Don't you think that games these days have too big budgets, too lazy with absolutely not passioned creators and too greedy developers? 

I mean come on, looking at any game few years ago take modern warfare for instance you got the feeling of enormous passion, innovation, creativity and so on and so fourth. And now modern warfare 2 had a much bigger budget and the consumer got from that a few new  maps, a few occasional vechicles, renamed perks, even shorter story, one new good multiplayer mode which is spec ops and judging from the looks of the game not much in graphical terms except for some tweaking inside the gamecode so that game'd look more flashy. 

Modern warfare 1 was originally released in 2007. Then the world at war came in 2008 - a game not bad, but it was obvious that it war running on modern warfare fame with poorly coopied perks, horrible (pc wise) multiplayer systems that have just not worked for a first couple moths, some short campaign (i wasnt fortunate enough to complete it), and a big big lesson for activision - drastic scense in games make people talk about them. (I participated in its open beta so i can say that overall it was a good expirience but with an ongoing feeling of a much dumbed down cod mw1 gameplay) 

Now lets take left 4 dead and its sequel as an another example of a consumer rip off. Originally left 4 dead was released in 2008 and imidietly became an instant succes. Cooperative expirience was ground breaking and game itself gave much fun per buck to a gamer. But in 2009 we got a left 4 dead 2 that in my opinion was a failure in terms of franchaise development.

But first of lets examine the changes that it brought:
(or how the developing power was used) 

1) Melee fighting mechanics - a definete plus great addition to a l4d formula

2) Weather mechanics a definete good start and a gateway to intresting future scenarios - a semi plus because we see it only in one map, but nevertheless it's a feature.

3) New special infected along with new skins and more developed old ones - a plus for that but a minus for not balancing the special infected gameplay.

4) Addtional features built in source engine that show better overall graphical expirience - a small plus because of a small number of changes.

5) New gameplay mod - scavange - creddit for effort

On the downside:

Less built in achivements for campaign (in comparision with the predoccesor 50 to 30)

Not balnced special infected

Little innovation in graphical department

Soundtrack for the game is so not zombie apocalyptic and sometimes a parody of itself

New maps are too similar to the old ones - you can got a feeling of just reedone (dark carnival begining almost taken alive from the death toll)

New characters are retarded or down right ugly or down right stupid in a bad manner

All of that is an obvious inpact of 1 year developing cycle. But valve never did such a thing to consumers, not before any add ons to the predoccesor or a major thing that would come along new release. After all I have no problem with l4d 2 but I must say that much greater value is presented form l4d 1, and in terms of innovation the first one was just creative while (just like mw2) the secound one just rode the happy train of fame. 

I know that times are changing and few years back developers didnt had those amazing tools like they do now or that much of man power. But unfortunetely few years back while it was harder to make a game it was also easier to make something innovative. And I understand that but in a natural way new games should represent an significant evolution of their predoccesors and also they should include some innovation alongside. 

Lets take uncharted for example even though its a bad one becouse a budget of uncharted 2 was 20 mln $, they did their game on an entierly diffrent system (which is harder to program for) but in comparison of ucharted one and uncharted 2 we see major evolution and not innovation but they include in their game new systems like multiplayer (which in my opinion is a very good one and nicely polished one) snow melting significant evolution in combat system and so on and so fourth. 

But in terms of sales (of course the target crowd is entirely diffrent then on xbox360 or pc) it did manage to bacame a solid hit and stady seller (thanks to its bundling in big part) 

And from that there is a great conclusion of nowadays development strategies:

Noughty dog strategy is to make few but a concentrated (from an studios effort perspective) games (just like valve before l4d2) and they got steady  sellers mostly thanks to jak and dexter and uncharted, they ve put all of studio's power and focoused on those two franchises similar to valve when they did that when they put all of their strength into half life counter strike (which originally was a mod to original half life) then team fortress and left 4 dead

Valve strategy which they changed and decided that they'll no longer try so hard (such statement was made around the release of first l4d) and they did so, now they make games with less effort to maximaise the earnings. (now here is something i don't get if they did so and they put less effort into games then why the expanses haven't lowered? They said that they won't make a ps3 games because they don't have the resources. Why? There just opened a lot of resources with a strategy change... )

Activision strategy alongside with Ubisoft Electronic Arts and so on is that they have so many franchises and so many studios that work on them that their developing powers are spread thin and therefore with so great expanses they struggle to survive, well maybe Ubisoft is strugling to survive because they don't have such milking cow like dice for EA and ea sports, or for Activision the call of duty franchise cows the treyarch and infinity ward, neversoft with guitar hero franchise, or for Konami the dance dance revolution franchise or pro evolution soccer...

Thanks to those title that bring so much money these companies can put it into games like metal gear solid, dante's inferno, mafia 2, mass efect, command and conquer, and so on... All of that makes very hard for consumer to make the choice that would be the voice to those companies on which games do people like because there are so many games coming this year for example that people have to invest first into them like modern warfare 2 or left 4 dead 2 to have the base to play with others and they can buy other games that they have money on to enjoy other great games or to try out some of the new ones. 

In all of that mix there is one player one developer, the greatest of them all who utilizes his potential to the maximum and always makes money always brings the consumer a must have games always evolving and always brings the next one better from the courrent one the champion of marketing and resources administring Bioware. Maybe I exadurate but i dont recall any game from bioware that would be a failure or a succes so small that the progress is hardly visable. 

I can only wish that other companies would learn from bioware and bring their titles in such manner that we gamers can give them the appreciation that they deserve.

How do you think?

Ubisoft is struggling? Yeah, EA has its EA sports to use as a milking base, but DICE? Bad Company 1 was innovative with Destruction, Mirror's Edge was innovative, Bad Company 2 has many improvements and Destruction 2.0 to make it a very different game from the 1st one.

the big companies dont give a damn about actually putting effort into there games anymore. all they care about is making money. COD the name alone draws in huge money so there is very little incentive to put alot of effort behind it when it will sell regardless. And all the games that do put effort into there games (ie. demon souls, uncharted 2, AC2) never get the sales they rightfully deserve. Casual gaming is killing this business and is destorying everything i loved about gaming in the first place

Bioware? That sounds quite random, lots of people would say that their recent games like DA:O or ME are just reminiscence of the old glory like BG2 or KOTOR.

Bioware is getting better every release, IMO. But some of the bigger publishers seem to not care how good a game is prior to making the devs put it out.

My only real complaint lately is the review scores that are out of control. 10's for everything? Nothing should get a 10 IMO, but barring that very VERY few should.

You can't expect graphics to be improve beyond what the machines are capable of.

Plenty of large budget games have passionate developers. It's the shovelware stuff that has no passion. Developers don't pine for specific cost games. They want to develop whatever their heart desires despite the costs.

What you really should think about is large game studios vs small game studios. At what point does a studio lose its passion for _any_ game it develops. The best low budget games usually end up on wiiware, PSN, XBLA and are made by one or a few developers. It seems to me that some of the best large budget games are also made by the smaller studios. Its funny but some of the outsourced games are getting better than main studio games. Maybe EA should stop making their games altogether, spin off all its studios and have bidding contracts to develop the games.

In many ways, since the late 1990s the videogame industry has been fairly stagnant. For the most part what has happened for over a decade is companies have released a sequel or clone to a popular game with very minimal gameplay improvements while improving the graphics and production values to hide that it is the same game you have played before; and as the generation goes on and the wow factor of better graphics and higher production values disappears the games really start to show how unoriginal they are.

there just playing it safe. If it's not broke,don't fix it!

Akvod you misunderstood me i wanted to say that dice is a milking cow for ea not a lack of innovation. Especial with its battlefield frenchise.

MDMAniac with biowar in mind i was actually thinking about sw:tor, I didn't played mass efect but i ve seen it in action, also i'm very active reader and consumer of all game related media so a lot of fuss about mass effect is really turning my mind towards it. As for Dragon age I think of it as a knew frenchise and because it was developed equally for all 3 of hd platforms I took is as a good ip though I ve never played it so I don't judge it but from what im hearing about it's a pretty good game.

Reaver_x: Actually I think that casual gamer is somewhat creating a good trend in our industry right now, because they are a milking cow on the one side and on the other they deliver a new opportunities that wouldn't exist if weren't for them. Im thinking of xbl arcade titles, or psn titles like trash panic, flower, fat princess or savege moon, home or even battlefield 1943 is in my opinion a casual gamer foult if you know what i mean.

CommonMan: I think about that review scores I couldn't agree more. Those reviewers they're just missing in their scoreboards an option for a truly masterpice games. I mean what would those games deserve? An eleven?

Galaki: I'd be sourpiresed what actually xbox360 and ps3 are capable of. I mean any game that is on 360 or ps3 doesn't even come close to lets say crysis warhead or far cry2 on pc. Only real close game to the pc equivalent was uncharted 2 and not because they utilized system full potential, no its because they programmed it well to use all of its capabilities and for potential, lets talk 1080p native graphics, for ps3 with high res testures imagine lair (1080p ps3 game) with high res textures or uncharted 2 with better textures and realistc hair. Those things are achivable and not because you need to spend so much of programing hours but becuse the raw power of ps3 is 2 teraflops and xboxs is 1 teraflops even though they have so much less of shader units then for example medicore 100$ graphics card but the power that they provide is like nowadays monster 300 < 5850 for ps3 and for xbox like gtx 285 which still costs above 200$ and those gpus are able to do much. 

The biggest ps3 developer said with uncharted 2 after release "that we finally have the wright tools to reach the potentiall of this machine which we didnt even tuched" for 360 bungie studios also didnt squized max of machine with the best looking title on 360 halo odst. 360 owners hope that this ll change with halo reach and ps3 owners hope that it ll change with killzone 3 or uncharted 3 or resistance 3 (lots of 3 huh? sory for not much of 360 good looking examples but im no 360 expert)

dharth: Youre wright and the best example of that situation is when a small developer in Poland like techland did a call of juarez games it was well welcomed by critics but they didnt sell well in the west, or the witcher by cdprojekt red also great game, but poor sales and those developers know their place and think that even with what they sold they achived succes, not like whiny big corporations like sega and poor poor sales of their tittles on wii, but like a developer with class, they know how they can achive succes and they're doing it, even though they aren't selling millions and millions of copies like activision. 

I also wanted to say sometnig about those who've gone forgotten like for example jowood that company who did Gothic frenchise or bethasda The Elder Scrolls frenchise who ware taken over by zenimax. Those people from those companies did some great things for our industry and now lie forgotten or work in shadow of big corporations. And I think that Gothic did a lot more then guitar hero or The Elder Scrolls then pro evolution soccer.