Gaming: Future trends?

It's sad that few games made today with their flashy graphics and realistic rendering hold the same entertainment value that you can garner from some colored pixels jumping in a 2D world.

Let me talk about today's world of gaming. Gaming has plunged from a somewhat underground and almost scorned culture to becoming the same vanilla, overdosed garbage that almost every phenomenon that hits pop culture has experienced.

The game world is no longer rocked by the nerd. Rather, a majority of players are now the casual, teen to early adult guy. The kind of guy who used to make fun of someone if they played too much Nintendo. The kind of guy who will buy it if it's realistically violent, lest they sacrifice their masculinity by playing anything more "kiddy". The consumer market is being bloated by mediocre developers who pump clone after crappy clone of the same generic sports game or button mashing crime game.

The sad part about it? These such games are the top sellers.

Yes, simply put, the buisness is not about the work anymore. Years ago, a developer had to put work into a game. It had to be creative, fun, different and innovative. Sequels were good (Donkey Kong Country). Developers couldn't simply pop a name on a box and expect it to ship a million copies when the game itself barely deserves a rent.

I don't know about the rest of the gaming community, but frankly, I'm bored with what they're putting out now. Every best-selling game seems to be some dark, overly explicit gorefest, or rather, a half-assed sequel to one.

Now don't get me wrong. I love my violent video games. I like pumping people full of lead in a Bond game or beating the pulp out of someone in a game like True Crimes. But when the market is overwhelmed with the senseless, unadultered violence packaged in a cookie cutter way, I can't help but wish there were something different, or more creative out there.

But some developers have been trying to produce a solid, creative game. The problem? These games don't seem to stay around long. The majority market won't buy it. Now that gaming is a serious billion dollar industry catering to an older market, like movies, it is losing it's artistry.

Watch and old black and white movie. Watch some Hitchcock. In many of his movies, there didn't need to be mind numbing, gratuitous violence, flashy graphics or a paparrazzi of advertisement and hype for it to be good. No, his work, his writing, his shooting, the skillful actors, that is what made his movies great and more powerful than any mainstream modern picture today.

Instead, like the game industry, the movie industry is bogged down by the lowest common denominator, the brainless, mass population with the most money. Good movies are usually made by indie filmmakers, who sadly, rarely get their works recognized and don't see near the amount of money the cro-magnon like works of People Magazine Hollywood do.

Is gaming doomed in the next years to plunge into mindless garbage and mediocrity? Obviously there are still wonderful games being produced today. But the current trend is disturbing, and I wonder, in the future, will we have the same old gaming we love or a industry like the movie industry?

Soon it'll be games with gratuitous nudity and sex scenes up the wazoo...and they'll likely be directed at young teens. I can see it now! A game that'll let you run your VERY OWN Porn Industry! Rated 13+! And the toys will follow the lead of the games!

"Prostitution Barbie!", "Pimpin' Ken!", "Porn Star Teressa!"

How sad.

Well said, but what you are forgetting to grasp is that whole post is opinionated. Honestly, from what I've heard, the old Final Fantasy games (Pre-Final Fantasy VII) are absolutely awesome, but for some reason I can't get myself around to play them. Why? Because we are in the year 2004, and with the technology we have, main stream graphics are necessary to catch the players eye.

I've honestly not been very impressed with a lot of games now a days, but granted, there are still astonishing games out there. Honestly, I think Splinter Cell, for example, is fucking awesome. Not because the story line was enthralling and captivating, but because of all the options it had and how realistic it is. I mean, if you get so in detail that you have a button to push to stop your guy from breathing while in sniper mode to steady the aim, that is quite impressive.

It seems as though a lot of games are being put in the market on vertabim because the standard has been set so high by some games, and because certain genres are so addicting and popular. War based games have come quite a long way in recent years.

Also, many of the gamers now a days are only in the older age group because that is what they are meant for... Notice the M tag on many of the games that are oh so popular? That means only for Mature gamers, 17+ (Or is it 18+?). I know you know that, but I'm just pointing out some of the minor flaws in your arguements.

Don't even get me started on older movies. One, the caliber of actors in present day are light years beyond the capabilities of those of old. Not only are story lines more intriguing, every category you listed above it highly surpassed. Of course this is my opinion, which I am entitled to, as you are as well.

I don't think that games are getting worse, nor do I think movies are. The problem is, there is only so much you can do, and so much more you can perfect with what has already been done.

Exactly my feelings, Neko. Personally, I would rather go back to the fun games, 2D and all, then 3D mindnumbing games. They don't do anything for me.

For me:

Donkey Kong > Manhunt.

I like violence in a game, but I dislike violence that is put in a game just for the sake of having violence. Games like RE and anything about gladiatorial combat should have violence in them because it's part of the mood. Manhunt was a rather interesting game but it was way too repetitive and slow-paced. A lot of games have violence thrown in just because they assume that everyone loves violent games and they just want to boost sales. Fortunately games like those fail rather quickly.

She is right, most games now a days suck and still get sold just beacuse of the gore.
There are some exceptions like Mark of Kri witch very few people knew about, but was still one of the best games I ever played.
I also love games without violence and flashiness, take Dark Cloudthe whole game was pretty gay looking but I still played it all.
But one game sticks out in my mind that shouldt be on the market anymore, Grand Theft Auto III I enjoyed the gameplay, and I beat it all, but why linger. I babysit a 10 year old who likes to fuck hookers and then beat them with bats(in the game), This was funny the first few times, but then it just became bloodshed. Even worse than this game was State of Emergency witch didnt even have a story line just, killing.
Jessifer is right, we are putting porn in veido games just slowly, It started with Leisure Suit Larry the first pornographic game to marketed in K-mart stores, It proceded to BMX-XXX witch was just Dave Mirras BMX with CGI titties. Now we move into the age of Dead or Alive Volleyball in witch the girls enjoy taking off there tops off after the games, win or loose.
In the end, you just have to be a good gamer, I bought an atari and I love it, I even lent it to Neko for a while, its all about what you want to play. I guess in cunclusion you need to have control over the industry, there are some exelent very violent veido games out there, take Devil may Cry or even once again Mark of Kri.
I do hate how the games are getting off the story and how bad the endings are getting and how you can pretty much press circle, A, or B then win the game.
But they are marketing them at little kids, in the end just dont buy the shitty ones, that is part of the reason sites like this are made.

This actually runs parallel to a lot of fears I've been experienceing about the video game industry lately. Allow me to ellaborate.

Within the last few months I picked up one of the most cinematically, thematically and atmospherically beautiful games I've ever played. Beyond Good & Evil. The game was a masterpiece. It had one of the most engaging and thought-provoking plots I've ever seen in a game, and everything about the game was literally mature. I'm not talking "blood and gore" mature, I'm talking "this takes a well-developed mind to appreciate" mature. The game was nearly flawless. My only honest complaint that I can recall having was that it was just too short. I would have gladly played another 30 hours of that game, if it promised to be as visionary as the first 12 hours.

Yet, in spite of how amazing the game was, it garnered almost nothing in sales. Why? Why did this game get thrown to the side, regardless of the fact that every review of the game I've ever read has sung it's praises? Why was it ignored regardless of the fact that it was the best example of a truly mature game that I have seen in years? Because it wasn't violent.

There was little to no blood, gore or obscenity in the game. There was no nudity, there were no machine guns, there was an extremely minor amount of foul language and the art style didn't focus on cleavage, cool cars or gritty mafia assassinations. The game failed in sales numbers because the main character was female, and not sporting skintight clothing or giant guns. It failed because it wasn't "mature" in terms of content-severity. It was truly mature, and that is something that the "casual gamer" more often than not seems to be incapable of accepting.

In short, I genuinely fear for the future of video games. I consider video games to be an art, and one which has the most potential for outright brilliance. I consider video games to be of loftier intellectual and emotional caliber than music, theater, movies or any form of physical art such as painting or sculpture. However, I see too many people ingoring the brilliance of certain games all because they appear too childish or not "edgy" enough for thier tastes. My fears don't involve the outright horror of seeing brilliant games disappear altogether, like what Neko described above. My fears are a bit less extreme.

I'm afraid that we might see once-great development teams start producing schlock in the hopes of garnering better sales. I fear that one day I might see a group like Silicon Knights or Retro Studios producing GTA clones. My fears have already begun to come into fruition with Rareware. They produced the hands-down best games on the N64, and look where they are now. Producing mediocre shit like Grabbed by the Ghoulies for Microsoft and rehashing old games like Conker's Bad Fur Day, solely because it contains excessive vulgarity.

My fear is that the visionaries of today will become the schlockmeisters of tomorrow. My fear is that the teams I revere now will become the teams I crusade against in the future. I have no fear of quality games disappearing. There will always be visionaries, and there will always be someone that carries the spirit of Nintendo (i.e. sacrificing everything for a quality game) even if Nintendo is no more five years from now. I have no fear for the overall collapse of the video game industry. I fear for the ethics and standards of the visionary groups that exist today. I fear that one day I will see Banjo-Kazooie foaming with obscenities and violence. That is what scares me.

Well, I'd hate to say it, but I think some of your fears, or all may come true. Sure, there are a few companies that actually do care about the quality of games they put out, but they are obviously being ousted by the run-of-the-mill types of games we see of late. For a great majority, if not all, sales are the focal point of production. They want to succeed as a business, so why not put out games that people will buy, regardless of their caliber to "old-school" gamers?

There will still be great games, but they will undoubtedly become far and wide in production as the years pass. I'm just glad that as I get older, I'm slowly finding less and less time to play video games as a recreational outlet. Work, relationships, and night life have filled that void quite nicely, but that is just me. Yes, it definitely sucks that the next few generation of gamers might not fully understand what we are trying to convey here, but I'm sure gaming companies are starting to realize this. Actually, I hope, for their sakes, they realize this and at least attempt to do something about it. If not, you can kiss your classics good bye and say hello to the not so hot new titles that give only half-assed entertainment value.

I guess I will have the shortest post here. I think there are plenty of good games out today. Especially MMORPG's.I am addicted to Final Fantasy 11 and Ragnarok Online and those are both relatively new.

Where can I get this game?