Gaming Industry Down The Drain?

[V-Gamer]

Anyone feel like the gaming industry (not all of it) is starting get watered down? Losing originality and only caring about the money rather than the entertainment their games bring, same goes for consoles. Below are a few examples:

Blizzard and World Of Warcraft for example; they're making the game so ridiculously easy just to reach out to new casual audiences that they're losing their loyal players.

EA releasing a new Madden game every year with a few new players on the teams and new box art.

Companies releasing Shrek, Harry Potter, Chronicles of Narnia, Kung-Fu Panda, Lego Games just to reach out to the younger audiences.

Microsoft releasing advertisements on, and before Mother's Day trying to tell you your Mother would like an Xbox 360. lol... right.

What's next? Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and YouTube on the Xbox, PS3 or Wii? Are they going to add a Hulu tab too? Are they going to have paid advertisements on loading screens and before you turn off your console?

I mean, sure there are a lot of promising original games in the future, but it seems like a large portion of the industry is just trying to make as much money as possible. There's also a lot of franchises now that are being milked, Call of Duty, Mario games, Guitar Hero Games, sorry to say it but I think Halo is starting to get milked. With the new RTS and Recon coming up. The list goes on.

There will still be companies who stay true to the fans they have, but for how long? Who knows when they'll sell out. Is only PC gaming the way of the future because your computer cannot be updated to the point of where you see only advertisements when you turn it on?

Just something I was thinking about. I'd like to hear some of your opinions and comments. :)

[Patrucci]

Yeah, I agree with you, it is going down.

The movie industry is going in the same direction, except they are now getting idea's from games.

[Slim Trashman]

Well from a financial standpoint, the gaming industry is actually thriving under the current economic conditions in contrast to other industries generally suffering.

Buuut actually related to what you're saying, the industry is trying to become more mainstream, which is great for the industry, but may not be so for traditional gamers.

And yeah, a lot franchises are releasing a lot more titles, probably the most prominent being Guitar Hero. By the end of 2009, SIX new Guitar Hero games will have been released, including GH: Metallica, Smash Hits, On Tour: Modern Hits, Van Halen, Band Hero, and Guiter Hero 5.

Now as much as I love Guitar Hero, that just seems insane. Thing is though, Neversoft and other developers simply realize that these games sell, so of course they're going to keep dishing out more to make money. Unfortunately gaming has become very focused around making money.

[DY]

Money makes the world go round good sirs.

[Slim Trashman]

Actually angular momentum makes the world go round.

[DY]

Science is not the issue here Slim :mad:

[Slim Trashman]

Science is YOUR issue DY :mad:

[lillb]

Money is generally the top priority for these companies, which is fine as long as we can get quality titles rather than rehashing the same titles over and over. Of course this trend can be blamed on gamers, casual or more hardcore. If Madden sells millions of copies every year despite how little effort is put in to improve each next game, why would the company spend more time or money when it will sell anyways.

I hope there remains to be atleast a niche for more hardcore gamers and the whole industry doesn't jump on the casual gamer bandwagon.

[TwistedArachnid]

Slim stay outta my salmon bushes...I mean...

Personally I don't see how Mario and Call of Duty are being milked since the recent games have been pretty solid. I always considered milked being A) Releasing a gajillion games in a short amount of time in a series (IE: Guitar Hero), or B) Releasing a ton of crappy games to get money from name recognition.

But I do agree, originality is slowly dying out and things are becoming ridiculous with some developers. However, not all developers are like this.

On the issue of companies not caring? I personally believe they became more into the money somewhere towards the end of the N64 and such. Before then companies were more open, had funner websites, and everything. Now? Everyone's trying to look all business like and adult. Even freakin Nintendo and McDonalds have websites that look like they belong on the stock exchange.

(Side note: I find it funny that spell check marked McDonalds as misspelled, but Nintendo was perfectly fine...)

[Holster]

Yeah, definitely agree with you on this, they're just bothered about the money and these games just lack some good gameplay and get boring. Like the DLC released after every game, it could have easily be included on the game but they release it in seperate packs knowing people will pay for it. It really pisses me off that CoD5 cost £40 anyway then there's the DLC released and that's another £8! I do like RE5 but they've absolutely changed the whole thing! There's no survival horror it's just action now, and I read online they had a £70m budget, they could do a lot fucking better.
It's getting hard to afford for me and i'm getting really bored of my PS3 so I might sell up and stick to the older games. I've started playing PS2 and absolutely love it again.