Why is AAA gaming dying a slow death? Any ideas?

[FuNb0Y86]

I hear it said all the time now. "I play more indie games more and more. Screw AAA." Sometimes people add, "...they're all the same." I have some thoughts on this stagnation. A lot of it has to do with companies taking safe aproaches to making their games instead of experimentation -- which should be the norm in an artistic genre like creating a video game. Sadly, new ideas can come at a high cost in the AAA world. So, we see independant companies more and more these days with titles that offer unique experiences because they can afford it.

However, these experiences are not always up to par with most AAA graphics and technical expertise, and while they offer a great experience for their price, a great many of indie games are side-scrolling, platformers. I believe that the hunger to experiment in video games is being overshadowed by the desire to make as much money as possible as quick as possible; as cliche as it is to say out loud as it is to type or write, I am going to type it -- greed is killing video games.

Eight years old is when I started playing video games. I will be 34 this year, and I have not lost my appetite for gaming. Although my appetite is here, it is a hunger that is not easy to sate because it seems like I have seen everything, played everything. I say this because for the last 15 years I feel that gaming has only offered a repeat or reinvention of the wheel on every genre made so far. Flight sims, fighting games, first person shooters, RPGs, platformers and their 3d counterparts, the action adventure game, RTS, and every other derivitive of them.

To say I am not easily impressed is an understatement. Perhaps I am too old to play games, and maybe they do not do for me what they used to because of this -- does this mean there is a limit to what games can do? Have I truly seen everything gaming has to offer, and have I truly played the best that AAA gaming has to offer?

Why do I continually see remakes of the same games. and I am not talking about the HD remixes, etc. I am talking about those games that take the very same game play, and grind it up, and serve it back to us like it was something new. Take Square-Enix for example. The Final Fantasy game has remained largely unchanged since Final Fantasy 7. FF7 was a great game, and it is still a joy to play, but I would like to play a JRPG that does not mimick it in any way. I would also like to play a CRPG that does not mimick Baldur's Gate or Knights of the Old Republic or World of Warcraft. Oh, World of Warcraft has been hacked up and served to us through more than one genre. Look at borderlands; that game is rife with WoW elements such as talent specs, quests that take you nowhere, but they function to give experience and upgrades so that the best way to proceed is to camp a zone and quest till you get over the hump for the next area. Okay, that is typical RPG gaming you might say, and I hear you loud and clear, but my resounding displeasure is that the formula should change, and it is simply not changing; moreover, this type of stagnation has hit nearly every other genre of AAA gaming out there.

[Tux]

引用自 Tsubuyak¡：

Unscripted vs Linear or scripted. Skyrim wasnt linear but technically not scripted either... but you get the idea. It still had its own story so games like that are grey zone. There's no perfect sub genre description.

But yeah, scripted vs unscripted story telling.

I can go with that but I feel 'story creating' vs 'story telling' is more suited. Because in story creating the devs cant predict the story you will experience

[Tahl]

引用自 Tux：

引用自 Tsubuyak¡：

Unscripted vs Linear or scripted. Skyrim wasnt linear but technically not scripted either... but you get the idea. It still had its own story so games like that are grey zone. There's no perfect sub genre description.

But yeah, scripted vs unscripted story telling.

I can go with that but I feel 'story creating' vs 'story telling' is more suited. Because in story creating the devs cant predict the story you will experience

I love both, and all the shades of grey.

[intok]

引用自 SuperSomethings：

Geez, I never should have subscribed to this thread.

This, unsubbing.

[FuNb0Y86]

All of the stuff here is just reinforcing my views that AAA games as we know them are or going to die a slow and painful death.

Between corperate weight and developers who cannot see the potential of the medium, the titanic is sinking.

Thus far, no one in this thread or out in the real world has convinced me that anything but a cataclysmic shakeup of the gaming industry is going to change the trend of greed and myopia plaguing the industry.

If I accomplished anything participating in this thread it was, I realized what I really want in video games, my expectations aren't others' expectations, and lastly it has been quite cathardic simply typing all the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that comes to my mind -- whether you agree or not.

[Ineffable Anathema]

It boils down to several things: laziness; greed; wanting to use every success as an eternal cash cow with minimal further effort put in; abuse of and disregard for customers via several different venues including invasive DRM, advertising, data mining them and milking them or cash; lack of passion for their work, imagination, and innovation; BS such as day-one DRM that obviously is simply chopped out of the main game to further increase profits; unwillingness to work with anything new or original unless they can have complete control over it; reliance on big shiny graphics only as their main selling point; lack of any real support and/or maintenance of their own product after sales - bug fixes and the like.

[僕の名前 (仮)]

If I ever buy any expensive AAA games, only on winter sale when they are -75%
There are too many good indie games that are way chear.

Also I'm pretty happy with already existing multiplayer games, Dota 2 and CS:GO, don't seeking new one atm (maybe the new Unreal Tournament at the release) so I dont need all those Destinies and Titanfalls.