Anyone ever wonder why some of the best games in recent memory haven't come from the US? (example: The Witcher, granted the combat was god awful in the first)
Or why a russian made tank arcade game now outstrips CoD and Battlefield in players and yearly profit?
It's because, for the moment at least, over here we couldn't give a toss about the angsty hellspawns and build games for gamers not profit... Hell the guys over at Gaijin (the people making a realistic multiplayer complete, land air and water, combat simulator that's F2P, it's called War Thunder btw) said their planes would fly and fight like they did in real life (arcade mode battles use more sweetened flight models where you can't tear your own wings off but in realistic mode..dear lord my fighter escort stuka would fly apart in the high g turns I use in combat) and they've stuck to that in an uncompromising fashion, even though some airplanes at the level/era they're fighting are clearly overpowered (ironically it isn't german jet aircraft, it's early war cannon equipped heavy fighters, fighters and 2-3 fighter bombers) and require skill to even have a hope of taking down.
I could go on about games like Gloria Victis or Albion Online who are MMOs cropping up to satiate the market for less... player friendly games ( I've personally played Albion and it is one of the purest sandbox experiences I've had in a MMO).
Why is it I feel I do little but defend Americans these days.
Pull yourself together Americans, so I don't have to
I think most of the reason computer games are so easy these days is that we aren't 12 anymore. A lot of things are easier for adults.
America is just the country to pick on it seems. Not sure why, but the world just likes to pin everything on America. "Every American is fat", "Every American is dumb/uneducated", "Every American is lazy"; The list goes on. But to say that American society is responsible or even to say "so easy an American can play it" is a bit absurd. I've lived in a lot of places around the world. It really isn't all that different around the world. Europe/Korea have their share of overweight/fat people, as well as a good stock of uneducated individuals.
Remember folks when you point a finger at someone there are at least 3 more pointing back at you.
It is because America is seen as the most powerful country in the world currently.
It is human nature to "knock down" the best to whatever your level is.
In the MMO space people did this with WoW ( until it started to kill itself ) saying after it became the clear leader around the launch of BC that it was bad and for casuals or for hardcore raiders or PvP rouge gankers or PvE carebears. Whatever they where not.
America is like WoW now, it is decline. (I say this as a proud American.) But even though it is in decline its still pretty good. . .(just like WoW.)
Hey, we work harder, fight harder, and struggle more than most of the industrialized world, any wonder we like to take it a bit easy in our downtime?
lol dont think so, Indian and Asian people would laugh at that statement.
Er not really, I work with people in both of those regions and working conditions are comparable when dealing with technology sectors, but I was referring more to the Western Hemisphere and I did use the word "most" as you noted.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Hey, we work harder, fight harder, and struggle more than most of the industrialized world, any wonder we like to take it a bit easy in our downtime?
lol dont think so, Indian and Asian people would laugh at that statement.
Er not really, I work with people in both of those regions and working conditions are comparable when dealing with technology sectors, but I was referring more to the Western Hemisphere and I did use the word "most" as you noted.
Do I need to mention Russia, Romania, the Ukraine? In some sectors of those countries people work up to 16 hours a day for 150 $ ...per month.
That statement reminds me of the Secretary of State's comment a few years back...
John Kerry....
“You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq. …”
As a veteran I took serious offense at that remark.
I have travelled all around the world and spent some serious time with cultures different from my own, and have learned to appreciate the good with the bad.
To make a statement that you have to dumb things down for America... Not sure how I feel about that. If his intention was to state that instant gratification is necessary due to the high tempo lifestyle that a lot of people have, I can appreciate that. Japan has the same issue.
The point is that developers don't even have to target the so called "youth audience". Most of the current successful games maintained their player base by supporting their mature audience and not insulting their intelligence. Mmos come out to great fanfare and then die because their complexity is overly simplified and they lack content to hold the interest of long term players. Developers admit young players do not want complexity and do not want difficult learning curves yet they continue to try and target that audience. Seriously who are the idiots here?
Developers continue to think of mmos as yet another console-like video game they can mass produce and mass market. This is entirely wrong and always has been. Mmos evolved from rpgs, muds and other similar games which were largely played by mature and socially oriented players who wanted 3D translations of their very complex and highly socially interactive games they grew up on. These players tend to be very intelligent and with highly developed imaginations, verbal skills and conceptual understanding of rpg systems and genres ... and those players still exist today and still play mmos. They were the original audience and instead of continuing to support them and bring in new players interested in rpg-style games, developers have instead tried to market mmos like consoles games, or even worse, mobile games. Today's mmos are a complete and total insult to their original audience and you clearly see the lack of interest from the core audience that SHOULD support mmos.
Now I do also have strong opinions of american youth but this isn't the forum for such a topic (I'll just add: Listen to a British 7 year old child speak and then listen to the average American 7 year old who supposedly speaks the same language. The difference in verbal and auditory skill is amazing ... mind blowingly amazing.) but the problem with mmos resides in broader areas then just youth. American kids certainly do indeed need to step up with regard to education but mmos targeting them, failing and then developers blaming it on the kids is asinine. Developers have been targeting the wrong audience for mmos for a decade now.
Mmos are not your normal video games. They never have been. They are social experiments in virtual worlds which is the basic definition of a roleplaying game. Mmos have become video games. Most aren't even roleplaying games any more. When developers start learning the difference again we might just see games being made for their core audience again. Maybe, perhaps just maybe, real mmorpg's never had a broad audience. RPGs are niche and therefore so are mmos perfectly developed for that audience but that audience is one of the most hardcore that exist in gaming today. You only have to make a game that keeps the interest a small portion of the market yet grabs their attention for years. They did it in the past but utterly lost their way since.
Personally I am hoping the next crop of sandbox style games (and hybrids) are sincerely originating out of the idea of targeting the core rpg audience once again. Some seem to be targeting lego lovers more than anything with the building mechanics becoming more popular so I'm not sure if indeed this will work out as planned. I do admit I was a HUGE lego fan when I was a kid so perhaps the constructive, imaginative mind is what drew me into rpgs as well and the new mmos will be of interest to me.
If their is one fault of "American youth" (only the recent generations have the faults everyone seems to address so I refer to kids or youth even if perhaps they are entering their 20's as well) it that the lifestyle they now live seems to strip any creative imagination from them. They fear original thought and mostly adhere to pop culture propagation. They abhor roleplaying and do not even understand what roleplaying is. They cannot see their character as a character within a living virtual world but instead project themselves into it. This is actually the norm now in mmos but is a big HELL NO in traditional rpg games and a concept few will understand here even when reading this. Developers are trying to cater to what these people grew up on in order to bring in a larger audience. IT WAS NEVER THE AUDIENCE FOR MMOS TO BEGIN WITH!!!
Why is it I feel I do little but defend Americans these days.
Pull yourself together Americans, so I don't have to
I think most of the reason computer games are so easy these days is that we aren't 12 anymore. A lot of things are easier for adults.
Yes there is some truth to this but also there is no doubt at all that all games have become easier too.
Also I don't believe anyone will ever get that feeling of their first mmo again.
I just ask for one with some challenge to it,not one where i am a dodge roll around dps class like everyone else that I am not even grouped with and don't even compete for resource nodes,yeah lets all be friends and not have any challenge what so ever,oh wait lets be so kind we can level to max level just gathering and making underpants,never picking up a weapon ever... yeah awesome.
Or lets make our game so you can log in for 30 minutes a week and change your role from healer,tank,dps,mana regen.support,crowd control so that everyone can run around and be happy ! yeah awesome.
yeah maybe i am wrong,games are way harder now
Because Crafting should just be a side-line activity to the games, and barely worth it to the playerbase at large in order to encourage them to just kill kill kill, am I right?
The ignorance of such a concept is laughable at best, and downright pathetic realistically. Most "hardcore" MMOs would die out if they were to abide by such logic, seeing as they usually use crafting for the availability of most all gear within the game.
I actually seem to remember there are plenty of hardcore-styled games, like Eve or even Pre-NGE Star Wars Galaxy for instance, that actually encourage the gatherer/crafter-only mentality.
But hey, variety is the poison of life, so let's just give everyone one role in games and make it a race of who brings more deeps to a fight.
Umm what are you talking about? IMOP you should have separate experience for each sphere of your character,Adventure,tradeskill,harvest. I was referring to a casual game where you can get max adventure level without ever wielding a weapon..
And once again your ignorance shines through.
A game doesn't have to be casual because it offers alternate forms of leveling. Pay attention next time. Star Wars Galaxy, pre-major nerfs, had several classes whose entire point was crafting/cooking/non-killing. Yet I have yet to see ANYONE call that a casual game.
EVE can also be played strictly non-combative.
So sorry, but I must ask you your own question, "Umm, what are you talking about?". You want a game that separates advancement? Fine and dandy, but that doesn't make it "hardcore" or "non-casual". Just like using a weapon to reach max level doesn't make a game "hardcore" either.
Or in that case, any generic FPS title must be pretty hardcore, seeing as you need to use a weapon to hit max level.
Comments
Anyone ever wonder why some of the best games in recent memory haven't come from the US? (example: The Witcher, granted the combat was god awful in the first)
Or why a russian made tank arcade game now outstrips CoD and Battlefield in players and yearly profit?
It's because, for the moment at least, over here we couldn't give a toss about the angsty hellspawns and build games for gamers not profit... Hell the guys over at Gaijin (the people making a realistic multiplayer complete, land air and water, combat simulator that's F2P, it's called War Thunder btw) said their planes would fly and fight like they did in real life (arcade mode battles use more sweetened flight models where you can't tear your own wings off but in realistic mode..dear lord my fighter escort stuka would fly apart in the high g turns I use in combat) and they've stuck to that in an uncompromising fashion, even though some airplanes at the level/era they're fighting are clearly overpowered (ironically it isn't german jet aircraft, it's early war cannon equipped heavy fighters, fighters and 2-3 fighter bombers) and require skill to even have a hope of taking down.
I could go on about games like Gloria Victis or Albion Online who are MMOs cropping up to satiate the market for less... player friendly games ( I've personally played Albion and it is one of the purest sandbox experiences I've had in a MMO).
It is because America is seen as the most powerful country in the world currently.
It is human nature to "knock down" the best to whatever your level is.
In the MMO space people did this with WoW ( until it started to kill itself ) saying after it became the clear leader around the launch of BC that it was bad and for casuals or for hardcore raiders or PvP rouge gankers or PvE carebears. Whatever they where not.
America is like WoW now, it is decline. (I say this as a proud American.) But even though it is in decline its still pretty good. . .(just like WoW.)
Er not really, I work with people in both of those regions and working conditions are comparable when dealing with technology sectors, but I was referring more to the Western Hemisphere and I did use the word "most" as you noted.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Do I need to mention Russia, Romania, the Ukraine? In some sectors of those countries people work up to 16 hours a day for 150 $ ...per month.
That statement reminds me of the Secretary of State's comment a few years back...
John Kerry....
“You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq. …”
As a veteran I took serious offense at that remark.
I have travelled all around the world and spent some serious time with cultures different from my own, and have learned to appreciate the good with the bad.
To make a statement that you have to dumb things down for America... Not sure how I feel about that. If his intention was to state that instant gratification is necessary due to the high tempo lifestyle that a lot of people have, I can appreciate that. Japan has the same issue.
It all depends on his intent.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
Its true..
Americans like to dumb everything down to the point where they themselves become dumb in the process.
It was the NSA.....
Cluck Cluck, Gibber Gibber, My Old Mans A Mushroom
those look like bucklers to me o.o.
The point is that developers don't even have to target the so called "youth audience". Most of the current successful games maintained their player base by supporting their mature audience and not insulting their intelligence. Mmos come out to great fanfare and then die because their complexity is overly simplified and they lack content to hold the interest of long term players. Developers admit young players do not want complexity and do not want difficult learning curves yet they continue to try and target that audience. Seriously who are the idiots here?
Developers continue to think of mmos as yet another console-like video game they can mass produce and mass market. This is entirely wrong and always has been. Mmos evolved from rpgs, muds and other similar games which were largely played by mature and socially oriented players who wanted 3D translations of their very complex and highly socially interactive games they grew up on. These players tend to be very intelligent and with highly developed imaginations, verbal skills and conceptual understanding of rpg systems and genres ... and those players still exist today and still play mmos. They were the original audience and instead of continuing to support them and bring in new players interested in rpg-style games, developers have instead tried to market mmos like consoles games, or even worse, mobile games. Today's mmos are a complete and total insult to their original audience and you clearly see the lack of interest from the core audience that SHOULD support mmos.
Now I do also have strong opinions of american youth but this isn't the forum for such a topic (I'll just add: Listen to a British 7 year old child speak and then listen to the average American 7 year old who supposedly speaks the same language. The difference in verbal and auditory skill is amazing ... mind blowingly amazing.) but the problem with mmos resides in broader areas then just youth. American kids certainly do indeed need to step up with regard to education but mmos targeting them, failing and then developers blaming it on the kids is asinine. Developers have been targeting the wrong audience for mmos for a decade now.
Mmos are not your normal video games. They never have been. They are social experiments in virtual worlds which is the basic definition of a roleplaying game. Mmos have become video games. Most aren't even roleplaying games any more. When developers start learning the difference again we might just see games being made for their core audience again. Maybe, perhaps just maybe, real mmorpg's never had a broad audience. RPGs are niche and therefore so are mmos perfectly developed for that audience but that audience is one of the most hardcore that exist in gaming today. You only have to make a game that keeps the interest a small portion of the market yet grabs their attention for years. They did it in the past but utterly lost their way since.
Personally I am hoping the next crop of sandbox style games (and hybrids) are sincerely originating out of the idea of targeting the core rpg audience once again. Some seem to be targeting lego lovers more than anything with the building mechanics becoming more popular so I'm not sure if indeed this will work out as planned. I do admit I was a HUGE lego fan when I was a kid so perhaps the constructive, imaginative mind is what drew me into rpgs as well and the new mmos will be of interest to me.
If their is one fault of "American youth" (only the recent generations have the faults everyone seems to address so I refer to kids or youth even if perhaps they are entering their 20's as well) it that the lifestyle they now live seems to strip any creative imagination from them. They fear original thought and mostly adhere to pop culture propagation. They abhor roleplaying and do not even understand what roleplaying is. They cannot see their character as a character within a living virtual world but instead project themselves into it. This is actually the norm now in mmos but is a big HELL NO in traditional rpg games and a concept few will understand here even when reading this. Developers are trying to cater to what these people grew up on in order to bring in a larger audience. IT WAS NEVER THE AUDIENCE FOR MMOS TO BEGIN WITH!!!
You stay sassy!
Lol. Wizardry, Bard's Tale, Ultima, and hell, even Baldur's Gate, say hi.
And once again your ignorance shines through.
A game doesn't have to be casual because it offers alternate forms of leveling. Pay attention next time. Star Wars Galaxy, pre-major nerfs, had several classes whose entire point was crafting/cooking/non-killing. Yet I have yet to see ANYONE call that a casual game.
EVE can also be played strictly non-combative.
So sorry, but I must ask you your own question, "Umm, what are you talking about?". You want a game that separates advancement? Fine and dandy, but that doesn't make it "hardcore" or "non-casual". Just like using a weapon to reach max level doesn't make a game "hardcore" either.
Or in that case, any generic FPS title must be pretty hardcore, seeing as you need to use a weapon to hit max level.
Damnit Obama!