The worst of both worlds (PCs & Consoles)

[taltamir]

Name em. right now you 2 are using "spectral evidence"

And you are not using any evidence at all, just passing off your beliefs as fact.

I can't off the top of my head recall which games were bugfree on the PC. memory is funny that way. I will get back to you on that if it comes to me.

PS. just because a game is old and simple doesn't make it less buggy. We actually had a video game crash because of shovelware and super buggy games... in the early 1980s

 

[exar333]

I think indie and small games are the way of the future. The internet and digital distribution has lessened the need for publishers, and even the big dev studios are finding it difficult to remain profitable because of these huge games. If you spend millions on a game, and it sells badly, you've just wasted a lot of money. If you make 10 small games instead, doesnt really matter if one of them does badly.

We had both of these up until around 10 years ago and they all got swallowed-up by the 'big boys'. Phone games are amusing, but nothing I want to pay $50 for and enjoy for years. Deep and immersive games just cost too much for small devs to make anymore. I almost think game development itself needs to evolve to make games on a much leaner budget for the market to survive.

Games like MW and BlOps are examples of uninspiring cash-cows with little substance and over-the-top stories.

 

[exar333]

Even if DLC has been around since 2005, its definitely still a part of the "New" videogame industry. I would probably say that the "New" videogame industry, and the death of the small studios, started around the time that Quake 3 was released. Before games like that, small teams could create good games. Now, it takes legions of programmers.

DLC = downloadable content

This actually used to be free and the game developers would release additional maps, models, etc. because they also loved the games and were players themselves. Not like today where ROI is the big key, not the love of the game or genre.

 

[taltamir]

We had both of these up until around 10 years ago and they all got swallowed-up by the 'big boys'. Phone games are amusing, but nothing I want to pay $50 for and enjoy for years. Deep and immersive games just cost too much for small devs to make anymore. I almost think game development itself needs to evolve to make games on a much leaner budget for the market to survive.

Games like MW and BlOps are examples of uninspiring cash-cows with little substance and over-the-top stories.

ever heard of popcap games?

 

[Cerb]

We had both of these up until around 10 years ago and they all got swallowed-up by the 'big boys'. Phone games are amusing, but nothing I want to pay $50 for and enjoy for years. Deep and immersive games just cost too much for small devs to make anymore. I almost think game development itself needs to evolve to make games on a much leaner budget for the market to survive.

Games like MW and BlOps are examples of uninspiring cash-cows with little substance and over-the-top stories.

Yet, how much does it really take?

If you got 10-30 creative and passionate people, and a good engine license (forget full source, here--the days of a modern engine with a few people are gone), with a cohesive vision, but differing opinions on the best ways to make it happen, would you really not be able to get a good game out of it?

My thinking on that is that it isvery much like Hollywood: when it is seems easier to spend money to tackle a problem, they spend money to do it, then say, "oh, it takes all these people all this time, and all these extra resources." IMO, much like movies, there's no reason that creative people making it can't do excellent work with far fewer resources. However, as long as investors and/or publishers believe that it must be so, those smaller groups will have a harder time developing their game(s).

 

[Veliko]

Then give me a count on lines of code.

On what? Why should I even care?

 

[taltamir]

alright, I remembered a bug free game. Valve's Portal.
Hilariously http://portalbugs.blogspot.com/
A blog created in 2009 to list all the bugs in portal valve... there is not a SINGLE ONE LISTED!

Another very well polished game is blizzard starcraft 2, now SC2 is not COMPLETELY bug free, but it relatively has very few bugs.

Compare that to games like fable or dragonage that were released crawling with bugs... dragonage has many bugs in all platform that are simply not going to be fixed, ever, period.

 

[Ancalagon44]

We had both of these up until around 10 years ago and they all got swallowed-up by the 'big boys'. Phone games are amusing, but nothing I want to pay $50 for and enjoy for years. Deep and immersive games just cost too much for small devs to make anymore. I almost think game development itself needs to evolve to make games on a much leaner budget for the market to survive.

Games like MW and BlOps are examples of uninspiring cash-cows with little substance and over-the-top stories.

Thats a misconception - we can have complex and deep games, even with limited budgets. Most development budgets these days are spent on the engine and graphics, including high resolution artwork.

You can have your indepth games produced by an indie company, you just need to be willing for it to not look as good as modern games.

 

[Beev]

I wish gaming never became mainstream.

THIS.

The glory days pre-PS2 were fantastic.