Let's Talk About IV: Gamez, Whut H@ppen?!

[OrochiLeonaUK]

Please, pull up a chair, take off your pants, and indulge me.... With conversation.

-Games, You so Drama-

Today's "Let's Talk About" has been inspired by a general feeling I've had about games lately, which is mostly reflected by articles read online and conversations with other dear gaming friends, all this combined with my own personal feelings of inadequacy (which for me, are usually confined to the bedroom, meh)
However, this weeks one-two punch of SF x Tekken and Mass Effect 3, two games that have soured me with their surrounding controversy, inspired me to scrawl this out, for therapy if nothing else. ME3 in particular has kind of been "ruined" for me. I can only associate that game now with all the BS about marketing, dlc, online passes and merchandise surrounding its release, this has been coupled with some bad stuff I've heard about the game's writing itself, to the point that I may just let the game go and put my gal Shepard into early retirement.

Gaming is a pastime we all love, I myself have been playing videogames since 1986, and have seen many, many ups and downs in terms of tech, prices, quality, business structure, marketing and the like. Whilst my reel lyfe always changes with age, emotion, life responsibilities etc, I have always found time for videogames. I most likely always will. Maybe. Perhaps.
I have been of the belief that it is ALWAYS a good time to be a gamer, you can play great new games, and all the old games are still around via emulation for you to relive, or for younger gamers, to discover a bit of history.

I have lived through some rough gaming periods and some real downtimes (for example the mid 90s overpriced crappy console debacle which claimed many lives my sanity The Panasonic 3DO well, it was an expensive and shitty time anyways) but I cannot remember any time in 20+ years when gamers felt as villified, furious, disappointed, unfairly treated and put-upon as they do in recent years. Sure, there were times when people were like "$40 for a game? outrage!" but nothing of the magnitude we see on a daily basis today, practically with every major release.

Many gamers attitudes have changed from humble "Oh cool, can't wait for this game!" to the more popular "I DEMAND you PROVE to me that your product is worthy of my precious time, attention and money"
and in many cases, this is with good cause. The current marketing model, on-disc DLC, terrifying piracy measures and government bills that are borderline illegal are all doing our best to bleed us dry and somehow "punish" us for being gamers. In other cases, it can just come across as ungrateful whiners, moaning about something just because, well, they can.

So, in what must surely be one of the most open and toughest installments to answer to date, I ask you, humble CX'er:
What, if anything, happened to videogames? How does this effect you as a gamer?

As always, here are a few points, you don't have to answer any of these, they're just for inspiration:
Is gaming better or worse than you remember? How much do you think we have rose tinted glasses about the past?
How long have you been playing? Do you think your age is in any way a factor to your views?
Do you think people overreact? should we just be enjoying what we have? or are we right to stand up and fight these issues that are raised?
If you think games have gone "wrong" then why? when did it happen or when did you notice it happening? Do you see it getting worse?
What role has the internet played in gaming? Has it made things better or worse?
Can we fight these things? Is it a losing battle? Do you crack and pay for stuff that you'd rather not?
Are we "over-entitled" these days? Do you think we demand more than we actually deserve?
Are the politics actually ruining game releases for you? Have you found a great game you wanted being tainted by the arguments surrounding it?
If you think people are overreacting, why? are you a believer in the "Just STFU and play" policy? Why doesn't DLC controversy and the like effect you?
If you have grievances about gaming, who are they aimed at? Publishers? Developers? The Internet? Gamers themselves? All of the above?

As always, write as little or as much as you like, It's always interesting to hear you thoughts:
Put your pants back on, the floor is open....

[Don Vecta]

Open mic evening, yeah!

I guess we old dogs have seen how the gaming eras have passed, got from the revival of the E.T. cartridge burial, the 8-bit era, the 16-era with the Nintendo/SEGA war, the 32-64-bit era with the Sony/Nintendo/SEGA wars (oh yeah, the glorious days of PSX, Dreamcast and the overrated Nintendo 64), the first Playstation/X-Box war and the now current PS3/X-360 era. All these competitions and dramas were mostly by the companies and sometimes the dramas in between preferences were really funny, some even deeply passionate (like the 16-era of fanarts of Sonic doing a MK fatality on Mario or Mario stomping over Sonic, for example, lol), but I guess even with all these dramas, the last person who got affected was the consumer. In the end, there would be usually happy consumers who would rely on magazines and the few online sites that could give previews, reviews and whatnot. That was the contact with the consumers and according from what a magazine would suggest or by the always wise "rent first, purchase later" way to get us the games we liked.

The most you could do to bug the developers was to send letters to the editor of a magazine or something, and perhaps you'd be lucky it'd be published. Sometimes some mags would run polls of which characters or which things you'd like to see in games, in several cities (at least in Mexico City), sometimes there were live presentations of new games were you could check out the games, play and meet new players and leave feedback of the game which was usually still in development.

Bottomline, the contact with the devs was limited and somehow it worked. Cuz if you liked a game (and you had the cash) you'd buy it, if not you'd let it sit.

Plus, there were arcades everywhere, where you could play the game whenever you wanted and try other titles, not feeling forced to buy the game itself to feel the experience (and old arcade gamers like me know that the arcade environment it's something so awesome in most cases that no home console could bring it back), so yeah, there were options as well.


After the online era started and the contact with the developers through first MySpace, then facebook and twitter, it's been easier to see how a game goes, however... that also has spoiled the gamer somehow and the once wet dream speculations and fanboy jazz became absurd demands to the point that we want everything as we asked for, otherwise it will suck! Yes, we gamers also have lost part of the humbleness we used to have.

However, while contradictory as it sounds, now mainstream companies like Capcom have made their games into a huge spectacular circus that causes overhype with a game, with strategically placed "leaks" the hype gets higher and higher... so when we want the final product, the consumer would buy it, why? because it's the trend and the cool! Yes, it's like the mainstream shit to listen Justin Bieber music or Lady Gaga! Any brainless consumer would listen that could it's trendy and it's cool, not because it's good.

While some mainstream games keep the hype but deliver good complete games like Tekken 6, for example, the DLC stuff starts to show up, first with expansions of already complete games (say the Fallout series, the GTA series, Red Dead Redemption, etc.), DLC that you could live perfectly fine without it since the original game it's complete and good enough.

But now the model is to deliver half assed games, buy the game but being able to play only HALF OF IT! The keep milking you over and over by releasing bits and pieces of that full game to ANY price they want! And the worst? Consumers will buy it! Why? Cuz it's cool! Cuz we're hyped! We're drown in the new internet hype of forums, youtube videos, facebook posts, tweetsreality shows, live streams and whatnot! You must be part of it! Be part of the interactive circus!

People will bitch and groan, but in the end WILL buy! And the companies are so happy to obligue! They'll continue feeding you with shit, with employees disguised as forum members trying to give you an opinion of a game, justifying their scamming acts in a way that you see it fair, etc.

But nowadays, what are WE buying? Before we buy a cartridge, the disc, the manual, the pack, everything. It was ours! We owned it! We could swap it in a game shop for a new game if we wanted to, we could sell it and we could do whatever the fuck we wanted. Now with these stupid new laws, now we own absolutely NOTHING! We are purchasing our right to play! What is this? virtual arcade games that allow you play the game but never have it as own!? FUCK YOU! That's not what it is about! And now they also want to lock the games to the point that you cannot sell it or rent it anymore?

Gaming nowadays it's crap, with all honesty, the last game I bought was Tekken Hybrid and that's a demo, remake and film, not even a full game. Perhaps the last full game i bought it was KOF XIII and was a game that fills the expectations and it's not that tainted with useless DLC crap. I'm so turned off that my gaming got reduced into old games, emulation and freeware games. I refuse to take part of this fucking circus of crappy rigged reality shows, deal with companies that mock and troll you in the face, ungrateful, demanding consumers that got spoiled and tainted by the extreme hype of the media. I keep my gaming to companies who still care about gamers and deliver what we want and what we want it's to have fun while playing it, call it competitively or casually.

[00Bear00]

Ah now the flood gates are open, in my age (going to be 29 on the 20th) I have been wondering the same things, I am just getting too old are the times changing or is it people just are too impatient so I am going to give my quick feelings on the questions Leona put up.


Is gaming better or worse than you remember? How much do you think we have rose tinted glasses about the past?

This is tricky I remember always wanting a game I could play with my cousin or friends co-op and now there are more games that do that but I live too far from the people I used to enjoy playing with. I will say multiplayer used to be a great thing but now I feel as if its taking away from games that should only be single player experiences. At the same time if its something that actually improves the fun you can have (like with GTA) then I am all for it. Lets face it GTA is the same game its always been, when it got the negative hype that just made more people want it, but I have only played a few beginning to end because its the same thing over and over but online makes that same shit way more fun when you have your friends helping/hurting your missions.

The short answers gaming is the same way I remember just the issues have changed. When I was a kid I wanted co-op games to play with my friends, now I need friends to play co-op games with lol.

How long have you been playing? Do you think your age is in any way a factor to your views?

I have been playing since nintendo so whenever the hell that game out, I know my age affects my views because a lot of things about me do. Age affects my views by letting me see the change from playing back in the day to now. When I was a kid if you bought a bad game you were SOL until EGM and stuff showed up, now we have access and leaks and all kinds of crap. Race is a bit into my views too, I am seeing (especially now) only Asian or White heroes in games, and I just want variety (for all races) its nice to have someone like me but only if they fit into the game, and make them original not just some ghetto or angry looking bouncer guy (but this is a rant for another time)

Do you think people overreact? should we just be enjoying what we have? or are we right to stand up and fight these issues that are raised?

Fuck that we need to do something or enjoy a future when content is looked on disc and extras are a thing of the past. I honestly believe that no company should even think about DLC until their game is released, day one bullshit no matter when they started making it is just fucked up to the customers. If your game is so bad or incomplete that you are selling day one DLC you might need to start over. DLC should only revive or expand games that are beaten and/or arent being played anymore and should never be for games that come out annually.

If you think games have gone "wrong" then why? when did it happen or when did you notice it happening? Do you see it getting worse?

Dont know if the games have gone wrong just they are owned by big companies now with board of directors who want money and will be as cheap and stingy as they have to be to get it. And consoles have been making it hard for companies to support their games with updates costing them so much.

What role has the internet played in gaming? Has it made things better or worse?

Both, its good because we can follow and offer opinions to the creators or just watch tons of vids to keep you satisfied till release. Bad because we are probably making the creators feel like they are making a game with someone always watching over their shoulder. It has also made getting info and guides easier saving us a ton of money.

Can we fight these things? Is it a losing battle? Do you crack and pay for stuff that you'd rather not?

No we just need to convince the new generation that even though they are ok with DLC there is a proper way to use it. We should hold companies more liable for bad games especially if they have (or plan to have ) a shit ton of DLC and the launch DLC (or preorder bonus and other shit) should be part of our reviews and opinions of the game, if its a good game that has DLC that you need (or some bullshit launch stuff) then the games score should suffer since our wallets will in the future.

Are we "over-entitled" these days? Do you think we demand more than we actually deserve?

Games cost more, then you have to pay for shit on the disc, and then there is online fees, or new versions. I dont think we are over entitled, if anything I am starting to think we are suckers for putting up with certain companies bad practices for so long

Are the politics actually ruining game releases for you? Have you found a great game you wanted being tainted by the arguments surrounding it?

Naw I dont let that kind of thing get in the way of buying a new game/



In the end it used to be fun to back a console (even though eventually you would get them all) support a company and shit like that. Now I still have all consoles, but the companies I once supported have jaded me, we are losing content, and paying more. Though with all my bitching that I have done there have still been good games. I loved MGS4, really digging Darksiders, Demon and Dark souls is a lot of fun. There are still companies doing good things out there but I think with the way things are going I am afraid they will eventually fall from grace like the others.

Now I have some questions for everyone.

Reboots, are they good bad, is there any real reason to play franchise games till the end anymore?

Difficulty, how do you like it, if companies arent rebooting things they are making less difficult is this good or a bad thing why?

Race, do you notice it in games? are there people like you in a lot of games? How does it make you feel, how do you think the people who arent represented as much feel?

Story, a lot more games are having less and less of it to make room for on disc DLC or multi player features, do you think the stories are fine, do you give a shit or is it a lost cause?

Replay, used to want to keep the games I really liked because they meant something to me, but now there are annual games coming out or gold versions, and it really makes me want to sell a game more than keep it, what about you?

[hybridial]

However, this weeks one-two punch of SF x Tekken and Mass Effect 3, two games that have soured me with their surrounding controversy, inspired me to scrawl this out, for therapy if nothing else. ME3 in particular has kind of been "ruined" for me. I can only associate that game now with all the BS about marketing, dlc, online passes and merchandise surrounding its release, this has been coupled with some bad stuff I've heard about the game's writing itself, to the point that I may just let the game go and put my gal Shepard into early retirement.

There is a lot to ingest in all the posts before mine but I had to address this paragraph as quickly as possible. OLUK, ignore it all. Mass Effect 3 is amazing. If you didn't give a crap about the writing being torn apart in the first two games (because believe me, they have been by people even more anal and wanting to troll everyone for enjoying shit than me) then it won't matter to you in 3. It certainly doesn't to me, and hell they didn't do the one thing I feared most than funnily enough, has been the source of almost all the whining; there's ***CENSORED*** (that'd already be too much of a spoiler for some ). And that's all I'll say so I don't spoil anything more, but believe me, 95% of complaints have centred on that and not the few legitimate but ultimately nitpicking plot holes there are.

I hate to sound like I'm supporting the money grubbing companies but there are a few facts:

What can be considered a "complete" game is arbitrary. All games have had content cut during production.

Fans demanding a story or an idea in a game suits them over the producer is an oppression of creative expression.

Gamers now are a bunch of self entitled spoiled brats who don't even consider the practical realities of production and distribution and I also bet none of them have a clue about the practical realities of content creation as well. I once read a comment to the effect of "Anyone who makes content for purely expressive reasons should only release it for free". What FUCKING bullshit. I'll tell you the reason I write novels; it's about the only fucking form of expression that anyone can afford to do that for since I'm pretty poor. To do almost anything else, make a movie, make a comic, whatever, you need some form of investment and a lot of people can't afford to do it themselves. Some turn to ads online, others turn to publishers, and others turn to donations, but if you really think a game published by a company like EA is some how damaged goods creatively just because it's released to make money, seriously, go fuck yourselves.

Now I might actually read the rest of your post and the two below OLUK, and hopefully not every paragraph necessitates a response from me as long as this one, lol.

Games cost more

Factually onerous, games have never been cheaper, yet never been more expensive to produce. A lot of recent developments have been to try and make games profitable when they're operating on far tougher margins than they ever have before.

I remember when SNES games cost £70. In 1995. That's equal to what, $150 today, minimum?

*edit* here's my answers to the rest of the questions.

"Is gaming better or worse than you remember? How much do you think we have rose tinted glasses about the past?"

For me, it's mostly better, but mainly because of my tastes. One area that isn't like it used to be was multiplayer, as I have the same issues OLUK has where I used to find it incredibly easy to get people to play with back in the splitscreen days, now it feels like a hassle getting people to play online. But for games I play myself, the PS2 era through to now has been pretty awesome, a lot of choice we never used to have.

"How long have you been playing? Do you think your age is in any way a factor to your views?"

Since the early 90s. As such I have a healthy respect for the older designs of games but I never liked the finite lives/continues structure, and I'm actually glad that we're getting some games today with some of those old design cues that work without those elements that were annoying (see Bloodrayne Betrayal, Shank and Muramasa for examples)

"Do you think people overreact? should we just be enjoying what we have? or are we right to stand up and fight these issues that are raised?"

The only real legitimate way to fight is to keep that wallet buckled up. Anything else is moot. I will say again, I feel the last few years have been the best ones for games, but for the future... I'll get to that.

"If you think games have gone "wrong" then why? when did it happen or when did you notice it happening? Do you see it getting worse?"

The main thing that has gone wrong with games is the developmental cost hierarchy. We all want HD bloom filled 10 billion polygon multi-dozen millions of dollars budget games, and yet we also want these games to fit our idea of perfection; this, is, to put it bluntly, unrealistic. What we need is more indy development, and more companies like Double Fine finding ways to make a game directly for their audience. Support the PC method of games development, and when I say that, I don't mean the games that try to be as hi-tech as possible, because those are doing as much damage in the long run as their ilk on consoles.


What role has the internet played in gaming? Has it made things better or worse?

It's made choice, distribution and social connections better, but competitive communities, content delivery and fanbases worse.


"Can we fight these things? Is it a losing battle? Do you crack and pay for stuff that you'd rather not?"

Support Indy development, support developers making the games you want to see. They're there, but don't expect to find them on consoles much.

Are we "over-entitled" these days? Do you think we demand more than we actually deserve?

I guess I answered this one already.



"Are the politics actually ruining game releases for you? Have you found a great game you wanted being tainted by the arguments surrounding it?"

They did until I decided other people aren't really worth listening to on my own personal purchase decisions.


"Reboots, are they good bad, is there any real reason to play franchise games till the end anymore?"

Tough question; the Mortal Kombat reboot was well done, it played on nostalgia but also delivered a game that essentially breathed life into a dead series. I can't really think of a lot of other gaming examples so I kinda don't know, is the answer to that question.

"Difficulty, how do you like it, if companies arent rebooting things they are making less difficult is this good or a bad thing why?"

Games don't need to be difficult, they need to be fun. If they can be fun through being challenging, that's cool. But that's not as simple as making your game bullshit hard and calling it a day. That takes effort, effort you didn't see that much back in the day any more than you see it now.

Race, do you notice it in games? are there people like you in a lot of games? How does it make you feel, how do you think the people who arent represented as much feel?

I try not to let any of this affect me. I don't really have a comment to make, as I don't place importance on it.

"Story, a lot more games are having less and less of it to make room for on disc DLC or multi player features, do you think the stories are fine, do you give a shit or is it a lost cause?"

I feel I've played enough games as oh late with tonnes of story content, and I've enjoyed a lot of them.

"Replay, used to want to keep the games I really liked because they meant something to me, but now there are annual games coming out or gold versions, and it really makes me want to sell a game more than keep it, what about you?"

Doesn't apply to a lot of games I buy, generally speaking if I like a game enough, I'll keep it to replay one day.

[OrochiLeonaUK]

Whilst I have huge issues with games, it's always about the business models rather than the product.
The way a company markets, sells, distributes games today. The feeling we're being sold "incomplete" games and the machiavellian attempts to squeeze every drop out of us through things like DLC, anti-preowned logic and Online Passes.
The ability to patch games, instead of being a great thing, is generally just an excuse to put out a crappy product "Meet the street date, we can patch that later"
Sadly, "Later" then often never comes.

I'm disappointed at the internet. Whilst we now have unprecedented access and communication with developers like never before, we just seem to use that to piss and moan, to repeatedly argue amongst ourselves, to offer hollow threats to "boycott companies" or whatever. When we aren't shouting at the devs, we're just fighting amongst ourselves, whether in an educated argument or just straight up troll fight.

I don't mind the games themselves, there's still a ton of awesome games out there and the homebrew scene has never been this hot since the early 90s.
So yeah, as I stated in my original post, I'm STILL of the belief that its ALWAYS a good time to be a gamer, for the products at least, but I've never been so glum about the industry itself, the direction its going in, and, most importantly, the beyond paranoid tactics of publishers to make sure we don't "steal" a single thin dime of their billions of dollars.

Poor, poor videogame publishers :''''(

[PureYeti]

Here is an article but how used games shouldn't be the blame for the gaming industry

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/04/opinion-kohler-video-expensive/

[hybridial]

Oh right, game budgets rocketed into the stratosphere. Somehow I feel as if that might have a little something to do with the increased risk of producing games during this console cycle.

Yeah, I like this article

Used games are an issue with the current pricing model but trying to make them go away without changing the business model will probably do irreparable damage to the industry. Bout time companies realise AAA budgets aren't going to make them the safe money they so clearly want all the time. 

[Shiki Orochinagi]

I'm just worried about how companies take the videogames in the nowadays, they just dont care anymore, this "golden" gen was a blessing for them, they just tested the infamous Online Pass,only Online to play, microtransactions, free to play, free discounts in games you dont care and of course the new DLC  practice.

I cant just talk about videogames without seeing how bad are the companies in Mexico, one can just say "Buy It online, preorder in Amazon or in a foreign retailer". They are just that bad because the people here allowed it,in RE5 preorder time they test it for the first time "Lets make a preorder at 999 pesos (like 90 dll) instead of 899 pesos (like 79 dll) because our country is in a repression" so yeah people take the bait and now regular games now in that price even when our country is out of repression....just wow. Later they test this with MW2 "Lets put the special edition at 1500 pesos and the veteran edition at 3000 pesos" and yes now special edition games are at 1500 and "limited" edition are in 3000 pesos. People blame these companies for the overpriced games and they just said "Thats how they publishers sell us the games" so screw the consumers.

Thats how actually game companies did with the overgrowing videogames sector they just "test" the Online Pass, free to play and microtransactions and the infamous new DLC and people said "Ok, I dont care I have money" but what happens when the companies finds they dont get they money they planned to gain? Close servers, fire people,Retailers "exclusives" DLC, release cheapers version of the same game but selling it at a new game because "we" are dumb enought to buy it, the damage was self inflicted and now they are releasing, stopping, cancelling and planning locked content because they know we will buy it.

You just have to take a look at the new marketing, the companies,the developers even the voices actors see us like kids, dumb people, someone who needs assistance even for walking who have money to buy their games even if they dont have the quality of the original damm game without testing and full of glitches because "hey We dont care we will play it anyway". They will just piss their pants when no one buy their games but I wont see that happen.

In less words : Money

Sorry if I cant explain my toughts correctly