What has happened to the gaming scene?

Discussion in 'General Game Discussion and Questions' started by CassieTheChaoticCupcake, Jun 2, 2010.

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Do game developers need to step it up?

  1. Yes! Most definitely!

    51.4%
  2. No. I'm content with where we're at.

    25.7%
  3. Maybe. We could throw some mudkips in there I suppose...

    23.0%
  1. CassieTheChaoticCupcake

    CassieTheChaoticCupcake Well-Known Member

    It may just be me, but gaming seems to really have gone downhill lately. Not just in the app store; for most consoles too, but that's a whole new discussion to be started elsewhere. I'm noticing that the games being released for the iDevices as of late are stale upon arrival or just plain unoriginal.
    Come on - how many zombie games do we really need? I see a new one being featured every week either in iTunes or on some website that specializes in pocket-sized gaming. It reminds me a lot of how Twilight ruined vampires for everone because (aside from the "sparkling in the sun" BS) it's constantly shoved in your face. We've got Zombie Farm, Zombieville, Plants vs Zombies, Zombie Smash, Zombie Pizza, Zombie Invasion, Zombie Infection, Zombie Attack, Biodefense: Zombie Outbreak, Zombie Shock, Alive 4-ever, Be Free or Die (which I beta tested to find out it was just as cheap as the rest), Zombieland (a poorly made shoot-em-up based off the movie), Zombie City, iZombie, Game of da Dead, Adventure of Guns n' Zombie (Oh, come on... this is just getting ridiculous now), and of cours the Resident Evil games. I'm really surprised "Zombies Ate My Neighbors" hasn't made the list. That would be the one to get my money. There's probably hundreds more, but I'd rather not humor myself and save a few hours.
    I'm seeing too many rip-offs entering the gaming scene as well. You wouldn't believe the number of RPGs in the app store that are exactly the same when it comes to the plot, and even the graphics! Let's get a small list going: Zenonia, Inotia, Chaos Rings, Crystal Defenders (even though it's a tower game), Final Fantasy, etc. They're the same crap over and over again. Medieval setting. 3 or 4 characters. Turn based. Melee, archery, and magic are all used. I think you get the point, and I don't need to go into great detail of how the story-line usually goes (trek far and wide encountering monsters and random battles to retrieve something special and save the kingdom; hoorah). This is just a single example; I'm seeing clones of games everywhere, and it's getting rather annoying when I don't see original or maybe some new content coming to the app store.
    Even when fresh ideas are presented, how long does it hold your interest? I remember when the game Pulse came out: I loved that it was a beat-based game with an all-original soundtrack, and I'll give it props for standing out enough to get 3 bucks from me (which I usually don't do for games I know little about). I enjoyed it for the first couple hours, and then I got bored because it was the saaaame thing over and over again. Good game developers don't make boring games!

    I guess I can rant all day and night about it, but here's my question for you:
    What games do you truly enjoy? What is that one game that still hasn't lost its luster? I'd even like to see you post your ideas on games that should be brought to the iDevices, even if they're non-existent.
    I don't want to see Angry Birds, Minigore, Pocket God, Tilt to Live, or Doodle Jump. They've been a waste of money and I'll never follow the hype about them again.

    Here's a list of what I personally treasure:
    Cogs
    Grand Theft Auto: China Town Wars
    Ms. Pacman
    Tap Tap Revenge
    Urban Rivals
    Words With Friends
     
  2. rIcHrAnDoM

    rIcHrAnDoM Well-Known Member
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    I guess I'm a cheap & easy gamer because when it comes down to it; Angry Birds and Daredevil Dave are my "go to" games that I play above all else.
     
  3. Touchgamer3g

    Touchgamer3g Well-Known Member

    Oct 18, 2009
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    We meet again :p

    GTA of course
    Totemo
    Drop7
    Boulder Dash Rocks
    Trixel
    Sparkle
    Hoggy
    Swapper

    If you like Cogs, try Toy Mechanic. There's a lite version if you want to try and I personally find it better than Cogs.
     
  4. It isn't just you. Not exactly, anyway; it isn't that gaming is getting stale. It's been stale for years. You're only just noticing. Reams of clones? Yup. Been going on since the 80s. I remember walking into arcades in the early 80s and continuously finding some new Asian Pac-Man clone. I'm not exaggerating, either; there were literally dozens of them around various arcades, all different, yet all the same, many running on the same Pac Man hardware, just with changes in graphics and sound. That's only gotten worse over the years.

    The App Store just makes this seem that much worse because it's easier to develop for, development cycles are shorter, and anyone and their dog can develop for the iPhone platform for as little as $100.

    Fantasy games with the same plot? Nope. Nothing new under this sun either. Player A must (rescue female B | save town C | slay monster D) but can only do so by going on a journey to find (macguffin E | plot coupons F, G, H, I, and J). Said journey will involve fighting miscellaneous monsters and a series of progressively tougher bosses (each of which may give up a plot coupon, or the last of which will have or lead the way to the macguffin), and once complete, (female B | town C) will be saved or, either due to the recovery of of the macguffin or plot coupons, or because monster D was slain. And they lived happily ever after until the gratuitous sequel.

    There aren't many original plots left. Just ask anyone in Hollywood.

    So, congratulations: You're well on your way to becoming a jaded video gamer just like the rest of us old-timers. :)
     
  5. RonBurgundy

    RonBurgundy Well-Known Member

    May 2, 2010
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    I agree totally I think I even said a dozen times that there aren't really that many games on the app store with a fantastic story or gameplay and most are trying to cash in with zombie games and doodle this and that. And there are enough TD games to out number a small island yet there are really only a few good games....

    What I'm saying is step up yo game devs!
     
  6. Mondae

    Mondae Well-Known Member

    Feb 26, 2010
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    Perv, why do you care?
    Sorry, I've been gaming 30 years in 10 and I still find original stuff. It seems like what you're looking for is similarities, not differences.
     
  7. bmn02102

    bmn02102 Well-Known Member

    May 24, 2010
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    Welcome to the SNES era of JRPGs.
     
  8. headcaseGames

    headcaseGames Well-Known Member

    Jun 26, 2009
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    I completely disagree; I think it is a wonderful time to be a gamer. I am 35 y/o and my "heyday" was the 8-bit and 16-bit days, and it will never be as magical (in that way) as it was then - but there is still so much going on right now, and so much innovation and (healthy) competition in games, and on iPhone in particular right now (which is the topic I will concentrate on from here on out)

    No bones about it, we are absolutely drowning in a sea of software. There's just so much product available right now, everything for almost literally a song. Until recently I've felt that the majority of it was garbage, but now I see quite a numerous amount of strong-quality software showing up fairly regularly. Does this mean a lot of these "quality" games are super-high production value, the likes of DS or PSP? Heck no. But they are incredibly affordable, a lot of them do look and sound quite good for the asking price, so many have online connectivity in some fashion or other, they are constantly being updated by developers and have active communities thriving within them.

    I look at the iPhone as the new PS2, a sentiment which has been echoed by many others recently; it's not the strongest device tech-wise, but it's the one which has the most market penetration and therefore everyone's jumping onboard and trying to grab their own little piece of the ground. That's why you see so many genres being covered, while they all play 'king of the hill" with one another. The upside of this is, that no matter what kind of gamer you are, you are being catered to in some decent degree. Racing games, sports games, board games, action games, puzzle games, word games, boredom killers, games with sheep or pigs in them, even FPS or GTA games.. Again, there's a lot of "negligible quality" across much of it but every major genre is fairly well-represented at this point with something that's likely at least derivative, and at best innovative to some degree.

    I look at the gaming culture's attitude as prof.. a year ago, most major game websites/forums would look down on the iPhone "oh there's no D-Pad, etc" and dismiss it as the next N-Gage, a decent concept that's fallen apart in execution. Nowadays the same people who were naysayers (myself included) can't really go to bat with that attitude anymore, as there's just an overwhelming amount of (at worst) decent content to satisfy the most general gamers.

    So if you are jaded of the iPhone game scene, or the game scene in general, then you really need to adjust your perspective somehow. Do more research in what you want to spend time with, maybe examine some genres that you are not used to playing. Maybe you are a diehard RPG/RTS player who has an active dislike of casual games, but perhaps you've not actually looked at any of them in the past year and you are missing out. Maybe you are only concerned with bigger studio efforts, and all the higher production values those represent, and you are missing out on what the smaller guys have to offer.. work that is perhaps more rough-around-the-edges in how they look and sound, but things that can afford to be more experimental and unusual in their playstyle.

    Another thought is that maybe you just need a break from gaming! If it's all you do all the time (i am generalizing, BTW) then as is the case with anything, it will just start to all feel like mush after awhile - you can't see the forest for the trees. Maybe unplug and get out of games for a spell and just take a breather. Do some other things in life and let gaming be more complementary to that, rather than a big focus; maybe that will help you appreciate them more, and experience them in a different and fresher way.

    Pardon my long-winded rant, but this is something that touches a philosophical nerve when I hear such an argument :)
     
  9. DaveMc99

    DaveMc99 Well-Known Member

    Mar 1, 2009
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  10. kcur

    kcur Well-Known Member

    Feb 19, 2010
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    Some game that I keep playing:

    GTA:CTW
    COD Zombies
    SimCity

    and thats about it.
     
  11. o0Autumn0o

    o0Autumn0o Well-Known Member

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    With more and more pirating/illegal downloading of games, and the financial crisis of the last year or so, gaming and companies have slowed down. For me it's still great as I'm 30 and remember the old atari etc.

    Also the market on all platforms over the years got saturated with such crap, that users seem to have become overwhelmed with finding that big break game. I have computer programming friends, some gave up working on indie games to work for places like rockstar.

    If you want to make money, its becoming harder and harder with more and more "filesharing"
     
  12. Foursaken_Media

    Foursaken_Media Well-Known Member
    Patreon Indie

    So you listed 15-20 zombie games from a library of 100,000+ games? Big whoop... Sorry, its just I take issue in people totally judging a game prematurely by its topic, theme or style, which can be completely independent of specific game play or how fun it is -- Bio Defense for example is COMPLETELY different then Be Free or Die. Its like, all doodle games are the same because they have similar graphics. All physics puzzlers are the same too, right? Oh, what about a game with dual sticks? SAME. And of course, because a game has zombies in it, it has to be a cookie cutter, crappy zombie clone too? Give me a break... Yes I'm partial to this topic because we developed a zombie game, but it wasn't to "cash in." We started development half way through 2009, and had a nice idea that needed a good theme in order to have a cool, dark atmosphere... by the time we released in April of 2010, COD had been released and the app store was flooded with zombie games. I still think our game play is awesome and unique though, and it would've been whether it had zombies, mutants, goats, hamburgers or whatever else in it.

    That being said, I agree that there isn't a lot of ingenuity out there, especially for the app store. But, by the look of things in the app store (top 100 or even 200), people don't want story or depth, apart from a few exceptions. They want pick up and play, learn in 5 seconds, play for 5 minutes games.

    Also, while there aren't revolutionary new game concepts popping up all the time, there are a lot of refined games that people are improving from other ideas. There is still a lot of room for taking other decent ideas and making them really good, or taking bits and pieces from a bunch of different games and combining them to form something unique.
     
  13. da shiz wiz 19

    da shiz wiz 19 Well-Known Member

    Sep 24, 2009
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    Well I think that I haven't noticed this because I don't buy every good game that comes out or has come out. When these games come out, they're all pretty much new things to me (with many exceptions actually). But I'm talking more about console gaming rather than ipod gaming. I haven't played a game like Bioshock, Mass effect, Gears of War, Oblivion, etc. before, but I'm sure many of you have so it's stale for you.
     
  14. CassieTheChaoticCupcake

    CassieTheChaoticCupcake Well-Known Member

    Don't feel bad about ranting. :) I do it every day. I actually do credit developers for the quality of gaming they've provided us with for the iDevices. It's truly remarkable if you ask me. We've made such an advancement in technology; I understand that completely, and those who provide the world with such material to play will get ultimate commencement from me. I'm a child of the early 90's, so I may not have been around when the NES or SNES first came out (though I do own one), and I may not have gotten the full experience of a fresh D-Pad arrival, but I am still appreciative of the gaming of that time. Not many kids can say that for themselves because they think it's just outdated. But I digress...
    It's not so much that I misinterpret the step up that we've already taken. Indeed, we have, but on a large scale. It's overwhelming to think of how far we've really come.
    I'm only saying, on the app store level, developers need to go ahead and start thinking, maybe, back inside the box if need be because "out of the box" has become a norm to follow. With all the ingenuity I know is out there in these app developers, I know there have got to be ideas waiting to be brought to millions of fingertips. The gaming scene has been stale, and still is stale, but don't you think that it's about time that's changed? We have new ways of playing games now, which lately Nintendo has consistently impressed us with, mostly the Wii I'll give credit to with the motion-sensory methods.
    Anywho... We need original ideas to be brought to the board. People get to posting so developers don't have to think so hard. :) It's a competitive world out there.
    And for the record, I'm a gaming fanatic, but I don't let it rule my life. I get my food, water, exercise, and social life to fit into my schedule too. Lol. ^^; I'm relatively normal (that's actually a lie considering how extrovertant I am, but for example's sake...) with an extensive knowledge of good entertainement.
     
  15. CassieTheChaoticCupcake

    CassieTheChaoticCupcake Well-Known Member

    I actually haven't played any of those. I tend not to lean towards big names unless it's one that I cater to (Rockstar games I will admit to buying just for the name). You find more interesting things by trying them out. A lot of the stuff currently out there is like digging for diamonds, but they're hidden by coal (I guess "diamonds in the rough"). Trying, sometimes, simply doesn't cut it when you consistently come across badbadbad games. This is coming from someone who can actually afford to throw money away for the trial-and-error practice. Irresponsible with money? Maybe, but that's not the issue at hand. My point is, I've worked my way around the gaming world long enough to weed out the rotten games in the app store (which has got to be 95%).
    Want to know a nice game I like to sit down with that still holds my attention? Zen Bound. It's definitely one of the more original games on the app store, albeit not that exciting. I'll give props to Pocket Legends as well for bringing a quality MMORPG to the iPhone. Though it's not original in idea, it's impressive for a small name to go so large. I'd also like to commend Adult Swim for delivering, without failure, entertaining AND unique games to the iDevices. I really think developers could take a lesson from them. :)
     
  16. ScottColbert

    ScottColbert Well-Known Member

    Have to disagree with you here. Every zombie game can be completetly different, yet it still has the now cliched trope of zombies. Zombies are played out in games, in movies and in my own field writing/publishing. There has yet to be a zombie game that couldn't have been made without zombies. It's a bandwagon developers, writers and others jump on because the thought is, "OOH people like zombies! We'll make a zombie game!" I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that (though as a publisher I avoid zombie material like the plague), but c'mon, it's not original anymore, no matter how different the gameplay is.
     
  17. CassieTheChaoticCupcake

    CassieTheChaoticCupcake Well-Known Member

  18. CassieTheChaoticCupcake

    CassieTheChaoticCupcake Well-Known Member

    Thank you :) It's not that I don't appreciate gameplay, and god knows I love me some zombies, but it's just being over-done.
     
  19. headcaseGames

    headcaseGames Well-Known Member

    Jun 26, 2009
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    #19 headcaseGames, Jun 2, 2010
    Last edited: Jun 2, 2010
    a big point to make (and pardon if I am a little soupy right now, been reading a lot tonight.. between this and the oil spill!) is something I was touching on earlier. The iPhone market is going to primarily consist of people who want to play 10-yr-old Bejeweled, or some variations of that. It's irritating, but that's what people want for the most part. They play games on their console, they'll spit out $60 and do FF or BioShock or God of War. They spend a buck or two, they want something they can stimulate themselves with while they wait in line at the bank or zip across town on the subway. Most folks aren't gonna curl up on the couch for a night glued to their iPhone.

    Some devs are trying to fight this, and it will work in little pockets, but by and large it's just bad business sense (and if you don't make money, then you have to shut down). What's the compromise? Be subversive. Make something that looks and plays like something old, familiar, easy-to-grasp.. but wrap it around something kind of different, new. Not easy to do, but not impossible (and it is something that used to be more of the way things were done a few decades ago, when designers couldn't rely on aesthetics to sell their games).

    It happens now in fits and starts. There's enough smart, creative people working in iPhone development who stick their toes in the water of this philosophy that you see it happen a little bit here and there. But it is going to be dwarfed by reskins and riff-on-a-safe-theme for a long time yet.

    As an aside, it's been happening in console/PC gaming as well for the last couple of years. With the economy a mess (and big budget games being so insanely risky), the only way to ensure survival is to give joe shmoe what he wants. More Gears, more Mario, more Madden, more rockbandguitarhero. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Before the floor fell out, lots of studios were getting a little smitten with "let's promote our own new IP" and a lot of them have been either going onto life support or shuttering altogether (en masse).

    It's scary and crappy.. but it will heal. The little upstart indies who are battling it out now will yield a couple Rockstars of tomorrow. Just dig through and find your diamonds in the rough in the meantime, and appreciate the weird experimental stuff that comes through the cracks now and again thanks to beautiful scenes like this one right here :)
     
  20. squarezero

    squarezero Moderator
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    Who knows; we have seen little of that title except that video. If you want an adventure game with tons of personality (and don't mind adult themes), check out Hector Badge of Carnage. Just came out today. It's like nothing else you've played in the App Store.
     

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