Top Hat
Scholar
- Joined
- May 24, 2006
- Messages
- 476
First, I've been quite remiss with not thanking denizsi for saving this thread from Oblivion.
I agree with you somewhat on this bold point. The only thing I would change is "mentality of the old-school" to "a more discerning, intelligent mentality". That's something I'd like in general. However:
1) We first have to realize that "the old school" now represent a very small minority of the purchasing power. Also, you can make the argument that "the old school" was more intelligent in general than the average person simply because using computers required more intelligence to use than it does now.
2) The only way to have any hope of getting anything "old school" is to make some kind of compromise in the short term, while educating the public for the long term. Think of how enhanced graphics have affected the market - there are people now who won't play old games simply because of their bad graphics. Now apply that to something less shallow, say good storytelling or more choice and consequences. It still wouldn't be great to have companies simply parrot this behavior when it's successful, but it certainly would be better than it is now.
3) Eventually, we should be able to convince more people into wanting what we want. Then the market is ours again.
So, basically, to get what you want, make simple compromises first and push the compromise to be more in your favor later. It is possible, you just have to think on the long term.
1) Sure, Casuals and Completists make up a big group. An even bigger group is Casuals, Completists AND Enthusiasts, since there's at least one Enthusiast (not me, by the way). I was going to give a mathematical proof of this, so I suppose you guys can count yourself lucky. It's probably not a good marketing strategy, but you should also consider that Completists and Enthusiasts are more willing to spend their money on games than Casuals. They're also the people that Casuals are more likely to go to to ask about good games to buy, so they get some free advertising. Word of mouth is more powerful than all the advertising and hyping in the world.
2) The thing I was trying to say somewhere in that mess of text is that they could spend the same amount of money on a shorter story with branching as a longer story with no branching. This would attract more Casuals to the game, since it would also not be too "overwhelming".
3) Here's the thing that kind of pisses me off: it's not hard to write a good, multithreaded story. If needed, I could probably spend a couple of days and bang one out, and I'm definitely not that great a writer, but I have an unfortunately too-fertile imagination. Get a couple of people, hopefully better than me, and voilà! Better story than almost every other computer game released in recent history. That's a marketing tool - say it's next-gen interactive experience. But it seems that neither the marketing department nor the design department know how to do their jobs.
I guess I made a bad assumption that people were competent at their jobs. What was I thinking?!
Exactly my point! If people were decent at their jobs, they'd realize that everyone likes quality, or at least can appreciate it even if it's not to their tastes. I didn't really like the Fallout games that much (although to be fair I only played the first one for a little while after borrowing it from a friend) but I can appreciate why people love it.
And it's good for marketing: quality products will sell, and create brand names.
Edit: How the hell does it happen that I want to write a quick reply and it somehow ends up being long?
Cassidy said:I consider it impossible ... The only way to change this reality is a paradigm shift to make the mentality of the mainstream closer to the mentality of the old-school.... I don't have much hope such thing would ever be possible.
I agree with you somewhat on this bold point. The only thing I would change is "mentality of the old-school" to "a more discerning, intelligent mentality". That's something I'd like in general. However:
1) We first have to realize that "the old school" now represent a very small minority of the purchasing power. Also, you can make the argument that "the old school" was more intelligent in general than the average person simply because using computers required more intelligence to use than it does now.
2) The only way to have any hope of getting anything "old school" is to make some kind of compromise in the short term, while educating the public for the long term. Think of how enhanced graphics have affected the market - there are people now who won't play old games simply because of their bad graphics. Now apply that to something less shallow, say good storytelling or more choice and consequences. It still wouldn't be great to have companies simply parrot this behavior when it's successful, but it certainly would be better than it is now.
3) Eventually, we should be able to convince more people into wanting what we want. Then the market is ours again.
So, basically, to get what you want, make simple compromises first and push the compromise to be more in your favor later. It is possible, you just have to think on the long term.
dunduks said:...since the casuals and the completists are the biggest group, devs can get away with making only one plot branch...making a non linear/branching story takes more time and resources...devs/publishers would rather spend that money on hyping/advertising.
1) Sure, Casuals and Completists make up a big group. An even bigger group is Casuals, Completists AND Enthusiasts, since there's at least one Enthusiast (not me, by the way). I was going to give a mathematical proof of this, so I suppose you guys can count yourself lucky. It's probably not a good marketing strategy, but you should also consider that Completists and Enthusiasts are more willing to spend their money on games than Casuals. They're also the people that Casuals are more likely to go to to ask about good games to buy, so they get some free advertising. Word of mouth is more powerful than all the advertising and hyping in the world.
2) The thing I was trying to say somewhere in that mess of text is that they could spend the same amount of money on a shorter story with branching as a longer story with no branching. This would attract more Casuals to the game, since it would also not be too "overwhelming".
3) Here's the thing that kind of pisses me off: it's not hard to write a good, multithreaded story. If needed, I could probably spend a couple of days and bang one out, and I'm definitely not that great a writer, but I have an unfortunately too-fertile imagination. Get a couple of people, hopefully better than me, and voilà! Better story than almost every other computer game released in recent history. That's a marketing tool - say it's next-gen interactive experience. But it seems that neither the marketing department nor the design department know how to do their jobs.
I guess I made a bad assumption that people were competent at their jobs. What was I thinking?!
JrK said:When reading his third musing, I can't help but think of Fallout 2...I just realised that even the very casual gamers I know loved FO2!
Exactly my point! If people were decent at their jobs, they'd realize that everyone likes quality, or at least can appreciate it even if it's not to their tastes. I didn't really like the Fallout games that much (although to be fair I only played the first one for a little while after borrowing it from a friend) but I can appreciate why people love it.
And it's good for marketing: quality products will sell, and create brand names.
Edit: How the hell does it happen that I want to write a quick reply and it somehow ends up being long?