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Old ladies play those Facebook games all day. Lord knows my old lady does.
http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2011.pdf
Just putting this up in case you might be interested to know some statistical trends as far as what money is going into gaming as well as the demographics and mentality of players and customers.
Two items stated which I found interesting:
Women age 18 or older represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (37%) than boys age 17 or younger (13%).More money continues to flow into the industry, yet the games arguably aren't getting proportionately better.80% of parents place time limits on video game playing
74% of parents place time limits on Internet usage
70% of parents place time limits on television viewing
65% of parents place time limits on movie viewing
Old ladies play those Facebook games all day. Lord knows my old lady does.
Proportionately in what sense? I'd argue there are more games hitting from more sources now than during the entire XBox/PS2 era that interest me, but that's just me.
Also not a parent, also don't care about parent's issues.
Originally Posted by Razor Ramon
Parents just don't understand.
Better graphics. Better sound.
Better AI. Better netcode.
Better ways to make games simultaneously more accessible to unskilled players as well as provide expert players with more ways to be challenged and have their skills rewarded.
Perhaps it's because I'm not playing the FPSes where all the development money now goes, but I see precious few games as advancing all aspects of the medium.
Electronic cigarette.
I think he means where is the comparison level? Or at least, that's what I'm wondering. Are you saying Gears of War 3 isn't better than Gears of War 2 despite what the profits might have someone think, or that Gears of War 3 isn't better in the same way compared to, say, Battle Arena Toshinden?
I mean, graphics and sound are advancing all the time. Games consistently employ better voice actors, better implementation of sound and surround effects, more detailed visual effects and physics, and all of this grows every year. It's not really a visible month-to-month growth, but a lot of that comes from plateauing hardware butting against development costs.
In what way? Fighting games are much more accessible these days and also maintain high-level play, and achievements are (generally) geared towards that. Sure, it's just e-peen stroking, but that's pretty much all it's ever been.Better ways to make games simultaneously more accessible to unskilled players as well as provide expert players with more ways to be challenged and have their skills rewarded.
This generation and last have actually been a fantastic time for giving accessibility while simultaneously allowing for real challenge in action games. More companies have started making higher difficulty levels which employ actual different creatures and/or variants that are harder to fight with better AI, instead of the usual laziness of just increasing enemy lifebars and damage. Xbox Ninja Gaiden may still be the shining star at that particular feature, but games like Bayonetta continue to carry the torch.
AI is also one of the hardest things in the world to program, and probably the biggest issue there is that development is split between every company making their own little design and doing so under a time crunch. As I've said in years past, we probably won't see a huge jump in the major development hurdles until specifics like AI start getting their own independently developed engines that can plug-n-play with licensed engines (like what Havok did with physics). The best thing to drive down the cost of games while increasing the quality of the specifics is for a company or companies to develop a series of quality programs that can be licensed. Until we expand the idea behind borrowing id Tech or Unreal Engine, time and money will continue to cramp development as the games keep getting bigger and more involved.
I just have an overall sensation that the jump from one generation to the next was and still is less appreciable from the PS2-era to now as was 8 to 16 and others, and that such a sensation should not be present in an era where there is more money coming into the industry than those prior times (development costs notwithstanding).
By my saying that a few games exhibit advancement, I was trying to indicate that I'm aware of examples such as those which you cite and not trying to say that the entirety of the industry has stagnated.
I like the part about restricting game and Internet time. Growing up with 3 younger siblings and 1 Nintendo, we had time limits each day which was really annoying as a kid, but it made me stay interested in games while getting into other stuff. I don't think people, younger ones especially, spend enough time outside or doing things that don't involve staring at a screen.
The industry is unrecognizable from the last generation. A huge amount of my gaming time is now spent on smaller downloadable titles that fill so many more niches than the standard big-budget titles ever could. The iPhone has changed the face (and cost) of portable gaming. Online integration is now a constant across every game I play. Maybe if you have a really narrow view of just the triple A titles there hasn't been a lot of change, but seriously.
It just sounds like you want the big titles to get bigger and more expensive, requiring prohibitive amounts of time and people to produce. That's not where this is all headed.
HA! HA! I AM USING THE INTERNET!!1
My Backloggery
The best games I've played this generation have all been online. Some were free, some were cheap some were expensive and they varied in scale but they were all online in one form or another.
Playing a game off line, or in other words alone, can still be very fun but it just never hits that same level of incredible. I mean hundreds of hours on Fallout and it just can't compete with something like Halo or more recently Battlefield. I suppose it has something to do with the human condition and us being some stupid pack animals.
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