Gaming Free gaming luring gamers during crisis?

[No Life]

Maybe FPS games are also easier to develop.

they are, they just have like 1 storyline.

games like WoW, Maplestory, Runescape, LoTro
-they are endless+expansions that make the game unendable.
(reason why these games are harder is because they are constantly getting udpated)

while a FPS game in a store like COD have 1 story line. even if they have more than 1 storyline, when your done, your done lol, you have to wait for like Cod 2 or something to come out. *this is an example*
and basically all you ever do in a fps is, shoot ppl with a gun, not so hard to developed eh?

 

[Coolhand]

well thats the nail on the head there... making an FPS is basically a no-brainer. The cod series is a fine example of an FPS which coldly exploits the works of talented artists, coders and musicians to make money for the publisher. It has basically 0 innovation but still sells massively... i used to find it a lot of fun online with cod3 (what do you mean cod2? we're on like cod 6 or something in reality) but other than a pathetic 'perk' system its pretty much the same game as its always been.. infact worse as there's no vehicle support since cod 3.

so simply, if you have no original ideas just make a gritty looking FPS, hire some great people to work on it and make it look & sound amazing and play ok give it a cheesy story, hype the crap outta it - make sure it plays great online & let people create a custom class somehow - and it'll sell... Theres nothing about cod in terms of gameplay that you couldn't have done for the last 10 years, and indeed it has all been done before.

I'd say we're getting bored of it, but the last COD game was the biggest selling on launch day of all time or something wasn't it? nearly everyone i know with an xbox has it.. and despite how a few seem to think the story and single player are 'good' nearly everyone would agree that they have it because everyone else has it... I decided to not get it last time, but still ended up with a copy as i had one as a present, and yeh i had some fun with friends online with it, infact its wall to wall action, yet a not too fast to be to tiring yet not so slow as to be boring pacing online is its greatest asset. i've never made it all the way through any of the single player modes however.

Anyway, particularly with fps's all we tend to see with each 'next generation' of hardware is the same game with next gen visuals - it looks better but plays the same. Maybe thats changed a little with the likes of bad company 2, its destructible environment is a step beyond what cod players at least are used to, though its an innovation that was around since the last gen at least with red faction on the ps2 and pc.

 

[No Life]

rumors said that the next cod will be in vietnam/cold war.

 

[Izack]

Returning somewhat to the original topic, I've found that I get hours more entertainment out of free platforming flash games out on the internet. Anyone here ever play I Wanna Be the Guy? It's far more challenging (and hilarious) than the average console shooter on its hardest difficulty, as well as being longer.

Of course, I've also found that though consoles aren't up my alley, the good ol' Gameboy has some excellent titles, which are significantly cheaper than the latest larger games.
I believe I've logged 150+ hours playing Metroid Zero Mission...and I still have fun when I pick it up!

 

[Coolhand]

That has been speculated for pretty much every COD. I think for the historical environments, WW2 is prefered from a marketing point of view as its a more feel-good war. The nazi's were very much the bad guys, were the clear aggressors and invaders and it ended well for america, it won and became the first super power complete with nuclear weapons.

In terms of gameplay, though, what difference does that make? Not much... the environment is irrelevant - as long as the time period supports all the classes of firearms. It could be ww2 or science fiction or anything in between, you're just changing models and skins for the same engine... essentially the environment is dictated by careful marketing rather than an artist choice or anything to do with gameplay. I'm sure its a risk on its own though to keep presenting the audience with similar eras. of course there's also very little difference between far eastern jungle in 1944 and 1968... you can see plenty of recycled objects between even the ww2 and modern war environments.

Basically, while the big but simple games are still selling bucket loads, why try harder? also the total dominence of certain franchises mean that other shooters wont sell, so why put a lot of effort into innovation and making something thats better, why take the risk if you're not sure it'll sell.

David Braben - developer of elite, among other things has written some thoughts about the gulf between what we should expect and what we actually get from successive generations of hardware and games. His conclusion is that nothing is really next (current) gen other than in terms of making a pretty screenshot. His current development of 'the outsider' is something that apparently will feel as next gen as it looks... mindless hype? i hope not as this will no doubt effect Elite IV, which i know many of us here are patiently waiting for.

Its also interesting to see how mobile, small scale platforms have really taken off, meaning many small independent studios can compete where traditionally they'd have little chance against the big studios on large projects. Not sure if we're seeing a huge amount of innovation there, or are just revisiting favourites from yesteryear in one form or another, the 2d platformer, the 2d shooter and so on that many of us grew up with.

 

[n122vu]

I lost interest in consoles after I beat Halo 2. Never has a game pissed me off so. The original Halo was very well written and had a long, well thought out single-player campaign that was augmented by awesome multiplayer action. There are still matches my friends and I talk about to this day. Halo 2 came out and all the rage was dual-wielding, among other things. I played diligently through the 1P campaign, completed a level and watched the cut scene for what I thought was about the halfway point of the game when suddenly Master Chief is saying "I'm finishing this fight" and all of a sudden I'm looking at credits. I was literally screaming at the game. The only thing that has ever pissed med off like this was the movie Jurassic Park III. "The dinosaurs get bigger as you get closer to the ocean." One or two chase scenes and presto! We're at the ocean with the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, probably some National Guard troops too, and no bigger dinosaurs. I was standing in the theater yelling "Where the hell is the rest of the movie?!?" Likewise Halo 2 had me screaming "Where the hell is the rest of the game?" Bungie/Microsoft jumped the shark and focused on the multiplayer aspects and left the story swinging in the wind IMHO. Needless to say I didn't buy Halo 3. In fact I sold my X360.

With the exception of Flight Simulator X, I haven't paid money for a game since. There are quite a few freeware FPS games (several good ones on Linux from what I've seen) that would be just as good for the multiplayer experience. But I think I'm very over the FPS phase and moving more into simulators than ever and the occasional RTS. I do however still enjoy Mechwarrior 3 and have just started playing MW4: Mercenaries since its release as freeware. With the economy in the shape that it has been, it's no surprise to me that game sales have dropped as many stick with the titles they have been playing, perhaps satisfied by the multiplayer action or tired of the single-player content lacking substance, or both.

 

[Mogeley]

It used to be that developers (programmers) were the game designers. Programmers always have fresh new ideas. The problem I've been seeing lately is that the gaming industry has become like the movie industry. More orientated towards sales than making cool and fun games. As other's have said... I don't want to play a shooter clone or some other lame game that some CEO or committee has dreamed up. I want to play something fun that a programmer has made for their own enjoyment. Most production houses have things backwards. In a day when we have killer hardware do we have better gameplay? No, on the contrary we tend to have better "media" as in graphics and such but gameplay options are no where close to the fun games from the 80's and 90's.

Take the new Fallout for example, Fallout New Vegas, or something. The problem with that game is that Las Vegas was already used in a Fallout series. The first, though it was called Wasteland. The original game is incredibly much more deep in gameplay and storyline than Fallout 3 ever was. And it was 16 color and on 4 low density 5 1/4 inch floppy disks.

If a game publisher would work with the game developer and let the developer produce what the developer wanted, I think we'd end up with much better games in the end. We are already seeing many games be self published for this very reason.

 

[Izack]

From the last few posts, it seems we can infer that when you remove the incentive for profit, whatever gets produced was done solely to entertain, created by the developer because he wanted to.
It would seem that freeware games look pretty good with this logic, although of course, as with anything free, be prepared for a wave of amateur mediocrity.

 

[ar81]

From the last few posts, it seems we can infer that when you remove the incentive for profit, whatever gets produced was done solely to entertain, created by the developer because he wanted to.
It would seem that freeware games look pretty good with this logic, although of course, as with anything free, be prepared for a wave of amateur mediocrity.

Unless the makers are not amateurs.

If you download "Danger and opportunity" which is a campaign based on Babylon 5, you may find a very professional freeware game.
DG-IV and Orbiter Sound are not exactly amateur either.