If you could change one event in gaming history. . .

[Volourn]

"KOTOR probably beats it in terms of both financial and critical success."

BIO disagrees with you. they have point blank stated that NWN is their most successful game to date.

I know becuase I bragged about it and anti NWNers committed mass suicide when they heard the news.

R00fles!

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

A couple of things in order of how much they could potentially help the RPG genre out....

1.) Dragon Warrior/Quest and Final Fantasy are torn apart as the shitty Ultima/Wizardry ripoffs they are and don't define Japanese RPGs. Instead, Japanese RPG developers are actually forced to make their games evolve, and we get a larger pool of decent RPGs....maybe. This is all going off the fact that in other areas, Japan does alright. They made good space shooters, their action games demolish Western ones (Seriously West, stop making us look bad and shovelling out shit like God of War while Japan has stuff like Ninja Gaiden, Shinobi, and Devil May Cry), and they make some fun other stuff too.

I mean, sure, we'd still probably have to put up with jap-shit character and art design, as well as shitty dialogue and writing often, but I think I can stomach it. I mean....I stomached the Goth shit and idiocy like boob physics in Bloodlines.

2.) The gaming media never becomes a second mouthpiece of publishers' PR. Pretty simple, really. This means that games like Oblivion and Diablo get the same review treatment as summer blockbusters. They'd get the "pretty fun but pretty shallow, and will not be liked by those expecting something deeper" spiel that a movie like Transformers would get. This would mean quality would actually stand for something.

3.) The indie gaming scene isn't flooded with mostly unprofessional looking and playing games in it's beginning and even now, making it actually have some dignity as a whole and taken seriously. It's hard for people to take games like Age of Decadence, Scars of War, and Prelude to Darkness seriously not because of the graphics, but because likely their first experience with indie games was negative. Let's face it....a lot of indie games suck and are poorly designed and packing a usually hefty price-point for the game you get. Typically these games are derivative of some popular mainstream game, except without all the polish. If this torrent of crap didn't exist, it might make people more willing to give indie games a chance, and might account for a lot more coverage by the media (well...number 2 might have to happen....) resulting in a more robust and healthy indie scene.

 

[mondblut]

The event in gaming history I'd want to never happen is the arrival of Windows 95.

This was a crucial event that turned computers (and consequently computer gaming) from being a hobby of tech-savvy nerds to an entertainment of ADD-suffering pre-adolescents.

 

[Brother None]

You really don't think the console/PC crossover mattered? Arena and Daggerfall did well enough for themselves, but it wasn't until Morrowind hit the xbox that Bethesda became a "top rpg developer". And can there be any doubt what market they aimed for? Then of course bioware released its next three games on consoles first, and all were clearly aimed at the console audience. We used to be the target audience, and we're not anymore, which makes sense, since the console market is so big, but damn it, I wish the wall could go back up.

The console audience as separate from the PC audience is an illusion upheld by angry PC gaming cunts and overpaid PR staff. And I say this as someone who hasn't owned a console since Sega went off the market.

The fact is that PC has a much larger install base than any single generation of consoles, which does make PC more attractive to niche gaming, but the console audience isn't inherently dumber or more prone to more casual games, it's just that the market is narrower and allows for more focus on the console - that's not even a choice, if you have so few potential costumers, the choice to target only a part rather than all of them doesn't exist. Which is not even why they became such developer-favourites, relative ease-of-use and avoiding piracy (whether a real problem or imagined) were enough for that.

But the real, core fact is that gaming publishers decided on some point to go for the high-investment high-payback model to the exclusion of everything else. That means - by definition - copying each other, using bland format settings, avoiding risky niche ideas, putting innovation on a low pitch and focusing on graphics and interface friendliness. That automatically results in games like Mass Effect or Oblivion, and means these publishers aren't interested in niche games or niche costs.

That's the problem. No single development in the history of gaming would ever make niche games a viable large-scale market. The RT market is inherently bigger than the TB market - even if the TB market has been bullied to death, it would need extensive PR propaganda campaigns to ever overtake RT. It's also why it's so much easier to just go for superficial, appealing scores in graphics rather than entice players with deep experiences - because the majority of people doesn't care about it.

So...thinking any single shift could prevent Oblivion (or Diablo) from becoming the biggest thing in the RPG market is pure folly. I would much rather have a shift that allows Oblivion to just be what it is (possibly without the lies and hype), but also allows small companies to cobble together games on the side of the road. And that doesn't take a single shift, it takes an entire change in the mindset of gaming's publishers.

Though if you look at other entertainment industries, the future promises we'll get there inevitably at some point.

I would cut out the crybaby 'fans'' vocal cords so we can play games silently so people cna play games they like, and simply not play games they dislike. Gaming would be way better that way.

I was unaware of any crybabies that force you to listen. If anyone is bothered by other people's opinions, simply don't listen?

I'd stop Interplay from butchering Black Isle with Van Buren in development.

The mistake was never in butchering BIS while Van Buren was in development. The mistake was creating BoS instead of putting all the money on Van Buren (which I don't think would have paid back sufficiently) or - the bigger mistake - the cancelling of TORN and Jefferson even before that.

 

[Volourn]

Ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away. They're here, and here to stay so I will smite them down!

If I ignored their whining I'd be a crybaby coward like them.

 

[Brother None]

Ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away.

And paying attention to it usually only exacerbates the "problem".

What problem is this, anyway? Seriously, I'm curious, because I always have a hard time grasping how some sites (like Something Awful, Quarter to Three, Through the Looking Glass) absolutely obsess over communities like the Codex and NMA, as if we constantly send envoys of soldiers over to shout complaints in their ear.

You say the problem of complaining is that it detracts from the gamer's choice (or his experience?). But talking to complainers won't change that even remotely, while ignoring them makes the problem non-existent.

 

[J1M]

You really don't think the console/PC crossover mattered? Arena and Daggerfall did well enough for themselves, but it wasn't until Morrowind hit the xbox that Bethesda became a "top rpg developer". And can there be any doubt what market they aimed for? Then of course bioware released its next three games on consoles first, and all were clearly aimed at the console audience. We used to be the target audience, and we're not anymore, which makes sense, since the console market is so big, but damn it, I wish the wall could go back up.

The console audience as separate from the PC audience is an illusion upheld by angry PC gaming cunts and overpaid PR staff. And I say this as someone who hasn't owned a console since Sega went off the market.

The fact is that PC has a much larger install base than any single generation of consoles, which does make PC more attractive to niche gaming, but the console audience isn't inherently dumber or more prone to more casual games, it's just that the market is narrower and allows for more focus on the console - that's not even a choice, if you have so few potential costumers, the choice to target only a part rather than all of them doesn't exist. Which is not even why they became such developer-favourites, relative ease-of-use and avoiding piracy (whether a real problem or imagined) were enough for that.

I generally tend to agree with you from what I can remember, but this is just bullshit.

First off, there are more PCs than consoles, but the way you are counting the PC install base to compare those numbers to consoles you also have to count someone who has a Genesis, SNES and a PS2 as having 3 consoles and your mom who has a Pong machine in the garage as a console owner. The fact of the matter is that most of the PCs you'd have to count to get a number that high just cannot play new games at a decent framerate. I'm not even talking about Crysis here, I'm talking about Civ IV when it came out.

The niche market of the PC is due to the versitility of the platform, the keyboard/mouse as an input device, the mod scene, and the ability to display more than half a paragraph on the screen at one time.

I also reject your claim that the PC and console gaming markets are not separate. Yes, people who play both exist, but in my experience the gamers I know belong to one side. Playing the other platform is treated like watching the SuperBowl. They spend a few hours on it rarely, but it doesn't make them a football fan.

In my current household three of us are PC gamers and one of us is a console gamer. We own most of the consoles, but aside from the one guy who plays a PS3 in his room you rarely see the Wii, Gamecube, or PS2 on unless it is for Guitar Hero because someone has a girl over and they want to try it.

 

[Morbe]

I wish that Jade Raymond wouldn't have turned me down

 

[Zomg]

I'd wave a magic wand and make Daikatana a wildly successful game and Romero a shit-stirring artist instead of a douche. The idea being that game marketing might be shifted from generalized hype to auteur hype, which would change the nature of game blockbusters.

 

[Volourn]

"absolutely obsess over communities like the Codex and NMA"

Except I wasn't talking about the Codex specifically, or any site for that matter. I was talking about 'fans' in general.

Only way I could avoid 'fans' would be to avoid on message forums which would eb foolish ebcause forums are often the best palces to get infomration on games I'm interested in.

Site like Codex is different since it isn't developer/publisher/game specific; but I coasted in here, and now am 'stuck' in a way.

And, it's not the disucsisng of games that irk me, it's the whining that gets me.

Example: People constantly bash BIO yet these same people keep forking money/or steal BIO games to play them. If the game suck to you, don't play them. Period.

 

[themadhatter114]

"absolutely obsess over communities like the Codex and NMA"

Except I wasn't talking about the Codex specifically, or any site for that matter. I was talking about 'fans' in general.

Only way I could avoid 'fans' would be to avoid on message forums which would eb foolish ebcause forums are often the best palces to get infomration on games I'm interested in.

Site like Codex is different since it isn't developer/publisher/game specific; but I coasted in here, and now am 'stuck' in a way.

And, it's not the disucsisng of games that irk me, it's the whining that gets me.

Example: People constantly bash BIO yet these same people keep forking money/or steal BIO games to play them. If the game suck to you, don't play them. Period.

So people aren't allowed to bitch about games that they bought? Since I like Madden and NCAA Football games enough to buy them, but am pissed because they've taken a major step back, am I not allowed to keep buying them but bitch about it, anyway? People buy things for their own reasons, and can bitch about whatever the fuck they want. Unless you just can't afford it, there's no reason not to buy a game that's going to give you a moderate amount of enjoyment and then bitch about how it could've been a hell of a lot better. They're bitching serves no less purpose than your bitching and trolling.

 

[Volourn]

Criticism and bitching/whining are two completely different things.

Saying x thing about y game is not good and here's why is fine.

Saying"WAAA! They fuckin' suck! waaaaaa!! they sold out! waaaa fart fart fart they 'promsied this they woe me they betrayed me waaa waa waaa"

are two completely different things.

Dumbass.

 

[Joe Krow]

Personal tastes and individual platforms have little to do with it.

There is no viable "mid-size" game production model. The demands of the technology force you to either budget one million plus or make the game in your basement. The gaming industry has no sense of its component parts or how to scale a product to them.

The old school rpg, which I would consider to have a strong mid-size market share, is not being adequately served. If I could change one thing I would create a model capable of meeting this demand.

 

[SpaceKungFuMan]

The console audience as separate from the PC audience is an illusion upheld by angry PC gaming cunts and overpaid PR staff. And I say this as someone who hasn't owned a console since Sega went off the market.

The fact is that PC has a much larger install base than any single generation of consoles, which does make PC more attractive to niche gaming, but the console audience isn't inherently dumber or more prone to more casual games, it's just that the market is narrower and allows for more focus on the console - that's not even a choice, if you have so few potential costumers, the choice to target only a part rather than all of them doesn't exist. Which is not even why they became such developer-favourites, relative ease-of-use and avoiding piracy (whether a real problem or imagined) were enough for that.

But the real, core fact is that gaming publishers decided on some point to go for the high-investment high-payback model to the exclusion of everything else. That means - by definition - copying each other, using bland format settings, avoiding risky niche ideas, putting innovation on a low pitch and focusing on graphics and interface friendliness. That automatically results in games like Mass Effect or Oblivion, and means these publishers aren't interested in niche games or niche costs.

That's the problem. No single development in the history of gaming would ever make niche games a viable large-scale market. The RT market is inherently bigger than the TB market - even if the TB market has been bullied to death, it would need extensive PR propaganda campaigns to ever overtake RT. It's also why it's so much easier to just go for superficial, appealing scores in graphics rather than entice players with deep experiences - because the majority of people doesn't care about it.

So...thinking any single shift could prevent Oblivion (or Diablo) from becoming the biggest thing in the RPG market is pure folly. I would much rather have a shift that allows Oblivion to just be what it is (possibly without the lies and hype), but also allows small companies to cobble together games on the side of the road. And that doesn't take a single shift, it takes an entire change in the mindset of gaming's publishers.

Though if you look at other entertainment industries, the future promises we'll get there inevitably at some point.

Even granting everything that you said in your post, the move to consoles was not inevitable. I don't think anyone can plausibly deny that the Xbox was the catalyst for PC companies producing more console games (Firaxis, Bethesda, Lionhead, Bioware, and Bungie to name a few) because the xbox removed the two major hurdles they faced: 1) the cost of learning to program with radically different tools and hardware, and 2) the cost of developing games cross platform with said hardware and developer environment differences.

Whether or not opening their games to a broader audience lead to a different style of game is open to debate. Personally, I look at the success Daggerfall had on PC alone vs the success Morrowind had on the Xbox, and I can't help but think the move to consoles has impacted the landscape, since at the very least Morrowind's massive success on the Xbox made Bethesda a much more prominent company than they had been in the past.

You say that the move to streamlined action games was inevitable, but noone can say what would have happened if PC rpgs had stayed seperate from console games. One of the major criticisms seen regarding the console to PC ports of Oblivion and ME has been the interface, so it may very well be that the market would have dictated less stream lining, absent the influence of console players with their controllers and TVs.

For what its worth, I have always considered myself to be both a PC gamer and a console gamer. But since the introduction of the Xbox, the console landscape has changed dramatically, to the point where there are almost no console games that appeal to me anymore. It used to be that FPS games were rare on consoles, and they have become one of the biggest and most popular console genres now. Even RTS games are moving to consoles at a decent rate. I own a PS3, but use it almost exclusively as a blu ray player. I try to find games to be excited about for the PS3 (or games to justify buying a 360) but I always come to the same conclusion: everything is either on the PC, or a shitty entry in a PC genre. So even if you want to argue that the convergence of the two platforms hasn't impacted PC games, it sure as hell has impacted console gaming, in a way that makes it almost unrecognizable to me.

 

[themadhatter114]

Criticism and bitching/whining are two completely different things.

Saying x thing about y game is not good and here's why is fine.

Saying"WAAA! They fuckin' suck! waaaaaa!! they sold out! waaaa fart fart fart they 'promsied this they woe me they betrayed me waaa waa waaa"[

are two completely different things.

Wait, really? They're two different things? I was unaware. I really appreciate your insight. Now, what's your fucking point? If people don't like something, usually they say why. If people are annoyed by something, they usually bitch about it. Who fucking cares? Since when did your suggestion that they just not buy the games have anything to do with constructive criticism vs. bitching? And since when did my comment have anything to do with that?

Dumbass.

Seriously, how fucking old are you? 12?

 

[Castanova]

The thing is, the discussion about console vs. PC is always looking at it from the wrong perspective. Despite what you'd like to think, the console gamer is most definitely NOT more casual than the PC gamer. It's the opposite. The console market is a market full of extremely hardcore gamers that developers/distributors can rely on to buy up even the most mediocre of game. The PC market is by and large the biggest casual gaming market - bigger than the console market by orders of magnitude. It's very important not to confuse a low-intelligence gamer with a casual gamer.

That being said, consoles most definitely did cause the high-cost/high-attempted reward model that Brother None talked about. The consoles created a set of consumers who wanted nothing more than to buy the latest pretty game which could make them feel like their investment in a console was warranted.

 

[ushdugery]

The diversity and difference in PC's and systems also has made running games on them more complex in recent years and harder for pc gamers. Many of whom gave a up because of time difficulties apart from a few select games I'm basically a casual gamer now.

 

[themadhatter114]

Console gaming is also great in that you don't have to worry about not being able to run anything for probably 5 years at least. Unless you were one of the unlucky ones who bought a Sega Dreamcast. It sucks though in that it's opened up all the bullshit with consoles buying exclusivity rights to make their consoles more popular. I'd be more upset about that if there were actually PS3 of Wii games that I cared to play, though.

But, yeah, the whole idea of casual vs. hardcore gamers is totally misguided. Most people who bought the Wii are casual gamers. Most of them just buy it for the novelty and to play Wii sports. But then they finally rewarded the hardcore Nintendo fanboys with some Mario and Super Smash Bros. stuff.

I don't think I'd call people who set up online Madden leagues or play hours daily of Halo or whatever casual gamers. Or PC gamers who sink hours into The Sims. Or fucking Second Life, or WoW, or whatever.

If I could change anything in gaming history, I would've killed the Wii in development. Just wait until someone gets the bright idea to make a Wii-mote knock-off for PCs and publishers start thinking that every PC game needs to utilize one. Then every RPG in existence will be based around epic Wii-mote sword-swinging.

 

[Volourn]

"Seriously, how fucking old are you? 12?"

Fuckin' 1 years old for fucks sakes, Mr. Fuckin' 'Mature' Fuck Man.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I'd go for averting the decline of Sega.

PC gaming is nice, but theres really too much crap out there for it not to be swimming in crap. Good stuff is still out there though, you just have to dig for it now.

Consoles, on the other hand, are becoming quite limited at this point. The number and size of 'next-gen' games out there is really pathetic compared to what was around in the 90's. Sega was (And largely still is) the only company that really seemed to chase after their fans wishes. The Saturn and Dreamcast were really superior systems in their eras, but the public just didn't bite. Games like Giga Wing and Shenmue were fucking miracles at the time, but nobody really cared. Sega also launched online play for consoles without ever seeing the benefits- PSO was the first really online console game, and they supported it for AGES after they dropped out of the console market. XBox Live and all of that were following in it's footsteps. If Sega had been the leader for the last decade as opposed to Sony, I think things would be a lot better in the console market.

 

[themadhatter114]

"Seriously, how fucking old are you? 12?"

Fuckin' 1 years old for fucks sakes, Mr. Fuckin' 'Mature' Fuck Man.

Is this your pathetic way to cover up the fact that you have absolutely no point?

Here, I'll repeat the questions, and I'll try not to use the 'F' word this time, since it seems to trigger your Tourette's.

Why should people avoid buying games that they expect to get moderate enjoyment out of if they don't have something better to spend their money on?

If aspects of these games aggravate them, for whatever reason, why shouldn't they bitch about it if that's what they want to do? Why should they restrain themselves on an internet message board?

Of what relevance to anything that I said was your eloquent elaboration on constructive criticism vs. bitching?

 

[Mareus]

The thing is, the discussion about console vs. PC is always looking at it from the wrong perspective. Despite what you'd like to think, the console gamer is most definitely NOT more casual than the PC gamer. It's the opposite. The console market is a market full of extremely hardcore gamers that developers/distributors can rely on to buy up even the most mediocre of game. The PC market is by and large the biggest casual gaming market - bigger than the console market by orders of magnitude. It's very important not to confuse a low-intelligence gamer with a casual gamer.

That being said, consoles most definitely did cause the high-cost/high-attempted reward model that Brother None talked about. The consoles created a set of consumers who wanted nothing more than to buy the latest pretty game which could make them feel like their investment in a console was warranted.

Everything that was said here is indeed looked from the wrong perspective, but I wouldn't agree with what you said after. In today's day and age it is completely normal that people own a computer and at least one console. I believe everyone here owned a console at least once in their lives. It is also stupid to presume console players don't own a computer because in today's day and age it is just absurd. Therefore gamers fall under two groups:
1. Hardcore gamers
2. Casual gamers

People who have been playing consoles for a very long time may have different taste than people who played PC games, but hardcore gamers want more out of the game than just eye candy. Good story, originality, interesting characters, etc.
Casual gamers just want to kill some time and for them it's all about graphics.

Therefore I don't believe that consoles are in any way responsible for the decline of gaming on the PC. Further proof are some games made on the consoles which are fantastic even by PC standards. Casual gamers exist on both PC and console, just like hardcore and without research it is stupid even to talk about who has more which types of gamers. Furthermore consoles are evolving too, but one thing I am sure off when it comes to japanese developers. They will put a lot of effort into the story. Some of you may hate japanese games, but I am most of the times amazed by the story they manage to produce. Even games like Kingdom Hearts, which I thought would be just a silly FF clone, turned out... WOW for me. PC gaming is declining because unlike consoles, they are not catering to different kinds of people. They are just trying to kill the genres and produce games which try to apply to all the groups of players for both PC and consoles. You don't see a console game trying to adjust itself to PC players. Console games have their formula and they are not going much away from it and it is good, while PC developers are trying impossible, by merging console style with PC style and merging casual with hardcore. Such PC games may be good for console gamers who have rarely seen anything similar and who have a lot more choice to start with, but to hardcore PC players it is unacceptable.

Changing one thing in gaming history would not change anything. The developers have to decide what they want to do and do it. They have to stop chasing money. Japs get this so they are not doing anything revolutionary. Better graphic, same gameplay is their formula.

 

[Trojan_generic]

I'd cancel EA's acquisition of Origin.

 

[Jasede]

I'd cancel the founding of EA.

 

[spacemoose]

I'd cancel the russian revolution