Videogames report on NPR

[T.Tashi]

I heard it on the way to work. They interviewed reps from Sony and Nintendo and interviewed a journalist and a few callers, and it was bad news for the industry in general.

In a nutshell, the industry has ceased to grow while development costs continue to skyrocket. Most of the blame was put on two related factors:

lack of genre diversity with the fault going to two genres specifically: Shooters and sports.

That lack of diversity has stagnated the market.

The report was as lacking in diversity as the industry, though a few callers tried to counter balance that. But basically the industry has hit a wall in their attempt to pull new gamers in: costs are growing. ROI is not.

Ironically the two games currently leading the next gen charge, are 1st and 3rd person shooters.

You can probably find an archive of it on npr.org if anyone's interested.

[Ocelot]

While I can partially agree here, I just love them damn shooters. Seriously, I cannot peel myself away at times. Diversity is key...yes, but what we need is quality thrown into the mix. I'm finding some RPG's are simply too stale, Adventure games lack...well....adventure!

As of late, it seems the quality is abundant in the FPS/Racing genre. Now if we can incorporate this effort into a broad base of genres and sub genres...we are in for a real treat.

[Gadfly2317]

A call for "diversity."

What else would we expect from a media outlet for liberal propaganda. :D

[Tappy_Tibbons]

LOL @ Diversity as well...oh noes...it's teh liberal media!!

I will say that I used to be such a rabid console gamer, I'd be in heaven right now if I still appreciated the consoles as much as I used to. I don't own any of the 3 and don't really plan on it in any case for the immiediate future. I gotta see more innovation.

[Mochan]

Adventure games? What adventure games! There were like, 2 adventure games released this entire millenium.

RPGs are still hurting and it's very hard to find a halfway decent RPG (unless you get a Diablo or JRPG).

It's true, FPS are the love of the gaming community but damn I wish RPGs and some of the other genres would get some love, too!

[Ocelot]

Adventure games? What adventure games! There were like, 2 adventure games released this entire millenium.

RPGs are still hurting and it's very hard to find a halfway decent RPG (unless you get a Diablo or JRPG).

It's true, FPS are the love of the gaming community but damn I wish RPGs and some of the other genres would get some love, too!

There are even some J-rpgs that leave me in snoozville. Games also Suikoden 4, Oblivion, FFX and even Dragon Quest 8 are decent but don't hold my attention the way FF7, FF2 or even Morrowind did. What happened? Lack of story, repetitiveness......need change? I think I'm just a moody gamer...I like RPGs some days and tactical shooters the next....and then a old fashion chaingun gore-fest.

For Some reason though, I can never tire of games like: Splinter Cell, Metal Gear, and especially not Thief, Zelda or Deus Ex. I could play those for ever.

[Cuddly Knife]

I was kind of over-saturated last gen with all of the frist-person shooters, and it only seems to be getting worse, seeing how even the PS3 launched with a FPS.

The Adventure genre I think can make a big leap in popularity if companies like the ones who did Farenheit(I can't think of the US name of this game).

[Gadfly2317]

I think I'm just a moody gamer...I like RPGs some days and tactical shooters the next....and then a old fashion chaingun gore-fest.


I can relate to that. I'm very much in the mood for a gore-fest; but I really want to do that on a 360 or a Ps3. . .that kind of play really is enhanced by graphics, sound and AI; sure would have liked to have my cake and eat it too--the Wii with actual next-gen graphics and a gory shooter.

The NPR criticisms--lack of diversity, I just don't know if I believe that right now. I just picked up Shadow of the Collosus, just finished Okami and in the last 2 years have enjoyed massive diversity, perhaps as good as its ever been. I'm at the point I'm about to gag on diverse, experimental, innovative, artistic games and just want to settle in with a nice run-and-gun and solid racing-sim.

I'm gonna pull the snob-card and blame it again on gamers--there are too many narrow minded gamers who've totally ignored brilliance, innovation and diversity in favor of some pretty crappy games. And I blame non-gamers too, for being ignorant entertainment bigots who refuse to even consider gaming as a legitimate form of art/entertainment. . .as something crass and stupid and for geeks and kids only.

The 60% of the public who are completely ignorant of perhaps the most powerful interactive entertainment medium ever created--you've gotta put some blame there too for lack of industry growth. Bigotry against certain types of play (but golf is a perfectly mature and reasonable way to spend your time-- while destroying the environment :rolleyes: )

Following some dumb-ass reality show is ok, but you mention you play videogames in some circles, and there are people who will look at you like you just said "yeah, I'm 30 and I still wet the bed. That's normal. Right?"

[T.Tashi]

Well reports like these always feature one journalist (usually the main interviewee) who claims to play games and be "hardcore" just as this guy did and what I typically find is their knowledge and range of games is very limited. Just like the woman who called in gushing about Counterstrike and claiming to be hardcore, but never plays consoles cause the controller is too confusing and the graphics aren't as good.:rolleyes:

So take the report with a grain of salt. The main point of the industry hitting a lull is of obvious concern and shooter and sports are over represented, but the point of diversity and games lacking emotion and some other similar comments that were made were made, I think largely in ignorance.

[Cuddly Knife]

Well, to be fair, when it was nothing but 2-D gaming on consoles, all you had was side-scrolling action games that usually relied on no more than 3 buttons. Now that we play in 3-D, everyone wants to be immersed in the 3-D world, and FPS is the obvious choice to give gamers that sense of being in the game. Most people can't drive in a car at 200 mph because they'll never be racers, or even have the technical or physical ability to do such a thing if they actually had the chance, so they'll play that games allow that to happen in the comfort of ones own home.

Is it me, or are people trying to escape reality by playing fantasy games with real-world situations? Maybe that explains why shooters, racers, and sports are so popular.

[Gadfly2317]

Is it me, or are people trying to escape reality by playing fantasy games with real-world situations? Maybe that explains why shooters, racers, and sports are so popular.

Maybe. But also, if you look outside the realm of videogames in America, the culture and population at large is a violent car loving sports-fixated population. So that is also reflected in the gaming population as well.

This goes a long ways towards explaining why much of the gaming coming out of Japan is so different than the gaming coming out of America.

[ilnadmy]

The "innovative" games you guys mentioned (Shadow of the Colossus, Okami, all those nifty DS games) are all made by Japanese development houses. When it comes to innovation, those Japanese gamers can't get enough, which in a way is pushing us forward. To counter-balance that, you have the good ol' American "if-it-works-don't-fix-it" corporate thinking that causes games to stagnate and, ironically, actually erodes their share of the market.

However, there are American development houses that try to push forward. Say what you want about Morrowind, it brought free-form, wide-open worlds to the mainstream, and did it quite admirably. The guys making BioShock (I wanna say Irrational Games) are also pushing forward with new ideas for an FPS. I mean for God's sake, to take down one of the Big Brothers takes a good 10 minutes of solid fighting, and they've got that whole "every enemy has a life" dynamic going on, where some enemies won't bother you if you don't bother them, they'll just keep doing their thing.

Personally though, I don't think the video game market is anywhere near being in trouble. 100 million PS2's were sold last gen, not including Xbox and GC. Halo 2 brought in more on its first few days than most movies. The next gen of consoles is being launched to huge fanfare, not just among gamers. Names like PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo have become household names. Personally, I feel the industry is only moving forward.

[Renzatic Gear]

I wouldn't say Bioshock is trying to redefine FPS games, rather they're trying to perfect what they did with System Shock 2. I'm a big ass Looking Glass Studios dork, so I should know. :thumbsup:

But to get on topic here, the biggest problem is that the entire game industry is ran by a handful of very large corporations instead of forward thinking creative-mind types. Back in the 80's and early 90's you had a whole bunch of people doing alot of neat things simply because they could. Now you have companies making games based on target demographics and advertising skews. It's almost like making games is more like working on an assembly line than a creative process nowadays.

Looking at it from a Hollywood perspective, it's like every game released is trying to be the next big Hollywood blockbuster, but you don't have the indie scene to help counterbalance it. Everyone likes a good Summer blockbuster flick like Con-Air, but if that's all you have to choose from, things'll gets old real fast.

[ilnadmy]

Oh man, Con Air was such an awesome movie.

I personally don't think it's a bad thing that the games industry is run by a bunch of suits. After all, they're the guys that helped bring the industry to the huge audience it enjoys today, and in most cases profits = giving customers what they want. Once people start getting bored with the status quo of games, you'll get people like Kojima who bring an entirely new way of implementing story and plot into a game, or Miyamoto, who keeps giving you new and innovative ways to play games, or Creative Assembly, who put you in charge of a huge empire and put a new spin on RTS games. Hell, even Relic just brought something new and unique with Company of Heroes, and Warhammer 40k before that.

I thus don't think that being run by businessmen is such a bad thing. Programmers and developers are just that: programmers and developers. The reason they don't run games companies is because they make horrible business decisions that end up running them out of business, and THAT does not help us gamers.

And I haven't played System Shock 2, so I can't comment on that. I heard it's awesome though.

[shogun]

The problem is that as games get more and more expensive to produce, developers have so much riding on each title that failure is no longer an option..And as we all know, the best way to avoid failure is to stick to tried-and-true paths to success.

The problem that I have...(and I don't think I'm alone in this) is that most genres have simply not evolved that much in the last decade or so. Maybe other people take longer to "get used" to nextgen graphics, but for me it all loses its sparkle 5 minutes into a play session at a Best Buy kiosk....then I start wondering why Burnout, NFS, Madden and the like all cost sixty bucks when they play like the versions released years ago. I can't help but feel that game companies keep trying to pawn off the same game on me every year...which would be bad enough if the prices were as stagnant as the creativity.

[folken001]

Only reason why developmental cost has sky rocketed is the fact that M$ has turned console war into a hardware race. It's like the whole industry rushed through a generation. Think about it, Xbox came out a year after PS2 but 360 came out a year before PS3. Sony was dragged into it with no choice. Nintendo bravely decided not to follow but Wii will most likely end up the 3rd again. And M$ will continue this until they are decleared #1.

Iike I said before, M$ is the worst thing that could ever happen to the videogame industry.

[Ocelot]

The NPR criticisms--lack of diversity, I just don't know if I believe that right now. I just picked up Shadow of the Collosus, just finished Okami and in the last 2 years have enjoyed massive diversity, perhaps as good as its ever been. I'm at the point I'm about to gag on diverse, experimental, innovative, artistic games


Yeah, there were definetly some very innovative titles. SoTC was in a league of it's own along with Ico and Okami...among others. These games were above and beyond what I expected to see and experience in a game.

It just seems these types of games are so few and far between, which could be a blessing in it's own way. I would like to see another Ultima Underworld, Thief, Deus Ex, Maniac Mansion, (an Actual Tombraider game...sorry Legend).

BioShock is one game I am looking forward to checking out.

[Gadfly2317]

Yeah, there were definetly some very innovative titles. SoTC was in a league of it's own along with Ico and Okami...among others. These games were above and beyond what I expected to see and experience in a game.

Hmmm. I think that kinda helps clarify my thinking on this. See, I look at Katamari, Mercury, EEE, Kirby's Canvas Curse, Trauma Center and others as extremely innovative and/or artistic-leaning.

But when you say things like Okami and SoTC are few and far between, the problem is clearer. The big-budget, ambitious titles are rarely ALSO innovative and outside the lines. Sure there are plenty of ugly little titles, or some low-cost handheld titles that dare to give us innovative gameplay. But really, maybe that's why I bailed on consoles for awhile. Right now for me, Okami has kick started a craving for huge ambitious sprawling epic titles--that are not military realism. And mostly, about the only concession we normally get from Xbox/360 is Sci-fi militarism that still, aside from the monsters, don't aesthetically stray far from realism, and still have the guns blazing. I know I said I'm personally ready for some gun play, but overall, it is pretty true that most graphically intense big budget titles fall solely in the genres mentioned in the NPR piece.

[Tappy_Tibbons]

Japanese devs innovative? LOL!!!!!!!!!!! Sure, they might be, but the public doesn't seem to care. We need another GENRE created right now. Bully is more innovative than any Japanese game this year.

[folken001]

Japanese devs innovative? LOL!!!!!!!!!!! Sure, they might be, but the public doesn't seem to care. We need another GENRE created right now. Bully is more innovative than any Japanese game this year.

The Elite Beat Agent is more innovative than Bully by trillion folds. Bully is just GTA in a school setting. Are you serious about it being innovative?

[folken001]

You aren't going to have too many new ideas when each game is going to cost you 20 million+. Yet, you can't avoid these costs because you need to make games suitable for the advanced hardwares.

Okami is a good example and it's hardly a radical game.

[Ocelot]

Hmmm. I think that kinda helps clarify my thinking on this. See, I look at Katamari, Mercury, EEE, Kirby's Canvas Curse, Trauma Center and others as extremely innovative and/or artistic-leaning.

But when you say things like Okami and SoTC are few and far between, the problem is clearer. The big-budget, ambitious titles are rarely ALSO innovative and outside the lines. Sure there are plenty of ugly little titles, or some low-cost handheld titles that dare to give us innovative gameplay. But really, maybe that's why I bailed on consoles for awhile. Right now for me, Okami has kick started a craving for huge ambitious sprawling epic titles--that are not military realism. And mostly, about the only concession we normally get from Xbox/360 is Sci-fi militarism that still, aside from the monsters, don't aesthetically stray far from realism, and still have the guns blazing. I know I said I'm personally ready for some gun play, but overall, it is pretty true that most graphically intense big budget titles fall solely in the genres mentioned in the NPR piece.

Yes sir, I know where you're coming from. I want those big gunz&ammo titles too, but the original titles are key aswell. I'm hoping my Wii and PS3 will deliver what I need.

I have yet to play Okami and Katimari. Looking forward to those titles but I'm sort not practicing what I'm preaching....I want GoW and Bioshock more than anything on PS3 right now. Zelda is the only title so far that is equal to what I'm after.

[Gadfly2317]

Japanese devs innovative? LOL!!!!!!!!!!! Sure, they might be, but the public doesn't seem to care. We need another GENRE created right now. Bully is more innovative than any Japanese game this year.

Right. The public doesn't care; that was a point I tried to make earlier. Okami was a traditional genre that went outside the box on story and art design, included a lot of cool gameplay innovation, and was also a really big ambitious game. But it sold like crap. (It's not flawless--game was way too easy--but if the world we live in were created by Intelligent Design, Okami would have sold a LOT better.)

As for Folken's assertion taht Bully is just GTA at a school. . . do you think he's right? Have you played Bully yet Tappy? I'm just curious, because I was thinking of getting it, but I haven't heard anyone talking about it and wondered if it was any good. It looked like a lot of fun, and Rockstar's satirical humor is good enough that I'd get the game, innovative or not.

[Cuddly Knife]

I played Bully all the way through a coupla weeks ago. It is GTA in a school setting, sans the hate and violence and blood. Far easier than any GTA I've played, yet it was way more enjoyable. Pretty much a mini-game fest, sprinkled with a little bit of fighting and shooting, like how GTA has turned into. I still prefer Saint's Row over any GTA-style game.

Dead Rising is a great game that breaks the mold in almost every way.

[trebor]

See, the way I look at it is that the problem isn't the suits pushing the cookie-cutter genres on gamers, but the gamers themselves. If gamers would reward companies who push innovative/creative games by buying the fricken things, then developers would try pushing the envelope a bit more.

Look at sales of Okami, arguably the most beautifully crafted game the PS2 has seen all year, and it tanked. I think it sold less than 200k copies, and when you consider the installed base of PS2's is over 100 million, it is a travesty. Maybe it's just the natural cynic in me, but, frankly gamers don't deserve to get any original games if they won't buy them.

In other words, mainstream gamers have proven time and time again that they will only spend the bucks on the "tried and true" rather then the unknown. But, the movie and music industries are identical, so in a way the utter mediocrity of the videogame industry proves that videogames are truly a mass-market form of entertainment.

[ilnadmy]

I think it depends on the market. Japanese gamers LOVE those quirky games, and they sell very well over there. In the US, people prefer the big 3: FPS, RTS, sports. Look at the number of first person shooters on consoles/PC. Look at the number of strategy games on the PC. Look at the number of sports games on both. It's ridiculous. How many damn Maddens do you really need?

[DrunkenThumbmaster]

I think the industry are looking at this the wrong way. First off if a game sells well people want it. There is no problem with any game that does well at retail because obviously it's giving people what they want so that's not bad. The problem comes when every other publisher tries to mimick that success to the point they abandon originailty.

Second I think Folken has somewhat of a point the hardware race needs to slowdown just when these devices get to mass market price points it's on to the next big thing. This gen shouldn't see new consoles until at least 7 years from now. That will allow devs not only to push the hardware completely but force them to come up with new play mechanics and different ways to tell the story.

All the innovation in the world isn't going to help as long as games are $50 and $60 bucks new. The industry needs to find ways of direct marketing being able to sell games to certain indivdual and be able to recoup and make a profit on the investments.

There just needs to be a different way to sell game. And milking existing customers for DLC will crash the industry faster than a E.T. sequeal.

[NEO-360]

Adventure games? What adventure games! There were like, 2 adventure games released this entire millenium.

RPGs are still hurting and it's very hard to find a halfway decent RPG (unless you get a Diablo or JRPG).

It's true, FPS are the love of the gaming community but damn I wish RPGs and some of the other genres would get some love, too!

Well, it depends if you've looked in the right place Mochan. If you want to play some great RPG's look no further than the PS2. Loaded with tons of great RPG's. Final Fantasy 12 just came out didnt it? Yep. No Adventure games? Gimme a break.

What do you call the Splinter Cell series? Or Ninja Gaiden Black? Or God Of War? Or The Metal Gear Series? The last Tomb Raider indeed was the best of its kind in a very long time. There are tons of great adventure games on the PS2, the Xbox, and the Xbox 360. The PS3 will have them in the near future. Other than that FPS's are indeed the creme of the crop in the videogame/ PC world.:p

[Mochan]

Take note I'm looking at this more from a PC point of view. Yes we did get stuff like Shenmue this millinium but I'm wailing more about how dried up the adventure genre is on the PC. A a decade or two back we had the golden age of adventure games with Sierra and Lucas Arts cranking out these critters like no tomorrow. Today we get a crappy Leisure Suit Larry sequel and the odd game like Fahrenheit.

RPGs, I said you either get a Diablo or JRPG. FF12 is a JRPG, right? Take note I am referring to a very specific kind of RPG.

Splinter Cell is a sneak shooter. Ninja Gaiden is an action game. Ditto God of War. MGS is a cinematic stealth action game. These aren't exactly RPGs or Adventure games. Tomb Raider I guess falls more under adventure. I think we aren't thinking of the same thing when we say "Adventure Game" though -- this is a well-defined genre in the PC gaming world.

[Robert-The-Rambler]

[QUOTE=Mochan]Take note I'm looking at this more from a PC point of view. Yes we did get stuff like Shenmue this millinium but I'm wailing more about how dried up the adventure genre is on the PC. A a decade or two back we had the golden age of adventure games with Sierra and Lucas Arts cranking out these critters like no tomorrow. Today we get a crappy Leisure Suit Larry sequel and the odd game like Fahrenheit.

It is a Lucas Arts game from 1995 and I'm mesmerized by the creativity of the mouse driven adventure game. The story is so interesting. At first glance it might seem like crap like Armageddon because it deals with an Asteroid on a collision course with Earth but it is so much more when you start the real story when you are transported to an alien world where the story is both mysterious and wonderful. You would expect nothing less from a Steven Spielberg idea and a George Lucas company. Afterall they brought us Indiana Jones.

And it was like a time warp for me. I had to actually configure my Audigy2 card in a DOS environment to work as a Soundblaster Pro. I've been playing on my backup PC right before bed almost every night lately. With the power available today and the fact that adventure games could look photorealistic because there isn't that much activity going on that requires so much video or CPU power I think the games could be successful on any platform much less a high powered PC.

By adventure game I mean a game where you use your wits to solve puzzles and EXPLORE to discover what lies next in the story and not to fight battles although perhaps a few fights would be welcome to spice things up but in an adventure indeed less is more and the more should be exploration and the fighting should be less otherwise you have an action game.

[Renzatic Gear]

Man..that was back when Lucasarts actually had some creativity. They were responsible for greats like Rescue on Fractulus, Loom, Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion, and Grim Fandango. Nowadays they just push out tons of tired Star Wars titles.

I miss them so much! :( :( :(

[ilnadmy]

Well you do have Dreamweaver: The Last Journey (or something like that...I probably trampled all over the name). But that's the only modern adventure game I recall. That and the Monkey Island game on the PS2.

[Mochan]

There's a Monkey Island game on PS2? LOL.

You're referring to Dream Fall the Last Journey I think. Or something like that. I think it's supposed to be a sequel to the Longest Journey adventure game that came out like 4 years ago. Like I said, there's hardly any adventure games coming out these days. I'm hard pressed to name enough to count on my fingers these days. The last few ones I recall are Dreamfall/whatever and also Fahrenheit. Which reminds me, I still haven't gotten around to playing Fahrenheit.

[DrunkenThumbmaster]

There's a Monkey Island game on PS2? LOL.

You're referring to Dream Fall the Last Journey I think. Or something like that. I think it's supposed to be a sequel to the Longest Journey adventure game that came out like 4 years ago. Like I said, there's hardly any adventure games coming out these days. I'm hard pressed to name enough to count on my fingers these days. The last few ones I recall are Dreamfall/whatever and also Fahrenheit. Which reminds me, I still haven't gotten around to playing Fahrenheit.

Fahrenheit or Indigo Prophecy in the states was a helluva a game. I don't know about the PC version but I played it on the PS2 and it used a lot of really cool control innovations to the point I wouldn't touch it on the PC without a gamepad.

Great story as well but it falls apart at the end a bit. Can't wait for there next game Heavy Rain.

[Cuddly Knife]

INDIGO PROPHECY! That's the name of the Local version! I'm a R-tard.

If there's anything that ever pulled me towards getting an updated pc to game on, it was Adventure(true) games and shmups, which the pc is king of.

BTW, Uru Online is coming finally. If only it was also on the 360.

[Mochan]

Gotta play that game. I have it, just for some reason haven't managed to play it yet. Too many other things going on, it's a shame.

[NEO-360]

Take note I'm looking at this more from a PC point of view. Yes we did get stuff like Shenmue this millinium but I'm wailing more about how dried up the adventure genre is on the PC. A a decade or two back we had the golden age of adventure games with Sierra and Lucas Arts cranking out these critters like no tomorrow. Today we get a crappy Leisure Suit Larry sequel and the odd game like Fahrenheit.

RPGs, I said you either get a Diablo or JRPG. FF12 is a JRPG, right? Take note I am referring to a very specific kind of RPG.

Splinter Cell is a sneak shooter. Ninja Gaiden is an action game. Ditto God of War. MGS is a cinematic stealth action game. These aren't exactly RPGs or Adventure games. Tomb Raider I guess falls more under adventure. I think we aren't thinking of the same thing when we say "Adventure Game" though -- this is a well-defined genre in the PC gaming world.

When you are ready to talk about console gaming and console gaming only let me know. Holla back! :p

[PapaSmurf]

When you are ready to talk about console gaming and console gaming only let me know. Holla back! :p

It's system wars, not console wars son

[Robert-The-Rambler]

It's system wars, not console wars son

He sure is moody.......

[Mochan]

When you are ready to talk about console gaming and console gaming only let me know. Holla back! :p

lol, typical XBot excuse. "My Xbox got its butt whupped by the PC, so don't you know this is the Console Wars Board and not the SYstem Wars board, stop destroying my XBox with your PC or I'll call my mommy!"

Sorry boy, but the PC is a viable platform, a vialbe system and this is System Wars, tough luck that your bastard son of a PC Xbox can't handle it.