The Future of Gaming

[ampillion]

Well you can't really get rid of that genre of game. There's still a bit of thrill (at least to some people) for such a type of game. I doubt anyone really gives a crap about much of the story elements involved in these games, not because there isn't much there to begin with, but because a lot of people are looking to play these games for one reason or another. There will always be people wanting that thrill of twitch gaming, just to see if they can bust out of some complex, guns blazing, or blast through a crowd of terrorists. It's not so much the game, but the actions of playing out a scene from an action movie that probably gets people. I've seen people who are, quite frankly, not FPS gamers play things like Nightfire/Goldeneye and still throw up a yell or get excited when they manage to take out two or three guys, or escape a certain-death situation and still get the kill.

Now, I've already stated elsewhere that, I feel that a lot of the FPS market (And in effect, the poorly-written RPGs, mini-games, and some sim games a la Tycoon...) are sheerly done out of lazyness. Noone wants to try to develop a game that might not be bought up and make them a profit. Only really big developers have the luxury of taking real chances on titles since they can afford for one or two scenarios not to pan out. And the thing is, the little guys looking up to the big guys, see them making big-budget shooters, or RPGs, or Mini-games, and producers say 'Come on, I need people looking to get in on a piece of that! I want a game like Halo!/Mario Party!/Final Fantasy!', and you end up getting a glut. The only problem is, people haven't often awarded those that step up to make a good game that tries to step away from the mainstream and still makes a good game.

We've already had our look at stagnation in the market, some of it happened last generation. And is still panning out this generation with gluts of mini-games on the Wii and FPS/TPS shooters on the 360, PS2 ports on the PSP, etc. This stirring needs to happen now, and the Wii's control system and 360/PS3's distribution networks should be used to break up that monotony of 'What you come to expect for X system'. The Wii's control setup should allow for developers to look at new games and new ways of playing, and 360/PS3 should be able to break out a lot more smaller, fun hits that you can get right from home if you so choose, and provide as much entertainment as bigger titles and allow for games that wouldn't make it out to systems normally.

So long as you don't cut these types of games out entirely, you should see some healthy dispersion of types of games to come out this generation. People who are only wanting to play one type of game, should probably broaden their horizon. You'd be surprised what you're missing and what you'd still have fun with. To get rid of these game entirely though, will only lead to another similar glut in another area. And perhaps producers/developers need to get on track in developing more unique ideas for the Wii and XBLA/PSN libraries, and prove they aren't just a lot of one-trick ponies.