What are your views on mainstream games?

[Anian]

Ok, I've been playing new DeusEx for a day or two now and...well it is really freaking confusing, the game is a cross between Vampire the Masquarde and Mass Effect 2...and while the gameplay is not bad and options to play you want is really good, one thing that bothers me is - graphics and game world.

First of graphics wont let me play on higher settings but god damn it this game still looks weird - character models bend their hands very badly, face animations are off as is lipsynch and so much stuff is recycled/reused and this is not the only game that looks like this and I don't know why. It wouldn't be that bad if for 2 things - this is an AAA title and, again, this game hogs the hardware...I didn't get this in ME as well, it just freaking has trouble with graphics that really aren't that special, I really don't get it.
A bit connected to this is the gameworld - it basically promises so much and yet it's so restricted (ME and Vampire did this as well and while in ME you're on a space station most of the time, when you're in a big city it is just breaking the illusion).

So that's my view - I think it's mostly because game designers don't really care anymore about the hardware and optimisation. Say for instance Civilization V - there was really no need for them to make all the units etc. in 3d but they did anyway and when you get to a later stage in the game (bigger empire) it starts to lag a lot (not really that bad cause the game is turned based, but still breaks the experience).
That's what makes my blood boil, when they try to do something that's been done before, but then mess up on the fundementals.
And while I'm having a fit - god damn Crysis Warhead - I get this cool suit of armour and then I'm trapped in a forest with robots that are so much tougher than me and even worse I really can't tell where the bullets are coming from even when I see them on the radar. That's just poor design. It is also a game that I had to put on lower settings where I cant even see the shadows, because of the vegetation...now all the trees might be realistic, but I don't want to play it realisticly, I want to bring the wrath of cybernetics on peons damn it. What I end up doing is hiding like a little girl in cloacked mode waiting for a chance to shoot with an imprecise gun.

[Igor Hardy]

No, sorry. What I mean is that I might've got the impression that you're really against callofduties and such and said "hate" but I didn't mean it in a nasty way;)

Well, yeah, I'm not personally attracted to callofduties (which I don't think has anything to do with them being mainstream), but I don't have anything against them being made and I enjoy quite a few other mainstream games.

If anything, the fact that such series as CoD represent the mainstream right now adds meaning to making totally different small indie games of my own.

Btw:

http://ludusnovus.net/2011/08/15/why-so-few-violent-games/

[InCreator]

Ok, I've been playing new DeusEx for a day or two now and...well it is really freaking confusing, the game is a cross between Vampire the Masquarde and Mass Effect 2...and while the gameplay is not bad and options to play you want is really good, one thing that bothers me is - graphics and game world.

New Deus Ex is crap. At everything set to highest, graphics and animations still look like something released 6 years ago. Consolish clunky camera and cover system almost elminate way to play it as a smooth stealth game, plus for me, it crashes to desktop in every 30 minutes or so (same with FEAR 3), despite well-maintained high-end system with no driver conflicts or spyware/etc.

One of the worst buys for me over some time, fell totally for hype.

Interesting enough, I've been getting into love with Paradox Interactive games. You know, the ones with gazillion menus and stats on the screen, especially Europa Universalis III and Crusader Kings. Those games feel like a nightmare until you force yourself to play one 3 hours straight. After that time, you actually chew through this hell-on-earth-of-variable-management, need to do superhuman multitasking and furthermore, cannot help about forgetting about food, sleep and peeing. It's that addictive... Civilization doesn't have much to counter those games with, even though I'm a hardcore Civ fan. Only problem is the scope: I spent 7 full days of playing EU3 just to conquer only Scandinavia and after this, instantly dropped my idea of taking over the whole world or even Europe.

[veryweirdguy]

There is some kind of assumption that FPS games are the 'mainstream', and that they are the sole genre dominating the medium of video games, so I dug out some games sales figures from 2010 to see how true this was:



Source

By my count, there are five FPS games in there (six if you include New Vegas, but as far as I'm aware that's generally classed as an RPG?)

Let's look at the (obviously not yet complete) list for 2011:

http://www.vgchartz.com/article/83386/top-selling-games-of-2010-multi-wii-ps3-psp-ds-x360/

In the top fifty games, nine are FPS (and some of them only count twice because they are multi-platform). The first one appears at number eight.

As for the rest of the year:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_in_video_gaming

I spot five FPS games not yet released (Resistance 3, Serious Sam 3, Battlefield 3, Modern Warfare 3 and Halo: Anniversary.) Interesting that they're mostly '3's (and one remake), but hardly a majority.

[Anian]

I don't know if they count game units bundled with Wii and Kincet - which would probably change number a bit, because Stuff like Wii Sports and Kincet Adventures wouldn't be that high on the list.

[Igor Hardy]

There is some kind of assumption that FPS games are the 'mainstream', and that they are the sole genre dominating the medium of video games, so I dug out some games sales figures from 2010 to see how true this was:

Of course (most) FPS games are part of the 'mainstream' and even your chart shows that very well. I have no idea where did you get the idea that connecting FPS games to mainstream makes it the sole genre that should top the charts.

Why do you obsess about the highest grossing games anyway? It's hardly the big picture of mainstream.

[veryweirdguy]

My point, in part, was that when people say 'mainstream' they immediately rant about Call of Duty and/or Halo, and the lack of innovation within that. What I'm saying is that mainstream is more than that, there's a variety of stuff the public are buying. Most FPS games are mainstream, sure, but most mainstream games are not FPS games.

Also, if mainstream isn't the games that most people are buying (and, we can infer, playing,) then what is mainstream?

[DoorKnobHandle]

There is some kind of assumption that FPS games are the 'mainstream', and that they are the sole genre dominating the medium of video games, so I dug out some games sales figures from 2010 to see how true this was:



Source

By my count, there are five FPS games in there (six if you include New Vegas, but as far as I'm aware that's generally classed as an RPG?)

Your statistics are console-only, not sure if you noticed that.

[veryweirdguy]

Your statistics are console-only, not sure if you noticed that.

I hadn't noticed! You are correct sir, I apologise. I'd imagine PC game sales stats are a bit difficult to acquire, what with there being more outlets (I presume you'd have to collate Steam, GoG, retail, etc...)

Also it would be interesting to compare sales of PC games vs console games, to see how that affects the genres most bought. Is "mainstream" on PC different from "mainstream" on console?

[Igor Hardy]

Also, if mainstream isn't the games that most people are buying (and, we can infer, playing,) then what is mainstream?

You provided a chart of only a few titles on the market, and not very representative of the rest to boot.

In 1997, when most adventure games were bringing losses, the charts of highest-grossers were being topped by Myst, Riven and Blade Runner.

In other words, franchises are not a great way to show what types of games are currently selling the best. Lego Harry Potter is not selling great because of it's gameplay, but because it's Lego and Harry Potter. Same with Pokemon and the rest.

In 1997 Riven sold amazingly because of being the sequel to Myst. Nevertheless, the great majority of Myst buyers never solved a single puzzle and never looked at another adventure game besides it (so even buying and playing don't always go in hand!).

If you want to have the big picture of mainstream sales and trends, you'd have to provide something like a chart of most profitable/popular genres and styles of play.

[Wonkyth]

Are you dissing the Lego games? 

[Igor Hardy]

I'm just sayin' Lego sells, usually regardless of quality.

[InCreator]

One should define "mainstream game" by number of boring youtube gameplay videos nobody ever watches. That's why CoD series got Theater thing, to increase amount of useless content created.

*Thinks back to days when only game videos in the internet were Counter-Strike ones and usually only really gooooood ones that were really amazing to watch*

Youtube is a wild west of 10-year olds.

Of okay, less bitter definition should be the prevailing game chosen in a game store: Say there's 100 people with 10 similar games to pick but money for only one. This is where CoD's and Halos leave other games behind.

[SpacePirateCaine]

Mainstream is defined by a product's prevalence in the collective conscious. In our current generation of games, this includes three major players: The big franchises, which are your Marios, Fifas and Call of Duties, The Blockbusters - extremely hyped games that are designed and marketed for the Male 18-34 demographic, and there is the new kid on the field, "New casual", which includes most popular iOS titles, most games on in the Wii X series and other games that are not designed for who we would generally call "gamers", or our core market as an industry.

If you break down the list that VWG posted, you'll see that basically every title on the list falls into one of the three categories I mentioned:

CoD: BO - Blockbuster, Franchise
Wii Sports - New Casual
New SMB Wii - Franchise
Wii Sports Resort - New Casual
Wii Fit Plus - New Casual
Fifa Soccer 11 - Franchise
Halo: Reach - Blockbuster, Franchise
RDR: Blockbuster
Kinect Adventures - New Casual
Pokemon Colors - Franchise
CoD MW2 - Blockbuster, Franchise
Super Mario Galaxy 2 - Franchise
AC: Brotherhood - Blockbuster, Franchise
Mario Kart Wii - Franchise
Madden NFL 11 - Franchise
Pokemon B/W - Franchise
GT5 - Franchise
Just Dance 2 - New Casual, Franchise
Battlefield: BC2 - Blockbuster, Franchise
Wii Party - New Casual
Just Dance - New Casual
FFXIII - Blockbuster, Franchise
Mario Kart DS - Franchise
Lego Harry Potter - Franchise
Medal of Honor - Blockbuster, Franchise
New SMB DS - Franchise
Monster Hunter P3 - Franchise
Fallout: New Vegas - Blockbuster, Franchise
DK Country Returns - Franchise
GOW III - Franchise

Now, there are very good reasons why these games are your mainstream titles. The Blockbusters are of course the easiest to explain: These games have extremely high marketing budgets, so enough PR is possible in order to make them easy to recognize even amongst hundreds of other titles. They have commercials on TV, are consistently covered in the games news media, and in some cases popular media, and you can generally mention them in passing to a non-gamer and have it be recognizable a decent percentage of the time. Doubly so in the case of Franchise Blockbuster titles, which have an existing fanbase to perpetuate the spread of information even more.

Which brings me to Franchises - These are the games that don't need to be marketed so aggressively, generally speaking, to still turn a profit. By their simple existence, they will receive sales because people liked or heard of earlier games in the series. They may not necessarily do as financially well as their predecessors without sufficient PR pushes, but can be generally guaranteed at least 70% of the sales of the first game as long as they hit the major gaming news outlets of their country of publishing.

Then we have the New Casual. This is a very special case because although it's not at all a new concept (It's hard to find people who've never played solitaire or Minesweeper), but the increased accessibility of games to non-traditional-gamers has created an influx of patronage to the industry in games that are designed not necessarily to have the depth of their larger, more well-established genre brothers, but because of their ease of play, and because the "average Joe" has the devices necessary to play them, they generally try and enjoy, and therefore purchase games that fit in this area. Nintendo and Apple are the real trailblazers in these areas, with Apple supporting game development on their varied iOS platforms, and Nintendo smartly choosing to license games that at the least have the semblance of function (Brain Age helping to sharpen your wits, Wii Fit/Sports Resort/Just Dance promoting fitness, etc.).

The most successful non-mainstream titles that I can think of have to be Minecraft and Amnesia: The Dark Descent - both of which managed to, despite not having the budgets, brand recognition or function, still managed to be at least relatively successful. Even so, these games were marketed to a decent extent, and managed to garner a fair amount of viral exposure.

Non-mainstream titles are things like your independent games, basically everything ever released using the AGS engine, or your average Strategy title: I'm talking more Majesty, Stronghold, Sins of a Solar Empire or Tropico (All games that I love dearly) than Civilization or Star/Warcraft, which owe much of their popularity, aside from being very tightly designed, to legacy Franchise clout.