General Trends in Gaming

puk · A Winner is me!

Does anyone have any explanations as to why there are certain changes in the gaming industry.

For example, I was playing Half Life 1 yesterday, and the level design in that game is far different than what we have today. The environments are realistic (90 degree corners, flat walls, high ceilings in warehouses) and very large. Games these days make the player really slow, and the distance to travel short.

The same can be said of Deus Ex. The levels in that game were HUGE. In Bioshock 2, the levels are only a fraction of that size.

Shouldn't levels be getting bigger as hardware advances? (Far Cry exempted)

_Master_ · A Winner is me!

i think the problem is gaming is like any other industry now. earlier it was a niche market. so you could put your time into it, but now with deadlines, you keep the levels simple and focus more on adding more detail per sq pixel area.....what we want is more realism, more area, more fun, more more more!

puk · A Winner is me!

Basically what you're saying is that the problem is EA

_Master_ · A Winner is me!

i would say it is a general trend. you look around and say wow, nice graphics and before you know "game over" and your like wtf should i do next? so you buy another game & process repeat. thats why games are no longer memorable.

puk · A Winner is me!

Dude I shit you not, someone does a research project on this, and every major game reviewer/developer will be paying you 6 figures to work for them.

berzerker · A Winner is me!

Levels have not gotten smaller in Gothic 3 (not sure about Risen, haven't played it yet). And from GTA III via GTA VC to GTA SA the city became larger too (I suppose GTA4 broke that trend, haven't played it yet).

I guess there are several reasons for levels generally getting smaller whereas hardware has advanced and games getting shorter:

- all additional processing power is wasted on improved graphics because that's supposed to sell (it is like the megapixel race with camera's. More pixels sell even though quality ends up being worse);
- gaming gets more mainstream and get tailored to casual gamers who are supposed to want everything quick and easy;
- PC games being console ports so additional available power on the PC is not used or used only where this can be implemented simply (expanding levels would essentially mean designing a new game so this is no viable option);
- increased cost of development because of higher graphic requirement (more detailed textures cost more time to design, if you compare HL1 to Crysis the difference is immense, this comes at a price).
- people do not seem to prefer long games over short ones so why would developers develop long games (given that these cost more to develop). Short games sell just fine.

puk · A Winner is me!

All valid points. WRT your last point, why do you think people have all of a sudden developed a preference for short, easy, boring games?

berzerker · A Winner is me!

puk · A Winner is me!

TV shows and movies have always sucked though (look at friends, Red Dawn), and at least junk food tastes good.

These games are nowhere near as good as they used to be

berzerker · A Winner is me!

puk · A Winner is me!

oh the glory days

craterface · Poopypants

shorter games can be finished faster and more easily, thus giving not just the worthy, but every player a sense of accomplishment without the actual effort needed to finish them. since they are short the masses will buy another one faster. they don't stick into games for a month or two.. they finish it within a week, maybe a few days and in some cases, even in one sitting.
they publish more and more shitty games with no real work put into them, but that's not too obvious for most people because they can't compare without haveing played any games with normal lengh.
and because these games are shorter, the player don't have to suffer TOO LONG from degenerated characters and overly simplified, cliche places like "towns" with only 5 building and every one of them looks exactly the same. this way they don't let enough time for the games to leave a bad impression, instead, they don't leave any impression at all.

craterface · Poopypants

games normal lengh are considered boring by the people who grew up on games today. oh and also as berserker said the food industry is a major exaple of this trend.
with milk and wine that's made of powder, cookies made out of FEATHER (no joke), any kind of vedgetable that's saw some actual sunlight are now FARMED UNDER BIO CONDITIONS or something thus now considered "special" and often more expensive.
theese are eeeevil methods.
some of these foods that came up recently can kill certain tastes out of our mouth. so when we bite into a delicious juicy meat of a chicken that was raised in a farm for example instead of a hatchery we're not gonna like it anymore. and not only because we get stressed often by the conserved terror and panic still preserved in the meat through hormons..
it's just won't taste good.

Dick_In_Your_Ass · A Winner is me!

Dnt knw why consumers these days want everything ready made and easy to get into.seriously the last game that i felt was worth purchasing thanks to its length was HL2 as of recent only short shit has come out.

_Master_ · A Winner is me!

hl2 overrated, avg title.
story: boring
gameplay: boring
gfx: good
sound: good
music: dont remember, so must have been insignificant

puk · A Winner is me!

Dick_In_Your_Ass · A Winner is me!

Yeah but with cheats to get into any level it's quite enjoyable.besides most fpser are boring when played for a long(more than 40mins) time.

Dick_In_Your_Ass · A Winner is me!

_Master_ · A Winner is me!

puk · A Winner is me!