Re: What gives? on Saturday, May, 22, 2004 8:40 PM
I think all these problems tie in with something I've felt going on in the game industry for a very long time, though it's hard to specify the reasons for it without going into a ton of research and psychological profiling. But I think its interesting that as the technology in the gaming industry gets better, the variety of games almost proportionally decreases. Take a look at the lineup of arcade games in the 80's compared to what we have now and its rather staggering. 10 years ago, you could make a game about anything and have a chance at good sales. That freedom has narrowed down to a very thin line of what players like (and what developers are willing to make).
The only theory I can come up with (aside from the obvious 'multiplayer deathmatch means everything' idea) is the technology. In the beginning of the gaming world, the technology didn't exist for recreating reality, so the developers of the time did what they could... make anything and everything that wasn't real. Now that we have the technology to get essentially as close to the real thing as possible without literally being there, it seems that's all we do with powerful game engines. And everyone has gotten so caught up in recreating the world around us, it seems everyone has forgotten about the idea of using games to take us places we could never actually go.
And it hasn't stopped yet. The variety is STILL decreasing. A couple years ago I could've given 4 types of games that still exist.. shooting, driving, real-time strategy, and fighting. I see the fighting genre RAPIDLY phasing out now, and the shooters are becoming more and more based on modern warfare, straying away from furutistic(space) or fantasy-style games.
Now I think that at some point there WILL be a rebound. Sooner or later people will get tired of the sameo sameo. The only question is will they cry harder for innovative games, or just walk away from games altogether?
On a side-note, as for comparing the Tron 2.0 to the film, its true that they both seem to have shared the same fate in sales, but keep in mind that the arcade games Tron & Disks of Tron both did quite well.
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