GTAexpert said:
There is so much wrong with your post I don't know where to start. Sony didn't start the focus on online, MS did. Sony followed only because they wouldn't have stood a chance against MS in the console gaming sphere if they had not tried to serve the gamers who only play online. They are by far the vast majority of console gamers and Sony needed to cater to them. Increasing internet adoption rate and growing internet speeds only further established these gamers.
Also, I don't know much about Final Fantasy, but you are definitely very wrong about GT.
"Gran Turismo 5 finally showed up and presented me with a really poor physics model, horrible sound design and less customization than the previous installment and removed some of the greatest tracks. Oh, and it started focusing a lot more on online as well, yay!"
So much wrong with this statement alone. You seriously think that GT5 has worse physics than GT4? Sorry to break it to ya, its far, far more realistic than that in GT4. GT6 improves the physics even further, and makes GT4 look like an arcade racer. As for sound design, it was always like that. GT5 is no better or worse than GT4 when it comes to sound design. Online focus has increased, but that is going with the times. Its not as if you can't enjoy GT5 offline, I very much did. The offline features have not been removed, only online ones added.
As for providing more SP focussed games, have you see the sales lately of SP games compared to MP games? In 2014, ISS on PS4 has sold a mere 1.80 million units, despite being an awesome game. Wolfenstein: The New Order isn't as awesome, and hasn't sold as much either, currently below just above a million units sold across 5 platforms. Compare that with Destiny or Titanfall, and you should understand why MP is the focus of developers.
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So much wrong with my post? It's my opinion, it is an opinion piece and even says so in the beginning of that post that anyone besides the user I wrote it as a response to that it was such and thus more than likely uninteresting for other users in that particular discussion.
1: Where did I state that Sony started the online focus? The answer is; nowhere, it is my position that Sony simply joined in on this market movement and started taking a turn towards development and design focus that I didn't like. I'm simply stating the 7th gen started this for real and that my favorite franchises on my favorite line of consoles were subjected to it. As for the sentences after that; I also write "TLDR: Like John Lucas, I'm always overcome with nostalgia when thinking about games and gaming. Unlike John Lucas, I realize that it is a subjective, unfair and irrelevant measure when reading and predicting the market. In essence." More or less saying outright that even though these are my feelings on the subject, I understand that they are an invalid measure of how developers and publishers and the market in general should respond and act. My feelings on the subject do not impact the needs and movements of the market and the needs and movements of the market do not impact my feelings on the subject. How is that faulty reasoning anywhere? It's factual and honest.
2: Did I say that GT5 had worse physics than GT4? Show me where I wrote that, again; I never did, I was simply expressing my disdain for the lack of progress and that the hardware/software synergy was lacking as a means to promote the ever evolving gaming industry. The point that post is making, and that you seem to have trouble grasping, is that I feel that the massive improvement in tech was not reflected much at all in the software besides superficial improvements and the physics in GT5 are not very realistic at all despite the fact that the technology itself could provide a much better simulation. Not very realistic =/= less realistic than GT4, see the difference?
The leap in hardware capacity was not reflected in the software, technology was not properly implemented into improving games in general; almost only certain superficial aspects of it.
"As for sound design, it was always like that. GT5 is no better or worse than GT4 when it comes to sound design."
Am I at fault for wanting improvement in this department? Again; such wasted opportunities with increase in hardware power. GT 4 released in Dec 2004 in Japan and Q1 2005 in NA and EU, GT 5 had a global release in November 2010, that is almost six years after the previous main installment, how am I wrong to be disappointed in the level of progress (or rather; lack thereof) between the two iterations? Poor sound design, PS2 textured cars and highly unrealistic physics (better than GT 4 but still overall very unrealistic) and less customization options. Almost six years in development and this is what we got? What is the point of continuing a game series when you take away elements and fail to correct the glaring flaws of previous games? GT 6 takes everything one step further by actually forcing a car on you in the beginning; basically removing your influence on the choices on how you want to start the game, that's a horrible way to begin the GT experience, which was always about choices and diversity in motoring.
As for the online bit; I know that this is what the market responds to, that is not what all this is about; my point is that I am personally not fond of the direction that the industry has taken. You can't really say that I'm "wrong" in not liking most modern games. This is why I have found the past 7-8 years very underwhelming and especially for consoles, the PS3 and 360 were the main proponents of this development and are also at fault for me and others suffering through horrible interfaces and very limited options in many multiplatform titles on the PC.
3: SP versus MP. Again you fail to grasp the difference between my personal preference of single player gaming and the actual demand for online multiplayer experiences. And the single player games that were presented in the 7th gen were more often than not bogged down with a lot of aforementioned problems that I have with game development (QTE's and other bs). Especially that bit about "utopia" should be a major tip-off:
"In my utopia (akin to the one John Lucas and a few others have) every developer would make use of the budgets and technology to promote gameplay and AI, employ better writers, still keep on producing 200 hour++ isometric RPG’s, Dungeon Crawler/Open World hybrids and keep on evolving genres such as strategy and shooters instead of throwing in more and more hand-holding mechanics and stealing depth from the concepts in favor of bloom and HDR lighting."
One last time now; it is my personal opinion that games have taken a turn for the worse, with developer philosophy setting production value as top priority and shoving most focus away from writing, concept changes, AI progress, interactive environments and direct feed gameplay (QTE's are the main culprit here but there has also been tremendous growth in the number of games sporting "click one button and watch a long attack animation" mechanics). You cannot tell me that I'm "wrong about Gran Turismo"; I did not like GT 5 and GT 6 nearly as much as previous installments for a multitude of reasons and feel thoroughly let down by this series and many others, there is no way you can correct me in my feelings on these titles regardless of the progress of the market overall, which, as I've stated several times, are a separate entity from my personal opinions and feelings on the matters revolving around gaming and development and design.
Can I possibly make it clearer?
