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Post by EasyHard on Oct 2, 2020 11:36:15 GMT -5
I've been thinking a lot about how, throughout the next 10 years, the retro games of the 2010s will feel different than other eras. I think it could feel very different, more confusing, and less varied. I'm going to try and unpack this disorganized feeling into two main umbrella points about the 2010s:
1) "Fewer games" (within certain parameters). By 2010 a large reduction of mid-tier publishers/developers had already taken place. Separately, genres are also more consolidated into fewer franchises. Franchises that were active in 2010s also have longer past legacies, both due to consolidation at the top and since prior eras had more industry "shake-ups" that would end franchises and de-popularize genres. Franchises in the 2010s will have had longer ongoing legacies too. That is to say, there will be fewer future retro games that feel "confined to their era".
I think this has an effect on what it will feel like to dig through old catalogues. Hidden gems and other types of games for which you have little frame of reference will be less common. Plucky developers that leave their mark with a unique brand of games before disappearing from the industry (instead of being acquired) will be less common.
2) Games aren't organized as neatly into hardware libraries. Console games overlap heavily with PC now (most console publishers port their games to PC or release simultaneously). Games are re-released or remastered for new hardware much sooner and more often. The vast majority of indie games have very little "association" to the console generation they release in, again due to PC versions (often the first version) and re-releases.
(Random example to gesture at this idea: if you listen to podcasts, you might have noticed how people already have trouble remembering if a game was PS3 or PS4 more than even older gens.)
I think this has an effect on how people organize lists and remember categories of games and eras of games together as one unit. "Lists" are a pretty important phenomena to note here, because that is how so many games get re-transmitted for future folks to find (including our future selves). Some games will be less likely to resurface that would have had more chances in the past. As an example, if you think about a console's first year of games, there are at a lot of 2nd tier games that are frequently remembered/resurfaced because their association with that console boosts their historical profile.
And with indie games specifically, I think games that don't fit into clear genres will get lost in the shuffle much more. Especially if there isn't an ongoing oeuvre from the developer. Like, imagine you are in 2030 and ask: in what kind of "list" would you expect yourself and others to "discover" indie games like Untitled Goose Game, Ape Out, Overcooked, or Her Story? These all were significant enough to have a cultural moment during their respective year, but does this kind of popularity and importance just get lost because they don't have some type of larger "category" (company/genre/hardware) to latch onto for long-term survival?
BTW, I'm deliberately leaving off topics that might seem like they are related at first glance: game availability (digital, streaming, DRM, DLC, etc), shifts to multiplayer, and emulation (less reliable/increasing technical challenges). These weren't apart of my ongoing thoughts, perhaps because I think they are happening around the edges and not in the center. I also just feel some of these topics of conversation get played out more often and everyone understands they are unwelcome headwinds and/or change.
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Post by Ex on Oct 2, 2020 13:05:40 GMT -5
Release homogeneity has been a trend for many years now, unfortunately. I do find it highly irritating that exclusives are practically becoming extinct. (Exclusives are a GOOD thing, but that's a different thread in and of itself.) As a fairly recent personal anecdote on the matter; When I was buying loads of Japanese produced Vita games, their publishers proclaimed their games would remain Vita exclusives... and yet now, the vast majority of Vita's "exclusives" have been ported to PC. Even Nintendo gutted the poor Wii U's one strength, its exclusives, to feed their ever popular port whore.
The fact of the matter is, game programming in the past decade has become super dependent on ubiquitous engines. It's not hard for a developer to create a build for Switch, PS4, or PC from the same codebase, because the engine does most of the platform specific heavy lifting during compiles. In addition, software tools and function libraries that share between engines also exist, further enabling the ease of cross platform publishing.
Anyway, to try to provide a succinct response to the general gist of your opening post...
The vast majority of gamers do not care about games that are a decade old. They don't even care about games that are a year old. They care about games that are releasing right now, this week of this year. (Actually they'd prefer this day, hence the push to digital distribution.) Most players are proud card carrying members of The Cult of the New™. Fully entrenched in the erroneous idea that "newer is always better". The majority of consumers treat video games as if they come with expiration dates. Keeping this reality it in mind, it behooves game developers, game publishers, console producers, and (most) gamers to promote release homogeneity. I think the reasons why should be self evident to the members of this forum. But if I need to expound those reasons later, I can do so.
So when cross-platform games are released into a morass of non-exclusivity, are they lost to the ether as years go by? I think that depends on the game itself, ultimately. Was their something distinct about this game? Did it have an element of innovative design, unique graphical aesthetic, forward thinking play mechanics, an unusual genre hybridization... was it truly above average in any particular way? Then chances are, this game will be remembered. It will stick in people's minds, it will make it onto lists, a grey bearded Metal Jesus will promote it as an eight gen hidden gem.
Was the game instead, just another by-the-numbers zeitgeist piece, built from the ground up to appease the lowest common denominators' tastes? Mildly pleasant in its day, but wholly unremarkable? Then it will probably be abandoned, lost and blurred by time, into a graveyard of equally bland disposable entertainment. Forgotten exactly as it should be. And nothing of value was lost.
>in what kind of "list" would you expect yourself and others to "discover" indie games like Untitled Goose Game, Ape Out, >Overcooked, or Her Story? I've never even heard of the first three you mentioned, but I am familiar with Her Story. I would expect in 2030, if I did a search for "the best FMV adventure games of the 2010s", that Her Story would show up in the results.
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Post by EasyHard on Oct 2, 2020 14:48:35 GMT -5
I think when a publisher says one of their games isn't going to be ported, they are probably being sincere but only in the short term sense. It is not meant as a promise, and long-term they have no idea, because they aren't thinking about that yet.
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Regarding indies, I don't really like the way I phrased my rhetorical question, but I am fond of the idea I'm putting forward that all games (indie or not) generally latch onto bigger categories for long-term survival. In the PS2 generation, there are games like Mister Mosquito, Super Monkey Ball, Everblue and Grim Grimoire that are most likely just remembered as a "misc" category of games for the system because their genres don't really exist to the extent that they can be grouped effectively with enough similiar games. But you will see them mentioned in PS2-specific lists and discussions. In some cases they get discovered by looking through the company's past titles (perhaps moreso for Vanillaware, in this case). If these particular games been indie games released on all platforms in 2020 (and all generations), and if they were developed by companies with smaller gaming footprints, then these games would miss most of the "easy" chances to be remembered. I agree that I'm too pessimistic on the ability of quality/enjoyment to rescue a game's long-term staying power. At the margins it does make these past gaming libraries more confusing to remember and organize though.
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Post by anayo on Oct 2, 2020 16:05:46 GMT -5
I predict that in the future people will look back at the retro nostalgia bait games of the 2010's (such as Freedom Planet, Dusk, Bloodstained, etc) and say "Gee wasn't that a funny trend that was going on in those days." I predict that in the future Nintendo Wii U's will be expensive and sought after. I predict that in the future fully pathtraced games will become more commonplace with two consequences: 1) there will be kids who grow up playing only games with pathtraced rendering who turn their nose at older rasterized games for looking "bad", and 2) there will be an older crowd who waxes nostalgic about the "aesthetic" of older rasterized games.
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Post by Sarge on Oct 2, 2020 17:15:18 GMT -5
I sure hope the retro nostalgia bait continues if it gives us great games like Freedom Planet and Bloodstained. I can't speak to Dusk yet.
It actually wouldn't surprise me if Wii Us get pricier.
We've definitely lost a lot of mid-tier developers and part of that ties to the cost of game development these days. Well, the cost when accounting for expectations from gamers. Unfortunately, the days of the PS1/PS2 are done. That being said... we're starting to see some fill-in by indie developers, some of whom are crafting experiences that would have absolutely sold fine in those days. I feel like there are many whims that are being catered to right now, and surprisingly a lot of times even mine are.
The PS4 has been interesting, because while it may seem it's all AAA big budget stuff, there's a lot of "B-tier" games you wouldn't expect on there as well. A lot of that ties to that convergence to the PC standard - games that would have only made it on PC are now easy ports to the PS4/XB1, and it doesn't make sense to leave money on the table. Looking at my PS4 library, I've got off-kilter releases like Assault Suits Leynos, Earth's Dawn, Outcast: Second Contact, and other games that I feel would likely have not made it on PS3.
We've definitely lost a lot of exclusives, though, but I think that's what is prodding both Sony and Microsoft to make sure they have them. Last generation, Sony had a bunch, mainly because they have Naughty Dog/Insomniac/Sucker Punch. Microsoft has figured out that Halo and the vestiges of Rare aren't compelling enough, and they need them to compete. But still, platforms certainly feel a lot less unique these days.
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Post by Xeogred on Oct 2, 2020 17:44:22 GMT -5
I sure hope the retro nostalgia bait continues if it gives us great games like Freedom Planet and Bloodstained. I can't speak to Dusk yet. I still don't fully know your FPS tastes but I think you'll dig Dusk for sure. And yeah I'm with Sarge here, I love the indie games that go for a very authentic retro experience. As I've expressed here before, I'm pretty picky about them, but the ones that I love really resonate with me. I often get just as excited about these games as I do the next AAA Blockbuster. Like I remember thinking, "Did I like Dusk more than Doom 2016"? a year or two ago when that one dropped. Ion Fury is up there too. And Bloodstained is up there with my top favorite Iga-vania's. I won't let the age shield the classics and bar the new throwbacks that have potential to be just as good as the games they emulate, perhaps even better too.
...Franchises in the 2010s will have had longer ongoing legacies too. That is to say, there will be fewer future retro games that feel "confined to their era". 2) Games aren't organized as neatly into hardware libraries. Console games overlap heavily with PC now (most console publishers port their games to PC or release simultaneously). Games are re-released or remastered for new hardware much sooner and more often. The vast majority of indie games have very little "association" to the console generation they release in, again due to PC versions (often the first version) and re-releases. I know what you mean here. 2012's Dishonored is one of the ultimate examples for me. It came out in the 7th gen which is where I played it first, borrowing a roommates copy on the 360. But then I replayed it years later on the PC and it looks and plays just as good, if not better, than its PS4 8th gen "remaster". I tend to get the Bioshock's mixed up in this mess too, especially Infinite.
I think like some of us here, I still don't immediately think "retro" when it comes to the PS2/6th gen era. But it really is 20 years old at this point and can certainly be labeled as such. But point being, it's a very easy era to picture perfectly, across consoles and PC's. I can't say that for the 7th gen and up. Even if I can argue that things have smoothed out and gotten better this gen (I wager on the Japanese side of things especially, them getting a better hold at bigger production values expected in modern games)... but still, the incremental graphical upgrades over this decade have been kind of minuscule in ways. Then you throw your point into the mix with my Dishonored/Bioshock examples and PC releases, it's just a huge blur. It might be extra confusing to some for now too in that the 7th gen went on for longer than normal.
It's interesting how Blizzard's Overwatch even seems to be faltering lately. Same with Apex Legends. I don't care for the social / "living games" that are all the rave today, but yeah I consume a bunch of podcasts and keep up with it all myself. So, like recently it seemed like Fall Guys was the next big thing. Apparently the most downloaded PS4 game of all time or something crazy. But its popularity already seems to be falling off after its few weeks of running as the hottest thing. The days of another Counter Strike or WoW could already be over... there's just so many options and the attention span of younger generations probably continues to get shorter and shorter.
That kind of makes me want to say, I think a lot of the pitfalls and stuff you're getting at here EasyHard, is kind of a global problem across all mediums of entertainment and our cultural evolution thesedays. It's literally insane how we have nearly infinite options of things to do at our fingertips. People really have to do some soul searching in themselves and figure out what niche's they are passionate about and meticulously home in on them, which is perhaps why some of us are here on such a forum. Otherwise, the deluge of options out there can bury us alive. Heh...
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Post by Ex on Oct 2, 2020 20:58:43 GMT -5
I think when a publisher says one of their games isn't going to be ported, they are probably being sincere but only in the short term sense. It is not meant as a promise, and long-term they have no idea, because they aren't thinking about that yet. Well, sometimes it's meant to be a promise. But publishers often change their tune, because their only true loyalty is to their bottom line.
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Post by Sarge on Oct 2, 2020 21:19:14 GMT -5
I don't hold it against them, honestly. Things change. Perhaps companies shouldn't make the promises to begin with, because you just never know how badly your product might do in one arena, but have success elsewhere. I know Nintendo got brought up, and them porting all their stuff to Switch... but do you blame them? The Wii U flopped hard, and those were still splendid games that many millions more would enjoy on Switch. Speaking of ports, did you ever buy/play Super Mario 3D World, Ex? I know you enjoyed the heck out of Super Mario 3D Land (as did I), and I think you'll have a blast with it when you get to it.
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Post by Ex on Oct 2, 2020 22:04:27 GMT -5
I don't hold it against them, honestly. Things change. Guess I'm just a hard ass, 'cause I hold people to their word. Even spokesmen for publishers. In the past, sure, I would have blamed Nintendo for cutting the legs out from under the Wii U, punishing the hardcore fans who bothered to support the platform. Sucking the luster and financial value away from what had been an exclusive library, held dear and admired by its limited but loyal fanbase. Yamauchi or Iwata's Nintendo would have understood the dishonor of doing as such via the immediately successive generation, how that act penalizes the previous troubled generation's supporters.
But... based on its present company culture, I don't blame modern Nintendo. I'm keen enough to realize that present day Nintendo, is not the same Nintendo that existed in the Wii U's era, let alone the same Nintendo I loved in my childhood. Today's Nintendo is a gilded opportunist. So given what Nintendo is today, nah I don't blame them. Suck it all dry, Furukawa. I bought 3D World a few years ago, when I was collecting for Wii U. I have not played it yet. I do expect to enjoy it when I get around to playing it. I did finish Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, and thought that one was pretty good.
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Post by Sarge on Oct 2, 2020 22:43:01 GMT -5
In the past, sure, I would have blamed Nintendo for cutting the legs out from under the Wii U, punishing the hardcore fans who bothered to support the platform. Sucking the luster and financial value away from what had been an exclusive library, held dear and admired by its limited but loyal fanbase. Yamauchi or Iwata's Nintendo would have understood the dishonor of doing as such via the immediately successive generation, how that act penalizes the previous troubled generation's supporters. I'm not sure I'd characterize it that way. They supported what was clearly a dead system with a ton of amazing games. I think this is also probably the biggest failure of a system they've had... well, since the Virtual Boy, which was so unique and doomed that they apparently memory-holed it to never return even when they had a chance to at least put Wario Land on 3DS. Basically, I have no issues with what they've done.
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