When Did Games Stop Being Just Games? - News
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 14 August 2011 / 7,876 Views
Today, gamers are probably happier than ever before with the content that they receive from publishers. Loads of AAA releases hit store shelves each year, and if a title does fall short, it still usually is a fantastic value even if it isn't the hippest thing on the gaming streets known as the internet. While I'm sure many gamers have their own personal golden age of gaming, from a larger perspective, these last few years have probably been more worthy of that title. In the next few years, not only will we be talking a lot about gaming software, but also upcoming technical advances in consoles that will free developers from many limits that current generation developers suffer from. As we continue to push the boundaries of gaming and providing more polished and honed experiences, are we losing a certain experience gaming has relied on in the past?
Over the years, games have becoming more and more focused in terms of cinematic story telling. It didn't exactly flow over us immediately, but 3D engines allowed cinematic experiences that 2D games could never provide. As we've pushed through the years, the industry often likes to relate itself to movies in terms of the cinematic prowess of its products. Up until this generation, it's been more of a bullet point on the box than actually an part of experience outside of a few titles. Now, it seems like every title is pushing the importance of cinematic story telling in some way shape or form.
As we've gained these huge epic story lines, branching conversational paths and heavy amounts of lore, some of the focus seems to be taken off gameplay. It's not that games these days have bad gameplay, but it seems to have been developed in line with every other aspect of the title. In most games of old, gameplay took precedence over almost every other aspect of a title. While that's still true today in many respects, other elements are becoming larger pieces of the pie for creating a AAA experience. The matter of fact is, most of games were made to be games, where today they are built to be more than just games: full-on experiences that deliver on a multitude of levels outside of just entertaining gameplay.
The exception is Nintendo. Many of their games still remain great today thanks to their loyalty to the gameplay in titles like Zelda and Mario. Thanks to Nintendo's series of interviews called Iwata Asks, where Iwata interviews developers at the company, we get a greater look at specifically why Miyamoto chooses this route. Over the series of interviews about Super Mario Galaxy, Ocarina of Time and plenty of other titles, he constantly cites that storyline just gets in his way and limits what he wants to do with a game. In the case of Super Mario Galaxy 2, he specifically went out of the way to try to reduce story elements that were found in the first Galaxy. In series The Legend of Zelda, where the story plays a larger role than most of Nintendo's titles, Miyamoto tries to make it as unobtrusive as possible to the development process. For example, using in-game engine cutscenes that can be changed on the fly.
In the downloadable space, the opportunity to make these gameplay focused titles is definitely still alive, if not the heart of most titles that hit Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, Steam and all those other fancy services out there that are low cost for developers. As we see these titles sell more and more, it shows that the demand for this kind of software is getting greater, even if only in $5 - $15 spurts.
That being said, is it wrong for retail games to lose that full-on gameplay focus? Not at all. High review scores, sales and feedback for many of these titles have been amazing, showing these titles are definitely in demand. They just have different aspects that change how the player enjoys a game. The downloadable market has created a place for gameplay focused titles to flourish, so it's not like we're really losing anything. As long as downloadable services remain open to developers and stay inexpensive, gameplay focused titles will probably never die.
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What? The best selling games today still put gameplay first, story second. You excluded Nintendo, so I'll limit the list to HD games, but Call of Duty, Halo, Battlefield, and Gears of War are fun as hell games, which most gamers probably put in more time online then in campaign. I mean Rocket Fight in Halo? Common, this is exactly the type of game you say our industry lacks.
Even games with a good amount of story put gameplay first. Assassin's Creed, Grand Theft Auto, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Batman, etc etc are all games that would be nothing if they weren't fun to freely explore and mess around in.
Heck the games that are more story driven are not the games that sell the most volumes. As great as Heavy Rain, Alan Wake, L.A. Noire, etc are, they are not exactly flagship titles for any company. These are amazing games designed to get other people (not just Nintendo fanboys) into gaming.
So much opinion goes into these articles, why do I still read these?
I remember when buying a game didn't mean you were going to beat it. It was totally possible for a person to but a game and spend a month never being able to get passed level 1. During those days, even story heavy games (Ninja Gaiden, Astyanax) were tough as nails.
I guess it's not about skill, as much, anymore. You're almost guaranteed to beat a game if it can hold your attention. In some ways, not focusing on skill is a good thing. In other ways, I miss spending hours and hours perfecting my skills. I don't think those games are gone, though. As the article saidm look at any number of downloadable, mobile, portable, or Nintendo games. They just aren't the focus, anymore.
In the end, maybe we don't play as many games that are really "games" because there's more variety. Variety can't be a bad thing.
At the exact time they started to get less and less popular.
Im all for cinematic games but so as long they're not the centerpoint of the actual game. A good example would have to be (bear wit me) God father Game. It may follow the movie loosely but it has good (but short) cutscenes that follows along with your progression; and since its not linear, your not restricted to the storyline to continue. You can just continue extorting businesses and even destroy the opposing families compounds if you wanted to. The industry just needs not to forget that not every gamer want a movie driven game. This is why I still support nintendo; but at the same time, im not a complete snob; there are awsome games from other companies as well.
This is why I've always stuck by Nintendo. They always put the gameplay first when creating a game. It just give their games that extra fun factor that many games nowadays seem to be losing a grip on. While I'm all for story-focused games (Uncharted, Metal Gear), they never really try to push the boundaries when it comes to gameplay. They have their bullet points on what should be included, but honestly, these bullet points are all that different from other games'. I'm not saying Nintendo completely reinvents the wheel with each successive game, but they each have their own uniqueness that helps them stand out. That's also sort of why I think Metroid: other M was disappointing. They focused too much on the story, which wasn't all that interesting to begin with, and let some of the classic Metroid gameplay falter, and adding other features that just didn't work very well (like the way to recover life; I seriously don't know who thought that was a good idea). Story isn't Nintendo's strong suit, but that's because theirs is gameplay, which I always think they should continue to focus on most whne making all of their games.
Show me one game this generation that has story written all over it. That has sold 10 million copies at retail. Halo! No Halo falls into the FPS genre of pick up and play. Where most fans only buy it for the Online Multiplayer. Despite how good the reviews, and critic aclaim Uncharted, Infamous, Heavy Rain, and others. Those games combined have been outsold buy average Call Of Duty game or a 2D Super Mario Bros game. Some of your best selling game this generation. All fall into the pick and play category type of games. Dance, Fitness, FPS, old school platformers, and racers. Story adds a element to games, but story alone will never sale a game by it self.
I do believe those in the videogame industry, despite the revenues they have, feel their profession isn't taken as seriously as Hollywood. They want to be seen as stars and seen to have a cultural impact beyond play. An increasing number of people want to be seen as great storytellers, and the ability to field a team with a huge number of people makes you feel like you are more significant. Increase required specialization also has led to this. So, you get the drive to have more and more story-like elements and to be more like Hollywood (complete without a box office to help recover development costs of course).
I do believe those in the videogame industry, despite the revenues they have, feel their profession isn't taken as seriously as Hollywood. They want to be seen as stars and seen to have a cultural impact beyond play. An increasing number of people want to be seen as great storytellers, and the ability to field a team with a huge number of people makes you feel like you are more significant. Increase required specialization also has led to this. So, you get the drive to have more and more story-like elements and to be more like Hollywood (complete without a box office to help recover development costs of course).
This is a great hint for the industry, ok the storytelling but they could more gameplay. I'm sick of games that you pay 60$ (here in europe is 70€, O_O) and they last like 6-7 hours, that's ridiculos. Maybe because the market wants more everyday and the time taken for developing a game i restricted. I don't buy this games at launch but i wait even a year for a used copy, if it's not EA XD.
That's why i like Nintendo, the next game i'll buy it's a 2nd party one: Xenoblade Chornicles. I just know that it's gonna last more than 100 hours from japan reviews. And the game will cost 50€ even if it's massive and takes 2 years of development.
A recent Extra Punctuation article by Mr. Zero Punctuation himself spoke at games devolving because of the focus on a cinematic experience. If they industry pull off movie-like experiences with a budget that won't force games to got through the roof from a cost perspective, and the bulk of games end up like Enslaved, it has a shot. However, if costs shoot through the roof, look for far less chances to be taken on the gameplay front, and if the idea is theming as a replacement for gameplay, the industry has a chance of boring itself into another Crash.
Games are not what they used to be, boundaries are being pushed so far now that they're more film like than games. If I wanted to watch films I'd go to the cinema, I don't need my games to be THAT realistic
I just watched the end of Catherine, not that a game needs 8 different endings thats besides the point, but in the majority of them does there need to be at least 1 naked woman, is that a pre-requisite now? Oh when the days of squishing Goombas and defeating Bowser was enough, now it's more "I can't wait to play this game, there's tits here, and here, and here..." and that's just the booklet alone! It's disgraceful.
For the love of God, this shit's unreadable!! Mr. Yoder, please do us all a big, BIG favor and read this: http://insomnia.ac/commentary/gameplay/
This is just plain revisionism and misinformation.
pretty sure games are still games with a few "OK" titles that wow people people with good graphics.
graphics are he least important thing in games.
It seems like you're implying that Nintendo would flourish in the $5-$15 market.
Ahistorical bullshit that only children would believe in.
Story-driven, slow-played games have existed since before the Famicom.
Trying to rewrite history into only including arcade gameplay only works on people who don't know anything about video games.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/game_nolan.shtml
i like interesting story telling in games.. but i prefer gameplay over anything, like fruit ninja
games shouldn't have stories as the nintendo fans say... because its impossible for games to have good stories and also have fun mechanics apparently...
exactly, just because Nintendo is too braindead to realize this fact, it doesn't mean fans need to suck the kskoolaid
It's a very rare game that focuses on story above gameplay. Heavy Rain comes to mind. The gameplay doesn't suffer, but the story is clearly the main attraction. Even in "cinematic, story-based" games like AC2, the gameplay is still central to the experience.
The lack of story is what makes Nintendo games completely uninteresting imo. It was fun playing playing Super Mario World back then, but now fantastic stories like you can have in Metal Gear or Final Fantasy (even in Black Ops the story was pretty good) indeed multiply my pleasure tenfold. And it does not necessarily hurts the gameplay (although in certain cases it does, see MGS4).
@Rolstoppable lol at your statement that COD had great gameplay. Maybe modern warfare 1 had great game play but every COD since then and every other shooter made for the most part uses the gameplay pioneered in Modern warfare 1. Also the so called COD clones like battlefield bc 1 AND BFBC2, as well as Medal of honor, crysis 2 and homefront sales all pale in comparison to games like uncharted 1 and 2 aswell as Metal Gear solid 4, GTA4 gran turismo 5, god of war 3.
The only games that i know to out sell these games by and large are gears of war , halo and of course the COD juggernaut. And despite the fact that Halo is primarily bought and played for its multiplayer its singleplayer and main Character the Master Chief propelled it to super stardom on the original Xbox so i would say single player games sell on par with games focused on "Gameplay" which i take it you mean gameplay is online play and not the actual gameplay and controls of the game.
Inconclusion COD gameplay is tired and old
100% disagree,
Games evolved, now it has both gameplays AND stories. Look at games such as Uncharted.
what you (the reviewer) considered "exception", I consider it being unwilling to change. Nintendo, being the slowest to adapt, unable to place any kind of meaningful story in their games, which is why it will always remain old-school.
Frankly, the idea of "game isn't game because it has story" completely smells desperation.
Couldn't have said it any better myself.
I second.. or third that. It seems only platformer crap is considered 'gameplay'. If i don't need a story, I'll fire up a reflex test game, which is all the depth and pull that Mario games have to offer.
I must join you in this truthful statement.
He's not a reviewer. Don't mix us up with Feed writers :-P
From a developer's point of view, it's much, much easier to make a scripted, cinematic game than to develop engrossing gameplay. That's why.
Easier to market for publishers as well. (curse this lack of edit button!)
it's called diversification. People are willing to buy story-driven games. Why NOT make games for a market that is willing to buy them, especially considering that a lot of them will only buy heavily story-driven games.
This is just more Nintendo-rhetoric. Nintendo is better because they are gameplay. It's ironic that the Nintendo enthusiasts would take revenge on the codename:revolution shit talking by using the same rhetoric.
damn, i hate using the same word twice by accident
"The big question is why does the industry pursue cinematic gaming when consumer interest indicates that games being games is still as much desired as ever."
and when did I say that anyone was suggesting a stop to cinematic games? You, and others, asked why devs pursue cinematic gaming over gameplay-based games. The reason is because it is currently an under-served market, in that, there is a lot of room for growth. Not meeting the potential is lost sales.
And I also think your argument is a fallacy. Gameplay-centric games do not sell bagzillions more than cinematic games. Nintendo's gameplay games sell more, and the other games with high-sales, like COD, GTA, MGS, Halo, Mass Effect, etc generally have a strong storyline on top of their gameplay. The only real "non-story games" that do well, are nintendo ones, wrestling/ufc, and racing.
Oh yeah, and dance games. Can't ignore all that amazing gameplay with 6 different titles all selling the same amount, it must be a gameplay goldmine.
Oh yeah, and dance games. Can't ignore all that amazing gameplay with 6 different titles all selling the same amount, it must be a gameplay goldmine.
