RolStoppable said:
gigantor21 said:
*groans* Jesus Christ, Rol.
I find it hilarious that you hold up older consoles as some sort of Cambrian catalyst for risk-taking. If we're going to cherrypick individual genres as proof, I remember all the dickriding on Mario, Sonic and Street Fighter back in the 16-bit days. It seemed like everyone and their mother was putting out either a new fighter or a new platformer (particularly with an animal mascot). The trendwhoring people bitch about now was just as prevalent back when you had very small teams putting out stuff at a fraction of current AAA costs, and it's lasted in every gen since. Along with shovelware, which the Wii was no stranger to.
And do you really think content creation is still dictated solely by big publishers selling physical disks at Gamestop? That argument is rooted in a 90's mindset of how the industry has to work. With the advent of the downloadable space, developers have options for content delivery they only could've dreamed of just 10 years ago. We've seen plenty of smaller works with gameplay and visual styles Activision and EA wouldn't dare gamble on.
Sony announced efforts on that front during the conference, stating they'll be pushing for self-publishing and pricing on PSN. The Witness itself is going to be self-published; Jonathan Blow himself praised Sony's approach on that front.
Is there any guarantee it will go off without a hitch? Of course not. But it's a much more convincing appraoch for fostering diversity than hoping an underpowered system will magically promote creativity.
|
Sure, there were always plenty of third parties who jumped on trends to cash in, but that didn't mean that other genres were going to become extinct. Pushing entire genres in the downloadable space isn't a solution, but rather a band-aid. These games are never going to get as much exposure as retail games, so they are pretty much doomed to niche status with no chance to ever get back out of there.
|
Yeah, because downloadable games are NEVER able to get popular, or at least sell well enough to justify further investment. Even if only a handful of people or just one was working on it. -_-
