Gaming websites and the online community

Once upon a time gaming journalism was about informing their readers about games and what goes on in the gaming world. When you bought a magazine and looked at the articles you where provided with information and it felt that the writers genuinely liked games and enjoyed them. Over the years things changed and gaming journalism became gaming "journalism". Gone are the times when it was important to provide the reader with facts and information and instead this was replaced with writing controversial articles for more clicks and write highly opinionated articles about games that are presented as hard facts.

The gaming community was a friendlier place. Sure there had always been console wars with people arguing about their Nintendo console being better than the Sega or Sony console of the other person or vice versa or any other combination of consoles. I always tried to tell the other kids how much better my Game Gear is compared to their GameBoy. In online games people might not be very friendly sometimes if you beat them a lot and often and call you cheater, but generally in most cases they wouldn`t tell you to that you should kill yourself, have sexual intercourse with yourself or that you would be a specific race or that you would have a specific sexual orientation. You always had the feeling that the other person likes games and enjoys them. That also changed quite a lot over time. and definitely not for the better.

Now to look at what specifically bugs me and let`s start with gaming journalism. To give a bit of a background. I spent many years myself as an editor for gaming print magazines and online websites, English isn`t my native language so don`t go too hard on me for grammar mistakes :). As I mentioned at the start there was quite some change over the years regarding gaming journalism. IN many instances gone are the times where to purpose of the media is to bring the content closer to the reader because they couldn`t go on YouTube and watch a trailer or gameplay video. Instead it appears that the purpose of the gaming media has become to tell the developers how to make a game how much we should hate a certain thing.

Sure there are things that are worth writing about and that the players should dislike, such as the great horse armor DLC from a certain game. On the other hand you have websites like Kotaku, I very rarely visit that site nowadays, who like to complain about most things in games and gaming. One recent article illustrates this very nicely. The article was titled "Life is Strange is really patronizing". The gripe of the writer is that Max, the main character, has a vision/dream or something similar about being in a forest area with a lighthouse and suddenly is back in the class room and has an inner monologue of how strange that experience just was because of how real it felt. So the writer doesn`t understand how inner monologues work and feels the need to make a full article about how it`s bad. While reading the article I was thinking to myself in my head "what the hell is that person going on about?". If I would have propose to write an article like that when I was an editor I would have been laughed at for how stupid my article is.

Another example of bad gaming journalism are my favorite articles about how product X NEEDS features XYC or change ABC to be successful. Those really bug the hell out of me, you basically have someone writing an article telling maybe a few hundred or even more people on how to make the product they work on. If they know so well how the product should be made I wonder why they are only an editor for a website and don`t work actually in the industry and make products since they seem to know much better how to make the product. I see this as hugely disrespectful towards the people making the product. While the editor writing the article is sitting there for 8 hours or less writing an article the people who make the product work their asses off for months and months. If they know so well how to make a game successful they should become a producer or game designer and work 14, 15 or even more hours per day for several months with barely any free time and make the games instead of just talking about how to a game successful. I could also add some "funny" reviews from websites like Eurogamer where the complaint about the Resident Evil HD remaster was that the mansion isn`t realistic and the puzzles to hard or Polygon where The Last of Us is too violent.

Another funny thing is that the media and also the community like to complain about how the companies just want money. That is funny because if we look at gaming websites they nowadays do everything to get more clicks and are getting cluttered more and more with ads. They accuse companies of things they to themselves. Barely any website will shy away of making a controversial article just so they can get more clicks and make more money instead if providing more meaningful content. There are many more examples I could talk about for gaming journalism but I will leave it at those. At the end of the day gaming websites will struggle to stay relevant and just like the print media they will have problems to stay in business. Print media was phased out because websites could get the user news quicker and in a more personal way. With the rise of YouTubers and Twitch streams websites face similar issues. It`s a lot more personal to watch a YouTube or Twitch video where the broadcaster talks directly to the user instead of reading a wall of text. That doesn`t meant that YouTubers or Twitch streamers don`t use the same tactics of trying to use controversial topics to get hits, but I can see them getting the upper hand over websites (not necessarily for the better).

With gaming journalism out of the way it`s time to hit at the online community, maybe even you reading that now. First of all I would say stop being the puppets of gaming media and stop listening to them. That doesn`t meant don`t read stuff just don`t act in a way the media wants you to react and create more news for them. It might not be obvious, but there are cases where a website will write first one article to stir the pot a bit and shortly afterwards another article that is the opposite to stir the pot even more and get even more clicks.

The online community should really stop bitching about everything. A prime example is the recent Battlefront announcement. People started bitching before they have even seen any gameplay. Right away it was how it sucks because this and that. Yes it doesn`t have a campaign but the previous games didn`t have a real campaign while most people behave like they had a real campaign. It has singleplayer missions and that sounds more or less like what the previous games had. I would like space battles but we still have to see what they do in the future. I`m not a fan of EA and after the buggy BF3 and even worse BF4 I have my reservations for Battlefront, but I will give it a chance and judge it once there is something to judge. Unlike what a lot of the online community does where now games are being judged before they see anything or before they even try it.

Lastly stop complaining every time DLC is announced. Do I agree with stuff like the easy fatalities for Mortal Kombat X? Nope not at all. Do I agree with maps or story missions after launch? Sure. In most cases the stuff isn`t taken out of the game and you are not sold half of the game. Do you have to get DLC to finish the story or play DLC? No, so you got sold the full game. Fact is no games company is non profit and they have people that need to be paid and support after launch costs a lot of money and it`s not really different to all the expansion packs we got in the past, it`s just a different way of distributing what would have been an expansion pack int he old days. Sure there will be people saying that games are already expensive, but it`s cheaper to buy a game now than it was 15-20 years ago while it`s a lot more expensive to make the games. I had to pay more for N64 games than what I have to pay for a game now, some of the retro games I have cost a lot more than double of what a new current gen game costs.

Obviously I fall myself victim of complaining or arguing with other people, nobody is perfect :)

Anyway that`s just my personal view

End of rant

[caseh]

" Do I agree with maps or story missions after launch? Sure. In most cases the stuff isn`t taken out of the game and you are not sold half of the game."

I'm not quite sure if we've been playing the same games but games like Destiny (and several more) have clearly withheld content with the aim of spoon feeding it for a fee.

Capcom may get bagged on but i'll say this much for them. They released SF4 in 2008 and it's had 3 further revisions, each costing about £20 so as a whole no SF player has spent more than £100 to have the latest SF game. Just to clarify, that's £100 over 7 years and the game is still very competitive.

A premium pass on top of a BF or CoD means you're paying about £80-£100. Then they release the next game in the series in around 12-15 months. Rinse and repeat.

[freshslicepizza]

those are all examples of a faulty infrastructure where developers feel handicapped to charge over $60 for games that now cost 10's of millions of dollars to create. so you have the following options to try and recoup those investments.

1. you keep the budget intact and don't make expensive games, the downfall is these games become secondary b grade or indie status.

2. they make smaller games and get away from the aaa game development

3. they make aaa games and co-develop dlc at the same time and sell that dlc to help offset the cost. things like seasons pass are also an option

4. a developer can hope their product becomes a big enough hit and sell millions of copies

5. you make a aaa game but don't offer much in value

consumers expect our games to be better while at the same time keeping cost as they are. it's a broken system. the days of a small team making a game are gone in the aaa world. do you know how many people are involved making games like assassins creed unity? ask yourself this, how much did it cost to create the first gran turismo game compared to how much they are likely spending on the next one. at the same time has the console market expanded enough to keep up with those costs to help sell that many more additional copies?

i think people love to criticize the development of games yet don't have a clue how the industry actually works or the business behind it.

the reason why indie games have gotten so much attention as of late is obvious. it's now the area where innovation comes from because publishers worry so much about risk and game developers don't have the pressure to deliver colossal hits because of the investments being made to deliver.

[caseh]

"I think people love to criticize the development of games yet don't have a clue how the industry actually works or the business behind it."

It's called encapsulation. I can drive a car but I don't need to know how it gets to market or more importantly how it actually works. My only concern is I get what my £££ is supposedly paying for. How someone derives value from their purchase is bound to be subjective and opinions will vary, but there's a concrete fact that we as gamers generally get less for our initial investment and add-on content is flaunted before a game is even released.

[DragonKnight]

"those are all examples of a faulty infrastructure where developers feel handicapped to charge over $60 for games that now cost 10's of millions of dollars to create. so you have the following options to try and recoup those investments."

Or they can charge more and not sell any copies.

"1. you keep the budget intact and don't make expensive games, the downfall is these games become secondary b grade or indie status."

Only if other studios don't care to follow suit. If the industry at large did this, then really awful games would be graded down.

"consumers expect our games to be better while at the same time keeping cost as they are. it's a broken system. the days of a small team making a game are gone in the aaa world. do you know how many people are involved making games like assassins creed unity? ask yourself this, how much did it cost to create the first gran turismo game compared to how much they are likely spending on the next one. at the same time has the console market expanded enough to keep up with those costs to help sell that many more additional copies?"

You don't play very many games do you? First of all, you're misjudging what a Triple A game is. It's not a huge game with incredible quality. A Triple A game is a game that is expected to sell at least 1 million units, is marketed heavily, and has a huge budget. Quality never enters into the equation at all. Team size also has nothing to do with Triple A games. A one man team spending $60 million on a game that sells 1 million units and is marketed well has made a Triple A game. There are so many examples of small teams making fantastically beautiful games that didn't have the massively overbloated Triple A budget scheme. That's the problem. For companies laden with suits who care for nothing but numbers, they budget poorly, market poorly, and expect too much. The end result is they spend more than they need to, and don't get enough back so they decide to nickle and dime to death.

"i think people love to criticize the development of games yet don't have a clue how the industry actually works or the business behind it."

Enlighten us.

"the reason why indie games have gotten so much attention as of late is obvious. it's now the area where innovation comes from because publishers worry so much about risk and game developers don't have the pressure to deliver colossal hits because of the investments being made to deliver."

Or maybe risk doesn't require a big budget to work.

[freshslicepizza]

@caseh
"It's called encapsulation. I can drive a car but I don't need to know how it gets to market or more importantly how it actually works. My only concern is I get what my £££ is supposedly paying for. How someone derives value from their purchase is bound to be subjective and opinions will vary, but there's a concrete fact that we as gamers generally get less for our initial investment and add-on content is flaunted before a game is even released."

but that car you drive takes gas i assume and the price of gas is much higher than it was in the 80's compared to how much games cost then. during the nes days games cost $50 so in 30 years we've seen about a 20% inflation in game prices yet development costs are far higher. I'm not sure what the answer is but this is why we've seen a huge rise in dlc and other tactics along with the retraction of new ip's with the focus on sequels.

dk,
"Or they can charge more and not sell any copies."

they could and perhaps a few titles like gta could get away with it but instead they take a less drastic approach, dlc and seasons pass.

"Only if other studios don't care to follow suit. If the industry at large did this, then really awful games would be graded down."

maybe but we would still complain.

"You don't play very many games do you? First of all, you're misjudging what a Triple A game is. It's not a huge game with incredible quality. A Triple A game is a game that is expected to sell at least 1 million units, is marketed heavily, and has a huge budget. Quality never enters into the equation at all. Team size also has nothing to do with Triple A games. A one man team spending $60 million on a game that sells 1 million units and is marketed well has made a Triple A game. There are so many examples of small teams making fantastically beautiful games that didn't have the massively overbloated Triple A budget scheme. That's the problem. For companies laden with suits who care for nothing but numbers, they budget poorly, market poorly, and expect too much. The end result is they spend more than they need to, and don't get enough back so they decide to nickle and dime to death."

ah, here we go. this is the dk i know, attack and assume. two games i mention, assassins creed and gran turismo both fall into your category. so don't try and educate me, i am well aware of what is classified as a aaa game thank you. now please give me one example of a one-man development team who has a budget of 60 million, i'll wait. why do you take such drastic measures and over-dramatize to get some flaky and thin counter argument?

"Enlighten us."

you don't have the patience, empathy or attitude to actually listen. your views never sway because your so afraid of ever being proven wrong about anything so you'll just argue until people give up. no thanks.

"Or maybe risk doesn't require a big budget to work."

what? they do take risk even on big budgets, watchdogs is a prime example but those risks pale to ubisoft's other titles. why? well because they offer less risk. microsoft, sony and nintendo are all guilty of that as well. you will see far more risks at the indie level because you don't have as much of the publishers putting so much pressure to deliver.

[DragonKnight]

@moldybread: "they could and perhaps a few titles like gta could get away with it but instead they take a less drastic approach, dlc and seasons pass."

Doubtful. GTA comes out every few years and Rockstar couldn't live off of charging $100 a copy and hoping it lasts them 4 years.

"maybe but we would still complain."

In just over 2 days it will be Friday and there will be a lottery drawing. I was thinking that since you're psychic now, you can tell me the winning LottoMax numbers since I could use $30 million.

"ah, here we go. this is the dk i know, attack and assume. two games i mention, assassins creed and gran turismo both fall into your category. so don't try and educate me, i am well aware of what is classified as a aaa game thank you. now please give me one example of a one-man development team who has a budget of 60 million, i'll wait. why do you take such drastic measures and over-dramatize to get some flaky and thin counter argument?"

Ah, there's the moldybread I know. The one with the equivalent of sandstone as emotional fortitude and thinks "You don't play very many games do you?" is an "attack and assumption." Cute. Anyway, I don't really need to provide you with an example of a one man team with a $60 million budget. As usual the point has flown so far over your head that it's gone into orbit. The point is the statement that "a small dev team making a game are gone in the aaa world" is blatantly false as it presumes that there is a barrier preventing small teams from making Triple A games and there isn't. Triple A games are not made based on studio size, they are made based on budget size. Bill Gates, if he wanted to, could literally be a one man Triple A developer because he has the money to do so. It's about budget, marketing, and sales expectations, not studio size.

"you don't have the patience, empathy or attitude to actually listen. your views never sway because your so afraid of ever being proven wrong about anything so you'll just argue until people give up. no thanks."

You could have saved a lot of time by simply admitting you don't know a damn thing about it rather than trying to make people think you do.

"what? they do take risk even on big budgets, watchdogs is a prime example but those risks pale to ubisoft's other titles. why? well because they offer less risk. microsoft, sony and nintendo are all guilty of that as well. you will see far more risks at the indie level because you don't have as much of the publishers putting so much pressure to deliver."

Do you ever tire of missing the point? I mean seriously. You even JUST contradicted yourself. First its "Triple A studios are less inclined to take risks because of the money involved" and now it's "oh Triple A studios definitely take risks, look at *insert game here* for example."

Seriously. Just stop. It's sad at this point.

[s45gr32]

Games have become expensive due to changing the game engine for every single generation instead of squeezing or using the current engine to its fullest. Some games use A star movie actors for full virtual rendition and voice or just voice. Sorry but A list actors cost more than an upcoming movie actor (va are used in gaming and actors participate in gaming through rendering their virtual self). Heavy marketing and hype wasting money and time on tech demos/trailers for almost every single gaming convention. The shipping costs,transport,warehouse storage,etc for physical media has gone up. As games get better visually, less and less content is available. Funny though video game characters still have plastic hair, mediocre facial animations, plastic trees, can't get into all the buildings, plastic grass,etc. Visually speaking, ragdoll physics, human likeness of video game characters, lifelike buildings, weather effects, have improved. The audio of gaming has improved but the gameplay has remained the same since the PS2 era. Indie game developers publish their own games , but do not include drm,dlc,microtransanctions, etc on their games. I agree gaming has become expensive but not in the areas of game design, gameplay, or even on facial animations, body animations, footstep audio improvement. So, while mainstream game developers/ publishers focus on A list actors voices/ likeness, special effects, and on tech demos for every gaming convention, oh almost forgot buying the latest game engine. Which in all honesty that's a waste of money;whereas, indie game developers spent money on making a great game that improves gameplay,design,atmosphere, etc.. That's the difference Mainstream gaming operates like a corporation, indies operate as a creative business.

[freshslicepizza]

@s45gr32,
"That's the difference Mainstream gaming operates like a corporation, indies operate as a creative business."

this is true. why do you think well known game makers have moved onto smaller teams and become independent? so many are likely burnt out trying to fulfil these huge expectations because the publishers spend tens of millions of dollars into one game.

we as gamers are partly to blame. we get sucked into the e3 events, the big showings. after all we want high quality assets to go along with our new shiny hardware. plus marketing works. it worked for destiny, it worked for call of duty. lots of great games go by the waste-side because they don't get the same airplay. they also have to build new engines because they have new hardware every 5-6 years on average. lots of games take years to make. look at how many are delayed and they have lots of people working on them so it's not all wasted on marketing. peoples salaries have increased over the past 30 years i would hope.

what really makes me laugh though is this entitlement many gamers seem to have. we would be so afraid to spend over $100 on one game even though inflation over the years says we should be. then we have the audacity to whine that they charge for dlc even though nobody forces us to buy the game or the dlc. we want to have the experience and enjoyment like we did back then because some of us feel games are shorter now and less thought went into them, trouble is nobody wants to pay in todays prices for it. then they wonder why so many studios shut down, why we see so few new ip's, why we get seasons passes, dlc and content to be sold after launch that is created during the making of the game.

[DragonKnight]

"what really makes me laugh though is this entitlement many gamers seem to have. we would be so afraid to spend over $100 on one game even though inflation over the years says we should be. then we have the audacity to whine that they charge for dlc even though nobody forces us to buy the game or the dlc. we want to have the experience and enjoyment like we did back then because some of us feel games are shorter now and less thought went into them, trouble is nobody wants to pay in todays prices for it. then they wonder why so many studios shut down, why we see so few new ip's, why we get seasons passes, dlc and content to be sold after launch that is created during the making of the game."

You really do put effort into missing the point and being ignorant don't you?

Firstly, no one is "afraid" to spend $100 on a game. Collector's Editions charge at least that much and people buy them. It's not entitlement, it's value for money, a concept which seems to be completely alien to you. It's not a good purchase to spend $60 on a 6 hour game that's mostly filled with cutscenes, it sure as hell would be a worse value to spend $100 on it. Inflation over time says we should be paying $100? Are you a corporate PR shill or something? Do you know there are devs out there that think that even the $60 model is too much to be charging people? The only reason $60 is still the base cost is because devs know they can get away with it. Development on PC is just as expensive as it is for consoles, minus marketing and physical distribution costs that publishers incur, and yet the PC market can consistently charge less and you don't see the studios shutting down the way you seem to think is happening at epidemic levels.

People look after their own interests and their own money. It's not up to us to care about the budget of a development studio. We have to care about spending hard earned money on games that are worth buying, and if they aren't worth buying then we have the right to not buy and complain about it. That's the way a free market works. We demand, they supply, we pay if it's worth it. No one forces us to buy games, but no one is forcing them to make them either. We buy them for entertainment, they make them for a living. The Free Market will ALWAYS try to get more money out of you than they have the right to. Always. That's why we have DLC and Season Passes. Those features can be done correctly but they aren't. There is no excuse for day one, on disc DLC and no excuse for paying for DLC you know nothing about with a Season Pass. That's clearly nickle and diming.

Why don't you go ahead the next time you buy a game from wherever and say "here's an extra $40 because of inflation." I'd love to see you stick to that conviction.

[freshslicepizza]

dk,
"It's not up to us to care about the budget of a development studio."

you're right, you don't have to care about the budget of the game. it's far easier to complain about why there is day one dlc and seasons passes than to take the time to fully understand how we got here. i am not here advocating on their behalf saying this is the right direction, i am merely explaining to you why it's there in the first place. you're just too self-absorbed to fully understand the concept of things cost more to make. so stop acting like i'm some shill because you have a beef with me or because you're frustrated with games being released not meeting your requirements.

the price of admission to go to a movie is far greater now than it was 30 years ago. why is it so difficult for you to understand the same scenario when it comes to videogames and why publishers feel the need to nickel and dime us?

james cameron once thought the cost of making movies should reflect the cost of admission at the cinema. could this be applied to games? sure but who's going to take that step first? nobody wants to so they take the easy way out, take things out and charging for it. look at all the complaints about games with no single player campaign with only multiplayer. people get upset, they feel they should have a campaign attached to it. who decided these rules? look at the price of game consoles, there seems to be a cap of about $400. they tried but the mainstream public resists so now we have a new generation of weak hardware to last us for 5 or more years. it's about keeping costs down.

the industry is dangerously falling into a state of being risk-averse, look at the death of mid-tier games to how similar aaa titles are nowadays as well as all the remastered games being released. most games are about familiarity and sameness now. that can only be sustained for so long before it crashes. this is where we are headed, consumers are not willing to spend more but they expect more so we have an industry playing it safe all while trying to nickel and dime us. delayed projects, sequels, once in awhile a new ip, a reboot, a sequel, more delays, a remaster, rinse and repeat. all while people like you sit back in your chair and say it's not up to you to care about the budget.

[DragonKnight]

@moldybread: You just spent an entire essay defending bad business practices. You understand that right? You're definitely not a developer of a Triple A game or a large development studio. You literally know absolutely nothing about the finances of game development and distribution, yet here you are championing the idea of spending $100 on a game because you think it's necessary to help developers.

So, I'll bring up the following.

First, your assessment is immediately debunked by the presence of the PC market, who consistently are able to sell Triple A titles at substantially lower prices.

"But they only deal in digital distribution" you might bring up.

Yep, and on console the cost of digital games is still higher. Why? Well the publishers blame Gamestop, but it's really because they know they can get away with charging it.

Development of games is no cheaper on PC than it is on consoles, not by a long shot. Do you really think that removing the costs of physical distribution and marketing are enough to recoup the losses of a $60 million game sold at $40 to $45 BRAND NEW if we were to go by your logic? Forget about DLC and microtransactions. PC gamers hardly ever go for that unless they are MMO players.

Moving on. How long have you been gaming? See right now you're saying we're the cause of gaming collapse, of risk aversion and bloated budgets. I've been gaming a long time. In that time I've seen exactly one gaming collapse. You know how it happened? Wasn't budget constraints. It was a flood of mediocre garbage being made because a company, Atari, had no quality control and basically told everyone to make anything they wanted and it could be put on the Atari.

Funnily enough, that same kind of mentality is coming out of Activision, EA, Ubisoft, and Squeenix for example. Only they're just doing it with their own games. You want a gaming collapse? Make garbage and it'll happen.

I've also been gaming long enough to have seen the following blamed for gaming's woes before ultimately settling on us the way you are now.

Too many consoles on the market were going to doom gaming by splitting the market too much which would impact revenue. Didn't happen.

Renting of consoles and games were going to doom gaming because people weren't buying them, impacting revenue again. Didn't happen.

Demos were going to ruin gaming because people would be less inclined to buy a game that had a bad demo, impacting revenue again. Didn't happen.

Piracy is still going to ruin gaming because people aren't paying for games, impacting revenue (despite many sources stating it actually HELPED them). Hasn't happened even though software piracy has been around pretty much as long as software has.

Used games are going to destroy the gaming industry because, although a game is sold and then resold to make it used, one sale of that one copy isn't enough for studios. They need more money and revenue is being eaten by the used games market. The market that Gamestop is at the forefront of. The same Gamestop that prevents digital prices from being lowered. The Gamestop that all publishers basically say they hate, yet bend over backwards to give pre-order bonuses to. Oh, used games haven't destroyed the gaming industry.

And now we come to us. According to you, we entitled gamers who care more about our own money since, you know, we work for it; we're the ones who are going to ruin the industry because we demand value for our money and don't want to be gouged or nickle and dimed like suckers.

[DragonKnight]

Part 2:
Newsflash shill. Publishers and developers will always come up with a doomsday cause for the gaming industry because the Free Market always wants more money for less work. Even today food products are seeing their sizes reduced, or the quality of the ingredients decreasing, yet remaining at, or increasing in, price.

Publishers and Developers have always been what's wrong with the gaming industry. They were when the market crashed 30 years ago, they are today. Stop defending them unless you're willing to put up or shut up and give Amazon, or Walmart, or Best Buy, or Gamestop, or whatever store you buy your games from an extra $40 on your principle and prove to everyone that you did it.

[OrangePowerz]

@Dragon

Steam is getting closer and closer to selling the games on PC for the same price as on console. In both cases you can get them a lot cheaper if you go to online retailers.

As for the more money for less work. Companies would like that, but that’s not the case of what actually happens. You are paying the same price now for a game that has been made by hundreds or in some cases thousands of people that cost a lot more to make than what you paid back in the days for a game that was made by a few people and cost a tiny fraction of what making a game costs now.

Sure many will say in those days I got a complete game and now I’m getting half a game and I have to buy the rest via DLC. I don’t fully agree with that sentiment, people always expect that DLC was taken out of the game. Do all expansion packs in the past consist of content that was removed from the game so they could sell it later? Probably not, it was probably content they either where thinking of doing during the development but didn’t have time to do or came up with it shortly after they did the game. Sure there was some change that now they plan with DLC in mind and I’m sure a game like Battlefront will have DLC. But the DLC they will make for it would they have time to complete that and put it into the game? Probably not. So if you would want all of that in the game you would need to wait a lot longer before the game comes out, that equals the game is even more expensive to make that means you either increase the price it’s sold at or you have to do DLC to make a better profit from the game and people will complain again that there is DLC and that they don’t get a full game. I see it like cars when you buy your car you have the choice of buying the base version that has everything you need to drive or you can pay extra for non essential things. How people behave is like if you buy a car it doesn’t come with a steering wheel, engine or wheels and you have to buy that stuff extra just to drive. I don’t see that as being the case in the majority of cases. With some exceptions DLC is extra content that isn’t essential for playing the game. You don’t have to buy the BF4 DLC to play the game, you can buy it to get more stuff and that money pays for the people that are required to make that DLC.

In the end of the day what you might consider as "less value for your money" requires a lot more people and they need to be paid and I don’t see how a AAA game could or should be sold for below 60 when you have to run a business and have to keep people employed that’s just not possible unless you change to make smaller games and downscale your business, but than you won’t get anymore AAA games.

Lets make up completely fake numbers and say you make 30 bucks from a 60 bucks game after retailers, Valve, MS, Sony, Nintendo and whoever else takes their share and you need to sell 3 million to make a profit. Lets say you decide to be a good sport and sell it for only 50 and you make 20 bucks per copy sold. That means you would need to sell now 4.5 million units to make a profit. 1.5 million more units isn`t really a small amount and it`s likely that selling for 10 bucks less wouldn’t increase the sales enough to make up for that. That gap would increase the higher your budget.

I recommend you look at the statistics of how much the people earn per year who make the games and how much you would need to pay for only the salaries if you have hundreds of them working on a game for 2-3 years. It’s not a small amount and all of them put an insane amount of work into making those games. Those might games that are not your taste or you personally don’t think they have enough value for you to pay 60 bucks, but I don’t think it’s right to say those games should be cheaper given how much money and work it takes to make those games.

[freshslicepizza]

@OrangePowerz

you bring up a lot of valid points but some people don't want to see it that way. their attitude is that's their problem not mine when it is essentially all of our problems.

the whole attitude that games offered more in the old days is a completely false representation of what goes into making games now to how they were made back then. you want a game like the nes days? fine, go play shovel knight. a wonderful game that would have cost $50 back in the 80's but was actually priced new for $15. so tell me again how we are getting ripped off now? oh but those graphics are dated? well there you go. you want fancy graphics and open worlds then expect to pay accordingly. why is it so hard for some people to understand the cost will be transferred to the consumer one way or another? people complained about the ps4 being an indie machine without much for aaa games. they bought the hardware to reflect the software that pushes it. yeah well those games cost money, more than they used to. now what? whose going to pay for them? then we wonder why games get delayed, why there are so many reboots and remasters, why so many games feel incomplete or broken.

the production costs and manpower that goes into big titles is astronomical compared to games being made on the atari nes days. if you don't want games that charge more than $60 because of dlc and seasons passes then go buy smaller games. it's that simple. the economics show why publishers feel inclined to add dlc and other ways to absorb that investment. exclusive titles are often loss leaders because the hardware makes money off of licensing fees, online memberships and hardware sales. third party don't have that luxury so what they often do is make their game multiplatform. more systems, more sales. well sometimes those don't pan out either and the lack of new ip's show that.

not one person could counter what i said about gran turismo as a prime example of production costs rising. that game cost $50 on the first playstation and the budget probably pales in comparison to what sony spends on the upcoming game. then we have the audacity to complain and whine if they sell dlc or don't have enough tracks or as many cars that are premium quality. the pc doesn't get as many aaa exclusives and the reason is simple, they are third party publishers since the pc is an open platform. it also has piracy issues they need to worry about. the investments for aaa exclusives are huge and come with tons of risk. that's why the pc mostly gets multiplat games and indie titles. less risk.

there are so many games available to us now yet we focus on games that are trying to rip us off. most are the well known titles, the mainstream. why wouldn't they use those titles as a catalysts for new ways of getting money out of the consumer?

if you don't want to pay $60 for a shell of a game then buy cheaper made products. they are everywhere. you can buy games right now for $10 if you want. the industry can either keep making large budgeted games at the risk of losing money or finding ways to recoup the costs or the industry can start making cheaper games. either way we will still complain, that's what we do best.

[OrangePowerz]

You don`t need to know how the car was built or got to market to drive it, but if you criticize it you should know why the things you criticize are the way they are. If your job is to build sculptures and you just finished making one that took you months to make and you spend 10 hours or more every day making it and I come along without knowing anything about how to make sculptures and just criticize most of your work or all of your work what would your opinion be about me? Probably not very positive.

Do you need to know how games get to market and what it takes to make them to play games? No, but if you criticize them in a way that makes it look like you know better you should.

I played Destiny a lot and I don`t see where content was clearly withheld. It`s like it`s a fact that content was withheld and there can`t be any other reason why they made DLC. I`m not saying it`s not possible but it`s treated as a fact. Maybe they always planned to make the content DLC? It wouldn`t be a chase of being withheld. For me withheld means it was in the game, finished or could have been finished for launch and taken out to sell as DLC. We have no information that confirms that.

SF4 is a great game but that analogy doesn`t work that well. The other games had been revisions. Making a revision is relatively cheap, doesn`t require a huge amount of work and isn`t as complex to pull off so you can sell it for 20.

You don`t have to buy the next BF or COD if you want to stay with the current one just stay with the current one and you don`t have to buy the season pass either. You can still find plenty of online games for the previous games.

People complain about those sort of things, but let`s look at it from a different point of view. First of all if you have DLC that means people are more likely to continue playing because they get new content regularly and don`t get bored as quickly. Sure you could make that content free, but you have to pay the people that make the content. WoW get`s frequently new content via patches because they have the monthly subscriptions and therefore have the income to pay people to make the content. Games like BF don`t have a subscription and lack the frequent income to finance the post launch content. You complain that the developers plan now DLC while they making the game. You think that was different in the past when we had expansion packs? It was the exact same thing, but because it couldn`t be broken up into x amounts of DLC packs it was released a year later or so as an expansion pack. All that has changes is how it is delivered now digitally and that it`s broken up into parts so the players can get content faster.

Games are very expensive to produce so the other option you have is to sell the game directly for 100 bucks and I`m sure people would not go with that meaning sales would be a lot lower and you make even less money.

@Dragon

There is no specific definition for what AAA means, but it`s pretty much based on budget and not the sales expectations necessarily. You can make a mid budget game and expect to sell a million units. AAA means a lot of money went into making it. In theory higher budgets should translate into better quality and higher production values, but we know that's not always the case.

As for innovation not needing a big budget. If you have several thousand employees to pay and you make a small game and sell it for 10-20 bucks that won't get you a lot of money in most cases. So you end up making a great small game that is innovative, but doesn't make you the money you need to pay people. It's great if you don't have to think about money, but if making a big budget game with lots of innovation means it's easy to fail and as a result you need to fire people you will several times before doing it.

[DragonKnight]

No, there very much is a specific definition of what AAA is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

"In the video game industry, AAA (pronounced "triple A") is a classification term used for games with the highest development budgets and levels of promotion. A title considered to be AAA is therefore expected to be a high quality game and to be among the year's bestsellers."

Note that it is expected to be high quality, but that its quality is not a qualification for it to be Triple A.

"As for innovation not needing a big budget. If you have several thousand employees to pay and you make a small game and sell it for 10-20 bucks that won't get you a lot of money in most cases. So you end up making a great small game that is innovative, but doesn't make you the money you need to pay people. It's great if you don't have to think about money, but if making a big budget game with lots of innovation means it's easy to fail and as a result you need to fire people you will several times before doing it."

Ok, but you didn't really say that innovation requires a big budget. It really doesn't. There are lots of small games that are highly innovative. It can be argued that success needs a big budget, but even then there are outliers like Minecraft or Flappy Bird that beg to differ.

[s45gr32]

As a veteran console gamer,free unlockables, map editors, mini games, etc. have gone the way of the dinosaurs for consoles. If you were to play tekken 3, it was possible to unlock fighting characters for free,videogame modes,like the volleyball game, brawler game mode for free. Yes N64 games were expensive ;however PS One, PS2, Sega Dreamcast and even Xbox games were not. For $50.00 or less games were packed with gaming content like map editors, mini games,alternative endings (star ocean second story had 80 different endings) sidequests, mini quests. The ability to go off the beaten path and able to explore every nook and cranny of a game. The moment mainstream gaming went corporate that's the moment mainstream gaming died. Too much focus on getting the latest gaming engine, special effects, lighting, having William Dafoe, Kevin Spacey,etc.voice or likeness in the game. Creating multiple tech demos and trailers for every single gaming convention. No focus at all when it comes to animation, game design, targeting their respective audience for their respective platform (making the game for everyone) ,plastic hair,trees,same sounds for footsteps, etc,hell video gameplay has not changed since the PS2 era as far as mainstream gaming goes. Is ridiculous, mainstream gaming needs to stop operating like a corporate business and start operating like a creative business.

[caseh]

"I played Destiny a lot and I don`t see where content was clearly withheld."

Oh that lengthy story mode eh, i'm sure it was missing an ending or is it just me?

[TransientDreamer]

"Once upon a time gaming journalism was about informing their readers about games and what goes on in the gaming world. When you bought a magazine and looked at the articles you where provided with information and it felt that the writers genuinely liked games and enjoyed them."

It's still very much this way. Nothing's changed except for the fact that it's mostly digital, and there are tons more sources for readers to find news, reviews, etc.

"Over the years things changed and gaming journalism became gaming "journalism". Gone are the times when it was important to provide the reader with facts and information and instead this was replaced with writing controversial articles for more clicks and write highly opinionated articles about games that are presented as hard facts."

Nothing was replaced. The readers simply became more surly and now focus entirely on writers who write things they don't like, instead of seeking out content that they enjoy.

The rest of this blog is moot.

[DragonKnight]

"It's still very much this way. Nothing's changed except for the fact that it's mostly digital, and there are tons more sources for readers to find news, reviews, etc."

http://kotaku.com/tag/femin...

"Nothing was replaced. The readers simply became more surly and now focus entirely on writers who write things they don't like, instead of seeking out content that they enjoy."

http://www.emuparadise.me/m...

Contains several gaming magazine scans. Go ahead and find an equivalent "click bait" article.

[TransientDreamer]

Thanks for proving my point DK.

You post a tab from a singular site. What does that prove? It proves the fixation I'm referring to.

Your second link glosses over the reality that the medium has expanded. There are more publications and more writers out there. You know what you get when that happens? A more diverse pool of opinions and sources for news.

Get over it already.

[DragonKnight]

So because I didn't literally post the internet in the form of links, I've proven your point? I know that that's a logical fallacy, I just forget the name of it.

My second link doesn't gloss over anything. "Diverse pool of opinions" doesn't mean sensationalism and click bait and doesn't mesh with your "it's all our fault that the style of reporting has changed" statement.

Take your own advice.

[TransientDreamer]

You posted a link to a singular site and you think it proves your point about the entire medium. That's silly.

Again you prove my point that you ONLY focus on the clickbait and sensationalists. Yes, they exist, but they're not the norm, and they're not a majority. That's a fact.

[DragonKnight]

@TransientDreamer: Re-read my second reply to you. Clearly it somehow escaped your grasp to the point you felt it necessary to repeat the same stupidity you replied to me with. Forgive me for not wanting to waste effort in doing the same.

[OrangePowerz]

I might not have explained myself well enough.

Yes it changed to digital and there are plenty of news, reviews, etc., but for me this is not the only change. For me there has been a big change in quality of the content presented and how it is presented. It`s not anymore that much about providing the reader with the information and facts instead of whatever news comes out most writers feel the need to add their two cents of what they feel about the subject and in plenty of cases try to influence what the reader should think about the subject.

Things have become a lot more subjective compared to the old days of print media and now every writer thinks they are game designer instead of just giving the reader the content in an objective way without trying to influence them.

Gaming journalism in the old times was a lot more classy, informative and objective. The gaming press nowadays to a large degree feels like tabloid newspapers that try anything to get more readers and to sway the opinion of their readers in certain directions that either suit their views or ones that create controversy and get them more hits.

You might feel different about it, but fr me as someone who used to buy 3-4 magazines per month and wrote for magazines and websites the quality of the majority of articles we get now feels low and that includes "respectable" websites.

[caseh]

"Gaming journalism in the old times was a lot more classy, informative and objective. The gaming press nowadays to a large degree feels like tabloid newspapers that try anything to get more readers and to sway the opinion of their readers in certain directions that either suit their views or ones that create controversy and get them more hits."

I think that probably comes down to the fact that sites can be updated at any time so they need to keep the news coming on a daily basis and any news is worthy it would seem. With magazines, they would gather as much as they could and release all that info in monthly instalments.

Magazines were not so clear cut back in the day though, I read an interview with Rich Leadbetter (Editor of Sega Saturn Official mag) and he stated there was often pressure to not put out bad review scores. Their way around it was to let someone else publish the shockingly crap reviews first then put their take on it the following month.

With the internets it's all about who can get that shocking review in there first to bait clicks. :/

[s45gr32]

It was pretty decent video game journalism back in the day. Mostly based on game reviews, previews, but no clickbait articles or such back then. Sadly www.thepareport.com died and is a shame due to this gaming website had the balls to write an article on the online pass and in the article mentioned the first sale doctrine a law that grants the consumer the legal right to buy used physical products, trade,or sell. Explained in a professional matter how videogame sales work. Agggghhh!!! The true gaming journalism website goes under but these clickbait, looking for hits sites remain operational that sucks.

[TransientDreamer]

Language, sweetie.

[Anthotis]

Places like Kotaku often have articles that aren't even gaming related. There was one there the other day about some fashion trend in Japan. Bunny ears or something.

They're also one of the biggest promoters of anti-white and anti-male propaganda in the gaming world.

For those who don't hate white men and enjoy gaming as a male space and don't want to warp it into something boring and ugly like the SJWs want, there isn't any sensible reason to visit places like Kotaku, Polygon, Gamasutra, Escapist or Destructoid.

Also, a lot of DLC is quite blatantly cut content, and developers should be called out on it every time they do it.

[freshslicepizza]

"The online community should really stop bitching about everything."

this is the internet, a place where everyone feels they have a voice. it's also much easier to point out what's wrong with something than it is to offer a better solution. those people are the cowards or armchair critics, the ones who hide behind their anonymity to complain while unable to offer anything better.

some online users also exhibit patterns that are more about attention than about voicing an opinion. they get their kicks doing this on a regular basis. there are many reasons why they feel compelled to do this but i'm not about to go into detail about it.

[rainslacker]

Everyone does have a voice. That's actually one good thing about the internet. The bad thing about the community is that some very vocal ones don't like others to have a voice that is different than their own. Add this to people who sometimes seem like their voice is more important than any others, and it causes a lot of hostility.

Rational discussion is rare except in well moderated or topic specific forums. There are tons of good debates to be had on this site on a daily basis. Lots of information that can be learned. Lots of knowledgeable people offering their expertise for people to absorb or use to find out more. But it very often seems that people are too afraid to be wrong about something, which just prevents them from learning something new.

To me, I actually get excited at times when I'm wrong about something, because it means I can learn something new. I love to learn new things, but 99% of the time, most people can not seem to really say why anyone might be wrong without the use of hyperbole or assumption....something which I'm admittedly guilty of at times.

Your last paragraph is just a longer definition of troll.:)

[DefenderOfDoom2]

Well, i have a friend, who was a level designer for one of the award winning video games of the year in 2011 and also worked on one of the award winning video games in 2013 . Both these video games had massive triple A budgets . Now he is working on his own game and just made a deal with one of the biggest publishers out there . He has no time for anything but working on his game . So yeah, like you, i side with the video game developers who work hard for our entertainment .

As far as websites and Youtube channels covering video games goes . For me complaining about video games tends to get boring . That's why i watch Jeff Gertsmann and "Giant Bomb" , "Superbunny Hop" , "Video Game Historian", "Ahoy" . These sites have a tendency to talk about the the things that are fun about video games . I like Jim Sterling , i find him entertaining but his show the "Jimquistion" i find boring now . If i want to be entertained while someone is complaining, i will just watch Boogie2988's "Francis" character . That character makes me laugh and i know it is just an act .

What i think, is that video game companies love it, when sites talk about (good or bad) a screenshot from a video game that is coming out in 1 to 2 years later . It is still giving the game exposure . To me a lot of these video game sites and Youtube channels have become more like little promotional branches for the video game companies . Great blog.

[OrangePowerz]

Good luck to your friend. :)

Yes there isn`t any denying that a lot of websites also turned into promoting specific games. I just need to look at IGN when any bigger game comes out they bombard you with huge amounts of articles for a single game for weeks. I don`t see that as informing the player I see that as them trying to sell the game to me.

[s45gr32]

Nice blog

[rainslacker]

To me, it just seems that there isn't enough actual gaming news to really fill up the numerous websites on a daily basis to drive the ad revenue. Because of this, sensationalism has taken over to drive more hits to the actual news, and then editorial has taken the place of informing the readers. At some point, journalism went from being about "bringing content to the readers" and went to becoming too big for their britches and try to influence the course of the industry and the discourse that happens among the community.

In days gone by, the constant addition to things that fuel the fan boy wars was simply non-existent, or at most insignificant, because there was a finite place to place news and ads within a publication. This left only a place for the most important stuff, but obviously had it's drawbacks compared to having a virtually infinite access to information.

I hate to bring it up since I know it'll cause a huge off topic debate(which I won't participate in), but the constant barrage of DX12 articles that like to present information as fact, are a far cry from what we would have seen when the term journalist was actually respectable. Proper news would present the information factually, explain it in enough detail so people would understand it, and give examples of why it was important. It would also verify and follow up on all the information that it presents, to make sure that it was accurate so the information was actually useful for the reader. That's the way journalism should be done, but nowadays, it takes to long to wait on an official response, and requires some expertise to verify the kind of technical information that's being presented on an almost hourly basis.

The truth of the matter is is that gaming news nowadays is more about editorial than it is about providing their readers with information. Those constant opinion articles get too much attention, and really serve to divide the community. What's sad is that the editorial is more often than not poorly researched and written, and despite being opinion, doesn't follow journalistic standards for editorial. It serves less as a way to offer a different look on a topic, and more as a way for the author to express their opinion to try and influence the tide of discourse for what seems like a narcissistic need to feed their own ego. Very few authors on gaming sites can write editorial properly, and sadly, this is also a place where YouTube personalities are completely outpacing "respectable" gaming sites.

I won't really speak about the online community. I honestly see it about the same as it's always been. I think the only real difference I see now as oppsed to 20 years ago(I used to run BBS's and forums so I was well ahead of the internet "fad"), is that the community is much much more hostile towards one another and varying opinions. While trolls always existed, there was a time when having a different opinion was actually OK, and between a tight community, you'd have the good natured ribbing...like you mention how you and your friends would argue with one another.

I'll leave you with one of the most interesting things I learned in a computer class I had to take a couple years ago. The teacher said, "99% of all human knowledge is now available instantly at our fingertips, and 75% of internet users spend a majority of their time on facebook[metaphor for social media in general]"

All that being said...My Turbo Express puts your Game Gear to shame. :P

[OrangePowerz]

I pretty much agree with you there, except the Turbo Express ;)

I won`t go into DX12, since I always get downvoted into oblivion when I express my opinion :) But into the way the information is presented. I remember in the magazines when a new console was unveiled there had been always a lot of pages talking about the hardware where the strength and weaknesses would be etc. it was basically a complete tech breakdown. They went into detail trying to explain stuff to the reader and put real effort into the article. I don`t really see that anymore either, for that you would need to go to specialized websites. I haven`t seen on a normal gaming website an actual analytical article about DX12. I have seen articles that talk about what they have been told such as the benchmark results between DX12 and DX11. I don`t recall any of them contemplating about if those Benchmarks had been fully and only designed for DX12 or if they had been also optimized for DX11. Because depending on that the outcome can be different. Not saying that the Benchmarks are designed to have a result in a specific way, but I`m always taking a huge amount of salt when such Benchmarks are presented. Just like when nVidia, AMD and other companies come with their Benchmark results of "our new hardware is x% faster or better than the product of company Y". If you have a product to sell naturally you won`t say it`s slower and naturally you will use a Benchmark that favors your product as much as possible and gives you the highest number possible.

As for media in combination with the community. I have seen one very interesting thing recently that was started by the media and picked up by the community and is being repeated and over and over again. When Battlefront was revealed they said there won`t be a campaign and so on. The no campaign parts has been turned into no singleplayer content although there are missions that can be played in singeplayer and it is getting repeated and over and over again by the community. And the media is nowhere to be found when it comes to correcting that misconception.

I have certainly some reservations about Battlefront especially if it will launch broken or not given that they have to release that this year to profit from the hype about the new Star Wars movie, but that game is getting already ripped to shreds by plenty of people without any gameplay footage. I`m certainly not happy about the exclusion of space battles, but I don`t agree on how the game is currently being treated by the community.