Please tell me I'm not the only one here who prefers quality over quantity when it comes to gaming. I prefer games that last forever (such as everything by Blizzard Entertainment [since Diablo] and everything by Reenactor Entertainment), over franchises and companies where people stop playing and talking about the game immediately after it's release and a new game in the franchise is immediately announced upon the release of a game (such as Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, Final Fantasy, Left 4 Dead 2, Electronic Arts, Command & Conquer [since Westwood went defunct], Star Wars games, etc.). I can see the logic behind why companies release games in such large quantities (but have little or no real quality or innovation in them), it's because they earn more money off of 50 little games that die a month after it's release than they do spending the time, money, and effort to make a really good game that blows everyone's mind over the course of a few years. There is an old joke about LucasArts and how they have a status quo of 20 Star Wars games a week (while this may not necessarily be literal, it isn't far from the truth). While it is true that some of these "all flash no substance" games may be quite enjoyable, they won't last forever like those by Blizzard Entertainment and Reenactor Entertainment. Electronic Arts is one of the worst when it comes to releasing a bunch of games. Now then, before anyone points out that EA is a publisher and doesn't generally make games (they just use other companies to make them for them, which is how they have so many), please keep in mind that they are (both de facto and de jure) dictators over those littler companies that they own. In fact, I own the 2001 Electronic Arts game, Sub Command. In fact, Electronic Arts is so bad about putting quantity ahead of quality that they put on the box (before and during the game's release) that they would shutdown the multiplayer in December 2001. Now that is just pathetic, and not just because you should never shutdown multiplayer, but also because they planned for the game to go under prior to it's release. Then, they went off and made a sequel, I mean really, what the hell! So, does anyone else here feel as I do?

Sorry but the lack of paragraphing is making your post difficult to read.

From the viewpoint of an aspiring gamedev, I'd say this in fairness to the other game companies; that a lot of the more excellent ideas were broached upon in the early 80s, and by the 90s the markets of FPS, RTS and such were slowly formed based on what had happened in the first twenty years.

So we're into the 4th decade of videogames, and ideas are slowly becoming merged together (lookie, we have ultimate lolfails like Raven Squad and decent ones like Borderlands). We've seen a number of attempts EA have tried at cross-genre gameplay... let's just say they didn't end very well. Ultimately, a company like EA is concerned about the bottom line, rather than the quality and longevity of games, that much is almost a given. If things were as you have said it, then there wouldn't be so many FIFA 20XX games out in the market, we've seen so many of it it isn't even funny and it drags other companies like Konami to develop their own so they can catch up.

Ultimately, EA is now controlled by what I surmise as moneygrubbers, which means I am on your wavelength of thought. Look at how the Spore validation turned out, and oh look EA doesn't really care, eh?

As for longevity of videogames though, blame it on the increasing pace of society. We want great things, and we can't have enough of it in time. Therefore there's this trend whereby the big companies push the glittery onto the market early, causing the slow-and-steadys to lose out even though after a while it's apparent that EA doesn't really bother about the finished product more than the fact the games are being shoved out of factories, so yea. If there must be blame, perhaps it's both the world at large and these moneygrubbers *shrug*

For those who can't read latin, what Lolginer is basically saying is:

Video game companies are concerned less with how much their consumers enjoy their products, and more about business. They're not in it for you. They're in it to make money. If a publisher or developer had two project proposals, each requiring the same investment capital and each yielding the same market return, but one game would only hold gamers' attention for a month and the other for five years, which do you think they would go for? The one that leaves gamers wanting another, or the one that keeps them happy so they don't feel the need to buy anything else?

There's still some good stuff with EA's name on it. See: Henry Hatsworth.

But yeah, I've more or less stopped buying new games. Shit's just too expensive to keep up with.

This map has been deleted on the request of its creator. It is no longer available.

I agree to awp. Companies have to keep on making games and the amount of contents are not in their interests. Most of RPGs have the same cycle of "Quest - done - another Quest" after a story or two. Games with Online somehow doesn't work in package games neither. The only way they are costing is connection (or none). I'm not sure if the connection incomes are enough to run the company.

Quality gamer, sounds racist.

bmin11 wrote:

I'm not sure if the connection incomes are enough to run the company.

Depends on the game - most MMOs are free to download or cost like 2 dollars in a store because almost all their income comes from subscription fees - hell, I've found a copy of WoW (box and all) on the street before.

Diokatsu wrote:

I think people spend way too much time judging other people's taste in games and not enough time just finding games that they like and being contented.

Amen.

I like games with some amount of longevity to their lifespan like LBP and other such community-driven things (osu!, anyone?), but that doesn't mean I'll just play those. A lot of those sort of things have longevity because they're just easy enough to do whenever you want to kill some time. I pick up LittleBigPlanet when I just feel like doing a quick online level or two to see what people are cranking out, kinda like some people fire up Diablo to take on a few waves of this or that and loot the corpses in hopes of something moderately shinier than they already have.

Basically, anything with a community component has a good chance of hanging around.

And this entire concept has me staring at my BlastWorks box, wondering...

Just because a game doesn't have lasting appeal doesn't mean it can't be appealing while it lasts. Spend a few evenings doing nothing but playing it, enjoy the experience, maybe pick it up at some point in the distant future but until then, let it sit on the shelf. A lot of "classic" games are like that- I have fond memories of the Mario series but I'm not all that inclined to pick up SMB3 for another playthrough.

awp wrote:

Depends on the game - most MMOs are free to download or cost like 2 dollars in a store because almost all their income comes from subscription fees - hell, I've found a copy of WoW (box and all) on the street before.

Shit man, the drop rate on that thing's like 0.1%. From a rare mob.

I should play through the original four Mario games, I do have an All Stars cartridge...