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[Htown]

I think your problem is that you have really narrow tastes.

 

[DocSeuss]

So you've changed the OP. This thread is no longer about PC games of yore, but rather a fundamental shift to multiplayer/social gaming. That is a different issue altogether. I would argue that while multiplayer/social gaming is at the forefront of the current industry, high quality singleplayer experiences are still released regularly in a variety of genres. The gaming population has simply greatly expanded since the mid 90's.

This thread was never supposed to be about nostalgia vs present. It was supposed to be about an absence of gaming left by a fundamental shift in the way games are made/reported on/recommended/etc.

It's about how a different kind of fun seems to be almost entirely absent.

I just wrote a REALLY bad OP because I was sick. I remedied the situation and feel much more clear-headed now. Some bad sentence structure, I think (as well as people skimming the OP) contributed to me failing to communicate the point properly.

Telltale for one.

Flight Sims I'll certainly agree with though. Not that I'm sure flight sims were ever really big. I think there was always a moderate sized amount of interest that has been either flat or shrinking for 20 years.

As for genre hybridisation, if anything we're seeing more of that. With RPG and RTS stuff added into shooters, or shooters hybridised with RPGs. Bigger publishers are playing it safer with the hybrids though.

As I hopefully have clarified in the rewritten OP, Telltale isn't at all what I'm looking for. Jurassic Park and Back to the Future were... not great. I can't comment on The Walking Dead.

I'm not sure what you mean about hybridization.

With the exception of per-limb injuries versus health regeneration, what does Deus Ex have going on mechanically that DE:HR doesn't?

Basic level design, interactibility, and stealth don't quite feel the same. However, Deus Ex is one of the games I'm only just now getting into--I played Human Revolution first. Playing the original Deus Ex is... almost overwhelming in how guided it isn't. It's liberating.

You should play more adventure and strategy games.

Strategy games tend to be more along the lines of Total War or Civ than my preference. I'm really, really interested in Omerta though.

Still not quite the thing I want.

The always connected nature of the new SimCity with it's more limited city size to match is basically the antithesis of what the OP stands for... And he specifically called out Skyrim.

As much as I call out Skyrim, I also think it's one of the closest things to what I feel is missing.

Kind of sad, really.

I think games like Human Revolution being more "gamey" compared to their predecessors also has to do with the focus around a controller. The stealth in Human Revolution in particular in many places feels oddly like a direct evolution of Metal Gear Solid 2. This is just a weird theory of mine but bear with me.

Nah, I totally get what you mean. It feels like everything they should have learned from Thief, they chose to learn from Metal Gear Solid instead, which is sad, because MGS is a bad stealth series. Most stealth games, despite being in third person, tend to borrow from Thief (but not do it as well).

The PC -- the keyboard and mouse interface, is inherently better suited to games that feel like simulations -- software where you just play around with systems. PC games in the classic sense are very close to computer software, just made for the purpose of fun.

This. This is what I'm having a hard time trying to convey.

Contrast this with console games that are classically made to be more like obstacle courses or roller coaster rides. It's more suited to the controller interface, the modern interpretation of which traces its lineage to the earliest Nintendo and arcade games. Super Mario Bros. was fun when you first experience an NES because Nintendo mastered the feeling of fulfillment you get from pressing a button and getting a reaction on your TV. The whole game is an obstacle course built on top of that feeling, and I think that's the core of console gaming as opposed to the "simulation for fun" core of PC gaming. The closest thing to a "simulation game" you typically get on consoles might be a Japanese strategy RPG (which the Japanese typically call "simulation RPGs") like Final Fantasy Tactics or Fire Emblem. Maybe the SNES version of SimCity.

I'm not sure if it's about the limitations of the controller itself. I think it's more about the mindset of the developers. Console developers were basically making toys for kids. Arcade games. PC developers were... well, look at Blue Sky/Looking Glass. That was a bunch of ex-MIT grads making the kind of games that interested them. That's basically all Origin Systems did, from Ultima onward.

But yeah, the controller does impose restrictions on play--STALKER would never work on a console.

What I think happened is when all those PC developers moved to consoles, they instinctively made their games more what console games are supposed to be, instead of just reproducing the PC mentality on consoles. Or at least they merged the PC mentality with the core of console gaming philosophy.

I could just be crazy though.

I don't think you're crazy. I think that the merge is exactly what happened, which is precisely why Western gaming is the predominant field of game development now, and Japan's been left in the dust, as it were. The more mature sensibilities that came with PC gaming are fantastic. There's that level of freedom too--the kind of thing that makes Dead Space so much more appealing to me as a gamer (that it's basically a remake of System Shock 2 in some regards helps) than, say, Resident Evil 2. The philosophy of making a game that doesn't fight the player through controls is an excellent one.

By the way, whatever happened to your search for an "ambitious" console-originated game?

Few, if any, of them were what I wanted. I'm going to be playing some of them (most notably Shenmue), but I need to cash to pick it up.

Must be reflective of the people on your friends list. My friends have good taste in games.

And people being into multiplayer games is nothing new at all. In the late 90's games like quake, UT, and CS were wildly popular. Dota 2 is the CS of the modern gamer. Dota 2 is not a game that casual gamers can play.

Of the 1,612 hours there, I am fairly confident that at least 1,245 of those hours were dedicated to multiplayer play, if not more (because who spends 39 hours in Clash of Heroes SP, aside from me?).

I'm not saying that multiplayer was less or that it should take less priority, just that it seems it's become an increasing priority to the point where that's all that many of my friends play. They're just not interested in checking out other games. Even my old CS-playing friends still played other things.

But the genres simply do not receive much recognition by the average consumer these days, compared to the earlier days when you had the likes of Bullfrog, Funcom, Blue Byte Software, Lucasarts, Westwood, (old) Activision, Looking Glass, (old) id Software, etc. being prominently presented on retail shelves to all consumers of gaming. Back then a grandmother could walk into a store and buy Dungeon Keeper for her grandchild, while today she would have to search after it on the Internet, go on esoteric websites like GOG or Steam, sign up for an account, purchase/gift the game to her grandchild, etc. In that sense, these genres are simply esoteric, i.e. "being understood by or meant for only the select few who have special knowledge or interest".

I think we are approaching the topic differently: Me in terms of genre availability and exposure to non-invited consumers, whereas you are approaching it in terms of the genres' sales numbers / amount of backers.

I'd argue that it's not just availability, it's amount. Earlier in this thread, someone said "one of each of these genres was released." Really? Just one? In 2014, we're expecting, what, four Infinity-style RPGs to hit? Three? Even that's not quite as much as it used to be.

But still, what about the immersive sims? Are we seeing nearly as many innovative, SP first-person games getting released, for instance? NOPE. In fact, the first person perspective is one of the least-used perspectives out there.

It seems like the more you express your case, the more your case seems to be "I used to like games more than I do now" and the less your case is actually based on any formal shift in terms of what's available and being made. I think the reason why no one seems to be groking what you're actually looking for is because you don't have a clear idea what you're looking for, just that current games aren't giving it to you.

In an effort to come up with a coherent taste for you based on what you've expressed so far, your taste seems limited to:
- Single player games in either of the following two genres:
- RTS including resource management, other types of RTS or other types of strategy games are not acceptable (although you don't like the #1 entry in the genre over the last few years; Starcraft 2)
- First-person games with heavy atmosphere and stealth elements (although you don't like one of the major entries in the genre over the last few years; Amnesia)
- Flight simulators
- High production values only, everything else is not ambitious enough

I rewrote the OP, so I hope it makes more sense.

I have no fucking clue why you and a couple other people think I want high production values. I said in the original OP that I'd be happy with a low-fi game, and I meant it. I said in a reply somewhere that I'd be content with something that had Thirty Flights of Loving's levels of visuals.

The game I'm working on now for my Capstone class at school is pretty low-fi. It's the gameplay that I'm interested in. Great graphics are wonderful, but they're no must.

Fantastic OP, Doc. You mirror a lot of the sentiments I have personally to a great extent.

Also, this point of yours is very pertinent. Dawn of War 2 is basically a DoW without base building. Which is the very antithesis of a RTS. Controlling a few squads to shoot up some enemies across a tiny map does not a RTS make.

I still don't understand why they had to take out/simplify the resource management aspect and base building that the original DoW and its expansions had. I miss constructing those killbots with their quirky shredding animations lol.

I think they wanted to make a different kind of game. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just more Diabloey than I'm interested in.

Although I'd agree level design was made with consoles in mind, the UI is even less friendly to controllers. It's just a bad UI.

Oh? I haven't tried it with a 360. A lot of it just seemed very... well, the text was big, things seemed like they were designed for sticks, etc.

 

[alstein]

Your post seems kind of scattershot so I'm not entirely sure if I understand exactly what you're asking for. I think there's probably a little nostalgia in there; it's easy to remember the things from decades ago as better than they were.

But yes, focused, ambitious single-player PC experiences do seem to have fallen by the wayside as the market has shifted to XTREMEEEEEEE console AAA experiences and shoehorning multiplayer and community aspects into everything. Big games these days are highly refined iterations on established genres with basically the same mechanics and interfaces. So it's difficult to find big titles that try a new spin on a genre with new mechanics like Homeworld or Thief, because publishers and developers are risk-averse and don't think the market is there.

I'm not sure if that's what you were getting at.

They haven't fallen by the wayside- you just don't find these games in AAA. Fallen Enchantress is ambitious, perhaps overamibitious for its genre. That's probably the biggest budget example (Stardock's a unique case financially), but there's lots of interesting single-player experiences on the indy side of PC.

Perhaps OP should look at Din's Curse or Drox Operative- the Soldak games have a fun concept around an ARPG base.

As for the Civ games- Civ V is decidedly new-school compared to Civ IV. Big reason the game is so polarizing among Civ fans.

 

[DocSeuss]

I think your problem is that you have really narrow tastes.

I have fucking huge tastes.

I just feel like a specific kind of design/fun philosophy--which necessarily involves my favorite subset of games--is being abandoned.

Right now, I am trying to decide whether I want to play Forza 3, Snapshot, or Space Marine, since I'm a bit tired of Age of Empires, Assassin's Creed: Revelations, and Far Cry 3 right now.

It's funny OP mentions System Shock 2, which is also my favorite game. But was also a co-op game.

This was modded in. They intended to have it at some point, but I recall Ken Levine saying that he felt it did a disservice to the experience.

 

[DeadTrees]

By the way, whatever happened to your search for an "ambitious" console-originated game?

That is a perfectly good question under the circumstances.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution didn't treat me like a total, drooling moron. The Witcher 2 is one of the best RPGs I've seen. Dishonored, which has been totally gripping my brain the past few days, seems like it's really going for the old-school, Looking Glass design philosophy of true immersion (players connect to the experience on a deeper level through the authenticity of the game space). Chris Roberts' new game looks like it'll be super ambitious, and a ton of really cool, intelligent designers are out there trying to resurrect a lot of ambitious, old-school genres.

To me, these recent developments in gaming makes it feel like gaming's starting to get its head on straight again.

So, over the past few days, I've been thinking about this a lot, and one of the thoughts that keeps popping in my head is that it's all because of the PC.

...I mean, if we look at when these sort of games were in decline, it correlates nicely with when PC gaming was on the decline, and now that PC gaming is on the rise, so are these games.

Wherever I look, whether it's on PC gaming websites or recommendation threads, Kickstarter projects, new mods coming out, or even on my Steam friends list, the kind of games being played are becoming increasingly homogenous. It's not to say that the games are becoming increasingly homogenous, just that players seem more likely to be playing some multiplayer game (League, TF2, Dota 2, Counterstrike, etc), a 2D indie game, or the latest console port.

I feel like the single-player campaign isn't that important to people anymore.

An average list of recommendations is going to go something like this: Valve titles (generally multiplayer stuff, like TF2 or Left 4 Dead 2), Blizzard titles (particularly Starcraft), an MMO or two (such as Guild Wars 2), and more sandboxy games, like terraria and minecraft, and multiplayer shooters, ranging from F2P games like Tribes: Ascend to retail games like Battlefield 3.

The newest and biggest PC games coming out are, quite often, free to play online affairs, and while I've enjoyed some, like Age of Empires Online, it's often despite the online component, not because of it. Most of these big games have a primary multiplayer focus--even stuff like Star Citizen and Planetary Annihilation is focusing on multiplayer.

...My priorities seem to be stuck back in the golden age of PC gaming, back when studios like Looking Glass, Ensemble, and others were still making their games. The games I like tend to fit comfortably into two different genres: RTSes or first-person games. For me, it's all about Homeworld, Thief, Deus Ex, Age of Empires, System Shock 2, Half-Life, and Aliens vs Predator 2. Those are the games that excite me the most... and it feels like nobody's making them.

 

[alstein]

As the costs of development continue to increase, those lines will continue to blur for big titles, as will the diversity among genres.

F2P and indie games will be the only refuge for the hard core.

Indie games- yes.

F2P cannot be a refuge for the hardcore, because the business model of F2P intrinsically turns away hardcore players due to the need for "pay-to-unlock/pay-to-win". DOTA 2 might be the one exception, though taking a look at this, it feels super complicated and hostile at first glance- and worse than 90s arcade fighters- because you screw up in an arcade you lose a quarter, you screw up in a DOTA game you get yelled at by teammates and screw things up for them.

I think the biggest grief that comes from PC gamer is that that we no longer see PC titles pushing the boundaries of graphical fidelity as most of AAA games being designed around console.

I don't think this is a bad thing. Moore's Law is trumped by economic laws, and it's not fun to need to upgrade your comp every few years. Also, until PC devs stop supporting XP, you have a hard RAM limit that you can't overcome.

 

[DocSeuss]

That is a perfectly good question under the circumstances.

The circumstances being four months difference with two not entirely incompabtible points of view.

Old post: "Games are treating me like I'm stupid and not really trying to be ambitious, but now it seems like they're getting better."

Newer post: "But it also feels like they're not quite targeting the kind of fun I associate with those older games."

You could say I'm continually trying to figure out just what the hell I like about older games, I thought I had it last fall, but I'm realizing it's... something's still missing.

 

[Drkirby]

Indie games- yes.

F2P cannot be a refuge for the hardcore, because the business model of F2P intrinsically turns away hardcore players due to the need for "pay-to-unlock/pay-to-win". DOTA 2 might be the one exception, though taking a look at this, it feels super complicated and hostile at first glance- and worse than 90s arcade fighters- because you screw up in an arcade you lose a quarter, you screw up in a DOTA game you get yelled at by teammates and screw things up for them.

The funny thing is, Dota was considered the easier alternative to Warcraft 3, just like how Counter Strike Used to be considered the easier alternative to arena shooters. Its all relative.

 

[Grayman]

The funny thing is, Dota was considered the easier alternative to Warcraft 3, just like how Counter Strike Used to be considered the easier alternative to arena shooters. Its all relative.

Along those lines Quake 3 is the most "dumbed down" game in that series and is held in high regard as a game for hardcore dedicated fans.

 

[Zia]

I've realized that this isn't a "PC gaming isn't as good as it was" thread. This is a "I only like a small subset of genres and dismiss everything else as mass marketification" thread.

Yes, that's essentially it.

 

[DocSeuss]

I can agree with this in the sense that many of the biggest releases are multiplatform, and seemingly more often than not, these big releases have connections to franchises or developers that used to be PC only. That's a tangible shift.

Still, it doesn't change the fact that even the most obscure genres are selling better than ever before. We shouldn't confuse our own awareness of, say, LucasArts adventure games as children as evidence that they were either popular or sold well. They weren't, and they didn't (by modern standards).

Sales don't correlate with the way games are designed, though. Games just tend to be approached differently from a fun mindset. I mean, look at Valve. They're all about conditioning players to respond positively to their games--that's not really the case back with Half-Life or games that released around that time frame.

Dunno if you read the completely, headache-free, rewritten OP...

 

[Derrick01]

That feel when you realize you're old and jaded.

Or when you realize everything's dumbed down compared to what you used to play and therefore can't find any enjoyment from them since your needs for deeper games only gets higher as you get older.

 

[Pimpbaa]

Get Euro Truck Simulator 2, it's awesome.

 

[HK-47]

Or when you realize everything's dumbed down compared to what you used to play and therefore can't find any enjoyment from them since your needs for deeper games only gets higher as you get older.

So...that feel you get when you realize you are old and jaded =P

 

[Derrick01]

So...that feel you get when you realize you are old and jaded =P

I guess. The comment felt like it was implying there wasn't a legit reason for feeling like that.

 

[njean777]

Seems to me you just want SP games only, well they still exist they are just not at the forefront. Games have become more social and many more people play them today then ever (especially with their friends). So either change with the times, or quit gaming. SP only games are still made and mostly are RPG's at this point.

 

[Stumpokapow]

Or when you realize everything's dumbed down compared to what you used to play and therefore can't find any enjoyment from them since your needs for deeper games only gets higher as you get older.

even if video games literally stopped getting made today, like literally no more games ever, and you retired and just played games 18 hours a day every day for the rest of your life and never took a holiday, i don't think you'd exhaust all the great games from the past, and that's without even getting into games with actual skill ceilings

so i'm not particularly sympathetic to the argument that it's a great tragedy even if you accept the premise that gaming today sucks

 

[shogunduk]

I started PC gaming only about 7 years ago so I know I've missed out on a lot of classics. Admittedly I do find myself playing a lot of the more currently "popular" games more than I should, but I'm trying to get a bit of variety in there with some older games. It's not easy sticking with said older game through to the end because of how used to modern gameplay mechanics I am, and they often feel tedious and frustrating. On the bright side they provide a challenge that most modern games seem to lack.

 

[Relax.MX]

Derrick01 brother?

 

[SapientWolf]

I kind of agree. I miss when PC games were PC games and console games were console games. Now that the lines have started to blur I get a feeling of sameness from a lot of games.

The top console game is an FPS with a focus on online multiplayer. The lines started to blur because PC style gaming somehow took over on the consoles too. On top of that, I download more patches on the consoles than I do on the PC. They might as well add m/kb support at this point.

 

[RedSwirl]

Gaming in general feels different. Consoles don't feel like they used to either..

Sort of this. I read the edited OP, and that's kind of what happened to games in general. Even western console games today feel more directed and explicit with their communication to the player compared to Japanese games of previous console generations. Hell, a lot of today's Japanese games have avoided this whole trend.

A big part of it is because games are so online-connected now, developers are actually getting feedback in the form of player stats. Many of them saw how few players actually finished their games (50 percent is apparently pretty high) and were horrified. They want players to see all that content they worked so hard on, so now games try to ensure that you absolutely do reach the end. Before, a game didn't give a shit whether or not you actually found certain content, or at least it knew you'd get a better feeling of discovery from finding it yourself. I feel like games on both console and PC have forgotten that lesson. A big part of why people love Dark Souls so much is because the game follows that old philosophy.

 

[CountAntonius]

Don't have much to add but I love that well thought out OP. Hope you can find some new games outside of the mainstream that hit those specific needs. It's scary to think you've been left behind.

 

[RedSwirl]

And on the subject of stealth games, as of this post I STILL haven't played Thief, but I don't think you can criticize Metal Gear for not being Thief.

You say most third person stealth games try to take after Thief, but Metal Gear being Japanese, its creators have probably never even heard of Thief. Hideo Kojima has recently praised Human Revolution, which in Japan is called simply "Deus Ex" because it's the first game in the series that's even available in Japanese.

To that end, specifically talking about Metal Gear Solid 2, that game's design is still rooted in the 1990 MSX computer game Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake -- a top-down 8-bit game. Kojima iterated on that for MGS1, then MGS2, before flipping things around with his own new original design in MGS3. They didn't have Theif to work off of. Even by the time of MGS4 the best western inspiration available to them was Gears of War.

That's the main problem with Japanese designers these days who try to copy from the west: the actual classics that inspired today's western games are mostly not available to them. JRPGs were originally inspired by the original Ultima and Wizardry games, but after about 1992, CRPGs largely stopped getting Japanese translations as far as I know. After Ultima VI and Underworld, they got basically nothing until Oblivion.

I personally think Metal Gear is a very good stealth game. It's just based on a philosophy and design base that is fundamentally different from that of Thief.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

Or when you realize everything's dumbed down compared to what you used to play and therefore can't find any enjoyment from them since your needs for deeper games only gets higher as you get older.

Come join us.

 

[Sloane]

I'm with you, bro. There's probably some nostalgia involved when it comes to the games I've played in my childhood but, yeah, obviously PC gaming has changed a lot over the last 10-15 years. That's not to say that there haven't been quite a few great games recently but... well, they're different and there hasn't really been anything like NOLF, System Shock or Age of Empires for quite some time now. Maybe Kickstarter will bring some of it back but I doubt it.

 

[Derrick01]

even if video games literally stopped getting made today, like literally no more games ever, and you retired and just played games 18 hours a day every day for the rest of your life and never took a holiday, i don't think you'd exhaust all the great games from the past, and that's without even getting into games with actual skill ceilings

so i'm not particularly sympathetic to the argument that it's a great tragedy even if you accept the premise that gaming today sucks

I've played a good majority of them though. There may be some games that slipped by me but it's not like I'd know that by myself.

Come join us.

CK2 was my #2 on the goty list last year. Love me some Paradox games.

Alright not everything is bad. More like 99%.

 

[michaelius]

I would be more than happy with indie PC shooters that evoked a late 90s/early 2000s feel with the simplicity of their assets.

Have you checked Hard Reset ? It has all the classic pc shooter mechanics with speed similar to Q3 (minus strafe/rocket jumping) plus real nice Blade Runnrish look.

Also it's 100% single player only.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=488L20UXUKU

 

[Ledsen]

It seems to me that you enjoy expertly crafted single player games with complex, deep and/or skill-based mechanics combined with cutting-edge technical prowess, devoid of pandering and hand-holding.

I had a similar sort of epiphany while playing Ultima Underworld for the first time last year. I quickly realized that here was a decades-old game with more depth, complexity and atmosphere than almost anything released in the last 10 years. Then I got depressed.

Those types of games are indeed very, very rare these days. Let's hold hands, brother.

 

[trab pu kcip]

Gaming in general feels different. Consoles don't feel like they used to either..

I agree. I also think the increasing dominance of online multiplayer games is only another symptom of what's going terribly wrong right now, but NOT the cause of it.
games feel different and often disappointing because most of the studios & developers lost their integrity, naturally it's all about profit and mass marketing, not about art or vision anymore. a perfect example is the mass effect series, where you could watch the stupidity grow with every title and most people don't even notice. also publishers (EA) have a great deal to do with it. It's just sad. but that's way I'm so excited for wasteland 2 and all the other kickstarter stuff, I really hope they are able to deliver this unique feeling that's lost in all this mass appealing dumbed down bullshit.

 

[SneakyStephan]

I see a good amount of variation in what people play on my steam friendslist.

Seems like OP has some really casual friends

 

[Lime]

Before I answer the below two posts, I have to state that I do think today's video games are bigger than they ever were, I do think we have an insane amount of different types of games being offered to us, and recently there have been many, many commendable examples of trying to push the envelope in terms of genre diversity thanks to digital distribution, lower budgets and crowdfunding. I do fund, play and enjoy much of the PC-only offerings. My only point in regards to this topic is that things aren't the same as the 90's in terms of availability and prominence of the aforementioned genres.

i will ask you five questions in order to determine why the quoted statement matters, whether or not it is true:
what is the advantage of being "marquee"

what is the disadvantage of not being "marquee"

what is the purpose of marketing, if not to sell units

why does it matter if a customer is invited or not

how do new invited customers get created (as opposed to non-invited customers, who become customers when they see something in a store or a magazine)

Damn, Stumpokapow. There I was, writing long-winded posts on GAF at 5 in the morning and you reply not only by cherry-picking my paragrahps, but you didn't even properly capitalize your words or use any punctuation/question marks. For shame

Joke aside, to reply to your questions, I think it should be evident why making a certain genre or game "marquee" and why marketing does not only sell units, but also gives rise to cultural perceptions on the marketed product. So let me go through them one by one:

what is the advantage of being "marquee"

• Influence: The games become the premier examples to be lifted up in all their glory for all other developers to see. They get talked about at conferences, industry events, internal development meetings, and so on.
• Inspiration: The diversity and depth of a gaming environment with these aforementioned genre should inspire people, both developers and players, in different ways, through e.g. creativity or innovation
• Representation of the medium: Having the aforementioned genres being prominently exposed and put front and centre for all to see shows that the gaming medium can be diverse and offer multiple ways of experiencing different systems
• Evolution and improvement of several genres: Other developers might ape the marquee game in question and thus provide an alternate and evolutionary take on the same formula, thus improving some of the marquee game's mechanics/presentation/whatever.
• Non-invited consumers are offered a wide range of experiences that are not homogeneous.
• Water cooler talk is no longer about the next FIFA/CoD/Wii Fit/whatever, and instead people are familiar with the aforementioned genres.

All in all being marquee has an impact on the culture of video games and the perception of it. Being marquee is not simply a matter of sales, but also a social, aesthetic and cultural question.

what is the disadvantage of not being "marquee"

If a genre is not marquee, it will not get as much recognition and mind-share, non-invited media won't cover it as much, in addition to the opposite of the above listed advantages.

what is the purpose of marketing, if not to sell units

Marketing does not only impact the sale of units. It also creates brand awareness, influence opinions and knowledge about a product, to some degree define the perception of the culture in question, and other consequences of promoting a specific game or genre.

why does it matter if a customer is invited or not

Only in terms of this discussion, being esoteric or not impacts the way different types of people are exposed to the genre or game in question.

how do new invited customers get created (as opposed to non-invited customers, who become customers when they see something in a store or a magazine)

Haha, that is an entirely different question that unfortunately is incredibly complex to answer, in so far as to provide a proper description of how some people participate and join specific cultural activities. I am sure you can find some great sociological and anthropological literature on this phenomenon.

Even if that's the case, why is it a problem if they are still available through other means?

Who said it was a problem?

...I seem to be missing your point, so I guess I'll ask this question instead; Would Star Citizen qualify as something on equal level to the games of the 98-2000's era if it's single player campaign was full of FMV of decent quality (and high budget) like 'Wing Commander IV'?

If you read my post, you would notice that I wrote:

I am not saying that its status are any less of worth than the genre-equivalent games from the 90's.

Is it that element of "AAA" budget combined with old-school PC gameplay that you are missing?

Not necessarily. AAA budget is not what I am looking for - I am looking for the proper representation of these genres as being prominent and premier examples for all the world to see. I don't want them being relegated to channels with less exposure, nor do I want the industry to constantly ignore them.

To provide some questions to indicate what I am talking about in my original statement on the lack of 90's PC genre representation with equivalent amount of content and production:

• Where's my singleplayer campaign mech simulation game?
• Where's my Grim Fandango/Longest Journey/Syberia point 'n click with equivalent amount of content?
• Where's my singleplayer campaign space RTS? (Sins of a Solar Empire came out 4 years ago and all it had was a skirmish singleplayer mode, not a singleplayer campaign as such)
• Where's my Dungeon Keeper? Where's my Battlezone? Where's my Sacrifice?
• Where's my non-consolified Battle Isle or Incubation?
• Where's my space simulation? I only have Star Citizen and there's a long time until that one, single game gets released.
• Where's my singleplayer campaign Total Annihilation? (Planetary Annihilation's SP mode sounds a bit skirmish-like, unfortunately)

And on and on. I hope you get my point that they simply aren't being represented particularly much in industry-wide circles. The gaming industry has changed and the genres are unfortunately not a big part of the "big" gaming landscape as they were 10-20 years ago.

However, that being said, I am not dismissing that things are changing. With the advent of new business models, digital distribution, and crowd funding, the evolution of gaming offerings points to a more optimistic future. We have so many great titles coming up, a lot of quality F2P games, many admirable indie titles, etc. I mean, in the last couple of months I've been playing all kinds of different PC games;

• Chivalry
• Strike Suit Zero
• The Cave
• Hawken
• Mechwarrior Online
• Crusader Kings 2
• Mount & Blade
• Dear Esther
• FTL
• Hotline Miami
• Frozen Synapse
• Gemini Rue, Resonance and Blackwell
• Shogun 2: Total War

And in the coming months and years I'll be getting my funded Kickstarter projects like Double Fine Adventure, Wasteland 2, Banner Saga, Planetary Annihilation, Project Eternity, Star Citizen and Shadowrun: Returns. And I will back the hell out of Tornquist's Dreamfall 3. So don't mistake my criticism of the lack of prominent 90's PC genre diversity as neglecting the wealth of games for me and other PC gamers.

As such, my criticism or cry for 90's PC genre diversity and representation is mostly aimed at the larger gaming industry and media.

 

[CecilRousso]

No, the OP was crystal-clear to me; I know exactly what you mean, it's just more of an abstract, intangible thing than any one element you can point to. There was a certain aesthetic, complexity, and *feeling* to older PC games that no longer exist.

I do wish we hade even more games like Jagged Alliance 2, Homeworld 2 and Deux Ex today, but we do have games like Crusader Kings 2, Dawn of War 2: Retribution, SpaceChem, Gray Matter, Frozen Synapse, FTL, Total War, Football Manager, Mount&Blade, etc, that gives the classic PC game feeling IMHO.

Spoiler

And in that list I have even cut out some of my favorite games like Civ V, XCOM and Fallout: New Vegas that I know people will reject in this discussion).

 

[trab pu kcip]

I have to state that I do think today's video games are bigger than they ever were, I do think we have an insane amount of different types of games being offered to us, and recently there have been many, many commendable examples of trying to push the envelope in terms of genre diversity thanks to digital distribution, lower budgets and crowdfunding. I do fund, play and enjoy much of the PC-only offerings.

of course we have a lot more access to games now & there is a huge variety
besides the mainstream market but there ARE certain developements that should
be critized and I can understand the feeling that all the prominent games become
more & more the same. You can really see a shit towards fast, superficial & action dominated stuff, that can be enjoyed by a bigger number of people. compare
witcher 1 & 2 for example. I'm not saying the witcher 2 is a bad game but it shows
the trend that's going on.

 

[RionaaM]

I liked them both almost equally. Kate Archer needs to make a comeback

Oh yes, she should. I miss the corpse vaporizer perfume!

 

[ReadingRambo]

Indie developers are the one's making the games you are after by and large. You talk about "artsy indie games" like they are too be looked down upon. There are a lot of indie developers that are indie exactly because they want to make games like they were in the "good old days" but with modern tech. Star Citizen is a prime example.

I completely agree with the sentiment of some that major devs are mostly pushing out shit for the LCD. We've seen more than one great franchise ruined by this gaming generation and suits who are terrified of confusing or intimidating players. I've given up consoles for the time being.

 

[DocSeuss]

I'm going to come up with an analogy. You can take it or leave it as you please.

Imagine going to the ice cream store. Your favorite ice cream happens to be Sicilian Blood Orange. They tell you that this is no longer available.

As a fan of ice cream, you're still welcome to try Rocky Road, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, or any one of a dozen other flavors, so you do, and you do it with gusto. You might even enjoy those flavors!

But... they're not you're favorite. That flavor's still missing, and it makes you sad.

There are a number of people in this thread who seem to think I, or others, believe that the other games suck, or that I'm discounting them, or whatever. I'm not. There are many fun games out there. I loved me some XCOM last year. I'm excited by the upcoming CRPG resurrection. I enjoy F2P games on occasion. If I hated multiplayer games, I wouldn't have put four hundred hours into Unreal Tournament 2004 or one hundred into Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

I like just about every video game type I can get my hands on.

But there's this specific style of fun, this idea of expression and systemic discovery that I feel has become put on the back burner in favor of simplification, handholding, multiplayer play, immersion-breaking microtransaction play, and gaminess.

I still value some of these things. I still enjoy them.

But they exist. So... I have no reason to miss them.

The people telling me I shouldn't feel sad or concerned that the kind of games I enjoy most are no longer being released because other kinds of games exist are... well, they're missing the point by a huge margin. I am not denying the existence of diverse game types. I'm expressing the frustration that most of those diverse game types are, in fact, rooted in a limited selection of motivators that don't appeal to me as greatly as another kind of motivator that isn't as present as it could be.

The kind of games that have hit the kind of fun I'm looking for as of late are modded Skyrim, Far Cry 3, Dishonored, and Dragon's Dogma. However, these games are all still held back by gamey limitations and console-specific simplifications. Far Cry 3 would be a much more fun game if it didn't have an XP counter, in my opinion. Dishonored is too gentle--not as hardcore as Thief was. Dragon's Dogma does bits I like (the world exploration and encountering enemies without any idea of their difficulty level), but that's in addition to the game constantly shoving the UI in my face, having pawns repeat 'helpful' dialog fifty and a hundred times over, and generally keeping abstraction front and center.

It's not about production value but a removal of abstraction, an emphasis on ambition, and a way of thinking while playing that involves more than treating the experience like it's a game.

I want more of that, but I feel it's very, very uncommon. Most of the games people are offering as counters to my argument aren't the kinds of games that fill this specific need, as despite their merits and fun.

So, yeah, it's not that I don't like the games being offered, it's that the games being offered aren't hitting the same buttons that late-90s/early-00s games did. They're different, for good or ill, and I'm wanting more of both.

Indie developers are the one's making the games you are after by and large. You talk about "artsy indie games" like they are too be looked down upon. There are a lot of indie developers that are indie exactly because they want to make games like they were in the "good old days" but with modern tech. Star Citizen is a prime example.

I completely agree with the sentiment of some that major devs are mostly pushing out shit for the LCD. We've seen more than one great franchise ruined by this gaming generation and suits who are terrified of confusing or intimidating players. I've given up consoles for the time being.

If I disliked artsy indie games, Thirty Flights of Loving would not be what I consider the best game I've currently beat this year.

Even then, those games are mostly online or resurrecting the genres I have less of an interest in. Star Citizen, for instance, has a focus on multiplayer that just doesn't get me excited. No one's bringing immersive sims back (except maybe Sir, You Are Being Hunted--maybe). No one's really making RTSes (we're getting LOTS of strategy games, of course). It's not like Roller Coaster Tycoon and friends are getting an indie equivalent either.

Even then, while a lot of classic franchises are coming back, they're coming back in ways I'm not exactly excited for: I don't care about MechWarrior Online, but I would be excited for MechWarrior 5.

 

[SparkTR]

Eh, kinda. I miss those 'immersive sim' kind of games. A whole lot of multiplatform games take inspiration from that era of PC games, but massively fall short. Those complex games for 'PC gamer sensibilities' are still around though, just not for every genre unfortunately. Check out:

Eador (a 2009 TBS that rivals HoMM and MoM!)
X3: Terran Conflict
Inquisitor (old school cRPG)
Dead State
Age of Decadence
Book of Unwritten Tales (one of the best Adventure games)
Legend of Grimrock
Crusador Kings 2
Shogun 2 Total War
ArmA 3
Prison Architect (management sim)
Starfarer
Mount and Blade

Also Path of Exile has a multiplayer mode, but it's a hardcore PC aRPG through and through.

It also depends on what forums/website you frequent. You're not going to run into those kinds of PC gamers on GAF, this is still very much a console and industry focused forum, sharing a much larger userbase overlap with places in GameFaqs as opposed to places like SA. I've noticed a lot of PC gamers here attracted to the platform because it can function so similarly to a console these days. There's little to no history with the platform here, create a thread about Ultima 7 or Alpha Centauri and see how long it lasts. The vast majority of people here grew up with Genesis's and SNES's and Playstation's, and they don't have the same love for those quintessential PC games.

The last PC I had that could run modern games was back in early 2000's. So yea, I'm way disconnected and primarily a console gamer now.

That would be like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire, there's no escaping the lowest common denominator.

 

[Fine Ham Abounds]

Thanks for the OP, was a good read. Philosophically I agree with much of your point of view, but I don't have a problem with gamey-games. Much of what you describe isn't just a PC phenomenon either. As someone who missed out on the bulk of PC games with a few exceptions for more than a decade and who is likely to be going mostly PC next gen, this is good food for thought.

 

[trab pu kcip]

But there's this specific style of fun, this idea of expression and systemic discovery that I feel has become put on the back burner in favor of simplification, handholding, multiplayer play, immersion-breaking microtransaction play, and gaminess.

YES! YES!

 

[Stallion Free]

Thanks for making this thread an enjoyable read Stump.

 

[Lime]

Thanks for making this thread an enjoyable read Stump.

We're supposed to be PC brethren, not disagreeing with each other!

Joke aside, I really cannot understand why some people, like Stump, Stallion Free, Htown, Exodu5, and whoever, refuse to acknowledge that the genres are no longer as prominent as they used to be. Whether or not that is a good or bad thing is debatable, but at least you have to agree that they no longer retain their marquee position as they once used to.

Or maybe it's a cultural issue depending on context, if Americans didn't experience the same PC retail exposure as what Europeans did in the 90's?

 

[espher]

I'm still waiting for a new TIE Fighter or a new Star Control II.

FTL was the closest a PC game came to grabbing me like those two did.

Hell, the last game that grabbed me like that and didn't let go was Rock Band.

 

[BasilZero]

Not at all - infact I have become a PC gamer and because of it , it introduced me to a whole bunch of games and genres I never though I would ever play XD.

 

[DocSeuss]

We're supposed to be PC brethren, not disagreeing with each other!

Joke aside, I really cannot understand why some people, like Stump, Stallion Free, Htown, Exodu5, and whoever, refuse to acknowledge that the genres are no longer as prominent as they used to be. Whether or not that is a good or bad thing is debatable, but at least you have to agree that they no longer retain their marquee position as they once used to.

Or maybe it's a cultural issue depending on context, if Americans didn't experience the same PC retail exposure as what Europeans did in the 90's?

I'm not sure what level of PC retail exposure they have/had in Europe, but there were a ton of big box games on shelves back in the day.

Thanks for making this thread an enjoyable read Stump.

My feelings are hurt. D:

 

[Eideka]

Honestly this is one of the best OP I've read in a long time, and I understand why he is frustrated. To an extent I kind of feel the same, the games I used to love in the 90's are no longer being made because the focus has changed, the gaming audience has changed, the industry as a whole has changed.
New codes, new trends have been introduced and of course some people won't identify with a new generation of gamers.

I'm young myself, I started gaming in the late 1990's when I was 10. I grew up with games like System Shock, Wing Commander, Tomb Raider II, Grim Fandangon, The Longest Journey etc. There is something I miss from those days : gaming was "ours" if I can use that term. I don't recall many publishers pushing for more dumbing down or oversimplifications in design, I have the feeling that the "core" gamer was the target even for big budget games.
This is no longer the case.

 

[Stallion Free]

We're supposed to be PC brethren, not disagreeing with each other!

Joke aside, I really cannot understand why some people, like Stump, Stallion Free, Htown, Exodu5, and whoever, refuse to acknowledge that the genres are no longer as prominent as they used to be. Whether or not that is a good or bad thing is debatable, but at least you have to agree that they no longer retain their marquee position as they once used to.

Haha, I never really put my opinion in place about these things. Although since you are grouping me with them I will say that I just think that the genres in discussion just didn't grow as rapidly as certain others did and that I have a massive backlog filled with games from every time period and genre I will love that will last me far too long to be making a thread such as this.

CompUSA's PC section was bitchin' back in the day in the US at least where I lived. I miss the hilariously large and absurdly shaped boxes (I'm looking at you Tomb Raider).

 

[Htown]

also, since when the fuck is "gaminess" a bad thing in games?

They're supposed to be games. I don't... what?

 

[Artadius]

http://www.pcgamingfan.com/ has a good long list. Make sure you go back through previous years if you haven't been keeping up with PC gaming closely.

He hasn't updated since middle of last year though, I hope he updates soon.

Also keep tabs on www.rockpapershotgun.com as they are a PC gaming focused news site. I still find www.bluesnews.com good as well though blue is having more and more console news there these days.

 

[Ledsen]

also, since when the fuck is "gaminess" a bad thing in games?

They're supposed to be games. I don't... what?

In the context of games (where obviously everything is "gamey" to some degree) it usually refers to breaking the illusion of disbelief with, for example, intrusive UI elements, patronizing and overbearing tutorials, obviously repeated content (padding), etc. Some games (such as, for example, most types of classic arcade games) don't have any such illusion to start with and thus will actually benefit from making the underlying game mechanics as overt as possible. Other types of games, such as a number of the ones mentioned by the OP, do rely on suspension of disbelief to create a sense of immersion in the world and thus a higher degree of "gaminess" will detract from the experience of playing those games.

 

[LegatoB]

Joke aside, I really cannot understand why some people, like Stump, Stallion Free, Htown, Exodu5, and whoever, refuse to acknowledge that the genres are no longer as prominent as they used to be. Whether or not that is a good or bad thing is debatable, but at least you have to agree that they no longer retain their marquee position as they once used to.

It sounds to me like you're nostalgic for an era long past as you remember it in your heart.