Are traditional games under threat?

[Sabrewings]

LMAO. Someone was bored.

Clearly doesn't change the fact that I'm right. Otherwise surely you would have some rebuttal of substance? Personally, I dislike when someone misrepresents a situation, be it intentionally or unintentionally. Then having attitude when someone tries to correct it is in poor taste.

Is it a fact that the game isn't finished yet?

Indeed it is. However, presenting one fact out of context misrepresents the situation, and you know it.

What year is it?

2016. Looking at what they're building, show me someone who could do better, while simultaneously standing up four studio locations.

Edit: I see your edit now. My follow-up:

Yes, I know, there's a whole thread by people who think that no one can talk bad about the situation. Too bad.

We critique it fairly often. If you paid attention you might see that.

Until then, consider me a skeptic.

Skeptic is fine, just please don't misrepresent the facts.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Clearly doesn't change the fact that I'm right. Otherwise surely you would have some rebuttal of substance? Personally, I dislike when someone misrepresents a situation, be it intentionally or unintentionally. Then having attitude when someone tries to correct it is in poor taste.

Indeed it is. However, presenting one fact out of context misrepresents the situation, and you know it.

2016. Looking at what they're building, show me someone who could do better, while simultaneously standing up four studio locations.

I didn't address it because nothing you said changed anything and wasn't misinformation as you want to put it. Your responses were your opinions and most of it just being anal in the way you broke it down making a long winded quote that wasn't needed. The only thing you referenced in one quote is statements BY the guy who is being accused of scamming people. Not exactly a solid defense. There isn't anything I'm going to say or you to me that's going to change views. The game isn't out, they continue to run low on money and push dates out, however they continue to put out ships to sell. They KNOW this works. They can do it indefinitely and have. If people stop buying those ships, it's over. They blew through the money, this isn't a new discussion. Sure they make progress, they HAVE to show some sort of progress or people would lose interest.

Again, if you truly believed in it you wouldn't bother. You are trying to defend your money. Contrary to what it may seem, I want to see it succeed. Let's hope it does, but Squadron 32 isn't what people asked for and is essentially wasted time and money. Chris wants to compare this to Eve and WoW, stating this game will never be done. The difference is, those games HAD a finished product and expanded. He's going backwards and tries to defend it as some genius plan. The engine is starting to show age, and so far all you have is a couple disjointed tech demos and a boatload of expensive pixels. If that's good enough for you, then so be it. Some of us will continue to be realistic and skeptical. It's fine to be an optimist, but pretty much the consensus around here is no one can say anything bad about the game. None of that means anything if the people controlling the finances are being clever.

 

[sxr7171]

There have been simple time waster games since the beginning. The NES had plenty. The issue today is that these AAA story based games have budgets equaling and exceeding hollywood blockbuster movies. So there isn't room for taking risks just like in hollywood. Rehashing the same formulaic content is a safe bet. There have been great examples of story based 15-20 hour games recently and some duds/rehashes.

I enjoyed AC Black Flag because I didn't play any of the previous games in the series. But the ones that came out after I couldn't bother with to finish. The new Tomb Raider games are quite stunning in how good they are.

Maybe due to the cost of production we see maybe only 3-4 major AAA games a year anymore and of that maybe only 1 or 2 appeal.

In TV also there's room for cheaply made reality TV, but you can't argue something like "the amazing race" is cheap to make. But big props for mentioning MASH. One of the greatest shows ever made.

 

[Craig234]

SXR, what's new is the development of a new genre.

It used to be there were 'cheap' games - solitaire or other simple games - and 'premium' games - Infocom text adventures used to sell for ~$50, games from "Quake" to "Lemmings" the same.

Changes include both the development of the 'Indie' developers more, and more relevant for this thread, the type of game that has 'premium' quality but by using re-usable content can be played thousands of hours - replacing 'traditional' games.

For example, An MMO used to perhaps cost $50 plus a subscription. Now, you can play MMO's of similar quality for free, because the business model has changed to be funded by a few 'whales'.

I've read that over 90% of these MMO players don't even spend on the game. Thousands of hours of good free gaming is a hell of a competitor to a game asking for $50 for 20 hours of gameplay.

But this isn't even about the F2P model as much as that newer gaming genre of games that have thousands of hours of gameplay for low cost competing with games with expensive 'scripted' content. Which is why I used that TV analogy, an expensive per minute 'scripted' show with expensive sets and such against the very cheap 'reality tv' type programming.

Though the pressure in that example is toward the show producers, not the customers, since both are 'free' to the customer.

I mentioned new billionare owner of World of Tanks, the 40 year old in Russia; the game had almost a half billion revenue annually. League of Legends, another game like I'm describing, alone had $1.5 billion revenue - 10% of the entire gaming industry revenue. You don't see 'traditional' games with numbers like that.

If someone is putting a thousand hours in League of Legends, how much does that decrease their buying a MORE expensive title to play for 20 hours of scripted content?

It seems to me games are better than they've ever been - lots of quality, traditional type games made. But this new type of game seems a possible threat to that, just as hand-written quality RPG's are now a more low-budget market it seems.

What this would mean if it happens is likely more (and better) of that 'type' of game with long replayability and re-use of content, and fewer and lower budget 'traditional' games.

The difference even sort of pre-dates computer games - games like checkers, chess and card games had lots of 'free to play' replayability, while quality novels were purchased, consume-once entertainment competing with them.

I'd prefer the people predicting the more expensive per hour played games continue to be made are right.

 

[sxr7171]

You definitely don't see scripted games with revenue like that except GTA. But also not every MMO gets that kind of revenue. If they did then devs would flood the market attempting to get a piece of that pie.

MMOs like that target a certain kind of player. Drawing that kind of revenue I suppose involves being universal to the point that that enough people choose to put a lot of time into it such that a subset will pay enormous sums of real money to dominate large player bases. It's one way to make lots of revenue.

But given that the average age of a gamer now is mid 30s, I think there is a mix of people who want a lot of quantity and those who want quality. It seems there are relatively comfortably employed people who will drop hundreds and thousands into some of these games and I would imagine their entire lives outside work revolve around that game. They may spend the amounts of money that others spend on dating, pets, vacations etc. But there are also those who will spend $60 and don't have more than a few hours a week to game. They just want a good short scripted game.

I think MMOs have expanded the revenue ascribed to gaming in that they seem to be drawing from funds that would otherwise be spent real world activities and to a point also on funds used on other games. But in a world, let's say, without MMOs would the people who spend on those games currently spend that money on repeated $60 purchases of scripted games? I think they would spend less on gaming as a whole. So they've increased the market size imho. But I also agree that such games have taken something from the revenue base of scripted games. But the bigger threat imho is mobile games that are also transaction based.

But there will always be a certain subset of people who only buy shorter 20 games and there are devs who cater to that market. But the MMOization of regular games is disconcerting in the same vein as that thread complaining about every game being open world now. But there are people who will buy multiplayer MMOized games and just play the campaign and stop. The Division was like that for me.

I thought the campaign alone was great and so was Phantom Pain. Both sucked me in for a short while though but only about 1 month. I was ready to move on after that and honestly I do think there is a shortage of good scripted games now. I've mostly spent money on VR games this year instead.

Companies will look to tap into all markets but even now the average game has DLC and they want upwards of $90 for all the content. Sometimes the DLC is extra scripted content and sometimes it's multiplayer based to get people to keep playing. But outside of those few big moneymakers that somehow got the formula right, most people tire of the replay aspects of these games and have money ready for the next scripted or otherwise game.

I think there will always be people buying scripted games just as there are still people buying novels. There will always be devs willing to make those games despite the high risk. No doubt making a MMO is lower risk in that they cost less to make but also there is risk in that those games are duds if they can't hold their player base and there's a lot of time and money involved in courting the player base and keeping things fair and attractive for people to keep playing. If the player base doesn't hold the whales wont spend their money on the game.

So I look at it as a different strategy to get people to part with their money and it comes with its own costs and headaches. I am thankful for whatever scripted games we still get and I think we will continue to see a few really good ones every year. It is harder to find enough good content I will admit but VR for me has filled the void and so far in that space scripted is the main push, but I expect to see some MMOs in that space as well.

 

[ImpulsE69]

If someone is putting a thousand hours in League of Legends, how much does that decrease their buying a MORE expensive title to play for 20 hours of scripted content?

As someone who played said game for many years and never put a dime into it, or the 4-5 years I played Eve Online, for many it simply won't matter. They will continue to buy the games they like. Just because I played those didn't mean that's ALL I played or continue to play. The gamer types haven't changed, just the number of gamers have. Sure you will have people who won't buy a story based single player game, just as you have people that ONLY play RPG's, or ONLY play CoD. Heck I ONLY play multiplayer in FPS, never the single player campaign. That doesn't prevent me from buying a good single player FPS. Maybe we are all the extreme case, but I think peoples Steam catalogs show that people still buy a variety of games.

If the devs all wander to the great cash cow that is F2P, or MMO, it will simply become over saturated and most will lose (heck most do already), and go on to try some other avenue. Most MMO's don't do that well. WoW, DOTA, LOL are all extremes in the success category, and still pale in comparison to Korean MMO's.

You also cannot discount what Steam has done to pricing of games. It probably plays a HUGE role in what you are talking about. Maybe at this point on the PC side, moreso than anything else.

Console and mobile drive the gaming market right now, and I think give it 5-10 years, mobile will exclusively drive the gaming market sadly. That being said, story type games are GREAT for mobile platforms, whereas action isn't. (who knows maybe that will change).

 

[Stringjam]

 

[Craig234]

Take the bickering about that game to another thread... or not, but not here...

 

[cmdrdredd]

As someone who played said game for many years and never put a dime into it, or the 4-5 years I played Eve Online, for many it simply won't matter. They will continue to buy the games they like. Just because I played those didn't mean that's ALL I played or continue to play. The gamer types haven't changed, just the number of gamers have. Sure you will have people who won't buy a story based single player game, just as you have people that ONLY play RPG's, or ONLY play CoD. Heck I ONLY play multiplayer in FPS, never the single player campaign. That doesn't prevent me from buying a good single player FPS. Maybe we are all the extreme case, but I think peoples Steam catalogs show that people still buy a variety of games.

If the devs all wander to the great cash cow that is F2P, or MMO, it will simply become over saturated and most will lose (heck most do already), and go on to try some other avenue. Most MMO's don't do that well. WoW, DOTA, LOL are all extremes in the success category, and still pale in comparison to Korean MMO's.

You also cannot discount what Steam has done to pricing of games. It probably plays a HUGE role in what you are talking about. Maybe at this point on the PC side, moreso than anything else.

Console and mobile drive the gaming market right now, and I think give it 5-10 years, mobile will exclusively drive the gaming market sadly. That being said, story type games are GREAT for mobile platforms, whereas action isn't. (who knows maybe that will change).

This is all true. Many people do enjoy a variety of titles and aren't going to simply play one game or one type of game forever and ignore everything else. I used to play Destiny a lot on PS4(I stopped playing a while back) but I didn't ignore other releases.Same for when I played FFXI Online for years and dipped my toes into WoW for a bit but never got far. I always tried to keep up on the latest titles and was able to play them too.

I think what has happened is gaming itself has grown and society's general idea of it has changed from "that thing that my nerd brother does with his friends" to something everyone can do without being labeled a nerd or whatever. Along with that is the rise of casual gamers. People who have some free time but not the patience for a 50hour RPG or the skill and reflexes to play an FPS with any ability. Sure they could learn to play it but most don't want to, they want more instant gratification. So for these types of people, a more easy to pick up game that doesn't cost $60 to get started is of real interest to them. They can try a game for a while if they don't like it they have nothing invested and can move on to another. If they happen to like the game they might be inclined to spend a few bucks here and there on items to increase their game time, competitiveness, or enjoyment of the game. This type of gamer won't buy the latest Call of Duty or invest in the new Playstation model and the developers and publishers know that. They understand the markets are different. Gaming is no longer just for computer geeks or kids with a Nintendo. It's a global market for people of all ages, and even adults with full time responsibilities play video games now.

Development costs for traditional games has skyrocketed and for many small time developers that might be just a couple guys, they can't compete. That's where the indie scene came from. Back in the days of Commodore 64, DOS, and even Atari there was an endless amount of releases that were developed by a guy in his garage or basement maybe with the help of some friends. Many of the titles weren't of any quality. It was a cash grab, trying to get in on the market. There were literally thousands of games all over the place that had little value. The real problem for many people interested in playing video games was trying to weed out the bad titles from the good. Since there were no real gaming magazines and no Internet, it was difficult to find out what games were good and what to avoid. There was just too much shovelware flooding the market and a lot of it was just broken games that didn't work correctly. After that Nintendo tried forcing developers to go through them to get a "seal of quality". Basically nobody was releasing broken or unfinished titles. Not all of them were good of course but they were functional. As gaming moved on with better graphics and into the Playstation era with CGI and then to more complex titles with voice acting, development costs went way up and pushed out the small time developers. The rise of big publishers with the money to produce the titles that were more or less expected by gamers pushed them out.

Fast forward to the Wii and the rise of mobile phones and you have the casual market which was previously untapped. Everyone has a computer in their pocket now and with the Wii even older adults can play video games without feeling like they're playing with a kid's toy and you weren't a social outcast for it. This is the market that most of the free to play titles are trying to tap into. The casual gamer who isn't interested in the hundred hour traditional RPG or the fast paced shooter games. Most of the casual gamers that I know personally aren't willing to spend any money on new games and they don't understand why their kids continually want new games for the PS4 or Xbox when they can play the same game for hundreds of hours for free. The markets are just different. Indie games came back into the market out of the want for getting paid for their work on a game but not having a publisher to market it for them. The rise of casual gaming helped push this a bit not because they wanted to tap the casual market but they could see there was a market outside the big publisher. They just had to find a way to get their titles out there and with Steam, Xbox Live Arcade, and the PSN Store allowing them to self publish, they can get their title recognized. However in my opinion they also brought shovelware with them. Maybe not quite as bad as the old days of Atari and the early computer systems because now we have the internet where you can find information and reviews on any game in existence, but I still find that a lot of indie titles have very little value to me as a game. Many developers build on a gimmick and run with it. Some people think that's fine, but it turns me off. Which brings me to my point. There will always be a gaming market that caters to everyone's interest now because the market is big enough to handle it. Playing videogames no longer makes you a social outcast. That is unless you don't go outside and would rather play your favorite game all the time instead.

 

[DaveSimmons]

What may continue happen is major studios make fewer story-based single-player AAA games.

But: Fallout 4 made giant piles of money for Bethesda. Borderlands II (which added more story) made piles of money for Gearbox. No Man's Sky got in trouble for being all empty sandbox without much of any story and had to give back giant piles of money.

So there is a trend for low-content repetition in online games, and a trend for big story based single-player games to also make money. It's not one or the other.

 

[Craig234]

Dave, that's the current, both games exist - not the topic about the trends. You don't predict how big a market share SSD's will have by looking how many are selling last month.

 

[JimmiG]

Well the "length" of a game is really only relevant for strictly linear games. A game like Monkey Island obviously has a fairly constant length for most players (depending on how long you spend solving puzzles), and the length is directly related to the production value/development budget (more dialog, animation, scenes etc. = longer game). With a "sandbox" type game, the length isn't really dependent on the budget or even the amount of "content".

I don't think the traditional, linear single player AAA game is going anywhere. The gaming genre as a whole is just more diversified than ever (I've played games since the early 90s), and storefronts like Steam tend to push sandbox and indie games so they're more visible (and most of them are 50 - 75% off most of the time...).

 

[Midwayman]

F2P games are a cancer. They encourage a grindy gameplay style that is annoying unless you pay. The costs for the games are also insane. $50 for a single freaking model on some of them. The entire game would probably be under $30 in a traditional model, yet if you are a serious player you'll spend hundreds on it instead.