Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Imperium Alpha wrote...
This is why there is no more 50 hours games and the few that still do JRPG in general are tediously bad.
Games made pre-2000 were often bigger and cheaper to make, but somehow didn't take any longer.
The goalposts have moved. I suggest moving them back.
Couching that in the Iron Triangle terms from Imperium Alpha's link, that's because post-2000 games have allowed expanded cost in order to allow greater quality, but with the focus on quality tending to be graphical performance or far greater audio scope (e.g. fully voiced NPCs and PCs).
With lower standards for both audio and graphics, games like the original Fallout could create a particularly expansive game world, because the marginal cost of adding one more section was a darn sight lower than it would be with flashier graphics and audio layered on top.
The element of creating a game that is rewarding and entertaining via the gameplay mechanics has never stopped being a major focus in games, but its probably fair to say that perceptions of what will make a more engaging / better selling / wider appealing game has changed over time. The general trend has been towards appealing to the widest audience / lowest common denominator, and replicating the 'feel' of other successful games.
As action games and shooters with simple (and limited) mechanics have historically had greater success with a wider audience, its perhaps not too surprising that many developers have been moving steadily down the 'streamlining' approach.
That coment deserves an obligatory tip of the hat to Paradox Interactive and SI Games, who are consciously going the other way. If they do simplify something, they tend to introduce an expanded level of complexity somewhere else, and are coping with the "90 degree learning curve" problem through better tutorials, tooltips and greater accessibility of information within the game rather than simply axing anything seemingly complex.
On a related note to the cost/quality decisions, what interests me a lot is the recent trend of re-releasing past games. What began as studios rehashing things for smartphones - a market where you have the interesting combination of a low cost distribution platform, a low-cost game (far easier to recode for a new system and touch up graphics than create a new game from scratch), a market that expects low cost games, a platform that is more than capable of running the game and a past audience willing to buy the old game to replay it alongside a new audience that never played the original.
That's been creeping outside of the smartphone model more recently, what with Syndicate, Jagged Alliance 2 and X-Com all being reimagined for PC / console audiences. These are types of games that don't really appear on the market any more, which is an interesting twist. Granted, Syndicate and JA2 weren't the world's greatest remakes, but a number of industry commentators seem to be muttering that if X-Com does take off then it could trigger a rethink about whether the market for those types of games is larger than the currently accepted wisdom suggests.
Baldur's Gate is also going through a similar process. That's definitely going to be one to watch to see if it sends any challenges into the current thinking in RPGs, which appears to be "That's not the type of game we want to make / people want to play".
Modifié par Wozearly, 17 octobre 2012 - 12:02 .
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It's a testament to how much I enjoy the game that I happily play it in spite of those difficulties!
