RKNet Blog… thing

Hot:

Seriously. This shit is getting out of hand.

With the videogame market being one of the few not being ruined by our current American ecinomic crisis (GameStop is apparently opening 600 new stores in the next two years), it seems that fatcat bigwigs are doing whatever they can to maximise profits and appeal to as many demographics as possible with every single release. While this might seem like a sound business plan, it seems to be pushing forth a trend in gaming that leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I think that it’s awesome that the appeal of gaming is growing and becoming mainstream. I get that. I even like it. However, as someone who’s always gravitated towards larger, more involved and more complicated titles, I’m beginning to feel a bit left out in the cold by developers now a days.

Take, for example, one of my all-time favorite franchises in the RPG world, the Elder Scrolls. The first three Elder Scrolls games are UNFORGIVING. They’re huge, they’re open, they’re involved and complex and they’re fucking incredible for it. The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind? Fuck, man…I spent about a year of my life living in Vvardenfell. I want to be immersed like that again…and I thought that I would be. I bought an Xbox360 specifically for TES4: Oblivion. I rabidly awaited, checking screenshots and sifting for any nugget of information on the daily. Then, the game releases (after a whole shitload of delays i might add) and all iof a sudden I feel pressure on my prostate that I didn’t ask for and sure as shit don’t approve of. Here’s this game, that I waited many a sleepless night for, and all I can feel is that it was either extremely rushed or dumbed-down to the point of being garbage. Here’s a few examples:

Consolidated weapons skills: all bladed weapons (ranging from daggers to small one handed short blades to massive claymores) are all governed my one skill. I’m not a weapons expert by any fashion, however I thikn that it’s safe to assume that someone that’s mastered the subtle art of daggers couldn’t grab the most massive sword ever made and wield it like a pro, and vice/versa.

Simplified clothes and weapons: I’ll keep this short. Morrowind: Nine armor slots (helmet, chest, greaves, right and left pauldrons, gauntlets and boots) and thousands of clothing combinations. Oblivion? Five armor slots (most of them have been grouped into easy-to-swallow sets) and about seven outfits for clothing, pre-expansion.

Five voice actors: After blowing their budget on Patrick Stewart, Sean Bean and Terrance Stamp (two of which read all of three paragraphs in the game), Morrowind’s cast of twenty voice actors and actresses (10 races, male and female) was consolidated so that Nords and Orcs sound exactly the same, and three separate (and very different) races of elves all share the same homosexual voice.

And it’s not just the Elder Scrolls. It seems that developers are trying their hardest to rope in the “casual” gaming crowd at the cost of pleasing the die-hard fans that have kept the industry alive for all these years by making every new game more stupid simple that the one pervious. Now, I have no problem with your grandma or your sister or anyone else playing video games, but stay the hell off of my Elder Scrolls for Christ’s sake. This wouldn’t be a problem (or even warrant an article) if the equation were balanced…but it isn’t. You see, game developers see dollar signs in the legions of new, casual gamers entering into the fold, and any company follows where the money is.

Another great example is Jumpgate: Evolution. While anything I say is specualtion and/or educated guesses because the game is still in pre-release, the heads at NETdevil recently dropped a bomb on fans in their IRC chat in the form of a new game announcement: It’s basically being stripped into a casual friendly carebear-fest with no player piracy, no multifaction squads (JG:E’s guilds, which played a massive part in the original Jumpgate’s PVP), designated “safe-zones” that are easily accessible during active engagements and no cargo loss upon death / ship destruction. Needless to say, old Jumpgate players are pissed, and here’s why. Essentially, NETdevil made the concious descision to piss on their fanbase and dumb-down their game to make it more “WoW-like” (see also: nerfed casual garbage.)

Another problem is that this pull towards casual gaming his causing a rift between the casual and hardcore markets, resulting in a huge gap with user-accessable games like Oblivion and Fable 2 on one end and unforgiving assbusters like EVE Online and DOA4 on the other with almost no middle ground. 

I’m not saying to leave casual gamers in the cold by any means…I’d smiply like to see game developers acknowledge the two separate demographics. Not all games need to be impossibly complex, but we don’t all our games watered down to the point of being idiot-friendly. Casual gamers can go buy a Wii and have a wide selection on any console or even the PC, I don’t mind…it’s just that I see the hardcore gamers that have kept the industry afloat being left out in the cold in exchange for little kids and their parent’s dollars.

Potentially Related posts

• No related posts.