The current state of the Games Business, a view.

[Maniac618]

What do people think about the following view?

I don't know how many people will care, but I just want to get angry for a moment or two at the large soul sucking video games company known as EA. For a while now this company have been growing hugely, buying a variety of other developers out so they can infect the games industry with their countless updates and horribly GTA rip-off gangsta games. It's been known for a while now that they're making a game of The Godfather, and now I've seen some pictures and some screenshots, I really think this is ridiculous. First of all, the world doesn't need another crime game, full bloody stop. There are too many rubbish ones already, and 50 Cent releasing his own game was just one step too far. But the The Godfather, the bloody Godfather, for the love of god(father)... to be honest, you don't veen need to look at the pictures to imagine how ridiculous this is. How the bloody hell can anyone even think about turning this legendary film into a bloody video game?! If you add up all the action scenes together, they probably come to about 3 minutes worth, in a film of 3 hours. And the clever businessmen at EA are turning it into a ridiculous GTA rip-off with toture scenes. You can press different buttons according to how angry you want to get. They are missing the point of the film completely, which could not be translated to a game anyway.

The games industry is becoming more and more like the music industry these days in which we now only get a small handful of truly good and original games (I can only think of 2 released last year, and they're both sequels) every year. The only good games this year will be Shadow of Colossus (incidentally Hideo Kojima's favourite game of 2005 in Japan, lovely), FFXII, Kingdom Hearts 2 and Black. The rest are more ridiculous street gangsta 'sims' and sports game updates from EA and other companies who are trying to copy each other in an attempt to capitalise on the industry, ruining any chance smaller developers have of being able to afford to release different and innovative games.

Incidentally, there's also a game of Scarface coming out, featuring Ricky Gervais. Yes, Ricky Gervais. I'll repeat that, Scarface with Ricky Gervais. If that doesn't sum up the current state of the games industry I don't know what does. Jesus christ.

 

[FeFiDoh]

lol pretty much sums it up which is why ive been so bored of most new releases now for quite some time only ones that keep my occupied are are multiplayer ones like Q4...

Its been known for ages EA are sucking the life out of gaming for any platform.

 

[sja360]

yea really they need to be more risky or listen to the consumers more, the games industry seems to be like what film 2006 thought of hollywood's film industry in that they churned out more action films etc the usual stuff, but recently there has been off the wall types of films like munich and good luck and good night.
only problem is if the consumer continues to buy games from the likes of EA, then they arent going to change.
also those sports games that update every year, what a waste of money in my opinion!

 

[skullman]

"Incidentally, there's also a game of Scarface coming out, featuring Ricky Gervais. Yes, Ricky Gervais. I'll repeat that, Scarface with Ricky Gervais. If that doesn't sum up the current state of the games industry I don't know what does. Jesus christ."

Made me laff.

 

[Elston]

EA remind me to much of Hollywood at the moment. I know one of the biggest reasons for sequels is the cost involved in games production these days, but the only real decent games come from smaller developers who have to take risks to get anywhere. Another reason why it is'nt always a good idea to sign up with a big publisher, like EA or Microsoft.

 

[Kreeeee]

/me hugs Nintendo

 

[Mud]

The only good games this year will be Shadow of Colossus (incidentally Hideo Kojima's favourite game of 2005 in Japan, lovely), FFXII, Kingdom Hearts 2 and Black.

Isn't Black by EA?

 

[Werewolf]

Given the number of titles EA puts out a year it would be amazing if they didn't get it right by accident from time to time

Seriously whilst I'm not sure if I agree with the article, I do think that on the whole the games industry does seem to be giving up on trying new ideas out, and instead of spending money on creative talent (and giving them a free reign to a large extent), they seem to be set on spending the money on graphics, film/tv licences and practically everything but gameplay and trying to get an original game out.

It's something that I think will end up biting a lot of companies in the bum as they are trying to all do roughly the same thing and sell the same games over and over again to a relatively small demographic, alienating a lot of other groups that have the cash to buy games/consoles but don't see anything they are interested in.

It's largely for this reason the I tend to like to see what Nintendo and the Japanese are doing, as they still seem to get the theory that it's the gameplay that is important, not who has the biggest movie/sports name they can stick onto Generic Game 23, or how the hardware can theoretically on paper produce real time film quality graphics.

I honestly think that the next lot of big improvements to games isn't going to be down to video quality (although that is important), or sound, but how the player interacts with the game, things like what control system they use as by changing/improving that you can add whole new levels of complexity (or ease of use) to games.

Things like Nintendogs were ruled out as being gimmicks by a lot of people, but the fact it was very different seems to have worked in it's favour - It got a lot of people who wouldn't normally play games to not only play them, but buy the hardware (so they then go on to buy more games hopefully).
If more games like that can get made and sell well (and i'm not talking clones of Nintendogs before anyone suggests a Songirls or similar), it could help give companies like EA a kick up the butt to try something new rather than going for the "safe" market.