Furthermore, there is no "lack of creativity". What there is happens to be a lack of respect for indie developers and the incredible effort they go through to produce interesting titles.

Getting bored of games =/= Short attention spans. People are viewing very predictable patterns in the games they play, and as such they either require deeper gameplay, or just more frequent bouts of stimuli, which only increases the problem.

Saying "People want OK games" is essentially insulting the intelligence of everybody. I'm offended as a game developer. Please don't make such general, broad and insulting remarks when you're highly incorrect.

It's written informally for audiences who don't spend hours a day reading through encyclopedias and aspire to become verbally overwrought. I prefer this style of writing as it makes the article more interesting and personal.

I have not picked up an encyclopedia in probably a year. Nor am I trying to be overwrought. Please don't make assumptions like that.

What bugged me was the article boiled down to this "Tommy told IGN, which we read. Now we are telling you a synopsis of it". It seems sloppy. But the main problem is that it is nothing but an argument from authority. If you are going to write "Micro Transactions are the Future of Games" you'd better have more than just "we read an article where the a mobile game designer says that his type of games are the future".

As a result I found it uninteresting and impersonal. If it disengages the reader and is unreasonable, then its bad writing.

AAA developers/publishers like to play it safe. They are in business to make money, and they don't like spending money without some acknowledgement they will get a successful return. It's security, something natural to the human condition. Flashy visuals are eye candy that marketing drools over, and so do the "fans". The hype-train is what makes people want to spend that $50.

Furthermore, there is no "lack of creativity". What there is happens to be a lack of respect for indie developers and the incredible effort they go through to produce interesting titles.

True, they are in business, and if they choose to make uninnovative games, then I can't stop them. As you say, the eyecandy gets good marketing results and hype-trains get them people to pay lots of money.  I understand why their doing it, but its not making good games.

Yes there is a lack of creativity. If the number one sellers are first person shooters with little to distinguish them from the next fps then there is a lack of creativity. I'm not saying there aren't creative game makers, but the industry as a whole is nowhere near as creative as it should be. Gaming is an incredible medium and for most game makers simply to shell out fps all the time is sad.

I was not disrespect Indie developers. The have nothing but respect that they go against the trend.

 

AAA developers/publishers like to play it safe. They are in business to make money, and they don't like spending money without some acknowledgement they will get a successful return. It's security, something natural to the human condition. Flashy visuals are eye candy that marketing drools over, and so do the "fans". The hype-train is what makes people want to spend that $50.

Furthermore, there is no "lack of creativity". What there is happens to be a lack of respect for indie developers and the incredible effort they go through to produce interesting titles.

 

True, they are in business, and if they choose to make uninnovative games, then I can't stop them. As you say, the eyecandy gets good marketing results and hype-trains get them people to pay lots of money.  I understand why their doing it, but its not making good games.

 

Yes there is a lack of creativity. If the number one sellers are first person shooters with little to distinguish them from the next fps then there is a lack of creativity. I'm not saying there aren't creative game makers, but the industry as a whole is nowhere near as creative as it should be. Gaming is an incredible medium and for most game makers simply to shell out fps all the time is sad.

 

I was not disrespect Indie developers. The have nothing but respect that they go against the trend.

 

Tell me, Seaborgium, are you an authority on modern games? You talk as if you are one, but you give no citation, and talk in rather vague language.

You criticize the article, justly I think, for amounting to an argument to authority. But aren't you doing even worse, given that you don't play many modern games?

No, they won't. That's like saying "People will realise McDonalds is making them fat, and they will stop buying it."

No it's not. People getting feed up with cheap games would be the equivalent people realizing McDonalds is making them fat, and stopping.  

The equivalent of this situation would be "McDonalds sells not very tasty 'mighty wings' for nearly a dollar a wing. Then McWallaces comes along and undercuts McDonalds by selling 'Fighting Wings' that taste a little worse for ten cents a wing. They don't look as nice, but they pretty much taste the same, and people realize that it's not worth it buying 'mighty wings' for ten times the price of McWallace's wings."

People aren't going to switch over to phones because they are feed up of console games. They will switch because they see that it is not worth $50 for a console game when you can get a game on your phone for $1. I'm sure the console game is in many ways better than the phone game, but is it worth paying fifty times the amount for, when you could be getting fifty phone game instead?

People getting feed up with cheap games would be the equivalent people realizing McDonalds is making them fat, and stopping

I just had to point that out.

 

No, they won't. That's like saying "People will realise McDonalds is making them fat, and they will stop buying it."

 

No it's not. People getting feed up with cheap games would be the equivalent people realizing McDonalds is making them fat, and stopping.  

 

The equivalent of this situation would be "McDonalds sells not very tasty 'mighty wings' for nearly a dollar a wing. Then McWallaces comes along and undercuts McDonalds by selling 'Fighting Wings' that taste a little worse for ten cents a wing. They don't look as nice, but they pretty much taste the same, and people realize that it's not worth it buying 'mighty wings' for ten times the price of McWallace's wings."

 

People aren't going to switch over to phones because they are feed up of console games. They will switch because they see that it is not worth $50 for a console game when you can get a game on your phone for $1. I'm sure the console game is in many ways better than the phone game, but is it worth paying fifty times the amount for, when you could be getting fifty phone game instead?

 

I think that you are still assuming too much. This is all hypothetical. You have yet to give compelling evidence that phone-games can supplement console games, let alone that most console games are as uninspired as you claim.

The mobile market is a pool of dead fish. You either create a one hit wonder or you get no-where special. What else has King made that is noteworthy? Nothing. What has Rovio come out with better than Angry Birds? Nothing. What was special about Flappy Bird? Nothing. Do DotGears have any other popular games? No. Has HalfBrick created a more popular game than Fruit Ninja? No

You can hire a bunch of low-cost overseas developers to make anything you want for cheap... have a gaze at freelancer sites and you'll heaps of "make me a copy of x game". Countless games (& crud) for mobiles come out everyday, further diluting the market to the point that the value of games is also diluted. General consumers look at the price of a console game and compare them to the price of mobile game (I worked in a store for 7 years selling games, consoles & phones, the change of view over time was apparent.) and most of the time, they will choose the cheap option ESPECIALLY if it is for their children. There is almost no game loyalty on mobile markets, people will play(consume) then replace it with another game, this is also a side affect of valueless games... people don't care because it cost them next to nothing. 10 years ago before the mobile markets were anything, people bought games costing $80 - $120, people played fewer games, however played them longer and there was no pressure to complete it quickly because you have a game backlog or you wanted to get the "achievements".

This doesn't just effect games, we only notice it because that's the industry we're paying attention to. The same effects can be found in most industries, we live in a "throw-away society" now.

Prepare to see over-night game companies popup and burn in the years to come.

People aren't going to switch over to phones because they are feed up of console games. They will switch because they see that it is not worth $50 for a console game when you can get a game on your phone for $1. I'm sure the console game is in many ways better than the phone game, but is it worth paying fifty times the amount for, when you could be getting fifty phone game instead?

but is it worth paying fifty times the amount for, when you could be getting fifty phone game instead?

From a "don't care" consumer view, they'd choose the 50 games....

But those 50 games are like buying those handheld $2 arcade game things that are all 100-in-1.

They're crap.

Like James said, would you rather watch a 30 second vine video repeated to fill up an hour or a full length movie. The difference in quality should burn out your eyes, but they have their places.

Are you trying to impress people? You're assuming we've not played such games either

I'm sorry. That was a stupid assumption of mine.

When I first read this, I came out of an extremely frustrating (entertaining, but frustrating) game design class. I was not in the mood then, and even though Jamesster's indie criticism topic has made me feel somewhat better, I am still not in the mood now to give any good rebuttal without sounding like a total c***.

That said, let it be known that I still don't agree with Seaborgium's rebuttals, and I agree with Jamesster and Cyrem on different things.

I'm sorry if angered people.  I will try to make less hasty, better thought out comments in the future.