Live data from Hacker News

Dear Videogame Industry, Please Stop Making Games

uk.gamespy.com

11–20 of 52 posts

Re: Dear Videogame Industry, Please Stop Making Games

#11

This may be humour but he's getting to the heart of something big. Why don't we just watch all the amazing films and TV shows of the past? Why do we listen to music that's in the charts when we've got over 5 decades of complete genius waiting to be listened to? Because fundamentally these are social acts. We like listening to the music that others are listening to, to define ourselves by the films we like in common w…

Five decades? Have you given evidence in opposition to your own question?

Re: Dear Videogame Industry, Please Stop Making Games

#12
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who sort of kind of keeps up, it's actually pretty true, there have been a WHOLE bunch of goods games lately, and I don't think I'll ever catch up.

Are 'all' games targeted at the same market? It seems odd to me that so many games are being produced for the same people. Wouldn't it be better business to target more groups? On the other hand, if you're going to buy them anyway, I don't suppose it matters for the producers.

No, there are different games for different people. There are distinct genres as well as games targeted at specific demographic segments (e.g. tween girls).

Re: Dear Videogame Industry, Please Stop Making Games

#14
post #6

How do people learn about new games these days? For some reason I stopped reading the online game mags a while ago, and now to start again seems a bit overwhelming. Would be nice to only hear about the real must-play games.

I generally don't get games on release, unless its something I'm already a fan of and I'm eagerly awaiting the next installment, but theres only one game this has happened with in the past two years (S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat, I'm looking at you). This means that I hear about the great games months later, or friends bug me to get them or whatever. I do occasionally browse through gamespot, steam and Impulse to see what games people have rated highly and sometimes I'll buy one.

Then again, the only games I've played this year are Modern Warfare 2, Dawn of War 2, Company of Heroes, Fuel of War and Red Faction Guerrilla - all but Modern Warfare 2 came on the THQ multipack I got off steam because I wanted a copy of Company of Heroes. Before this, I'd never even heard of Red Faction Guerrilla, but have been playing it a lot over the past two weeks!

Re: Dear Videogame Industry, Please Stop Making Games

#15

An odd post from a Website that depends on many games being released per year to give people a reason to go back there.

It is actually unrelated to games released this year. On page 2 he lists games that he is waiting until he has free time to play several are over a decade old. Most are not current Generation console games. Several are from the original Nintendo, several from the original game boy, several from the original play station.

Re: Dear Videogame Industry, Please Stop Making Games

#16
post #6

How do people learn about new games these days? For some reason I stopped reading the online game mags a while ago, and now to start again seems a bit overwhelming. Would be nice to only hear about the real must-play games.

In all reality you are either a gaming machine and can play all sorts of new games and find information and reviews for each purchase or you can just watch TV and look for the new game commercials, there are a ton and I hadn't noticed until recently.

I personally just buy games at a lag usually they are much cheaper (after a year or two) and time proven, if you are a pc gamer steam is amazing and for consoles I really have no idea I guess I just hear word of mouth about the new games.

Re: Dear Videogame Industry, Please Stop Making Games

#17
As someone who gets intensely bored with even the best video games after an hour or less I'm really amazed anyone would have the time to play that many games and expect to actually complete each one in its entirety. Video gaming has that weird addictive drive to it for some people that I do not think is healthy. You might like good wine but you don't drink wine 8 hours a day. You don't obsessively consume every good bottle of wine you own. You don't sit around stressing out about not consuming and finishing enough wine. If you do these things you're not a wine lover; you're an alcoholic.

I think rabid video game fans should consider this point strongly. Part of having good taste is being selective because it's impossible to consume everything. Are these all good games? Maybe but you have a finite amount of time in your life. You need to plan accordingly. It may include making tough choices like playing video game X instead of video game Y but you'll survive and your life won't be significantly worse off no matter what choice you make.

Re: Dear Videogame Industry, Please Stop Making Games

#18
post #6

How do people learn about new games these days? For some reason I stopped reading the online game mags a while ago, and now to start again seems a bit overwhelming. Would be nice to only hear about the real must-play games.

You should really be careful when you ask to filter the information for you. Dig the information yourself or take the advice from friends, I don't see any other way.

I don't follow the recent developments, but I have a few people or teams whose opinions resonate with me, so I regularly read what they say. Here's "Top 9 Games of the Decade" by Auriea Harvey of Tale of Tales, whose opinions I value very highly.

http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/2009/12/31/aurieas-top-9-games...

If you're not familiar with their games, check their blog to see if is the kind of games you're interested in. But again, to even know these people whose advice I follow, I used to read many websites, magazines and even visit conferences.

Re: Dear Videogame Industry, Please Stop Making Games

#19
Wow, he's complaining that there are too many good games, not too few. Now that's refreshing! Is he serious? After all, Drucker is a comedian and I can sometimes be dense on humour.

I was really surprised to hear that the number of games increased from say 15 years ago. Surely, the industry grew very much, but I thought costs and complexity of game development more than offset this, so I expected the number of games to decrease. Does anyone have numbers on that?

Also, I thought it became customary to say that newer games are not what they used to be (and the grass back when we were younger, but still). So I see Drucker's article as an opposition to the general notion of gloom and doom in the game industry, though again I am not sure how serious he is.

Re: Dear Videogame Industry, Please Stop Making Games

#20
Drucker's problem is that he is trying to enjoy the "kitchen sink" of the game industry. This is like saying you enjoy cooking as your hobby and then you try to learn the best culinary techniques of French, Spanish, Italian, Thai, and Creole. You can't expect to become a master and experience everything in all of these areas.

My Advice: Pick the platform or genre you enjoy the most and focus on those games. You will never get to sample them all.

Post reply on HN