Journalism and Bias in the Gaming Industry

[Bartimaeus]

 

I don't think there really is a "fix" in the normal sense: the industry should realign/fix itself with or without anyone trying to actively intervene. Money, more now than ever before, drives the industry...and more than just teenage/young adult males have money.

 

Well, problem is, someone would need to fund the development of those games before their non-adolescent target demographics could throw money at them, and the industry culture has been steeped in this very... strange mindset where they blow impossible amounts of money on developing and marketing a game, so they need to be absolutely sure it's successful and just can't afford to take risks. Any risks. At all.

 

Of course it's likely to backfire spectacularly sooner or later, and maybe something more balanced will come out in the end when the current model becomes unsustainable, but "oh the industry will just fix itself, given time" isn't really reassuring when we've had about a decade of the industry doing the same thing over and over again, expecting something to change.

 

I don't disagree with any of what you said here...but nevertheless, I don't think it's of much use to try and get developers to "take more risks" in their games: from their perspective, they're just continuing to make the games that they've always made for the audience that has kept them afloat thus far. Publishers I can see more of an argument for, in taking risks on newer developers/ideas that they haven't already...but I don't think that's really their responsibility, either. I would prefer a more grassroots-like growth: developers that start out small and then become bigger as they utilize more and more of those currently "untapped" demographics, and become giants in their own right. They would be actual different sides of the same industry, then, instead of the current conglomerates merely trying to seize a new market to increase their power and profits. But I have an irrational hatred for gigantic corporations, particularly multi-media ones, so that's probably just me. I'm also not sure how realistic this approach is, particularly considering nothing much of note seems to have happened yet...

Edited July 15, 2015 by Bartimaeus

[Bartimaeus]

 

Someone is going to figure out how to make the video game version of Twilight or Hunger Games and get untapped demographics to buy consoles and AAA games en mass.

 

That... wouldn't be much of a progress from an artistic standpoint, would it.

 

Well, that's a different point entirely from what a lot of people are arguing about...

[aluminiumtrioxid]

I would prefer a more grassroots-like growth: developers that start out small and then become bigger as they utilize more and more of those currently "untapped" demographics, and become giants in their own right. (...) I'm also not sure how realistic this approach is, particularly considering nothing much of note seems to have happened yet...

 

 

Well I don't think it's very realistic, but hey, we can dream.

[Fighter]

 

Someone is going to figure out how to make the video game version of Twilight or Hunger Games and get untapped demographics to buy consoles and AAA games en mass.

 

That... wouldn't be much of a progress from an artistic standpoint, would it.

 

 

No. But the figurative Call of Duty that symbolizes the male dominated AAA and is the constant target of critique isn't an artistic masterpiece either.

[Malcador]

Forget what studio used to do this, was a big one in the late 90s, early 2000s - but they used their AAA games to fund niche titles, so the latter's lack of immense profit wasn't too bad but the developers still got to express themselves. This was in genres that weren't as popular, not necessarily 'art' games, though.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

 

Someone is going to figure out how to make the video game version of Twilight or Hunger Games and get untapped demographics to buy consoles and AAA games en mass.

 

That... wouldn't be much of a progress from an artistic standpoint, would it.

 

 

No. But the figurative Call of Duty that symbolizes the male dominated AAA and is the constant target of critique isn't an artistic masterpiece either.

 

 

...I thought we wanted better, not "roughly the same amount of crap, but now in pink".

[Bartimaeus]

Well I don't think it's very realistic, but hey, we can dream.

I don't see why it doesn't happen, really: if this subject (and the smaller specifics within it, of course) really is important to these untapped demographics, then it absolutely should. It's not like we're talking about cable or internet providers, where there is literally only so much room for "competitors": there is no limit in that sense. Is it the fact that developers would have to start out small? That's always a disadvantage regardless of the industry, but usually not a crippling one outside of monopolistic industries (e.g. the aforementioned cable/internet providers). The gaming industry is not monopolistic at all: it's probably one of the least monopolistic, most global and accessible I can think of (at the moment, anyways, ). So why hasn't there been a stronger movement to appeal to those untapped demographics? Furthermore, once those demographics actually established themselves as being important to the AAA gaming industry, you can bet that they'll try and follow suit to seize it in the manner I described in my previous post. But why hasn't it happened, and why does it continue to not happen?

 

(e): Three more posts while I was writing mine...now I actually have to quote you. Bah.

Edited July 15, 2015 by Bartimaeus

[Bartimaeus]

Forget what studio used to do this, was a big one in the late 90s, early 2000s - but they used their AAA games to fund niche titles, so the latter's lack of immense profit wasn't too bad but the developers still got to express themselves. This was in genres that weren't as popular, not necessarily 'art' games, though.

This sounds like something I've heard before, too...but I'm drawing a blank on who it was as well. Bah. Hopefully somebody remembers.

Edited July 15, 2015 by Bartimaeus

[Fighter]

 

 

 

Someone is going to figure out how to make the video game version of Twilight or Hunger Games and get untapped demographics to buy consoles and AAA games en mass.

 

That... wouldn't be much of a progress from an artistic standpoint, would it.

 

 

No. But the figurative Call of Duty that symbolizes the male dominated AAA and is the constant target of critique isn't an artistic masterpiece either.

 

 

...I thought we wanted better, not "roughly the same amount of crap, but now in pink".

 

 

Better can only be a small percentage of everything else. First make sure creators see wider demographic as an opportunity rather than a risk.

[Malcador]

Tsk, all you anti-shooter snobs.

[Ineth]

Well the way I see it, its entire point is that this - "a generation of lonely basement kids" - is what the industry itself has seen its audience (despite the fact that teenage boys have long since been ceased to be the biggest gaming demographic) since forever, and it doesn't have to be this way.

 

The pushback to the article has always been baffling to me - we're on the Obsidian forums, I'm pretty sure nobody here wants the gaming industry to be dominated by games that cater to the tastes and sensibilities of adolescent boys to the extent it is dominated by them now.

 

It doesn't have to be this way, but it's also not a "problem" that it is, and we don't need hipster activists to come in and pretend they know best how the industry and community and everyone else "needs" to change.

 

Look, I'm not part of that "core" gamer audience either. Those big-budget MMORPGs and FPS shooters and whatnot that lead the best-seller lists, don't interest me at all. But that doesn't cause me to whine and denounce their existence as "problematic" and style myself as a victim and pretend that my whining is part of some sort of civil rights movement for "justice" and "equality".

 

Nope, I simply look elsewhere for the kind of games that I do like. In my case, I find them in Kickstarter projects like Pillars of Eternity; some older games that are sold on GOG.com; and some Indie games. The fact that the AAA publishers don't cater to me, does not threaten me.

 

"oh the industry will just fix itself, given time" isn't really reassuring when we've had about a decade of the industry doing the same thing over and over again, expecting something to change.

 

As much as you want to deny it, what the AAA industry produces reflects the demand.

Don't you think they've tried to expand to wider audiences? They would love nothing more. But the demand just isn't there yet to the same extent.

 

Of course demand for all kinds of different games already exists in smaller quantities, which is why in the realm of small-to-medium budget games and indie games etc., you'll already find all kinds of audiences and tastes represented.

And as soon as some of those gain enough traction, you can be sure that the AAA publishers will jump on board. They do, after all, love profit.

 

(despite the fact that teenage boys have long since been ceased to be the biggest gaming demographic)

 

Incessantly repeating this statistic won't make it any less misleading, you know.

 

The fact that a businesswoman may sometimes get bored on her subway ride back from work and zap through Angry Birds on her iPhone, does not automatically make her a potential customer for a triple-A publisher that sells big-budget PC games which

• demand a lot of contiguous in-front-of-PC player time investment
• cost $60-$120 a piece
• tend to be bought by "hard core" enthusiast gamers
• tend to need specially assembled gaming rigs to run well

Rather, it makes her a potential customer for mobile mini-games. And lo and behold: The market in the mobile segment has adapted to that demand. See how that works?

[Bartimaeus]

Tsk, all you anti-shooter snobs.

Hey, I like shooters...just usually not arcade-y ones like Call of Duty. If someone wants to resurrect/make a clone of Stalker (and keep it similar to Stalker in gameplay and tone: it can change in other ways, what do I care), I'm more than happy to support that. Just don't make it unbearably awful like the Fallout resurrection (which switched primary genres, IMO, for no apparent reason, and did it horribly). Like I said before, we all have our tastes...the industry should be able to satisfy us all.

Edited July 15, 2015 by Bartimaeus

[BruceVC]

 

Tsk, all you anti-shooter snobs.

Hey, I like shooters...just usually not arcade-y ones like Call of Duty. If someone wants to resurrect/make a clone of Stalker (and keep it similar to Stalker in gameplay and tone: it can change in other ways, what do I care), I'm more than happy to support that. Just don't make it unbearably awful like the Fallout resurrection (which switched primary genres, IMO, for no apparent reason, and did it horribly). Like I said before, we all have our tastes...the industry should be able to satisfy us all.

 

 

Barti you guys must really get over your aversion to Romance, its irrational....its this sheep mentality. Suddenly BSN is not cool, and of course Romance is weird 

 

 

But you guys are just parroting what you heard ...I bet you can't give me a decent reason that is convincing why you don't like Romance ?

 

 

Romance enhances the overall RPG journey  as far as party interaction goes. It makes it more memorable and immersive ...you must embrace it      

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

Well the way I see it, its entire point is that this - "a generation of lonely basement kids" - is what the industry itself has seen its audience (despite the fact that teenage boys have long since been ceased to be the biggest gaming demographic) since forever, and it doesn't have to be this way.

 

 

It doesn't have to be this way, but it's also not a "problem" that it is

 

 

 

How is an entire segment of the entertainment industry seeing its customers as screeching adolescent boys not a problem? It's a medium fully capable of creating something with just a teeny bit more lasting value than the latest blockbuster everyone will forget about in two months, but all of its potential is channeled into virtually recreating very entertaining methods of murder. Which is fine, I love nothing more than entertainingly-created methods of murder and the application thereof, but maybe we could, I dunno, shoot for a bit more?

 

(Heh, "shoot", geddit?)

 

 

 

"oh the industry will just fix itself, given time" isn't really reassuring when we've had about a decade of the industry doing the same thing over and over again, expecting something to change.

 

As much as you want to deny it, what the AAA industry produces reflects the demand.

 

 

 

Dialing down the pointless hostility would be helpful in making this conversation more productive. Not engaging in even more pointless strawmanning would be extra helpful.

 

In any case, as the newfangled kickstarter renaissance has shown, there absolutely is a demand for low-to-mid-budget games of the kind publishers are not willing to fund, even though they're proven to be profitable ventures. Making said publishers' reluctance to do so... baffling, to say the least.

 

Do you honestly think the current model of "gamble ALL OUR MONEY on the next big-budget AAA game in the hope that it will maybe become extra successful and bring back the exorbitant costs its production and marketing entailed" is the most optimal way for the industry to operate?

 

 

 

(despite the fact that teenage boys have long since been ceased to be the biggest gaming demographic)

 

Incessantly repeating this statistic won't make it any less misleading, you know. (snip)

 

 

 

And snidely insinuating that mentioning this statistic - which, by the way, has been the case since at least five years now! We're not talking about businesswomen, we're talking about the adult demographic who used to be into gaming when they were adolescents but have since grown up! - must be part of some evil politically-motivated plot to mislead people into believing hardcore gamers are now a demographic mainly dominated by middle-aged businesswomen is not conducive to a civil discussion.

[Bartimaeus]

snip

 

 

Edited July 15, 2015 by Bartimaeus

[Malcador]

Hey, I like shooters...just usually not arcade-y ones like Call of Duty. If someone wants to resurrect/make a clone of Stalker (and keep it similar to Stalker in gameplay and tone: it can change in other ways, what do I care), I'm more than happy to support that. Just don't make it unbearably awful like the Fallout resurrection (which switched primary genres, IMO, for no apparent reason, and did it horribly). Like I said before, we all have our tastes...the industry should be able to satisfy us all.

Well, shooters should be arcade-y in that twitch is all you need for the most part, at least for MP anyway which is probably the main reason anyone plays CoD or BF games. I mainly like ones such as R6 or GR1. Was being a bit facetious, but I do always wonder a bit at why people always look down at shooters and want 'better' in some nebulous terms (I assume this will be 'experience' games ). For some, you do need a fair amount of skill to be good, though for some reason they keep wrapping them with unlocks.

[BruceVC]

 

snip

 

 

 

 Barti how is your grandfather ? Has he made anymore funny homophobic comments lately ?

[Bartimaeus]

Something about not celebrating the 4th of July anymore because this isn't the same country he grew up in, nor the same one that servicemen died for...to which my reply was duh, I'm sure your parents and grandparents thought the same thing anytime there was change they didn't like as they were getting older.

[Amentep]

 

 

 

Someone is going to figure out how to make the video game version of Twilight or Hunger Games and get untapped demographics to buy consoles and AAA games en mass.

 

That... wouldn't be much of a progress from an artistic standpoint, would it.

 

 

No. But the figurative Call of Duty that symbolizes the male dominated AAA and is the constant target of critique isn't an artistic masterpiece either.

 

 

...I thought we wanted better, not "roughly the same amount of crap, but now in pink".

 

No matter what you intend, most of it will be considered poorly.  Its the nature of the creative beast.  Even assuming that gamers could agree on what is "better", wanting better will never make it better. 

 

Note that no creative person sets forth to create crap.  That means that at some point in the development of both "good" and "bad" games, they were considered to be ideas worth pursuing by the majority of the creators in a position to make those decisions.

 

Also a couple of pertinent quotes:

 

Sturgeon:

I repeat Sturgeon's Revelation, which was wrung out of me after twenty years of wearying defense of science fiction against attacks of people who used the worst examples of the field for ammunition, and whose conclusion was that ninety percent of SF is crud. Using the same standards that categorize 90% of science fiction as trash, crud, or crap, it can be argued that 90% of film, literature, consumer goods, etc. is crap. In other words, the claim (or fact) that 90% of science fiction is crap is ultimately uninformative, because science fiction conforms to the same trends of quality as all other artforms.

 

Kipling:

"Four–fifths of everybody's work must be bad. But the remnant is worth the trouble for its own sake."

 

[Bartimaeus]

90%? That seems kind of low to me, regardless of creative outlet...I would expect something closer to the 97-98% range. Of course, "crap" is at least partially subjective...

Edited July 15, 2015 by Bartimaeus

[Malcador]

I'd go for 100%.

[Ineth]

Do you honestly think the current model of "gamble ALL OUR MONEY on the next big-budget AAA game in the hope that it will maybe become extra successful and bring back the exorbitant costs its production and marketing entailed" is the most optimal way for the industry to operate?

 

Works fine for Hollywood...

 

Also, what is it that you want them to do? Stop making big-budget games and start making only low-to-medium budget games (where they can take more risks) instead? What exactly would that gain us compared to the risky low-to-medium budget games which, as you've said, already get made thanks to Kickstarter & co?

 

Usually, the SJW criticism of the AAA gaming segment boils down to "[insert demographic here] should have big-budget versions of their favored types of games too, supply-and-demand be damned!". But you seem to have a problem with the concept of the risk-averse big-budget model itself?

 

Which just brings me back to: Why do you care? The fact that AAA publishers create by-the-numbers big-budget games, does not prevent others from creating more varied games on smaller budgets. When they satisfy different audiences, it's not a zero-sum game. Why do you consider the mere existence of the big-budget games a problem?

 

[BruceVC]

 

Hey, I like shooters...just usually not arcade-y ones like Call of Duty. If someone wants to resurrect/make a clone of Stalker (and keep it similar to Stalker in gameplay and tone: it can change in other ways, what do I care), I'm more than happy to support that. Just don't make it unbearably awful like the Fallout resurrection (which switched primary genres, IMO, for no apparent reason, and did it horribly). Like I said before, we all have our tastes...the industry should be able to satisfy us all.

Well, shooters should be arcade-y in that twitch is all you need for the most part, at least for MP anyway which is probably the main reason anyone plays CoD or BF games. I mainly like ones such as R6 or GR1. Was being a bit facetious, but I do always wonder a bit at why people always look down at shooters and want 'better' in some nebulous terms (I assume this will be 'experience' games ). For some, you do need a fair amount of skill to be good, though for some reason they keep wrapping them with unlocks.

 

Malc GTAV is a cool game hey?

 

The game is pure genius and art. I love the random quests and I've had some interesting encounter like hunting and yoga...oh and I was killed by a wild cat !!!

 

I love just exploring the world and the radio stations genuinely make me laugh. I love the radio talk shows with lazlo and that Doctor who keeps wanting to meet his dad in the jail when people phone in..also that conservative and racist Blair County radio channel, " The only foreign policy decision I agree with is a carpet bomb " ...the parody in the radio stations is brilliant 

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

Also, what is it that you want them to do? Stop making big-budget games and start making only low-to-medium budget games (where they can take more risks) instead? What exactly would that gain us compared to the risky low-to-medium budget games which, as you've said, already get made thanks to Kickstarter & co?

 

Usually, the SJW criticism of the AAA gaming segment boils down to "[insert demographic here] should have big-budget versions of their favored types of games too, supply-and-demand be damned!". But you seem to have a problem with the concept of the risk-averse big-budget model itself?

 

Which just brings me back to: Why do you care? The fact that AAA publishers create by-the-numbers big-budget games, does not prevent others from creating more varied games on smaller budgets. When they satisfy different audiences, it's not a zero-sum game. Why do you consider the mere existence of the big-budget games a problem?

 

 

 

I do have a problem with the risk-averse big-budget model; it's been stifling creativity in the medium since its inception. That's not a good thing, and it won't magically turn into a good thing just because we now have the tools to circumvent it.

 

(Also, while I don't consider myself to be an expert on movie history, didn't Hollywood operate on a similar principle until the... I think seventies? when the bubble suddenly burst and studios were forced to return to low-to-mid-budget productions with a strong authorial vision?)

 

In any case, it's not the existence of big-budget games that irks me, it's the public perception of "gamers" as people who consume those big-budget games exclusively (and to the exclusion of all other activities).

[Malcador]

Malc GTAV is a cool game hey?

 

The game is pure genius and art. I love the random quests and I've had some interesting encounter like hunting and yoga...oh and I was killed by a wild cat !!!

 

I love just exploring the world and the radio stations genuinely make me laugh. I love the radio talk shows with lazlo and that Doctor who keeps wanting to meet his dad in the jail when people phone in..also that conservative and racist Blair County radio channel, " The only foreign policy decision I agree with is a carpet bomb " ...the parody in the radio stations is brilliant 

Well, it's full of stuff to do and they sure put in a lot of detail. Though I get a laugh at having to bike and exercise to up my stamina, in a game.  Does give me the urge to visit LA, though I liked LIberty City better for some reason.  As for it being 'art' well, I don't know, not sure what would make it so or what that would be in a game like GTA.