I think it's good that market researchers know that we gamers only want male protagonists with big guns. I presume they also recommended that the male lead should have a big sword on his back? And shoot a big assault rifle with an attached grenade launcher?
Big muscles and lots of tattoos are needed, of course. And a cigar.
Really? They managed to screw up an Army of Two game? How? I didn't think that game had anything to screw up!
It has hardly any plot, so you can't do like Mass Effect 3.
It doesn't have sophisticated controls, so you can't do like Ninja Gaiden 3.
It doesn't have a special atmosphere, so you can't do like Dead Space 3.
It doesn't have complex game mechanics, so you can't do like Alien vs Predator 3.
Army of Two is a cover shooter where all you do is shoot enemies. It's exactly the game that EA always WANTS to do. How can they mess that up? You'd think they could make a good AoT game accidentally by now. But no. They managed to screw that up as well.
It is undeniable that CoD is the big-selling franchise of this game generation. And in my opinion, it has its own place in the world. What I disapprove of is when companies like EA try to make all their other games conform to the same formula.
However, I happily note that this strategy - cloning best sellers - doesn't work as well as corporations like EA might think. This might force them to encourage creativity and risk-taking.
It's not the games that are bad, it's your business model. Game design is a creative process. It requires risk taking and constant re-invention. If you just take a game that sold well once, and make a sequel by improving the graphics and removing all elements that make it stand out, you are doing it WRONG.
This point is easily illustrated by imagining the Dead Space franchise in reverse. If Dead Space 3 had been the first game, the natural assessment should have been 'this is a descent game... I think we're on to something with this horror angle... let's expand upon that theme, and make the player feel more alone and naked.'
DS2 would have been an improvement over DS3, and would probably have sold more copies. You would then draw the conclusion that the third game should rely even MORE on the horror elements. This would have lead to DS1, where the player is alone on a derelict spaceship, with less powerful weapons to navigate narrower corridors.
The inevitable success of DS1 should have been followed by a game that takes the horror themes to a higher level. Rather than fight monsters physically, you could have added a psychological aspect that make the gamer question what is real and what isn't.
But because you think that gamers would rather play Gears of Wars over and over and over again, you have now killed yet another gold egg laying goose.
Give Ken Levine a call. He could tell you how to make games. We don't require much, we gamers. We just want you to CARE about the games you make. If you don't, why should we?
This is a very effective game. After all, if you are only going to use a known game title to make people buy it, why make an effort with the gameplay at all...?
Dead Space has become the game equivalent of a hard working adult.
First it was an excited, fun-loving child. Everything was new and unexpected.
Then the CEOs noticed that the game could make money. They toned down the scariness to reach more consumers and focused on the action. The game was now a young adult, far from boring, but a bit more cynical about the world.
Now the CEOs have completely taken control of Dead Space. The creative spark is gone; the game is now a process whose purpose is to bring in money. Dead Space is now a competent career-pursuing 40-something who works every day in a company he doesn't really care about.
It's not likely that the CEOs will hand Dead Space back to the creative people when they inevitably make the next game. Therefore, when Dead Space 4 comes out, the game will reach the conclusion of its life cycle. It will be a rich retiree, looking back at the good old days when it was young and poor. When it had to make an effort to get through life. Before it got fat and lazy.
Not to sound rude, but every time I comment on the state of the gaming industry, someone feel the need to inform me of the basic principles of the free market. Yes, of course they do it for profit.
I only wanted to make the point that games can be more than just CoD, although many developers prefer to manufacture them like IKEA furniture.
When you read interviews with game developers, you really get a sense of how different their view on games are. On one had we have these...
"If you look at what sells, it's tough to justify something like [having a female protagonist]" (Chris Perna, Gears of War)
"[The action-oriented game play is a] necessary evil in order to broaden the fan base" (Antony Johnston, Dead Space 3)
"It’s our job to create a new gaming experience and to offer them [gamers] something that’s fresh and challenging." (Hiroyuki Kobayashi, Resident Evil 6)
...and then you have these...
"One of the major aspects of our story revolves around the social conflict between augmented and non-augmented people. In our story, there are people opposed to augmenting the body since they see it as unnatural and don't think scientists should play God." (Jean-Francois Dugas, Deus Ex:HR)
"We wanted a character who felt real, and true to our story. She had to have the life she had. She had to be who she turned out to be." (Ragnar Tørnquist, The Longest Journey)
"The game is full of examples of people who have strong ideologies, whether it's Ryan or Cohen or Steinman. They all have their own religions in a way..." (Ken Levine, Bioshock)
Corporate robots and creative artists, that's the gaming industry...
So, you're in a bar and someone tells you that's what they do... and you ask "so what games have you worked on?" and they say something like "Resident Evil 6" or "Binary Domain"... will you be able to stop yourself before saying 'So those games had writers...?'
"One of the more controversial claims he has made is that more games should employ the services of professional writers, rather than relying on programmers and artists to throw together a story that fits in with the gameplay."
Controversial? Really? How? Why?
Game developers are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a game, but the idea of hiring a writer is controversial? No wonder most characters in games have as much depth as the evil henchmen in an 80s action movie.
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