TheInquirer: Gaming is headed for an inevitable crash

In my opinion, if someone is willing to go out and buy the exact same franchise game every year like Madden, Halo, or GTA, that shows it's a damn good game!!!

Yeah, and if people are willing to pay for all the new stars wars movies then they must be damn good movies!! :rolleyes:
 
Slartibartfast said:
Yeah, and if people are willing to pay for all the new stars wars movies then they must be damn good movies!! :rolleyes:


yup...most people will buy what the media tells them too.
 
Most avid movie fans, like avid gamers, will buy based simply on customer loyalty. Hell, I hated warcraft 3, and I knew I wouldn't like it. I'm not even a big RTS fan, but I bought WC3 and WoW. Simply based on customer loyalty. I loved WC2, Diablo1&2, and SC. I also really admire Blizzard as a whole, very funny, smart group of guys. So I bought their games, even though they're not exactly my cup of tea. Customer loyalty and commanding the loyalty of the hardcore communities is severely underrated in the gaming world.
 
megabyte said:
Most avid movie fans, like avid gamers, will buy based simply on customer loyalty. Hell, I hated warcraft 3, and I knew I wouldn't like it. I'm not even a big RTS fan, but I bought WC3 and WoW. Simply based on customer loyalty. I loved WC2, Diablo1&2, and SC. I also really admire Blizzard as a whole, very funny, smart group of guys. So I bought their games, even though they're not exactly my cup of tea. Customer loyalty and commanding the loyalty of the hardcore communities is severely underrated in the gaming world.

Blizzard is no longer the same company that brought us some of the greatest titles such as: rock and roll racing, lost vikings, warcraft, warcraft 2, starcraft, diablo.

Vivendi made sure of that.
 
bonkrowave said:
Blizzard is no longer the same company that brought us some of the greatest titles such as: rock and roll racing, lost vikings, warcraft, warcraft 2, starcraft, diablo.

Vivendi made sure of that.

This forum is full of haters, god forbid a company grows and make some $$$. The sucess of WoW in a genre that isn't exactly friendly speaks loads about the kind of company Blizzard is. And a company like Blizzard shows alot of promise in the industry, and I feel the same way about Valve, dispite all the Valve haters. More companys should be like them.
 
pistola said:
This forum is full of haters, god forbid a company grows and make some $$$. The sucess of WoW in a genre that isn't exactly friendly speaks loads about the kind of company Blizzard is. And a company like Blizzard shows alot of promise in the industry, and I feel the same way about Valve, dispite all the Valve haters. More companys should be like them.

Take a look at the makeup of the current Blizzard. Are the leaders, who worked on the titles Blizzard is known for still there ?

If you want to call, cold hard facts ... "hating" so be it.
 
While I dont believe the industry will die. I do believe they will see a decline, if they dont start making better games and, not the same old, same old. Or if they dont stop ruining a good series or, franchise. A good example is Serious Sam 2. They totally ruined it with trash. That is about the only way I see the industry commiting suicide.
 
bonkrowave said:
Blizzard is no longer the same company that brought us some of the greatest titles such as: rock and roll racing, lost vikings, warcraft, warcraft 2, starcraft, diablo.

Vivendi made sure of that.

R&R Racing sure was badass. Honestly, I didn't know it was made by blizzard. Haven't played it in a long time. xD
 
three words point to the world of gaming NOT crashing.

World of Warcrack.
 
/back on topic

Maybe we should make a poll... how many people thing the video game industry has stagnated to hell vs how many people think it's "just fine" and "growing" (hah) :rolleyes:
 
erf said:
three words point to the world of gaming NOT crashing.

World of Warcrack.

If that is the typical game, then the world of gaming has already crashed.


World of Warcraft is about the same challenge level as peeing in an airplane toilet while the plane is on the ground.

If you ask me, that is another sign of how bad gaming is nowadays. Somewhere along the line, we had to get rid of most of the challenge so that we could embrace the masses.

Well, F. the masses, I want good, challenging games again instead of iteration Y of some stupid sports game, where they just tweak the graphics a bit, update the rosters, and rerelease it each year.
 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Even TheInquirer feels your frustration, my friend... even TheInquirer... lol
 
Most of the problem is small, innovative studios are getting gobbled up by large corporations. Deadlines are harder to meet, so content gets cut, technology takes a back seat and what you have is mediocrity. The industry will not 'crash', but as smaller studios become harder to start and come by and compete, you may start to see the larger studios consolidate more.

Look at Lucas Arts:
Once an innovative studio in its own right, its now not really even its own developer...just a licensing engine for the Star Wars name. With that license comes LA hovering over your shoulder and pushing through games to make the sale...what made KOTOR good would make you think the KOTOR2 would be even better, but much of the end game content was apparently scrapped in the attempt to get it to gold. And of course, it was given to a new company to develop...
 
this year sure was full of whiners.

Industry is doing quite good based on sales figures (sure it can decline once in awhile, but for the most part it pretty much sky rockets each generation).

Lots of bitching about how game companys are just rehashing the same games over and over with sequel upon sequel, and yet i know everyone (including me) always gets excited at that new mario platform\kart game, gta game, new castlevania game, new metroid game, zelda game, etc. etc. Ironically you usually find this argument in nintendo zealots

I especially love the complaints of madden being released over and over again. It's a sports game with a roster that changes yearly, what do you expect?

HILARIOUS!
 
eastvillager said:
World of Warcraft is about the same challenge level as peeing in an airplane toilet while the plane is on the ground.

Shows how much you've played of the game. :rolleyes:
 
Nuzzles said:
R&R Racing sure was badass. Honestly, I didn't know it was made by blizzard. Haven't played it in a long time. xD

Yup long long ago in the console days. It was a freakin great game for its time. I think it took the crown from R/C Pro Am. Wow now that is old school.
 
Most avid movie fans, like avid gamers, will buy based simply on customer loyalty. Hell, I hated warcraft 3, and I knew I wouldn't like it. I'm not even a big RTS fan, but I bought WC3 and WoW. Simply based on customer loyalty. I loved WC2, Diablo1&2, and SC. I also really admire Blizzard as a whole, very funny, smart group of guys. So I bought their games, even though they're not exactly my cup of tea.

This is exactly the problem. Why on Earth do you think that Blizzard needs your money so desperately that you're willing to buy games you don't like just because they were developed by Blizzard? This mindset only encourages stagnation. I think War3 and FT were examples of Blizzard saying, "ah it's good enough, the sheep will buy it anyway." The number of patches for war 3 surpassed those of starcraft in a matter of months, even though SC had a few years up on it. The same thing for microsoft: maybe windows wouldn't bite so much ass if people stopped buying it, forcing ms to think about the little details like "quality."


Industry is doing quite good based on sales figures (sure it can decline once in awhile, but for the most part it pretty much sky rockets each generation).

Where did this factoid come from, your butt?
 
Slartibartfast said:
This is exactly the problem. Why on Earth do you think that Blizzard needs your money so desperately that you're willing to buy games you don't like just because they were developed by Blizzard? This mindset only encourages stagnation. I think War3 and FT were examples of Blizzard saying, "ah it's good enough, the sheep will buy it anyway." The number of patches for war 3 surpassed those of starcraft in a matter of months, even though SC had a few years up on it. The same thing for microsoft: maybe windows wouldn't bite so much ass if people stopped buying it, forcing ms to think about the little details like "quality."

I completely disagree with your comments about Blizzard. I think War3 and FT were good games (or good game and expansion rather). They may not have the extremely long legs that SC has and the argument could certainly be made that SC may be a better game, but I have learned from experience that it is not a bad bet to buy a Blizzard game. I have not played one yet that I thought was a bad game. I don't think its wrong of anyone to buy games from a company, that they feel puts out good games, as soon as they come out. I don't think the same could be said about many other developers out there, but please tell me one non-hit game that Blizzard has released? I think Blizzard is a poor example for your arguement.

I also hate to break it to you but Windows XP is a pretty decent OS and it is pretty easy to use. I have found it to be very stable. There are problems with security but really, no other OS is under the microscope by security experts more than it is. Linux may be a more secure OS but its not as if it is without problems. Mac OS may be a better handling OS and I certainly believe that MS still robs a great many ideas from Apple. I think it is important, however, to remain objective about a product even if you are not a big fan of the company.
 
I completely disagree with your comments about Blizzard. I think War3 and FT were good games (or good game and expansion rather). They may not have the extremely long legs that SC has and the argument could certainly be made that SC may be a better game, but I have learned from experience that it is not a bad bet to buy a Blizzard game. I have not played one yet that I thought was a bad game. I don't think its wrong of anyone to buy games from a company, that they feel puts out good games, as soon as they come out. I don't think the same could be said about many other developers out there, but please tell me one non-hit game that Blizzard has released? I think Blizzard is a poor example for your arguement.

I also hate to break it to you but Windows XP is a pretty decent OS and it is pretty easy to use. I have found it to be very stable. There are problems with security but really, no other OS is under the microscope by security experts more than it is. Linux may be a more secure OS but its not as if it is without problems. Mac OS may be a better handling OS and I certainly believe that MS still robs a great many ideas from Apple. I think it is important, however, to remain objective about a product even if you are not a big fan of the company.

I did not say they were bad games. The person I quoted said he bought the games solely because they were blizzard games. I think that's a bad strategy. Yes traditionally blizzard has been a good bet but if everybody took the time to read about games instead of just buying them immediately thing would work a little differet.

Yeah, XP is decent (less stable than 2k). If you've been paying attention though you'll notice that XP delivered everything MS promised....for windows 95.
 
Slartibartfast said:
Yeah, XP is decent (less stable than 2k). If you've been paying attention though you'll notice that XP delivered everything MS promised....for windows 95.

Well, the lowest levels of hell are reserved for child molestors and marketing execs. Really, by the marketing of almost any OS all the way back to the start you would be led to believe that the OS could cure cancer and feed all the starving kids in Africa. Its what it does, not what they say that counts.
 
Well, the lowest levels of hell are reserved for child molestors and marketing execs.

That is totally unfair to the child molesters.

What bothers me about microsoft is the lack of control. Windows does so much for you that it hinders the learning experience. Which is probably why it's so popular (avoiding stepping into "they're a monopoly" territory). That's why I have two boxes, one for windows so I can game and one for Linux so I can be challenged.
 
Defective said:
Really, by the marketing of almost any OS all the way back to the start you would be led to believe that the OS could cure cancer and feed all the starving kids in Africa.

Well, Bill Gates is a very charitable person! ;)
 
Slartibartfast said:
What bothers me about microsoft is the lack of control. Windows does so much for you that it hinders the learning experience. Which is probably why it's so popular (avoiding stepping into "they're a monopoly" territory). That's why I have two boxes, one for windows so I can game and one for Linux so I can be challenged.


That's the whole point...MS wants to make their products easy to use. Most people don't want to get down into the nitty-gritty of things just to do their jobs. They want something that does what they want with the minimum of trouble. It doesnt make you any better if you can do the same thing with more steps or more difficulty involved. Its almost as bad as comparing Consoles to PC gaming ;)
 
From: Charlie Demerjian <[email protected]>
Date: Thursday, December 1, 2005 12:29 pm
Subject: Re: No Crash if the Mod Communities have something to say about it

> I know the valve guys personally, and know Spector also. They, and
> everything they are doing, have little to do with this topic, they
> are
> not big enough to matter, and are doing nothign to drive mainstream
> costs down. Mods rarely sell.
>
> [email protected] wrote:
> > As long as Modding is allowed it exist, this &quot;crash&quot;
> will NEVER happen. You guys complain about a lack of creativity or
> the insanely high production costs of games? Go buy Half-Life 1,
> and download a few mods (DoD, Natural Selection, Specialist,
> Rally), play each for a few hours and tell me that again. We have
> people turning an FPS shooter into a hybrid multiplayer FPS/RTS, a
> FPS shooter into a driving simulator. Jesus, these people aren't
> making money, and they are normally part of extremely small
> development teams.
> >
> > This CRASH will not happen as long as Valve has something to say
> about it. They continue to promote innovation through their Steam
> content distribution engine and will continue to do so for as long
> as they can afford to. The Counter-Strike team was bought out and
> hired by Valve, the DoD team was bought out and hired by Valve, the
> Gunman Chronicles team was bought out and hired by Valve. Watch for
> this trend to continue as truly exemplary mods gain respect and
> support in the single largest online FPS community.
> >
> > You see Will Wright, Warren Spector and the rest complaining
> about the lack of creativity in the industry, the stagnation of new
> releases. People say we need to go back to the garages and cook up
> some creativity. There are people right now coding their asses off
> on something we've never seen or heard of in the entire world, in
> their garage earning not a god damn dime for it. Don't ignore the
> Mod community, it is what made half-life last 7 years, and it's
> what could potentially make HL2 last just as long, if not longer.
> >
> > Many people forget Valve's roots. They were the team that created
> the original Team Fortress. They were once the guys working out of
> their mother's basement on a Mod that maybe no one would ever play,
> but they did it anyway. And look where they are now. Supporting the
> same Modding communities from whence they came. Valve deserves a
> big ol' pat on the back and a $10 payment from me for any new
> content they release. I'm a huge fan of their work and an even
> bigger fan of what they stand for.
 
This thread is missing the point.

A decline in sells is not a crash. The crash in the 80s resulted because retailers lost faith in games to sell and refused to stock them. Nintendo came in and promised to reimburse them if they didnt sell, and backing all their games - renewing that lost faith. That cannot and will not happen again because the market is so diverse and there is simply too much invested by too many bohemoths. Pigs are more likely to fly than retailers refusing to stock all games - save widespread internet distribution. This would mean publishers would have to stop renting space - and if you think that can happen this generation then I'm sorry but you're living in a dream. Customer priorities may change and some companies won't adapt but that is not a crash - it's a good thing. Failsafes are in place for, albeit limited, quality ensurance by console manufacturers. Atari did not do that. To say the industry is doomed is ignorant. Stop it.

Oh, and to say it is "inevitable" is even more ignorant. There are a lot of good games out now and a lot more coming out that are fun and innovative. Nintindo DS's library is a great little example of this.

Old games are not necessarilly bad games. (Civ IV) Oh, and I would hardly call Half Life 2 "just another sequel".

edit: to those of you saying you lived through it, you know what youre talking about - no.
 
Been gone for a while. Just gonna post some thoughts :)

If you want a good example of this, take the new Madden game. Go to the major sites and look at the scores they gave it. Read the reviews, and compare that to the numerical scores. Then look at sites that put reader ratings next to the official scores. Notice a discrepancy? For bonus points, find me a major ratings site that regularly gives out a score of 6/10 or less. Once again, they are owned.

This is why i skip the reviews go straight to user ratings.

Atleast nintendo is still working to be innovative. Dunno if they'll succeed but atleast they're trying to be different.

I can tell which games suck regardless of who is paid off to say it is good or bad, don't assume we are all stupid.

Doesn't necessarily apply to you, but every other average joe bought consoles for it's plug&play feature, so they wouldn't *have* to do all that research.

Also, Why do people think there is no innovation in games????? Answer me this with something to back it up.

What current game released within the past 6 months has?

I'm curious, how old are the naysayers? Is there a correlation between how long a person has been console gaming vs how they see the current state of the industry? I think that PC games need to be excluded from this, because the PC is a much more stable platform and it's vastly cheaper to write games for (the dev kits for the original xbox were $80k).

Actually i think the article was mostly talking about consoles. The arguments can be better applied to console games (like only making 3 good games before the console gets phased out, that doesn't happen on PC's).

Its not semantics its the fundamentals of the argument. To see a crash comming you have to be able to see game quality degrading. I dont see that ! I have already stated I see on the horizon, a crop of games that make me very excited about the future of gaming.

The article was right about that part. It can't get any better. There's no new innovation, yet the cost to make a game keeps going up. Do you count eyecandy as an innovation?

As long as Modding is allowed it exist, this "crash" will NEVER happen.

The modding community is in the diehard minority and even fewer of them are into consoles. Name one console game that lets you do all the stuff you said.

I did not mean to target anyone here in particular, and call them a whiner. I meant that the real problem I see in the video game industry, is not a lack of creativity or originality, its the people who play the game never being satisified and sitting down and enjoying the game for what it is.

And when you're done with your game, what next? Play another game with the exact same gameplay, and after that, another rehash, and after that, another rehash. The creativity pool is drying up, i believe that the ones 'whining' are the true gamers, they like gaming so much, they play until they get sick of it, and then demand more. They're the ones pushing the companies for more innovation.

When it reaches the point that they can no longer satisfy the die hard gamers, and start settling for players that don't demand anything. It's become stagnant.

Meanwhile, I read an article in (I think) Forbes awhile back that was showing improvement in lower budget game development. Dunno how big the niche really is but I'd *love* to see some companies allow cheap licensing of some past games/engines/SDKs etc.

Doesn't id already do that?

three words point to the world of gaming NOT crashing.

World of Warcrack.

There are already dozens of MMORPG's out there with the same gameplay (actually, they all have the same core gameplay). WoW became a hit because its part of a franchise with a large userbase. But there are dozens of other MMORPG's with better potential closing down. While being the last man standing is good for WoW, it's a surefire way to kill the MMORPG industry.


Ah. Finally finished. This was a long thread. :D
 
I don't believe that MMO's should count as games.

There are no victory conditions. They have a beginning but no end, and the ability to find good items and a good guild is more important than skill or memorization. They use a utility-industry service model (pay upfront for basic equipment, then pay monthly to make use of it). MMO's are more of an interactive alternate reality, an extension of lasertron, which is an extension of running around the backyard with nerf guns. If you die in WoW, what happens? You come back. Die in Mario and you can come back a few times, but eventually it's game over, go home jimmy. The only game I know of that successfully blended MMO with an actual game was Diablo II, assuming you played hardcore (non-hardcore is just level grinding so you can jump in lvl 90 duels).

So claiming that the games industry is fine and citing MMO's makes as much sense as saying that the consumer goods industry is fine by citing the cable and electric company's earnings.

MMO's may feel like games but they're something else entirely.
 
Slartibartfast said:
I don't believe that MMO's should count as games.

There are no victory conditions. They have a beginning but no end, and the ability to find good items and a good guild is more important than skill or memorization. They use a utility-industry service model (pay upfront for basic equipment, then pay monthly to make use of it). MMO's are more of an interactive alternate reality, an extension of lasertron, which is an extension of running around the backyard with nerf guns. If you die in WoW, what happens? You come back. Die in Mario and you can come back a few times, but eventually it's game over, go home jimmy. The only game I know of that successfully blended MMO with an actual game was Diablo II, assuming you played hardcore (non-hardcore is just level grinding so you can jump in lvl 90 duels).

So claiming that the games industry is fine and citing MMO's makes as much sense as saying that the consumer goods industry is fine by citing the cable and electric company's earnings.

MMO's may feel like games but they're something else entirely.

MMOs not games .... lol :rolleyes:
 
Slartibartfast said:
I don't believe that MMO's should count as games.

There are no victory conditions. They have a beginning but no end, and the ability to find good items and a good guild is more important than skill or memorization. They use a utility-industry service model (pay upfront for basic equipment, then pay monthly to make use of it). MMO's are more of an interactive alternate reality, an extension of lasertron, which is an extension of running around the backyard with nerf guns. If you die in WoW, what happens? You come back. Die in Mario and you can come back a few times, but eventually it's game over, go home jimmy. The only game I know of that successfully blended MMO with an actual game was Diablo II, assuming you played hardcore (non-hardcore is just level grinding so you can jump in lvl 90 duels).

So claiming that the games industry is fine and citing MMO's makes as much sense as saying that the consumer goods industry is fine by citing the cable and electric company's earnings.

MMO's may feel like games but they're something else entirely.

Ok fine if you want me to show you exactly where you went wrong, here we go.

http://www.wordreference.com/definition/game

Lets, first look at the definition of game. You chose one defintion of the word game, there are multiple definition of the word game such as :
link said:
an amusement or pastime; "they played word games"; "he thought of his painting as a game that filled his empty time"; "his life was all fun and games"

Wow falls directly into this category. Lets look at this further though, why do people play games? People play games for amusement, and to escape the problems and tedium of real life. Gamers are always bitching about how they want a total emersive environment, as it increase enjoyment and further escapes them from reality. A MMORPG is perhaps the most emersive of games, and allows you to lead a virtual life, which even further removes you from real life, sometimes too much.

Every game has penalities for death. In mario brother you would lose a life, in WoW you lose durability, time, and money. Death has a consequnce just like any other game, the penalty is different, but that is inconsequential as it is a penality none the less.

You seem to be saying, games you do not like, are not really games and deteremental to gaming. This is strictly an opinion and not a fact. WoW has over 4 million gamers world wide, all playing in a persistent environment. Just because you do not enjoy a certain genre of gaming, does not mean gaming is crashing.

Diablo 2 is not a MMO just like guild wars is not. The first M stands for massive, graphical chat rooms with instanced multiplayer zones are not MMOs.
 
I am clearly not saying that games I don't like are not games. Don't take everything so personally. Just because somebody disagrees with you does not make them a !!!!!! or a "whiner" as you are so fond of saying.

Dictionary.com's definition of a game:

A competitive activity or sport in which players contend with each other according to a set of rules: the game of basketball; the game of gin rummy.

Think about the basic ways in which an MMO functions in contrast to other games. Just because I said MMO's are not games doesn't mean I'm bashing them. Think about the underlying mechanics for a second. In a game players compete through a very specific set of rules to achieve a certain end. You win or you lose. A game is a closed, finite system with a definite beginning and a definite end. Sports are the same way.

Yes of course MMO's are supposed to be immersive and yes that's what most gamers want. For most gamers a game is a means to an escape, a way to exist in another reality. But until MMO's came out videogames were just different expressions of classic games. If you played games your whole life and then moved on to MMO's that's fine, but I think that there is a vastly closer relationship between mario and monopoly than WoW and monopoly. MMO's are more akin to D&D because it's made to be flexible, open-ended and on-going. I would not be afraid to say that D&D is not a game in the traditional sense either. MMO's and D&D are offshoots of traditional gaming, and I think it would be useful to have a term to distinguish between games like Tetris, Mario, even the FF series, and things like WoW, Guild Wars and pen-and-paper RPG's. If our hobby is ever to be respected there needs to be some sort of intellectual movement within it, part of which will involve definitions and classifications.

edit: I've said before that I think PC games are exempt from a coming crash. I've said this a million times because PC's are a different animal altogether. I realize MMO's are very very popular, but I think it's fairly obvious that games built on the traditional model are suffering, and I think that's bad not only because I want new games but it's bad for the same reason that all the arts suffer. I don't think MMO's have the potential to be considered art in the way that tradional games do. That's not meant as a bash on MMO's, it's just that all art forms are by their very nature limited and meant to communicate a theme or message. By having an open-ended form like an MMO or RPG you dillute that possibility because conveying a message or making a statement becomes vastly more difficult, and having millions of people with millions of ideas hinders cohesion. By contrast a simple game meant for one person, or a competitive game for a small number of people has that potential.

But it's more than that. How many of you reading this think closely about the mechanics behind the games you play? I think Ikaruga is a beautiful game not because of it's graphics but because of it's elegance. I believe that the mechanics behind a game are not given due credit, and that they in themselves can be beautiful. With an MMO I just do not believe it's possible, but I am all for new MMO's being created and people playing them. I am not anti-MMO, I jsut believe they need to be considered seperately.
 
I already explained how you took ONE DEFINITION OF THE WORD GAME, there are multiple definitions.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=game

What is the first defintion, and not a sub definition ?

First definition listed on dictionary.com said:
An activity providing entertainment or amusement; a pastime: party games; word games.

WoW/EQ/EQ2/SWG/etc etc etc .... are M.M.O.R.P.G.s ... what does the G stand for ?
 
WoW is a M.M.O.R.P.G. ... what does the G stand for ?

just because it has the word "game" in it does not mean it's correct. If you look closely I'm calling for new definitions and phrases to define what exactly it is we do. Lumping MMO's, videogames, RPGs, board games and sports into the term "games" and then talking about "games and gaming" is very misleading and deceptive. I'm looking for some new precision, I don't give two shits about what has already been established.

edit:

Ok think of it this way. I am not saying MMOs are not games in the same sense that I say Brittany Spears is not music. MMOs are not games because they are inherently different from games (not because I think they suck), while brittany makes a crappy product designed to sell, not art, therefore she does not make music.
 
Sheesh... put down the dictionaries everyone. Debating 101 states that dictionary bashing is to be avoided at all costs. It's Cambridge vs. Webster. The issue of MMORPGs being a game is a total side issue to the thread topic. Take it to a new thread topic.

Back on topic. Charlie's email has one flaw to it. It's based on the assumption that mod tools will continually exist for modders to play on. To have those tools, we'll have to buy the games that include those tools. If the game is inferior and sales are poor then those tools are then nullified because a) not enough people have the original game to play with and b) not enough people have those tools. The result is the mod community fails and so does the company because of poor sales.

The are side arguments as well. Someone already brought up the point that mods (at this point) for consoles are nearly non-existant. Consoles at this point control the market and computer games alone cannot keep the industry afloat. So we play out his assumption that the mod community can keep that segment vibrant and alive, it would save the rest from a crash.

Charlie's isn't without merit. It does show that mods for games do introduce a flood of creativity and originality. It is a well established fact that mods can extend the life of a game and increase sales. In fact, for the computer segment it's a desired feature for almost any game today.

Note: I wouldn't have chosen Valve for the example. Considering that they do hire mod teams, very little has been shown from those efforts in terms of making those mods reappear. I'm still waiting for Team Fortress 2. A better example would have been something along the lines of Ritual who was able to transform themselves from making add-ons to Quake to being a full-fledged independent developer.
 
Slartibartfast said:
just because it has the word "game" in it does not mean it's correct. If you look closely I'm calling for new definitions and phrases to define what exactly it is we do. Lumping MMO's, videogames, RPGs, board games and sports into the term "games" and then talking about "games and gaming" is very misleading and deceptive. I'm looking for some new precision, I don't give two shits about what has already been established.

edit:

Ok think of it this way. I am not saying MMOs are not games in the same sense that I say Brittany Spears is not music. MMOs are not games because they are inherently different from games (not because I think they suck), while brittany makes a crappy product designed to sell, not art, therefore she does not make music.

Talking about it more does not make you sound any more right. The fact is it's an alternate universe created by people to have fun in and compete in. It's a game. Games do not have to have endings, ever watched a movie with an open-ended ending before?

If games are ever going to move more towards an artform, then your limited definition of "Mario" gaming isn't just a classification, it's wrong.

Oh and saying that Britney Spears does not make music is subjective, like your entire argument.
 
Talking about it more does not make you sound any more right. The fact is it's an alternate universe created by people to have fun in and compete in. It's a game.

Yeah, and monopoly is not an alternate universe, nor is a game of hockey, therefore I'm saying it would be useful to have a way to distinguish. The point, anyway, was that MMO's are not a good metric of the gaming industry.
 
Slartibartfast said:
Yeah, and monopoly is not an alternate universe, nor is a game of hockey, therefore I'm saying it would be useful to have a way to distinguish. The point, anyway, was that MMO's are not a good metric of the gaming industry.

Sure monopoly is an alternate universe as much as ANY game is. Games are just rulesets developed by game developers that people play with. It's just a different interface. MMOs are games, I dont know what youre talking about with using them as a measuring stick for the game industry since they are only one genre of game but whatever.
 
Geez, doesn't anyone here KNOW hardcore MMO players? Believe me, it's an alternate reality... Or maybe their reality becomes the alternate one.... in any case, this is getting off topic, so to sum it all up, MMOs are not a good way to correlate to the sense of gaming that we are talking about "crashing" here. Especially because MMO isn't as mainstream as one would think, even with WoW. Regardless, creativity is still suffering.
 
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