I buy most games that come out that I think I want to play at some point. Thus, I have a large stack of games (and books) that I haven't even started yet. And no, I'm not a casual gamer. Video games are my main hobby.
In a way, I agree that some games are too long. When I buy a heavily story-based game, I don't want to play through filler that was added to artificially extend the total playtime. I want to play through it, have the intended experience, and move on.
Now, if those games have replayability for those with more time than money, fine. Look at most older games that weren't RPGs. You could finish them in an hour or two, but they were fun enough that you'd want to play them over and over. I think there's still something to that.
When I was a kid and I had more time than money, longer games were good because I couldn't afford many games. Now, I have the opposite problem.
For what it's worth, I do also play games that aren't story-based that you never "finish"--fighting games and the like.
I didn't say that they were irrelevant. I said that citing casual game as an example is irrelevant. It's well-established that casual games are doing quite well on phones. What I don't believe is that they will be taking over as the platform of choice for non-casual games for hobbyist gamers anytime soon.
I don't see hobbyist gamers giving up their dedicated game hardware anytime soon. I think many of the people speculating about this happening are casual gamers and see games from that perspective. For many, games aren't something they play to kill time when they're bored or have to play when they have friends over, but something that they do as a hobby.
Some types of games would probably work very well on a smartphone, but expecting it to completely replace consoles as a gaming platform is silly, IMO.
Combat is a significant part of the core game of Minecraft. People tout it as a pure sandbox, but the main game mode sends monsters to kill you every night and all the time underground.
I've only watched a trailer of Terraria, but it seemed like about 80% of the trailer involved people swinging swords at monsters.
Either you don't know what you're talking about, or you don't have the
This is my problem with it--survival is the "main" mode and it has no real gameplay.
I read in an interview where Notch said that that creative mode was just a test mode while he got the basic engine working--it was never intended to be the pure stress-free building sandbox that everyone makes it out to be. So many people fixated on that mode that people think that's what the game is supposed to be--just virtual Legos.
The game needs challenge. It needs things to threaten you even once you've built your fortress. As of right now, it's extremely easy to "survive" indefinitely.
For those who just want to build stuff, he'll eventually implement "creative mode". How that would keep your attention for more than a few hours, though, I have no idea.
If people were "against" piracy but felt driven to avoid DRMed products, wouldn't they buy the product in question and then pirate a DRM free copy?
If it wasn't just a lame rationalization for wanting to get games for free, then yes. I doubt very many people that pirate games "because of DRM" buy the game, because they just want to get it for free and they feel better about themselves if they can rationalize it.
If you choose to not buy something because of DRM or whatever else, that's fine, but then you aren't entitled to then play and enjoy the game. If you play it anyway, then you're just a hypocrite and a leech on those who do buy it legitimately.
How many games these days really do offer co-op gaming? I mean, so far I haven't seen a SINGLE game in years that offers the ability for you to play through the story mode with a friend/spouse/etc.
Then quite honestly, you haven't played many games in the last several years.
There are several very popular games designed from the ground up for co-op: Gears of War, Left 4 Dead, Resident Evil 5, etc. In these games, even in single-player, you have AI team-mates. You literally can't play them solo.
I have no idea what you've been playing if you think no modern games have co-op. Co-op was pretty dead in the early 2000s, but it's been back more than ever for the last five or so years.
Shogun 2 Total War is Steam only, so the physical limited edition requires registration on Steam. I think this was true for Empire Total War also.
Red Orchestra was Steam-only, even with the physical copy, also.
If physical copies still had nice thick manuals like they did in the 90s (like the kind I still have on my bookshelf and still read sometimes), I'd be more inclined to get them, but nowadays most "manuals" are just 5-page instruction booklets, so I'm not missing out on much.
For years, the average gamer has been in his/her 30s. Your mindset that "it's mostly for kids" is part of the problem being discussed. It's not a new trend either--many of the very earliest games were mostly for adults.
I'll agree about Dead Space and plenty of other games. I just thought Recettear was a bizarre game to bring up in this discussion.
As a 25+ year veteran of video games (and about 20+ of console games), I hate seeing shoddy PC ports, especially of genres and series that became what they are on the PC (Deus Ex, Elder Scrolls, etc). To me, Bethesda is one of the worst offenders. Oblivion and Fallout 3 were so blatantly a straight port with interfaces that were horrible on PC. I also hate seeing gameplay watered down to appeal to the more "casual" console audience. The above-mentioned examples perfectly illustrate this too.
That said, if a game was obviously designed for a controller, I'll usually just play it with a controller, even on PC. The sad part is how popular first and third-person games are on consoles, when they have terrible controls for them. For that type of game at least, a mouse (when properly implemented) will always be superior.
Would you really want to play the action portion with click to move? Really? Now that would be awkward.
Worked OK for Diablo... And Nox... And Dungeon Siege... And Torchlight... And Freedom Force...
All completely different games with completely different gameplay. "Overhead view" is not a genre. This is an item-shop sim with a side of action-RPG gameplay in the style of Zelda, Ys, etc, and that style of action gameplay would not work well with a mouse. A part of its charm is that it feels like a SNES-era JRPG--in rare cases like this, a PC game feeling like a console game is a benefit.
It's also a doujin game made by just a few people. If the game wasn't made by a few people with no budget, it might have been an actual console game, but most doujin games are for PC, because it's much easier and cheaper for a few people to make and release a PC game than a console game.
It sounds like you're thinking "Hmm, I see an overhead view--I've played completely unrelated games with overhead view on the PC before, so this game should be just like them!".
Your exceptions are the problem, not the game. When I first installed the game, I never expected it to work with anything other than a gamepad or keyboard because I knew what genre of game I was playing. If it was a Diablo-style game like those examples you named off, I'd expect clicking to move, but it is most definitely not that type of game.
Or you build a game like Racettear that simply has no click-to-move, even though it's played from an overhead perspective. You need to use arrow keys to move around. It's downright awkward on a PC. The "fix" is to plug in a gamepad.
What? I had to read this two or three times, it boggled my mind so. It sounds like you have a serious case of mistaken expectations.
It's a doujin game in the style of a 16-bit console JRPG. There is no reason whatsoever to even expect to click to move. Would you really want to play the action portion with click to move? Really? Now that would be awkward.
Anyway, pretty much all doujin games that I've played used the keyboard as the sole control mechanism. Just because a game has an overhead perspective doesn't mean it's Diablo. You have to adjust your expectations to the genre or style of game you're playing.
Do you expect to be able to play Street Fighter 4 on PC with a mouse? Left-click to move, right-click to attack? No, you play it with the keyboard or use a controller or arcade stick which is obviously what it was designed for.
The loss of backward compatibility with PS2 games bothers me far more than the "Other OS" option. Before someone chimes in with the ever-present "duh just buy a PS2 they're cheap", I already have one--I just don't have room for 4 consoles under my main TV downstairs, so my PS2 is on my other TV. It would be really nice to be able to play my PS2 games--all 40ish of them--on my main TV downstairs with the nice stereo and all that.
I do agree that removing the "Other OS" option is lame--it's just that removal of backward compatibility, which was another promised feature, affects me far more.
I was talking about piracy, which your long, rambling, straw-man conspiracy theory-laden rant didn't address.
The creators of games, movies, music, books, etc deserve to be compensated for their work and investment. People who leech off of someone else's work without their permission and without compensating them for it are without ethics.
Since you seem to like straw-man arguments and ranting against exaggerated evils in your mind, let me respond in kind. People like you have a disgusting sense of entitlement where you think you're entitled to the work of others for free. You're leeches on both people who create things, and people who legitimately buy them, because without those people buying the products, they would cease to exist for the most part. If it wasn't for people like me, leeches like you would have nothing to pirate. You have this anti-corporate mentality, yet without corporations, all the things you think you're entitled to would disappear. I don't know if you actually fit into what I'm ranting against, but you didn't care, so why should I? Wheeee!
There would still be independent games made by people for fun, but the games that people actually pirate--modern, popular, big-budget games with voice-acting, fancy graphics, sound design, and all that, will cease to exist because no one will spend tens of millions of dollars to make them.
That was fun. I see why people like you do that all the time. It's fun to rant about imaginary evils and then call people who are so obviously dumber than you (ie: disagree) sheep.
I have turned my 360 on about 2-3 times after I bought my PS3 which was at least a year ago and since then it's gotten a fine layer of dust from disuse. In fact, I sold all but 2 or 3 of my Xbox games and am strongly considering selling them all plus the console itself. My PS3 sees use virtually every day. I admit to not being your typical American gamer, (I got bored of FPSes about 10 years ago) but IMO, the PS3 and its games are better in virtually every way, and having to enter serial codes (if this is true) won't affect me in the least, since I almost never buy anything used if it's available new.
I'm strongly anti-piracy (no, I have no vested interest--I just have something called ethics), and if this helps stop piracy on the PS3, I'm okay with it.
The Xbox 360 controller is garbage for anything other than first/third-person shooters and certain other games. The d-pad might as well not exist, since it's so imprecise and useless for anything requiring digital directional input input. All the time, I hit "right" and end up going up/right, or down/right. It's useless for fighting games, it's useless for 2D platformers, and it's useless for emulating 8 and 16-bit consoles.
I do use my 360 controller on my PC and every time I do, I think to myself, "I need to go buy a better controller--this thing is garbage". I heard they've made an new version with a usable d-pad, but I'm not going to spend $50 on another controller for a console that's got a layer of dust from disuese when there are better PC controllers out there.
It's very easy (and very common) to finish all the content available in a traditional MMO. Many people then grind end-game content over and over, to increase numbers and acquire better database entries, or they do it all over again with a new character.
The point he's making is that EVE doesn't follow that formula. It's impossible to finish all the content, because it doesn't have theme-park style content. It has no end-game. It's rare for two players to play the game exactly the same way. The free expansions add new gameplay rather than new areas with more theme-park attractions to go through and five more levels to grind through.
I could not agree more. Big budgets are the problem. Big budget games take no risks--they can't offend or annoy or frustrate or be to hard for anyone because they have to appeal to everyone to make money, with tens of millions sunk into their development.
Most of the games I've been playing lately are indie games, old games, and also Japanese games. The Japanese game industry is very focused on portable systems right now, for a variety of reasons, and games for the DS and PSP take a tiny fraction of the budget required for current-gen HD AAA games in the west, so they tend to do some original things or at least be more quirky and fun than the "super-epic movie experience" that big-budget western games strive for.
I disagree that having a story is bad, but I do agree that trying to emulate movies is often bad. Games are inherently interactive and can do things that movies cannot. I don't think developers should try to emulate movies. The western game industry is very fixated on recreating the "movie experience". The Japanese industry is less focused on this, which is one reason why most of the games I've been playing lately are Japanese (or western indie games).
That said, not all games need stories. Those without stories that are pure gameplay are "games" in the truest sense of the word. I really we need a new word for interactive entertainment that are mostly about adventures with storylines, etc--"game" is not really a very fitting word.
But yeah, the current batch of AAA western games hold no interest for me with a very few exceptions.
The thing is that at its core it's really *not* virtual Legos. It's a survival game, however much of the gameplay is currently missing. It's eventually going to have a win condition.
It was never intended to be a virtual Lego playland--it was originally intended to be similar to Dwarf Fortress. The developer has said he'd rather it be too hard than too easy. The first versions had no gameplay while he was working on the mining and building engine and people fixated on that and started representing it as a pure building sandbox, when it's really not.
It's really about collecting resources, building a shelter, avoiding or fighting monsters that want to kill you, etc. I agree that if it was just about building, it would get boring fast.
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I buy most games that come out that I think I want to play at some point. Thus, I have a large stack of games (and books) that I haven't even started yet. And no, I'm not a casual gamer. Video games are my main hobby.
In a way, I agree that some games are too long. When I buy a heavily story-based game, I don't want to play through filler that was added to artificially extend the total playtime. I want to play through it, have the intended experience, and move on.
Now, if those games have replayability for those with more time than money, fine. Look at most older games that weren't RPGs. You could finish them in an hour or two, but they were fun enough that you'd want to play them over and over. I think there's still something to that.
When I was a kid and I had more time than money, longer games were good because I couldn't afford many games. Now, I have the opposite problem.
For what it's worth, I do also play games that aren't story-based that you never "finish"--fighting games and the like.
I didn't say that they were irrelevant. I said that citing casual game as an example is irrelevant. It's well-established that casual games are doing quite well on phones. What I don't believe is that they will be taking over as the platform of choice for non-casual games for hobbyist gamers anytime soon.
Angry Birds is an irrelevant example unless you're talking about casual games only.
I don't see hobbyist gamers giving up their dedicated game hardware anytime soon. I think many of the people speculating about this happening are casual gamers and see games from that perspective. For many, games aren't something they play to kill time when they're bored or have to play when they have friends over, but something that they do as a hobby.
Some types of games would probably work very well on a smartphone, but expecting it to completely replace consoles as a gaming platform is silly, IMO.
This was my first thought also. It's not hypocrisy at all.
In Firefox, at least, it's really easy:
Type / then part of the link text and then enter
Ex: "/ gave it " for the link to the article. Of course, just tabbing until you get to the link works also.
Have you played Minecraft or Terraria?
Combat is a significant part of the core game of Minecraft. People tout it as a pure sandbox, but the main game mode sends monsters to kill you every night and all the time underground.
I've only watched a trailer of Terraria, but it seemed like about 80% of the trailer involved people swinging swords at monsters.
Either you don't know what you're talking about, or you don't have the
This is my problem with it--survival is the "main" mode and it has no real gameplay.
I read in an interview where Notch said that that creative mode was just a test mode while he got the basic engine working--it was never intended to be the pure stress-free building sandbox that everyone makes it out to be. So many people fixated on that mode that people think that's what the game is supposed to be--just virtual Legos.
The game needs challenge. It needs things to threaten you even once you've built your fortress. As of right now, it's extremely easy to "survive" indefinitely.
For those who just want to build stuff, he'll eventually implement "creative mode". How that would keep your attention for more than a few hours, though, I have no idea.
If people were "against" piracy but felt driven to avoid DRMed products, wouldn't they buy the product in question and then pirate a DRM free copy?
If it wasn't just a lame rationalization for wanting to get games for free, then yes. I doubt very many people that pirate games "because of DRM" buy the game, because they just want to get it for free and they feel better about themselves if they can rationalize it.
If you choose to not buy something because of DRM or whatever else, that's fine, but then you aren't entitled to then play and enjoy the game. If you play it anyway, then you're just a hypocrite and a leech on those who do buy it legitimately.
How many games these days really do offer co-op gaming? I mean, so far I haven't seen a SINGLE game in years that offers the ability for you to play through the story mode with a friend/spouse/etc.
Then quite honestly, you haven't played many games in the last several years.
There are several very popular games designed from the ground up for co-op: Gears of War, Left 4 Dead, Resident Evil 5, etc. In these games, even in single-player, you have AI team-mates. You literally can't play them solo.
I have no idea what you've been playing if you think no modern games have co-op. Co-op was pretty dead in the early 2000s, but it's been back more than ever for the last five or so years.
Shogun 2 Total War is Steam only, so the physical limited edition requires registration on Steam. I think this was true for Empire Total War also.
Red Orchestra was Steam-only, even with the physical copy, also.
If physical copies still had nice thick manuals like they did in the 90s (like the kind I still have on my bookshelf and still read sometimes), I'd be more inclined to get them, but nowadays most "manuals" are just 5-page instruction booklets, so I'm not missing out on much.
What you say makes perfect sense. It's just, as you said, that so many people feel entitled to games.
It's just a lame rationalization for piracy. There's no reason to try to understand it any further than that.
I don't pirate anything, so I either buy the game and play it (when I get time--sometimes much later) or don't buy it and don't play it ever.
For years, the average gamer has been in his/her 30s. Your mindset that "it's mostly for kids" is part of the problem being discussed. It's not a new trend either--many of the very earliest games were mostly for adults.
I'll agree about Dead Space and plenty of other games. I just thought Recettear was a bizarre game to bring up in this discussion.
As a 25+ year veteran of video games (and about 20+ of console games), I hate seeing shoddy PC ports, especially of genres and series that became what they are on the PC (Deus Ex, Elder Scrolls, etc). To me, Bethesda is one of the worst offenders. Oblivion and Fallout 3 were so blatantly a straight port with interfaces that were horrible on PC. I also hate seeing gameplay watered down to appeal to the more "casual" console audience. The above-mentioned examples perfectly illustrate this too.
That said, if a game was obviously designed for a controller, I'll usually just play it with a controller, even on PC. The sad part is how popular first and third-person games are on consoles, when they have terrible controls for them. For that type of game at least, a mouse (when properly implemented) will always be superior.
Would you really want to play the action portion with click to move? Really? Now that would be awkward.
Worked OK for Diablo... And Nox... And Dungeon Siege... And Torchlight... And Freedom Force...
All completely different games with completely different gameplay. "Overhead view" is not a genre. This is an item-shop sim with a side of action-RPG gameplay in the style of Zelda, Ys, etc, and that style of action gameplay would not work well with a mouse. A part of its charm is that it feels like a SNES-era JRPG--in rare cases like this, a PC game feeling like a console game is a benefit.
It's also a doujin game made by just a few people. If the game wasn't made by a few people with no budget, it might have been an actual console game, but most doujin games are for PC, because it's much easier and cheaper for a few people to make and release a PC game than a console game.
It sounds like you're thinking "Hmm, I see an overhead view--I've played completely unrelated games with overhead view on the PC before, so this game should be just like them!".
Your exceptions are the problem, not the game. When I first installed the game, I never expected it to work with anything other than a gamepad or keyboard because I knew what genre of game I was playing. If it was a Diablo-style game like those examples you named off, I'd expect clicking to move, but it is most definitely not that type of game.
Or you build a game like Racettear that simply has no click-to-move, even though it's played from an overhead perspective. You need to use arrow keys to move around. It's downright awkward on a PC. The "fix" is to plug in a gamepad.
What? I had to read this two or three times, it boggled my mind so. It sounds like you have a serious case of mistaken expectations.
It's a doujin game in the style of a 16-bit console JRPG. There is no reason whatsoever to even expect to click to move. Would you really want to play the action portion with click to move? Really? Now that would be awkward.
Anyway, pretty much all doujin games that I've played used the keyboard as the sole control mechanism. Just because a game has an overhead perspective doesn't mean it's Diablo. You have to adjust your expectations to the genre or style of game you're playing.
Do you expect to be able to play Street Fighter 4 on PC with a mouse? Left-click to move, right-click to attack? No, you play it with the keyboard or use a controller or arcade stick which is obviously what it was designed for.
The loss of backward compatibility with PS2 games bothers me far more than the "Other OS" option. Before someone chimes in with the ever-present "duh just buy a PS2 they're cheap", I already have one--I just don't have room for 4 consoles under my main TV downstairs, so my PS2 is on my other TV. It would be really nice to be able to play my PS2 games--all 40ish of them--on my main TV downstairs with the nice stereo and all that.
I do agree that removing the "Other OS" option is lame--it's just that removal of backward compatibility, which was another promised feature, affects me far more.
I was talking about piracy, which your long, rambling, straw-man conspiracy theory-laden rant didn't address.
The creators of games, movies, music, books, etc deserve to be compensated for their work and investment. People who leech off of someone else's work without their permission and without compensating them for it are without ethics.
Since you seem to like straw-man arguments and ranting against exaggerated evils in your mind, let me respond in kind. People like you have a disgusting sense of entitlement where you think you're entitled to the work of others for free. You're leeches on both people who create things, and people who legitimately buy them, because without those people buying the products, they would cease to exist for the most part. If it wasn't for people like me, leeches like you would have nothing to pirate. You have this anti-corporate mentality, yet without corporations, all the things you think you're entitled to would disappear. I don't know if you actually fit into what I'm ranting against, but you didn't care, so why should I? Wheeee!
There would still be independent games made by people for fun, but the games that people actually pirate--modern, popular, big-budget games with voice-acting, fancy graphics, sound design, and all that, will cease to exist because no one will spend tens of millions of dollars to make them.
That was fun. I see why people like you do that all the time. It's fun to rant about imaginary evils and then call people who are so obviously dumber than you (ie: disagree) sheep.
I can do anecdotal evidence too!
I have turned my 360 on about 2-3 times after I bought my PS3 which was at least a year ago and since then it's gotten a fine layer of dust from disuse. In fact, I sold all but 2 or 3 of my Xbox games and am strongly considering selling them all plus the console itself. My PS3 sees use virtually every day. I admit to not being your typical American gamer, (I got bored of FPSes about 10 years ago) but IMO, the PS3 and its games are better in virtually every way, and having to enter serial codes (if this is true) won't affect me in the least, since I almost never buy anything used if it's available new.
I'm strongly anti-piracy (no, I have no vested interest--I just have something called ethics), and if this helps stop piracy on the PS3, I'm okay with it.
Please tell me you're joking.
The Xbox 360 controller is garbage for anything other than first/third-person shooters and certain other games. The d-pad might as well not exist, since it's so imprecise and useless for anything requiring digital directional input input. All the time, I hit "right" and end up going up/right, or down/right. It's useless for fighting games, it's useless for 2D platformers, and it's useless for emulating 8 and 16-bit consoles.
I do use my 360 controller on my PC and every time I do, I think to myself, "I need to go buy a better controller--this thing is garbage". I heard they've made an new version with a usable d-pad, but I'm not going to spend $50 on another controller for a console that's got a layer of dust from disuese when there are better PC controllers out there.
You're aware that the Kinect is not a standalone console, right?
It's an add-on peripheral for the XBOX 360.
It's very easy (and very common) to finish all the content available in a traditional MMO. Many people then grind end-game content over and over, to increase numbers and acquire better database entries, or they do it all over again with a new character.
The point he's making is that EVE doesn't follow that formula. It's impossible to finish all the content, because it doesn't have theme-park style content. It has no end-game. It's rare for two players to play the game exactly the same way. The free expansions add new gameplay rather than new areas with more theme-park attractions to go through and five more levels to grind through.
I could not agree more. Big budgets are the problem. Big budget games take no risks--they can't offend or annoy or frustrate or be to hard for anyone because they have to appeal to everyone to make money, with tens of millions sunk into their development.
Most of the games I've been playing lately are indie games, old games, and also Japanese games. The Japanese game industry is very focused on portable systems right now, for a variety of reasons, and games for the DS and PSP take a tiny fraction of the budget required for current-gen HD AAA games in the west, so they tend to do some original things or at least be more quirky and fun than the "super-epic movie experience" that big-budget western games strive for.
I disagree that having a story is bad, but I do agree that trying to emulate movies is often bad. Games are inherently interactive and can do things that movies cannot. I don't think developers should try to emulate movies. The western game industry is very fixated on recreating the "movie experience". The Japanese industry is less focused on this, which is one reason why most of the games I've been playing lately are Japanese (or western indie games).
That said, not all games need stories. Those without stories that are pure gameplay are "games" in the truest sense of the word. I really we need a new word for interactive entertainment that are mostly about adventures with storylines, etc--"game" is not really a very fitting word.
But yeah, the current batch of AAA western games hold no interest for me with a very few exceptions.
The thing is that at its core it's really *not* virtual Legos. It's a survival game, however much of the gameplay is currently missing. It's eventually going to have a win condition.
It was never intended to be a virtual Lego playland--it was originally intended to be similar to Dwarf Fortress. The developer has said he'd rather it be too hard than too easy. The first versions had no gameplay while he was working on the mining and building engine and people fixated on that and started representing it as a pure building sandbox, when it's really not.
It's really about collecting resources, building a shelter, avoiding or fighting monsters that want to kill you, etc. I agree that if it was just about building, it would get boring fast.