"Epic gaming" isn't killing isn't ruining video gaming. "Epic Gaming" is ruining publishers and developers.

Look at hollywood: some of the most succuessful movies of all time (Blair Witch Project, Passion of the Christ, Terminator, Napoleon Dynamite) were made low-er budget movies, with noname actors that wound up well besting their budgets.

The problem is, in the PS1/2 era, everyone thought "well, if I pour alot of money/time into a gaming concept, it'll make tons of cash". Unfortunately, with the cost of gaming (and I'm even saying this for the Wii too, since games on it aren't as cheap as PS2 games).

The problem with this, is the market is changing. There are only a few high-budget, high-yield franchises that can guarentee good revenues, despite a $20-30m budget.

Games like Beautiful Katamari, Guitar Hero, Gears of War (UE3), Puzzle Quest, and a few other cheaper (under $10m) games are what the industry needs to understand: going around barriers to just create a fun game is what matters, not a uber-polished schmuck fest.

Having said this, I still see PSN, XBLA, and WiiWare leading the way of fixing this. With the downloadable formats, your forced to keep the file sizes small - too large, and the consumer can't hold alot of media.

A report recently done by Microsoft, via Gamasutra said the average developer was well on it's way making a profit via XBLA. Near-every game during that launch period (05) well made it's profit back in a year, and was still selling at a rate of 25% of it's launch month's evenue. That's friggin awesome.

For refference, XBLA's Puzzle Quest (a DS port) has already sold atleast 55,700 copies on XBLA, for a total revenue of $800,000 USD, according to http://joaomgcd.planetaclix.pt/GafGamersLeaderboard.xml . That's just in 2 weeks. Not overly massive, but will continue to be steady, and most likely, that $800k has already justified the port and then some.

I am hoping to come into some money soon through investments. If I ever have the cash, I'm buying a XBLA development studio. They are by far, the most profitable wing of videogaming at the moment. Don't believe me? Look at the lists of how many XBLA games are greenlighted: it's far, far, far more than traditional X360 exclusives.

The irony in your statement vs. your screen name aside, what exactly is crap?  Are you the final arbiter of what is crap and what isn't?  Different games appeal to different people.  Heavenly Sword is a great example of what I'm talking about.  Great visuals and sound.  Among the best.  6 hours long for $60 bucks.  Gears of War was about 10-12.  While that's better, it's no much better.  60 bucks for a 10 hour game.  Twilight princess, though I hated the game (i'm not into adventure games with a lot of exploring and puzzles) was easily 30-40 hours long for the seasoned gamer.  The graphics are most certainly "good enough".  I don't know where Mass Effect will end up, but rumor has it that it will be 20+ hours.  Fine, I'll put my 60 bucks into that one if it is a good game... 

I'd like to see a return to gameplay first, graphics second... Sony and MS are so hell bent on beating each other graphically, gameplay is taking a back seat... 

"I'd like to see a return to gameplay first, graphics second... Sony and MS are so hell bent on beating each other graphically, gameplay is taking a back seat... "

I couldn't agree more. Too many companies folded/bought out last gen not because they kept burning their budgets making turd shiny.

I also agree that this gen developers have too much faith put into graphics. I am personally content with the Wii's overall graphics, i don't need to play crysis like games to make me feel happy of gaming. I suppose it's a matter of a couple high budget failures before developers tone down on making games like Lair or Heavenly sword. IMO if UT3 flopped (well, let's say selling only enough to cover developement costs for Epic) then maybe we can consider returning to the gameplay/story>>gfx theme.

This kind of thing is cyclical. Biggest companies buy each other out after failed projects meanwhile small devs will grow from the Wiiware/XBLA profits. Change is good. So no gaming isn't doomed in the way of the '80s collapse.

EPIC gaming drives me nuts too but it is partially a product of generation change(Anyone remember those super short but 'Pretty' PS2 games the first year). Another problem is the current obsession with online. Beautiful 1 player games like Metroid get marked down in reviews for not having Halo style online play. This will wear off as all new advances in video games do so that online is used by games but it is no longer and automatic win or loss.

There will always be 1 player games but I think we will see a balance. Less RPG as the Japanease tastes keeps moving casual but less 5 hour Epic fests as budgets break devs.

We are also at a crossroads of gaming where proven properties are failing and a lot of new IPS are being pushed. Sequelitis is winding down. Unfortunatlely dev think they need to spend as much on the next big thing as they did on the last big thing.

Finally and most importantly Nintendo saw this coming by a mile and is steering the Wii far around this mne.

after all no mater how shinya turd is its still a .....ophhh bloom lighting and motion blur---and look at the grass textures---i dont care what this game plays like game of the year.....ohh wait where was i

While Nintendo may be steering the wii around this mine, the question is will anybody be on board? It's still too early to know if third parties will actually put a significant amount of quality support on the wii, or if it will continue to pump money into games that will break even if they're lucky, and put minigame compilations, shovelware and port PS2 games to fund their larger projects that aren't likely to rake in much money.

I do hope things like XBLA and Wiiware will help keep innovations and gameplay alive as smaller companies can put out innovative ideas for cheap, and larger companies can take risks making quality budget titles without worrying about a flop. It would be amusing if those services put out more quality and innovation than their full budget counterparts this gen.

The customer is always the final arbiter of what is crap and what isn't.  Every time.

Words don't matter nearly as much as the flow of money and if people buy something developers will make more of it.  Sports games are an excellent example.  Hundreds have been made and more are made all the time because people have been buying them in droves.  However, as that demand decreases the supply will also necessarily decrease.

Gameplay and graphics are not mutually exclusive except when discussing money.  Money is the limiting factor as the more you have the more graphics you can have, the more content you can have, the more everything you can have.  Of course, there's always the cut off where one asks the question "If I do this, will I sell more games?"  If the game is 8 hours long, will it really sell that many more copies than if it was 6 hours long?  When you factor in the added cost that goes into writing, direction, programming, art/graphic design, the answer may not be favorable. 

Companies are not making games for charity.  They make games for money.  It's a business.  If they can make a 6 hour game and have it sell just as well as a 20 hour game, they will.  It's cheaper so they make more money.  If the consumer says "No, you need 10 hours of content and I won't buy your short games," guess what happens?  The company needs to rectify their business model to either find a customer base for shorter games or begin making longer games.

No matter how you splice this issue, money is the deciding factor.

If you, the customer, keep buying those short "epic" games you complain about then they will keep making them.  But what does that mean...?

Your complaints are worthless. If you want to make a statement, do it with your wallet.

PS:  Keep the snarky comments about the username to yourself, they're juvenile.

Rent , Buy Used, Gamefly. That is the best part of a 6 hour game they only cost $3.

The Japanease have whipped their devs into shape. They not only have to make a fun game but have to make it one they want to keep and not resell otherwise longterm sales go through the floor.

 All too true. I can only hope that devs get on board the Wii with quality then be suckered into a money shoot -ut and drown themselves.

Words of Wisdom brought up Sports titles and I will argue that they are sucessful precisely becasue of the long play value. One thing that makes different is the almost infinite replay value.