Jimquisition: An Industry of Pitiful Cowards

[Jodell88]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/9010-An-Industry-Of-Pitiful-Cowards

I think Jim Sterling is pretty much spot on here. What is your take on it?

 

[darkewaffle]

He thinks there's "tremendous buzz and excitement" around... Amnesia?

He lacks scope and perspective. Success to him is not the same as success to a business. "Do fine, just do ok!" is not a mission statement, so where he sees no problem, businesses see stagnation, risk, and opportunity/need for growth. He's a pretty prototypical nerd that is a bit out of touch with the real world and, for unknown reasons, thinks that the video game industry is somehow an anomaly that will not inevitably regress to the mean.

Like it or not, as the industry grows (and has grown) the average gamer changes (and has changed).

 

[Subyman]

Nice video. I can certainly relate with the FF bit. I loved the original NES/SNES/PS FF games. I was extremely pumped for FF13 after skipping FF12, but within a few hours of playing I took out the disc and never played it again. The action based combat with timers and linear hall ways were extremely disappointing. I liked having time to figure out my next move and plan my attack, but with FF13 I was constantly pressured to hurry or I'd lose exp bonuses at the end. Screw that. FF games have always been relaxing and tactical, but FF13 threw that out the window for a timer.

I'm happy to hear Square is going back to the games that made Square popular in the first place. I'd play the hell out of an FF with a turn based system combined with the incredible cinematics that are possible these days.

I don't even bother looking at most third person games anymore because they are so incredibly watered down.

 

[Subyman]

He thinks there's "tremendous buzz and excitement" around... Amnesia?

He lacks scope and perspective. Success to him is not the same as success to a business. "Do fine, just do ok!" is not a mission statement, so where he sees no problem, businesses see stagnation, risk, and opportunity/need for growth. He's a pretty prototypical nerd that is a bit out of touch with the real world and, for unknown reasons, thinks that the video game industry is somehow an anomaly that will not inevitably regress to the mean.

Like it or not, as the industry grows (and has grown) the average gamer changes (and has changed).

FWIW, Amnesia sold well over 1M copies without any big publisher advertising and a small indie budget. They sold so much on word of mouth. That shows there was a huge void in a market that big publishers considered dead.

 

[SMOGZINN]

I think he is close, but missed it by a hair.

I don't think they they are got afraid that what they do is no longer going to sell, as much as they all wanted to be making the things that makes the most money.

Like what he mentioned about single player games no longer sell. Of course everyone knew that single player games still sell, they just knew that multiplayer games are so much easier to make and make so much more money.

They noticed that they can spend 4 years crafting an excellent single player game, at the cost of 10 million dollars that people will spend 40 hours playing and you will sell maybe 20 million worth, then start over and do it all again. Not a bad proposition, that is until you see CompanyX spent a year making War FPS Clone #123, spending approximately 200 dollars for some Chinese programmers to modify War FPS Close #50 engine, and to pay Jethro the Janitor to cough out some dialog they wrote on the back of some lightly used toilet paper, and people line up a week ahead of time to get it first, play it on average for 10,000 hours (until War FPS Clone #124 comes out in 12 months) and ComanyX makes approximately a trillion dollars on it, then they start to produce DLC.

Right about then they started to think that their large breasted survival horror heroine just might have to fight a war with 8-12 of her best friends in their next installment of (no longer) single player game.

 

[Subyman]

They noticed that they can spend 4 years crafting an excellent single player game, at the cost of 10 million dollars that people will spend 40 hours playing and you will sell maybe 20 million worth, then start over and do it all again. Not a bad proposition, that is until you see CompanyX spent a year making War FPS Clone #123, spending approximately 200 dollars for some Chinese programmers to modify War FPS Close #50 engine, and to pay Jethro the Janitor to cough out some dialog they wrote on the back of some lightly used toilet paper, and people line up a week ahead of time to get it first, play it on average for 10,000 hours (until War FPS Clone #124 comes out in 12 months) and ComanyX makes approximately a trillion dollars on it, then they start to produce DLC.

Hyperbole confirmed.

 

[DigDog]

jim.. bleah. making mountains out of molehills. finding issues where there aren't any and getting scandalized by things present *mostly* in his imagination.
i'd rather watch zero punctuation.

 

[BSim500]

From subject video : "Why is it now surprised that the type of game that it used to revel in the success of, the type of game that make Square Enix's f**king name, can actually be successful? Why is that a shock to them? This should be what they know. The fact that Square Enix is now sat there thinking, "Oh wow, we didn't know people liked these games" after randomly one day deciding that nobody liked them is not only kind of sad but a dismal indictment on the way in which modern big budget game publishers think... Phil Harrison and a number of other be-suited executives kept telling us single player games didn't sell anymore despite swathes of examples to the contrary..."

etc, etc. Agree 99%. The other 1% being the guy on the video whilst correct is probably a little naive as to their motive for doing half of what they do. Eg, they don't genuinely believe that single player games are unpopular, they're just making excuses to focus more on booting out as many cut-and-paste multi-player "Call of Battlefield Honor 19" clones as possible because they're cheaper. All that extraneous "plot" and "voice acting" is *such* a hassle for some devs.

Having said that, they do seem to have a knack for mis-reading some SP games too. Whilst Square Enix did a pretty good job with Deus Ex: HR, they did lose the plot somewhat over Thief, even after spending years talking to the Thief fanbase asking them for input as to what "works" and what doesn't. Even though it didn't make it to final game, they fact they were considering "XP headshots" simply reveals the ongoing obsession with trying to make every game fit a "generic trend" square hole (no matter what shape the "peg" is) rather than actually make a game stand on its own two feet and stand out for being different in a positive sense... (The generic trend being "Every game must now be a hybrid FPS/RTS with XP points & skills in, every game must have upgradable weapons, every game must be saturated with micro-cutscenes even when they break rather than add to immersion by constantly taking control away from the player, every game must treat the player like a child giving them little "rewards" like candy for trivialities", etc). Edit: Having said that, "Score 4 headshots" is precisely a bonus objective on one of the first two "NuThief" missions. Enough said!

 

[BrightCandle]

I think these companies just come up with any excuse they can find to justify their decisions and then work out a marketing angle. Square Enix tries something, doesn't sell as well so decide to go back to the game style before and then tells everyone it is returning its focus.

My bigger concern remains that the small indies are the only ones trying new ideas, minecraft should not have been made by 2 guys in their basement who then raked in millions, it should have been made by a big company with big budget and beautiful graphics as Everquest landmark is showing. The fear that is really hurting them is all around not trying new ideas and mechanics, instead they make their games look like all the other AAA games. In the case of Square they were just trying to modernise their genres, practically it didn't work out well, but returning back to the tried and tested wont bring about change either.

 

[clok1966]

jim.. bleah. making mountains out of molehills. finding issues where there aren't any and getting scandalized by things present *mostly* in his imagination.
i'd rather watch zero punctuation.

the Rush Limbaugh of gaming.. make a good point or two, then go bat Skit silly with the rest so nobody can take you even remotely serious.