Death to the Game Industry

The article has it right on. To date, I still haven't found a better RTS game than Starcraft: Brood Wars. I've tried the Age of Empires series, Age of Mythology, Warcraft 3; none of them drew me in like Starcraft did. To wrap it up, the gaming industry lacks original ideas. AOE3 will be my next try. Are all the Age series game all about 90% same? Yes. Am I expecting to be dissapointed? Yes. But I'll still keep trying. :(
 
A lot of bitching and no real answers. Maybe he will propose some in the next article, but this article can be summed up concisely: "The games industry sucks, it's getting worse, and I wish it was better."

Well done, I could have written that. (BTW, I could do it on a webpage that had a much friendlier format).

I agree with a lot of what he had to say about diversification among games, and the publishers stifling creativity, and brands getting hammered to dust, but at the same time, it seems that there are plenty of innovative, well-made games that sell very well that aren't based on an existing brand. If you ask this guy, you would think that the entire PC gaming shelf is filled with Doom 3, Lord of the Rings, Warcraft, etc.

I don't know much about how the developer/publisher relationship works, but I do know that I have bought quite a few games in the past couple years, and I have enjoyed most of them a lot.
 
Blame everyone who buys into the hype and buys games based one eye candy and nothing else
 
This guy takes some valid points and spins them into a doomsday scenario. He also left a lot unsaid. What games has he played lately? He mentioned Doom 3, but none of the other big titles that have come out lately. Granted, I don't happen to have video game sales numbers right next to me, but weren't Rome Total War, Half Life 2, Far Cry, Warhammer 4000, Lego Star Wars, and Battlefield 2 all big sellers? And weren't they all GOOD games? Not "pretty but bad?" Granted, most of those were part of a franchise, and I agree with his points that here are too many sequels and franchise games out.

Maybe it will be in the second part next week, but he didn't give any ideas of his own to help solve the problem he sees. "We must blow up this business model..." OK, fine. Show us how.

Whether you love it or hate it, I think Steam and Xbox Live are going to be the way the way out of this trap that the author of that article percieves. As far as I know, any game developer can sign up to use Steam to distribute their game, right? What has to happen with that is somebody needs to figure how to effectively advertise a new game in the absence of a traditional publisher.

I'll be interested to see part 2, at least.
 
Steel Chicken said:
Blame everyone who buys into the hype and buys games based one eye candy and nothing else
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There is one game that I bought for this reason that I can remember, and that is Doom3. I bought it knowing that it would be a mindless shooting fest, but I wanted to see how my computer could handle the engine, because I knew that future games would be based on the engine. Other than that, though, I honestly can not think of one single PC game that was all graphics and no gameplay since the early 3d accelerator days.....maybe I'm wrong.
 
jebo_4jc said:
There is one game that I bought for this reason that I can remember, and that is Doom3. I bought it knowing that it would be a mindless shooting fest, but I wanted to see how my computer could handle the engine, because I knew that future games would be based on the engine. Other than that, though, I honestly can not think of one single PC game that was all graphics and no gameplay since the early 3d accelerator days.....maybe I'm wrong.
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Agreed. I bought it knowing i probably wasn't going to like it very much but that it would look very nice. lol

One thing I can't really comment on is gaming on consoles. I haven't had a console since the Genesis, so I haven't really followed that side of the game industry.

I do think that with multiplayer on the consoles, along with the PC, that has added a whole new element to gaming that has reinvigorated things to an extent.
 
beanman101283 said:
I do think that with multiplayer on the consoles, along with the PC, that has added a whole new element to gaming that has reinvigorated things to an extent.
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Yeah. Halo and Halo2 were huge multiplayer hits, and MMORPG's continue to do (apparently) well for PC's. Multiplayer gaming is where it's at. (Random thought) I'm excited to try out the Serious Sam 2 co-op modes.....me and my buddies vs the game on Extremely [H]ard difficulty was fun in the first one, and will prolly be fun on this one as well.
 
One of his main points seemed to be that there are plenty of games that sell well but are crap as far as gameplay goes. So far I think all the games we've mentioned (except Doom 3, IMO) have been sold well AND been good games. Again, I wonder what games he's been playing, if any, lately.
 
Dude, that guy's hand was hairy. :eek:

I agree with the majority of posters...a true enough statement, but he poses nothing in the pursuit of improvement. Not one suggestion. I know I made a rant myself but even I posed that I wanted others to show the company their disapproval by refusing to buy. I think that kind of sentiment too often gets scoffed at, the same way people say that their voting is worthless. We have to remember that all of the greatest movements in the world started with a person's idea, who told another person, and they told another, and so on. Hope, faith, and optimism are still very powerful entities.

Other than that, though, I honestly can not think of one single PC game that was all graphics and no gameplay since the early 3d accelerator days.....maybe I'm wrong.
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Daikatana, Sin, Mortyr...not saying they were good graphics but there sure wasn't much for gameplay.

Nothing like having to download a patch to unlock the needed door in the first level :D
 
dekay said:
The article has it right on. To date, I still haven't found a better RTS game than Starcraft: Brood Wars. I've tried the Age of Empires series, Age of Mythology, Warcraft 3; none of them drew me in like Starcraft did. To wrap it up, the gaming industry lacks original ideas. AOE3 will be my next try. Are all the Age series game all about 90% same? Yes. Am I expecting to be dissapointed? Yes. But I'll still keep trying. :(
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OTOH, AoE II was my first RTS, and I loved *that* and thought Starcraft (once I eventually tried it) sucked.

I think it's a case of your first experience with any new concept being unique and powerful and lasting....leaving you feeling like the successors to that first experience were less desirable in some way.

I think that's REALLY what this author is "addressing" - his perception that games in a genre are not as good as the FIRST game in that genre he played. This is a natural human progression, though - first experiences are the most impressive. How does that cheezy song put it? "Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders."

That's just the macrocosm of the microcosm. Humans have an innate bias to first and earlier experiences.
 
dderidex said:
How does that cheezy song put it? "Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders."
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God no...I thought I'd put Baz Luhrmann behind me :p
 
dekay said:
The article has it right on. To date, I still haven't found a better RTS game than Starcraft: Brood Wars. I've tried the Age of Empires series, Age of Mythology, Warcraft 3; none of them drew me in like Starcraft did. To wrap it up, the gaming industry lacks original ideas. AOE3 will be my next try. Are all the Age series game all about 90% same? Yes. Am I expecting to be dissapointed? Yes. But I'll still keep trying. :(
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I could never get in to Starcraft. For me it was Total annalation The next big RTS is going to be Supreme Commander Hopefully in the next gen of games we see some good RTS..
 
dekay said:
The article has it right on. To date, I still haven't found a better RTS game than Starcraft: Brood Wars. I've tried the Age of Empires series, Age of Mythology, Warcraft 3; none of them drew me in like Starcraft did. To wrap it up, the gaming industry lacks original ideas. AOE3 will be my next try. Are all the Age series game all about 90% same? Yes. Am I expecting to be dissapointed? Yes. But I'll still keep trying. :(
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I don't know about sucking you in, but Total Annihilation was a better game.

edit: Haha. *high fives moetop*
 
Why should this author bring up ideas for solving the problem with the industry? I think it's enough that he's writing about it, with some details about the how the industry works and the relationships involved. A lot of people aren't aware of this kind of thing, esp. the newer generation of gamers.

Yes I know it's easy to bitch and complain, just look at /. for that, but sometimes just information itself is very useful.

And for the record, I play RTCW: Enemy Territory, CoD: UO, Tetris and Yahoo!'s Go because they're all damn good games. :D
 
Back on topic. He raises some valid points, I've been gaming longer than him (I go back to gaming on the IBM 36 mainframe at the local community college with the original "adventure" and star trek with ASCII "graphics". He offers no solutions and bemoans that dev's only have the big 4 for an outlet. Has he forgotten the internet? anyone can put any piece of software they have written on a e-commerce website and distrubite it that way, so it seems to me he has a huge blindspot on the very medium he's using to express his ideas. As for some of the gaming houses he mentions going by the wayside, some were their own fault (interplay comes to mind, they personally insulted my entire clan, even changed one of their games to prevent us from "winning") and others were plowed under by the shear weight of the project that launched them (Microprose, I'm still waiting for their "integrated battlefield") he also misses some of the more innovative publishers out there like codemasters. It's not nearly as bleak as he claims, in fact I will dare to say I've played the best games in the past year of all of my 28 years of gaming. Multiplayer online games of both the PvE and PvP stripe are the wave of the future, and no I don't really want to go back to my 386-25 and Wing Commander or Falcon AT. You got to move a lot of mud to find a diamond!!
 
I read the entire article and I have to say I agree with the author.
Things do need to change, developers need the freedom to create and the ability to own their creations.
I would love to see more games that are really fun to play even if they are not stunning.

I am wondering why he has not mentioned certain creative and yet succesfull games like
Katamari Damacy and uh.... Kirby's Canvas Curse and uh... did I already say Katamari Damacy?
 
I am really excited about Spore, though I doubt it will come out in the next two years. But I get bored with games easier now then I did before. They may have more content but maybe its to easy to unlock or I dont have a drive to.
 
IceWind said:
Go cry a river, make a bridge and get over it.
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That is an awesome saying bro. :cool:

While I agree with most of what the guy was saying, I believe the author left out the "make a bridge and get over it" part. Even a few suggestions would have been nice.

And Timmmay makes a very good point too.
 
beanman101283 said:
This guy takes some valid points and spins them into a doomsday scenario. He also left a lot unsaid. What games has he played lately? He mentioned Doom 3, but none of the other big titles that have come out lately. Granted, I don't happen to have video game sales numbers right next to me, but weren't Rome Total War, Half Life 2, Far Cry, Warhammer 4000, Lego Star Wars, and Battlefield 2 all big sellers? And weren't they all GOOD games? Not "pretty but bad?" Granted, most of those were part of a franchise, and I agree with his points that here are too many sequels and franchise games out.

Maybe it will be in the second part next week, but he didn't give any ideas of his own to help solve the problem he sees. "We must blow up this business model..." OK, fine. Show us how.

Whether you love it or hate it, I think Steam and Xbox Live are going to be the way the way out of this trap that the author of that article percieves. As far as I know, any game developer can sign up to use Steam to distribute their game, right? What has to happen with that is somebody needs to figure how to effectively advertise a new game in the absence of a traditional publisher.

I'll be interested to see part 2, at least.
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You've got a valid point with the Steam/Xbox Live usage. Although, I've never heard of entire games being distributed over XB Live. Advertising is going to be a big hurdle. If steam is going to be utilized for this kind of thng more, Valve is really going to have to beef it up. Just wanted to say that you seem to have the right idea about this. A system like steam will allow a lot more developer freedom, hopefully steam will not end up being squandered potential.
 
dderidex said:
OTOH, AoE II was my first RTS, and I loved *that* and thought Starcraft (once I eventually tried it) sucked.

I think it's a case of your first experience with any new concept being unique and powerful and lasting....leaving you feeling like the successors to that first experience were less desirable in some way.

I think that's REALLY what this author is "addressing" - his perception that games in a genre are not as good as the FIRST game in that genre he played. This is a natural human progression, though - first experiences are the most impressive. How does that cheezy song put it? "Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders."

That's just the macrocosm of the microcosm. Humans have an innate bias to first and earlier experiences.
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I'll agree with you here, if anyone has gone back and tried to play some of the older games like when they were kids they'd see that those games werent all that great. I've went back and played a bunch of older games and I get bored so fast becasue all you have to do is hit "A" and "B". I think most of the newer games are alot better than the old ones. The learning curve on most of the new games is alot longer which may persuade people to not really get into it. If anyone has followed warcraft look how those games have progressed from I-II-III. I loved all of them and the 3rd one was definitley the best. It's extremely complicated and complex. (I'm mostly referring to playing on bnet against other people.) They do need new ideas but it's hard to come up with new ideas. If anyone ever picked up God of War that was an AWESOME game. That just came out this year and it was totally "new". It was a very short game, but that game had simply stunning gameplay/story/graphics.

One game I dont really think can ever be touched is Team fortress. That game had perfect gameplay. It had horrible graphics and maybe it wasnt "realistic" becuase you could get shot so many times(thats what made it so great). The gameplay was extremely fast and well rounded.
 
I totaly agree with this article...

I heard that 26 of the 30 EA games out this year were all sequals? (something close to that right)..

Most of these games suck...

The only games I appreciate at the moment is Burnout 4.. Its too bad its now on the same cycle as a sports game. (only a year sinse BO 3).

I want people to NOT USE graphics at all in games.. It should be later.. My brother is trying to be a start-up game programming, and he can't get a normal job for games.. Its because 90% of people hired are GRAPHIC ARTISTS!!! Not true programmers...

I've seen many commercials from the some college in Toronto talking about - their 'Gaming' courses, which include: Graphic Desgins, 3D animation, Texutring etc etc..

We need more stuff like Katamari.. Yes I admit its artsy - but damn is it hella fun...
 
only thought that could come to my mind was:

cry more n00b.

but most of what said is more or less true.
 
I am not a developer so I find it hard to relate to his vigor...did anyone else picture an old black and white video of Hitler speaking to a crowd while they read this? Anyway I will say this much, Far Cry was a good single player experiance and it came out of no where. Serious Sam 2 should be coming a long soon as well. If you ask me these guys are all pissed off cause they made some bad choices and sold themselves out. Now do I think the industry has gotton out of hand...oh yes. They have turned the gaming industry into the music industry 1 good band out of every thousand. It is time for a change...question is who, when, and what will make it happen?

PS: After 4 years of playing nothing but CS (including source) and swearing nothing could be better...I am finding that I quite enjoy BF2 although it is prolly the buggiest game I have ever played. I guess the reality is maybe he is more right then we realize...we only have what we have...with nothing to compare it to but old history. I certainly don't feel like playing Duke Nukem right now )-:
 
I feel game was already dead when more and more games ask higher equipment. They just focus on making money, how beautiful of the graph and how bloodly and reality. But they forgot how to making fun. The most important part of the game.
 
from the article:

Indie rock fans may prefer somewhat muddy sound over some lushly-orchestrated, producer-massaged score; indie film fans may prefer quirky, low-budget titles over big-budget special FX extravaganzas; but in gaming, we have no indie aesthetic, no group of people (of any size at least) who prize independent vision and creativity over production values.
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I agree with many points of the article, but this I disagree with.

Katamari Damacy is the recent epitome of this group. Out of left field, a game has some horrible graphics, but terrific gameplay coupled with original music. It isn't huge, but it certainly caught on with a number of people. Enough so that 2 people I know bought PS2s just to play this game. I asked one what other games he had for his PS2, to which he sarcastically responded "What... the Katamari machine? It plays other games?"

It is exactly this genre that the author contends doesn't exist who 'discover' the excellent games. It is this genre who have been PC only gamers for years and buy a console just to play one game. Once discovered, then the "series" is born, and becomes a part of the problem as the author contends. The people that are in this demographic will come back to the greats. The M.U.L.E.s, the Archons, The X-Coms.

Just as with the indie rock or film groups this demographic is small, and even if the entire demographic buys into a title it can still be a big loser. But there are people who can recognize gameplay over graphics. I don't think that part of the article was even necessary. It doesn't even matter in the overall point of the article that such a demographic exists or not. I think the authors beef is not with gamers but with publishers, a couple specific publishers to be exact. In fact, these are the SAME publishers that the "non-existant" demographic are dissatisfied with.

'Build it and they will come' applies to gamers. Gamers will recognize good titles that are not part of an existing frachise, that is how new game series get started.

The other issue I see with the article is in the quote highlighted by Steve:
If you look at the biggest hits in the field, you find that a high proportion - not all, but a lot - are games that came out of left-field, that did something novel. Doom created the FPS genre. Warcraft and Command & Conquer created the RTS. Sim City created the sim/tycoon genre. GTA and The Sims are spawning their own genres, too - they don't have names yet, but call them the simulated world and the virtual dollhouse.
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Doom didn't create the FPS genre, Wolfenstein and Ultima Underworld (not a shooter, but a pioneer of the genre) were there first, but Doom did it best with good multiplayer support. Warcraft and C&C were well after the Dune RTS from Westwood, but they were more popular because they did multiplayer well (well C&C did, Warcraft multiplayer wasn't good until War2). The others are probably accurate, I wasn't much into those types of games. A technical contention that doesn't really take away from the meat of the article, but it's there.
 
I agreed with a lot that the guy said, and I respect him for researching his article that well, and explaining the way the industry works, and the patterns involved in it. I dont know how many people I have told not to buy EAs games. The last game I bought from EA was Little Big Adventure (great game), and they have just gone downhill from there.
 
Having made games in the game industry for about 5 years I can lend my support to his point of view.

Game companies are publicaly traded entities that rely on healthy quarters and stock prices no creative thought and original ideals. Because of this the presure is on to show anything and everything you can (vaporware, fluff animations, etc) at gameshows and for the game mags/websites. Sometimes a game won't even be given the go ahead for developement until the company can assume that the response good. And when did big gaming companies have a feel for what is a good game and what isn't. Most exec and decision makers don't even play games and don't want their employees wasting time on them either. Just make the "damn game" and stop playing them.

Great games come from nowhere because on there can creativity and ideas flourish and grow. When a great game is made no one is thinking about Christmas realease season, or bad quarters or even branding and pr machines. Just make the good game and get it out. Then it takes a life of its own. Unfortunately the complexity of games these days demand big teams to create them and that doesn't happen without money for those people to live on while they make the games. So... we have big gaming companies and the bigger the company and the better the brand titles they have the better they are doing.

Where will it all go? I think someday there will arrive very well developed engines for handling all the coding for running and game and the talent will switch back to designers and artists who will make wildly different games on already built and flushed out engines. (quake, unreal, etc). Currently, programmers are the hot commodity for game companies they get the big salaries and all the royalties at most companies. I always felt that it will be the artists and designers that will eventually make the the great games stand out. But I think I have wandered.

Anyway, the game industry must get back to its roots. That being small teams with very few limitations and where creativity is given free reign. I don't think cheap& easy stuff like game knockoff of movies or tv shows are going to ever shine. Original will always have the best shot at becoming great.
 
On game distribution:
In today’s market, it’s become nearly impossible for a developer to pierce the retail channels. I believe a Valve Steam-like system is currently the only distribution model that suits games that don’t have large advertising assets and the like. Valve has more or less bypassed their publisher Vivendi completely, with a good portion of their game sales going through Steam and not the retail boxes.

On finding a place for developers:
With console development kits costing tens of thousands of dollars and high level pc software costing thousands as well, I see game modding as a very good opportunity for creative developers to gain popularity. As we’ve seen with Half-life (although almost solely Half life), its possible for a small group of people to create something very original and entirely gameplay oriented, such as with Counter-Strike and Natural Selection. CS went on to be the most played action multiplayer game of all time. Gooseman is now Wealthyman as a result.
Modding is not the ultimate answer though, as the developers won’t get paid unless they create some uber-smash hit.

On Consoles:
Games are going the way of the consoles, for X reasons. New and creative games will become even rarer, and I don’t see Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo doing something about it in the foreseeable future.

It is a bleak time for us “true” gamers. Maybe it’ll take another videogame “crash” to revive and revolutionize this very powerful medium. Maybe we need to create an indie market with indie festivals and such. We’ll see…
 
A pretty good article but as said here already theres no real suggestions for how to help curb the industry, in fact the only real way to change the industry is probably to just raise awreness and let the companies realise this themselfs.

Interesting really because theres been a massive increase in video processing power especially recently and graphics are truly becoming dominant, as the author says its all about glitz, i think though that this will naturally die down once the new effects introduced start becoming only slightly better than the previous. I think maybe the games industry is going through the stages where for the first time we're starting to see worlds which are getting within reach of mimicking our own world, it might not seem entirely like it but spanned across lots of games we've got lots of advancements, AI in games like the SIMS, realistic worlds like in most of the new FPS titles, ever increasing sound quality with most gamers having surround sound, physics engines are now not only amazing to look at and play with but they're expected in games, if it doesnt have realtime physics its old news and it wasnt that long ago my jaw was dropping at Max Payne 2 thinking for the first time OH MY GOD as a ragdol crashed through several shelfs full of misc objects.

I think maybe in 10 years time people will be far less excited with the increases to what are innovative systems today, things will be improved on but the differences are going to seem less and less over time im willing to bet, at which point what we do with these systems is going to become more important again and hence gameplay will be given a lease of life.

One last thing i'd like to note is that i've found more gameplay and fun in some flash games than in some of the larger budget games of recent times, i've tried 3 times to get into playing doom3's expansion totaling maybe 30 mins of gameplay before uninstalling it AGAIN, thinking this time i might be able to find some fun in it (despite enjoying doom3 a lot) yet i've spent 10 seconds downloading flash games which i've played hours at a time for days on end.
 
yeah, I don't see why everyone's calling for this guy to create solutions to the problems he cites. Even if he had made suggestions for solutions they would have fallen upon deaf ears, and the only people listening are the ones that can't effect any of those changes. Stating the problems is much more informative to the consumer on that level, makes them think aboout the article and in turn choose not to buy crap games. That's really the only solution, only buy the games that are worth buying. Sure Battlefield 2 is a sequel, but it brings enough new stuff to the table that it was worth it to me. Halflife 2 had a great story as well as great graphics, and I'm GLAD Valve is becoming the Lucasfilm of the Games industry.
 
Costikyan is right on; as games have become more "mainstream" and higher budget, publishers are more risk-averse. Games are so technology driven now, it isn't often we see a new game that actually increases the play space. Even Half Life 2 was somewhat pedestrian in gameplay (still doing the same running and gunning, just now with some limited physics.) Production values have gone way up, but innovation hasn't. The industry is becoming a battlefield for competing Bruckheimers, each new game Louder! Bigger! Faster! than the last. Sure, Molyneux, Wright, and Spector are still out there and can make whatever they like, but 99.9% of game designers don't have that luxury.

Greg posted this on his blog a few months ago (for those who don't know, Greg Costikyan is a former game designer who is mostly known in the industry now for his outspoken cries against the industry establishment.) He did this as a presentation keynote for some event; anyhow you can download the Powerpoint slideshow which has both the info in the article and the "How to fix it" section that will presumably be in the next article. Basically, he states that a new online market, cutting out the retailer middleman, might provide grounds for an indy market to crop up much as it has in music.

http://www.costik.com/presentations/Death to the Games Industry.ppt
 
This is a short-term issue that will ultimately resolve itself through the invention of computers that are capable of doing the majority of the work for the designers (10 to 15 years away), leaving only initial theme design, and final tweaking to really take significant input on the designers part. Overall you should have graphics that are nearly photo-realistic that take about a 10th of the time current high-end graphics take.

This will ultimately drive down costs to a reasonable level and allow more risks to be taken.

Also there are a few developers out there doing great work on low budgets and doing it very well, the makers of Darwinia, and Katamari Damacy come to mind first for me.
 
That's ridiculous. No computer can design a game. The art pipeline might be shortened, but there is no 'recipe' for making good game design. Photorealistic graphics don't matter for gameplay, full stop. This is the kind of thinking that is killing innovation in the industry. This is a crisis in the industry that will only be resolved by gamers changing their tastes and by developers changing their business model. The movie industry could not possibly sustain itself purely on summer blockbusters, and the game industry cannot either.

Merely reducing costs will not increase the desires for publishers to take risks either - they want guaranteed ROI. Innovation is by definition not guaranteed. Why waste $1-5 million on a small innovative title which may flop, when you can make Final Fantasy 43 and get a guaranteed blockbuster hit? Additionally, many consumers are risk averse - would you buy some weird outlandish title for $50 when you know you would love the newest Doom game? This is why games like Mark of Kri do poorly but games like Devil May Cry 3 do great - the desire for innovation or uniqueness by consumers isn't really there yet. How many gamers are really honestly willing to trade high production values for innovative gameplay?

arentol said:
Also there are a few developers out there doing great work on low budgets and doing it very well, the makers of Darwinia, and Katamari Damacy come to mind first for me.
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Sadly, these are not selling in huge numbers. Katamari has enormous press buzz, but it isn't the major seller that it might seem to be.
 
dderidex said:
- first experiences are the most impressive. How does that cheezy song put it? "Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders."

That's just the macrocosm of the microcosm. Humans have an innate bias to first and earlier experiences.
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Gotta agree with that. But Starcraft wasn't really my first RTS. I played Dune and Warcraft I + II as well. I liked them as well, but the free online play was what held me captive.

On another note, one of the factors that has spoiled RTS and probably most other games, is the availability of the internet. When Starcraft was out, the internet was still relatively a new thing. But with the ease of sharing information now, creativity for strategies was close to null. One player develops a new strategy, posts on a forum, and what do you know, 50% of the online players become zombies in the game. So dderidex got me figured out correctly. I do cherish the old times :)
 
If Steam type content distribution system was ubiquitous, then I don't think advertisment should be that big of a deal. Picture this: everytime you log on a message pops up to tell you what new games are availible (naturally the users can control if they want to see this ads or not or how often they want the message). In the message is a brief description of the game, maybe a screenshot or two. Now if your interested, then you can buy, download the game, and play, and the game will be unlocked in your account. If you want to try it out, then you can immediately download a demo. The system even could probably tell you if the platform you're gaming on meets the required specs. And the shelf-life of a game can last as long as the developer wants to leave the binary on a server (though they may have to pay Valve).

The plan will get sour if developers start to go to Steam or something, and the owners of the distribution system get greedy, which is very likely to happen.

hmm, remember the Phantom by Infinium Labs? Are they still alive? I remember that their "plan" for their console turned into more of a distribution system. I don't like their pricing model though, I wouldn't want to pay a monthly fee to get a bunch of advertisements if none of them appeal to me. (now whether or not Infinium Labs is a hoax or not is another topic)

edit: I'm not sure about how developers would get funding without publishers to invest in them, but I'm pretty sure without the excesive advertisement and the business overhead, things could workout.
 
hehahohee said:
If Steam type content distribution system was ubiquitous, then I don't think advertisment should be that big of a deal. Picture this: everytime you log on a message pops up to tell you what new games are availible (naturally the users can control if they want to see this ads or not or how often they want the message). In the message is a brief description of the game, maybe a screenshot or two. Now if your interested, then you can buy, download the game, and play, and the game will be unlocked in your account. If you want to try it out, then you can immediately download a demo. The system even could probably tell you if the platform you're gaming on meets the required specs. And the shelf-life of a game can last as long as the developer wants to leave the binary on a server (though they may have to pay Valve).
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This is certainly true, and one of the methods Greg hints at in the slideshow. This would solve many problems at once; however, there are two main flaws. One, people like to browse. When I go to a Gamestop, I enjoy looking at all the boxes, which serves as little billboards for the game. There's something very enjoyable in handling all the game boxes and reading over the covers. You don't get that sensation in Steam; you have to target-shop on a system like that. The other issue is only hardcore gamers (for now) would do that - you have to remember the many Joe Casual Gamers out there that do all their game shopping at Best Buy and Walmart and Targets. These people may not even visit Gamestop; they almost certainly won't go for an online distribution system (yet.) However, this system would be a great way to market to hardcore niches.
 
dekay said:
The article has it right on. To date, I still haven't found a better RTS game than Starcraft: Brood Wars. I've tried the Age of Empires series, Age of Mythology, Warcraft 3; none of them drew me in like Starcraft did. To wrap it up, the gaming industry lacks original ideas. AOE3 will be my next try. Are all the Age series game all about 90% same? Yes. Am I expecting to be dissapointed? Yes. But I'll still keep trying. :(
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Have you tried series like Myth? Or Total war? or Stronghold? Those are some great RTS games that are different from the general "AOE/Ron/WCIII/EE" clones.


As far as the article goes, I have to agree on some points.

However as to saying there's NO gamers that appericate/like indie games? Uhh, that I disagree with.

As an avid Adventure game fan, there are still some great and upcoming adventure games that are far from being considered by publishers like EA, etc as "AAA" titles, and yet they are still made, and published.

There IS an "indie" class of gamers and even publishers to an extent. It's just that the "big" publishers don't get into it so much.
 
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