Other than graphics and sound, how have our expectations of games changed?
I was thinking about this after reading the "I hate the I don't care about graphics only the gameplay thread." Leaving graphics and sound discussion behind, what else has shifted in gamer's expectations and perceptions of games?
Going back to the NES, when I was a kid, just the idea of an overworld with sub-levels was incredibly immersive. Games that mirrored reality in the smallest ways, like the night to day changes in Simon's Quest, blew my mind.
Also consider the fact that a lot of us are now used to really long pieces of narrative. When Final Fantasy 7 exploded I bought a copy on whim, having stuck to PS1 platformers and shooters before it. I'd never owned a SNES or PC. In the era before digital VOD for the masses or even TV on DVD, Final Fantasy 7 was the first time I'd experienced a story over two and a half hours that wasn't in a novel. It's hard to explain to younger people today, but that experience of playing that game, just the literal length of it, was a major shift in how I perceived the possibilities of digital pop culture.
Do you have any similiar shifts in perspective?
Going back to the NES, when I was a kid, just the idea of an overworld with sub-levels was incredibly immersive. Games that mirrored reality in the smallest ways, like the night to day changes in Simon's Quest, blew my mind.
Also consider the fact that a lot of us are now used to really long pieces of narrative. When Final Fantasy 7 exploded I bought a copy on whim, having stuck to PS1 platformers and shooters before it. I'd never owned a SNES or PC. In the era before digital VOD for the masses or even TV on DVD, Final Fantasy 7 was the first time I'd experienced a story over two and a half hours that wasn't in a novel. It's hard to explain to younger people today, but that experience of playing that game, just the literal length of it, was a major shift in how I perceived the possibilities of digital pop culture.
Do you have any similiar shifts in perspective?
Comments
For me, I'm much more critical on games using clichés and tropes, or just getting their storylines in a rut. Nothing like starting a new game, and trying to guess who will die, and getting it right half way to the event.
Zelda second quest, Zelda LttP darkworld, and SotN's inverted castle also raised the bar for me on game design\post gameplay. I dislike it when there's nothing like the tower in Parasite Even to play with on a second runthrough; seems kind of dull without it.
Still, despite my favorite PC games being freemium (League of Legends, and Team Fortress 2), I absolutely despise that this is the direction things are going in. Our expectations have changed from "Wow, this game is free!" to "Damn it, this game is free"
2) Long narratives and large amounts of cutscenes. The uncanny valley of trying to create photorealistic character models and the voice acting, full of cliches, that comes with it results in extremely short gameplay sessions (followed by the feeling of unaccomplishment and boredom).
Most have a handholding period at the beginning of the game to teach you the mechanics and buttons, far different than just reading the manual and learning as you went along.
This. This is by far the biggest issue I have with modern games. I don't mind if they have an optional tutorial, or one that you can skip, but don't force me into a long tutorial that kills any excitement I had for the game going in. I think a good game introduces new game mechanics into the game gradually in an intuitive way. Bad games try to make you memorize every aspect of the game's controls at the beginning.
The narrative behind games can also get annoying, especially if the cutscenes take up more time than actual gameplay. The sort of game where you play for five minutes, then watch a 5-minute cutscene sandwiched between loading screens. Maybe it's just me, but there have only been a handful of games where I was really engrossed by the story and couldn't wait for the story to progress. Most of the time I just want to keep playing the game.
brapp brapp grenade brapp brapp
Quests went from accepting them and then figuring out where to go from there, to accepting them and going to map marker A 150m from your current point
Over abundance of voice acting, I actually enjoy reading text in game, but I do like voice acting when it fits well and doesn't sound forced but there's just so much of it and it's sad that it's expected and games like Mario and Zelda get flak and hate for not having voice acting (for the most part).
3 different editions and limited packages for anything that sells well, and even for things that don't.
Accepting that day 1 patches and day 1 DLC exists
Expansion packs are cut from the game and then sold instead of created afterwards and then sold
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy modern games, these are just some of the things that are in current gaming that weren't present 15 years ago
There is no such thing as 'Game Over' anymore... you cannot die in most cases, and you don't have to restart from the beginning anymore if you do. Games play far too nice today, I think. I liked the challenge of having only 3 lives to finish an entire game, and being able to lose one of them by touching an enemy once lol.
Great point! I totally miss that concept.
Look no further than comparing NHL '94 to NHL 2016. NHL '94 was an absolute blast to play. Somewhat arcade-like in its presentation and execution, it was just a simple pick up and play game of hockey that was incredibly fun to play. I'd call a friend over and we'd play it all day long. NHL 2016 has 25 different actions mapped to the controller, deep create-a-player and team management facets of the game. Drafts, seasons, trade deadlines, all sorts of bells and whistles that were added over the years. It's downright exhausting to play, and the first time you boot it up you'll spend 2 hours dicking around with menus before the puck ever drops. I think that's the difference between the games of yesterday and today.
I understand that to some degree expansion of these simple concepts has been necessary, but in my opinion many of today's developers have forgotten the most important part of Gamepro's old rating scale: the fun factor.
True video games (originally games of skill) died alongside the arcade culture back in the early 2000s. What we are left with now are pathetic interactive movies masquerading under the guise of "video games". They are more of a virtual babysitter than a true game.
Three posts hating on modern games in one day! Impressive!
Who pooped in your Cheerios, grandpa?
True video games (originally games of skill) died alongside the arcade culture back in the early 2000s. What we are left with now are pathetic interactive movies masquerading under the guise of "video games". They are more of a virtual babysitter than a true game.
Three posts hating on modern games in one day! Impressive!
Who pooped in your Cheerios, grandpa?
Only 3? I'm sure you could dig up more than that if you looked. Someone's got to call this trash out for what it is.
True video games (originally games of skill) died alongside the arcade culture back in the early 2000s. What we are left with now are pathetic interactive movies masquerading under the guise of "video games". They are more of a virtual babysitter than a true game.
Three posts hating on modern games in one day! Impressive!
Who pooped in your Cheerios, grandpa?
Only 3? I'm sure you could dig up more than that if you looked. Someone's got to call this trash out for what it is.
Much like most modern cinema, games are heading in a direction that goes with the times. People are lazier and dumber now and so are the games and movies. That's why I choose to ignore most newer movies and all new games (save for the newer side-scrolling Mario titles) and just focus on what I dig the most. It also means I don't have to worry about shit stores like Gamestop or Best Buy or whatever. To me they barely exist, and that's how it oughta be.
Preach on brother. The consumers (I won't call them gamers because they aren't) of this junk are just completly undiscerning.
Then it seemed like the 360/PS3 era was all about bigger longer games, and everything started to turn into a huge 25, 50, 100 hour experience. If you tried to put out a 10 hour game it was considered a one and done rental with no replay value and not worth full retail price.
And now I hear more and more, that games are too long and have too much filler, so I think we are going to see the return of more tighter moderate sized games.
Much like most modern cinema, games are heading in a direction that goes with the times. People are lazier and dumber now and so are the games and movies. That's why I choose to ignore most newer movies and all new games (save for the newer side-scrolling Mario titles) and just focus on what I dig the most. It also means I don't have to worry about shit stores like Gamestop or Best Buy or whatever. To me they barely exist, and that's how it oughta be.
I couldn't have put it better myself!
I've welcomed that change though. As a father and husband, I barely get any dedicated playing time. Definitely not in scheduled chunks. I enjoy being able to save and keep most of my progress when the baby wakes up from a nap.
As far as expectations go, I think most current gamers demand a balanced online multiplayer, especially if your game has guns in it. Even if it's a game that shouldn't have one, or shouldn't need one, the dev is almost expected to trot out some from of online multiplayer.
I also think current day gamers not only expect the hand-holding tutorial, but also many more opportunities to save if not the ability to save at any time. On one hand, it takes out the "challenge" of some games, but I actually prefer being able to save or put down a game at almost any time, since I rarely get to play for hours and hours straight anymore. It's one of my favorite functions of the Retron 5 as well: it'll save the exact spot where you are in a game, even if the game is removed or the console is turned off.
Finally, I think people have just accepted/expect that unlockables are now something you pay for instead of something you earn during gameplay, which is BS.
The satisfaction of beating new games is absolutely horrible.........Nothing has ever made me jump off the couch or scream like I have when I have beaten some of the 8-16 bit era games especially the difficult ones.
Dark Souls 1 gave me many of those "jump off the couch" moments. But yes I agree that they not as frequent as back in the previous generations.
This feeling DOES NOT EXIST with modern games, because there is no penalty for failure, no "GAME OVER". Without a penalty for failure there is no skill requirement, you aren't even playing a "game" (in the traditional sense), and there is no sense of accomplishment for actually beating the game since there was nothing at stake. Anyone with a pulse can slug their way through a modern "AAA" game, even people that suck or never even touched a video game before.
Today's AAA releases on PlayStation and Xbox are nothing more than polygonal FMV games, with plenty of cutscenes and storytelling. Games have completely been corrupted into wannabe movies.
Heck, the PS4 / Xbone is nothing more than a glorified Phillips CD-i. Both are multimedia devices, with games being an afterthought.
There really isn't anything like the feeling of nervousness and anxiety of being near the very end of the game of a 1cc or no death run of a difficulty game. Dying can mean an hour down the toilet and a restart from scratch. For people that haven't experienced it perhaps you can relate to watching a sports game (or playing in one) where it's coming down to the end and everything is on the line in the last minute.
This feeling DOES NOT EXIST with modern games, because there is no penalty for failure, no "GAME OVER". Without a penalty for failure there is no skill requirement, you aren't even playing a "game" (in the traditional sense), and there is no sense of accomplishment for actually beating the game since there was nothing at stake. Anyone with a pulse can slug their way through a modern "AAA" game, even people that suck or never even touched a video game before.
While I am on your side with this 100%.......they are simply just appealing to the mass-market and want to make as much money as possible. From a business perspective it makes perfect sense.
Expectations have definitely changed, for the worse.
Today's AAA releases on PlayStation and Xbox are nothing more than polygonal FMV games, with plenty of cutscenes and storytelling. Games have completely been corrupted into wannabe movies.
Heck, the PS4 / Xbone is nothing more than a glorified Phillips CD-i. Both are multimedia devices, with games being an afterthought.
God damn you are so right about that. Modern "AAA gaming" is the full realization of what those shitty FMV games of the early 90s were trying to do. These "games" with quicktime events and gratuitous cutscenes are really nothing more than the fucking 1980's Laser Disc dragon's lair in newer clothes.
True gaming has pretty much been dead since the rise of the Xbox360 and PS3 mass casual audience.