Is The Face of Game Design Changing?
Published Sunday 22 Aug 2010 12:10pm |
9
Tags: Motion, casual, Hardcore, Wii, PS3, 360
2006 was the year game design changed forever. Gaming industry juggernauts Nintendo shocked and wowed gaming fans and critics alike when the so called ‘babyish’ Nintendo Wii was released. Up to this point, Nintendo was often the butt of all jokes with its so called gimmicky motion controls.
Who’s laughing now? Nintendo that’s who, laughing all the way to the bank that is. Since its release the Wii has been breaking sales records all around the world. While Sony’s PS2 may have opened the door to the casual market with games like Buzz and Singstar, the Wii has full on blasted the door down on this market. The latest numbers have The Wii at least 30 million units sold ahead of the PS3 and 360 respectivly.
Microsoft and Sony are now in catchup mode despite the fact that they all launched around the same time. If we fast forward to 2010, we clearly see this as fact. E3 2010 was the moment both Microsoft and Sony admitted casual defeat by announcing their respective motion control devices (Move, Kinect) which will be in direct competition with the Wii.
I personally am not a fan of the current trend of motion controls. Most games released with motion controls in mind seem to be directed at Soccer mums and children. However as a 20 year old male, I prefer the games I play to be of the more mature type. Game’s for me have developed so far as a medium that for me the story telling and production values hold just as much importance as the gameplay itself. So as much fun as it is to play table tennis on the Wii by waving your arms about, I still prefer having a basic control pad in my hand. Gaming for me is a hobby in which I can relax and just play, not a full on gym like session where I’m waving my arms about like a loony.
Right now the industry seems to be at a crossroads. But why cant the two consumer groups co-exist? Sony seem to be leading the way with this idea by design ing hard-core games which also work with the casual motion controls. Hopefully these type of games bring in the sales figures so we aren’t completely bombarded with shovel ware titles that have gimmicky motion controls ala 90% of the Wii's library.
So game design is changing and in my eyes it may not be for the best. Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft are all huge companies that make allot of money and if its motion controls that are bringing in the dollars well then we will see allot more of this. But as long as your Call of Dutys, Halos, and Uncharteds keep on pumping out and raking in numbers of the box office kind, there will always remain a place for the more traditional gamer.
So what do you make off all this motion, casual, hardcore stuff. Will it move the industray forward? Or is it all just a phase like Pokemon?
COMMENTS (9)
And I believe its a fad...attempting to keep the console market alive for as long as they can before they drop the next gen consoles. Making redundant hardware and charging outrageous prices is not a cool way to do it though.
Perfect example = NFS: Hot Pursuit 2010. If EVER there was a match made in heaven, it is the oldskool NFS premise - not the more recent Underground/Carbon/Shift sh*te - reworked by the guys who created Burnout 3, which has been scientifically proven to be the best arcade racer ever made.
As with the way that the focal point of the just-gone E3 Forza game was the stupid Kinect compatibility, a disproportionate amount of marketing energy has gone into the fact that NFS 2010 has Facebook compatibility (or some crap like that) and your scores are instantly updated against your mates or whoever. This is about the biggest "WHO GIVES A RAT'S ARSE?" I can muster.
Comparatively little emphasis has been given to those niceties like, ooh I don't know, the car roster, track design and count, game modes, soundtrack, and framerate, amongst other supposedly unimportant things. But who cares about all that, as long as it works with Facebook (and Kinect) right?
Good blog, grats on winning comp!
This has continued with more and more action going into so-called RPG's and indeed RTS's and Action-Adventures. Bioshock and Mass Effect are the RPG's of the multiformat market, Company of Heroes and World in Conflict are the RTS's of a multiformat market and, of course now, with the Wii included, we will never see another Morrowind, or Beyond Good and Evil, or Psychonauts, or The Longest Journey or GTA San Andreas, etc.
Gaming will become more and more bland, trying to please everyone and pleasing no one, and then it will disappear when 3D TV or some other entertainment gets invented!
You know an industry is on decline when you see that the fast growing genre in gaming today, is retro gaming! Whether it's Box Live, Sony Arcade or DOSBox or GOG.com, this is where the growth is in gaming, not the new titles, where 85% of games released don't make a profit!
I personally am interested to see what games come out of this new wave of motion control, but not so much that I'm going to buy the Move right now. But from looking at upcoming games like Metal Gear Solid: Rising and just imagining the possibility of that type of game with motion control support would be a gratifying reason to get it or try it out.
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