The Jimquisition - How Skyrim Proves the Games Industry Wrong

Hey duders,

I just ran into this video not too long ago: http://www.destructoid.com/the-jimquisition-how-skyrim-proves-this-industry-wrong-216602.phtml It is, in short, Jim Sterling claiming that Skyrim proves a number of the "video game industry's" claims wrong through its success. I was about to post a comment on Destructoid, but noticed an awful lot of Jim Sterling loving going on over there, and didn't want to disturb the beehive, so to speak. Anyways, here are my thoughts on the video:

There are some interesting points in the video, but I don't know if I fully agree with the things that he's saying. It's not that Skyrim's success proves the "video game industry" wrong so much as it proves what hopefully everybody knew all along: people will buy games when they perceive that they are worth the amount of money that they're spending!

Jim is trying to argue that games don't need multiplayer and don't need DLC. And he's right! But it works for Skyrim for some very particular reasons, namely, that it's Single-Player content is already incredibly content-rich to begin with, making the value proposition very appealing.

Other games aren't so fortunate as to have, built in to the game itself, effectively infinite content. This year seemed to be the "Year of the Linear Rollercoaster" in many cases (Gears of War 3, Uncharted 3, Dead Space 2, etc.), wherein developers were producing extremely well-polished, high quality games, but games that rarely hit over 10 hours. To a consumer with a limited allowance to spend on video games, a well-polished 8-10 hour campaign is still only about 8-10 hours (maybe a bit more if going for another play-through), which, in many cases, is seen as "too short" for a $60 purchase. Adding DLC and/or multiplayer to the equation, though, boosts the length (and thereby the perceived value of the game), with campaign-length-increasing DLC or mutiplayer that people can dump arbitrarily large amounts of time into! And so the "video game industry" is looking at games that are getting increasingly shorter and saying "well, how do we increase the perceived value of this game?" Clearly, the answer that has been decided upon is DLC and Multiplayer, like it or not.

Like I said before, Skyrim avoids this issue entirely by supplying enough value in its singleplayer from the very beginning. I guess if Jim's argument is that "games don't need multiplayer or DLC", then he's clearly correct. But it seems like he's trying to go one step further, and put words into the "video game industry's" mouth by saying that the industry, as a whole, is claiming that "every game needs mutiplayer and DLC", which is not a position that I can agree with.

But, I guess, it's Jim Sterling that I'm talking about here. He's basically paid to make extreme, controversial arguments. This video just got me thinking, though, and I was wondering what else people had to say about it.

(Also, briefly, his argument about the online pass seems a little silly. He goes on to say how Naughty Dog says that they need to include it in order to pay for servers, but that Skyrim is superior because it doesn't need one! But Skryim doesn't have multiplayer, and so has no servers to support? This argument seems to hold little water.)

@tsiro: I don't say this often but I feel that for the most part (I'd say around 80 to 90 percent) that you're correct.

Games today do for the most part have that rollercoaster thing going on. But I feel that there's more to it than just that. For example, Dead Space 2 went with the same style that Half-Life 2 used and worked. It created and maintained an atmosphere that most horror games haven't been able to do in years. If Dead Space 2 had been open world they wouldn't have been able to predict where players would go, thus there would have been entire areas of the game where nothing happened at all.

The point here is that like it or not some types of stories require that kind of "rollercoaster" style gameplay. However, I would love to see a true open world Deus Ex game, now that would be awesome if they could get it to work.

If Skyrim doesn't get DLC, I'll sue Bethesda. That game DESERVES it.

Jim is fat and that dumb costume he is wearing looks fucking ridiculous.

It owns when obese blowhards also have British accents.

@GTCknight: I completely agree. Hell, Dead Space 2 and Uncharted 3 were two of my favorite games this year. Unfortunately, though, some people -- the "video game industry", consumers, whoever -- have decided that short (even well-executed, polished, great) campaigns aren't always worth $60, and so pressure is being put on developers to add (artificially inflate?) value, and the easiest way to do this is with DLC and multiplayer. That is in part why I think Skyrim is able to succeed "as is" (i.e. singleplayer only, without "need" of DLC): because it can have hours and hours of content without losing sight of its goal, because that is its goal.

I like Jim. I've had professional interactions with him and I've spoken to him in private.

He is a genuinely nice guy who does everything he does for the right reason. He doesn't do stuff for the hits, his heart is in the work he does.

That doesn't mean however that I agree with everything he says. I just happen to on this occasion.

I do however have to take issue with your comment in the op:

"Jim is trying to argue that games don't need multiplayer and don't need DLC."

He isn't doing this at all. He's saying games don't need to have multiplayer to be good or sell well. Multiplayer and dlc isn't a pre-requisite for being good and players will buy games that don't have either. This is why he uses Metro, Bioshock and Dead Space 2 as examples. All three are, or have previously been, incredibly strong single player experiences that don't need tacked on mutliplayer in order to sell or check a box off on a marketing teams list.

That's the point he's trying to make.

@tsiro: I wouldn't exactly say its the industry or any other group, other than a single guy.

But back on topic.Videogames aren't all the same, sometimes there are things that devs just didn't have time to do. Other times one group who had finished their part of the game had some free time and ended up creating a whole area or level that they couldn't fit (or didn't have time to put in) the disc.

Since I already used Dead Space 2 as one example, I will now use two different games. First up is Halo 3, I like sci-fi stories its the one of the main reasons why I have always liked the Halo storyline. Now for me if I had found out that Bungie was going to make a campaign DLC I would feel rather weird about it due to the way Halo 3's campaign ended. Instead we all were given multiplayer maps which was in my opinion a better choice. Because in the case of all the current Halo games they have always tried to find an equal balance between singleplayer and multiplayer. my second example will be Deus Ex: Human Revolution. This was an entirely single player game and I loved it, When I first heard about the plans for DLC I spent half of my day trying to figure out just where would they put it in the timeline of events. After I learned that it would be set between Shanghai and Omega Ranch I felt like they made a smart choice. The was sort of in the middle of the game and had the largest gap of nothing in its timeline.

So to anyone who lived through all of this text. I hope this shows how I look at DLC. I like it when its used intelligently and not for some dumb costume or skin that no one actually cares about. Also I find all of the complaints and whining about DLC to be really weird.

This time, i agree 100% with Jim. And that's all i have to say. 
The bit near the end was retarded though.

I would still like to see some DLC for Skyrim in the future though. (Good DLC :P)