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Outgrowing Video Games?; Just a curious observation
Topic Started: Nov 10 2014, 10:10 AM (424 Views)
Toegoff
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The biggest problem I find with Kick Starter for these games is people don't realize a simple fact - throwing money at it will NOT do anything. Budgeting of that money is simply beyond the scope of what many of these developers are aware of. How many kick starter failures have we seen that get funded? The money dries up INCREDIBLY fast. $4 million, alright guys we can do this! A year later...what the hell happened here?

Part of the big key problem with Kick Starter is the limited time you have to fund something...when you get this HUGE sum of money in a relatively short amount of time, it's overwhelming! I know that if I got my entire salary on January first...I'm not sure how I'd budget it for a year. I'd probably screw up a lot.

You need 'business men' that are also passionate gamers to run these projects, which is not an easy thing to find. You need leadership and sacrifice that goes beyond the skills and dedication of many many people. Leadership has to balance the budget of the funds with how much time is spent on the project. And the true difficulty is getting all these departments working together in harmony. You can write a story - but it will change over the course of the development. It has to sync with your art director's vision and your engine / mechanic director's vision.

And truth number two...there's a LOT more money in business industry than gaming from what I know. It's bringing all these pieces together that makes me wonder if we will see a 'master piece' of gaming.



 
Toegoff
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Good point on the companions. I guess the way I see it, I don't mind it being a spectator sport. I don't mind taking a back seat for the Normandy sections or talking with companions. I think if players accept it isn't 'their story' so to speak, there is still value. If you could even bring in your own 'custom character' that didn't really have story but was just more of a follower, that'd be awesome too.

Let's Playing in general shows that there is a market of people who just want to be a spectator. I think it's even cooler if I can 'spectate' while still being actively a part of the story. I'd have a blast playing with some fans as the berserking elf or Shep-goff. Letting people experience the story while I got to see their reactions would be awesome!

Maybe I'm different for it, but I do think there is a value to the 'back seat' gamer (in a positive way). Not someone who is barking directions or beating it for you, but someone who gets to play with you and experience the story with you. Hell I'd even be ok on a blind playthrough if I was playing with a close friend.
Edited by Toegoff, Nov 10 2014, 04:09 PM.
 
ReptilePZ
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Big Sweaty Moose Bleepers
To be fair, there are some very experienced devs behind the more successful Kickstarter projects. inXile are ex-Interplay guys, for instance. Larian with their Divinity games etc. They have experience in the field and should know how to handle budgets. Obviously, as you said, it's no easy task and there's a chance things don't work out - we all saw what happened to Broken Age - but successes like Original Sin and Wasteland 2 show it can be done.
Edited by ReptilePZ, Nov 10 2014, 04:14 PM.
 
savepoints
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Forum Hero
Kinda late to this (because of gaming, funnily enough), but here goes...

The "outgrowing video games" question is something I happen to see a lot being subbed to /r/truegaming (such a pretentious sub, btw). It's asked at least once a month, and the conclusions tend to range from "yes", to "you're overcome by nostalgia", or even "you just haven't found your new niche". Personally, I think it almost always (mostly) comes down to the last mentioned (and this goes for many other mediums than games, as well). What I think happens is that as you grow up with games, you start acquiring a taste, so to speak, for certain things in games, or certain genres. This taste will then be with you as you grow even older, and if you don't regularly play a lot of games, then that will probably pretty much stay the same. This, of course, means that when you want to pick up a game again, you want something in line with that, but you'll realize that this isn't at all what you enjoy anymore, and it leads you to believe that maybe you're just becoming less interested in games as a whole, because your new thing may be rather small.

Now, I'm not saying that people don't become less interested in games, in fact it's probably inevitable to lose some of the excitement when you have so many other things going on in your life as an adult, besides gaming. My point, rather, is that when you play something, and you think it's pretty mediocre, you'll think back at those games you really liked. The games of your childhood, most likely (that's not to say you can't have a favorite game from recent years. I absolutely adore Dark Souls, and Binding of Isaac, but none of them give me the amazing enjoyment I got out of playing, say, Star Ocean 2). Nostalgia plays such a huge role in this, as most people could probably figure out, and in reality, it's just bad. You're basically remembering all the good things, and making them even better in your head, and it brings any other game down into the dirt in comparison. Looking back at things objectively, you might instead see that the game you loved so had absolutely horrible mechanics and controls, voice acting, or writing. Which leads me to something else, that I thought of when reading your post on Bravely Default. Writing and clichés.

I'm believe that a cliché, on its own, can never be the bad thing about writing. In fact, they can be very good, because it gives this sense of familiarity, so to speak, but it all comes down to how they're incorporated into the rest of the writing. As for the subject at hand, you hear a lot of arguments that practically every game back in the day had better writing, and that barely any games even try with good writing anymore, and I mean, sure, I can see how some of the games from back then, especially the larger RPGs, really did have some of the most amazing writing in the gaming industry to date. However, I also believe that it comes down to a sense of deja vu, I guess. A story written today, that shares a lot with a story written back then, will probably always be seen as the worse one, because we might not take the time to really look at how these similarities are used in the story, and see how the newer one may be rather innovative in its writing. I could probably go on listing a lot of examples of this, but I hope you see my point, because I'm feeling kind of lazy at the moment.

Steering back on track, I really do think this question comes down to the fact that you just haven't realized your taste in gaming has changed. As you grow older, you might prefer more slow-paced games, but you're still sticking to the fast-paced ones, because they really do seem cool when looking at footage and whatnot. Now, the big thing here is that, yes, the gaming industry has arguably gone downhill, in some aspects. AAA-games being released as unfinished games, game series being milked for every last drop to the point where it's just a re-skin, etc. But like Reppy-poo has said, there are a lot of other developers out there, who still take this seriously (or don't have a bitching publisher on their ass), and the indie scene is really growing (if they'd only move away from the comfort of physics-based platformers).

I also find myself bored a lot of the time, but in my case it's rather that I'm a pretty bored person in general, and I don't have the attention span to really get into games that way (not that I ever really had), but it still happens that I get completely hooked.

As a TL;DR, I'm basically trying to say that I personally don't believe that if you've enjoyed games as much as most self-proclaimed "gamers" do, you will just suddenly outgrow them, it's more just a matter of finding your new thing.
 
Monstarcookie
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I think the problem is also that there aren't really middle grounds in games nowadays. They're either ridiculously short, leaving you wonder what the hell you paid that 70€ for, or incredibly long, making you (or at least me) lose interest halfway through. During all these years of playing Skyrim, I have never beaten it. There is simply too much to do! I don't mind hand holding. Like in DAO: you can go here or you can go there but you have to pick one. In Skyrim it's you can go here, here, here, here, hereherehereherehereherehere or just nowhere. Waaaaah @_@. I get these bursts of "omg I need to play this game every minute of every hour of every day until I complete it. And it has to be completable during that time period. I for one am happy that DAI wont be completely open world. Not every game needs to be totally open world even tho it's the flavor of the month.....or year.....s.

Now people may disagree with me but if they make sequels, I really don't want it to be completely different from it's predecessor. There is a reason I like a game, changing it completely will not make me like it.....it willprobably make me dislike it. I'm thinking Final Fantasy here. I LOVE the oldschool jrps where you have time to think about the next move, plan it so to speak. Now, after ff13 (and to a lesser extent 12) it's all about the action! And the new ff coming out, it's all about action it seems. It's no longer a final fantasy game! And the story, what little I've seen on it, seems to be about a group of teenage boys going on a roadtrip to get some pussy. UGH! I'd more than happily go through the same old "bad guy thretens to destroy the world, you're the hero, stop him". Just change it up a little bit. Not like "Hey here's your story focused rpg.....with more action!" "wanna play some P&C adventure games? Sure have some ACTION!" "Wanna solve a mystery case, don't open the door without these QTEs!" "How about a highly tactical game then? Can't have action there right? riiiiiiiight? .......let's put timers on how long you can think so you have to make a decisions faster!" YYEAAAAAAAAAAH!! I mean mix and match sure. Mass effect is a great game that started off as an action rpg, so its fine and it workes. Just dont make EVERY game like that.


I guess what I'm complaining about here is that the games are being made to be too complex in some ways. What's so wrong with simple games? Games you can iunderstand without reading the manual 50thouand times. .......Damn I took my sleepin pill too early, box is moveing around and i can hardly see what im tryping anymore, the letters go all qiggly wobbly. I'll continue raning before I start drooling. Still need to take dog out. I'm not bac.....at some point, call somewhere
 
beastman721
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Chicka Bow!
I'm glad that we're having a discussion like this because I was just kind of thinking these things a little while ago. Am I losing my passion for gaming? If I eventually have a family will I stop gaming entirely? I'm 22 now and trying to pursue a career and find myself focusing on things along that line a lot more than say games or whatever. As silly as this sounds, it's just nice to know that there's other people going through the same thing with regards to gaming.

I agree with just about everyone here, although right now I'm sort of in a little lull, one day I'll start up that game that'll completely blow me away, and I'll be hooked again. Like Dave said, it's just a matter of finding your niche, and perhaps it's also about curbing expectations just a little bit.
 
tixmix
Mist Could Not Pass
Maybe I'm a bit late to respond and I did not read everything everyone said. A lot of it comes down to having less free time, more interests and offcourse a lack of imagination. Simply put, as a kid you did not know what happens when playing games and you did not really have any real expectations, but you just wanted to play that new game you got. After a few years of gaming you get some favorite games that blew you away for some reason and then some more, but after a while games just don't have the same impact because you already played a hundred great games in your lifetime.

I guess you don't 'outgrow' games, but you just can't play them the same way you played them 10 years ago. You change, your friends change, you get a job and you get responsabilities and you suddenly spend a lot of time on a lot of different things. Offcourse you still get a memorable game ones in a while, but most of the time you just want to play a game for an hour or two and not for 9 hours on end. That's also why 'simple' games like LoL, CS: GO and Fifa are so populair, you can just stop your mind for a while without having to 'get' into anything you don't know yet.

In the end you just don't experience games the same, because everyone gets to old and grumpy :D
 
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