Walk into any local video game store and you'll notice there have been a ton of "3"s coming out. Gears of War 3, Uncharted 3, Mass Effect 3, Modern Warfare 3. Unfortunately, most of these sequels are, at best, as good as their predecessors. Ever wondered why? It's a symptom of a few big problems plaguing the gaming industry right now. _Twenty years ago the video game industry was absurdly young. Atari had just had its huge meltdown a few years prior, Nintendo was hanging on by a thread, and the only really viable console was the home PC. Video game executives were, for the most part, very young and as the years progressed turnover within the gaming industry was so fast that there was hardly any time for anyone to get settled within any company. Some talent would stay on for years, but most would hop from project to project. The barriers to entry were very low and that led to a good number of titles that could be obtained at a fraction of the cost of a current game. There was even something called “freeware”. But that concept is long dead.
The landscape is completely different now. Executives are much older, turnover at lower levels is still very common but at the upper levels it’s much less frequent. Gaming companies are much less willing to put money into new series, instead choosing to favor the tried-and-true. The end result are beautifully lazy games that look and feel exactly like their predecessors, except missing a chunk of their soul. To those gamers that are reading this, challenge yourself for a second. Think back to when you first started playing Halo: Combat Evolved. Did you get the same feeling when you played Halo: Reach? How about when you played Morrowind and Oblivion. How did that feeling compare to Skyrim? How about when you first started playing Assassin’s Creed? How does that compare to Revelations? How does Gears of War 3 compare to Gears of War? All of these games I mentioned are great games. There is nothing really wrong with Skyrim or Assassin’s Creed: Revelations or Halo: Reach. But they end up feeling just like their predecessors with some extra polish and a few new mechanics. Unfortunately everyone involved with the industry, from the highest executive to the lowest consumer, are victims of circumstance. Kind of. The technological requirements currently placed on games means that Triple-A titles that are released for consoles (the games that cost $60+) have to meet some absurdly high expectations. Where 20 years ago large pixels and 2D side scrollers were the norm, today console games have to include high-resolution textures on full 3D models to even be considered “passable”. It makes the entire process much more expensive. This expense results in two things. On the one hand you get some awesome looking games that perform flawlessly. On the other hand, the cost of entry makes it nearly impossible for any new contenders to make it. Sure, you might occasionally get a new development studio that creates something amazing, but how many of those can you name? If you managed to name any, how many of those did not have some huge publisher backing them financially? It takes millions of dollars to create a console game, how many people are able and willing to pony that up for any game these days? Sure, if you had millions of dollars to invest you might say you were willing to put it into Halo 4 or Modern Warfare X-2, but what about for a new series that wasn’t tested yet? What if you were asked to put money into a sequel of a series that had been a financial flop? Would you risk it even if the development team promised that this version would be better? Some of this problem has been fueled by the market. Games like Mirror’s Edge and Dead Space struggle to make a profit while the Call of Duty franchise takes off with billions. As a result there are fewer “original” titles because of the much higher risk and the much lower potential profitability. But don’t worry, it’s not all your fault. Part of the problem is also internal. Partially because of the design of the production executives, and partially because of market conditions, turnover at the higher levels of gaming companies is much less frequent. You end up getting the exact same people leading a development team to create sequels to games. As a result, formulaic procedures become indoctrinated and new ideas are left out. Take a look at the Fable franchise. Fable 2 was good. It had its flaws, but the flaws weren’t so bad that the game was unplayable. It was definitely an enjoyable experience. Fable 3, on the other hand, had the same core elements as the previous games with zero improvements. In fact, many of the elements that made certain mundane tasks tolerable in Fable 2 were completely omitted from Fable 3. Don’t try to kid yourself by saying that it’s up to the middle-management of each department to decide what changes should be made to the look and feel of the game. Sure, the level designer may be able to tweak the way that things look or feel within a particular environment, but the vast majority of major decisions about how the game will look and feel fall squarely on the upper management. When management stays the same year after year, they stop having new ideas. They stop getting exposed to what other games in the given genre are up to. They stop getting exposed to new talent and new possibilities. As a result, we get stale rehashes of previous concepts that end up being a disappointment overall. We pop in [Game Title Here] 3, expecting [Game Title Here] 1, but end up getting a watered down version of everything we used to love. My opinion on this stems not from a sense of bitterness or cultish fandom but out of a love for these games and a desire to see them become better than what they currently are. I want future generations to be able to have their own Halo or Half-Life. There has to be some game that will become unique for their experience, some epic tale that they will experience with characters that they will identify with. All too often gamers are presented with a scenario and told to complete it without being able to ask the question “Why?”. But the production big-wigs are content with the current formula, and they should be. Big name games like Halo and Call of Duty make billions, which is perfectly fine. Like I said before, they’re good games. But they could be better, and isn’t that what we’re all striving for?
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The Legendary Carmine
Andrew Clayton (a.k.a. The Legendary Carmine) is SSG's Executive Editor. He toils at the stone to make sure this site brings its readers valuable content on a daily basis. Like what we do? Want to see more? Donate to the site using the button below!
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