As always Zucas an amazing yet long read, I've been touting this for a while, I started to notice it a bit last gen, hell Zucas look on some of your old PS2 games at work that came out at the beginning of the PS2's life and see where it touts all the next gen graphics and advancements but you distinctly remember that game being a generic pile of ass.

The change being this gen that strategy worked for longer, graphics bumped up a lot, and still improving, you can still dangle the sparkles in their eyes and people will eat it up. It's starting to die down finally, but the frenzy really has cost us a lot of good developers and teams, and many bad ones that tried to ride the coattails of the big guys and wasn't ready for the developing costs of this gen.

Honestly yes it's always been in the industry, but it typically fluctuates with the start of the gen then dies down, this gen has been different simply because of cost and the ability to go LOOK SHINY! Costs go up, development time goes up, the time needed to make a long worth while game goes up, so much resources have to go towards engines and such things have to give somewhere and what happens is you get a 6 hour game that's not even worth 60 dollars but the marketing shows you it is.

Not to say the Wii doesn't have that you did mention the Conduit, and its true. Though I knew I'd like the conspiracy theory story and I did, I'm big into that stuff so w/e I felt like it was a budget title so no that cheated. I loved the teams fire and that's what got me to buy the game, I still hope they can make good on some of those ideas one day.

Adding to the let down of RE5, a game that came out that same time, Street Fighter 4, not a bad game actually, but it was sold on the idea of a 3D fighter that keeps classic gameplay, yet as a fighter its broken as all get out and its not like they couldn't patch the balance issues but now its SUPER Street Fighter 4. I like 4 better than 3 since it did deliver on some of those promises, but then Tatsunoko vs Capcom hit, it has even more pick up and playability, its got a cool roster, and somehow even looks better, models are more fluid, and the anime style fits the 2D fighter genre way more than the weird style of SF4.

(Ex. TvC has been played day in and out with me and my friends both on campus and at home while I paid 80 for the special edition of SF4 and it was traded in within a month...)

Ah yes it definitely has been happening for quite some time.  Actually I know a last gen memory of a game that really was a game made for marketing and not playing was a game called Black on the PS2 and Xbox.  Give and take a little, it was a decent game, but there was nothing in that game that should ever make it anymore than your average release.  But the marketing and the hype were pretty massive for it and it had all the right shock value to push it to such heights. 

So yea it has definitely been happening before the said 7th generation, but I think what we are really seeing in this generation is the shock value games taking over the actual ones.  And that's the big issue I see here.  Red Faction: Guerilla released in the same month as Prototype yet never stood a chance to compete with it.  Chronicles of Riddick released in the same month as Resident Evil 5 but never stood a chance.  Little King's Story released in the same month as The Conduit but never stood a chance.  These games didn't have the same marketing campaigns as the other three, but these were games that were the better games and that were better choices for any of the consumers who would be buying those three games.  But they didn't have the shock value that could really light up the marketing trailers and commercials and they suffered because of it.

And as you said this caused a lot of good developers to go down but it also caused a lot of the not so great ones to join them.  And that is the main problem I see is that this isn't just the small companies putting out the shovelware doing this anymore, but the big AAA budget games by big developers doing it and winning and losing.  And they are losing more than they are winning.  They just don't seem to understand that sometimes the easiest route isn't the best route.  Sure the strategy the other successful devs took was risky, but it paid off because they knew it would end up better.  These other devs need to look to them for inspiration.  And it seems that notion is less titles but more quality.  Focus on a few central titles and market them based on their own merit rather than some gimmick you have to tackle.  Some devs are starting to catch on but many aren't, namely Electronic Arts. 

And yea my choice of the Conduit was rather out of my own disappointment for what happened.  I really do think HVS tried, but I think after awhile they just had to start playing other cards.  Win the pathos vote and run with it and it didn't turn out well for them.  Luckily for them they did well enough to keep business flowing, but they are really going to have to move past that and think of a more sustainable strategy. 

But yea thanks for the post because your really hitting at the heart of what I'm trying to say and that isn't that people can't have shock value or that all of this should be rid of or that they should market like Ninty or IW or Bungie.  Just these companies can't make the same mistake the smaller devs did on PS2, Wii, and DS or devs back in the Atari days.  They need to have long term strategies with their short term ones.  Simply competing for tomorrow's next big thing will destroy them all and they need to realize that.  Even worse, the gamers catch on, just like they did with the "shovelware" and that causes credibility issues.  If that happens, you think those MW2 sales were good, wait til they alienate more and see how much a Ninty or Bungie or IW title can sell haha.  Because they will buy what they know is a good buy and they will buy it in flocks. 

But yes I'm enjoying TvC as well after not liking SFIV either but mainly because it was unplayable on the 360.  But still rather unbalanced.

Yeah I'm one of those that bought Chronicles of Riddick and passed on RE5, I played it on my friends 360, and one of the first things I asked is why does it look worse than Resident Evil 4 for which he really didn't have an actual answer but he knew what I meant, then we started to play RE4 together he was on a big screen I was on my TV and we were trying to progress through the game at the same pace lol and that was more fun that co-op in RE5 lol

Honestly a lot of what you talked about is why I hated last gen, the good games were few and far between, I had my Nintendo games, I had the PS2 games here and there like Kingdom Hearts, Jak & Daxter and such, but a lot of it was nothing but PS1 and N64 games with mild upgrades and this new cinematic experience.  I spent my time catching up on PC games I missed out on. 

The 360 rolled in and did many of the same old ideas I disliked about last gen except worse, the Wii brought me into this gen with a lot of promise of new gameplay ideas, and to be honest it has really hit the mark, it did what I thought it would, much like the DS, it was going to be hated on by the average gamer, it wasn't going to be supported by the big names, and the new inventive stuff was going to come from Nintendo and small developers, eventually that lead to the big devs joining in too but that phase has yet to hit Wii and I'm baffled as to why.

I do have to say that Sony being in third place has made them spread their wings a bit, the whole reason I bought a PS3 was for Little Big Planet. They rarely (being ICO games and Insomniac) made games that appealed to me and they really didn't take risks on many of their PS2 projects, I mean when the whole "dark is cool" phase started last gen every Sony IP seemed to reflect that and it made me laugh, Jak 2 = dark, Ratchet deadlocked = dark, the list goes on, that really annoyed me last gen and its really reflective of this gen as well, except now it seems to be WRPG influences with this "deep" story and make everything an FPS.

Overall many of the same practices of last gen are just being repeated now except to a higher degree, but there are those gems in there much like last gen, except they're not selling as well it seems compared to the hype machine sadly.  Like LBP I could see selling the same amount on PS2 in its prime but things like CoD sold much like CoD sells on Wii last gen, good sales, little marketing and not hyped to hell.

(BTW if this sounds a bit all over the place I'm kinda feeling sick and I woke up but can't go back to sleep so I'm rather tired lol)

I just remember this game about flying your dragon all over the battlefield attacking your oppositions(forgot the name of the game), it was coming out last gen(on the PS2, I think). Back then, I started to be open-minded about consoles other than Nintendo's. I was excited for the gamers that can play the game and it looked really rad on the trailers. Plus, I like dragons. Right after the release of the game, the reviews butcherd the game just for the awful controls. I felt really dissappointed and even depressed for the gamers that bought the game.

Another that was a real letdown was that Terminator Salvation game. The reason for this total letdown that I'm a big fan of the franchise that I begged(litteraly) one of my friends to buy it before review even went out. And he did!!! ;-;
It was letdown not only to me as fan when I saw the review on X-play, but my friend who purchased it!!!
You can put that game on your editorial, lad!

After that, it really made more cautious about of a game that had those WOW-factor. At the same time, KOF XII was around the corner, another franchise that I follow closely since the SNES era, even though I never got a chance to dwelve in it(until I get Orochi Saga). This 12th installment has brand new hand-drawn sprites, most fluid animation, almost perfect gamplay(this sold me), the WOW-factor that the series has for years and the small character roster(that was a bumber). still, I waited 'til I heard enough info about it after the release, first thing was the HORRIBLE netcode, but what really broke the mold was that all the small touches that made KOF what it was is no-where in sight!
I have such mixed feelings for this game that I don't know exactly what to do...

Atleast I know what to do for future games.