60 million dollars to put out, what will happen?

In the end, I am glad to find entertainment in DROD.

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[Last edited by Bobpie at 08-04-2009 05:29 PM]

NiroZ
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I'd say that market forces would decide.

coppro
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I think that, in a perverse way, it's actually helping it. By constantly pushing up the size and cost of a project, the big publishers are losing an aspect of games that appeals to many people - I can't pinpoint it exactly, but some games feel pure and simple, and the newer ones don't seem to as much. They are also (in my opinion) pushing the big industry away from an innovative direction (and I don't mean there isn't any innovation, just that there's less). These things do not require a ton of hardware or of investment, which is opening the door for indie developers (and small-scale non-indie ones) because their games resonate in a good way with gamers the way that big-name games don't necessarily do - just look at the amount of downloadable content on current-gen consoles.

Since the above doesn't seem particularly readable, let me sum it up: Games that cost a lot of money often don't get everything right, leaves room for lots of low-budget developers, we get more games, industry is doing good.

Banjooie
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Bobpie are you a time traveller from 2002?

gamer_extreme_101
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To say that a race for graphics is hurting the industry isn't looking at the big picture in my mind. Yes, major game companies are highly focused on getting graphics to look as realistic as possible, but I think that the vast majority of consumers have looked beyond that point. Cases in point? Popcap games and Nintendo.

With the state of technology that we're act, I firmly believe that within a couple years we'll experience a complete renaissance where game companies will look at making simpler designed games that focus more on alternative gameplay than realistic graphics, especially considering that we're nearing a point where graphics aren't going to get much more realistic. I know I'd easily turn down a game that has realistic graphics for a game that tries to create a new style of gameplay. Of course, that's just me.

Oh, and hi everyone.

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b0rsuk
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The industry may hurt itself. Don't let it affect you. Look past sites like IGN and Gamespot. Find games they don't even review. Great games still exist if you know where to look. Major sites don't review games below certain graphics treshold.

For example, Natural Selection 2 is shaping up to be a great multiplayer game, unless they break something horribly. Granted, they do have very good graphics, but are getting very little coverage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAGDMExYyl4

You're fooling yourself if you think big studios will start to care about gameplay because they will reach the highest point and will be unable to compete basing on graphics. You can throw any amount of graphic artists at a game, you can hire people with more interesting style too. There's always room for more visual effects, it just takes skill and time. And there are new developments on the horizon. Look at these screenshots from id Software's Rage. Virtual textures enable textures measured in gigabytes.

http://www.shacknews.com/screenshots.x?gallery=12539&game_id=4598#img138798

This gives artists unprecedenced freedom, there are anecdotes of new people joining id Software and thanking John Carmack for opportunity to work without texture limits. 3d artists earn a lot of money and we will only continue to see games with higher budgets.

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Heads of big studios are happy to make games with little to no replay value (like Dead Space), and cinematic looks. The word cinematic is a key here - the games are meant to be disposable. Planned obsolescence. You need to license more. (You no longer own games you pay for, you license them). Meanwhile games with decades old features like randomisation are called innovative. It's very crude and limited in games like Left 4 Dead or Diablo III, but if people are ignorant enough they call it innovation. Just like ignorant people praise Warcraft or Starcraft, not knowing D&D or Warhammer 40 000. Actually 3d graphics limit randomization a lot. In times of 2D graphics it was a standard feature in many games.

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NiroZ
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Speaking of indie games, valve currently have a sale on them at the moment. If half the games in those packs turn out to be good, it's worth you money.

Snacko
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I've played all of those except for Blueberry Garden and they are all excellent.

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Banjooie
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I like this thing where borsuk complains that Warcraft and D&D are highly similar, right in the same vein as pointing out the Starcraft/WH40k connection, as if warcraft wasn't going to be a warhammer game.

b0rsuk
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I like it where Banjooie says that Warcraft was going to be a Warhammer game without backing it up.
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To see an excellent example of why metacritic should use weighted scores, and have user score too, look at GTA IV

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/grandtheftauto4?q=gta

In my opinion user score should be the default, and critic score should only be displayed when you click on a game.

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NiroZ
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That's more to do with reviewers reviewing the game as opposed to the difficulties playing the game. You could say that it's a flaw with reviewers in general.

coppro
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NiroZ wrote:
That's more to do with reviewers reviewing the game as opposed to the difficulties playing the game. You could say that it's a flaw with reviewers in general.

And their dependence on the game publishers to get the games to review.

b0rsuk
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NiroZ wrote:
That's more to do with reviewers reviewing the game as opposed to the difficulties playing the game. You could say that it's a flaw with reviewers in general.

I doubt many movie/book reviewers assign a score based on first 60 pages/minutes. You could say the average lenght of a game was 8-10 hours (more like 5 today). But there are still some games meant to be very replayable (multiplayer FPS, RTS and so on). In this area, game reviewers fail miserably. Not only metagame changes and reviewers play in an environment full of inexperienced players. Exploits and broken strategies (ones that make 80% of the game obsolete, dead code...) become known. And books/movies are hardly ever patched.
Additionally, game reviewers either have super gaming rigs, are given one, or are invited to play in perfect environment (LAN game with no lag, all settings and hardware tweaked to perfection). The closest equivalent of that in book/movie world are different translations.

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Bobpie
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b0rsuk wrote:
To see an excellent example of why metacritic should use weighted scores, and have user score too, look at GTA IV

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/grandtheftauto4?q=gta

In my opinion user score should be the default, and critic score should only be displayed when you click on a game.

User scores are more easily corruptable then reviewer scores, case in point, LittleBigPlanet.

Sony DefenseForce gave it a0:
This is a terrible little kiddie game that should have been on a little kiddie system like the wii. PS3 owners should be embarrassed that this steaming pile of donkey doo is on their system. The graphics are horrible, the controls are ridiculously bad, and the game is not one ounce of fun. I would hardly call it a game. Do not touch LittleBigPlanet with a ten foot pole, it is infected with the disgusting Sony disease. After playing this game I wanted to kill myself.

This one is just plain funny.

Mert K. gave it a10:
Wow Is all I have to say to this game ever since I was amazed at GDC 07 I have been waiting for this game to come out the new presentation at E3 08 showed me this game is not only for fun but can also be used for some weird cool presentation if you have a Playstation 3 and you must buy it!

No mention of having played this game, but he gives it a 10 just for hype's sake.

edit: Yes, I do come from 2002, I sat in my time machine for 7 years and before you know it, I was in 2009!

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[Last edited by Bobpie at 08-10-2009 05:26 PM]

Snacko
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These days professional reviews are relatively similar to each other, save for a few outliers (someone gave Reservoir Dogs an 83), as they are determined primarily by hype. Case in point: Gamespot gave Halo 3 the same score that they gave Unreal Tournament, Twisted Metal: Black, the Orange Box and Red Alert.

User reviews simply need to be filtered, like GameFAQs but better.

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NiroZ
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The major flaw in all our reasoning is that we're cherry picking individual cases that suit our argument.

Jatopian
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Bobpie wrote:
case and point

case in point

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mrimer
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I'm thinking that it's probably not "hype" per se (i.e. psychological excitement) that is causing professional reviews to turn out about the same, but rather dollar-hype (i.e. publishing companies are spending a lot of marketing dollars). In many ways, the publishers are investing in the organizations performing the reviews, and we all see it's hard to stay objective when there is fear that a purblisher will pull a large percentage of one's "funding" if they are not reviewed them in a positive light.

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b0rsuk
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For an example of game reviever corruption, have a look at this:

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/11/30/rumor-gamespots-editorial-director-fired-over-kane-and-lynch-rev/

Yes, it's a rumor, and not officially confirmed, what did you expect ? Read from the bottom.

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