Video Games Industry. 5 years left.

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12-09-2002
Cheeze-It

Video Games Industry. 5 years left.

The Development...
It's turning dumb. It's becoming too mainstream. That isn't a good
thing, either. Video Game Development is slowly turning into an
elitist-exlusive, artsy, hollywood-esque industry.

I mean, "professional actors" are actually starting to act in these
games. Argh! Games are even being listed at imdb.com
(international MOVIE database)... Have any of you played
Kingdom Hearts? You know, that Square/Disney RPG. I haven't
played it, and after reading that Lance Bass is the voice of
Sephiroth, I don't think I ever will.

Oh, and I'm sick of hearing weenie-directors talking about how
they're trying to artistically express themselves through video
games. They're idiots. I'm not saying that there isn't any room
for artistic expression in games, but when there's more dialog
than actual gameplay (i.e. Metal Gear Solid 2), there's a real
problem.

The Players...
All of the people that are getting into gaming now don't deserve
to be taking part in it. They're too shallow. They hated games
when the graphics sucked, but have now decided that they're
somehow entitled to play these new games. They most certainly
are not.

These fancy games with semi-realistic graphics should only
be allowed to be played by the gamers who sat through 15-20
years of low resolutions, terrible sounds, minimal palettes, and
controllers that didn't contour to your palm (like the ugly, rectangle,
original NES controller). These games are my reward.

I sat through years of being told to "go outside and get a life"
and to "grow up." And for what? So some prettyboy dork can
enter my world and frustrate me with his pathetic obsession
with extreme-sports games? Those games are all the same!

Within 5 years, there won't be any room to innovate. DOOM III is
looking almost photo-realistic, and nVidia and Square got the
Final Fantasy movie to render in real time on one of nVidia's
GPUs last year. Graphics are almost as good as they can get.
Soon reviewers will start looking into the emotional impact each
character has on the player, rather than the consistancy of the
framerate when 100 objects are being rendered at once. If by
chance some new graphical technology does get invented, it'll
be labeled as nothing more than a special-effect used in big-budget
action games with bad acting and a plot that goes nowhere.

I don't want to see televised Video Game Award Ceremonies.
12-09-2002
Cshot

Hehe, pretty funny :D

>> I'm not saying that there isn't any room
for artistic expression in games, but when there's more dialog
than actual gameplay (i.e. Metal Gear Solid 2), there's a real
problem.

Some people like these types of games. As long as gamers are still buying them, they will continue making them.

>> These fancy games with semi-realistic graphics should only
be allowed to be played by the gamers who sat through 15-20
years of low resolutions, terrible sounds, minimal palettes, and
controllers that didn't contour to your palm (like the ugly, rectangle, original NES controller). These games are my reward.

So anyone under the age of 15 needs to go through some sort of training program and play the classics before being allowed to play today's games?

>> Within 5 years, there won't be any room to innovate.

I highly doubt that. You think they can build holodecks by then? I hope one day I'll be able to tell my grandkids: "You kids are spoiled these days, back in the good ol' days we had to sit in front of this box and use this thing called a keyboard and mouse in order to play our games"
12-09-2002
alex6852

Is it only me or sometimes old games ARE better than new ones. For example I still play X-com on my P4 computer and can't realy find any other game that could mach it.
12-09-2002
Magos

Quote:

Originally posted by Cshot
I highly doubt that. You think they can build holodecks by then? I hope one day I'll be able to tell my grandkids: "You kids are spoiled these days, back in the good ol' days we had to sit in front of this box and use this thing called a keyboard and mouse in order to play our games"

Games are getting more and more realistic, and when holgo-games are invented (not just using a screen before your eyes, but sending the signals directly into your brain, capturing your nerve signals from your muscles using sensors instead of using a controller, and stimulating your senses for optimal experience) that will be taken to a new dimension.
Is it really good that games get more realistic? At some point, games will be as realistic as the real world...
12-09-2002
PJYelton

Quote:

Is it really good that games get more realistic? At some point, games will be as realistic as the real world...

True, I have a few friends now who I swear think the MMORPG's they play in are more real than the outside world. Just think what'll be like when these games get even more realistic, many people will never even leave their houses...
12-09-2002
XSquared

>many people will never even leave their houses...
Natural light? *shudder*
12-09-2002
-KEN-

I don't know if it'll get so bad that people will become entranced with their games and never go out. I've never been a big fan of video games, period. Sure, they might be fun to mess around with for about an hour, but then I feel like my brain's starting to stagnate and I have to go outside and play basketball, or read a book, or call a friend, or SOMETHING.

>>>> These fancy games with semi-realistic graphics should only
be allowed to be played by the gamers who sat through 15-20
years of low resolutions, terrible sounds, minimal palettes, and
controllers that didn't contour to your palm (like the ugly, rectangle, original NES controller). These games are my reward.<<

All I can really say is: :rolleyes:

I do like many of the older games better than the newer ones, though :)
12-09-2002
PJYelton

Quote:

I don't know if it'll get so bad that people will become entranced with their games and never go out

Really? This is practically happening right now with many people and the games aren't anywhere near as realistic as they are likely to become.
12-09-2002
Cheeze-It

>All I can really say is: :rolleyes:

I'm going to beat you up. You anger me... Sooo much. Anywho, I
wasn't serious about a lot of my comments.

>Sure, they might be fun to mess around with for about an hour,
>but then I feel like my brain's starting to stagnate and I have to
>go outside and play basketball, or read a book, or call a friend, or
>SOMETHING

When you're not able to focus on a task for more than a short
period of time, you have Attention Deficit Disorder. It's a serious
problem today for America's Youth. I recommend getting a
prescription of ritalin. I guess it's suppose to help you pay
attention. Pretty soon you'll be able to concentrate and enjoy
gaming, rather than wasting time with a ball.

I feel for you, -Ken-. It hurts me to see such a smart person
suffer from such a terrible disease.

>Really? This is practically happening right now with many people
>and the games aren't anywhere near as realistic as they are
>likely to become.

Yeah, Dateline (or maybe 20/20. Possibly 60 minutes) just did
a story on Everquest addiction. I posted a thread about it... it's
somewhere.
12-09-2002
face_master

>>
I'm not saying that there isn't any room
for artistic expression in games, but when there's more dialog
than actual gameplay (i.e. Metal Gear Solid 2), there's a real
problem.
<<

Yeh, like in SOF2, it really ........es me off when I keep slamming the keyboard down trying to get the friggin' cinematics to go away!

I could play any old Mario game (I have all the old ones) for hours upon hours, but any new game (eg. Counter-Strike) I can only sit though for around 3 hours.
12-09-2002
dP munky

>> Within 5 years, there won't be any room to innovate.

god i hope not, im going into the biz as a programmer, i hope it doesnt dry up, it'd be a waste of college money.

i dont think it will though, like someone earlier said, as long as people are buying em, people will make em, i think now is just one of those times where there's some good stuff, and because it sells and gets popular, everyone and their mother thinks they can make a game. and because of that, there is a bunch of CRAP!
12-09-2002
compjinx

>> Within 5 years, there won't be any room to innovate.
Remember the movie Terminator? Remember the part about computers destroying human life? The reason I bring this up is because I believe that computers are in fact trying to exterminate human life, so there is no reason to worry about things happening in 5 years because I doubt we will last that long.
Why, just today my Mom went through self-checkout to buy a 99 cent Mango. It took my Mom, The "Self checkout helper", the manager, and 5-10 minutes to get the machine to go through with the purchase. So you see, computers are already initiating plans to starve us to death by not letting food be purchased!!!
12-09-2002
dP munky

welp, i guess you know what we have to do now...?

...program one mother of a virus!!!:mad: <--dont mess w/the humans
12-10-2002
master5001

In my opinion the video game industry is becoming saturated. This does not mean that it will be gone per se in 5 years, nor does it mean that there is no more room for innovation. Here is the bottom line, whenever a market becomes saturated the laws of economics start to really kick in. The bottom line is that there will be casualties but the industry will remain with us for many years to come. The market is sufficating itself...
12-10-2002
jessie23

i have fun playing today's games. thats what counts is having fun right?
12-10-2002
deathstryke

I grow bored with new games rather quickly anymore. I can play one of the old Phantasy Star or Dragon Quest games twenty times in a row, and then pick up ffx and be so bored that I almost give up on it. Graphics and "New Features" (often slight modifications of old ones) do not make a good game. Just because pretty pictures will make you a quick buck when you first release a game, what happens to it a year later when everyone who wanted pretty pictures decides they want more of a game and less of a movie?
12-10-2002
Sang-drax

>>>>Within 5 years, there won't be any room to innovate. DOOM III is looking almost photo-realistic, Graphics are almost as good as they can get.

LOL, no. :D

>>>>nVidia and Square got the Final Fantasy movie to render in real time on one of nVidia's GPUs last year.

What!?!!! .:eek:
At what resolution?! I really doubt they did that, but if you say so...

.....

Sure there are new games that are funny to play, take Grim Fandango as an example.

*realizes that it was released in 1998*

Well, Warcraft III was quite nice, too.
12-10-2002
Davros

>It's turning dumb. It's becoming too mainstream. That isn't a good
thing, either. Video Game Development is slowly turning into an
elitist-exlusive, artsy, hollywood-esque industry.

It's called progress.

Personally my favourite games are Galaxians & Phoenix.
12-10-2002
Cheeze-It

Quote:

Originally posted by Sang-drax

LOL, no. :D

>>>>nVidia and Square got the Final Fantasy movie to render in real time on one of nVidia's GPUs last year.

What!?!!! .:eek:
At what resolution?! I really doubt they did that, but if you say so...

Yes. After you achieve photo-realism, there's really nothing left
to do (in terms of graphics). For the most part, the FF movie is
Photo-Realisitc. Compare those visuals to the visuals seen in
Toy Story (which was released about five years before FF). Huge
leap.

These links all basically say the same thing. They're about
FF being rendered in real-time.

http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/...4.quadro.shtml
http://www.pcvsconsole.com/news/news.php?nid=589
12-10-2002
Xaviar

All right, I agree that video games are indeed becoming far too mainstream, but look at movies. Sure, there's a whole bunch of crap, but there's the occasional good movie out there too, and I doubt that movies are a failing industry. It's going to be essentially the same thing, as more and more new faces get into the biz, there'll be naturally more and more crap to sit through. But that'll only make the occasional really innovative game that much more refreshing to sit through.

The main problem, nowadays though, isn't focus on story, or over-dialoging games. As a matter of fact, it's precisely the opposite. As technologies are getting better and better, production houses are simply throwing prettier and prettier graphics at us, instead of focusing on content. That, my friend, is why games can't hold your interest as much any more. Pretty pictures are only entertaining for so long.

Anyways, eventually, they're gonna realize that that sort of thing needs to stop, maybe because they've finally caught up with the technologies, or maybe just because game sales drop, and they realize that they can't sell the same clichés over and over again. It'll stop, and they'll put the focus back into content, and if they don't, then some new company will.

I guess my point is this. Saying that the gameing company is going down the tubes is like saying that movies are going down the tubes. Production houses might get stuck on something, if it sells, but after a while, sales of that will slack off, and they'll come up with something else. Just because the trend now is more on graphics than content (when it was the other way around, 10-15 years ago, or whatever timespan you quoted, because people couldn't focus on graphics), doesn't mean that that focus won't shift later. The gaming industry is much like a kid with a new toy..They'll get over it after a while. The industry most definately isn't going to die.
12-10-2002
PJYelton

I agree, sure there are really crappy games out right now, but there are a few good ones. There were a LOT of crappy Nintendo games as well, but a few gems we all love. Years from now people will look back with nostalgia for todays games and complain about the ones they are currently playing with. I don't think this process will likely ever end.
12-10-2002
-KEN-

Quote:

Originally posted by ethic
Yes. After you achieve photo-realism, there's really nothing left
to do (in terms of graphics). For the most part, the FF movie is
Photo-Realisitc. Compare those visuals to the visuals seen in
Toy Story (which was released about five years before FF). Huge
leap.

These links all basically say the same thing. They're about
FF being rendered in real-time.

http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/...4.quadro.shtml
http://www.pcvsconsole.com/news/news.php?nid=589

Bleh, I don't think FF looked photo-realistic.

>>I'm going to beat you up. You anger me... Sooo much.

Oh yeah? Bring it, Eth! :D

>> Anywho, I wasn't serious about a lot of my comments.

Well duh :p
12-10-2002
Sang-drax

Quote:

What made the demonstration impressive is that the graphics were being rendered in real time -- a new frame was generated every 4/10ths of a second

4/10ths of a second? That is fast, but in no way fast enough to show a movie realtime..

You need chips almost ten times (9.6) faster to achieve realtime (24 fps). Still very impressing though, even if the movie has much higher resolution and better quality.
12-10-2002
master5001

4/10ths a is not real-time. A game on a tv needs at least 30fps to not look bad. A game needs about 50-60fps to look normal.
12-10-2002
DavidP

Quote:

Is it really good that games get more realistic? At some point, games will be as realistic as the real world

Yes games will eventually get that realistic...and that could very well be a bad thing indeed.

Have you ever read Fahrenheit 451? I know that the focus of that novel is on the burning of the books and everything, but it also has the little side action going on about the Wall. Remember the wall? And remember how long the wife in Fahrenheit 451 would sit watching the wall?

Although games that are as realistic as the real world could be very useful in several situations, I can see many instances where they can go way overboard. Mass media has a great influence on the human mind, and if games were to get that realistic, who knows what might come of us. We would become vegetables...sitting inside of a game 24/7. Just think about it...people would be able to simulate their wildest fantasies. I know a great majority of the male population would probably go right over to their local software store and buy some Playboy Simulation game. You know its true...

However these real life simulations could be very good also. Just think of the traning capabilities they would have. We could train soldiers, astronauts, whatever you want - you name it - in those kind of simulators if they were that realistic.

Like everything, these games would have good and bad sides. What we have to decide is: do they goods outweigh the bads enough to implement these type of games?
12-10-2002
Hillbillie

To demonstrate just how close graphics are getting to photo-realism:

http://download.ati.com/misc/demos/A...Movie-v1.0.mpg

ATI has a bunch of more demos of videos. Many are hard to tell if it's real or CG.
12-10-2002
eats only heads

I have been going to various abandonware sites and playing old games, many are lots of fun. None the less I think I missed alot at the time. The fact is is only the good games survive, the bad ones are forgoton. There are probably many great games out there today, Its just hard to find them.