I remember being younger and playing games like Crash Bandicoot and Tetris -- everything seemed so much simpler; it was much easier to look at the game and just speak your mind. "The controls were weird", or "Man that was intense", or "This game's rigged". Everything about the game just felt wrapped in its own world, sealed in a box, and given to you for your entitled enjoyment. I had no qualms in how I critiqued or admired it.
As I grew up, and learned more about the games industry as both a business and a set of creative and financial processes, things instantly shifted; it was almost impossible for me to look at games the same way again. Every animation, every level, every texture or audio quip -- whatever my senses absorbed, I took and examined as the result of a collective effort of normal people who just wanted to make a damn game. Numerous games these days are composed around stories, but ironically enough, sometimes it's the game itself that provides a story; everything you see and hear has its own tale to tell as to how it came to be. Maybe that game mechanic divided the whole group due to arguments over whether it should be included or not. Maybe a trio of close programmers thought up of that idea for the menu screen and approached the team-leads and eventually got it implemented into the final product. Maybe that animation of the birds' wings ruined one guy's day because he'd gotten into a dispute with someone arguing over the importance of realism or visual appeal. All of this had me thinkin', and while nowadays I've managed to keep it in check and learn when to enjoy a game just for the sake of enjoying it, it still lingers, even if subconsciously. Once you've seen the other side of the fence, you just can't help but compare it to your own.
Three quotes, (two of which are from Indie Game: The Movie), have stood out to me, and imo provides a condensed glimpse into the psychological process that goes into this pretty well -- the process that, more often than not, consumes the creative and financial ones:
"Sure it [the game] is a piece of crap but they worked their ass off to make that piece of crap." - Amy Hennig
"The things I've sacrificed are social. You kind of have to give up something to have something great. " - Tommy Refenes
"All you've been doing for 4 years is look at this -- like this close; you can't see anything else, you don't even see the mistakes in there anymore." - Phil Fish
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Interesting stuff to think about, sometimes even makes you ask what the point in all of this is. But then again, that's the curse of knowledge, lol.
Either way, great article, (one of the best I've read in a while), and to all those developers out there who put their blood, sweat, tears, piss, and saliva into their games in order to bring out the best manifestation of the game they want to create, thank you -- somewhere out there in the world, whether it's a million people or just a single kid in his/her bedroom, you've single-handedly invented an experience, and one that will stay with them forever, whether they forget about it or not. After all, games aren't just ours because we bought it with our own money and loaded it into our own gaming rig; they're yours, too, and that, if anything, is a part of your identity you should always hold on to.
@gabusano Sometimes repetition is better than a lack of focus, imo. Sure this is familiar ground she's treading, but at least she goes out with finesse and a clear point. Some online journalists just write things that would get them the most hits, lol.
@MXVIII @Bayonetta2013 Well...partly, anyway. Some other factors may come into play, such as online-service convenience/popularity, hardware, etc.
Exclusives do make a pretty decent difference, though. They also give the consoles an image and a sense of distinction/identity. Think Sonic, Mario, Crash, Master Chief, etc.
Wow. First time in history Naughty Dog's ever, and I mean ever, delayed a game they'd already set a date for.
Don't know if I'm excited, worried, irritated, or all three.
I want to believe in you, Naughty Dog; and as of this date, you've never let me down (though a bit of disappointment with Uncharted 3 was inevitable, considering what it had to follow on). I'll trust that TLOU will be worth any delay or 60-dollar pay, just make sure you guys sign, seal, and deliver your best come the month of June..!! You've got a sh*tload of eyes anticipating your next move right now, Naughty Dog; wish you the best of luck.
@DarthLod Preferences will be preferences, so so be it. Some people wouldn't watch Pulp Fiction because they have no interest in watching over-the-top violence. Same applies here.
So as much as I'd like to grit my teeth in disagreement here and devolve into an aimless argument, I'mma let it go. No game (no, not even Half-Life 3) will please everyone, after all.
You know, if you think about it, it's also somewhat funny because a game's 'core fanbase' is, at many times, not its most profitable one -- now I'm not 100% certain about the Dead Space franchise, but from what I've seen throughout the Internet, there's a recurring pattern of fans clawing at the developer for making adjustments or decisions that almost seem designed to repel them; and at first glance, the outrage might seem enormous. However, the gamers of the Internet are actually, at the very least, tiny, and, at the very most, moderate portions of the actual consumer total; even if appears as if almost every forum-user and online-poster digitally announced their boycotting and estrangement from the game, that's really not a lot when compared to the entire whole.
Either way, if DS3 did attract other consumers, for instance, it would probably include a much larger group of people, much moreso than that of the Internet community (compare MW3's sales to its user score on Metacritic, for example) and thus profit will be made. Hell, according to this philosophy, if everything did fall into place well enough, the newly obtained consumer-base might even decide to go out and purchase other Dead Space titles/DLC (both future and past) as well, since they'll feel that it's something familiar and acceptable to them now. Either way, it's business, it's practical, and depending on the game and the approach, it may very well work. (Or in RE6's case, miserably fail; but that franchise was a lot more dependent on certain longstanding distinctions and ideas that the niche it carved for itself was both too big and too complicated to climb out of -- after RE4, you could sort of tell that Capcom didn't know where to go with it.)
Tl;dr, Sacrifice the core to attract much more, I guess. Best course of action from a gamer's point-of-view: either evolve with the game or just choose to let it go, imo.
Oh, and P.S. Sorry for the hugeass text wall. Ignore this if it's getting in the way, because I know it's probably taking up a bit of space, lol.
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