RollinThundr wrote on Nov 5, 2012, 12:51:

Beamer wrote on Nov 5, 2012, 11:28:
EVERYTHING WAS BETTER WHEN I WAS WIDE EYED AND YOUNGER!



I always enjoy how little people realize that their personal point in life greatly effected how they viewed the product of that time. There's someone, somewhere, claiming rap was never better than when MC Hammer did it, because rap was exciting and new to him personally at that time.

Games today do almost everything better than previously. They're less cheap. They're more focused. They actually tell stories. Hell, I know the plot of Borderlands 2. I consider that something of a miracle. Somehow Gearbox managed to tell that story coherently. Does anyone know the plot of Metroid? How about Quake? Did anyone ever know why they were doing anything in particular in Doom?

Sure, certain game styles have died out. Turn-based, story-heavy JRPGs, for instance, are no longer popular. FF selling poorly isn't a sign that games are worse, it's a sign that those style games just aren't popular.

The real complaint people can have is that everything is homogenized at the top. Much like what happened with radio and network TV, no one will fully commit to a risk because anything unique may have a limited audience. Fine, whatever. Did this kill music? No, because with the homogenization of radio came the rise of mp3s and spotify. Did this kill TV? No, because with the homogenization of network TV (i.e., Terra Nova being a kiddie show) came the rise of AMC, FX, HBO and Showtime.
With the homogenization of EA will come the rise of anything else, thanks to convenient digital distribution. It's still hard, as video games cost a fortune, as movies do, but man, if FTL and Orcs Must Die 2 aren't up there as 2 of the 5 best games of the year...

X-Com's sales figures say hello. A well made TBS title will sell. As for JRPG's, when you don't inovate at all for 20 years and just slap a new number on the end of your latest cutscene generator v.X.X , yes people tend to gravitate to other things.

I'd take games like Wingcommander and the older C&C games complete with cheesy fmv over the flux of free to play and browser garbage we're getting now.