What happened with games?

[Einstein]

I remember a time when games were proceeding to add detail, they were adding depth, individuality, and playability. Most of all they were releasing fully functional games.

Now most games seem to be retreating from details... the characters are smaller, you cannot control them as much as before, there are less total moves available, and yet the size of the file has dramatically increased.

We get games that are junk when released, with promising video's and using the name of a previous version which was awesome. Rome Total War, Masters of Orion II, X3, to name a few... of champion games that have bad following games.

Low support for people who have issues even launching a game (I have one of those), to using paying customers to beta test a game that will possibly turn into a flop (two of those), to games released which do not work from the launch (two of those).

Details are going down... It is now a rare game that allows you to modify the eyes, the hair, the height of your character, where that was supposed to be the leading edge!

Pixel games now costing more, and characters with the details of 1990's mario games is now the common release it feels like! Then we get these ports from phone operating systems being sold as full priced software... It was a port!

Yes you should support developers you enjoy, I bought a game I have access to online, on my phone, and could enjoy without paying him for a PC version (I like a certain kill the world with a disease game and so I supported him with a purchase)... But it seems developers are taking advantage of us and putting crap products out.

I would love to see RPG games with fully developable characters, shooting games with interesting plot lines (please no political stuff or way far out stuff), strategy games with real balance, and games in general which keep me busy for a long while.

It is sad that I can think of dozens of games from the 90's which have more playability than most of the modern games.

There is a market out there, a certain game broke the billion mark, and many games which are built well can reap 10 times their production costs. Yet we see example after example of cheap and shoddily built games. Try to care about what you do.

The final commentary is I now look at the first 3 pages of a game to determine if I will buy it. If there is a low comment count the game is a dud, not much loved, if there is a lot of complaints, the game is promising but best wait for some months before looking again. If there is a lot of cheat requests, advice wanted, then the game is purchasable.

I am Michael Harrington, and I endorse this Statement!

[Fork_Q2]

I could go point-by-point why you are wrong, but I will just say this: take off the rose-tinted glasses, things were ♥♥♥♥ in the 90s too, probably worse.

[HLCinSC]

Developers are just following consumer trends. Unfortunately, games like Call of Duty are the kings of the hill right now. Developers begin to question their own product and audience. A good example would be the Resident Evil series. With RE5 they completed the jump from survival horror to action (and maybe diet horror). Developers even cited the trend towards action games and mindless shooters. Were they wrong? Though there were many RE traditionalist crying foul it went on to become the top selling Resident Evil game (if you don't count different versions of the original).
Games are also costing more to develop than ever before. New IP's are a risk, and a few flops in a row could start sinking the ship.
Games seemed more finished in the past because they for the most part were simpler in both graphics and gameplay. The internet has also been a double edged sword. Developers are being pressured to adhere to release schedules or face a loss of bonuses or base pay. With the internet they get a "final" version to distribute, but the developers are racing to the deadline creating a day 1 patch to cover issues they were still facing. Some games cannot be gaurunteed to be bug free even with a small army of testers (think Bethesda). So the internet can help by being able to release more patches for a better overall product. On the downside, you often have things like day 1 dlc or even features and add-ons that should of been in the game to begin with.
I don't know if you were citing early access as one of your complaints, but it is clear that they are not finished, may change, and be very problematic. I prefer to see Early Access games as pre-orders with an evolving demo.
In regards to supoort, there is always room for improvement, but the sheer number of permutations from combinations of hardware components, OS version, and installed software, drivers, etc.. all of which can affect a game is mind boggling.
I'm not defending all these practices as I take issue with many of the same critiques you mentioned, but I am merely trying to show what I understand the otherside's argument is.

[Fork_Q2]

Originalmente postado por HLCinSC:

Developers are just following consumer trends.

They always had, we complain about CoD now, but a lot of what I recall from the 90's were a avalanche of bad Doom/Quake/Diablo clones, awful FMV titles, the worst consoles were released at this time, cartrdiges being replaced by inferior optical discs, buggy games that couldn't be patched, and a total lack of indie games outside of the "demoscene".

[HLCinSC]

Originalmente postado por Fork_Q:

Originalmente postado por HLCinSC:

Developers are just following consumer trends.

They always had, we complain about CoD now, but a lot of what I recall from the 90's were a avalanche of bad Doom/Quake/Diablo clones, awful FMV titles, the worst consoles were released at this time, cartrdiges being replaced by inferior optical discs, buggy games that couldn't be patched, and a total lack of indie games outside of the "demoscene".

I agree.

[Einstein]

at $50 a game the developers better be getting at least $25. At $25 to make a million dollar game means you need 400,000 to buy the game. I should think it was worth it when you consider the combined populations of Europe, Russia, and North America in buying, let alone crazy fanatic nations like S. Korea and Japan.

[Fork_Q2]

Originalmente postado por Einstein:

at $50 a game the developers better be getting at least $25. At $25 to make a million dollar game means you need 400,000 to buy the game. I should think it was worth it when you consider the combined populations of Europe, Russia, and North America in buying, let alone crazy fanatic nations like S. Korea and Japan.

I think the economics for video game sales are a lot more complicated than that.

[Einstein]

Well let me see, Steam gets $45.5 of the sale price?

Even in the real world with shipping, manufactoring, and such, I sincerely cannot see less than $25. Trucks carry to a distribution warehouse, which mixes the load up with other loads going to further chain areas. Each one of the transports costs about a dime a trip per game box (I am a trucker who handles full Bills of Lading).

These warehouses do add some cost, but with 8000 titles per a pallet (guess) the cost is minimalized. The costs on distribution come at final sort for each store, where a worker should spend no more than 3 minutes per product seeking it, and adding it on average. At the store it will take an averaged out time of 5 minutes most, so 1/6th their hourly cost. Add mark up to that.

All told it is very possible to make 50%

[Satoru]

Originalmente postado por Einstein:

All told it is very possible to make 50%

That's not nearly how retail works in the real world

http://forums.galciv3.com/449009/page/8/#replies

This also doesn't take into account that as the game gets bigger, the marketing budgets begin to dwarf the game budgets.

[HLCinSC]

Originalmente postado por Einstein:

Well let me see, Steam gets $45.5 of the sale price?

Even in the real world with shipping, manufactoring, and such, I sincerely cannot see less than $25. Trucks carry to a distribution warehouse, which mixes the load up with other loads going to further chain areas. Each one of the transports costs about a dime a trip per game box (I am a trucker who handles full Bills of Lading).

These warehouses do add some cost, but with 8000 titles per a pallet (guess) the cost is minimalized. The costs on distribution come at final sort for each store, where a worker should spend no more than 3 minutes per product seeking it, and adding it on average. At the store it will take an averaged out time of 5 minutes most, so 1/6th their hourly cost. Add mark up to that.

All told it is very possible to make 50%

I believe Steam gets the Standard 30% of digital sales.

[Einstein]

Fair enough, so they get 43%, or in this example $21.5 which means my point is still fairly sound.

[The Purple Judas]

Pixel games are just a niche, that's the way I see it. I'm not happy with the price raises either, and I can also see a lot of developers trying to atari-shove dung down our throats, but I can also understand the market is changing. Now they don't want to take risks, they don't want to lose their money. They want the maximum ammount of money possible with the least chance of failing.

Well, i just don't buy any game I haven't tested yet. That's the way I found to save money, and lately it's making me pretty happy with my wallet

[Einstein]

Well I make enough money to buy $100 games once or thrice a month, but I would only pay that much for a proven good game, one with a storyline that lasts a week at least, and had great playability.

[Littlefoot]

For me, the last good games were released during 2012, before that, there was nearly always good games released. Nowadays most games are crap.

[WhiteKnight77]

The reason why games like Call of Duty can be released on a yearly or near yearly basis is that they use legacy code. They just have to tweak it a bit and wah lah, a new game. Microsoft did this with Flight Simulator for years. Nothing is wrong with it and it gets a game out the door quick.

The problem is, some bugs do not get squashed and can be found in later iterations that were in an early version (Ubisoft has had sound issues from the demo for Raven Shield and still has sound issues with the last R6 title, Vegas 2, go figure).

[Fork_Q2]

Originalmente postado por Profile:

Also, it seems to me that games players have far less attention-spans (with respect to games) these days.

I don't think so, think it's just that we have more choice now, and it's easier to be a gamer than before.