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Has the Game Industry Jumped the Shark? - Garrett Fuller at MMORPG.com
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Has the Game Industry Jumped the Shark? - Garrett Fuller at MMORPG.com
As I look into 2017, the landscape is just not what we have seen in recent years. Games continue to build, but the trend for the next year is going in very different directions from the past. Indie games will continue to push through but overall, there seems to be a lot missing from our normal New Year game menu.
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21 year MMO veteran
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The problem is that half the studios jumped on the fad bandwagon and started making mobile games. They are neglecting the major market that brings in the real money and makes them successful.
Someone said "minimum effort" above... that's exactly what the mobile market is. Spit out a bunch of easy-to-produce mobile games and hope to make a few bucks instead of sinking real development time and resources into the better systems for a potentially bigger payday. It's easy and less risk, but the reward is rarely as good since most mobile games don't bring in that much profit.
It's a matter of perspective and expectations. I do agree that all other developers are currently subpar to CD Project Red (Some very slightly, and some more than others).
All other games from all other studios have many, many imperfections. It's not an absolute minimum effort as i imagine it, but a relative one and on top of that the quality and the full experience of the end product as well as many other factors.
Developers trying their best and putting in maximum effort doesn't make those developers the best in their field, no matter how hard they try and do, they are still going to be inferior to some of the legends that helped produced the greatest games in their respective time.
It's the matter of expertise and genius, the kind that you are born with, not the kind you can practice into existence that is one of the primary factors.
And there needs to be a singularity of genius, passion and hard work for a baseline to make the greatest of video games.
( because no i'm not saying that normal developers will never reach the legends, their life experience and other factors might as well lead them to produce products of utmost greatness, for instance those geniuses of ages passed have not been able to continue producing similar quality over the years, as it really does require the right people in the right place at the right time and with some luck to produce the next greatest rpg, or mmo, or similar).
The person you quoted is expressing who is the world gold champion, and you are responding that everyone who hasn't gotten the gold medal should be rewarded equally if not as equally as the gold champion.
This kind of reward/core belief system shackles people from achieving their highest potential more often that not
As long as all the developers in the studios who almost make it to producing a game of the ages don't let their pride and personal belief system imprison and hold them back, and continue to strive for greatness, at some point sooner or later some of them will luck out and be able to participate in a project that does turn into one for legend.
It ultimately depends on what you consider effort though. Ubisoft is a good example, since they like to do their annual releases of far cry and assassin creed among other titles. Each title pretty much looking almost the same as the one prior. Sure they had to develop the main assets at one point, but over time it just becomes touch ups or downgrades when they try to create new ones (Watch Dogs).
To give you an example, Archeage had an incredible beta, labor points were very generous and many of the "pay to advance" items were not in the cash shop. This suckered a ton of people in, who purchased founders packs and made both Trion and XLGames a ton of money, (according to Kano, 2014 was a record year for Trion profits). Then the game launched and labor points were cut! Now why would they cut them when they had no data to support the reduction? The data they had was that beta players were generally very happy with the higher amount/regeneration of labor points. They made so much money from pre-sales and that was just not enough for them. They had to cut the labor points in hopes of driving more cash shop sales.
Need another example? A 10% chance at TS trees were added to the cash shop at the very moment castle sieges were put in which would require TS trees for siege weapons. The greed behind these decisions was so epic that I could not bring myself to continue paying for patron knowing my money was going to these guys.
When you look at the last few years and see the greed behind Archeage, the poor leadership/wasteful spending/going back on his word of Chris Roberts and the flat out lying that Sean Murray did on national TV, how can any rational person not see the direction this industry is moving in?
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There is a lot of uncertainty here.. I think there is some opportunity to "jump the shark" per se in the sense that the 2017 market is going to look very different with companies testing the waters for VR and consumer AR sets purportedly releasing by the end of 2017.
The industry has grown, obviously, in the sense of their financials. Mobile games have taken the largest piece of the pie and for good reason. They're much more accessible. In that same sense that facebook browser games rose to power just several years ago, everyone could basically play them.
Companies are learning that accessibility is important, which doesn't bode well for VR for gaming, at least in the short term.
It also might signal a big boost with the nintendo switch as it will also be a mobile platform geared towards playing high end games. It will be a very telling year. With the market in flux as to what will be the next big thing, 2017 might be mediocre as developers try to figure out where their attention is best spent.
Mobile games are good starters for gamers, but I have yet to find one that has enough content to keep me playing for more than a day or so. That will probably change as the mobile market devices improve. I still won't bother playing a game on a phone though, screen is just far too small.
As to MMO's on consoles, that is ok for console people, but for a MMO to really shine you really have to play it on a PC. Especially when there is PVP involved. The mouse/keyboard owns anyone playing with a controller in PVP. The games that have let PC and console people on the same servers have found that out.
DCUO is one where even on the PC I would use a controller, it's just much better with one than without.
I won't speak on consoles because, truth be told, the most current console in the house is a Wii and it's not used anymore. Plus, I really don't play single player games because they feel so empty. Regarding MMOs, yes, they have jumped the shark as from a player growth, technology, and gameplay model aspect they've become stagnant. To be honest though we've seen far more of a boom and so quickly than we probably should have when WoW entered mainstream culture. I don't think we'd have nearly as many high quality titles as we currently do had this not happened.
IMO the bubble has burst. Now of the three aspects listed above that have stagnated, two will most likely change: technology, making development cheaper and coming up with new metas, and gameplay models, seen already with hybrid MMO/multiplayer survival games and those introducing a tougher progression path. Regarding a new population there are the old gamers and the new gamers. Old gamers seem to be gravitating towards the mobile platform while the younger to consoles. Since more MMOs are heading to consoles this may be an area of growth.
It would certainly help if another title gained mainstream notoriety.
Companies don't abandon what makes them money. If they jumped to mobile, that's because there was more money to be made there than what they were currently doing.
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Stuka1000 is right, we are in a similar condition as the 80s game market crash: market saturation. But instead of there being too many consoles and games, we just have too many games. Too many MMOs, too many indies, too many franchises being churned out every years (less or more), etc. More games never lead to gamers buying more of them. That's why Steam average sale per game is tanking and the AAA unperformed this Fall.
But publisher know that and market contraction already started. That's why there was a lot of games cancellation and closing down studios in the last year. It also why publishers are focusing on what they consider sure products more than ever.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
The industry has "matured" and a sure sign of advancement is specialization. Just like education and businesses have changed over the last few centuries. That doesn't mean it is great for those of use who liked a certain type of game that doesn't seem to be made right now.
I want an online virtual world rpg.
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I don't see that happening even with studios that devote their efforts to producing more installments of established franchises. There are a few misses but in general later iterations bring new creative elements to the table and advance gaming in small and large ways.
Just take a look at the trend that ESO started with their Orsinium DLC a year and a half ago and later applied to the whole game with One Tamriel that allows players of any level to play and fight together in any area or dungeon. Blizzard already picked up on how significant that change was and in their own patented Borg-like fashion assimilated it and made their own version of it in the latest WOW expansion.
By all accounts Mass Effect Andromeda is seeking to open-up the Mass Effect franchise and make it sandier. Zelda is getting a huge overhaul for the Switch version. CD Projekt Red is working on a brand new cyberpunk RPG. There are a lot of innovations and high profile exciting things on the horizon.
But there is a problem. One that I've been going on about for a few days with posts on several different threads: the signal to noise ratio problem.
As games became big business and store-bought assets for popular 3D engines became more numerous and robust, a large number of "developerish" individuals and outfits motivated by nothing but quick cash have jumped in with both feet and aided by app stores and Steam's new "curate? schmurate!" policies started pumping out huge quantities of dribble.
Some of those truly pathetic shitty games have even spent large sums on their prime-time ad campaigns using ex-governators and celebrity hotties.
It would be really easy to get the impression that it's all gone to shit when in fact it hasn't. What has happened instead is that a lot of shit has been added, prominently hyped and promoted, having the effect of obscuring the great stuff that is still very much there today with more coming around the corner.
It's not really jumping the shark. It's more like a shark invasion.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
To continue with the general shark analogy, development started and progressed working on making things that were original, and in some cases an evolution of something we've seen before.
It's like the Jaws franchise.
Now though, with every company essentially making similar titles, you're right in the sense that its hard to find which of those are great and which are just flash. Think, Sharknado.
We have so many different survival games for example, from horror, to space to whatever else, and saturation isn't the issue, it's that we have so many of them and most of them are half done, if that, and being sold in early access. The industry in general (some "companies" more than others) may have "jumped the shark" in terms of how they look at making money.
Now it doesn't have to be - create a game the best you can, release it, profit. Instead it's - create a game based on promises and an engine, put it out for early access, build it as the money rolls in. Or God forbid - tailor a few assets and post some good ideas and get crowdfunding, then create more as you go while continuously asking for more funding until something is playable.
Maybe it's "jumping the shark" in terms of just the presence of throwing money at titles that don't exist in a completed form rather than what we're seeing in any particular genre.
I focus on that ONE aspect because they took one of the most fantastic and original games of the last several years and they killed it due to greed. You can act like they suddenly grew a conscience and introduced the fresh start servers as a way to apologize but I choose to believe they did that because the game had lost so many players it was starting to hit the break even line on the balance sheet.
Lets also point out that TS trees have not been a big seller for Trion once everyone realized castle sieges were useless since only the top guilds owned castles and they often purchased their own scrolls. On Legacy servers, the playerbase already has most of the vehicles and siege weapons they want so TS trees are not a big seller there and there are only 2 fresh start servers. Do I agree that Trion/XLGames made a good decision to remove TS trees from the fresh start server cash shops? YES! Do I also admit that at this point they may not be a very big seller and the reason for their removal might be more for marketing purposes? YES!
Does the removal of an item from the cash shop that may only result in nominal sales at this point indicate the game industry is moving in a positive direction? Only if you think Sean Murray did not lie on national TV and you think Chris Roberts "refactoring" every part of this game 3 times while whizzing away backers money is a good thing...
Lets also look at the crop of scam artist game developers that have sprung up over the last few years. Sergy Titov continues to create new companies and re-release the same game over and over again. What about Digital Homicide that tried to sue a youtuber over a terrible game review? This is all happening THIS YEAR!!!
As a long time gamer, I remember when a box fee covered all the games features. I remember when I could make my own maps and extend the life of a FPS game like CoD4. I remember when game magazines like PCGamer gave honest reviews and the majority of the gaming media was not reliant on developers for their bread and butter. I remember when I used to love great games and not hate the companies behind them for displaying greed on a monumental scale.
Since the industry has turned toxic, talented artists no longer have access to the funds they need to produce anything. Gone are the days of small studios producing quality content. So, enjoy your Half Life 3's and your ArcheAge's. You'll be seeing plenty of those for the next decade.
This is what the industry is pretty much turning into, trying to sell you either the same thing over again or chop it up and piece-meal it to you when it should be included. People behind Ark releasing expansions for a game still in early access. SE and their plethora of greed tactics, from Microtransactions that only work once per save in the latest Deus Ex to monthly updated cash shops in their p2p title FFXIV which also allows you to "rent space" since they didn't include any in-game method of increasing space when they launched their expansion. Way too many "AAA" developer/publishers taking advantage of loyal player base, half of which is too single-minded to release that if they stopped supporting such tactics then the company couldn't get away with them. Too many people have the mind set of "Its my money so I can do what I want," so yeah they will have companies like SE charge them a month subscription price for a vanity outfit that can only be used by one character and isn't account-wide, while you have companies like NCSoft that at least allow you to send your outfits to other characters on the account via a cash shop method.
Well, I agree with that to a degree. There's tons of potential customers on the mobile platforms, but that doesn't mean they will capture the money.
I view it much like the MMO market after WoW hit it big and everyone tried to cash in. The mobile market has money there, but most studios who try aren't going to see much of it.
Most mobile games don't have much of a return. So, unless you are one of the lucky few who hits market at the right place/right time, it's another dream-chase for most.