Have modern developers lost touch with their audience?

[lordofchaos]

Like many people in these forums I play lots of 8bit/16 bit games. Playing them retrospectively I have noticed something, I am struck by the Cander and the intimacy the developers had for their audiences. Text scrollers that talk about meetings down the pub, credits thanking their friends and pets, programmers talking about bugs that your likely to encounter, stories of hardship and woe...

Does this happen anymore with the new crop of developers? Or is this just systemic of the industry size and success?

[Djay]

i get exactly what you mean...

Its gone like most things where there is money to be made

[lilalurl]

Originally Posted by lordofchaos

Or is this just systemic of the industry size and success?

What do you mean the industry size?
Check this video from 2:55 till the end:
[ Show youtube player ]



As for the thread question, if you mean developers as people who work on video games, I guess a good lot of them are still gamers. As for how much they interact with the audience of the specific games they work on, I have no idea.

If you mean developers as the companies who develop the games, yes, they have probably lost touch with their audiences.
Or more exactly, due to the cost of production, team size, level of hierarchies etc..... everything has become more mechanical/less human.

[fishyfish]

Yeah, as alluded too its probably just because of the size of the development teams these days. It just cant be as "intimate" as it once was.
You generaly find the homebrew and indie scenes is a little closer to ow it used to be, but in part 'cos it can be in a way the big guys cant.
Putting big money/business into any equation also often has this effect regardless I guess too.

[lordofchaos]

Originally Posted by lilalurl

What do you mean the industry size?
Check this video from 2:55 till the end:
[ Show youtube player ]

Good lord! Yeah a tad on the large size.... I suppose I'm being a little nostalgic with my topic, I miss those little things about the early days of gaming, brings a real human element to it...sure people are making big money now but if everything runs on this "Infinite growth model" then it's all going to collapse..On a positive note, plenty of talented Indie devs out there..

suppose everybody knows about Chris Crawford, I still have hope in games as long as people like him are still involved. This video in particular inspires me.

[ Show youtube player ]

[Amiga1992]

Of course "they have lost touch with their audience", actually I would say things have just changed radically, they are multi-million dollar projects now, ran by huge teams and under a massive business structure that doesn't allow for such things.

That's what indie gaming is for nowadays, if you are into that sort of feeling for games.

[lordofchaos]

To be honest I don't really play many of the new Indie games, apart from the occasional go on my friends iphone...I know there's some good ones out there on PC I've yet to check out but for me it feels a little weird playing "Indie" games on a I5 processor...I might have to invest in one of those raspberry mini computers.