Where are games going?

[Dastardly]

Originally posted by Frederic
First of all, this thread is too good to be relegated to this section. Would a mod please move it?
Its a theme that I'd like to return to.

Awww your too kind

[Shatterhand]

I don't know, but I have some faith that the industry will get we don't want to play only 3D games that are clones of the last release..

Can someone tell me how well the GBA is doing in selling comparing against the X-Box , PS2 and Gamecube ?

Because I see the GBA being the comeback to the good days of good gaming. And I really hope the GBA could sell more than the "more powerfull" consoles.

Now I remeber that hologram SEGA game.. I saw that in magazines like 10 years ago...

[Fred the Fop]

My freind Kraig owns the DVD of this Sega Hologram game. He'd buy a Partridge Family Encyclopedia if the cover looked cool.
Anyway, The GBA is doing superbly. I skimmed thru EGM and saw it has several of the tp 20 sellers here in the USA. Good news...the ONLY X Box game in the top 20 was Halo,that overrated piece of garbage. Game cube only had one as well. Pekemon is the only thing keeping Gameboy Color alive, and The PSX 1 and 2 dominate.

[Twistin'Ghost]

Originally posted by Frederic
My freind Kraig owns the DVD of this Sega Hologram game. He'd buy a Partridge Family Encyclopedia if the cover looked cool.
Anyway, The GBA is doing superbly. I skimmed thru EGM and saw it has several of the tp 20 sellers here in the USA. Good news...the ONLY X Box game in the top 20 was Halo,that overrated piece of garbage. Game cube only had one as well. Pekemon is the only thing keeping Gameboy Color alive, and The PSX 1 and 2 dominate.

That is indeed good news on the console front. Face it, the PSX units own, anyhow (as far as modern machines...even my cynicism and jaded outlook could not resist getting hooked on the PS1; haven't really had the urge to upgrade!) I can't see myself buying a new unit anytime soon, but if I did, it would most definitely be the GBA.

Incidently, what would be wrong with a Partridge Family Encyclopedia? I own their records, several books, videos, etc. and would buy a Sega Hologram game of the PF if it existed.

But the one (hologram game) that does/did exist I do remember seeing in the arcades. I don't recall ever seeing anyone actually playing it, it was just this weird dome thingie to pass by and look at. Not compelling enough to make the kids shuck out the dosh...

[Miggy2TheMax]

Originally posted by Dastardly
What do you think is the future for games?
It seems most of you (like me) have been playing for a long time now, some of you maybe even from the beginning. Ive been playing games since the start of the 80's and have seen it change into something unrecognisable from those early days of a few colours on screen and one button joysticks.

Do you think the future is VR and well all be playing inside virtual worlds?
Do you think gaming is getting bigger than films and music and will one day be equally respected?
Or do you think the whole thing will implode in on itself and games will go back to the days of the 'hardcore' gamer?

What are your thoughts on the future of our favourite pastime?
I know for a fact Ill still be playing as long as I can hold a controller.

I don't know about VR, but what I have noticed and many others on EAB is that the gaming industry trend to go into 3D/FPS has been a disaster for originality. Today the focus is on "reality", with VR being another chapter in the book, but in pursuing reality they forget about good old fashion playability and therefore the games are generally lame. The future of gaming is sadly with these so called "reality" games. Anyway I don't mind, I guess that means retro-games will always rule and that cant be all that bad

The only thing that has been catching my attention recently is the GBA, and from the reports posted by users here it sounds really kewl!

[Fred the Fop]

Partridge Family reference was bait for you Twist
I agree, the PSX is juuuuust old school enough to have titles that are Amiga-like. Even some of their 3D stuff is decent, and what really got me suckered into the PSX was the superb continuation of the superb EA "Strike" series, "Soviet Strike" and "Nuclear Strike". I do like the Amiga/Sega Genesis versions better tho.
And as for upping to a new console? Definitely I'd get the PS2. I love racing games (In crowded and car-unfreindly Manahttan, one seldom gets a chance to race, hence the love of racing games here).
Assessment of the X Box in my circle of pals is: Whats that?? Ugh.

[RetroMan]

Originally posted by Frederic
Definitely I'd get the PS2.

Good choice

[Twistin'Ghost]

Good points, Frederic. One thing about PSX games versus XB*x and PC games is that the games don't really seem to revolve around the graphics hardware. On those latter two systems, it seems that the first design idea from the programming team is what kind of hardware it will require, what the explosions will look like and what 3D engine it will use. It's like music that is more obsessed with the outboard gear than the songs. A great song doesn't even need an amp, much less a studio. But all of that stuff can enhance a song if the person manipulating it has a gift. These gifts are seldom seen on PC games (as well as its console sister, X-Box).

The PSX games I owned still seemed to keep the game ahead of the glitz. X-games look like PC games played on a TV. And GBA games look like Amiga games played on a handheld! The bottom line, I think, is that the gameplay has to be the heartbeat, not the hardware specs.

[Amiga1992]

Outside from the GBA scene, games are going straight into the plopper

[Chuckles]

I just thought I'd throw my two cents into this thread, as I found it rather interesting. I may be a bit less pessimistic than some on this subject, possibly due to having gotten sufficiently old that this doesn't seem like all that new of a problem to me.

When it comes to games on any platform, one thing that remains constant is that the hardware technology continues to evolve, making possible new techniques that game designers can incorporate into their games. And one of the things that I've seen occur repeatedly over the years is that as each new "breakthrough" technology comes along, there is a new wave of games that comes along that attempts to take advantage of that advance.

In the early stages following each new advance, many (if not most) of the titles that come out are often rushed to market, apparently on the assumption that so long as the new title makes use of the latest technology, that alone will be enough to drive sales up to a level that the publisher will find sufficient to justify the game's development, publishing and marketing. This pattern has been repeated time and time again over the years. When CGA was the standard for PC's, the advent of EGA led to the release of a large number of crappy EGA titles whose only redeeming quality was that they were prettier than CGA, even though the gameplay was atrocious. When VGA came out, the same thing happened then. With the advent of 3D accelerators in PC's, this is simply one more example.

For a time, the newness of the technology alone is often enough to support a sufficient number of sales for mediocre titles, but after a while, the consumer begins to demand more from their games than that they simply look and sound great. It is at that point that some of the best games then begin to emerge, as the developers and publishers find themselves competing for the hard earned money of a suddenly more discriminating audience. Suddenly their task becomes more difficult, and they are forced into having to pay a great deal of attention to issues such as gameplay. For those who were amazed when they first saw Quake or Unreal and couldn't wait to play the games, a similar title that is released now is likely to be seen merely as "just another FPS like Quake". At this point, a game requires something more in order to truly sell in large quantities.

To my own way of thinking, the biggest threat to the future of gaming then is not a lack of imagination and vision, but instead a pace of advances in the technology that will tend to remove the necessity for the game designers and authors to use that imagination and vision in focusing on the game's core gameplay and strategy issues. If there were to be no other advances in the hardware technology, you can bet that over a period of time you would see some truly amazing games come out based on the technology we now have, while companies that could not produce such games would slowly die out. On the other hand, if tomorrow we are suddenly presented with a new advance in virtual reality that would allow you to play games where you actually see and hear the game world all around you, then you can count on seeing a surge in game releases that will allow you to fully immerse yourself in a completely mediocre game world, along with one or two truly excellent examples of how that new medium could and should be applied to games.

I for one am hoping that the hardware gurus of the world will take a break for a while and allow the game designers to struggle with trying to figure out how to create the next great world beating game based on the current technology. I've seen enough FPS games to last me for a while, and I'm not all that anxious to move on to a virtual reality variant on the FPS theme, at least not until the designers have more thoroughly exhausted the possibilities using what we have now.

As I said, that's just my 2 cents worth ... your mileage may vary.

[th4t1guy]

@chuckles

Great points. It sort of gives me a perspective of an evolutionary model for game developement.

[Amiga1992]

About those Sega Hologram machines.. boy... 10 years ago I was in EuroDisney, and in one of the hotel's arcades, they had one... We passed by with my cousin many times, but one day, we decided to play with it. Was it POOP? Midget Dragon's lair with poor actors. Avoid!

The PSX was poor at Amiga-like stuff, because the PSX is VERY poor at 2D! However it had some miracles (Team17's X2 is cool, I was VERY mad when I heard they wont do it for the A1200, and just for the PSX). The Saturn would be my pick in that arena. TOP 2D gaming.

About which console I'd pick, well, my choice would have been with the Gamecube, since I already own a GBA and I like the idea of integration between the GC and the GBA( I can see myself buying some GC game just because of its interesting exclusive GBA extragame), but if Ikaruga does make it onto the PS2, I'll have to buy that pish. Ikaruga is da bomb, k? (www.treasure-inc.co.jp)

[Twistin'Ghost]

@Chuckles
The biggest problem I see in your analogy is that it only refers to PC games. I don't see so much that problem on other platforms. You look at the C-64, the Amiga, the various consoles - they all seem to keep a fairly well-balanced palette of different game styles and genres. They don't tend to expect a singular technology element to carry all of the games. It would be like Amiga games basing a series of games on copperbars or something. The Amiga coders had an entire machine to tweak with and there seemed to be so many different avenues in which developers went about this task. Same thing with demo coders, musicians, app developers, etc. The same can be said for systems like the C-64, as well.

But as the PC evolved, they had: Hercules>CGA, CGA>EGA, EGA>VGA, VGA>VGA+Soundcards. And now they have been mucking with the 3D-FPS engine for, what...7 years?!? How many dungeons/caves/tunnels has it been now? The wrapping on the walls and floors and such have changed slightly. They all come from CD's now. And sound cards are now specializing in '3D sound'.

I know, there have been some other games besides 3D FPS games, but they have apparently had much less impact (for whatever reason). Usually when people start talking PC games, most or all of the ones they mention are the same game or game genre, with subtle differences. And sequels that exceed even slasher films in follow-ups.

[Fred the Fop]

The PC game sales are dominated by 2 genres. Warcraft/Command and Conquer inspired the ubiquitous RTS games. Doom/Wolfenstein inspired the FPS genre. That was, as Twist stated, 7 or so years ago. Since then, these two genres have dominated the market.
Ok, enough facts. FPS games I HATE. RTS is ok, but I miss the turn based genre. Seems that PC games are indeed appealing to the LCD. Thats why i find pre 1995 games from all platforms, including PC, so appealing. Its just that every young punk group of programmers now has "Me too-itis". My cure is to take a sledgehammer to thier heads and play "Smash the Pumpkin".
Oh, the joy

[jmmijo]

Originally posted by Frederic
My cure is to take a sledgehammer to thier heads and play "Smash the Pumpkin".

Oh, the joy

I love that idea Fred, but lets call it the new "Whack-A-Mole"

[Chuckles]

@Twistin'

I see your points, and have to agree to some extent at least. With regard to other platforms though, I think my theory still applies in large part, though to what extent depends on the platform and how or if it has evolved. If you take the case of the SNES, there were no differences (to my knowledge) in the capabilities of the first unit sold vs. the last unit sold. As a result, those developing games for that platform ran out of "new" features they could exploit rather quickly, and had to concentrate more on developing games that stood out from the pack based on their gameplay. Even so, there were still a great many titles that were simply mediocre.

As for the 7 years that the PC has been bogged down in FPS mania, you have to remember that during that entire period there have been many incremental improvements in the technology, and this has simply led to more FPS games coming out that seem simply to focus on making use of that. When Doom first came out, there were no 3D accelerators, and the graphics were quite primitive by today's standards. However the genre was fresh enough, and the gameplay robust enough that it spawned a hoard of imitators. Since then, 3D accelerators became common, first leading to games such as Quake. Gradually the accelerators themselves have gained new features, and the game developers have chosen to simply "improve" on their earlier efforts by creating models with higher polygon counts, larger textures, hardware anti-aliasing, lighting effects, etc., while expending little effort on improving on the actual gameplay. Personally, I think it's high time that someone decided that enough is enough. I don't need higher polygon counts - I need more interesting games.

@Frederic
I like the "Smash the Pumpkin" idea, but can only hope that the software houses don't hear about it lest we see this idea implemented as a new FPS loaded with high polygon count models and lighting effects. That would be a true shame, since the idea seems much better suited for adaptation to a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game.

[Drake1009]

Ever played the shareware/freeware PC game called Smashing pumpkins into small piles of putrid debris? Grab a hammer, smash pumpkins, find the exit. A bit Gauntlet like, repetitive but still addictive.

Still have it somewhere.

[Chuckles]

Afraid I've never heard of that one before. I guess if the software houses ARE aware of it, then perhaps we should be expecting something like "Smashing Pumpkins Into Large Piles Of Putrid Debris With Really High Polygon Counts And Cool Lighting Effects" to be released soon. Of course it probably won't actually run on my system until the obligatory 50 MB patch file comes out ...

[Twistin'Ghost]

LOL!!!

[Drake1009]

Well the one I mentioned had high pixel count. At least normal pixel count. And when you smashed the things they broke into many small pieces. Does that count?