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How do you feel about the future of gaming?

uncommonentity

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With the way it is now where you have to swim through a mountain of wankware to find a diamond in the rough? I've always been attracted to games with a competitive element whether it be 2D-Fighting, Puzzle, Multiplayer-FPS. I like either having my brain stimulated or put up against another in a button pressing duel but I feel like something is being lost in the graphical advancements. I prefer pixels over vector and 3D art. They feel too.... cartoony, less.... mature. Not that mario or pac-man ever made me feel like an adult but even games trying to appeal to a mature audience these days make me feel a little stupid. I'm not looking for a cinema-esque experience with surround sound and graphics that make my eyes bleed in the middle of a gangbang of tutorials and unskippable dialog. I don't want to be told I should lock myself in the basement with a M.A.M.E cabinet either. I just feel they're putting more effort into the sales appeal than the games.
 

Octarine

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I feel that the quality of FPS games has stopped improving over the past few years. Ok, so Quake/Quake II were also dead boring in single player mode, but these games are increasingly associated with a 'been there done that' feeling, despite how pretty some of them may look. I think our standards have become increasingly tough, so we need some completely fresh ideas to make these games continue to be worth playing.
 

The Ü™

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I'm tired of the so-called "high-quality" FPS (and some of those third-person shooters that are more console friendly) games being Call of Duty clones or military vs. aliens. And I really don't like multiplayer, it makes video games seem more like sports than artforms. I never understood the appeal of it. Now if more modern FPSes could be more like Bulletstorm, then they'd be a lot more fun to play.
 

Asterion

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There are plenty of games that are amazing out there, but I've seen very little improvement over time. Games are being made less clunky, but more limiting. You won't notice the reduction in clunkiness until you play the older games, and it barely matters. It's like we're moving from WMP to Zune. FPS's are listening to the community too much, they're moving away from that now I think, we'll see with BF3 and MW3.
 

erm

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It's pretty much better than its ever been. There's always been more bad than good games, people just forget about the bad ones of the past.

The one issue I don't like, which will likely disappear soon, is the workload dedicated to graphics. Even indie platformers spend most of their effort on graphics. Nothing especially bad, but it means games with a lot of breadth or depth are much rarer at the moment, since they aren't economically viable with modern graphical costs. It'll stop soon, since the demand for and costs of better graphics are both dropping.

1994-2004 has been the era that produced almost all of my favourite games, but all signs point to a lot more being produced when the graphics race settles down. Other than that, games have improved in every dimension, and more are being produced than ever before. Even interactive texts, simulators and other genres rarely in the limelight, and though games with old styled graphics aren't made in the same quantity, they are still made.

The current mod communities have got to be my favourite thing about gaming and where it's going.

EDIT: I think people in this thread are focusing on the very most mainstream of games (that aren't facebook or mobile ones). There are countless outside of it that these criticisms simply don't apply to (and that's the vast majority of current games, too, they just aren't as marketed or famous).
 

Stigmata

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The current state of the gaming industry is entirely reflective of today's culture and its infatuation with presentation and eye candy as opposed to anything with any sort of real substance or depth to it; It's all one giant marketing scheme in which everything has become an an accessory to a more expensive separate, yet related product(HD TV's, Subscription based gaming, ect). The emphasis is no longer on the product itself, but how this product is merely a key component, or at least they'd like you to believe that, to something else.

Not only that, but games in general have been just, for lack of better wording, dumbed down, homogenized, and lack any sort of originality, just like everything else. The game is no longer marketed around its fully immersive story line or its countless hours of user experience and replay value, but instead it's simply advertised based around how cutting edge its graphics are in comparison to it's competitors and the industry standard. Basically they just try to overload you with various types of sensory stimuli to distract you from just how bland and repetitive the actual game itself is. Until the innovative push branches away from the graphics and mass marketability departments, I don't see much changing, for the better(Well, at least my view of it).
 

Fluffywolf

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I completely agree with you. Ofcourse there is something to be said about the fact that the standard keeps being put higher and higher. There was once a time Alleycat was considered a huge arcade rpg game! (*cough*)

Anyhow, games are too often rushed into completion, unfinished, too short, qualitatively lame. And the coming of MMORPG's and a much more console oriented market for single player or smaller multiplayer games has limited a lot of developpers as well. I fear this trend will continue for some time, with occasionally a company putting out a game worth your while. But even then, there will likely be parts of it that could've been much better without the politics going on around developping games.
 
G

Ginkgo

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I see the future of gaming as a push to make more games accessible to a larger demographic of people. Gaming is become phenomenally more popular since a decade ago, and it was a riot then too.

I'm not cynical about the future of gaming, nor am I cynical about the emphasis on graphics. Nintendo already jumped off the badwagon and out of the box with the Wii, and I anticipate more people will do so once they realize they don't play games for the sake of realism, they play games for escapism.
 

Randomnity

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I haven't found a decent turn-based strategy game in years. I play several, all developed in the 90s-early2000s (favourites probably still HOMM3 and MOO2...civ4 is ok). The older graphics don't bother me. If anyone knows of one that's come out recently, let me know. :happy2:

From my perspective it seems like all the games these days are being developed for either twitchy adrenaline junkies or people who like to lose themselves in a fantasy world for hours. I like a little more detachment to my games, so I can walk away anytime and come back.
 

kyuuei

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I'd argue that the appeal of video games is higher now than ever. It's not only socially acceptable to be a gamer, but gaming has expanded beyond "You need to be a nerd to enjoy this".. You have casual gamers, interactive gamers, hardcore gamers, FPS's, MMOs.. the fields are huge and ever-expanding. The social acceptance of them means that you'll get larger funding, better results, and faster results.

The average gamer now-a-days is an adult. It means that once people catch onto this socially (society is far behind reality, and always has been) games will stop being released only during summer and chirstmas, and start being released all times of the year. The fact that people know that games aren't for kids anymore is a huge step in the right direction. Adults don't care about sales and marketing so much--they want a good game. All the selling in the world won't make that happen on its own accord, and we've already seen the marketing strategies become more adult-based with collector's editions, bonus content, etc. We're not stuck with a piece of bubble gum and a cheap plastic toy.. We're getting high quality items at prices kids never would be able to afford.

It's not ever going to be perfect.. but I Think the fan-base being adults and overshadowing children will make things continue to improve.
 

kyuuei

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I haven't found a decent turn-based strategy game in years. I play several, all developed in the 90s-early2000s (favourites probably still HOMM3 and MOO2...civ4 is ok). The older graphics don't bother me. If anyone knows of one that's come out recently, let me know. :happy2:

From my perspective it seems like all the games these days are being developed for either twitchy adrenaline junkies or people who like to lose themselves in a fantasy world for hours. I like a little more detachment to my games, so I can walk away anytime and come back.

I wonder.. do you enjoy Tower Defense at all? Or RTS?
 

Randomnity

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I wonder.. do you enjoy Tower Defense at all? Or RTS?
They are both ok but not my favourite. It's a little too fast-paced for me - I prefer being able to sit and plan things out optimally and think about different alternatives instead of just training my fingers to pump out 9000 actions per minute. The strategy is really the whole point for me - I don't mind the real-time strategy until it becomes all about the "time" and not so much about the "strategy".

I do plan on trying out starcraft2 more extensively when I have a bit of time and can borrow a friend's account to see if I like it. I've only played through the campaign so far. I'm always more of a campaign player than multiplayer anyway.

VERY excited for diablo3 to come out eventually, although it's not really a strategy game at all.
 

kyuuei

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^ Ooohh I am too.. I'll have no life once D3 hits.

I was going to say, SC2 has some custom games that are strategy-based and not time-constrained.. The campaign, im playing right now, is pretty fun and it isn't so fast-paced as the multi-player. THere's a particular custom game called Desert Strike, where you build buildings that continuously spawn soldiers and creatures onto a battlefield. It's more strategy based and less number-and-action-crunching. Also, you get to have time to actually watch things attack each other and see how they operate. It's pretty neat.

Have you ever played Final Fantasy Tactics? Or Limbo? (Limbo = Not a TBS, but it is a puzzle game that's super amazing.)
 

Randomnity

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I haven't heard of either of those. Always assumed FF was just a roleplaying game which is usually not my thing - the tactics one is something different?
 

The_Liquid_Laser

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The future of console gaming is pretty bleak. The DS and Wii were great gaming devices, but Nintendo is mostly ignoring what they were doing there to put out some crappy new devices. The PS3 and XBox360 for the most part are putting out the same bland crap, and it doesn't look like that will change any time soon.

PC gaming is essentially dead (other than MMO's), but I think the iPhone is poised to take its place. The iPhone and other iDevices will like improve in game quality over the next few years. I am strongly considering getting one for gaming purposes.

Still an iPod touch is not really the same as a game console. I would rather have an actual game console with good games on it. The closest I have right now is my virtual console on the Wii. I can go back and play a lot of great games I missed the first time around (or games I haven't played in 20 years that I've forgotten everything about).
 

Octarine

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The future of console gaming is pretty bleak. The DS and Wii were great gaming devices, but Nintendo is mostly ignoring what they were doing there to put out some crappy new devices.

I know, it makes you wonder what they were thinking. Innovations in interfaces is definitely one of the directions that gaming should be moving towards.

As far as gaming goes, most of the games so far this year have been crappy and rushed. The only game I am looking forward to is Skyrim, which should be decent even if they manage to mess up certain parts..
 
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