Why are we getting weird neutered games?

T

topslop1

2[H]4U
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Apr 15, 2002
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I feel as though I'm living in a pseudo universe of pc gaming right now where we are just getting these odd versions of what should be pc games. I don't want to start a pc vs. console argument here but I do want to know why it is that we are getting neutered games.

My focus is not on graphical complexity or how pretty a game is... I'm more so referring to the 'here's a portion of a game now, here's the rest of it 6 months later for another $25'.

Other areas of concern:

-Multiplayer only with no single player campaign.

-Unlocking of items. Will there ever be a fully accessible selection out the gate? Not referring to level based or power based items, but just kit selection that is all of the same power level.

-Paying real money to unlock items.

-8 hour campaigns for single player.

-Only 'grab and deliver' quest based driven campaigns.

-Still very small online arenas.

-Where's my 500v500 for large scale online play?.. Ultima Online had huge faction based warfare for an MMO, no issues in lag if you had broadband connection.

-Life is pay to win - I used to escape this ideology when I played games. Now I've gotta deal with this crap in the virtual world too.

What have I missed?
 
The next group of people who put up a kickstarter with a MMO like UO is going to hit gold...Shroud of the Avatar isn't the game.

Camelot Unchained might be decent but they are still looking for programmers.
 
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Welcome to 2015. hhm For whats its worth that Game "secret world" is supposed to be more complex in quest design. Its still around and I know some people who play and say it had a low point but its pretty good now. Its supposed to be a very campaign based MMO. Other than that I gave up on MMOs probably 10 years ago. WoW pretty much neutured the genre.
 
Game compaies figured out a way to get residual income off of it's customer base. It's a paywall that takes advantage of people by turning them into cash cows. Thankfully not EVERY game is like that, but most are, and most "big titles" are as well. Which is why when people ask why I don't or have not bought certain games I shurg them off.

It's funny to think about, but up to just a few years ago, the only way a game company could get residual income off it's customer base was to make an MMO and charge the monthly membership fees. As was standard practice to pay for keeping the servers running.
 
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Other than unlocking items I don't have any of those problems. Guess I'm playing all the right games :D
 
If you sign up early you get this platinum hamster wheel, and if you pay $1.99, you get 10 revolutions credited to your wheel.
 
Changes to the marketplace and what the users want or prefer ... companies aren't stupid so they will align to the realities of their market or what their users want in practice, not in theory:

- graphics are easy to explain, unless they are in the business to sell an Engine (like Id or Epic) then they will go with graphics that accommodate the largest audience ... also sometimes too powerful a graphics requirement isn't well received by the audience (like Crysis) since they complain about how things run on their system or being forced to upgrade

- purchasers tend to fall into three groups (preorders, post orders, Steam sales/used) and companies align strategies to each group ... we get more goodies up front or as preorder exclusives since that is what that audience demands ... we get DLC or incremental add ons to encourage the post order crowd to jump in ... we get buy ups and other incremental (but less discounted) add ons to better profit from the late buyers who wait for big sales or used products

- in some cases the concepts of DLC have just replaced the previous concepts like expansions ... in the good old days you got the base game and few things changed unless there was an expansion or a sequel ... since expansions usually only had 20-40% purchase rates it wasn't practical for all games to do that ... DLC allows more customized incremental changes up to full blown expansion level changes

- I don't play games that allow buy up options but I understand the mentality ... some people have more money than time and are willing to pay for options or capabilities rather than grinding them out the old fashioned way

- single player vs multiplayer is games aligning to their market ... games like Fallout remain exclusively single player ... games like the shooters (Doom, Wolfenstein, CoD, BF, etc) tended to have the most long term usage by multiplayer users so over time their models shifted in favor of those audiences
 
Games that don't suck and require a million dollars to play.

The Secret World. Yes, it has DLC. But is new quests, areas, etc. that are being released years after the game came out.

Guild Wars 2. Buy the new expansion and get the base game for free. No subscription. You can buy convenience items, but it is all extraneous. Just buy the game and have fun. The PvP battles are pretty big.

Mount and Blade Warband Great multiplayer action. Potential to have hundreds of people in a battle. You enter battle with a weapon and then take whatever you need from the dead bodies of the soldiers you kill. I never played the single player much, but I enjoyed the "With Fire and Sword" game. F&S is a completely separate game from Warband. Warband is the one you want.

Civilization 5 GOTY Edition. It is so good. And since it is complete, no DLC to purchase.

Torchlight and Torchlight 2. First game was single player only. Second game has multiplayer. Buy once and mod it to death. Great games.

Skyrim GOTY Edition. Get the GOTY package and have unlimited modding potential. I literally have never played through the base story. Hundreds of hours just messing with modded stories and dungeons.

I can go on for hours listing great games. In short look for games with mod / Steam Workshop support and a Game of the Year edition available.
 
The push by large companies now is games as a service in order to maximize the potential revenue from every player of their games. "Service," in this case, meaning to continue dishing out small portions of a complete game for full price over time to make people feel like they're getting more when they're actually getting less for a fatter bottom line, and are more than happy to part with their money. Destiny is really the peak of this phenomenon in the present day, in my opinion. Another "season" of content is promised for next year with a "sequel" to follow shortly thereafter.

It's funny how this and other software industries are regressing to the service-focused economy concepts when a lot of other industries have been moving away from it over the years.
 
Armenius said:
The push by large companies now is games as a service in order to maximize the potential revenue from every player of their games. "Service," in this case, meaning to continue dishing out small portions of a complete game for full price over time to make people feel like they're getting more when they're actually getting less for a fatter bottom line, and are more than happy to part with their money. Destiny is really the peak of this phenomenon in the present day, in my opinion. Another "season" of content is promised for next year with a "sequel" to follow shortly thereafter.

It's funny how this and other software industries are regressing to the service-focused economy concepts when a lot of other industries have been moving away from it over the years.
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Agreed, except you surprised me about the "other industries" part. Have a few examples?
 
That's just the world we live in. Nothing is truly made for the consumer anymore, just to get as much money as they can
 
Tgrove said:
That's just the world we live in. Nothing is truly made for the consumer anymore, just to get as much money as they can
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Make no mistake, if at least some consumers didn't support this they would not be making any money doing it ... however, the group that does support it is a different demographic than the ones who hate it which makes for some of the complaints ... on the flip side, the games that cater to the other crowd have their critics who complain that things are too difficult, or complex, or take too long ... hard to please everyone
 
They've switched to the nickel & dime impulse buy approach that mobile gaming does. Sure, you can wait for your base to upgrade in 26hrs and 13minutes, or you can do an instant upgrade for just 100 "game diamonds". By not using real dollars and using made up points/game-dollars they further disconnect the actual cost.

There's a lot of psychology that goes into this. Why make $59 on a game when we can make $199 on the same game by adding certain mechanics.

If all of this stuff was sold to the consumer up front many wouldn't buy it, but by dividing it up, most people don't consciously realize the amount they're spending.

For example, you go to a fast food restaurant and order a fry, hamburger, and drink. You see the grand total in USD and pay - if it's abnormally high you wouldn't pay for it. Now flip that and make it so the order is paid per item (after each individual item, you swipe your card) with the amounts in FastFoodPoints, and there's no grand total given since it's each a separate transaction. Chances are, you'll likely be willing to pay more without knowing it because you're disconnected from the grand total and the lack of currency conversion.

I've seen YouTubers drop $80 worth of "game-dollars" like it's no big deal. Maybe they're sponsored, or maybe they're addicted. But the disconnect between the actual currency and the actual cost are real.
 
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All I can say is support the kickstarter PC games. Yeah they aren't perfect and a little rough around the edges, but it is our future. Cheap console ports are here to stay and they suck ass.
 
Parmenides said:
Agreed, except you surprised me about the "other industries" part. Have a few examples?
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Healthcare is a big one. Before the ACA in the US CMS has been making a big push to what they call PCMH (Patient-Centered Medical Home), which is a program that scores and reimburses physicians based on the quality of the service provided rather than the level and quantity of service produced. Car sales have actually moved that way, too, with dealers (generally) wanting to build a relationship with the customer instead of upselling tacked on services (granted, I know there is still the old guard that wants to negotiate with you over the course of multiple days in the office than meet the customer's own needs...).

CD Projekt RED and The Witcher series is a good example from video gaming of how building a relationship with your customers can furnish continued success without just seeing them as dollars and cents. On the other hand you can see the mobile gaming space and P2W structures are quickly fading in popularity. But now the big AAA publishers can think they can get away with it because they're too big to fail, and think game players need their games like a heroine addict to survive.
 
piscian18 said:
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Welcome to 2015. hhm For whats its worth that Game "secret world" is supposed to be more complex in quest design. Its still around and I know some people who play and say it had a low point but its pretty good now. Its supposed to be a very campaign based MMO. Other than that I gave up on MMOs probably 10 years ago. WoW pretty much neutured the genre.
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Was this post really worth the effort to put a gif in it?? I lol'd either way though.. :D

Armenius said:
But now the big AAA publishers can think they can get away with it because they're too big to fail, and think game players need their games like a heroine addict to survive.
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That's because we do need it. I want the Cyberpunk 2077 in my veins.
 
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alienate said:
All I can say is support the kickstarter PC games. Yeah they aren't perfect and a little rough around the edges, but it is our future. Cheap console ports are here to stay and they suck ass.
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Kickstarter has to be one of the worst examples, you preorder a title and have very expensive packages where you essentially preorder items/DLC that can have exorbitant pricing and have no guarantee you will ever receive anything. You also do not receive any equity in the company/project and absorb all the risk for the company.
 
Not sure which games you are playing but I am having a blast with the games I paid for including:

Witcher 3
Fallout 4
Call of Duty BO3
Forza 6
Uncharted Collection
Destiny Taken King
Tales from Borderlands
MGS V

Neither have any of the issues you mentioned except maybe BLOPS3 having a 6-8 hour campaign but you get zombies campaign as well and MP that should take you another 12-15 hours before you prestige.

Stop buying crappy games with low value or wasting your life in MMOs.
 
alienate said:
All I can say is support the kickstarter PC games. Yeah they aren't perfect and a little rough around the edges, but it is our future. Cheap console ports are here to stay and they suck ass.
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although I've supported a fair few ks projects. I have to disagree. There is no guarantee, and it might come out horribly, and encourage more horrible projects to come. That said, if you see something you think might be great and feel that the person doing it seem like he isn't gonna be a scoundrel (hard to say, but I guess this is the luck part) then yea go ahead and support it.

I think looking at indie more is the best thing to do. Since they don't have money, they have to focus on gameplay. And when i say indie, I don't mean the half ass greenlight unfinished product what nots.
 
Video games were primarily an art form.

Now it's mostly an industry.
 
spine said:
Video games were primarily an art form.

Now it's mostly an industry.
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You can actually pinpoint a point in the late 90s or earlys 2000s I forget when, when there was a videogame boom and suddenly corporate hedgefund types starting dumping money into buying up licensing and studios. Thats how we got to the EA and Activision of today. They're owned at the top level by people who have almost no ties to the industry on a personal level anymore. I think a couple publishers have come and gone since all that started who tried to break into gaming and flopped out.
 
spine said:
Video games were primarily an art form.

Now it's mostly an industry.
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I think this is probably the best reason / thing I've heard today and it makes sense. I used to play video games to break away from life for some fresh perspectives and they seemed more affordable back then.

More so than anything I just miss games that truly make you go...'yesssssss'.
 
KickAssCop said:
Not sure which games you are playing but I am having a blast with the games I paid for including:

Witcher 3
Fallout 4
Call of Duty BO3
Forza 6
Uncharted Collection
Destiny Taken King
Tales from Borderlands
MGS V

Neither have any of the issues you mentioned except maybe BLOPS3 having a 6-8 hour campaign but you get zombies campaign as well and MP that should take you another 12-15 hours before you prestige.

Stop buying crappy games with low value or wasting your life in MMOs.
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I did pick up MGS V, I did enjoy it. Fall out 4 is next. There are still some decent titles hitting, it just seems like the passion has dried out for making unique, wild stuff.
 
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