The 6 Most Ominous Trends in Video Games

While on Cracked I saw this article and read it and I found that I agreed with quite alot in it. 
 
http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-6-most-ominous-trends-in-video-games_p1/ 
 
The main point I agreed with the most was that we're on the verge of creative bankruptcy.  So many sequels and not nearly enough new  series being made with new concepts and ideas. Read the article and tell me what you think of it. Do you agree or disagree with his points? 

Sequels have always been an industry cornerstone. And this "everything is a military first-person shooter" bullshit is just that: bullshit. First off, we've seen the exact same thing in the past, with first-person shooters (albeit not military-themed) and other genres (sometimes I wonder if everyone but me has forgotten about all the 3D platformers two generations ago, or the 2D platformers before that). Second, there are tons upon tons of great games coming out every year that are neither military-themed nor first-person shooters. Do you know how many military first-person shooters I've played for more than a couple of hours this generation? One. And yet, I buy and enjoy plenty of games every year. If you can't find anything but Call of Duty clones, you aren't looking very well.

Mark my words, in ten years we'll see the kids of today complain just like the kids of yesterday are doing now.  

"Everything's a sequel!"

"Everything's an [insert genre that's popular ten years from now]!"

"I remember a decade ago when there was real variety and originality!"

"Where is the industry even going?"

@Icemael said:

If you can't find anything but Call of Duty clones, you aren't looking very well.

So, so true.

I disagree that creativity has gone down. There's so much stuff coming out if you just look around and have an open mind. I think indie development is at it's highest after early 90s shareware era right now and that's where the original ideas are.

some good points some not so good points. It's not as easy as "lets make new games"

@Icemael: That attitude is exactly the kind that lets the industry go into slumps like this. "No worries man, it's just the way of the world."

You are right, there are plenty of other games. But that doesn't change the fact that there are wayyyyy too many FPSs on the market, and E3 made it clear it wasn't changing any time soon. I mean, I enjoy shooters quite a lot, but they aren't getting any better, and many are getting worse, or at least old.

Just because this "always" happens doesn't mean it's wrong to push against that pattern. Even if you don't have an effect on it, you still shouldn't sit idly by and act like everything is fine. Progress come from criticism and opposition and competition, and those things should be encouraged.

I read that article. It seems that he basically looked at MW3, BF3 and a piece of shit Star Wars game and promptly decided that gaming is DOOMED.

I love David Wong, but I find his post E3 reactions to be just the reactionary bullshit I'm trying to avoid on the internet. Calling everything lack of creativity and then mocking any innovation as stupidity isn't fun to read, and these articles just make me leave going "So do REAL people who aren't the internet actually think this?" and it shakes my faith in humanity. He just ignores anything that sets an idea apart and goes down to the core of it, calls that unoriginal, and then sits back and says "Perfect."

Best example is the graphic at the top. Showing a bunch of FPS games is not a surprise, but ignoring any creativity in them or anything that sets them apart and makes them neat jsut to say "you aim down sites in all of these" is frankly insulting.

I happen to be keeping a log of most all releases this year.   I think even a cursory glance will counter any notion that the only games are Modern Military Shooters ™.  I used spoiler tags only because it's a long list.
 

Sequels have always been an industry cornerstone. And this "everything is a military first-person shooter" bullshit is just that: bullshit. First off, we've seen the exact same thing in the past, with first-person shooters (albeit not military-themed) and other genres (sometimes I wonder if everyone but me has forgotten about all the 3D platformers two generations ago, or the 2D platformers before that). Second, there are tons upon tons of great games coming out every year that are neither military-themed nor first-person shooters. Do you know how many military first-person shooters I've played for more than a couple of hours this generation? One. And yet, I buy and enjoy plenty of games every year. If you can't find anything but Call of Duty clones, you aren't looking very well.

Mark my words, in ten years we'll see the kids of today complain just like the kids of yesterday are doing now.  

"Everything's a sequel!"

"Everything's an [insert genre that's popular ten years from now]!"

"I remember a decade ago when there was real variety and originality!""Where is the industry even going?"

i can't agree 
seriously not when he enjoyed the wii bowling game.

Creativity has gone up, not down. A franchise being popular - COD, WOW, Halo, Whatever - has absolutely nothing to do with other games.

I usually like Cracked's articles but this one is just dumb.

Well, I don't believe we're on the verge of creative bankruptcy at all.  Small games, independent games and low budget games have shown a lot of creativity in the new marketplace.  Big budget games have been stale, but when you're spending a hefty budget on a title, studios can't afford to stray too far from what's proven to pay off.  The other side is a Mirror's Edge which was well received for what it tried to do but good intentions don't pay the bills.   There are a lot of sequels but that's often the case.  I remember playing Pitfall 2 and River Raid 2 on my old 2600.  Hell, Ms Pac-Man was a better game than the original Pac-Man.  I believe the problem is worse in Hollywood, but that's a discussion for a different thread.  
 
Where I do agree with the (somewhat satirical) article is that we're moving closer to having to register every game regardless of platform and be connected to verify that ownership.  This in an era where the hackers are breaking into those online registries and making off with the personal data.  The bigger the carcase, the more carrion it attracts.    It will be interesting to see if someone can get a handle on securing those data bases.  
 
The truth of the matter is games are damned expensive to produce these days and the gaming public is a fickle group who want more of the same (that's what sells) and something new and different (just not too different).  It's a lot to ask when you're dealing with multimillion dollar game budgets.

@Icemael said:

Sequels have always been an industry cornerstone. And this "everything is a military first-person shooter" bullshit is just that: bullshit. First off, we've seen the exact same thing in the past, with first-person shooters (albeit not military-themed) and other genres (sometimes I wonder if everyone but me has forgotten about all the 3D platformers two generations ago, or the 2D platformers before that). Second, there are tons upon tons of great games coming out every year that are neither military-themed nor first-person shooters. Do you know how many military first-person shooters I've played for more than a couple of hours this generation? One. And yet, I buy and enjoy plenty of games every year. If you can't find anything but Call of Duty clones, you aren't looking very well.

Mark my words, in ten years we'll see the kids of today complain just like the kids of yesterday are doing now.

"Everything's a sequel!"

"Everything's an [insert genre that's popular ten years from now]!"

"I remember a decade ago when there was real variety and originality!""Where is the industry even going?"

Well, that pretty much ends the thread. The Cracked article is reactionary bullshit designed precisely to appeal to all those nostalgia-ridden teenagers who think that none of these problems ever existed in the industry before this generation.

Honestly I'll never really understand why people complain about sequels. For as much as I love a good new IP, it's great to continue a game series with characters I know and see how they develop and the game evolves.

Well, I don't believe we're on the verge of creative bankruptcy at all.  Small games, independent games and low budget games have shown a lot of creativity in the new marketplace.  Big budget games have been stale, but when you're spending a hefty budget on a title, studios can't afford to stray too far from what's proven to pay off.  The other side is a Mirror's Edge which was well received for what it tried to do but good intentions don't pay the bills.   There are a lot of sequels but that's often the case.  I remember playing Pitfall 2 and River Raid 2 on my old 2600.  Hell, Ms Pac-Man was a better game than the original Pac-Man.  I believe the problem is worse in Hollywood, but that's a discussion for a different thread.    Where I do agree with the (somewhat satirical) article is that we're moving closer to having to register every game regardless of platform and be connected to verify that ownership.  This in an era where the hackers are breaking into those online registries and making off with the personal data.  The bigger the carcase, the more carrion it attracts.    It will be interesting to see if someone can get a handle on securing those data bases.    The truth of the matter is games are damned expensive to produce these days and the gaming public is a fickle group who want more of the same (that's what sells) and something new and different (just not too different).  It's a lot to ask when you're dealing with multimillion dollar game budgets.

I knew the writer had no idea what he was talking about when he said he put more time into wii bowling then red dead redemption.

Badttitude was the worst trend ever. The few years where you put a goatee on your main character and turned him dark.

Small games, independent games and low budget games have shown a lot of creativity in the new marketplace.

That whole "I hope you like looking down sights" picture...

What the hell are they supposed to do!?!?!

"I hope you like staring at the player character's back"...................................... IN A 3RD PERSON SHOOTER.

"I hope you like seeing wheels"......................................... IN A RACING GAME.

Truly, these are the valid criticisms of our time.

The bullshit way game quality and success is measure has created an environment where medium budget games have nowhere to go. If you're medium budget, you're being compared to big budget visually and with sales and coming up short. Movies aren't like this. Movie producers understand on a movie to movie basis, "this is what we spent, this is a reasonable approximation of the returns, its a failure if it goes below that". Game publishers are like "its not on XBLA, Wiiware, or PSN, so how does it compare to Moder Warfare's sales? Badly? Fuck this game". Its stupid. One reason Im glad 3DS isn't trying to be a mobile console is it gives medium budget retail games a place to live, just as the DS gave low budget retail games a place to live (they're now homeless). You're either bite sized for the iSomething or you're penalized for not comparing to the best looking game at the moment. The middleground is dead and that's where most devs would prefer to live so they can take some kind of risk. But the system won't abide that.

LA Noire took 7 years to make and a whole new technology had to be created for it. It was absolutely a passion project and its a miracle that someone allowed it to get made without pulling the plug. You shouldn't expect most developers want to go through what Bondi did to make that game happen. And certainly, publishers don't want that.

I read that article. It seems that he basically looked at MW3, BF3 and a piece of shit Star Wars game and promptly decided that gaming is DOOMED.

Great article.

I've been more excited for games than 2011. Fuck these overcritical pretentious douchebags who only like indie games with nice art styles.

:)

Awful article. Just unbelievable. Easily the worst thing I have ever read on that website. Wii bowling is better than Red Dead Redemption? He mentions The Umbrella Chronicles but not Metroid Prime? He trashes new technology like Kinect, which developers are just starting to figure out? He disses looking down the sights in a First Person shooter game (seriously, has he ever shot a gun)? He talks about the Wii U only using one controller at a time, although its not out for a year and at E3 they already showed two controllers being used on the same game? He goes on about sequels as if the game industry has ever been different, or like Super Mario Galaxy 2 is anything like Super Mario 2, or like L.A. Noire didn't just come out?

Most of my thoughts have already been covered. Mostly, I'm of two minds. I'm a gamer who simultaneously loves and hates everything. I"m bent toward being jaded and cynical and tired of sequels and gimmicks and shitty rehashes and "Mario 764 and Zelda 328" and everything else. At the same time, I get wrapped up in the excitement and the craziness. It's kind of like with E3. I hate it and love it at the same time. I hate the glitz and overboard nature of it, but then I kind of love that about it. The same way the Halo 3 release launch was fucking insane and I both hated and loved the parading of Master Chief down a closed 5th Ave in NYC while the Halo theme blared out over the loud speakers.

Gaming is filled with bad stuff and great stuff, but it steadily evolves and will continue to evolve, even if it seems dire. In the meantime, you just have to find the true gems that make you smile and pass the time and support them. And maybe I could do my part by being a little more optimistic than my 95% jaded and cynical comments on GB would suggest. :)

Most of my thoughts have already been covered. Mostly, I'm of two minds. I'm a gamer who simultaneously loves and hates everything. I"m bent toward being jaded and cynical and tired of sequels and gimmicks and shitty rehashes and "Mario 764 and Zelda 328" and everything else. At the same time, I get wrapped up in the excitement and the craziness. It's kind of like with E3. I hate it and love it at the same time. I hate the glitz and overboard nature of it, but then I kind of love that about it. The same way the Halo 3 release launch was fucking insane and I both hated and loved the parading of Master Chief down a closed 5th Ave in NYC while the Halo theme blared out over the loud speakers.

Gaming is filled with bad stuff and great stuff, but it steadily evolves and will continue to evolve, even if it seems dire. In the meantime, you just have to find the true gems that make you smile and pass the time and support them. And maybe I could do my part by being a little more optimistic than my 95% jaded and cynical comments on GB would suggest. :)

@Video_Game_King said:

@Branthog said:

Most of my thoughts have already been covered. Mostly, I'm of two minds. I'm a gamer who simultaneously loves and hates everything. I"m bent toward being jaded and cynical and tired of sequels and gimmicks and shitty rehashes and "Mario 764 and Zelda 328" and everything else. At the same time, I get wrapped up in the excitement and the craziness. It's kind of like with E3. I hate it and love it at the same time. I hate the glitz and overboard nature of it, but then I kind of love that about it. The same way the Halo 3 release launch was fucking insane and I both hated and loved the parading of Master Chief down a closed 5th Ave in NYC while the Halo theme blared out over the loud speakers.

Gaming is filled with bad stuff and great stuff, but it steadily evolves and will continue to evolve, even if it seems dire. In the meantime, you just have to find the true gems that make you smile and pass the time and support them. And maybe I could do my part by being a little more optimistic than my 95% jaded and cynical comments on GB would suggest. :)

Odd. You seem to be one of the few gamers who admits to this weird schism of "I hate sequels, so that's why all I buy are sequels", but don't much about it. I can understand, but still.

Not so much that I hate sequels. I just hate it when it seems like a franchise is a franchise only to spit out as many iterations until the market for it falls away. For example, a story that should have been done in two or three games, but becomes nine games, because - hey - let's milk it. If a game is a good sequel, I'll still possibly get excited for it and even enjoy it -- but that doesn't mean there isn't still fatigue at the mention of yet another in the series. Then there are also those series that continue long after they should and are terrible and should just die. I wasn't saying that I buy bad sequels. Just that sequels - even when they're good - kind of get tiring sometimes, too.

Also, I don't always have to buy a game or be interested in it to find the excitement leading up to it and the launch and all the coverage of it enjoyable. :)

Creativity has gone up, not down. A franchise being popular - COD, WOW, Halo, Whatever - has absolutely nothing to do with other games.

But creativity as far as mainstream big console titles go certainly isn't anything to be proud of.

@Grumbel said:

But creativity as far as mainstream big console titles go certainly isn't anything to be proud of.

Has it ever been?

Shooters. They have to stop!

I feel bad for people who have trouble shutting their mouths and just enjoying video games. I never hear anyone bitching, "Hey, where are books even going, man?" Or, "I swear there's no innovation in movies anymore." Video games are not old at all compared to other entertainment media, but you want to act like they're plagued with problems? They've evolved so much in just a few decades, but because someone has the attention span of a fruit fly they think it's all stale.

Sequels have always been an industry cornerstone. And this "everything is a military first-person shooter" bullshit is just that: bullshit. First off, we've seen the exact same thing in the past, with first-person shooters (albeit not military-themed) and other genres (sometimes I wonder if everyone but me has forgotten about all the 3D platformers two generations ago, or the 2D platformers before that). Second, there are tons upon tons of great games coming out every year that are neither military-themed nor first-person shooters. Do you know how many military first-person shooters I've played for more than a couple of hours this generation? One. And yet, I buy and enjoy plenty of games every year. If you can't find anything but Call of Duty clones, you aren't looking very well.

Mark my words, in ten years we'll see the kids of today complain just like the kids of yesterday are doing now.  

"Everything's a sequel!"

"Everything's an [insert genre that's popular ten years from now]!"

"I remember a decade ago when there was real variety and originality!""Where is the industry even going?"

... But that doesn't change the fact that there are wayyyyy too many FPSs on the market, and E3 made it clear it wasn't changing any time soon. I mean, I enjoy shooters quite a lot, but they aren't getting any better, and many are getting worse, or at least old.

Just because this "always" happens doesn't mean it's wrong to push against that pattern. Even if you don't have an effect on it, you still shouldn't sit idly by and act like everything is fine. Progress come from criticism and opposition and competition, and those things should be encouraged.

I feel bad for people who have trouble shutting their mouths and just enjoying video games. I never hear anyone bitching, "Hey, where are books even going, man?" Or, "I swear there's no innovation in movies anymore." Video games are not old at all compared to other entertainment media, but you want to act like they're plagued with problems? They've evolved so much in just a few decades, but because someone has the attention span of a fruit fly they think it's all stale.

@Video_Game_King said:

@Branthog said:

Most of my thoughts have already been covered. Mostly, I'm of two minds. I'm a gamer who simultaneously loves and hates everything. I"m bent toward being jaded and cynical and tired of sequels and gimmicks and shitty rehashes and "Mario 764 and Zelda 328" and everything else. At the same time, I get wrapped up in the excitement and the craziness. It's kind of like with E3. I hate it and love it at the same time. I hate the glitz and overboard nature of it, but then I kind of love that about it. The same way the Halo 3 release launch was fucking insane and I both hated and loved the parading of Master Chief down a closed 5th Ave in NYC while the Halo theme blared out over the loud speakers.

Gaming is filled with bad stuff and great stuff, but it steadily evolves and will continue to evolve, even if it seems dire. In the meantime, you just have to find the true gems that make you smile and pass the time and support them. And maybe I could do my part by being a little more optimistic than my 95% jaded and cynical comments on GB would suggest. :)

Odd. You seem to be one of the few gamers who admits to this weird schism of "I hate sequels, so that's why all I buy are sequels", but don't much about it. I can understand, but still.

Not so much that I hate sequels. I just hate it when it seems like a franchise is a franchise only to spit out as many iterations until the market for it falls away. For example, a story that should have been done in two or three games, but becomes nine games, because - hey - let's milk it. If a game is a good sequel, I'll still possibly get excited for it and even enjoy it -- but that doesn't mean there isn't still fatigue at the mention of yet another in the series. Then there are also those series that continue long after they should and are terrible and should just die. I wasn't saying that I buy bad sequels. Just that sequels - even when they're good - kind of get tiring sometimes, too.

Also, I don't always have to buy a game or be interested in it to find the excitement leading up to it and the launch and all the coverage of it enjoyable. :)

Wow... the  video game industry is heading to a sad sad hellish black hole faster than the speed of light. 
 
that was such a heavy read, man.. ruined my good mood

@Grumbel:   The hell are you talking about? The market was flooded with Sonic/Mario clones, Street Fighter clones, and generic shmups.

@JazGalaxy: I was trying to make a point, movies still have innovation (they are a young technology as well). I noticed you left out my other example, books, one of the oldest forms of entertainment. Is it because words are limited by the mind and not by technology? In that case, aren't people really just bitching about technology not evolving fast enough for their liking? That's just spoiled thinking on their parts, in my opinion.

I disagree entirely, thats all I got. Everything I wanted to say was said in the first post.

I agree with him and cracked is crack.

• None of them were really that unique. A lot of the time, it was just "eh, a robot or an animal or something has to defeat a bad guy. Why? Eh, maybe there's a princess." If it was based on an existing license, like Little Nemo or Felix the Cat, then all the better.
• You'd be surprised at how many games ripped off Mario. Speaking of which, you didn't go for any of the other genres. Odd. Mario's not the only guy to start a rip-off trend. You have Street Fighter II, Fire Emblem, Tactics Ogre, Gradius, Secret of Monkey Island, and a shitload of others.
• Games today aren't as limited as you think, either. I could probably list off a shitload of games that don't really fall into any major trend, like Final Fantasy XIII (not a lot of JRPGs), Fragile Dreams, Elebits, anything by Telltale Games, etc.
  

@JazGalaxy: I was trying to make a point, movies still have innovation (they are a young technology as well). I noticed you left out my other example, books, one of the oldest forms of entertainment. Is it because words are limited by the mind and not by technology? In that case, aren't people really just bitching about technology not evolving fast enough for their liking? That's just spoiled thinking on their parts, in my opinion.

@JazGalaxy: I can agree with that. Well said. Entertainment does move in trends and with culture. I still believe people are too impatient and want the next big thing quicker than they got the last big thing though. There is no problem with the industry in that regard, rather the problem is with our culture. Which sort of brings me full circle into stating we need to just need to enjoy what we have and quit complaining so much because it's not as bad as we make it out to be.

Fine, I'll take up your challenge. Here are five Mario clones: 

• None of them were really that unique. A lot of the time, it was just "eh, a robot or an animal or something has to defeat a bad guy. Why? Eh, maybe there's a princess." If it was based on an existing license, like Little Nemo or Felix the Cat, then all the better.

• You'd be surprised at how many games ripped off Mario. Speaking of which, you didn't go for any of the other genres. Odd. Mario's not the only guy to start a rip-off trend. You have Street Fighter II, Fire Emblem, Tactics Ogre, Gradius, Secret of Monkey Island, and a shitload of others.

• Games today aren't as limited as you think, either. I could probably list off a shitload of games that don't really fall into any major trend, like Final Fantasy XIII (not a lot of JRPGs), Fragile Dreams, Elebits, anything by Telltale Games, etc.
  

@Sincillian: you just have to look deeper, beyond what the big publishers are pimping. there are plenty of original, well-crafted games coming out. more than ever actually.