Bioware co-founder says what disappoints him about the industry today is there are too many good games, and it’s hard to keep up. When asked what he liked most about the industry, he once again says “all the great games.” Well played, I agree it can be sort of a double edged sword.
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There Are Too Many Games
- Thread starter John_Keck
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WorldExclusive
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I had to laugh. The standards are pretty low for "great games" these days.
I totally agree.
There are a lot of games. But a lot of "GREAT" games? Maybe if you enjoy FPS or WoW. What I want to see is one GREAT RPG with multi-player or co-op that is actually finished when released and not thrown out into the world half baked so that it loses most of its fan base before it is actually any good.
Most of these games are released as Betas and then DLC (patches) are released over the next year to make them what they should have been in the first place. Unfortunately by that time, the bulk of the gamers have tried them, seen how buggy they are and moved on before they got fixed. The game then soldiers on for a year or so and then fades away.
Most of these games are released as Betas and then DLC (patches) are released over the next year to make them what they should have been in the first place. Unfortunately by that time, the bulk of the gamers have tried them, seen how buggy they are and moved on before they got fixed. The game then soldiers on for a year or so and then fades away.
pigwalk
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I agree 100%. Anyone that lives any sort of semi-active lifestyle and works 40 or more hours a week just can't keep up with all the killer titles coming out every month. I'm just now playing Borderlands. How far behind am I?
Cerulean
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The "good games" usually happen to be games from the 80s and 90s. Funnily enough, when you go back to those games, those games are freaking hard. 
next-Jin
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I'm kind of in the same boat, last game I finished was Uncharted 2. It's pratically impossible to play every "must play" if you have a family and work 40 hrs a week. Unless of course you consider family time in front of the TV playing Black Ops while your wife and kids watch
Ashbringer
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What good games? Where? What standards is Bioware co-founder basing this on?
Looking over the AVGN videos, I see that Genesis, Super Nintendo, and Nintendo had an extremely large pile of shitty games. Games will extremely bad glitches, and spelling errors. These are things you see less of with today's games.
With today's games glitches are patched with an internet connection. Spelling errors are rare, cause someone is using a dictionary. Graphics are always great looking, cause everyone is using a similar graphics engine. How many games are based on the Unreal engine, and using Havok physics?
So basically the standards changed. Bad games aren't that obvious. So how do we know if a game sucks? Things like boring game play. It's either repetitive, short, or just not fun. Take away challenge, and skill isn't even required to play through the game.
Then there's the lack of new ideas. Basically, you can categorize the majority of games in the market, into three basic categories. First person shooter, 3rd person perspective, and RPG. That's 90% of the market right there, and most of them are based on a recurring franchise, like Halo and Final Fantasy.
Anyone who can say there's too many good games, is like saying there's too many good movies. Anyone who's been to the movie theater knows that a good movie is more rare then winning the lottery. Finding a good game is like taking a shit, and then wiping your ass to surprising find that your ass is clean, and no further wiping is required. It's just that rare, and I can guarantee you that Xmas sales for the video game industry this year, won't be holly jolly.
Looking over the AVGN videos, I see that Genesis, Super Nintendo, and Nintendo had an extremely large pile of shitty games. Games will extremely bad glitches, and spelling errors. These are things you see less of with today's games.
With today's games glitches are patched with an internet connection. Spelling errors are rare, cause someone is using a dictionary. Graphics are always great looking, cause everyone is using a similar graphics engine. How many games are based on the Unreal engine, and using Havok physics?
So basically the standards changed. Bad games aren't that obvious. So how do we know if a game sucks? Things like boring game play. It's either repetitive, short, or just not fun. Take away challenge, and skill isn't even required to play through the game.
Then there's the lack of new ideas. Basically, you can categorize the majority of games in the market, into three basic categories. First person shooter, 3rd person perspective, and RPG. That's 90% of the market right there, and most of them are based on a recurring franchise, like Halo and Final Fantasy.
Anyone who can say there's too many good games, is like saying there's too many good movies. Anyone who's been to the movie theater knows that a good movie is more rare then winning the lottery. Finding a good game is like taking a shit, and then wiping your ass to surprising find that your ass is clean, and no further wiping is required. It's just that rare, and I can guarantee you that Xmas sales for the video game industry this year, won't be holly jolly.
LOCO LAPTOP
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More like too many cappy games.
I'm kind of in the same boat, last game I finished was Uncharted 2. It's pratically impossible to play every "must play" if you have a family and work 40 hrs a week. Unless of course you consider family time in front of the TV playing Black Ops while your wife and kids watch
You need to find more games the wife and kids can play with you.
pigwalk
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There have ALWAYS been an abundance of absolute shit games. Anyone who looks back and thinks every NES game was a SMB3 needs to take off those silly rosy glasses they're looking back with.
Catch22sk8r
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Agreed, I bought God of War 3 and Uncharted 2 the day they came out and I haven't even played them yet. not to mention other games that are backlogged. it's silly and has made me rethink my day 1 purchases. that being said I "had" to buy GT5 so it's omitted.
LOL, so true. I grew up in the 80s with the NES and I can remember some truly hideous games.
homerandabe69
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The "good games" usually happen to be games from the 80s and 90s. Funnily enough, when you go back to those games, those games are freaking hard.
sometimes i feel like developers back then never actually played a lot of the games they made, otherwise they would probably realize how impossible some of them were.
homerandabe69
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i have a backlog of about 15 ps3 games right now and 20 games on steam. luckily i only made about 3 day one purchases and the rest were from B2G1 promotions at gamestop.
playing new vegas right now and then back to mass effect 1 afterward. still on god of war 1 on ps3
I've been saying this for years. I'm glad there are others like me. I have been forcing myself to play games almost just to play em. I just finished Forces Unleashed for example. I'm trying to rip through Black Ops so I can play Just Cause 2 or Forces Unleashed 2 or Spiderman Shattered Dimensions.
There is really too many good games to play. Some of you stating that there are no good or great games out need to take off your shit colored glasses before you complain about my rose-colored ones.
There is really too many good games to play. Some of you stating that there are no good or great games out need to take off your shit colored glasses before you complain about my rose-colored ones.
I tried to get into these games myself. However, I found MechWarrior Living Legends beta and I'm sorry. That game, in it's infancy, is 100% better than the crap that any of these developers can muster. The new Piranha games MechWarrior reboot is still vaporware. I also have it on good authority that it will be a console oriented crap fest.
I skipped all the new COD and other crap. I was too busy playing Just Cause 2 and Team Fortress. I did play GTA 4 and I enjoyed the atmosphere. It just ran very crappy. That kind of ruined the experience for me.
I skipped all the new COD and other crap. I was too busy playing Just Cause 2 and Team Fortress. I did play GTA 4 and I enjoyed the atmosphere. It just ran very crappy. That kind of ruined the experience for me.
I agree there are too many games to play. I still have about 6 or so loaded that I've put multiple hours into and have yet to finish. Might just be that might attention span is so short? Just got the l4d2 for $5 so FONV, ME2, Metro 2033, DiRT 2 and several other I cant remember are on the backburner once more haha.
I wholeheartedly agree!
Just a guy trying to make his company look better. I actually like a lot of what Bioware is doing, but the problem these days are NOT an abundance of great games.
The problem is regurgitation of the same concepts over and over again with very little actual invention going on. Right now we seem caught in a sad loop fueled by scared and conservative investors playing it safe and aiming for the lowest common denominator. It happens on record labels, in the film industry, in the television industry (lets kill off Firefly, Rubicon, Caprica etc.), in fine arts and every conceivable other industry that has creative thought and artistry attached to it.
The indie spirit has been close to killed by the huge budgets required to pitch and market a game these days. Still some indie games do well thanks to Steam. I hope consumers will lead more small developers to keep up their good work. Tools and equipment gets cheaper and easier to use, there is hope. Damn, give me 6 months and I will have an awesome indie game title ready, we are already a full team, but with no time.
The bar needs to be raised, more radical thinking and rethinking of what gaming can be in this day and age. Never have we had so much potential for creating awesome games, the raw power, the physics the freaking Shadermodel 5, OpenGL4.1... and then we get MOH and COD and MEH...
Stone Cold
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Then there are the games that are too easy. I walked through Starcraft 2 on Brutal without much effort or skill (I had played the game only once before, on regular difficulty). Really, the only thing that made it a challenge was an annoyance, the fast-pace game-play, which wouldn't be a big deal if I were more experienced with the game.
You want to know why Firefly and Caprica were killed? Poor ratings. Plain and simple. They weren't being watched enough to support the money it cost to develop them. A lot of Firefly's issues were entirely created by Fox of course, but it is what it is. People like to look for some devious or bat shit insane reasons a lot of shows are killed, but it usually comes down to ratings or the show's cost.
Axehandler
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Personally - I think there are too many good games!!
No more good games for... a year... make crap... then blame the losses on P2P!
Axe
No more good games for... a year... make crap... then blame the losses on P2P!
Axe
I am fully aware of the standard mechanics of show canceling. Low rating = time to die. Ties very much into my mentioning of the lowest common denominator. The masses are uneducated on quality, it pervades every aspect of consumption of course.
Quality movies might be too "boring" within the first 10 minutes, "no action", on with The Expendables instead.
Quality shows might not easily invite just about everyone to get the circumstances, scenarios, characters, direction, story... the channel is switched.
Quality games might be too hard to get into because of lack of immediate gratification and the time it might require to unfold the game world.
Quality music might not play in your head like a pop tune after the first listen, maybe the record takes a few spins before you begin to appreciate the complexity?
Quality food takes "like forever" to cook, so we eat processed garbage.
The problem is two fold. And "our" (obviously not here at [H]) lack of willingness to be challenged and be met with "rigorous demands" is the one heavy anchor in this festering stagnation in game development and invention today.
AMC canned Rubicon? FUCK. I'm just going to stop watching TV and only buy shows in DVD box sets that include the series finale. I'm tired of investing time into shows I will never know the end of.
Cerulean
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What is a good game? What makes a game good?
pigwalk
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If you enjoy it, it's good.
While I'm not going to disagree (though I'd argue on your insinuation that Expendables is another run of the mill brain dead action movie), it is what it is. Good is highly subjective and just because you might think something is good doesn't mean other people have to. No one here has the power to claim something is so good that no one shouldn't be allowed to dislike it.
Money rules the world whether we like it or not. Its needed to keep shit going. This just means people need to put their money where their mouths are and actually support the stuff that comes out that isn't the normal crap we get all the time. But no instead people will ignore that stuff and continue to bitch and moan constantly while doing jack shit to change things.
I couldn't agree more. I really don't understand what those of you who claim there are very few good games are actually looking for in a game. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is exhilarating. BioShock is wonderful. Starcraft 2 is extremely polished and fluid and offered varied gameplay. Left 4 Dead is one of the best zombie games ever created.
I don't own an XBOX 360 or PS3, I rarely watch TV, and the last movie I saw in the theater was Dark Knight. I have a full time job and a family and it's extremely difficult for me to decide what to play with the limited game time I have.
I don't own an XBOX 360 or PS3, I rarely watch TV, and the last movie I saw in the theater was Dark Knight. I have a full time job and a family and it's extremely difficult for me to decide what to play with the limited game time I have.
If there was a truly GREATTTTT game out (especially for PC), why haven't I upgraded my ancient system?
Oh that's right.... because all the new games blow hard with hype as their main selling tool (instead of say, cutting edge graphics? Or a long, well made single player gameplay with decent replay value? Or multiplayer that doesn't run like ass on most systems when the game comes out, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc
Oh that's right.... because all the new games blow hard with hype as their main selling tool (instead of say, cutting edge graphics? Or a long, well made single player gameplay with decent replay value? Or multiplayer that doesn't run like ass on most systems when the game comes out, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc
fightingfi
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Sad theres NOT enough Great games and lack of any flight sim and Janes combat sims first of all. Last and Greatest game i ever played was Half Life2 and ep1 and 2 ...
Ashbringer
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That's true, but there were plenty of great games to make up for it. Zelda, Mario, Megaman, Metal Gear, and Metroid all started on the NES.
What can you say started on the Xbox 360 or PS3? I can't think of a single game.
Ashbringer
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My personal opinion.
Call of Duty has been done to death. I really don't understand the obsession with this game. Especially when you've played games like Counter Strike, Solder of Fortune, Battlefield, and many more war based games. If you think COD is an amazing game, you missed out on more amazing games. COD has the graphics, but nothing else.
BioShock is nothing new to FPS games. The story could have been more engaging, and the weaponry could have been more inventive. It's funny that I forget I have special abilities, when I'm too busy using guns. It's a generic run of the mill FPS.
Starcraft doesn't have the captivating attention that Warcraft 3 has. I've never been a big fan of those games, which is strange cause I've been a fan of World of Warcraft, and even that game is lacking.
Left 4 Dead was amazing for the first few months, and now nobody cares about it anymore. Would have been better if there was a single player game, cause there's certainly an open market for FPS zombie games. It's just another run of the mill, FPS game. Nothing innovative was done in the game. I never bought it, cause I didn't see any appeal for a game which you require to play with other people, to progress what seems like a single player game.
You aren't the only one. Especially when so many games are poorly rated. Every game is at least a 7 out of 10. Most games are a 8 out of 10. Halo and COD is a 9 out of 10.
So in essence, there is no such thing as a bad game. Then you buy one of these games, play it for an hour, and you let it collect dust for months.
Why? Cause it wasn't a fucking 7 out of 10. No game ever gats a score of 1-6. Cause no game review website has the balls to give it that score. The only way you'll know it's a shitty game, is to go out and buy it. No demo, and even if there was a demo, it would be only the best parts of the game.