Bioware's Greg Zeschuk: "The RPG is becoming less relevant"

In an interview with VG247, Greg Zeschuk gave his opinion on the current state of the role playing game:

Do you see Bioware as ‘the’ RPG studio for EA now, or do you see yourselves as being broader than that?I think broader. I mean – it’s funny – RPGs are and always have been our bread and butter, our heart is there, but at the same time I think – well, we had the RPG panel breakfast at GDC yesterday – and what was interesting about that was that we had the conversation about ‘what is an RPG’ and it’s a blend. The genres are blending right now, you’re getting lots and lots of progression and RPG elements in shooters – online persistence and so on.

It’s funny because the RPG in the context of the current world is – well, it’s not specifically irrelevant, but it’s becoming less relevant in and of itself. It’s more a function of ‘hey, this game has a great story’. For us having that emotion but also having other great features like combat and persistence of character progression and stuff.

It’s kind of what we are, but more importantly we’re just about great games.

It's an interesting interview, but it's obvious that he's trying to hype a bit more their new MMORPG, Star Wars: The Old Republic. The Mass Effect franchise is an obvious example of RPG elements blended into an alien structure, in this case a third person shooter. Games have been incorporating RPG elements for years now. Just look at S.T.A.L.K.E.R. or Puzzle Quest, two games whose core gameplay is that of a first person shooter and a "connect three" puzzle, respectively, but in which RPG elements play a vital role. But can you truly say that RPGs are "less relevant" nowadays, with the future release of massive "pure" games like Skyrim or Diablo III?

Edit: Why does the editor remove the spacing in my posts? -_-

"We made a bunch of shitty non-RPGs and people who like RPGs didn't like them. Therefore, people don't like RPG's as much anymore"
 
Right.

"We made a bunch of shitty non-RPGs and people who like RPGs didn't like them. Therefore, people don't like RPG's as much anymore"  Right.

Don't put quotes around text when you're not actually quoting.  

Gabe Newell said this a few months ago, everyone went 'wow, that's so interesting'. BioWare guy says it, and he's being a fuckstick and he's stupid. No standard ever appears to apply to Valve.

Controversial opinion designed to garner press coverage for ToR, ME3 and DA3. Greg, you're full of shit. And you know it.

As long as they're great games I don't care what genre they do it in.

Also for the record, Diablo and Skyrim both have pretty important action elements. When he says that the RPG portion of a game is not the big seller, think about Bastion. That game has some progression and RPG elements, but the big sell is the action and the storytelling. I think most of the 'true' RPGs that people like, they like them due to the storytelling and not because they were able to get +9 against ogres.

Bioware are becoming less relevant.

I think RPG as a genre term is becoming less relevant. Nowadays where everything has at least a  touch of RPG in it it's become more of a gameplay mechanic than a genre. 
 
Frankly, I think the term RPG has been terribly misused for a long time now anyways - ever since someone decided that the R in RPG was more about roll than role.

Gabe Newell said this a few months ago, everyone went 'wow, that's so interesting'. BioWare guy says it, and he's being a fuckstick and he's stupid. No standard ever appears to apply to Valve.

@GuyIncognito said:

Don't put quotes around text when you're not actually quoting.

@JoeyRavn said:

It’s funny because the RPG in the context of the current world is – well, it’s not specifically irrelevant, but it’s becoming less relevant in and of itself.

The title would have looked like a mess if I ware to format it correctly: "[The RPG] is becoming less relevant [in and of itself]". But I'm totally trying to manipulate what this guy said to create animosity towards his company. Right?

@Karkarov said:

Also anyone who thinks Skyrim is a pure RPG has no idea what a pure RPG is. Skyrim is just another example of the evolution of the genre. Pure RPG's are games like Wizardy or these things that involve dice and sitting at a table with 4 or more of your buddies.

Eh. I was contrasting a "hybrid" game like Mass Effect with a "truer" (if you want) RPG like TES. Hence the irony quotation marks.

@Brodehouse said:

Also for the record, Diablo and Skyrim both have pretty important action elements. When he says that the RPG portion of a game is not the big seller, think about Bastion. That game has some progression and RPG elements, but the big sell is the action and the storytelling. I think most of the 'true' RPGs that people like, they like them due to the storytelling and not because they were able to get +9 against ogres.

Dragon Age : Origins is stil one of Bioware's best selling games to date. EYE got a postive QL and they even mention the fact that the story is indecipherable. People like RPGs and story isn't always a driving factor.

@GuyIncognito said:

Don't put quotes around text when you're not actually quoting.

@JoeyRavn said:

It’s funny because the RPG in the context of the current world is – well, it’s not specifically irrelevant, but it’s becoming less relevant in and of itself.

The title would have looked like a mess if I ware to format it correctly: "[The RPG] is becoming less relevant [in and of itself]". But I'm totally trying to manipulate what this guy said to create animosity towards his company. Right?

Hearing this makes me sad. 
 
Hey, game makers? Give me a traditional RPG and I will play it. I want a wizard and I want to click on the wizard and make it roll a dice to magic missile a skeleton and then I get some sort of loot from the skeleton to better attack skeletons. Get on that.

Splicing game mechanics into different genre's is a concept that has been around since gaming's inception, and RPG's have been flirting with different non-traditional mechanics for decades. 
Deus Ex says hello, and Japan was messing around with real-time battle systems for years...
Or are we still not considering those part of?...Ugh, I can't follow this anymore. This is what happens when I read something comment worth at 4 am.
 
Anyway, I think he should have framed that a bit better. It's a little disconcerting when someone you would assume should know their own genre's past history, make broad statements like that. 
But he's in "Let's sell a crap load of Mass Effect 3 copies" mode, so I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt.
 
@ProfessorEss said:

I think RPG as a genre term is becoming less relevant. Nowadays where everything has at least a  touch of RPG in it it's become more of a gameplay mechanic than a genre.

I fucking hate that moment when RPG became an artificial acronym, standing for putting points into Making Poop and Heavy Armor every 2 hours of gametime.

He's right. Their upcoming MMORPG is about as relevant to me as the intricacies of string theory are to a honey badger. Couldn't give a shit.

Dragon Age : Origins is stil one of Bioware's best selling games to date. EYE got a postive QL and they even mention the fact that the story is indecipherable. People like RPGs and story isn't always a driving factor.

Hearing this makes me sad.  Hey, game makers? Give me a traditional RPG and I will play it. I want a wizard and I want to click on the wizard and make it roll a dice to magic missile a skeleton and then I get some sort of loot from the skeleton to better attack skeletons. Get on that.

"RPG" is a fucking stupid genre name as it is. Unlike FPS, RTS, Point and Click Adventure, Sports, etc, it doesn't explain any specific gameplay convention, and if taken at its base meaning of "Role Playing Game" it can be applied to just about every game, because in most games you are playing the role of someone or something. It's even worse when people start applying their own arbitrary definitions to it as well, such as "having stats" (Diablo) or "hey this game has a great story" like this Bioware moron says (does this make Half Life 2 an RPG?).  
 
But anyway, it's Bioware; they rely on dating sim elements to sell their games, I can't say I give a shit about their opinions on the topic. 

@Brodehouse said:

Gabe Newell said this a few months ago, everyone went 'wow, that's so interesting'. BioWare guy says it, and he's being a fuckstick and he's stupid. No standard ever appears to apply to Valve.

Hah that is so true! I find it endlessly amusing.

@Brodehouse said:

Also for the record, Diablo and Skyrim both have pretty important action elements. When he says that the RPG portion of a game is not the big seller, think about Bastion. That game has some progression and RPG elements, but the big sell is the action and the storytelling. I think most of the 'true' RPGs that people like, they like them due to the storytelling and not because they were able to get +9 against ogres.

Dragon Age : Origins is stil one of Bioware's best selling games to date. EYE got a postive QL and they even mention the fact that the story is indecipherable. People like RPGs and story isn't always a driving factor.

@Rufi91 said:

@Brodehouse said:

Gabe Newell said this a few months ago, everyone went 'wow, that's so interesting'. BioWare guy says it, and he's being a fuckstick and he's stupid. No standard ever appears to apply to Valve.

Hah that is so true! I find it endlessly amusing.

Well, to be fair, not many people are reacting the way Brodehouse said. Besides, the problem is that Valve hasn't been an RPG-focused developer like Bioware. If they claimed FPSes (and hats) were "becoming less relevant", people would react that way.

@Rufi91 said:

@Brodehouse said:

Gabe Newell said this a few months ago, everyone went 'wow, that's so interesting'. BioWare guy says it, and he's being a fuckstick and he's stupid. No standard ever appears to apply to Valve.

Hah that is so true! I find it endlessly amusing.

Well, to be fair, not many people are reacting the way Brodehouse said. Besides, the problem is that Valve hasn't been an RPG-focused developer like Bioware. If they claimed FPSes (and hats) were "becoming less relevant", people would react that way.

As long as there are games in which I can actually play a role (creating a character, making decisions based on the decisions they would make, etc.), I could care less if it is a traditional isometric gameplay experience or something like Mass Effect 2. To me, RPGs are all about story and character involvement first, action and mechanics second.

@JoeyRavn said:

@Rufi91 said:

@Brodehouse said:

Gabe Newell said this a few months ago, everyone went 'wow, that's so interesting'. BioWare guy says it, and he's being a fuckstick and he's stupid. No standard ever appears to apply to Valve.

Hah that is so true! I find it endlessly amusing.

Well, to be fair, not many people are reacting the way Brodehouse said. Besides, the problem is that Valve hasn't been an RPG-focused developer like Bioware. If they claimed FPSes (and hats) were "becoming less relevant", people would react that way.

Maybe, but probably only because FPSes (and hats) are clearly NOT becoming less relevant that's to Battlefield and COD etc. In my eyes straight up RPGs are becoming less relevant. There used to be a time when the world would explode when a new Final Fantasy got revealed and now they seem to groan... I can't speak for Greg myself but I hope what he meant is that the standard RPG is becoming less relevant and it needs to be refreshed or maybe just become an add-on for existing franchises (like Borderland and Dead Island or even Puzzle Quest!) and if that is what he meant then people like Cliff Brzezinski has been saying that since forever ago.

What does he know about RPGs? His company hasn't released one since FOREVER.

Mass Effect 2: Cover based shooter

DA2: Turn-based medieval fantasy combat game

Gabe Newell said this a few months ago, everyone went 'wow, that's so interesting'. BioWare guy says it, and he's being a fuckstick and he's stupid. No standard ever appears to apply to Valve.

What does he know about RPGs? His company hasn't released one since FOREVER.

Mass Effect 2: Cover based shooter

DA2: Turn-based medieval fantasy combat game

EDIT: Removed 'cause I'm an idiot.

@SomeJerk said:

What does he know about RPGs? His company hasn't released one since FOREVER.

Mass Effect 2: Cover based shooter

DA2: Turn-based medieval fantasy combat game

I think this is exactly the problem developers are having. What makes an RPG? Mass Effect is all about the characters, story and branching paths.. but it's no longer considered an RPG because it doesn't have a Final Fantasy style side view battle system?

I'm very disappointed with how DA2 turned out, they removed too much of what made the original game great and replaced it with a very watered down experience.. BUT I can't see why people would think that it isn't an RPG, just because it isn't all about loot and stats. So is the genre becoming less relevant? Yes. People don't even seem to know what it is any more.

Also for the record, Diablo and Skyrim both have pretty important action elements. When he says that the RPG portion of a game is not the big seller, think about Bastion. That game has some progression and RPG elements, but the big sell is the action and the storytelling. I think most of the 'true' RPGs that people like, they like them due to the storytelling and not because they were able to get +9 against ogres.

Wow there is so much hate from people here, all he said that the pure RPG games are less relevant witch if you look on the numbers of pure RPG games that were released in the last few years you would also know that.

Hearing this makes me sad.  Hey, game makers? Give me a traditional RPG and I will play it. I want a wizard and I want to click on the wizard and make it roll a dice to magic missile a skeleton and then I get some sort of loot from the skeleton to better attack skeletons. Get on that.

I agree with Greg, and I've played Dungeons & Dragons weekly for something like three years straight and seven years on and off. The things that make RPGs great really have nothing to do with mechanics. The mechanics of RPGs were largely designed back when it was impossible to MAKE a game where you could, say, aim at every individual part of someone's body, or where you could climb a wall and jump a chasm and not have it use the same mechanics. These mechanics are still viable in a tabletop game because nobody's developed new systems for how to perform unlimited action and making it less complicated than the ones already in place. Gameplay is so dynamic at this point that the original "roll the die to see if you hit"-type stuff is antiquated for a video game. It's still kind of fun, but if somebody tried to tell me the combat in Persona 4 or Final Fantasy was more fun than, say, the combat in Bayonetta or God of War, or that climbing and jumping should be controlled by dice rolls in a world post-Mario or Uncharted, I'd tell that person...well, that I disagree strongly and don't value their genre rigidness, but that's only because I'm trying to be more civil these days. A year ago, I'd have told the person they were JUST PLAIN WRONG.

As for the actual role-playing bits, those were never a rigid part of the genre in video games to begin with; just take note of the people in this thread mentioning Diablo III as an upcoming RPG. RPG was always a terrible name for the genre, and the things that could even possibly define all games considered part of the "RPG" genre are becoming less relevant. You can successfully incorporate player agency and RPG mechanics into action games, block puzzlers, or third-person shooters at this point, so the storytelling bit is really not as exclusively "RPG" anymore. I'd argue this point further, but I don't really care that much so long as BioWare continues to make good games.

I should also mention that as a huge RPG fan this makes me sad but ignoring reality and saying he's a troll or an idiot is just stupid. If the head of the Biggest RPG studio in world is saying RPG's are becoming less relevant I'm pretty sure he has a point.

Considering almost every game these days has an unlock/progression element to it (certainly the most popular ones) I say someone's talking out of their asshole. RPGs are all we're getting these days to some extent.

As much as we gamers hate to acknowledge it, at least sales wise, he's right.  Of the top selling games for 2010, two Pokemon and Final Fantasy XIII are the only RPGs in the top 30.

@The_Nubster: Some people seem to have skipped reading my post or, worse, the article. No one is denying that games have been infused with RPG elements for decades now. The point of discussion is whether the RPG as a genre can survive. Not "shooter with RPG elements" or "puzzle game with leveling up", but a game whose core mechanics are RPG elements.

@The_Nubster: Crap, caught me red handed in "responding to topic". =P

 It's still kind of fun, but if somebody tried to tell me the combat in Persona 4 or Final Fantasy was more fun than, say, the combat in Bayonetta or God of War, 

I guess I have always seen an "RPG" as a game like D&D where you are playing a character, not just a face. Games like Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Oblivion, still feel like an RPG to me because I am fulfilling the life of an individual.

@JoeyRavn said:

@The_Nubster: Some people seem to have skipped reading my post or, worse, the article. No one is denying that games have been infused with RPG elements for decades now. The point of discussion is whether the RPG as a genre can survive. Not "shooter with RPG elements" or "puzzle game with leveling up", but a game whose core mechanics are RPG elements.

Does Bioware not realize that Final Fantasy XIII outsold Mass Effect 2? Or that Dragon Age II was just bad?

Performance of their individual games does not reflect the performance of a genre as a whole.

Does Bioware not realize that Final Fantasy XIII outsold Mass Effect 2?

Comments seem less controversial, and more plainly obvious. Anyone who disagrees needs to stop and think about what RPGs are, and what that definition means.

Controversial opinion designed to garner press coverage for ToR, ME3 and DA3. Greg, you're full of shit. And you know it.

@JoeyRavn said:

@The_Nubster: Some people seem to have skipped reading my post or, worse, the article. No one is denying that games have been infused with RPG elements for decades now. The point of discussion is whether the RPG as a genre can survive. Not "shooter with RPG elements" or "puzzle game with leveling up", but a game whose core mechanics are RPG elements.

Does Bioware not realize that Final Fantasy XIII outsold Mass Effect 2? Or that Dragon Age II was just bad?

Performance of their individual games does not reflect the performance of a genre as a whole.

@The_Nubster: Some people seem to have skipped reading my post or, worse, the article. No one is denying that games have been infused with RPG elements for decades now. The point of discussion is whether the RPG as a genre can survive. Not "shooter with RPG elements" or "puzzle game with leveling up", but a game whose core mechanics are RPG elements.

"We made a bunch of shitty non-RPGs and people who like RPGs didn't like them. Therefore, people don't like RPG's as much anymore"  Right.