Is the commodification of video games ruining RPG quality?

[Tyranicon]

TL;DR:

Spoiler

There's currently around 7.7 billion people on the planet. There are millions of people who enjoy RPGs, either as a video game or pnp.

So why is it that at any one time, there are only a small number of developers that can reliably make a "good" RPG? And almost all of these are inevitably AA studios or smaller, working on passion projects?

I've been thinking about the quality of art more and more. There was a time I would've written off my views on modern media as an insufferably elitist attitude. It's clear that most media is a product churned out to make money, and broader (dumber) audiences mean more revenue.

For the past two decades or so, we have seen great changes in the video game industry. Specifically, bad changes. There was a time when video games were made by self-proclaimed toymakers (basically a bunch of Jeff Vogels). People who gravitated to the medium for its potential in creating something fun, or beautiful, or insightful. Now the industry is full of desk jockies with titles like Lifecycle Marketing Manager, Consumer Researcher, Brand Associate, etc.

More and more, it is their decisions that propel the design of games. To make the most money, for the longest period, for the least cost. To sneak in gambling mechanics, to mess with their players' psychology, to attempt to get children addicted to their phones. Instead of writers, coders and artists calling the shots, it's now people who graduated with a business degree. Talent is no longer required.

Now, games don't sell because of quality, word-of-mouth or even reviews. The consensus in the gamedev spaces is unanimous: how well your game sells depends nearly entirely on marketing.

AAA devs and studios are not using their grossly-inflated budgets to increase the quality of their games, they are using it to drown out smaller competitors with greater marketing spend.

The fact that they are often unsuccessful is due to the fact that AAA companies are hiring too much support staff and not giving enough support to the actual creatives building the game. We've seen this case after case in the most recent few years, and industry giants (even reliable ones) are seeing their once-strong reputations recede.

Unfortunately, this only goes so far. Commodification of media across the board appears to be lowering our standards for art as a society. When people used to look to the future as an utopia of art, science and greater human understanding, now instead we have... influencers. Or to be more honest, professional marketers whose main audience is impressionable children/teens.

Maybe it's because I'm getting old, but looking out at the sea of new shows, movies, and yes even my beloved RPG genre, I can't but feel that our standards are slipping. Small upstart indies have too steep of a mountain to climb, where games with a good marketing budget all but buries everything else.

The best example would probably be Raid: Shadow Legends, a turn-based gacha "RPG" that made more than $569 million in its lifetime. And they did this by spending millions in saturating the internet with their horrible, cringy ads.

No, I don't think it's an elitist attitude anymore. Instead, I think it's a rejection of mediocrity. Shit, you might even say it's a high-minded ethos to spare future generations from overly-commodified media. But I think that's disingenuous: I just want good games to play again.

Discuss.

 

[curds]

There are millions of people who enjoy RPGs, either as a video game

Majority of those millions who say they enjoy RPGs actually enjoy open-world cinematic action-adventures, which they think are called RPGs. RDR, Assassin's Creed, for example.

 

[I'm Big Into Anal]

just like anything i guess; you know if you buy a $15,000 suzuki baleno its not going to be anywhere near as refined, powerful or valuable than the latest mercedes $300K beast

but in saying that, the mercedes might be a beast but its so reliant on computers that no one can fix it if it shits itself

im pretty high at the moment

 

[Sunri]

TL;DR:

Spoiler

There's currently around 7.7 billion people on the planet. There are millions of people who enjoy RPGs, either as a video game or pnp.

So why is it that at any one time, there are only a small number of developers that can reliably make a "good" RPG? And almost all of these are inevitably AA studios or smaller, working on passion projects?

I've been thinking about the quality of art more and more. There was a time I would've written off my views on modern media as an insufferably elitist attitude. It's clear that most media is a product churned out to make money, and broader (dumber) audiences mean more revenue.

For the past two decades or so, we have seen great changes in the video game industry. Specifically, bad changes. There was a time when video games were made by self-proclaimed toymakers (basically a bunch of Jeff Vogels). People who gravitated to the medium for its potential in creating something fun, or beautiful, or insightful. Now the industry is full of desk jockies with titles like Lifecycle Marketing Manager, Consumer Researcher, Brand Associate, etc.

More and more, it is their decisions that propel the design of games. To make the most money, for the longest period, for the least cost. To sneak in gambling mechanics, to mess with their players' psychology, to attempt to get children addicted to their phones. Instead of writers, coders and artists calling the shots, it's now people who graduated with a business degree. Talent is no longer required.

Now, games don't sell because of quality, word-of-mouth or even reviews. The consensus in the gamedev spaces is unanimous: how well your game sells depends nearly entirely on marketing.

AAA devs and studios are not using their grossly-inflated budgets to increase the quality of their games, they are using it to drown out smaller competitors with greater marketing spend.

The fact that they are often unsuccessful is due to the fact that AAA companies are hiring too much support staff and not giving enough support to the actual creatives building the game. We've seen this case after case in the most recent few years, and industry giants (even reliable ones) are seeing their once-strong reputations recede.

Unfortunately, this only goes so far. Commodification of media across the board appears to be lowering our standards for art as a society. When people used to look to the future as an utopia of art, science and greater human understanding, now instead we have... influencers. Or to be more honest, professional marketers whose main audience is impressionable children/teens.

Maybe it's because I'm getting old, but looking out at the sea of new shows, movies, and yes even my beloved RPG genre, I can't but feel that our standards are slipping. Small upstart indies have too steep of a mountain to climb, where games with a good marketing budget all but buries everything else.

The best example would probably be Raid: Shadow Legends, a turn-based gacha "RPG" that made more than $569 million in its lifetime. And they did this by spending millions in saturating the internet with their horrible, cringy ads.

No, I don't think it's an elitist attitude anymore. Instead, I think it's a rejection of mediocrity. Shit, you might even say it's a high-minded ethos to spare future generations from overly-commodified media. But I think that's disingenuous: I just want good games to play again.

Discuss.

You got some good points games like raid throw money literally at everyone to get more players I got some bucks from them for 20 scamming people I wonder how many $ big channels got it's literally free money but that doesn't stop devs from making good games established studios just don't want to try new things look at assassin screed series they have tons of talented people yet still they make almost the same game over and over because they know it will bring revenue and it's a safe decision.

Spoiler

 

[luj1]

It's simple, gameplay got worse.

 

[Falksi]

Fucking clouds.

 

[perfectslumbers]

Yes. In fact you can see the entire process just by looking at Biowares catalogue of games.

It doesn't help that any indie dev can shit out an action platformer in a week but making an actual RPG is difficult and requires a ton of time for a small team, so the indie scene is quite rpg sparse.

 

[Cryomancer]

Consoles and MMOs(post wow) are the worst offenders.

 

[snoek]

Yes.

 

[OSK]

It's just an effect of the massive growth the gaming industry has seen. The large market has made massive-budget games viable, but only if you dumb them down to cater to the least common denominator. This allows shit companies like Bethesda and CDPR to create bland, shallow, uninspiring games that cater to the masses and turn a profit despite a lack of quality. And once your company has hit AAA status, it's not profitable to put out AA games.

 

[Ghulgothas]

The fact that they are often unsuccessful is due to the fact that AAA companies are hiring too much support staff and not giving enough support to the actual creatives building the game. We've seen this case after case in the most recent few years, and industry giants (even reliable ones) are seeing their once-strong reputations recede.

Too much time spent in that AAA-sphere as a creative; artist, musician, writer, animator, programmer, etc, is the equivalent of a political brainwashing. It's no wonder these poor bastards end up lionizing mediocrity and internalizing a bare minimum work ethic when the apparatus around them discourages anything else, and actively pushes for the removal of any kind of unique appeal, clever design or even good ideas. A creative sapped of their professionalism, sense of ethics and pride in their work; hooked on a validation drip from merely attempting rather than trying is the model employee to many of these companies.

Small upstart indies have too steep of a mountain to climb, where games with a good marketing budget all but buries everything else.

I wouldn't be so hopeless. Regardless of their innate disadvantage and inherent obstacles, there'll always be people driven by intrinsic desire to create, share and work on their passion projects (sappy as it sounds). And now more than ever the tools, resources and even community needed to pursue such are more available than ever. Wishing to overthrow the commodified media sphere is pointless, wishing to grow the alternative/underground sphere in-mirror to it is far more tenable and in many cases already happening. The modern media scene being subjected to a Bonfire of the Vanities won't happen for sometime I feel, but I do expect the trend of people growing disillusioned with it's flavorlessness and driven to take their consumption and support to alternative sources to grow in the future.

The best example would probably be Raid: Shadow Legends, a turn-based gacha "RPG" that made more than $569 million in its lifetime. And they did this by spending millions in saturating the internet with their horrible, cringy ads.

And it's a joke, a meme, and 20 years on from now will only be remembered as such. So what if it grew some faggot businessman's margins, all of these projects through sheer girth are guaranteed some degree of recoup on their investments.

 

[JarlFrank]

While the AAA space has been in perpetual decline since the mid-00s at the latest (and one could argue that it only came into existence at that point in time, as anything pre-XBox was AA at best, budgets only inflated once gaming and consoles became mainstream), there are still independent developers and mid-sized publishers delivering quality products for people of taste. And it has never been easier to publish a game before: Steam is an open platform and it's the biggest store for PC games out there. Any faggot can put his shitty RPG Maker trash on there... but it also allows genuine passion projects to see the light of day and earn some money, which would have been much harder just a decade ago. People like Jeff Vogel had to build up their own website and do their own marketing, today you don't have to do any of that: just release your game on Steam (and... well... do your own marketing, that's still necessary, but your game is much easier to discover).

So what kinds of games do we see today, outside of the stagnant AAA-sphere? Disco Elysium, a game made by a passionate team that tried a completely different approach to RPGs (yet some Codexers claim is not an RPG, but let's not get into that right now) became a massive hit due to its unique qualities. Age of Decadence tried something completely new with structure, and while I didn't like its approach to structure very much (text adventures lol), it was an interesting experiment and it sold well enough to allow Iron Tower to continue making games. We've had the Russkis make their own Fallout clone with ATOM RPG, and it's pretty damn solid. The Serbs, meanwhile, delivered Underrail, and the Codex's character build autists still keep wanking off over it. One of our own Codexian lads made Titan Outpost, a combat-less RPG about managing a base on the Saturn moon Titan, and he is now working on a sequel featuring zero-G combat in a 3D space, which has never been done in an RPG before. Another space RPG with great potential currently in development is Space Wreck, which takes the design principles of classic Fallout and Arcanum to the next level. The legendary Cleveland Mark Blakemore finished his long-awaited Grimoire, proving that babies can fly. The upcoming (and already released to Kickstarter backers) Knights of the Chalice 2 is the most detailed D&D combat simulator ever made.

Sure, none of these games have AAA level production values, but they are good enough when it comes to visual fidelity. Where they absolutely deliver is gameplay.

RPGs are not the only genre where this is the case. Metroidvanias have also seen an indie renaissance, and a lot of entries in that genre are pretty good. Strategy games, too, are seeing more and more independently developed gems, like Ultimate General: Civil War which was created by an ex-Total War modder.

And speaking of mods... people are still making mods for 20 year old games. The mapping communities of Quake, Thief, Doom, Tomb Raider keep delivering new high quality maps year after year. The ambitious Tamriel Rebuilt and Project Tamriel mods for Morrowind are still being worked on, and the content that's already finished is on par if not better than the original. And the recently released Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos for Gothic 2 is pretty much GOTY 2021.

The future belongs to small independent studios and modders.
Disregard AAA. Support hobbyists.

 

[Humbaba]

Entirely consumers' fault. If people wouldn't buy it, they wouldn't keep making it. Well, I say that, we're the product of our environment to be fair. Capitalist society teaches to consume and democracy teaches to follow the masses as not to be left out and marginalised. Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach the man to fish and he'll eat for the rest of his life. Educate the man on the varieties of food and he will break the monopolistic hold the fish industry has on his life and soon he will come to appreciate bread.

 

[JamesDixon]

The big one people are overlooking is that most jobs within the gaming industry require a minimum of a bachelors degree. Said degree is gotten in the infested woke indoctrination system that has brainwashed these people into producing mediocrity and the destruction of the things made by their betters.

 

[Cryomancer]

Said degree is gotten in the infested woke indoctrination system that has brainwashed these people into producing mediocrity and the destruction of the things made by their betters.

Yep. This is why Central and Eastern Europe, where the Frankfurt school has less influence, are producing better RPG's. No way that a game like Kingdom come could have been made in Commiefornia. Even in AAA sphere, Cyberbug 2077 is not great, but compared to western AAA games like Faggout 76, Anthem, ME:Andromeda, DA:I(...), Cyberbug 2077 seems amazing(not because is great, but because the others AAA are bad). Other huge problem of the development industry is the "diversity hiring" and pressure from activist investors.

 

[Fedora Master]

As always

 

[luj1]

Once RPGs stepped out of their niche and into a full blown industry they got worse.

There is a gaping difference between film and the film industry, comics and the comic industry, games and the game industry.

 

[Maxwell's Demon]

As always
View attachment 22155

Don't forget that microtransactions give game companies the passive income to hire non-productive employees without going under.

 

[Funposter]

Women and black people are the problem, ackshually.

 

[plem]

it's all about the uncertainty that comes with actually trying something new. in AAA gamedev, the cost of development is so high that nothing but the safest, blandest projects are allowed to be made. in indie dev, the cost is much smaller but so are the expected sells, so to make profit you have to either follow the current trend (like roguelite deckbuilders) or pander to a niche audience with very specific expectations, as happens with RPGs. most RPGs need only advertise a certain checklist of features like choice and consequence, length, character building, etc for us (the audience being pandered to) to give it a shot, whether or not those features are even fully implemented or if the end product is any good has comparetively little effect on the sales number

one niche of game development that has resisted this trend is the traditional roguelike. most roguelikes are free and even those that aren't still tend to be passion projects motivated by creativity or even scholarly interest rather than profit. many roguelike devs make their codes open source, share expertise and learn from each other freely which benefits the genre as a whole. roguelikes and CRPGs are similarly difficult and complicated genres but the open philosophy of most roguelike devs means that many resources are freely available to amateurs, lowering the barrier to entry for people to just make stuff because it interests them

the closest thing we have to that in CRPGs are NWN mods. because the modkits are easy to use and assets are available for free on the vault, people without the capital and know-how to be a full on indie dev could just go and make something and as a result we got weird, interesting projects that no company (indie or AAA) would risk actual money on. I hope the scenario editor feature in KotC2 attracts even a tiny community of creators. if it gets just 1/100th the attention NWN got, that'll already be more than anything we've had since

 

[CrunchyHemorrhoids]

RDR, Assassin's Creed, for example.

Those have also gone to shit.

 

[Riddler]

I don't think commodification is the primary issue here, it the monetarisation models that fucks up corporate incentives.

Furthermore, the degeneration of "western" visual media seems like it has more to do with the modern neo-puritanical movement than any monetary incentives.

 

[luj1]

RDR, Assassin's Creed, for example.

Those have also gone to always been shit.

ftfy

 

[CrunchyHemorrhoids]

RDR, Assassin's Creed, for example.

Those have also gone to always been shit.

ftfy

 

[OSK]

Said degree is gotten in the infested woke indoctrination system that has brainwashed these people into producing mediocrity and the destruction of the things made by their betters.

Yep. This is why Central and Eastern Europe, where the Frankfurt school has less influence, are producing better RPG's. No way that a game like Kingdom come could have been made in Commiefornia. Even in AAA sphere, Cyberbug 2077 is not great, but compared to western AAA games like Faggout 76, Anthem, ME:Andromeda, DA:I(...), Cyberbug 2077 seems amazing(not because is great, but because the others AAA are bad). Other huge problem of the development industry is the "diversity hiring" and pressure from activist investors.