[Dracko]

haha oh wow
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[negativedge]

insightful as usual, dracko

[parkbench]

[haze]

Civilization was based on a board game. well at least partially.

and it plays like a board game too!

it's still fun and addictive and all, I just don't think it's a great idol of PC/video game design.
I saw some people in the ActionButton comments suggesting Civ as an addition to the list too. that game is getting to me a little.

[Dracko]

[Max Cola]

negativedge has cronies? People on this forum have cronies?

I have nothing but questions for select button today.
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Everybody hurts sometimes

[negativedge]

[Cossix]

I don't have any cronies because I'm invisible :(

[negativedge]

It's because you don't have an avatar

cronies dig avatars

[Cossix]

Is that better

I need validation

[Toups]

hey can I be your cronie?
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[shnozlak]

cronie up
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Mixtapes galore ~ VG MUSIC
ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ http://phantom-photon.tumblr.com/

[Kilroy]

What the hell just happened here? Pretty much everything I was going to say in response to article revolved around carts, horses, chickens and eggs, but now I don't know if it's safe to say it.
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DancefighterRedux | X | X

[Max Cola]

Say it anyway! What the hell.
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Everybody hurts sometimes

[Kilroy]

Well...


First of all, I wonder how much of a popular game's popularity stems from its coverage in some. So when NegativeEdge says that since everyone already knows about GTAIV so it doesn't need to be covered. Well, that's probably true. I imagine though that everyone knows about GTAIV because everyone knew about GTA3. Everyone knew about GTA3 because it got press. Not just gaming press, but also mainstream press. Rockstar used controversy as advertising. That's an entirely different discussion though. Hopefully my current point isn't lost in the potential for it.

A lot of gamers were familiar with the earlier 2d GTA's, but part of what made a game like GTA3 "mainstream" was that it had people playing it who had never played a game before, or who weren't really gamers per se. There are a lot of people, and a lot of games like that. There are guys who own a PS2 and a copy of Madden whateveryear, and that's it. This certainly isn't new, I run into people all the time who have an Atari and a copy of Pong sitting in their basement collecting dust, and that's pretty much as close as they ever got to gaming.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I think a lot of it has to do purely with demographic. Soccer mom might buy DDR Max2 because she heard about it on NPR or from her kid who reads whatevergamingmonthly, but I don't think any amount of coverage would get her to buy God Hand.

There's a false dichotomy here though. The distinction isn't between two different demographics, in the example in the last paragraph, it's between a game which draws in one demographic, and a game which draws in several demographics, at least one of which isn't really gamers. Sales come from appeal not just to large demographics, but to large numbers of demographics. I don't think that means Soccer Mom's interest in the game has to reflect poorly on these people's interest in the game, though. So in that respect I think of this hardcore vs. populist dichotomy as kind of counterproductive and even somewhat damaging.



The other half of it I think has me looking at the economics of gaming. Someone else already brought up a good point. There are games that people here love, that are produced by huge companies, and these wouldn't have been produced unless the companies could afford to sustainably do so. Producing material which is less populist in nature than normal is always going to be a bit of a tough sell, and a risk. So naturally, companies which can afford risk seem more likely to take it.

The exception, of course, seems pretty clearly explainable too. Indy games cost less to produce. They also tend to be cheaper; even free, often enough. However, because of this we see an increase in software as games become easier to produce. I mean, there are countless Flash games out there. A quick trip to Newgrounds will show you how much crap small, independent developers can shovel out. This is just a natural extension of the economics of the situation. Large companies are going to be mostly conservative, with a very selective willingness to take risks. In exchange, they will internally regulate their own products to try and produce something they think a lot of people will like, because if a lot of people like it, they make money.

Conversely, very few people will go hungry if the game they made in Flash or Game Maker or whatever doesn't strike it big, so we get people making stuff like Math Strip 2, because they can, and because for some reason or other they want to. And yes, that's just about the absolute tail end of the spectrum, but this is the point. To try and illustrate a general rule that emerges over the entire spectrum.



To conclude, or basically the TL;DR version:

*Big companies will try to produce popular games
*When they do otherwise, it's because they can afford to. Thanks to popular games
*Small developers are all over the place in terms of what they produce. There will be gems, and there will be shit to dig through to get to them.

Someone apparently said that having a whole bunch of people just producing the game they want wouldn't be a bad thing. That's bullshit. It's transparently bullshit, because that's pretty much definitionally a demographic of one. Which means you're not in it, I'm not in it, even Soccer mom isn't in it. Sales=popularity, there's no getting around it. What we need is developers willing to take risk, but in the hopes that they're popular on some level, not developers whose projects are purely self-interested. Clearly the two aren't exclusive, but I don't think producing something with yourself as your only target audience is the best way to go, unless you as a person just circumstantially embody the zeitgeist, or something.

To go along with that, though, we need people to wade through the sea of less conservative ideas. This is harder work than just being fed things that were designed with the intent of feeding the people who made them, which is what current gaming press does. There's indy gaming press too, though. Of course then maybe our problem is wading through all of our options there.


Oh fuck, you know what I just realized? There isn't even really a problem here. It's just a matter of preference where a person wants to look for their entertainment. I hope I at least explained what the spectrum seems to be, so that people have reasonable expectations about the risk-reward relationship here.

Although I bet everything I just said will probably upset a whole lot of people and pretty much be rejected out of hand, forever. I mean holy shit, I wrote a lot of fucking words. With all those words it would be a miracle if someone didn't find something to take offense at, in there. I didn't even realize how many words I wrote until now. Oh well.
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DancefighterRedux | X | X

[negativedge]

I was actually going to go more in depth with GTA myself. The thing is, GTA3 didn't get press. It was not "supposed" to be a big blockbuster title, but it was because the gamers these publications are supposed to serve understood that it was something big and different and important. From there, the subject matter caused it to explode. Ideally, the people that first played GTA3 and knew it was awesome and represented a bit of a fundamental shift in what we could expect from a 3d environment--well, they should be the ones writing these magazines. GTA3 is hardly alone in this. Half Life, for instance, also got no press. Beyond titles with the possibility for explosive popularity like GTA3, small titles that would nonetheless be appreciated by the readers of these publications are also generally ignored until after the fact. Things are getting a bit better here, I guess--I remember Ico, Shadow of the Colossus and Rez getting decent exposure pre release--but most of the recognition comes after the fact. You can bet the press will be talking up Braid now, but where were they a year ago?

Your bit on demographics is a bit flawed. A video game magazine or website is an example of the specialty press--they don't care about the soccer mom. They're not trying to draw in new people, they're trying to serve the people that are already going to buy GTA IV. Being specialty, it should attempt to claim some mastery over this domain. These people should be hunting for new things. They should be promoting the people and games that are not as readily visible as Microsoft. That is supposed to be their job. Right now, it's just affirmation for the sales charts and review scores crowd. That doesn't help anyone.

[| BLUE | BLACK | PURPLE |]

That's exactly why it's so refreshing to read insert credit. It's hard to do what they are doing. First of all you need the honest to goodness love for diversity, the virtue of open-mindedness, and second, there's no money in it. So there's another virtue needed: passion.

[Cossix]

[Max Cola]

[Kilroy]

negativedge, you're right about a lot of that, though I'm still not sure it's right to say gaming magazines shouldn't cover GTAIV. They should just dedicate more effort to finding and covering hidden gems. If that means they have to cut back on GTAIV coverage, then yeah. That being said I'm pretty sure the gaming press we're complaining about is mostly for profit, so they're about selling magazines/adspace/insider subscriptions, or whatever. Games which have some sort of hype built up about them are easier to sell these things with, and so are games which are easy to hype by some property they either posses intrinsically or had externally imposed upon them. So even among the specialty press, there are distinctions. As a consumer of the press, you made a decision to frequent these boards. That was your own decision. It's been helpful, hasn't it? I would even go so far as to say the measure to which you can complain about other media outlets demonstrates the success you've had with those of your choosing.
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DancefighterRedux | X | X

[bloody heartland]

[bloody heartland]

I'm actually quite unconvinced by all of this, btw. Kotaku has an eye for indie, and the majority of PC gaming publications around here report on mods and fangames. Gillen might very well just be manufacturing a problem.

I enjoyed the coverage up to GTAIV: that's part of the reason I have no problem with big titles being hyped. It's fun to be anticipating things you're looking forward to - certainly the GTAIV coverage was worth my time.

Are indie games being given substandard coverage? I don't think they are.

[negativedge]

[negativedge]

It's also worth noting that the British press is generally held to be quite a bit better than their American equivalents. The structure is the same, though.

[CubaLibre]

[SuperWes]

[bloody heartland]

[taidan]

I think this whole matter of coverage is particularly interesting. I think it can have a tremendous impact. Sure, System Shock 2 and the Fallouts have been cult classic, but no amount of good words was getting people to seek them out in droves. Those people are however talking about Bioshock and Fallout 3, and I think that much of it comes from the gaming press convincing them they should care.

[negativedge]

But Bioshock was meh and Fallout 3 looks horrible.

[taidan]

[CubaLibre]

[Shapermc]

I still don't think Fallout 3 looks horrible. Sorry.

I'm not saying it looks stunning either. At least it has decent aesthetics.
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The bad sleep well at The Gamer's Quarter

[Adilegian]

This seems like a right proper place to post a video.

I was invited on a couple of panels during an INDIE3 event that occurred parallel to E3. One of those was on critical writing about games.

Heeeeeere it is.


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[evnvnv]

Is this the most significant threassurection SB has seen?
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The text will not live forever. The cup are small

[Adilegian]

Thread overture:


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[Felonious Monk]

I couldn't get that far into the article linked in the OP.

Which is funny because i really liked Gillen's runs on Journey into Mystery and the X-Men.

[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

Gillen was always a bit pompous and unwieldy as a game critic but maybe he's much better as an author
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Just another savage day on Planet Earth.

[Brooks]

[Adilegian]

[Brooks]

It just becomes really obvious really quickly that the others don't have your chops