Western Publishers are struggling

[vlad321]

BengaBenga said:

Riachu said:

BengaBenga said:

psrock said:
the problem is Nintendo is so great at it, it will take these guys years to get close to ninty standards.


And the biggest obstacle : the gaming press and the internet.

Look at all the whining about the God of wAR trailer. The focus wasnt how insane the gameplay was, but how bad the graphic was.

 

The issue is that they need to NOT do what Nintendo does. Nintendo is the most successfull game developer in the world. Period. The last thing you want is compete with them on their territory. 3rd party devs need to make stuff that Nintendo doesn't; like sports/shooters/RPGs. Some are doing this; Nintendo would never make a game like MadWorld or the Conduit but more companies should do this. Not ONLY this, but smart companies in all other businesses are used to spread risks. It's a miracle to me how juggernauts like EA and Ubisoft have such weak strategies that gamled on one idea. That while these mega-publishers have the funds to develop for all platforms.

Microsoft and Sony have made these fanboys themselves by claiming it's about the graphics. It's their own fault that people are underwhelmed by God of War III, which by any standard looks great. Everything is overhyped to the point where it can't deliver on the promises anymore. The way out of this is hard, but necessary. The HD userbase is too small for 20 AAA games in a year. I hope that will also bring game development back to basics.

What do you mean by bringing game development back to basics?

 

Mainly gameplay, artstyle, originality. I really miss that. Especially on the HD consoles. It seems like WiiWare/PSN/XBLA are where it is for people that want to play a great original game these days. There the pressure isn't on the graphics, but on what the developer wants to do.

I really miss that in the big budget retail games. Everything is the same. look at what's getting high review scores: Shooters and WRPGs. Look at what sells most on the PS360: Shooters and WRPG (no coincidence) and the occasional sports game. The PS360 have so much possibilities with their power, but it's almost entirely used for the same things. And something that tries to be innovative like Prince of Persia bombs. I even seen loads of comments on the internet that it deserved bad sales because "cell shading sucks".

Wii the other side: quite some original games like Boom Blox, No More Heroes and de Blob. But those lack the blockbuster appeal and budget to really convince others to do one or two games like that as well.

 

 

I fully agree with what you are saying. In my opinion graphics really shouldn't have advanced past the UE2. Things that needed to be round were round, there were particle effects, whatever you needed was there. Imgaine how far other areas like gameplay, AI, and physics would have advanced if people weren't all about the shiny weapon but how the game actually plays.

The other problem that you mentioned is the blockbuster appeal, though I'll go off in a different direction with it. There are many previous and current gamers who decide they want to make the next HL of Gears or AC. and there aren't enough who would just settle by making a really badass physics/ai/innovative gameplay game that makes huge profit even if it doesn't become the "ZOMG TIHS IS TEH 1337" as the other games. Too many people want to make the next shooter and not enough are willing to make the next Portal or World of Goo (the best 2 games to come out in the past several year imo). When everyone starts competing with each other, only very few actually manage to succeed and that is what we are currently seeing.