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UNLESS IT CHANGES, THE GAMES INDUSTRY IS HEADING FOR A FALL

20/6/2019

27 Comments

 
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It's happening more and more that I'm buying games with the intention of reviewing them on here, and then... not.

Two of this year's supposedly biggest games, Rage 2 and The Division 2, still sit next to my PS4 in their shrinkwrap, unplayed. That has never happened to me before. Games aren't cheap. Like most of you, I can't really afford to buy games and then not play them, and yet when it comes to playing these big games, it's increasingly turning into a chore.

It's even weirder when it comes to Rage 2 and The Division 2 - sequels to two games that I actually really liked. Rage, in particular, I have a real soft spot for; it was the first game I played after my divorce, and I'd moved into my own place. It helped ground me, and for that reason it'll always be a significant game for me.

But when it comes to the sequel... I mean, it just feels like it'll be more of the same. More shooting. More post-apocalyptic scenes. More zombies and mutants. More death. More explosions...

The Division 2 might not have the zombies and the mutants, but it's still more ruined locations, devoid of life. More litter blowing in the streets, and hollowed-out buildings, and more firearms porn. 

​I think, finally, I'm done. 
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GONE FISHIN'
Days Gone I reviewed a few months back, and I enjoyed it - to a point. It was basically fine. 

Thing is, looking back, I sort of played the game on autopilot. I wasn't engaged with its story, and not even particularly engaged with the gameplay.

The setting was pure The Last of Us, the structure was pure Far Cry. And I'd not long before played Far Cry New Dawn - with yet another post-apocalyptic setting, with more forests and mountains, and communities of survivors, and missions to do this thing, and do that thing, all of which I felt as if I'd done scores of times before, across dozens of games. 

The recent showings at E3 didn't convince me that things are going to improve anytime soon. It was a barrage of familiar images, from games that apparently aren't yet available.

I mean, even if you take away all the post-apocalyptic stuff, even if you lose the guns, the structure of modern blockbuster games has become so familiar - the whole UbiSoft map-mopping model - that you can now play most games reflexively. 

There's generally a structure to movies. When I first started learning screenwriting - self-taught; I didn't pay for an expensive, unnecessary, course - and learned the three-act structure, and the turning points within that, it became so that I could tell you what was going to happen in most films before I'd even started watching. Tell me the length of a film, and I could even tell you when those things are going to happen, almost to the minute.

The next trick was then to learn how to turn this off, so that I could enjoy the films without seeing the workings of it. The best films, however, disguise their structure; exposition will be hidden behind surprising characterisation, or they'll obscure the characters' journeys. They'll subvert expectations, while still being true to a tried-and-tested formula.

Games haven't reached that point yet, and not since the 80s have this industry been so obsessed with copying trends.
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MORASSHOLES
The first step to breaking out of what has becoming morass of over-familiarity is ditching the zombies and post-apocalyptic stuff. People talk about there super-hero fatigue hitting movies, but the reason that hasn't happened is because Marvel is smart enough to give each film its own identity, its own subtle genre spin. 

If the games industry was making movies, every summer blockbuster would be a post-apocalyptic sci-fi, with zombies and grunty alpha males shooting guns and riding bikes around forests. Imagine that; imagine a world where all the biggest films were objectively identical.

That's where the games industry is at right now, and I think I've had enough of it. If I have to shoot another thing in a forest I'm going to start punching walls. 

It's why you're finally seeing more indie game reviews appearing on these pages, because there I at least know I'm going to get something different. It's why I appreciate what Nintendo is doing, why I play more games on my Switch than I ever do on my PS4 or Xbox one. It's why I've finally given in to VR with my Oculus Quest. 

I just crave something different. My tastebuds have become saturated by being fed the same thing over and over and over and over. It has got to change and evolve, or it's going to die. 
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IRRATIONAL ANTHEM
Look at EA's Anthem. It has been a massive failure for both EA and its developer Bioware. Yes, it was kind of broken when it first came out, but that could've been overlooked if everything else about it hadn't felt so bloody prosaic. It was like a sort of gaming jambalaya made up of leftovers found in the back of the fridge. 

The quasi-Iron Man/Gundam characters designs could've been taken from any sci-fi game. The setting was once again another forest/jungle/mountain place, with a bit of RPG world-building thrown in, the structure lifted from Destiny... it was a game with no discernible identity of its own.

It's utterly shameless in its theft, utterly devoid of any creative purpose beyond "If you like that, you might like this..." - the gaming equivalent of an Amazon recommendation.

This happened before, back in the 70s when Pong gave birth to a billion clones of itself, and in the 80s when home computers had a dozen versions of all the major arcade hits. In a way, it wasn't so bad back then - games were cheaper, quicker and easier to make, a new Donkey Kong rip-off was just sort of punted out, without all the marketing hoo-hah telling us it was the new most-important game ever.

Anthem, by contrast, is a Frankenstein's monster of a thing, albeit one which cost hundreds of millions of dollars over its multi-year development cycle. It quite possibly risks bringing down Bioware, and all because it was chasing trends instead of trying to set them.

I mean, I get it; it's scary to spend an inordinate amount of money on an untested idea. Of course it feels safer to chase after what's fashionable and popular. But by doing so, if your timing is off, it backfires, and I see the first signs of those diminishing returns happening.

The games industry quickly needs a course-correction. If the next generation from Sony and Microsoft stand a chance of succeeding, they need to offer something we've not seen countless times.

We need new IPs, fewer sequels, more games which stand out rather than blend in. I want that excitement of the new again, and less feeling like I've seen it all before. If it doesn't happen, I fear that Anthem is just the start of the slide...
27 Comments
Purplephlebas
20/6/2019 10:06:29 am

I see Bioware have done That Game Again With A Slightly Updated Water Animation. Zzzzzzzzzzz.

I want a Rory Stewart simulator for the 1040ST and a quiet place to die

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BodOps
20/6/2019 10:16:13 am

Good points. It's a real shame.

Hopefully Death Stranding is 1.a great game and 2. a commercial success. We need new ideas and game mechanics.

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Fatnick link
20/6/2019 10:25:30 am

"This happened before, back in the 70s when Pong gave birth to a billion clones of itself, and in the 80s when home computers had a dozen versions of all the major arcade hits. In a way, it wasn't so bad back then - games were cheaper, quicker and easier to make"

The relatively rapid pace of hardware development also helped to keep changes in the dominant gameplay styles turning over nicely. Obviously we've moved well beyond the 360 and PS3 in graphic fidelity, but i can't think of any game style that works on the XB1 but would be impossible to recreate on the 360.

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Wapojif
20/6/2019 10:30:57 am

The vast majority of AAA games look very pretty, but are generic and dull to play. More like bad movies than anything else. Far too many gamers obssess over frame rates and minute graphical differences instead of caring about the gameplay.

I've largely ignored the AAA scene for years and stick to Nintendo's output and the incredible indie scene. There's far more creativity there, I just wish people would turn more attention to what's on offer rather than relying on whatever multi-million dollar marketing campaign tells folks to buy.

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Antony
20/6/2019 11:47:03 am

Agreed - although to be fair, LOADS of people pay attention to the indie scene, it's a very healthy place, fortunately.

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Barrie link
20/6/2019 10:56:44 am

You're right to look elsewhere. Too many games feel like "straight to video" and then straight into a bargain bin / cheapo shop DVD wall. One of Rutger Hauer's many bad mostly forgotten films.

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Funky Monkey (of the Internet's "House of Love")
20/6/2019 11:08:55 am

I love a good LEGO Game, and the fact that they're a Genre unto themselves is fascinating. They even come in Sub-genres, like LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Superheroes, LEGO City (which I still need to play), But even though they have the same basic structure for a lot of their gameplay, they still manage to switch it up.

Outside of LEGO games, AAA isn't much good to me, not least because of my limited budget, and their graphical requirements.

And I agree that the Shock of the new is needed. Because right now, there's very little that really gets me going. My Steam wishlist is about 8 games long. And most of those are LEGO, or a couple of retro-esque FPS, including OVERLOAD, the Descent flavoured Shooter that actually spins you in 3 dimensions and 360 degrees of Freedom!

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Antony
20/6/2019 11:52:27 am

Totally agreed, and another spot on article. At the same time, we must remember that we are old (you and me, at least Mr B) and young people don't have that same "see it done it" thing because they haven't yet, or not to the point of saturation.

One thing that constantly freaks me out but is fun - have a look at how many games have 'violence' as the key gameplay mechanic - aside from obvious niches such as sport, racing etc, something like 90% of games have violence at their core. I don't have a problem with violence and despite what I said above, I don't want to sound old. However, does it not automatically limit what a game can be if you start with this? How rare is it to find a "journey" or a "stardew valley"? It's annoying!

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MENTALIST
20/6/2019 12:32:07 pm

I play quite a lot of games, and I don't think one if theme has been largely concerned with killing zombies since Left 4 Dead 2. Which apparently came out in 2009 - man where have *those* ten years gone? I don't care for zombies, but there's been plenty to play whilst avoiding them.

In any case, I think we are at the start of an interesting transition - and actually a promising one, which is the change to a multi-title subscription based model. It's bad for collectors, and the nature of permanent ownership, perhaps, but it has interesting knock-on effects for the way games are funded. Being commissioned to be part of a catalogue ameliorates a fair amount of the commercial risk involved with releasing any particular title. So if things go well, we could see more budget thrown at more novel ideas. Subscriptions represent a fair amount of the money behind the "Golden age of television", which has been going for 20 years now, since the debug of The Sopranos.

Well, that's what I hope happens. Thanks to Microsoft's generous gold-conversion offer, I'm signed up to Game Pass Ultimate until September 2021, so I'll just see how that pans out.

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Gravity Randall
20/6/2019 12:38:56 pm

Mmmm... gaming jambalaya...

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Jim
20/6/2019 01:14:00 pm

You are not the target market for these games though, they are aimed at kids whose decision on what game to buy boils down to how many guns are on the cover (They buy the game even if the pegi rating says no).

And when those kids grow up and want more varied experiences, there will be the next group of kids to take their place.

In all honesty it's just surprising its taken you this many years to get bored of the AAA gun fest.

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Panda
20/6/2019 05:08:21 pm

Totally agree, and an issue that exacerbated it all is the commitment all these publishers are seeking from consumers. If their next AAA game isn’t a 100+ hour torrent of map icons that only have about 15 hours of fresh content, it’s a full time job of a ‘service’ that demands to be the only thing you do (yes, the only thing you do, not just the only game you play).

To have so many products climbing over each other for the very top spot and p*ssing away so much money in the process is actually quite pathetic, especially while games like Sekiro are quietly released with decent production values and make a sensible profit, demonstrating a stable and healthy business model while also - shock - becoming genuine contenders for game of the year.

Fair play if you don’t like From Software games but, as you suggest, you can apply the same principle to Nintendo (funny the number of times I see people pretend they’re the ones who churn out the same game over and over) or countless indies that can only dream of the revenue a failure like Anthem brought in.

In the quest for total domination - not just of the market but our bloomin lives - the AAA studios are becoming less and less relevant, at least to me. Even if I was bored of their uninspired worlds that barely have any design consideration paid to them, I just wouldn’t have the time to get anywhere near what they want me to get out of them.

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Omniro
20/6/2019 05:28:26 pm

To be fair, Rage 2 and The Division 2 don't have zombies in them, but once I saw that Days Gone was a zombie game I was instantly put off. Zombies are the number one most overdone trope and I have zero interest in them.

I enjoyed playing Rage 2 but I skipped most of the dialogue scenes with various NPCs (and there's a lot of it), because ultimately it was just pointless listening to them. It's not like the game was telling some incredible story or anything, and those characters were just there to hand out missions which were all self explanatory.

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Robobob
20/6/2019 07:45:32 pm

If the gaming industry is so obsessed with zombies it ought to put them in really incongruous games/genres.

Like Fifa '19, or Sonic Mania, or Microsoft Flight Simulator. That'd amuse me, at least.

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The Pirate Captain
20/6/2019 08:29:03 pm

Zombie football. That's not actually a terrible idea. Go in too hard on the tackles and you have to play on with one leg. Go to head the ball, and if your head lands in the goal too it counts double, but you have to play on with pretty much no directional control. Nothing above lurch speed.

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Mr. Santa
20/6/2019 08:23:32 pm

I bought a second hand PS3 to play some games I missed out on from that generation but so many of them don't capture my imagination at all: Far Cry, Just Cause, Borderlands... I picked up InFamous cheaply but soon got fed up of it, like when you give up reading a book when you realise that you don't care about any of the protagonists. On the other hand, something like Ratchet & Clank is just fun to play.

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Spiney O'Sullivan
21/6/2019 12:52:40 am

For much of the PS3/Xbox 360 generation I recall feeling that that the focus was too much on increasingly bland open worlds, generic shooters, and safe multi-sequel IPs. I often felt that it lacked the variety that we saw in the PS2/Xbox/Gamecube era, and the growing prevalence of AAA games meant we were seeing fewer and fewer of those riskier middle-of-the-road titles (BBB?) than we had before.

Compared to the mainstream (i.e. non-indie) lineup of the current generation, however, the last one feels like a goldmine of originality and creative risk-taking. It seems like half the games this generation are remasters of last-gen titles, and the other half are The Ubisoft Game Formula with a slightly different coat of paint.

The only thing you can really say for this generation is that there's been some effort to replace the last generation's browns and greys with neon hues, but even then oversaturation is rapidly becoming oversaturated.

That said, maybe it's just me getting old and feeling like everything's been done before and that it's all not as good as it was in my day. In fact, back then it was all fields as far as the eye could see around here...

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James Walker link
21/6/2019 12:42:48 am

I got out at the 360. Got one for my birthday when it was still a current console, played a few games on it and realised it wasn’t that different to my original XBox.
Games and gaming are bollocks these days.

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B3tan Tyronne
21/6/2019 05:53:34 am

Biggest problem with gaming at the moment is that so many many games suffer from `seenitallbefore`itus` and it has got to the stage where I am now playing more and more games from the past.

I have recently started to reply Skyrim again, wastelands 2, dark forces 2, countless 8 and 16 bit titles across various systems and beat sabre on my vive is eating a lot of my time, well that and gorn.

I have rage 2 but prefer Mad Max and Rage 2 actually feels like a step back as the car mechanics are bloody woeful and the shooty buts are so bloody bland.

Innovation has gone out the window and replaced by greed and it will not stop until there is yet another gaming crash as so many of these companies are no longer happy with lots of cash, they want all the cash and that cash well is running very very dry as it cannot keep up.

Never thought I would face the day where I was bored by modern games, but I am and being a gamer for over 38 years of my 46 existing on this spinning globe - that is a great bloody shame.

The only title I am looking forward to is Cyberpunk 2077.

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Lewis
21/6/2019 07:35:05 am

This article is the kind of article that keeps me up at night. It's arguably a personal opinion, wrapped up in anecdotes which is then presented as if it's a deep critism - but I'm not sure it is. Right out the gate you make a bold claim which is ultimately an opinion. Then you try to back it up by referencing your dissatisfaction with two new games that you haven't played yet - so that's arguably dodgy ground to be setting up any arguement with.

I get the impression that really this is just you saying "AAA Games are not interesting to me anymore" and then trying to present that like it says something about the state of the gaming industry. Similar people made similar rants about the attention Call of Duty games, got years ago - that didn't seem to break the industry. Or the popularity of zombie apocalypse games. Trends come and go. I'm honestly surprised you didn't mention Battle Royal during your article.

If I were you, I wouldn't worry too much. Your self-taught degree in screenplay might have ruined the magic of cinema for you, but there's always a new game to play. Keep browsing those indie titles because there are some gems in there. Then maybe one day a big name company will release a game that interests you - if not I'm sure everyone else will continue to enjoy the growth of the gaming industry.

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Ed
21/6/2019 03:05:03 pm

I'd be bored too of all I played was shooters.

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Andy Thomas
21/6/2019 10:55:45 pm

Great article once again, thought this myself about a lot of the AAA games on offer since the original XBox. Had to be partially why I didn’t own a current console between then & the Switch - the games simply didn’t appeal to me. Then again, I grew up with an Acorn Archimedes which has a ton of fairly quirky games with some mechanics that I’ve really seen since or have only found similarities with in some recent Indie games. For example, I loved a weird Laundry-‘em-up (to coin a phrase) called Starch where you had to play thorough various levels of doing laundry either against or cooperating with another player - the closest thing I’ve played & loved to this since is the Overcooked! series. There’s definitely plenty of ideas out the that’ve been done before, but I guess it’s a case of adapting them for a new generation & seeing what works. I’d love to play a modern cross between Overcooked! & Factory Panic, for example.

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Absnerdity
28/6/2019 12:55:13 pm

I agree so much with this entire article, however, one thing stuck with me.

"It's why I appreciate what Nintendo is doing..."

I'm not sure how you can go about saying how so much of the stuff released on the PS4 is so samey, yet praise Nintendo. Nintendo has been doing "samey" for 20 years.

Mario Odyssey (Super Mario 64), Splatoon.. 2, Pokemon (hasn't changed since 1998), Breath of the Wild was 3rd Person Skyrim, Mario Tennis, Mario Party, Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, Paper Mario, Kirby, Xenoblade 2, Smash Bros, Yoshi's World...

Nintendo spent much of this year re-releasing WiiU titles on the Switch.

Nintendo, at least in my opinion, is very much in the same hole every other major publisher is in.

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Panda
28/6/2019 11:14:21 pm

‘Breath of the Wild was 3rd person Skyrim.’

Entire opinion instantly negated.

The point about Nintendo, and the very reason their IP is so valuable (and heavily protected) is that each instalment in their main franchises attempt to be fresher than even different 3rd party franchises in entire genres. There are a few exceptions like New Super Mario Bros and Mario Party but if you genuinely played their biggest games and felt they were all the same you’re missing some fundamental design principles, the same ones that encourage you to make the sort of outrageous statements as those above.

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Panda
28/6/2019 11:30:45 pm

Plus the Wii U sold less than 15m units. To have all its best games limited to that market when you’ve got a new platform with similar processing capabilities and functionality and a far higher adoption rate would be ridiculously stupid. It’s such an odd complaint, even for those few people who had a Wii U, when you consider that some Switch exclusives released so far are vastly superior to pretty much anything that appeared in the first two years of any rival consoles, with the obvious exception of Bloodborne.

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Bilstar
3/7/2019 11:32:57 am

I know what you mean. I was talking to my mate only yesterday about this. About finding new gaming experiences.

I played The Return of the Obra Dinn recently, you're aboard a ship that left port only to return years later with all the crew on board dead. you have a magical watch that'll let you see and hear the final moments of each crew members life (ish) and you have to figure out who dunnit and to who.

It was so refreshing. I'd never played anything like that before really. Looks lovely too.

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Pete Davison link
4/7/2019 02:35:02 pm

I stopped paying active attention to triple-A around the time of the first Gears of War, when I simply didn't enjoy what it offered, regardless of how technically impressive it seemed at the time.

From thereon, I chose to focus on types of game that I knew I would enjoy: colourful RPGs, adventure games, visual novels, arcade-style shoot 'em ups, puzzle games; stuff that was typically of Japanese origin. That was where the love of Japanese and Japanese-inspired gaming that drives all my writing and video-making today truly started to blossom.

I've made a point of trying a few triple-A games every now and again just to "stay in touch", but always continued to feel like I made the right decision. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was the first time I felt like a video game's story was actively insulting my intelligence; Titanfall lacked the narrative components I typically need to keep me invested; Skyrim lacked characterisation and a reason for me to care about that drab world; Horizon: Zero Dawn felt like every other triple-A open-world game I'd played in recent memory, and I found Aloy's personality actively offputting.

Interestingly, despite technically probably being "triple-A", I've never considered Nintendo's stuff under the same umbrella. I've recently started playing Breath of the Wild, having previously been put off by people erroneously describing it as being "like Skyrim", and have been thoroughly enraptured with it, because it feels like real love and effort has been put into its world, narrative and characterisation.

There's so much more stuff out there than triple-A, and it saddens me that the PS4 and Xbox One blockbusters are all some people will look at. (There's more than just triple-A and indie, too; for me, the oft-overlooked "middle tiers" are where the most fascinating and engaging stuff tends to be!)

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