Wow just wow "Ten Trends That Are Destroying Videogames" (hillarious article)

[Spindel]

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[E6600]

IGN is destroying gaming with their stupid lists.

[Romanc]

A fun read, and some good points (and some pointless ones)

[boffo]

I saw this and had also considered posting it, but I figured it'd just be laughed off like anything here has recently that dares to post anything negative about the Wii.

[Spindel]

Originally Posted by boffo

I saw this and had also considered posting it, but I figured it'd just be laughed off like anything here has recently that dares to post anything negative about the Wii.

I think this forum needs a more balanced crowd

But it isn't only about the Wii, some pretty pointless points all over if you ask me.

[boffo]

To add to the discussion I'll break down my thoughts on each point.

1. Great cast, bad script
- I haven't played any of the games mentioned but if developers are putting more emphasis into the cast than the actual story that is a bad thing. A good cast doesn't make a bad story any better, while a good story can just make the game better regardless of who's reading it. Of course in the case of a genre like FPS's story has never really been a focus anyway.

2. Unreal Engine 3
-I won't complain about this one. Too many cookie cutter shooters out there that all look the same and in many cases it seems using this engine just makes the developers lazy. Look at a list of the worst rated shooters on the PS3 and 360 and I'll bet most of them use Unreal 3.

3. Sequels
-Far too broad. Some sequels are great, some are not so great. Some new series are great, some are not so great. And then they list the Sims series where the new things that come out are add-ons, not sequels so I'm not sure they even know what they're talking about here.

4. Too quick to announce a game will be a series
- I only see this as a problem in the case where the game leaves you hanging. I don't mind a game that hopes to be a trilogy but doesn't assume that it will be one. I want to see an ending when I finish a game.

5. Wii Shovelware
- It's not destroying gaming, but it is making the Wii look bad. 25% of your catalogue rated below 40%, or about 3 times more games then the next closest console? That's a lot of garbage and it maintains focus right now because it's not being offset by enough games that are getting rave reviews. People will say the PS2 had lot's of shovelware as well, but it also had a near constant stream of good games that made people not notice it. Does the Wii have good games? Yes, but not many that are being received by a wide enough audience to matter.

6. Sonic and Mario overload
-Once again, not really destroying gaming (especially since Sonic hasn't done anything good for gaming in years) but in the case of Mario it just takes away from that luster that Mario games once used to have. Nintendo has enough other characters (although none that carry the clout of Mario) that they don't really have to make so many Mario something games. Use Luigi or Donkey Kong instead and keep people excited to play the next big Mario game.

7. Motion Control
- Something else that I see not destroying gaming but it certainly hasn't added much to it. When games are made that force themselves to use motion control when they don't need to, it is doing damage but the majority of games still use motion as nothing more than a substitute for a button press and as long as that is the case it really hasn't done anything to change gaming.

8. Promises/hype
- It usually gets sales, barring horrible reviews and then leaves people disappointed when they actually play the game. Unreachable expectations based upon hype have left most major releases recently (Halo 3, Brawl, GTA4) leaving a bad taste in gamers mouths, despite the fact that they are actually still decent games.

9. Female characters
- Not really sure why this one is on there. Do they think that all hero's should be men? Or that all strong characters should be men? Claiming that female characters are used as nothing more than a way to market a game to females, despite not evr advertising it as such just doesn't make much sense.

10. Casual Gaming
- Only a problem if it gets to the point where casual games take all the focus and developing money from the "hardcore" game. If casual games just add to the library of games that have always been around then it's not really an issue. The Wii is obviously the main factor to this point, but they have still have games available from all their traditional major franchises. I guess the concern is that they seem to be spending more time on coming up with new casual games instead of new "core" games. As long as they don't start dumping "core" franchises then you really haven't lost anything.

[codenamelenny]

I wouldn't say any of this is destroying(though some of them aren't helping) gaming. Reviewers and high development costs are hurting gaming.

Originally Posted by codenamelenny

high development costs are hurting gaming.

nailed it

[boffo]

Originally Posted by codenamelenny

I wouldn't say any of this is destroying(though some of them aren't helping) gaming. Reviewers and high development costs are hurting gaming.

Actually the article is about things destroying videogames not gaming. Nothing is destroying gaming right now since it's more popular then ever.
Reviewers probably fall under #8 with promises and hype since they're usually responsible for it, but high development costs don't usually hurt the game itself.