I've been playing video games for a very long time now. Of course not as long as many others who have been playing since the Atari era, but enough to really see games progress and change trends. I'm not one to commit slippery slopes or shoot before the war begins, but over the last couple of years I have started to notice things that are rather disturbing to me. I don't know if this is a trend to stay or potentially a phase the industry will go to, but what I do know is that it is damaging to our gaming experience as a whole.
We pride ourselves as gamers of being able to immerse ourselves in wonderful worlds and settings, take on the role of diverse characters, and manipulate the actions of those characters and world with something we call gameplay. That is the heart of gaming. However, it seems that the business side of video gaming may be getting in the way o this. Ironic that I would mention this, because it is a business, but we've always noticed that in this sector of the entertainment industry the business aspects seemed to be nonexistent. Fans and the developers had almost a friendly relationship with one another rather than a product-cash swap. However, since the beginning of this century, the gaming industry has expanded to new heights and it has become a business that many can make a lot of money off of. More developers, more games, and more gamers have transitioned it into more of a business than a social relation. This was to be expected, but it is possible that our gaming experience is being affected at the same time.
Now obviously, most have read the title to the thread, and are wondering exactly where I plan on going with this. It is true that when an industry expands, marketing and advertising will expand as well. However, I never really looked at it that way until around the time of the launch of the 360 and into 2006. It was the start of a new generation and a new way of advertising. All these glorious commercials showing these graphics with action sequences happening. I mean, they made them seem so appealing. Unfortunately, I ended up playing (or at least starting) numerous amounts of them and ended up despising most of them. A lot of them had clunky controls, central theme to the games were better on paper, or the most problematic one being they weren't much different from stuff I had played before just a gimmick here or a gimmick there. Even worse, the reviews were no help (but that's for another editorial). So what had happened? Well I got owned by the advertising. They were able to make games that are normally average at best and make them seem wonderful. And sure this has happened before, but it seems to be my first realization point. Even worse, I don't think I was the only one fooled because a lot of them sold fairly well with many of them getting sequels. I'm trying to avoid dropping the names of them, because I'm not trying to get into a quality battle, but simply my own view of the situation.
Chronologically, though, this wasn't the first notice of the problem. Although, I played one of those 360 games in 2006, most weren't played until 2009. My first realization of the problem came when I started my job at Gamestop in November 2008. Obviously more immersed in numerous amounts of games and being able to purchase more with some new found income. But, the first notion came with one of my bosses. He had gone to college in a field of marketing. One time when we were working, I was talking about all the new, hot stuff coming up in 2009 and talking about all the great trailers for them. He seemed to be unimpressed, so I questioned further. He discussed gaming back in the 80s and 90s and talked about the things I've stated before here. He then said to me, "Have you ever bought a game that seemed great in every aspect until you actually play it?" And well of course I said yes, we've all been there. He started to state, well that's just good marketing. He went over some of the main things of marketing and then discussed it in context in the game industry. He discussed how the industry is starting to move more towards selling it to you than proving it to you. Which seems fair, but, he put it an interesting way that I hadn't yet discovered. He called it, "dressing up a pig, because it's not til you get close enough do you realize you made a mistake."
That kinda resonated with me at the time, but I still hadn't played enough games recently, or even in the latter generation, to fully understand. However, I had always knows about shovelware. We all know bad games exist and they are put on the market. Obviously, the point of putting shovelware out is to make a cheap game in hopes of selling a few copies to break even. How do you do that? Deception usually. You have a catchy name, effective marketing, and an appearance of an established brand of familiarity. Now obviously this doesn't work all the time, but if you get that one breakout hit you are swimming in cash. I started to look at Wii and DS lineups, games on PS2, and started to look at sales of them. For the most part, they all flopped, but every now and then one of them would see some above average sales. I won't name any games on the respective platforms, but I think many can do the same things I did and know which ones I'm talking about. Eventually, other companies caught on the Wii and DS platforms, and started doing the same. Hell, big name publishers, such as Ubisoft, EA, Activision, Take-Two, etc. were all doing it. And for 2007 and 2008 this seemed to be working on the platforms. However, it had a saturation point and by 2009, these games weren't selling. Whether it was too much bulk, customers had caught on to the trick, or just losing out to the bigger software from Nintendo themselves, it was clear the scandal was over. And now in 2010, we are seeing less of it we are seeing publishers revoke their game plan to start releasing "less but quality" titles.
Now the reason I give this is not only for context but to explain a situation. What if the "shovelware epidemic" that has been happening since the PS2 era infiltrated the titles that are supposed to be the AAA budget titles (remember AAA doesn't talk about quality but production budgets, although we usually associate the bigger budget games as ending up as quality). What if developers and publishers started spending more time on the packaging it came in rather than what's in the box? This was something my old boss proposed was happening and going to continue to happen. This was something that had already been happening on the market in the "budget" arena and transformed into the "high valued casual" titles of the day. With game production prices getting higher, the need for the "next big thing" was what developer roundtable discussion became about. Games were starting to be judged on the magnitude of their opening. How would they solve this problem? Well, obviously, they'd make the game to be marketed rather than played.
Now when I say things like that, I'm not simply meaning that the games can't be played. Surely some of the games I'm about to start naming are playable and at least a decent game. However, the shift in focus had changed. Generally the setup was create something you can market. Usually the thing they would market is shock value. Shock value is something that is easy to market because it is an eye catcher. Movies use it all the time, in their 30 second blip commercials as they showcase the good things in the movie, but little do we know that was all that is good in the movie. The video game industry, started to build games around these shock value gimmicks and transform them into a marketing campaign. As I said, they are still playable games, but I think these games had another purpose.
Here is where I will start to name some games that seem to fit this portfolio. In early 2009, after my old boss had left and moved on, I had a long reserve list and was hyped for numerous games. A lot of them I was buying first day and ready to play these games that trailers and previews made seem so awesome. The first victim, was of course the now infamous Resident Evil 5. Now I will state this is not the best definition of the but definitely the most sentimental one to me. I'm a huge Resident Evil fan and been playing them ever since the initative that got them ported over to the Gamecube. When RE4 came out, I was in heaven as it transitioned the series into something grander than I had ever first imagined. My hype for the 5th one was larger than any other game releasing in 2009. If I could have got one game that year, it would have been that. The sad thing was, I ended up detesting the game. Everything to me that had defined the series was thrown out. Instead action sequences, chessy storyline transition, character deformations, and unnecessary moments ruined the game. Resident Evil had always been a franchise with some odd storyline play outs and weird characters, and even some shock value of its own, but not to this magnitude. And yet, this game is goign to be the best selling one in the entire series when it hardly belongs in it. The marketing for it was genius because it was able to take those shock value moments and hype a game up for 2-3 strong years.
A little taken back by how disappointed I was in the game, I moved on. Now for those thinking I was only implying PS360 games, here's where that takes a twist. Another game that popped up was a game on the Wii. By the time June was rolling around I was looking for another FPS on the Wii. Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 and Call of Duty: World at War had served loads of fun hours but I needed that "definite" wii shooting experience. A company called High Voltage Software appeared to be showing that. Trailers, screens, hype from media sites, and gamers themselves seemed to confirm the notion. However, there was another force trying to say this game was all smoke and mirrors. I thought it was just the usual suspects trying to deride any good Wii experience (which unfortunately still happens), but I should have paid attention more. Because it had so much pressure riding on it, this game got overly critiqued and analyzed before it ever released and they found it out before it ever came out, especially in reviews. I didn't listen, bought it, and 4 hours later came out feeling like a chump. Now, once again, the game isn't bad or not playable, but this wasn't the definite Wii shooting experience. The game had boring levels, generic ideas, a story line that was silly (with a weird cliffhanger which is the only reason I want a 2nd one), and a multi player that for the most part was broken. The whole point of the game was really a marketing advantage one. Appeal to pathos and get some money. And well they did, enough to keep a publisher for future games, although would have had more had it not been for reviewers doing their damn job for once.
It seemed that with these 2 cases, both I had long awaited, were failing to meet these expectations despite everything pointing otherwise. There were numerous other occasions of this happening for me on smaller levels, but I'm not really going to get into all of them, but they do range across a few platforms. Instead I'll go to the most exhausing and frustrating example of this and pisses me off every time I think about it. The game's name is a game called Prototype. There is no game that has ever come out in 2009 that relied more on shock value than this game. I was hyped and ready for this game as it seemed so good. Until the day I bought it. The controls were poor with auto-targeting almost borken, which is funny considering they have been PERFECT since Ocarina of Time introduced them. A bland open world setup that seemed rather pointless tied in with a story that after such a slow and poorly progressed few hours that I could care less about. I felt as if I had been robbed. I literally had bought a game that wasn't mean to be played. This game was all marketing and no game. Reviewers, for the most part, got the reviews right but never in enough time as this game opened well in its first month.
These 3 games are only a few of the cases I experienced in 2009 and somewhate in the last 3-4 years that I remember. Now obviously, there are going to be people that like these 3 games and think I'm simply crazy. That's the reason I've tried to keep many nameless but I think you come to at least a small agreement on the point in that shock value is starting to take over. How many action games are we getting nowadays? Better yet how much is "action" taking over the other genres. I'm not arguing against progress as the cinematic action early used in things like RE4 and God of War were done wonderfully but that doesn't mean it needs to be in everything. But that is the problem. They aren't using it in the games for the sake of making the game better, but instead using the shock value which comes with a lot of the action genre for the sake of marketing the game. Whether that be intense cinematic sequences, blood and gore, or whatever, the point being it isn't making the game better.
And unfortunately this isn't a good thing for the industry. Just like the shovelware, when you start to get a bulk of similar products on the market the bigger, diverse products will get bigger while bulk will get less sales leaving no middle ground. Just like the Nintendo products and some bigger 3rd party products did to the "casual" and shovelware titles, the Call of Duty's and Halo's will do to the bulk. I mean we saw how big Modern Warfare 2 was to really prove the point further.
For me, I started to learn. By late 2009 I was passing on more titles and more careful about the games I started picking up in 2010. I've already canceled some preorders on some games I felt were like that, namely Aliens vs. Predator which is brand shock value. Thank goodness for the demo. Put that money towards Fragile. Also canceled a preorder of MAG for similar reasons of shock value. I'm not saying I'm only canceling games on their shock value, but just trying to weed out the ones that simply trying to sell me an ideal product rather than the product itself.
As I look to 2010 and on, I'm wanting to see them making the games to be big sellers, but saling because the game in there is worth playing. Guess this is where I give my solution to the problem (at least for the AAA budget games). The industry is large and still expanding. Instead of trying to trick and deceive these incoming gamers, do what Nintendo does. I'm not trying to say Nintendo doesn't do similar things, but I can point off some instances that other developers can take notice of. In the Nintendo strategy they try a few things. One, make a product they want to play and continue playing. Second, make it so numerous amounts of people can play it while also allowing it to have a curve where the good play better than the others. Finally, market the game and what it offers, not something fake. It's not hard to see how this has paid off. Easiest example of this is Mario Kart on Wii and DS. It's something people wanted (racing with a Mario twist), something easy to get into but if you've played online you'll know those who are better really are better. Finally, it was marketed as showing a few people playing around a TV, showing the gameplay mechanics, and the big features of the game within along wit the wheel you get with the game if we discuss the Wii version. Resounding success for both products which are coming up on 40 million combined sales. And Nintendo has replicated this in other titles like Wii Sports Resort, New Super Mario Bros (Wii and DS), and Wii Fit/Plus. Other publishers have been able to do similar things iwth the likes of Halo and Call of Duty.
The lesson to learn here is that fool me once shame on you, but fool me twice and shame on me. We all understand this is a business and that money is the key, but think about it from a retail point of view. Do you keep more customers if you constantly deceive them, or do you keep more by friendly service and respect for the customer. The gaming industry needs to keep that in mind, and I actually think to a good extent they still do. Now of course I could be completely off-base with my entire editorial and I know lots are going to disagree. I just want to make a quick appeal to logos. Even if you can't trust the reviewers nowadays, be informed about what you are buying. Keep these developers and publishers in line. In a capitalist market, by staying educated we can control content. Weed out the good efforts from the bad. This doesn't mean "casual" games or whatever or bad, but just make sure we are constantly keeping these guys making quality content. I know as I continue to buy games in 2010 and beyond, I'll be more careful about what I buy but always make sure to support the developers that do try to bring out that quality content but just don't have the same appeal as say Nintendo or Activision. We are all dazzled by some good trailers and grand commercials, but sometimes it's that little guy putting out a small title that deserves our attention that'll get everyone else on their toes.
Essay Pro