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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Are guns in video games holding the medium back?

 

Do you agree?

No 36 46.15%
 
Yes 42 53.85%
 
Total:78
Turkish on 02 December 2016
SvennoJ said:
Turkish said:
Yes, compared to movies, guns are over-represented.

There needs to be a way a story like Uncharted can be told without constant gun fights, Indiana Jones movies aren't 95% shooting.

The problem is not if it can be told without constant gun fights, yet whether it can be sold without constant gun fights.
Uncharted 4 already gets criticised for too much 'downtime' aka exploration and puzzles. Unfortunately those 2 things have to be kept easy to appease the majority. Make exploration and puzzles hard and you get more complaints. Make the platforming actually challenging and you risk losing much of you audience.

If you like the puzzle, platforming and exploration aspect, play The Way instead. It's a challenging retro cinematic platformer with limited shooting. An Uncharted game could be like that, probably wouldn't sell much. I wonder if the original Tombraider would sell nowadays. You could blunder around for an hour in some levels trying to make progress. Nowadays games already hint where to go next if you stand still for a minute, and make sure it's almost impossible to fail while navigating the terrain. It's the equivalent of being invulnerable and all enemies dropping dead if it takes you longer than 60 seconds to kill them. The joy of discovery and traversal has been removed from AAA games. All that's left is pretty pictures.

It definitely can be sold, problem is making the games interesting, I'd love challenging puzzles and platforming, bring old Tomb Raider stuff in current gen coating, alternate them with fast action set pieces.

UC4 may have had a pacing problem but I thought it was great. Just walking, listening to character interactions, taking in the scenery, a laid back experience.

Bioshock Infinite would be so much better if they took out 90% of the shooting.



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SvennoJ on 02 December 2016
Turkish said:
SvennoJ said:

The problem is not if it can be told without constant gun fights, yet whether it can be sold without constant gun fights.
Uncharted 4 already gets criticised for too much 'downtime' aka exploration and puzzles. Unfortunately those 2 things have to be kept easy to appease the majority. Make exploration and puzzles hard and you get more complaints. Make the platforming actually challenging and you risk losing much of you audience.

If you like the puzzle, platforming and exploration aspect, play The Way instead. It's a challenging retro cinematic platformer with limited shooting. An Uncharted game could be like that, probably wouldn't sell much. I wonder if the original Tombraider would sell nowadays. You could blunder around for an hour in some levels trying to make progress. Nowadays games already hint where to go next if you stand still for a minute, and make sure it's almost impossible to fail while navigating the terrain. It's the equivalent of being invulnerable and all enemies dropping dead if it takes you longer than 60 seconds to kill them. The joy of discovery and traversal has been removed from AAA games. All that's left is pretty pictures.

It definitely can be sold, problem is making the games interesting, I'd love challenging puzzles and platforming, bring old Tomb Raider stuff in current gen coating, alternate them with fast action set pieces.

UC4 may have had a pacing problem but I thought it was great. Just walking, listening to character interactions, taking in the scenery, a laid back experience.

Bioshock Infinite would be so much better if they took out 90% of the shooting.

Did you play Tombraider Anniversary, since that's exactly that. It didn't set the charts on fire, worst selling TR game, hence we got Tombraider 2013 without tombs and about an 800 killcount by the end of the game.

Tomb Raider reboot has sold 8.5 million copies
http://www.pcgamer.com/tomb-raider-reboot-has-sold-85-million-copies/
The people have spoken.

Tombraider anniversary was great imo, best TR game in a long time, yet I'm in the minority.



GOWTLOZ on 08 December 2016
WagnerPaiva said:
I agree, but I think it is the fear of failure above all things: devs think we want guns and multiplayer bloodbaths, so they give us more and more of it.
When they try to make something new, like LA Noire, they get afraid mid-process and give us some kind of unsatisfying hybrid of the satus quo and the new.
In a way it is our own fault: when we do not think outside the box about what we would like to experience, why would devs do?
The high budgets are holding the industry down, the fear of not being modern, the forgetfulness of the great things of the past.
The fear of ridiculousness is holding the industry back. When you try your best to make your game look and feel like a sanitized Holywood super production, the best final product you can achieve is a game that feels like a pasteurized sanitized Holywood blockbuster.

Yes and developers also think we want an open world in every game. That is what sells so I don't think they are wrong but gamers don't like playing shorter games and single player games without an open world can't be as long as open world games. Movies that cost $15 and are two hours long are fine but games that are $60 and eight hour long are short. That's a terrible mentality which is why we only get open world and multiplayer games these days which have repetitive content and shooting.



WagnerPaiva on 08 December 2016
GOWTLOZ said:
WagnerPaiva said:
I agree, but I think it is the fear of failure above all things: devs think we want guns and multiplayer bloodbaths, so they give us more and more of it.
When they try to make something new, like LA Noire, they get afraid mid-process and give us some kind of unsatisfying hybrid of the satus quo and the new.
In a way it is our own fault: when we do not think outside the box about what we would like to experience, why would devs do?
The high budgets are holding the industry down, the fear of not being modern, the forgetfulness of the great things of the past.
The fear of ridiculousness is holding the industry back. When you try your best to make your game look and feel like a sanitized Holywood super production, the best final product you can achieve is a game that feels like a pasteurized sanitized Holywood blockbuster.

Yes and developers also think we want an open world in every game. That is what sells so I don't think they are wrong but gamers don't like playing shorter games and single player games without an open world can't be as long as open world games. Movies that cost $15 and are two hours long are fine but games that are $60 and eight hour long are short. That's a terrible mentality which is why we only get open world and multiplayer games these days which have repetitive content and shooting.

Very good point.



My grammar errors are justified by the fact that I am a brazilian living in Brazil. I am also very stupid.

GoOnKid on 08 December 2016

Tag.



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OdinHades on 08 December 2016

Gameplay is king. Devs shouldn't worry about silly stuff like a story. They should only care about what is fun to play and what isn't. The story then has to follow the gameplay, not the other way around. So, if you're making a game with a lot of shooting, because you think it's fun, make a story that fits to that gameplay. Or just make no story at all.

Games don't need to copy movies all the time. It's silly. If I want to watch a movie, I watch a goddamn movie. Games are their own medium and if handled correctly, they can have a lot of advantages. Like the player actually interacting with the world and stuff. But too many devs lack creativity today. Too many times you actually get a passive experience. Like Call of Duty. Sure, you're firing guns here and there, but you can't change whatever the hell happens. You're just playing Mini-Games in a story set in stone and, what's far worse, even the Gameplay never changes. It's the same boring shit over and over again, you don't have to play those games ever again.

But there are some games which are pushing the medium ahead. You won't find them in Uncharted or The Last of Us, no, with a massive publisher in the back, creativity has no chance. Go Indie, play Undertale, be amazed.

Just my 2 cents, whatever.



Official member of VGC's Nintendo family, approved by the one and only RolStoppable. I feel honored.

GOWTLOZ on 08 December 2016
OdinHades said:
Gameplay is king. Devs shouldn't worry about silly stuff like a story. They should only care about what is fun to play and what isn't. The story then has to follow the gameplay, not the other way around. So, if you're making a game with a lot of shooting, because you think it's fun, make a story that fits to that gameplay. Or just make no story at all.

Games don't need to copy movies all the time. It's silly. If I want to watch a movie, I watch a goddamn movie. Games are their own medium and if handled correctly, they can have a lot of advantages. Like the player actually interacting with the world and stuff. But too many devs lack creativity today. Too many times you actually get a passive experience. Like Call of Duty. Sure, you're firing guns here and there, but you can't change whatever the hell happens. You're just playing Mini-Games in a story set in stone and, what's far worse, even the Gameplay never changes. It's the same boring shit over and over again, you don't have to play those games ever again.

But there are some games which are pushing the medium ahead. You won't find them in Uncharted or The Last of Us, no, with a massive publisher in the back, creativity has no chance. Go Indie, play Undertale, be amazed.

Just my 2 cents, whatever.

Play The Last Guardian. It is an amazing experience that has no shooting and has a major publisher.

I'm not saying games should focus on story more than gameplay, I prefer a gameplay approach to games. I'm saying that games need to use other game mechanics like hack and slash and better puzzles not shooting that is not common in games.

I like the shooting parts in Uncharted more than the other things in it like the narrative because the other things are not as well executed. The narrative of Uncharted and script are also highly praised and that is where I'm pointing why it may not be as good as everybody thinks it is.



patronmacabre on 08 December 2016

Melee combat is way more fun than gun combat.



LadyJasmine on 08 December 2016

I would disagree...

GTA 5 had a lot of guns but it a gaming milestone and was different and unique and is the best selling game in a while.



GOWTLOZ on 10 December 2016
LadyJasmine said:
I would disagree...

GTA 5 had a lot of guns but it a gaming milestone and was different and unique and is the best selling game in a while.

I'm not saying games with guns are bad but we need more variety.

Sales are the reason why games have guns.