[SoccerDude28]

In the past few years do you think there has been a decline in video game quality or games are becoming better?

[Fum]

Definitely getting better. Maybe (just for the sake of argument) the average game released three years ago was more impressive for its time then the average game released today, that might be a fair point, but in a direct comparison, the games today are, on average, much better then they were a few years ago. This might not be so accurate if only counting the adventure genre, but since this is in the 'General' forum, I assume you mean of all genres.

i figured that this question was for adventure gaming only, woops!
in the case it's better but in the case of adventure gaming it's worse.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

I'd say that it's not so much that quality is in decline, but that it's more the fact the industry and general interest in games and gaming has exploded in last decade, to the point where the number of lesser quality games has increased (yes, it's become such a business). For every Beyond Good & Evil there are probably at least a couple dozen poorly concieved and executed titles, and sh!tload of bad clones.

[Marek]

I don't think it's getting any better or any worse. However, since like most of us I've also mostly "been there, done that", it's definitely appearing to be getting much worse.

[Wormsie]

I voted "better", but then I realised that I just never hear of the very shitty games.

[Mattsius]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

I'd say that it's not so much that quality is in decline, but that it's more the fact the industry and general interest in games and gaming has exploded in last decade, to the point where the number of lesser quality games has increased (yes, it's become such a business). For every Beyond Good & Evil there are probably at least a couple dozen poorly concieved and executed titles, and sh!tload of bad clones.

I disagree. In my opinion there aren't a larger number of lower quality games on the market now than there were five years ago for instance. To me it seems that the number of crappy games is more or less on a constant level at the moment. Take in consideration that I'm talking about PC games though. I don't play console games, so that part of the industry is quite unfamiliar to me.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

I'm talking about games on all platforms. ten years or so ago it was an alternative lifestyle to be a gamer, and although there were great titles coming out the ratio of crappy games I think were comparatively small. This is because there were very few 'fly-by-night' companies who just want to cash in on the gaming market yet, gaming culture was not a force to be reckoned with. There was competition b/t companies but nowhere near as much as today. Now, however, gaming has become all pervasive (culturally, politically, sociologically), the market is huge, and the chance to make money is there. So you have Hollywood, for example, taking advantage of it, mega companies compete with each other, developers are pressured to finish games by deadline, screw the quality.

[Kolorabi]

It's about the same as before, I think. There's a huge number of quality games being published today, but they're not always being published by mainstream publishers or getting much shelf-space. People who think games are worse these days just need to look harder.

[Mattsius]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

I'm talking about games on all platforms. ten years or so ago it was an alternative lifestyle to be a gamer, and although there were great titles coming out the ratio of crappy games I think were comparatively small. This is because there were very few 'fly-by-night' companies who just want to cash in on the gaming market yet, gaming culture was not a force to be reckoned with. There was competition b/t companies but nowhere near as much as today. Now, however, gaming has become all pervasive (culturally, politically, sociologically), the market is huge, and the chance to make money is there. So you have Hollywood, for example, taking advantage of it, mega companies compete with each other, developers are pressured to finish games by deadline, screw the quality.

Here's a thought though. Because of todays fierce competition, companies that make crappy games (license games not included) won't last for long. That wasn't the case some years back when the cost of making a game was far lower than today. Back then you could make a crappy game and still survive, that's not possible to the same extent anymore. The only exception is the license games where you, as you said, can make bad games, knowing that they will still sale in shitloads.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Mattsius

The only exception is the license games where you, as you said, can make bad games, knowing that they will still sale in shitloads.

That's exactly it. It's a huge exception, a multi-billion dollar exception.

Originally Posted by Mattsius

The only exception is the license games where you, as you said, can make bad games, knowing that they will still sale in shitloads.

*cough* LucasArts *cough*

[Kolorabi]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

That's exactly it. It's a huge exception, a multi-billion dollar exception.

Well, licensed games aren't exactly new. In the early nineties, games based on films had the same reputation they have now. In fact, they were quite often worse than they are today - many were just generic (and mostly poor) platformers where the main sprite resembled the main character from the movie.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

What I'm saying is that ratio is much higher today because the potential market is much more huge compared to over ten years ago.

[Jake]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

I'd say that it's not so much that quality is in decline, but that it's more the fact the industry and general interest in games and gaming has exploded in last decade, to the point where the number of lesser quality games has increased (yes, it's become such a business). For every Beyond Good & Evil there are probably at least a couple dozen poorly concieved and executed titles, and sh!tload of bad clones.

For every Mario 3 there were about 80 BILLION utter shit 2d side scrollers. Don't tell me that you can't remember going to Toys R Us or wherever during the SNES, NES, or even 2600 days and really honestly seeing only around 5 titles that actually popped out at you amidst the rack of about 80 games.

I think what's happened, just like the passage of time and remembering "a few years back" or whatever, we tend to remember the games that are... memorable, and forget the really bad, well, forgettable ones. There are a zillion games made every year, and we have to pay attention or at least be aware of the shitty games in the present, because they're being actively marketed to us, but shitty games of the past, you don't need to think twice about anymore.

For every Beyond Good and Evil there are definitely at least two dozen poorly conceived and executed titles, but in 2014 people won't talk about those games at all and instead will reminisce about 2004 and how it was an amazing year for X or Y reason because games like BG&E were made, compared to all the shit that gets shoveled at us now yadda yadda.

Let's try to not become geezers with some sort of nostalgic eye to the past. Not that you were entirely doing that Trep, but I think you're being a little broad sweeping. Yes there are more casual gamers now, but in my opinion that doesn't mean a whole lot in this discussion because the billion shovelloads of horrible games have always existed. Casual gamers didn't buy the two dozen poorly executed knockoffs then and they don't now.

A couple moms might accidentally buy them for their kid (who will be sad), but that's not going to change

[SoccerDude28]

I think that the quality of games is getting worse. Now as a total I believe that the total number of quality games these days is getting better, but as an average, it's getting worse, because there are a million shitty titles appearing for every few good ones. I think the problem lies in companies spewing out sequels every year. It takes a long time to build a quality game, so producing a title every year a la EA Sports gets old after a while. For Half Life, it took 4 years to produce a real sequel of the game for example, and that's why it's gonna be a great game.

[log p]

Originally Posted by Jake

For every Mario 3 there were about 80 BILLION utter shit 2d side scrollers. Don't tell me that you can't remember going to Toys R Us or wherever during the SNES, NES, or even 2600 days and really honestly seeing only around 5 titles that actually popped out at you amidst the rack of about 80 games.

I think what's happened, just like the passage of time and remembering "a few years back" or whatever, we tend to remember the games that are... memorable, and forget the really bad, well, forgettable ones. There are a zillion games made every year, and we have to pay attention or at least be aware of the shitty games in the present, because they're being actively marketed to us, but shitty games of the past, you don't need to think twice about anymore.

For every Beyond Good and Evil there are definitely at least two dozen poorly conceived and executed titles, but in 2014 people won't talk about those games at all and instead will reminisce about 2004 and how it was an amazing year for X or Y reason because games like BG&E were made, compared to all the shit that gets shoveled at us now yadda yadda.

Let's try to not become geezers with some sort of nostalgic eye to the past. Not that you were entirely doing that Trep, but I think you're being a little broad sweeping. Yes there are more casual gamers now, but in my opinion that doesn't mean a whole lot in this discussion because the billion shovelloads of horrible games have always existed. Casual gamers didn't buy the two dozen poorly executed knockoffs then and they don't now.

A couple moms might accidentally buy them for their kid (who will be sad), but that's not going to change

the NES was rife with stinkers man...i have so many games for it that absolutely blow, just purchased because they were cheap and my granny used to buy me shit i didnt want! (you want crap that today would be mocked if even suggested for a game idea, try playing the three stooges game on the NES!)...i'd say overall quality is better, creativity on consoles is down though...on a system like the NES you could afford to be creative and take chances because the price of creating a game was next to nothing compared to the price to produce a normal game today...if you dont have a big budget you end up with a crappy game unfortunately...in the past, this was definitely not a corresponding factor...its sad in a way...going mass market and getting away from a niche audience is what made the video game business big, but it also has killed some of the risk taking and consequential rewards involved

[Eye-Z]

to me main things that have got better is graphic and sound quality

otherwise some games have real lack of thought behiend them, like bad storys, quick ways of makin money and not good games

the amount of games i see that have in no way not been tested its unblievable


if you find a bug in the first 1 hour of playing, that shit WOULD BUG me

and so many new games have more bugs than old games personally


so iono...some good/some bad

[GamingFreak]

They are always striving to make games better than every other game as far as graphics and gameplay.

[MDMaster]

Originally Posted by SoccerDude28

For Half Life, it took 4 years to produce a real sequel of the game for example, and that's why it's gonna be a great game.

Heart of Darkness took 3 years, and it was done by one of the greatest programmers ever (Eric Chahi), still nobody remembers it as a masterpiece. And I could say the same about loads of other games that took years to make. So I wouldn't get my hopes up, if I were you.

Anyway the main point here is obviously about money. I'm talking pc here; back in 1997 games never sold that much, there were those rare exceptions like Tomb Raider (which sold a character, rather than a game) or Riven but still games were made by 10 people working together. So most of the time that meant 'by gamers, for gamers' (that's a trivia for you), and also meant that really weird titles could make it to our shelves without any kind of problems, even if most of the time that wasn't exactly a good thing (anybody remembers Weird Dreams or Dreams to Reality? Blech!). Nowadays making a game costs wagonloads of money, so there's only a few bunch of SHs left that work with 10 people and out of sheer will to make a good game; the rest of 'em are just content by making another sequel, another FPS, another blah blah (just rememeber this year's E3). That doesn't necessarily mean it's gonna be a bad game of course, but are we really satisfied by playing sequel after sequel? I'm not, I'm actually quite fed up with them (i.e I would liked Revolution to work on a new game, rather than BASS 2 even if I enjoyed BASS). Do you think there's ever gonna be a game like 'From Rags to Riches' (a sort of 'clochard' simulator back on the C64) or a fun politics game like 'Yes, Prime Minister'? I don't think so, but I'm sure there's gonna be Doom IV, Myst V, Diablo III... yawn.

So one can say that yes, games are getting better in terms of 'pure' gameplay and graphics (not to mention sound), but there's little space left for unique and original titles, and it's getting smaller every day. I still have some hope left in homemade games, they're really getting better and I think the gaming world is gonna confront 'em someday.