The official E3 2012 thread

[Morgoth]

Bad games are everywhere.

 

But publishers are responsible about how they market games (and actually also how they're designed). So yes, I do blame publishers for being stupid.

 

Remember the Button-Awesome guy from BioWare? I'm talking this kind of stupid and tasteless people. Yes, it's sad.

[Zoraptor]

For that matter the DAO marketing was hardly the epitome of taste and restraint- nor was the ludicrous and completely gratuitous blood splatter in game though at least that could be turned off.

 

To an extent I think you can blame publishers for not doing what their close model industry (movies) do and not having lower budget releases with more focus on 'intrinsic worth' but only to an extent. Fear of risk is pretty prevalent in most industries and so long as an Activision can profitbaly run on about three major games a year that is what others will go for too.

 

Having said that some of the discussion I've seen for the recent Sniper Elite game left me really wanting the ability to teleport them to Fallujah 2004, or Homs, or Stalingrad so they could get a taste of what they were really talking about.

Edited June 14, 2012 by Zoraptor

[Malcador]

That Hitman trailer was sad, the Blood Money one with the "I'll give you his number" was nice and subtle, cool. The irrelevance of it all bothered me more than some CGI women getting offed in slow-motion, though. Other than that and Tomb Raider and maybe Far Cry 3, didn't really see much that was OTT violent, although maybe I didn't pay much attention to it.

 

Last I checked there was still a debate on fans on whether or not Arma 3 should add gore in - bullet effects, dismemberment, etc - lots of people against as that'd make it more cinematic or COD-esque or whatever. Given the realism they aim for, found that amusing, but can sort of see the cons.

Edited June 15, 2012 by Malcador

[Wombat]

And Warren Spector agrees - http://www.gamesindu...nce-has-to-stop

But why now? Spector cannot be unfamiliar with movies and teen exploitation is not new at all. Did he say something about the gore expressions in Fallout series?

 

To an extent I think you can blame publishers for not doing what their close model industry (movies) do and not having lower budget releases with more focus on 'intrinsic worth' but only to an extent. Fear of risk is pretty prevalent in most industries and so long as an Activision can profitbaly run on about three major games a year that is what others will go for too.

Yeah...from what I glimpsed from the trailers, the expressions in even mainstream games tend to belong to B grade movies.

 

Having said that some of the discussion I've seen for the recent Sniper Elite game left me really wanting the ability to teleport them to Fallujah 2004, or Homs, or Stalingrad so they could get a taste of what they were really talking about.

You can say the same thing to any war-related materials - people have been being fond of stories about fighting even back to the age of Iliad and Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

 

To be honest, I don't know much of Hitman series. While I'm quite a sucker to stealth action games but I tend to like "pacifist solutions" and the series don't seem to allow me to do it. I think I take Assassin's Creed series as sword-fighting adventure games.

[Malcador]

Well he is selling Epic Mickey so, that could explain his timing.

[sorophx]

violence sells. sex sells. it's human nature. putting it into video games is just exploiting it. it's not wrong to assume it attracts customers. it does. if a publisher can sell non-violent games - more power to them. but I don't think many publishers would just deny themselves such an opportunity to make some extra money

[Hurlshort]

My problem isn't the ultraviolence in games, it's the fact so few games don't have violence. I want some alternatives to blowing everybody away.

[pmp10]

violence sells. sex sells. it's human nature. putting it into video games is just exploiting it. it's not wrong to assume it attracts customers. it does. if a publisher can sell non-violent games - more power to them. but I don't think many publishers would just deny themselves such an opportunity to make some extra money

Aside from the fact that one the best selling video-game series to date happens to be 'non-violent' (sims) that approach just proves how bad tunnel vision of developers and publishers have become.

Humans will always have a need to satisfy their more creative functions and if you are unwilling to make money of it then someone like Notch will even with an amateur effort.

The real problem is that I don't want to wait 5 years for every breakout title that had to courage to aim at satisfying different needs than sex&violence.

[sorophx]

I think you'd agree that making a game like Sims is a lot harder than a game like CoD, for example. but maybe making various clones of Sims would be more productive than making CoD clones

[Gorgon]

Nothing wrong with a little sex and violence.

[Orogun01]

Nothing wrong with a little sex and violence.

Point of clarification, "there's B-movies and then there's Quentin Tarantino does B-movies". That the game industry relies so much on cheap selling points its not a sign of maturity but of retardation. I don't mind sex and violence in my games, I do in fact tend to gravitate towards those things but at the same time I'm aware that most M rated games are nothing more than pubescent entertainment.

[Gorgon]

Naked bodies is about as far as you can take it anyway. There is a reason it's usually done in a fade to black. Showing everything would just be too stupid. Erect willies... just, no.

 

There aren't many games that go beyond showing a little extra skin. Doesn't really qualify as sex in my book. As far as stereotyping goes, absolutely, there aren't many characters who resemble real people.

[sorophx]

what about that copulation scene in San Andreas. I remember people going ape**** over it

[Morgoth]

what about that copulation scene in San Andreas. I remember people going ape**** over it

I only remember Jack Thompson going ape**** insane over it.

[Orogun01]

what about that copulation scene in San Andreas. I remember people going ape**** over it

I only remember Jack Thompson going ape**** insane over it.

Publisher reasoning: 1 upset viewer = 1 Million upset viewers.

[Zoraptor]

Aside from the fact that one the best selling video-game series to date happens to be 'non-violent' (sims) that approach just proves how bad tunnel vision of developers and publishers have become.

Plenty of people play the Sims as, well, sociopaths. No toilets, find the most amusing way to make your sims' lfe miserable, set their house on fire whatever. While it's certainly not as overt as putting No Russian on high replay at the same time it's hardly all wine and roses over in Simland either.

[zero_or_more]

Plenty of people play the Sims as, well, sociopaths. No toilets, find the most amusing way to make your sims' lfe miserable, set their house on fire whatever. While it's certainly not as overt as putting No Russian on high replay at the same time it's hardly all wine and roses over in Simland either.

I think it's safe to assume that the majority of people buy games for the main mechanic, but it's also true that sex and violence is part of today's 'culture' and not just any particular game or videogames in general.