Is the videogame industry becoming too stagnant and complacent? It’s a question that I often times spin through my mind. Most recently it came up with the whole Duke Nukem Forever debate, as I find that game to be a prime example of the sort of thing I fear is plaguing the game industry at the moment. The game industry currently is experiencing the largest growth since it’s inception in the 1970s, but is this a good thing for the long term health of the industry as a whole? The game industry is facing one major problem it’s never really faced until this past decade; stagnation.
Many people tend to compare gaming ideologies by categorizing them into “East” and “West”. Often times I find one side blaming the industry’s apparent problems upon the other. The simple fact is that both sides of the pond are experiencing similar problems, albeit in different ways. In Japan, much of the same lack of creativity in stagnation is taking place just as it is in the West, it’s just not made as apparent. Over there, JRPGs are stuck in quite a rut creatively, which I already covered in detail sometime ago last year. Here, a similar problem exists primarily with the loveable shooter genre and this was made even more clear recently. While I won’t limit this argument to just Duke Nukem Forever, it is a great current example of a point I’ve been trying to make about the industry for quite some time now. That game in particular represents an extreme case of raising the bar in all of the wrong areas. There are many games that face this problem, this one is just a prime example of it. Sure, it did it’s job…it provided much shock and awe and got people talking. Some people complained about how the game industry has gone too far…others have offered a counterpoint stating that it’s all in good humor, worse things have been done in movies, etc. But the fundamental point is missed here. As the years have gone by since it’s introduction to the world 3 decades ago, videogames have slowly but surely begun to raise the bar with it’s subject material, yet it continues to never address such material with anything other than childish humor.
In the past decade, the videogame industry has torn down many barriers in terms of what's acceptable and what isn't to put into a game. Games definitely aren't just for kids any longer as they've become more risque and more controversial. However, at some point, you'll run out of controversial material with which to shock and awe and at some point, in order to advance, a more mature approach to these themes must be taken. The industry has now stagnated as a result of this new challenge. Sure, the subject material has become more risqué, once taboo subjects are slowly eroding away, but the fact remains that the game industry, particularly in the West, is afraid to grow up. Increasing the level of shock value and debauchery does not equal maturity. When it comes right down to it, when the game industry tackles controversial subjects such as in the case of DNF, rape, it chooses not to address these issues in a serious, open manner, but rather hide behind a shroud of toilet humor. Duke Nukem Forever took a controversial subject and made a crass joke out of it. Instead of Gearbox taking a mature approach in addressing these issues, they instead played it safe and attempted to use" wink, wink, nudge, nudge" jokes instead of simply stating it outright because the industry itself hasn’t matured to a level where it can handle such material because it’s too childish to advance to that stage just yet. As a result the evolution of the industry has grown stagnant and it's coming to a head more and more as the years go by. The industry is like the college fratboy who never grew up. Your schtick was funny and clever maybe ten years ago, but at some point it's time to get serious, graduate and get a damn job. The game industry needs to get serious and begin innovating in the right areas again.
The first thing that needs to be done is increase the variety of appeal. Part of the negative aspects of the current success that the industry is enjoying is an overall fear to cater to only one type of demographic. It's clearly aimed at 18-35 year old males (while ironically possessing a maturity level of a male under 18 most times) , but is afraid to step out of a particular bubble to cater to any other type of interests that demographic may have. No, it's guns, burly dudes and more guns. That's what sells right? Of course it is when that is all that they are given. This narrow minded approach will sell a few copies today, but it can't help but have a negative effect on the long term for the industry as a whole. The game industry needs more variety as this stagnation has spread to not only maturity, but to approach to design as well.
The best eras in videogames have all been when there were games everyone could play. When a variety was available for people of all ages. The best eras in gaming to me were from 1985-1990 and roughly 1994-2001. The reason for this is because that's when the most variety of games were being offered for people of all ages. Don't get me wrong, there's still plenty to love about the industry today, it's just that given the technological advances and capabilities that the current gen has made, it's a shame the mentality and maturity level of the games themselves haven't advanced along with it. You could make a much larger variety of games that cater to different demographics, yet the industry is focused on one particular demographic even worse than in the old NES days when technology was limited and less design approaches were possible. Games made outside of that demographic are made for the girlfriends and children of 18-35 year old males. They too have suffered as the industry often assumes children could only possibly be interested in nursery games or that girl gamers just want to play dance games along with the assumption that 18-35 males only ever want to play games in which you hold a gun or kick a football.
It's a shame really. This industry could innovate and grow in so many ways, yet chooses not to. It's far more interested in making a quick buck rather than thinking of the long term growth of it. When games you can download off of your console are far more intriguing than most of the disc based retail games, there's a problem. Sure, a lot of games this generation have innovated; but for every Heavy Rain, Bioshock and as much as I rag on it, L.A. Noire offer in the way of the right ways in which the industry should innovate, it will never get the respect it deserves so long as 6 other games choose to be "shocking and controversial" while lacking the stones to address anything shocking or controversial in any other manner besides that of a childish, bathroom wall cuss word writing college dropout.
Roger Ebert will never recognize gaming as art at this rate.
Thursday, June 16
Thursday, June 9
Wii U Move that damn Kinect!
It was around this time a year ago when after watching the three main press conferences that a systematic change had begun with my outlook on the gaming industry. I felt that the future of it looked somewhat bleak and unfulfilling as no company really cared to truly innovate or inspire as they had done in years past. Those feelings were all washed away after I had witnessed Nintendo’s conference and I began to realize that there was at least one company that was starting to get it. I felt as though both Sony and Microsoft had bleak futures ahead in the long term and were simply milking the successes of Nintendo with gimmickry instead of solid games. For the most part, events over the past year have left me feeling vindicated in my remarks and this year’s E3 left me with no surprises.
Often times people cite that I’m a hater of Microsoft or that I bash them unfairly. While I plead guilty to the first charge, I respectfully disagree with the latter citing this years press conference as conclusive proof that Microsoft is indeed, full of complete fail. Now before you begin typing up your frantic rebuttal in nerd rage anger, bear in mind that I don’t think that Microsoft lacks potential or that they can’t be the best game company out there; they most definitely have the tools, but rather that potential is often unrealized or squandered due to a fundamental lack of focus on what makes them different from anyone else as a gaming company. This year’s E3 show at most times felt like I was watching a press conference for a Satellite TV company, not a supposed product that plays videogames. A quarter of the presentation was spent telling me not about their fantastic gaming lineup, but rather about all the wonderful ways I can tell my console how to navigate the various extraneous menus by pure speech alone. It smacked of the same idiotic mentality Sony had last year with its “You can do this and this and this with the console, I mean we have a few games I guess but check out what this does!” Who cares if the Xbox 360 can play games when you can order UFC fights with it and bet with your friends! It really makes me wonder sometimes if they know what kind of people actually watch these E3 shows. Speaking of games, it truly is sad once again Microsoft when the highlight of your presentation focuses on a multiplatform game in Tomb Raider at the start of the show. How dare you tease us into thinking you’re a gaming company before launching into your Direct TV infomercials and subsequent Kinectfest featuring games that typically center around one idea; bounce around like a complete idiot. Speaking of Kinect, I truly hope you can ride this wave for as long as you can Microsoft, given how you’ve poured all of your eggs into this one basket in the hopes of continuing sales. However, I can’t see alienating your core audience by shifting primary focus of your console over to your add-on peripheral by also featuring games designed for not just children, little children. What you have now are your core audience, who purchased a 360 and looking forward to games like Gears of War 3 (for reasons I cannot fathom), while at the same time spending over half of your time devoted to showing off playground Kinect games that the core audience wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole. Oh sure you throw a bone in there for the core audience to make them feel as though their $150 wasn’t totally wasted on a Kinect purchase, but for every voice command recognition Mass Effect 3 offers, there were about ten other examples of things like waving your arms around like a Taebo exercise to an ugly, unpolished version of Red Steel with a Star Wars coat of paint. Welcome to your future Xbox gamers, pointing your finger like Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino and pretending to shoot. Only, you don’t look nearly as cool doing it. Microsoft is attempting to reach out to the casual fan at the expense of the core audience that brought them to the dance and this year’s abysmal show really makes me wonder what future they have when people realize Kinect was a $150 con job. Oh, but fret not core 360 fan. Microsoft has given you Halo 4. Hear that? It’s the sound of nobody caring.
Sony! Usually my venomous rage is saved for you but this time however, you managed to not completely screw it up and actually left me more optimistic than you did before your E3 show. The Move as expected was a complete and utter joke and even Sony realizes where they’ve been going wrong and this year finally started to focus more on games and less on fluff. Rather than promote all of the amazing things the PS3 can do besides you know, play games, they instead just got down to business and presented a lineup of games that people will want to play. Marcus was mercifully phased out to instead dedicate more time to showing off the NGP, now named PS Vita. (Sounds like a fancy new menu item at Taco Bell. Yes, I’d like the Vita combo with a Grilled Stuft Burrito please, mild sauce.) If anything was shocking about Sony’s conference it’s that they seem to really be promoting the Vita way more than initially expected. This is a good thing. After all, when the Gamecube was finished with its fairly disappointing run, Nintendo focused on handheld gaming with the DS for a little while before returning strong with the Wii. Sony is in a similar rebuilding stage and if they want to climb back to that number 1 spot, conquering the handheld market is a fantastic start. Because well, let’s face it guys, PS3 is pretty much a bust at this point. PS Plus is a joke, the Move is a failure and well, let’s just sweep that nasty elephant in the room, the Playstation Network under the rug as Jack Tretton wisely just addressed it quickly and moved on. I’m not saying that there can’t be any decent titles for the PS3, but Sony can’t place all of their hopes in it becoming the best selling console on the market because it just won’t happen at this point.
Once again Nintendo gives me more hope than the other two. However, I won’t shower you with glowing praise either. Simply being the lesser of three evils doesn’t really equate to good, there is still much work to be done. The Wii U didn’t have the same “oomph” that the 3DS promised last year, but it’s arguably more important. It instantly made the Wii a competitive console again and takes the unique interactive motion controls to a new level. The potential gameplay applications with the device leave much to the imagination, but that’s all it is at this point, potential. Most games presented in the works have a very late 2011 release date at the earliest and of course the Wii U won’t be available until 2012 and not much has been announced in the way of games for it. Still, Nintendo has somewhat undercut the threat of their competitors with the Wii U and of the big three, had the biggest and best variety of games once again. Flashy hardware will cock a few eyebrows, but quality games are what hold that interest and sustain it and I hope Nintendo keeps that in mind.
E3 this year felt like cruise control. None of the major companies saw fit to really make any earth shattering announcements and each side seemingly played it safe. Even still, if anything I felt a little more optimistic towards the direction of the gaming industry as Nintendo has shown that despite a disappointing 3DS launch, they still have plenty up their sleeve and Sony, having tasted a slice of humble pie has wizened up with their own presentation and is now starting to focus on what matters. Microsoft is the true wild card as it will be interesting to see if they can sustain the Kinect’s momentum. E3 left me feeling slightly more excited about the future of games than it did prior and that’s all anyone can really ask for.
Even still, being a default top winner in the E3 race isn’t really a good thing, Nintendo. Just saying.
Often times people cite that I’m a hater of Microsoft or that I bash them unfairly. While I plead guilty to the first charge, I respectfully disagree with the latter citing this years press conference as conclusive proof that Microsoft is indeed, full of complete fail. Now before you begin typing up your frantic rebuttal in nerd rage anger, bear in mind that I don’t think that Microsoft lacks potential or that they can’t be the best game company out there; they most definitely have the tools, but rather that potential is often unrealized or squandered due to a fundamental lack of focus on what makes them different from anyone else as a gaming company. This year’s E3 show at most times felt like I was watching a press conference for a Satellite TV company, not a supposed product that plays videogames. A quarter of the presentation was spent telling me not about their fantastic gaming lineup, but rather about all the wonderful ways I can tell my console how to navigate the various extraneous menus by pure speech alone. It smacked of the same idiotic mentality Sony had last year with its “You can do this and this and this with the console, I mean we have a few games I guess but check out what this does!” Who cares if the Xbox 360 can play games when you can order UFC fights with it and bet with your friends! It really makes me wonder sometimes if they know what kind of people actually watch these E3 shows. Speaking of games, it truly is sad once again Microsoft when the highlight of your presentation focuses on a multiplatform game in Tomb Raider at the start of the show. How dare you tease us into thinking you’re a gaming company before launching into your Direct TV infomercials and subsequent Kinectfest featuring games that typically center around one idea; bounce around like a complete idiot. Speaking of Kinect, I truly hope you can ride this wave for as long as you can Microsoft, given how you’ve poured all of your eggs into this one basket in the hopes of continuing sales. However, I can’t see alienating your core audience by shifting primary focus of your console over to your add-on peripheral by also featuring games designed for not just children, little children. What you have now are your core audience, who purchased a 360 and looking forward to games like Gears of War 3 (for reasons I cannot fathom), while at the same time spending over half of your time devoted to showing off playground Kinect games that the core audience wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole. Oh sure you throw a bone in there for the core audience to make them feel as though their $150 wasn’t totally wasted on a Kinect purchase, but for every voice command recognition Mass Effect 3 offers, there were about ten other examples of things like waving your arms around like a Taebo exercise to an ugly, unpolished version of Red Steel with a Star Wars coat of paint. Welcome to your future Xbox gamers, pointing your finger like Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino and pretending to shoot. Only, you don’t look nearly as cool doing it. Microsoft is attempting to reach out to the casual fan at the expense of the core audience that brought them to the dance and this year’s abysmal show really makes me wonder what future they have when people realize Kinect was a $150 con job. Oh, but fret not core 360 fan. Microsoft has given you Halo 4. Hear that? It’s the sound of nobody caring.
Sony! Usually my venomous rage is saved for you but this time however, you managed to not completely screw it up and actually left me more optimistic than you did before your E3 show. The Move as expected was a complete and utter joke and even Sony realizes where they’ve been going wrong and this year finally started to focus more on games and less on fluff. Rather than promote all of the amazing things the PS3 can do besides you know, play games, they instead just got down to business and presented a lineup of games that people will want to play. Marcus was mercifully phased out to instead dedicate more time to showing off the NGP, now named PS Vita. (Sounds like a fancy new menu item at Taco Bell. Yes, I’d like the Vita combo with a Grilled Stuft Burrito please, mild sauce.) If anything was shocking about Sony’s conference it’s that they seem to really be promoting the Vita way more than initially expected. This is a good thing. After all, when the Gamecube was finished with its fairly disappointing run, Nintendo focused on handheld gaming with the DS for a little while before returning strong with the Wii. Sony is in a similar rebuilding stage and if they want to climb back to that number 1 spot, conquering the handheld market is a fantastic start. Because well, let’s face it guys, PS3 is pretty much a bust at this point. PS Plus is a joke, the Move is a failure and well, let’s just sweep that nasty elephant in the room, the Playstation Network under the rug as Jack Tretton wisely just addressed it quickly and moved on. I’m not saying that there can’t be any decent titles for the PS3, but Sony can’t place all of their hopes in it becoming the best selling console on the market because it just won’t happen at this point.
Once again Nintendo gives me more hope than the other two. However, I won’t shower you with glowing praise either. Simply being the lesser of three evils doesn’t really equate to good, there is still much work to be done. The Wii U didn’t have the same “oomph” that the 3DS promised last year, but it’s arguably more important. It instantly made the Wii a competitive console again and takes the unique interactive motion controls to a new level. The potential gameplay applications with the device leave much to the imagination, but that’s all it is at this point, potential. Most games presented in the works have a very late 2011 release date at the earliest and of course the Wii U won’t be available until 2012 and not much has been announced in the way of games for it. Still, Nintendo has somewhat undercut the threat of their competitors with the Wii U and of the big three, had the biggest and best variety of games once again. Flashy hardware will cock a few eyebrows, but quality games are what hold that interest and sustain it and I hope Nintendo keeps that in mind.
E3 this year felt like cruise control. None of the major companies saw fit to really make any earth shattering announcements and each side seemingly played it safe. Even still, if anything I felt a little more optimistic towards the direction of the gaming industry as Nintendo has shown that despite a disappointing 3DS launch, they still have plenty up their sleeve and Sony, having tasted a slice of humble pie has wizened up with their own presentation and is now starting to focus on what matters. Microsoft is the true wild card as it will be interesting to see if they can sustain the Kinect’s momentum. E3 left me feeling slightly more excited about the future of games than it did prior and that’s all anyone can really ask for.
Even still, being a default top winner in the E3 race isn’t really a good thing, Nintendo. Just saying.
Friday, June 3
National Kenographic: Issue #2: Bobby Kotick Renews Deal With Satan; God Announces HD Remakes
This week's National Kenographic has been brought to you by a generous grant from....
Earlier this week it was announced that Activision CEO and
BREAKING NEWS: GOD ANNOUNCES HD COLLECTIONS
In related news, God has announced the Holy Trinity will be upon us. God gave us little detail as to what the specifics of what this will portend, but we at National Kenographic await with baited breath to hear the good tidings.
IN OTHER NEWS: PSN BACK UP, TRUMP OUT OF RACE
Kaz Hirai has finally restored the Playstation Network to full capacity and not a moment too soon as many rioters were still in massive protest.
No word on the care packages promised as of late, but for now, many gamers finally have the sustenance that they so desperately needed.
Donald Trump has announced his exit from the Sony Presidential race citing "I have many engagements at the moment. I still have to renew my contract with The Apprentice at NBC and I'm not sure how things are gonna go. However, I'm glad that Hirai has finally decided to renew the Playstation Store for everyone worldwide. Now he just has to show us the hacker records and we can put this whole mess behind us." National Kenographic asked Trump to release his financial records. We got no comment.
That concludes this week's National Kenographic. Your source for relevant up to date news topics. Often imitated but never duplicated, National Kenographic the leading news source.
Wednesday, June 1
THQ....Fire Your Cover Designers
Wow....that's lazy. It makes the Smackdown vs Raw covers look like Rembrandt. And WWE 12? That's it? Seriously? That is unbelievably lazy. You guys have definitely raised the bar for lame sports covers and names. EA needs to get busy with NFL 12 and Golf 12. In fact Final Fantasy XV should just be JRPGXV, or Call of Duty should just be MilitaryShooterWherethePlayerCharacterDoesAlloftheWorkWhileYourTeammatesStandAroundWithTheirThumbsUpTheirAsses 12.
Come to think of it, I wonder if WWE 12 will feature a Gambit System in which you can just input automatic commands to streamline tag matches.
Enemy: Any > Clothesline
Maybe when WWE13 is released with a female on the front cover and they totally remove all elements of backstage storyline people will realize WWE12 wasn't all that bad after all.
....Nah.
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