Speaking of gaming communities.
- Thread starter taeric
- Start date
Mean Mr. Mustard
Always shouts out something obscene
theacoustician said:
No its not.
Games have definately been getting shorter over the last 5 or so years and it makes me sad.
See, I don't think the games have been getting shorter. I definitely think they feel shorter, but I think it is just that we are quicker at finishing them.
Probably a bit of the problems comes from the fact that you have to finish them quickly to be ready for the next round of games. It used to be that you had months to play Mega Man because there was nothing else like it to compete for attention. Same goes for Doom and the like, as well.
Granted, there have been some exceptions. I don't think I could speed through FF6 or 7 to save my life. Of course.... that doesn't work because I couldn't speed through 10, either. So... exceptions...
The FPS market, I will confess I don't know too much about. I didn't like Half Life when it came out. I was stuck in the multiplayer trap that was Quake 2. Then multiplayer got all involved and it took reading strategy guides to know which gun to buy. I didn't care for that. But all of the other genres of game? I wouldn't be too terribly surprised to find out games are actually getting longer.
Now.... I do believe games are getting too easy. I swear to all that is holy that I am sick and tired of the stupid "tutorial" crap that begins most games. Just let me figure it out. It can progress if you want, but DO NOT INTERRUPT me. (I just started Metal Gear Acid. That series is notorios for this. "Snake, use x to climb the ladder in front of you." "Ok, now press circle to examine the wall." )
Probably a bit of the problems comes from the fact that you have to finish them quickly to be ready for the next round of games. It used to be that you had months to play Mega Man because there was nothing else like it to compete for attention. Same goes for Doom and the like, as well.
Granted, there have been some exceptions. I don't think I could speed through FF6 or 7 to save my life. Of course.... that doesn't work because I couldn't speed through 10, either. So... exceptions...
The FPS market, I will confess I don't know too much about. I didn't like Half Life when it came out. I was stuck in the multiplayer trap that was Quake 2. Then multiplayer got all involved and it took reading strategy guides to know which gun to buy. I didn't care for that. But all of the other genres of game? I wouldn't be too terribly surprised to find out games are actually getting longer.
Now.... I do believe games are getting too easy. I swear to all that is holy that I am sick and tired of the stupid "tutorial" crap that begins most games. Just let me figure it out. It can progress if you want, but DO NOT INTERRUPT me. (I just started Metal Gear Acid. That series is notorios for this. "Snake, use x to climb the ladder in front of you." "Ok, now press circle to examine the wall." )
NES to SNES was such a great feelingtheacoustician said:Playing a 360 made me sad. I remember the day I first played a NES. It was amazing how much better it was than my Collecovision. Same thing stepping up to a SNES from NES. That just doesn't happen anymore
taeric said:
Games are designed to be shorter because they need you to keep buying. Back in the nes days when a game cost a million dollars max to make and may have had 10 people working on it, more detail could be put into longetivity and besides that like you said there wasn't alot to choose from (because of limits set by Nintendo)
Games nowadays can have 500 people working on it from the orcestra playing the soundtrack to people doing the rotoscopeing, and research on the timeperiod. Its not uncommon for a game to cost 30-40 million to make. Thats a cheap movie today. Like the movie industry most companies survive on the blockbusters as most games dont make money or just break even. For every Katamari Damacy theres a Beyond Good and Evil. A good game is going to sell forever, Look at Half Life. everything else has a shelf life of less than six months thus the need to keep you buying.
Ryokurin said:
But that is just the problem. I directly refute the fact that games were longer. They may have felt longer, but they were not in fact longer. Quite the contrary, most games were incredibly short. Name one game from yesteryear (NES days) that actually took a long time to beat. Zelda? Can be beat in a few hours. Metroid? Quicker. Super Mario Brothers? Once you were good at it, a few hours. Mega Man? A day of solid playing (Once you get good at it.)
I suppose you can bring in games like Ghost and Goblins. You know, the ones that were bloody impossible. Or games like Spy Hunter that never ended.
Which makes the only exceptions the old puzzle style games and the racing style games that never really had an ending. People don't buy that sort of game anymore, though. At least not in the numbers needed to make money. And where does the fault lie for that? How many people here bought Lumines? Meteos?
Then, there are the games like Grand Theft Auto. Not a fan myself, but those games are MUCH longer than most anything in the past.
Drool-Boy said:
False. http://www.playfuls.com/news_3827.html
I imagine if they did it would bring up the old lawsuit that Nintendo had in the 80s with companies that rented Nintendo games. It would litterally kill the market, not to meantion I bet basically close stores like Gamestop.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/123491 More stuff on bluray. Very informative.
Ryokurin said:
I like how the one guy basically predicted that Bluray would "win" but the whole battle is simply going to damage the market.
And yeah, like I said, I think the whole "locking" a game to a system is a pipedream that the companies have. It does bring up a point one of the reasons I like the PSP better than the DS. Saving to a memory card that is not connected to the game is such a better tactic than saving to the cartridge.
Yeah, I saw that yesterday. Your link is odd in the fact that it says Sony won't be using any DRM on their games. That's simply not true. DRM is built into the core of Blu-Ray, so saying the discs aren't managed is silly. They've just confirmed that the rumor that it will be one disc locked to one console is false. I'm trying to find the actual press release because it was worded a particular way that made me curious. I won't even attempt to paraphrase, but it gave me the impression that perhaps you would have to register the game or some such thing.Ryokurin said:
For those into equipment porn, Anand took apart a 360 http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2610
theacoustician said:
I think the sad truth is that DRM is going to be creeping into all sorts of home systems. Especially ones that do not use a proprietary storage mechanism.
Of course, there has always been something similar. There is a reason that you had to buy a cartridge with the Nintendo "seal of approval." (I believe Tengen was able to bypass this, once.)
I don't even mind some forms of DRM. As long as I can get a full resolution managed copy (music and movies mostly), it doesn't dick up any system I have, and its portable among all the machines I own, I really don't give a rat's ass if they lock down content to limit piracy.taeric said:
Edit : Going back the the Nintendo thing, it was more about getting royalty fee and keeping up the quality of the product. I used to think it was bullshit, but looking back on some of the crap for the 2600/7800 and all the garbage titles dumped on the PS1/2, it's not really such a bad idea with the exception that it screwed small time developers that couldn't afford the fee.
Today's DRM is more to punish the end user for "casual piracy" and to maximize profit streams by squeezing every penny they possibly can out of you.
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btw, is it still true that 1st gen xboxs will not support blu-ray, but will eventually? If so, has M$ mentioned an upgrade path for the 1st gen boxes?