Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Reflecting on the PS3/Wii/Xbox 360 generation



Phew...I feel really terrible for leaving my readers alone without an update for over a month.  I really do apologize for that.  I've been going through hell with work, school, and numerous other projects.  But I do want to support this blog, so I'm working towards getting more published.  I know this sounds like the same speech I give forever and for always, but I do mean it.  I want share with everyone.  Anyway, enough of the depressing apologies.  Let's get into some reflections on the previous console generation now that the PS4, Xbone, and Wii U have been released.

Reflecting on the PS3/Wii/Xbox 360 generation

            Hello, all.  It's near the end of 2013, we've officially started the next generation of gaming with three brand new consoles, and the start of a new era has begun.  As such, I think I'd like to take a short break from my typical analysis and do a bit of reflecting on the previous generation.  For me, there is one word that perfectly sums up the PS3/Wii/Xbox 360 generation.  Abject disappointment.  Coming off the PS2 era, this generation was a massive heel turn on three aspects.  The last generation disappointed me.  I was disappointed in the publishers, in the media, and in the game industry as a whole.  This could just be me being an old man...of almost 26...but let me explain my position.

Rest in peace, the last genuinely good generation of gaming.
            Let's start with the publishers.  The advent of a console which could regularly connect to the internet was, in my opinion, one of the biggest blows to quality control in the world of console gaming since the Video Game Crash of 1979.  In previous generations, PS2, PSone, SNES, NES, etc. when you bought a console, it had to work straight out of the box.  If it didn't the company which made it had problems, as they'd have to do a massive recall to fix the problem and waste millions of dollars, if not more.  However, in modern gaming, if a game or a console is of terrible quality, the mentality is not to fix it before it goes out but rather to "patch it" to try and fix the problems online.  Sometimes these patches can make things even worse, as reports of Wii bricking after certain firmware updates early in its life cycle.  Games no longer have any need for quality control because regardless of bugs, failings, or what have you, the mentality is that it can be fixed later, so long as we give them the money now.

Last generation was punctuated by laziness, glitches, and failure on the part of publishers.  RROD.  Need I say more?
            That's not the only disappointing aspect of game publishers by any means, however.  The age of the internet also became the age of DLC.  Many features in video games which were included to be unlocked in previous generations through gameplay are now sold piecemeal to try and make more money off the fan base.  Truthfully, publishers abusing their customer base has been a staple of this generation.  Piecemeal DLC, season passes with content that may never appear, online passes, paywalls for certain games, updates which hurt a game more than fixing it, releasing "better" versions of their game a short period of time after the initial release, the list goes on and on.  The publishers have abused their power to a large degree.  Worse is that they have increased the costs of developing games so that they are prohibitively expensive, meaning that fewer games can be released unless they appeal to a much wider demographic, which waters down games.  They are forced to try and appeal to everyone, ultimately making them less appealing to those who might have given it a look to begin with.  Video game publishers continue to make mistakes with gleeful abandon, when if they simply respected their customers and did away with certain shoddy practices they would rake in not only money, but brand loyalty.

Surely game developers wouldn't released watered down glitchy games to their loyal fan-ohhhh...
            In regards to publishers, this feels like the age of shortcuts, scams, and betrayals.  Capcom epitomizes this with their scummy on disc DLC practices, their release of a broken version of Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, which they did not patch and instead released a new version of the game with no consideration given to early adopters, myself included.  Game manuals have gotten shorter to save on printing costs, to the point where they can be as thin as two pages.  At that point, why bother even printing it?  Some games don't even come with manuals to save on the cost.  The increase in price for the decrease in quality is one of the most disappointing parts of this generation.  Game developers and publishers play the pauper for us, but they demand more and more money.  This generation the price for almost all games, regardless of length, quality, or anything else is usually $60.  Budget titles are almost nonexistent.  Worse, support for the burgeoning idea of digital distribution has been crippled by this same principal, where the costs for making physical copies have been eliminated, but the same amount of money is charged regardless.  This is what destroyed the PSPgo.  The costs were the same for digital games, not all games were supported, and support in general seemed limited.  Greed has defined this generation.  Don't misunderstand me.  I know that all game companies want money and in my precious SNES era, many games were sold at a premium of $60-$80, but this was the exception, not the norm.  The norm now is for publishers to squeeze their fans for as much money as possible until they abandon them.  And that's just sad.

This generation showed just how low game publishers could go to make money off their fans.
            Moving on to games media, what I find most disappointing is the out of control hype machine that it has become, the vitriolic editorialist nature of it, of which I freely admit that I too am a part, a general lack of internal ethics, and the often times conflicting nature of game reviews and game press.  I do believe a huge part of this is simply growing pains as our burgeoning hobby is coming into its own, hence the title of my blog, however it is more clear to me now than ever that the media is a lot more flash than substance.  I was told that games were great from magazines when in fact they were horrible.  The flashy covers and interviews and coverage of magazines or websites get us excited to a degree that we cannot match.

Anyone else remember the hype machine on this?  Remember how it crashed and burned horribly?
            The hype machine in particular is bringing more and more disappointment all around because everyone wants to try and be largely positive before a review is out so that they can get more coverage, fill pages of magazines, fill websites, etc.  however it creates an unreasonable expectation, feeding a gamer's glee and desire for a game to be good regardless of the actual substance of the game in question.  Ironically, this largely feeds into the second disappointing aspect of gaming media, the vitriolic editorialistic nature of it.  I love Bioshock.  I also love Bioshock 2.  In the lead up to Bioshock 2, the hype machine was huge, the return to Rapture was going to be a triumphant new adventure as a Big Daddy.  Then, when it came out, people began to shit on the game for being a disappointment.  The hype machine built up a game that could not be and then capitalized on it by treating it with polarizing views of angry dismissal or angry defense.  I also admit to this, having expressed my anger at games like Demons Souls, Bioshock Infinite, and even Skyrim.  I'm disappointed just as much in myself as others because rather than trying to find the good in moderately fun games or even flawed titles, if they do not merit a solid 9/10 or 10/10, it seems like we are content to get upset at them.  We live in a culture that largely responds to game criticism, hype, or even general discussion with anger and games media has helped that along.  Worse though is when people start being rude, angry, or generally cruel when they could have avoided it.  Jason Schrier's flame war with George Kamitani over the portrayal of women in Dragon's Crown or Marcus Beer's attacks on Phil fish are good examples of this.

Not a bad game.  Please stop buying into the hype machine of what it was supposed to be, stop being angry, and just enjoy it for what it is.
            More distressing is the lack of ethics in games media.  Now, I'm not someone who believes that game reviewers or those who deal with the news of games are privileged because they get free games or consoles.  That is their work.  That is no different than a law book for a lawyer or an abacus for an actuary.  It is a tool.  However, when they abuse those tools, I start to get upset.  In the last generation, we received dozens of 9/10 and 10/10 review scores across the board for games like Bioshock Infinite, which was a remarkably flawed game, to Skyrim, which was released with a huge amount of bugs but which was declared a masterpiece regardless, to XCOM, which was so buggy at times that it was unplayable.  It seems like journalists either cannot separate personal feelings from issues of fault, bugginess, or flaws in the game design...or they've been paid off.  When I was younger, I played a game called Ephemeral Fantasia, which was panned on one game website, but which received more modest scores on others.  Each one noted its flaws or bugs, but highlighted different facets of the title, offering different opinions, one of which eventually made me buy the game.  These days, only independent reviewers, like those on Blistered Thumbs or Total Biscuit tend to be brutally honest about games, whereas larger publishers tend to have across the board either positive or negative reviews...a consensus.  It makes me raise an eyebrow.  And even those independent reviewers can make mistakes.  Someone on Blistered Thumbs gave Xenoblade Chronicles a 10/10 review score when I have already addressed at great length its many flaws.  This leads to my final disappointment.  The conflicting interests.  Publishers are the ones who give game journalists and media outlets review copies before the launch day.  If the media site or reviewer pans the title, the publisher is less likely to send them a game in the future.  This happened with Total Biscuit in regards to Garry's Incident on Steam, which was so buggy it was nearly unplayable.  However, to avoid bad publicity, the publisher tried to get his review pulled from Youtube.  While thhere is a large deal of ethics issues or ethical confusion, I'm not going to say all game reviewers or media outlets are morally bankrupt.  Some are probably just...in a tough situation.  Coupled with the conflicting interests, it makes games media a muddled thing indeed, as it's difficult to find the truth from the hype, the honest review from the fan boy review, and the heartfelt admiration from the corporate pay off.  I know that this has been an issue in the past, Nintendo Power was after all propaganda, however this generation has been rampant with it.  And that disappoints me.

One of the glitchiest games of the generation.  9.5 out of 10...see why I'm down on the media?
            Finally, let's discuss the games industry as a whole.  We are a bunch of sexist, entitled, fan boy bastards.  Not all of us and some not to as huge a degree as others, but we, as a culture and an industry, have problems.  These problems were made all too clear in this generation.  Sexism was a prime issue here.  The harassment of Anita Sarkeesian and women in the game industry, keeping women off video game covers unless they are half naked, ignoring or marginalizing the female gamer population, ala "the fake gamer girl" incidents...we have a lot of growing up to do.  And we're not helping our image with these ideas.  We're also highly self entitled.  We believe the world owes us something when really...it doesn't.  Game piracy is easily the biggest example of self entitlement in the game industry and it hurts everyone.  The truth is, I think we've blurred the lines between what we really are entitled as customers and what we believe we are entitled too.  Say what you want about the Mass Effect 3 ending, but the fact that gamers believed that, after paying for a finished product, they believed they were entitled to more...it is telling about our mindset and culture.  As customers, we do deserve a working product, which makes the Diablo 3 or Sim City incidents especially depressing as we did not even get that, however we are not owed anything unless we have plopped down the money for it.  Even then, we may not be owed a blasted thing.  But the game industry continually seems to think that because we want it, we deserve it.  Publishers, media, and gamers alike.

We deserve working games, for sure...but entitlement is a problem in our culture.  We deserve working games.  But we are not entitled to hurt others, in or out of the game industry, if we don't get them.
            My final problem with the game industry is the fan boy issue.  We have become so vitriolic and defensive about almost everything that we will angrily defend, even making an argument personal or threatening or harassing others just to prove our point.  We cannot continue on like this.  These are the efforts of children, screaming at parents and threatening their classmates without realizing the totality of their actions.  There have always been and likely will always be fan boys.  However, no matter how brutal, smarmy, or rude it could be in the past, it pales in comparison to the nastiness on open display in the games industry at the moment.  Developers blatantly insulting their customers to their detriment, fans berating anyone who steps out of line with their train of thought, media pundits harassing developers...we are getting worse and worse.  And it makes me sad.  It makes me want to distance myself from the industry and culture I once loved.

The parody of the fanboy has become so hilarious because the reality is so depressing. 
            So, yeah, to me this generation has been a huge disappointment for me.  Even putting aside those issues, the forced attempts at innovation played into the hype machine...we were promised full motion feed back with the Wii and got shoddy controls.  We were promised a controllerless perfect experience on Xbox 360 Kinect and got a useless peripheral.  The dual shock sixaxis was supposed to use tilt technology to improve game design, but the controllers were poorly made pieces of crap.  Games themselves also seem to be watered down and more flash than substance.  I really can't justify buying games that are 4 hours in length for $60 or even $40.

Forcing innovation was an expensive bomb last generation for the tentative promise of something better this generation.  I'm not holding my breath.
            It's not all bad though.  Let me give a quick forecast of the next generation to try and lift some spirits, okay?  Honestly, I believe this new generation will either be the time of the Wii U or, what is more likely, the return to power of the PC.  The PS4 and Xbox One are basically over glorified, underpowered PCs with a few exclusive games like Killzone or Dead Rising 3.  Anything they can do, a PC can do better, more efficiently, and with less hassle.  Consoles seem to be moving more towards the PC, but without any of the benefits, so I predict either the PC will become the major gaming platform and supplant consoles, or the Wii U will gain steam and overtake them all.  Why?  Well, the Wii U has a number of things going for it other companies don't have.  While digital distribution on PS4 and Xbox One often have PC equivalents on Steam or GOG, the Wii U has the virtual console, which, short of emulation or trying to hunt down old cartridges, is the only legal way to play older console games from Nintendo and Sega.  Titles like Earthbound cannot be found anywhere else.  If that receives support, then the Wii U will have more power in the digital arena.  The Wii U is also the cheapest of the three consoles and a dedicated gaming machine rather than a multi-media platform.  The Wii U also is trying something new with the game pad, releasing it from the shackles of the television while opening up new venues of play with the television.  It also has the house Mario built, Nintendo, supporting it.  The Wii U is behind at the moment, but that could rapidly change.  I think that Sony and Microsoft will make decent sales with their consoles at first, but as more people become fed up with the watering down and PC-ification of their consoles, I think they'll either move to Wii U or to PC.

The one true savior.
            I also believe that this generation will not necessarily belong to large publishers, but to the smaller studios.  The indies.  Through crowd sourcing, they now have a means to get capital without groveling at the feet of giants, making releasing quality games on a budget, usually for the PC, child's play.  It releases many developers from the burden of the overpriced, exorbitance of the AAA industry.  Indies are the future, as far as I'm concerned.  I think that larger publishers, as budgets increase, will eventually implode when they cannot get enough money to cover their costs, while Indies, with their low costs and roots in the community, will survive.

The other true savior.
            In general, while I believe this generation to be a disappointment, this new generation or the one after it will be a bit of a shake up.  I honestly believe that things are going to change.  I don't fear becoming a PC gamer, thanks to my recent conversion to Steam and GOG, but I would weep for the loss of what I consider to be console culture.  It was my childhood, after all.  Regardless of what comes though, I think that the game industry as it is now will not be able to stay as it is.  Even now, we are seeing more acts of altruism in small ways.  Promoting a kickstarter for a game to try and get it off the ground for no other reason than the game looks fun.  Defending or discussing issues in a civil manner.  We all have our bigots, our sexists, our angry fan boys...but we also have people who have a great love of gaming.  And so, I predict that in spite of my disappointment with this last generation, I do believe the future will get brighter.


Seriously, everyone...thank you for reading.  It's been an honor and a privilege.
            I'd like to take a moment to thank all my wonderful readers.  All...4 of you.  I kid, I kid.  I do this for myself, but it's nice to know that some people do pay attention and enjoy, or at least are engaged by my work.  I hope to be less vitriolic in the coming year and to get more posts out on a regular basis.  I want to defend games rather than just sigh and shake my head at the industry.  So, see you in 2014...or sooner, if I get my act together!  Let's see if the Wii U, the PC, or something brand new takes center stage.

No comments:

Post a Comment