-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Amy Hennig: People ask for linear Story-Based Games but aren’t necessarily buying them
- Thread starter Soulymist
- Start date
Tons and tons of awesome indie games coming out every day man. Put your money where your mouth is and go buy some!
Yeah, this isn't me. I mostly play single player games, linear or branching story is what I want from games not sandbox, and when I have the money I buy them.
I'm only an amateur developer at the moment so I have no idea how the industry actually works but I'm managing to make a 3D linear story game on my own for a budget of 0 right now. Obviously that doesn't compare to professional productions, but I have a hard time believing these prohibitive $100 million production costs are 100% necessary. Make games for less less, cut some graphical corners if you have to, and deliver creative and interesting stories and gameplay systems without requiring your product to be a worldwide smash hit in order to justify the investment.
Balance the value of the art with the value of the product.
I'm only an amateur developer at the moment so I have no idea how the industry actually works but I'm managing to make a 3D linear story game on my own for a budget of 0 right now. Obviously that doesn't compare to professional productions, but I have a hard time believing these prohibitive $100 million production costs are 100% necessary. Make games for less less, cut some graphical corners if you have to, and deliver creative and interesting stories and gameplay systems without requiring your product to be a worldwide smash hit in order to justify the investment.
Balance the value of the art with the value of the product.
So what I'm getting from this is that you don't like video games.
In the last 30 days alone I've bought Pyre, Cuphead, Hollow Knight, Evil Within 2 and Yakuza 0. Make that last 60 days and I can list even more single player titles.
Believe me I'm doing my part. I just don't like corporate mouthpieces telling us what we do or don't want.
No, the actions of customers are forcing publishers to drop the price sooner than they want. That only leads to publishers deciding to fund fewer single player games. You are literally part of the problem.
That makes sense, I've been lucky enough to avoid motion sickness in first-person games (except Talos Principle for some reason) but I can't imagine enjoying a game that's constantly disorienting. I suppose that's a pitfall of trends: since "immersive sims / shock-likes" are more prevalent in the SP sphere, those who can't stand them get left out until trends change again. That and 3rd person linear SP games without guns are pretty thin on the ground anyway, I bet Nier was a breath of fresh air.
my man!
And if you don't like just ignore them. If they can't make money on their model then it is what it is. It's not like we have a dearth of single player linear games coming out. Lower budget than something like AssCreedO maybe but in the end if it's quality who cares? Personally I think the shift to more modest budgets is going to be for the best on a level design and gameplay perspective because it's going to allow devs to experiment more rather than everything being the same bland ass shit we saw last gen.
immersive sims are dead on AAA scale
Infinite killed Irrational, Dishonered 2, Death of the Outsider, DX Mankind Divided, thief, and Prey all failed
Hennig, leave AAA. It's the only way this'll work out for you. No more too many cooks syndrome, no more 1313 disasters, no more lootbox or GTFO.
I know you are being flippant but this isn't far from the truth. Games like dishonoured have nothing memorable in terms of character, story or gameplay. Who is the main character of the dishonoured games? Exactly, nobody cares.
No I don't like those games so I don't buy them. Make good ones and I will. This is how we used to do things.
Yeah, I'm getting that feeling. At least that most of the last batch were great for those who like them. I'll just wait another 15 years or so till they're back in vogue again.
This is just the games market course correcting itself. This is gamers saying to developers, you can't skimp on content. The jig is up and we know through the internet via video instantly what your game is all about and this type of game does not represent a good investment of our hard earned dollars.
Back when these games started there was really no good way to see what they were about. You bought the games (s.o.l) you sat and watched it for a few hours, sometimes you played it. It's as if people think gamers were born yesterday. They will ride your product out of town if it doesn't have enough value. It's not like any other industry.
Back when these games started there was really no good way to see what they were about. You bought the games (s.o.l) you sat and watched it for a few hours, sometimes you played it. It's as if people think gamers were born yesterday. They will ride your product out of town if it doesn't have enough value. It's not like any other industry.
It makes no sense to greenlight a linear cinematic single-player game on a AAA budget in 2018 if it's not by Naughty Dog. None. Zero. Prospects are bleak and they're not going to get better as better technology raises standards even more. Luckily that's not the only approach to single-player games out there and there are bound to be enterprising developers willing to take the risk with lower budgets if you're able to stomach production values that come at less than seventy five million dollars.
The two AAA single player games you listed aren't linear. Amy is specifically referring to stuff like Uncharted - heavily scripted linear games around 10 hours in length.
I wouldn't give up hope completely. There's quite a few immersive sims and IS-likes out or coming out in the indie scene. Consortium and its sequel, Underworld Ascendant, System Shock Remake + SS3, Gone Home, Firewatch, Magic Circle, Tacoma, and there was this art deco immersive sim posted on here a few months back that I can't seem to remember the name of.
They're still popular and they'll still get made. They just can't sell 15 million copies so AAA has decided they aren't worth making.
I cited Andromeda because it had a comparable budget to The Witcher 3 and he was referring to EA. LITERALLY all I am saying is money alone doesn't always work out. That is a statement of fact regardless of whether it's a game with circumstances like Andromeda or any other huge title that would up disappointing either critically or commercially, like say, Mankind Divided. You're too focused on Andromeda being the example chosen, rather than the message of "money isn't the only thing that matters". I don't understand where you're going with what you're saying and at this point I'm convinced we're talking about slightly different things, so I'm just going to drop this thread here. Sorry.
Story based games will have to offer meaningful interaction to stay competitive in this market. That means choice, not replicating popcorn movies with light interactive scripting.
This is the horrible future I feared for AAA. I personally look for single player experiences, my last being Assassin's Creed Origins which is great. I don't want every developer diverting resources to a multiplayer experience that might not be fit for the actual game and/or gameplay.
Sure but a lot of those are a bit lacking in the gameplay department. I like a walking-sim as much as anyone but most of the draw of the IS genre is gameplay freedom and flexibility in addition to environmental storytelling. A bit hard to do all that on a budget. I'll be sure to check those out though so thanks.
Games like AC Origins will be fine. Shet's alking specifically about linear single player games, which outside of the indie scene barely exist these days anyway.
For the people who truly do like shorter linear experiences I'm sure in a few years indie developers will be able to tackle these types of projects and make them look pretty damn good as well. The writing will probably better than anything a AAA would put out too.
I see a few issues here and it has nothing to do with gamers not wanting this, it ultimately boils down to too many gamers trying to glean "value" out of their games.
Why pay 60$ for a game that will be over in 10 hours when I can buy 60$ for something that has "infinite" replayability?
Why pay 60$ for a 10 hour game when I can wait 6 months and it will be 30$?
Unless it has a strong multiplayer component or it's an open world game with potential for 40+ hours, the modern day gamer does not see value in a 10 hour story driven linear game that is 60$ even if it has insane production values and a great story and will likely just skip it.
Why pay 60$ for a game that will be over in 10 hours when I can buy 60$ for something that has "infinite" replayability?
Why pay 60$ for a 10 hour game when I can wait 6 months and it will be 30$?
Unless it has a strong multiplayer component or it's an open world game with potential for 40+ hours, the modern day gamer does not see value in a 10 hour story driven linear game that is 60$ even if it has insane production values and a great story and will likely just skip it.
Except the single-player games that are offering meaningful interaction have sold poorly while the "popcorn movies" (which I'm assuming refers to Uncharted) have actually sold well relative to them.
So that's like, a completely wrong reading of reality.
I buy them. And so? I feel like blaming the consumer first for "industry trends" is pretty shitty.
She's conflating it with SP in general later, though. If she's saying people don't want to buy Firewatch and Uncharted... well, I don't, sure, but I'm not clamoring for or watching those games either. Prey on the other hand, I'm there. Maybe you could call it linear in a way? But these things are not the same.
... which includes service based multiplayer component and mtx...
Horizon? I mean we can go around in circles but single player games can and do sell well under the right conditions. God of War seems like it has potential to do quite well. its like saying some multiplayer and MTX games failing to gain traction somehow means the whole system is faulty.
Saying "game doesnt sell X amount of millions so there's no point" just doesn't feel right to me, it feels like its publishers attempting to push that narrative just so they can control purchases better in other venues.
Magic Circle is flat out amazing. Made by a small team compiled by Jordan Thomas (The Cradle Thief DS, Fort Frolic BS1, Director BS2, Lead Designer Bio Infinite) and is centered around the player as a game tester stuck in a brokedick, devhell game and trying his damnedest to get it finished. The combat is awesome. You hack into enemies and possess them, and via a coding interface can change variables on them to do lots of insane and inventive stuff (removing legs and deagroing enmies just to watch them flail never gets old), and you also can steal abilities from creatures and add them to your variable list to apply /at will/ to other creatures you catpure via setting them to /follow. By mid game you have a small army of firebreathing floating skeletons and dogs with guns for a face wielding lightsabers to do battle with. The level design is really rad too. It features tons of little sequence breaks you can force via "breaking" the game as a tester via various hacks. It's really cool too because often when you do it the "developers" of the "game" you're trying to fix will fly over and ask what the fuck you're doing xD
The story is really somber. It's mostly a cathartic tale from JT about how fucking awful AAA development is. There's richard garriet stand ins, peter M stand ins, and Ken Levin (calm down bio fans KL is even in the game as a voice actor, dude is humble as fuck about his mistakes) stand ins all getting torn down by satire. There's this really heartbreaking moment where a fan joins the dev team and meets her hero only to be faced with the reality the dude is an asshole and said person realizes after being subjected to tons of shitty hours and pay that making games sucks and isn't worth it. IIRC all of the little anecdotes are based on true stories, and there's lots of little notes ala shock you find that IIRC are all based on stories JT and team compiled for the game.
It's legit one of my favorite games of the generation. Dunno if they ever got the console version out, but I'd tell everyone they need to play it.
I wonder if we could somehow get stats on how many people who finished uncharted's single player later go online and check out the multiplayer. Ive played all the uncharted titles and have never played a multiplayer match.
This might be a bit presumptuous but it sounds like you're looking for games that are well written and heavy on story and simple/light in terms of gameplay. In terms of AAA efforts Naughty Dog are pretty much the only major player for those these days, but there are plenty of indie efforts I can point you towards if you're interested. You'll find a lot more variety in story/game balance and more experimental stuff in terms of narrative than you would find in big-budget low-risk games.
So it's a conspiracy?
The facts are that linear, single player games sell less, on average, today than they did 5 years ago, and much less than they did 10 years ago.
Many possible reasons for this which can be debated ad naseum. Doesn't change the facts.
Oh, I agree, I bought some games because streamer shown those off. I saw it was cool at the start, then promptly sopped watching so that I can go experience it by myself.
But I also did the reverse, watched entire playthroughs of game because it just wasn't making me go over the edge to buy it, but yet it was just engaging enough to watch.
She's right. Even though my most played games on both Steam and PS4 are single-player varied experiences (Binding of Isaac, Age of Decadence, Kingdom), it's much easier for me to play multiplayer games if I want to. Not only because they are "free to play" all around the world, where $60 doesn't always translate well, but because they keep introducing changes with time. I bought Overwatch back in 2016, and stopped playing a while ago, but I know that I can come back anytime, and I'll probably be making money for Blizzard while doing so. Who cares if I buy Bayonetta 2 now?
Also,the exceptions only prove the rule. Persona 5, Nier: Automata, The Witcher 3, Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey are some of the most amazing games of all time, in my opinion, but for any company, it's safer, easier and more profitable to make a decent multiplayer game that they can reshape as they see fit (see Lawbreakers and Fortnite). I can see why big companies are risk-averse, and I personally feel like it's easy to ignore them, because indie games inherently have much more diversity when it comes to business models and everything else.
Also,the exceptions only prove the rule. Persona 5, Nier: Automata, The Witcher 3, Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey are some of the most amazing games of all time, in my opinion, but for any company, it's safer, easier and more profitable to make a decent multiplayer game that they can reshape as they see fit (see Lawbreakers and Fortnite). I can see why big companies are risk-averse, and I personally feel like it's easy to ignore them, because indie games inherently have much more diversity when it comes to business models and everything else.
Same but at least for me those are games I would have never bought anyhow if streaming didn't exist.
I share the same criticism about writing in games. But if you haven't, I suggest you try Yakuza 0. It's one of the best-written stories in a game that I've played. It's a pulp noir thriller, not high-brow, but the characters, the narrative, and the voice acting are leagues above most everything else.
The word "linear" muddies this up, but it is an important distinction. The disparity between quality and commercial success is also a sad consideration. Look at the Era GOTY awards. The top 11 are all single-player, and a lot of them are story-driven... just that a lot have differing tiers of open world status. The quality is obviously there, but quality alone obviously can't drive the industry. Most all of those games sold "well" versus expectations, but of course they'll never push units like CoD or the annual sports games.
I didn't say anything about conspiracies. But its a known quantity that pubs will force self fulfilling prophecies on the industry because of monopolization and that is shown in many different circumstances. If you can corner people with micro-transactions, multiplayer, always online ect, of course people will fold eventually. For corps its just a matter of what they can get away with and how far they will push it.
It just proves that the death race to photo-realism and pushing graphics to the limit has hit the point of diminishing returns. Take a step back and quit the photo-realism arms race now that everything is in HD and people are used to lower fidelity indie stuff and instead double down on solid writing and direction. Breath of the Wild and Yakuza Zero would still be great experiences even running at 480p.
Corvo and Emily? Corvo, who in Dishonored 2 is voiced by the same actor as Garrett from Thief 1-3? Next thing you'll be arguing that nobody cares about JC Denton from Deus Ex. And you seriously think there is nothing memorable about Dishonored's gameplay?
IM-like
The devs have said they incorporated IM style design philosophies to tell the story and make the game they did. Same with Gone Home and Tacoma, both of which feature straight up Shock level design and storytelling just without combat.
IM-likes are mostly the result of budget constraints. As much as I think Gaynor would have loved to make a game as complete as Minerva's Den, I don't think it was even remotely possible on the budget GH and Tacoma had.
There is nothing about Firewatch or or Gone Home that I would describe as an immersive sim. The gameplay elements that make up that genre are non-existent in these games. Call them walking sims, interactive narrative adventures, or what have you, but you can't call them immersive sims.
True but really would it be possible to quantify how much of UC4 sold because of its multiplayer component vs its Single player component. Everything in the marketing focussed only on story and SP content and nothing else so I am not sure if UC is a good example of SP games dying.
I def do agree with you that AAA single player only games being in decline and not selling what they used to.
I struggle to think you've played Gone Home then. Gone Home is literally a shock game without combat. The level design and storytelling tropes are straight out of what Gaynor did with Bio2 in Pauper's Drop and in Minerva's Den. Statistics do not an immersive sim make. There's a clear fork in where IMs went, and it started with System Shock 2. System Shock and Thief both argued that the Simulation is what mattered whereas SS2 argued that rig building was more important. Games like STALKER, Far Cry 2, and Gone Home all put their money in the simulation camp. There was quite the fan uproar over System Shock Remake containing statistics for this very reason, afterall.