Preface: With opinion divided over the thoughts expressed in this article I would like to impress upon anyone reading it that this is solely one mans opinion and should be taken as such. With that said I welcome anyones thoughts or reactions on the matter.
With 2010 still shiny and brand new, I wanted to address something close to my heart: a disturbing trend with action properties that I’ve noticed in recent gaming. With Bayonetta receiving rave reviews in all the mainstream media, Darksiders garnering very positive scores across the board, Dante’s Inferno lurking somewhere in the near future and, of course, the shadow of God Of War 3 looming over them all, I am beginning to wonder where gaming is headed in 2010.
Now don’t get me wrong, I can see the appeal of games like Bayonetta and Dante’s Inferno. And, sure, I’ll even enjoy them for a few days, but, after a while, I know I’ll find them underwhelming and lacking in depth and substance. Apart from a minority of modern games, such as Demon’s Souls (2009) and Heavy Rain (both PS3 exclusives), I am certain that we are witnessing the beginning of the breakdown of hardcore ‘real’, gaming.
Here’s why.
Do you remember in November 2006 when the Ninendo Wii was released? Everyone was convinced that motion controls were the future, and that hardcore games for adults would soon make proper use of the features. All well and good, but now, looking back on the last few years since that supposed game-changer, and all I can see is pointless, brainless, mind-numbing casual gaming crap.
Gaming’s latest revolution has given us an industry devoted to stuffing our TV’s with bite-size, substance-less party games with no creative merit whatsoever. And why do this? MONEY. Yes, there’s money to be had in gaming: in Wii balance boards, in Dance Dance Revolution mats and in Blockbuster Movie tie-ins. There’s money to be made in endless sequels such as Halo: ODST (A series Reaching for yet more cash), Final Fantasy XIII or Gran Turismo 5 with ‘incredible ideas’, such as playing as a different character in a dubiously different story or slight upgrade in graphics. But most ly, there’s money to be made in so called, ‘casual’ gaming, and everyone wants a piece of the pie. Project Natal and the PS3 motion control just confirm this fact – pointless pieces of technology designed to cash in on the never ending Wii craze.
‘But whats the problem with that?’ I hear you say, ‘I like being able to sit down with my gran and my little niece and my son and my dad and my seven mates all in one room for a nice Hello-Kitty-Halo-Online-MW2-MotionPlus-Wii-fitness-balance-boarding session. Gaming is for the people! Gaming is for everyone!’
The problem with that comment, is that it devalues the art of gaming (for there is art in videogames), making it little more than staring brainlessly at flashing lights on a screen. This brings me back to 2010’s action gaming extravaganza. Nowadays, publishers only seem interested in pushing out the next big action game as quickly as possible with no concern for innovation, inventiveness, or for hardcore gamers (Bayonetta, Dante’s Inferno, GOW3: DMC and the original GOW did that already).
Action games are great, but where’s the depth? Where’s the intriguing plotline that DOESN’T have your character die in a nuclear explosion? Where’s the gameplay that encourages skill rather than encourages running around with a knife annoying people? Where’s the combat system that doesn’t reward button mashers? Where are the countless other things that hardcore gamers like me wish they could find in gaming today?
The answer? Publishers don’t care about you, the hardcore gamer. They care about the bottom line, they care about money, they care about casual gaming. They don’t want to make the innovative games or the risky games, they don’t want to take things in new directions. It’s safer to take an old mechanic and an old premise and dress it up in new clothes so it looks original. So they’ll re-use and re-hash and water-down original IPs until they can be spoon fed to the masses, each year, for £60, or $60 or €60 a slurp (Don’t get me started on the price of games).
Where’s my evidence to back up this outrageous claim that may bring the entire internet fanboy population down on my head? It’s all around you. Pick up one of many games released recently, such as Bayonetta, Darksiders, Halo ODST, MW2 or a host of others and tell me that it isn’t a derivative piece of crap devoid of ideas and innovation. I’m tired of reading about the ‘next big thing’, which is actually the same as something that was around several years ago, but the mainstream media have forgotten.
I want to old days back, where I would spend hours in games stores marveling at the imagination on display. Now, all I have to do is fight my way through hordes of screaming kids and confused parents just so that I can come home and be called a ‘fag’ by a 13-year-old on XBOX live.
2010 – The Death of Real Gaming. It’s closer that you think.
EDIT: I added a response to many of the readers comments on N4G, viewable here.
Phonicx is an English Gamer living in Europe. He's been gaming for over a decade and prefers FPS, RTS and RPG games.
Currently playing: Demon's Souls (PS3) & Heroes of Newerth Beta (PC) 
I agree, there are too many game developers nowadays who just want to make an easy buck and casual gaming is where the money is because the audience is so large. Games companies have finally worked out how to reach the non-hardcore audience, so they aren’t so reliant on the ‘hardcore’ group of gamers. If you think about it though, they are businesses wanting to maximise profits for shareholders so you can’t complain too much.
What I’m really concerned about is that the next Zelda (coming out this year aparrently
) is going to be ‘casualised’. I remember reading something about Miyamoto saying it they were planning on making it more appealing to the casual audience.
Let’s not kid ourselves here, it will get much, much worse. If you think having endless repetitions of the same ‘winning’ formula is bad, imagine a world where each game lasts only ten minutes and is available on three platforms; the iPhone, the TV and the iPhoneTV. Games will become polarised. On the one hand the stock of mass produced ‘lite’ games, on the other the big budget blockbusters of which we have started to see the first true examples in the last couple of years. I have to say I find the former particularly dreadful. At least with the huge titles their predictability is somewhat alleviated by sheer quality of production. With the ‘lite’ games, I just can’t imagine myself ever wanting to play something that was made to be competition for a bingo sim.
Theif 2: The Metal Age, and Deus Ex. These are STILL the benchmark for action, adventure, RPG, stealth games. They were released in 2000. That’s 10 years ago. Since then, developers have only attempted to ‘equal’, what those games achieved. I think the slow move from ‘hardcore’, gaming on the PC, to a dilluted version of ‘hardcore’, on next gen consoles, is part of the problem. Consoles have got the power now, but the vision of those Millenium PC Exclusives – a golden age, in my opinion – has been lost in the effort to ‘casualise’ and reinvigorate the gaming market for a wider audience. It had to be done. But it’s a case of one step forward, two steps back.
First off I will say I agree about your statements about the Wii and what it has done for gaming. With that said, I think aside from MS and Sony adding motion controls (neither of which will be very popular, and Sony is certainly not pushing their tech to the forefront like MS so they might be better off…) The situation with the Wii is isolated only to the Wii and Activision. The Wii is a cash cow made to cater to new gamers who really don’t know any better, and Activision is just full of greedy pricks who don’t even release full games anymore with their highly priced peripherals.
But I must disagree with many of your other points. Business is always about greed, true, but your greed angle would carry more weight if the games that you mentioned weren’t all rated ‘M’. It seems to me that they limit their audience by going for that rating, and they do this to add in some of the gameplay and themes that hardcore gamers will enjoy. Now I’m not saying that a game is a hardcore game just because of an ‘M’ rating, I’m just saying that if greed was that much of a factor they would tone it down to a ‘teen’ rating so the game could more easily reach a wider audience.
Also, I disagree with your point regarding innovation in games. Back in the day it was easy to give the appearance of innovation in a new game because the hardware limited what could be done. Things needed a linear path with recurring themes in order to make a game work, so it was easier for one publisher to do things one way, and then in their next game to do it completely differently so it may seem innovative but really they just needed to choose one method of gameplay or another due to limitations. Think of the evolution of Super Mario Brothers 1, 2, and 3 on the NES. True, Nintendo learned how to optimize their code, but really there was just so much room for innovation that they could create completely different gameplay elements in SMB3.
Now fast forward to today and realize that most everything has been done, and the hardware really doesn’t limit what can be done in a game nearly as much. The innovation must come with quality of the games visuals and presentation (artwork like you said) and the story, acting and production values. In terms of gameplay innovations, there isn’t much left that can be done with a standard controller. Motion controls would be the next step in immersion, but you already know where that road is leading.
So I say that standard hardcore gaming is alive and well on the PS3 and 360. It becomes more a matter of taste versus whether you believe that innovation has propelled the game to the next level of ‘hardcore’.
I’d like to thank ‘RuddigerPez’ for a well thought out and intelligent response. This is much appreciated! Regarding what you have said I think that you raise many valid points.
Regarding your thoughts on all of the games I mentioned being M rated, the reason I did this was due to the fact that it is my opinion that the M rated games are the very ones being marketed to ‘hardcore gamers’ as ‘hardcore games’ when they are in fact watered down mush. nobody wants to be know as a casual played, everyone thinks they are a real gamer regardless of how long and how much they play. The publishers pander to this by taking games that are not of that standard and marketing them as such so that people who rarely pick up a pad or keyboard and mouse can feel like they are part of the ‘scene’. Of course this doesn’t ring true in many cases but it seems to me to be how things are progressing over all.
Regarding your points about innovation in gaming, I do admit that innovation becomes a lot more difficult and less likely the more saturated a medium becomes. This is definitely so in gaming, but it seems to me that with the millions being poured in to modern blockbuster games such as MW2 a little more could be done. After all some games such as the upcoming Heavy Rain prove that there is still room for innovation, even though it may not fall in to one of the current accepted game ‘categories’ such as FPS, RTS, 3rd Person action etc.
I agree that some elements of hardcore gaming are alive, Demon’s Souls as mentioned in my article almost proves this single handedly. However as I also mentioned my fears lie not so much in the present, but with the future of my favourite past time.
Overall you are right, hardcore IS a matter of taste, but I don’t want to compromise my taste in order to be able to sample what the industry deems is hardcore. I want to make up my own mind and there is simply not enough out there right now to allow for that.
– Phonicx (post author)
I couldnt have said it better, this is True…and let me tell you something, my interest in gaming has been dieing ever since. MESSAGE TO ALL GREEDY EVIL CORPORATE NEW WORLD ORDER JERKS: I’ve been playing games since the 70′s, you cant fool me or cheat me, I REFUSE VEHMENTLY to PAY FOR, SUPPORT your SHOVELWARE games… when i tell you to finally kiss my ASS and not play your stinking games any longer..I wont be be back…in fact i will become an ADVOCATE for EXPOSING YOUR LIES!!!!
The person who wrote this article sounds like he doesn’t have a clue about the games industry. You’re condemning FF and GT for being endless sequels when we haven’t had a full game in either of those franchises since the days of the PS2??? WTF have you been smoking? By your logic, if a game is a sequel, it’s automatically rushed and doesn’t add anything new. So if they make a Demon’s Souls 2 or a Heavy Rain 2 would you say the same about them? This article is garbage.
2010 is going to be one of the best years for gaming, ESPECIALLY hardcore gaming. The next entries in the Final Fantasy, God Of War, Gran Turismo, Pokemon, Mario, Fallout and Metal Gear Solid (Assuming it comes out this year) franchises are going to sell extremely well, why? Because REAL gamers who enjoy real games will buy them.
If you’re only looking for new IP’s then there’s always Heavy Rain, White Knight Chronicles and The Last Guardian but if you’re only interested in a game that’s brand new and automatically say a franchise is crap just because the devs want to give the fans more of a good thing then you don’t have any right calling yourself a “Real” gamer.
- David,
I wrote this article and although I won’t get in to my reasons for doing so here if you check out the comments on N4G using the link at the bottom of the article I have posted responses to many of the same points that you raise. Suffice to say I feel very strongly about some of the things I mention and, although they are only my opinion, I think that having a strong opinion at all on the matter qualifies the both of us as ‘Real’ gamers. After all a real gamer is someone who thinks and feels about their chosen past time rather than see’s it as merely a simple distraction.
Its clear that we disagree on a lot of things and I don’t think that anything I say here will change your mind however I do welcome your thoughts on the matter. I would like to point out that sequels are fine by me, but I draw the line at running a franchise in to the proverbial ground just for the sake of making more money. Giving gamers more of what they love is fine, but patronising them by giving them just enough to buy the game but not make any real progress is a big problem in my opinion.
I apologise if you found my article to be ill conceived or reactionary, this was not my intent. I only wanted to draw attention that issues which I think deserve discussion.
Anyway, I would like to thank you for taking the time to write a well thought out comment and hope that I can hear your opinion again on any pieces I write in the future.
Hi. I just noticed that your site looks like it has a few code errors at the very top of your website’s page. I’m not sure if everybody is getting this same bugginess when browsing your blog? I am employing a totally different browser than most people, referred to as Opera, so that is what might be causing it? I just wanted to make sure you know. Thanks for posting some great postings and I’ll try to return back with a completely different browser to check things out!
Thanks for that AC, we’ll take a look at it.
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