Is the Videogame Industry dumbing down?

Ever since the dawn of videogame creation in the late 1950s/1960s, we have been exposed to a vast and wide plethora of platforms from computer games to console games and even mobile gaming, an idea that seemed far-fetched twenty some-odd years ago. 

In today's chapter I want to take some time to focus on the progression of videogame culture and whether it is marching in the direction that will benefit gamers the most or in one that will draw the most coin, and will by and large alienate long-standing fans to cater to the "Facebook gamer" archetype. 

So is the Videogame Industry dumbing down in order to draw in more cash and appeal to a wider audience? 

I posed the question in last week's interview with Rebecca Heineman who felt that computer games today are more akin to "interactive movies" than actual games. 

"PC games have been turned into interactive movies. They are not games. Games are tests of skill or luck, and not "Shoot a few things, Play a cut scene". That's a movie - Rebecca Heineman

I was introduced to videogames back in the mid/late 1980's, first playing on the (now defunct) Commodore 64 home computer system, mostly learning games based around Sesame Street and ALF. In the late 80's/early 90's however is when I became serious about videogames, I was introduced to two consoles that would change my life; the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and the Gameboy (NES Gameboy). The first games that I (and most everyone else) played was "Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt" and "Super Mario Land".

Final Fantasy VI (Square-Enix 1994/2015) was a challenging JRPG featuring the ATB system, exponentially challenging bosses and a compelling story.

I remember the first Final Fantasy on the Nintendo Console, I would watch my dad play it and I was fascinated by the battles, the music, the exploration and the many different types of monsters that were encountered. I remember watching him face off against Chaos, the final boss of the game and watching him slay him and I thought "Wow I want to do that!" I remember feeling kind of mad/jealous when the game was eventually given to my older cousin instead of I (who at the time was more vested in Super Mario Bros. and Kirby anyway). In the eighties/nineties Nintendo games were challenging and were often contributors to the periodic sore wrist/bruised thumb of intense gamers, I mean it has its own trope for a reason.

Back in the day (the mid/early 1980's-mid nineties) videogames were not "easy", at least not by today's standards. If you asked anyone back in 1988/1991 what do you play videogames on, dollars to donuts the response would be either "A Nintendo" or "my computer". 

I realize that there are different genres or "platforms" of videogames, but in the olden days of gaming there were basically only 3; "puzzle" (Bubble Ghost, Cauldron, Pitfall), "fighting" (Double Dragon, Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct), and "platformer" (Super Mario, Bubsy, Sonic, etc) well for console (e.g. "Nintendo Players") anyway, for PC players there have been quite a many influential genres such as "tactical RPG/war simulator" (Total War, War Craft), "flight simulation", "Point & Click adventure" (King's Quest, Leisure Suit Larry), "Text Adventure" (Zork, Wishbringer, Leather Goddesses of Phobos). 

The Elder Scrolls V "Skyrim" (Bethesda Softworks 2010/2015), a Western RPG that not unlike Final Fantasy VII has had a polarizing effect on gamers and RPG players alike. 

Now in 2016 it seems that "Mario" is synonymous for videogame when in relation to older or non-gamers, and "Call of Duty" or "Candy Crush" covers the rest of the demographic. Judging from that it would seem that developers are not trying as hard as they used to, either because they had used up large quantities of resources and money in creating a stellar hit (Skyrim, Half Life, Fable II) and figured that they could cut corners by putting out a similar game but with less soul that will sell for just as much money. But does everyone feel that way? I asked a variety of PC and console gamers for their opinions on the situation. Below is the question that I proposed to my interviewees; 

"Do you think the gaming industry is dumbing down in order to appeal to a wider audience? If so how, if not can you explain?"

David R, of Ogden Utah had this to say; 

"Yes I do. Developers are making big title AAA games with massive multi-million dollar budgets and they have to fulfill a certain amount to make a profit so they go and do DLC for games and pay to play in games like Call of Duty and Halo and so you're paying even more money just to enjoy the game because the original was watered down so much. It's making a rift in the community of gamers and most of us gamers are fed up with the current practices that are being used."

Tanner G, of California City California had this opinion; 

"That's a bit of a difficult question for me to answer, since I  mainly only play WoW (World of Warcraft) these days. But in that narrow scope, I would say that the industry, while not necessarily "dumbing down," HAS to make it easier for new players to attain the "end game" content, via making leveling easier or what have you. WoW's level cap being 110 now, an actual beginner may get disillusioned by the monumental task in front of them. This, in turn, leads some veteran players who feel they have more "invested" in the game (time, money, etc.) That new players are getting everything "handed to them" while the longtime die-hards had to "earn" it. The challenge to developers is to find a balance that satisfies players of every tenure and skill level."

Forum member "Dominus" of the BSN (unofficial Bioware Social Network forums); 

"Yes. The greater financial investment required to make a game is, the harder it might be to take larger risks. Reaching larger demographics will eventually come into the mix in AAA games, for better or for worse. Gutting out complex mechanics ain't a great thing if it's to the detriment of quality. A necessary evil, perhaps. Mobile might be an even bigger culprit for dumbing down than Big Budget gaming. 

The gaming industry isn't limited to AAA, though. We're in a generation with a more varied format for financing itself, for the amount of people cooking up titles, etc. Kickstarting and other independent game titles have much less pressure on that extent."

"Kafriel" a member on the "Animesuki" forums thought this; 

"Not only is the gaming industry dumbing down in order to appeal to a wider audience, it is also becoming more and more cost-efficient, at the cost of game depth.

For the first part of my statement, one doesn't need to look further than Persona 4 Arena, a fighting game based off of a JRPG series. Made by Arc system works, IMO the best company when it comes to beat 'em ups, the game inserted an "auto-combo" function, where repeatedly mashing the square button would lead to an actual combo of 5-6 moves. The company said this was to make it easier for the JRPG fans to tap into the genre, BUT the company has Guilty Gear and Blaz Blue in its history, great games with incredible fighting depth. While Persona also shares that depth, it does not take advantage of it, instead hoping to sate its audience with a cheap spin-off story and the very concept of characters duking it out. This leaves a large, large part of the game mechanics unexplored, and for that same reason, the game is truly understood by the few veterans who have played earlier titles by the same company.

The second part is much easier to explain: after Diablo and WoW became the staple hack & slash MMOs, people have ceaselessly tried to replicate the same environment, with very few titles trying to actively deviate from it (Rusty Hearts, which shut down, and DFO) or at least make it different enough to pass as something unique (CABAL online). Even in the single player category, there is a rush of QTE events, easy modes and hand-holding, just so that people don't get frightened by the difficulty of a game.

If you want to see just how different games have become, take NieR and compare against the Legacy of Kain series. Both games are great, but NieR has no actual game over, since you can reload at a moment right before death and you have access to highly potent weapons without much of a hassle. In Legacy of Kain, when the MC dies (which he does, a lot), he goes straight to the netherworld, a bizarre world, differently shaped, with no water, where he is haunted by monsters, which he must kill in order to replenish his health and return to the real world. It is a better concept which adds a lot to its platforming elements, but the games also have an incredible story behind them, tightly woven despite dabbling in the tricky realm of time travel."

"Candy Crush Saga" the future of gaming?

So we have successful franchises that have proven they can easily turn a quick profit due to the brand name and familial play style (CoD, World of Warcraft, WWE series of games) but what about sequels to hit videogames that fans have been crying out for years to have? Final Fantasy Tactics, a niche tactical RPG set in the world of "Ivalice", but centered around pre-existing Final Fantasy lore was a huge a hit in the gaming community, at least in Final Fantasy gaming circles with some even claiming it was better than VII. Fans have been hoping for a "direct sequel" to the cult classic since its release in 1997, it must have been successful enough in order for it to have spawned two more titles in the "Ivalice series" "Final Fantasy Tactics Advance" and "Final Fantasy Tactics A2", two possibly even more niche titles in the franchise that has left a few fans wondering why they (Square-Enix) did not just opt to create a direct sequel rather than "watered down" kid versions of the original story that had adult themes and a "Game of Thrones-esque" feeling of intrigue to it. 

Xenosaga, a game developed (originally by team Monolithsoft) and published by Namco is a game that has been praised for its deep, and complex "Lynchian" story line but criticized for relying too heavily on cut-scenes and movie clips. 

Okay we get it money is a big deal, without it you (devs) can't make the games that we want to play. But what about a meaningful game? Isn't it possible to churn out an "easy" game that is also educational AND meaningful? I ask a friend teacher Stephen T of Salt Lake Utah what he thought on the matter;

"Education in video games today is a far-and-few in-between thing. Back in the nineties we had access to (primitive) but nonetheless fun learning games such as "Math Blaster", "Adi", "Number Munchers", "The Oregon Trail", "Dr. Brain" and "Super Solvers". Now I am not so sure if you can even find any educational video games outside of the school system, that is unless it has the "COD" (Call of Duty) or "Angry Birds" brand attached to it and I would question the sincerity of its educational value." 

Some fans wonder why game developers simply don't just launch a "kickstarter" campaign to get the game of their dreams, this is Rebecca Heineman's opinion on the matter from our interview from last time;

"Kickstarter is a double edged sword. Yes, you retain creative freedom, however you also obtain a fanbase who make demands on you, much like a publisher, because by pledging to your game, they demand a say in how the game is made. In some cases, their demands are just as weird as ones from a publisher"

Call of Duty, one of many titles related to the "casual gaming" genre that has serious gamers blaming it for the dumbing down of the industry. 

So a Kickstarter isn't always the way to go, even if it sounds like a sure fire win there are chances that the majority of donating fans will fill the demand gap left behind by a parent publishing company. Old titles as we have seen are hit or miss in today's gaming society, a great example is "Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded", a 2013 remake of the original 1987 point and click puzzle game. While the series was a success in the mid nineteen-eighties into the late nineties and spawned a few remakes and several collector's editions, in the 2010's it has proven to be a mild success at best with the majority of profits being drawn from longstanding fans of the Larry franchise and fans of Al Lowe.

Take Final Fantasy I and II as another example, they have been made and remade countless times, they have been remade so many times in fact that the if you played the original 1990s version and today's version on the Android/Apple iOS they would look like totally different games. I realize though now that comparing the two may have not been a fair comparison, for starters Al Lowe has been for all intent and purposes retired from the video game industry with his last vestment into the franchise being "Freddy Farkas: Frontier Pharmacist" and "Final Fantasy" is an extremely popular, worldly known brand-name that can sell hundreds because it has the "FF" name on it. Not to mention porting the original NES copies over to iOS would be a simple task and cost pennies to a corporation like Square-Enix compared to an independent ex-game designer working solely on fan-backing. Okay so not a fair comparison.

Anyway we've seen some negative opinions on today's game industry here are some positives from the persons I interviewed earlier. My question;

"What game were the most impressed with, and which one were you the least impressed with?"

David R from Utah; "Least impressed was call if duty infinite warfare. Most impressed was the Witcher 3". 

Dominus of BSN (unofficial Bioware Forums); "Undertale

RPGs have definitely focused on non-combat choices before: Ultima IV is more about improving ones' virtuous features, and Planescape: Torment is more about Philosophy & Belief than beating the tar out of people. One of the many things that makes UT very special is giving you reason to care about its characters in the first place; Not just main characters, but the kind more common to dungeon crawlers. Toby's witty/comedic writing goes a long way in terms of building relatively simple characters who've been tied into more complex themes - Metaphysical/Moral Nihilism & Depressive Disorders as some examples. It's one of the few games, if any to make me wonder what the heck I've been doing in all these shoot em' up's in the first place. Is this what fun should look like? At the end of the day, it's up to the player.

There's a certain stereotype that player choices don't mean a darn thing in older Dungeon Crawlers(and JRPGS to an extent), that it's a linear front-to-back story line that uses random encounters to fill in the gaps. Undertale's one of the few JRPGs like Seiken Densetsu 3 and Valkyrie Profile that sneak it in seemingly innocuous game play. Moral quandaries aren't anything new to RPGs, but it can be far more potent when you weren't aware you'd chosen in the first place. The game's got an exceptional soundtrack, which has the most confounding  use of leitmotifs in gaming history. It doesn't just impress me, it put a permanent *impression* on me. A Game like that is extraordinarily rare.

Least impressive... Rogue Warrior. Besides the sailor-mouthed ending credits, there isn't a single innovative or seminal thought in the entire game."

Fallout 4, recently celebrating its first birthday - has been criticized for focusing more on its "Hearthfires-esque" build-a-homestead feature rather than the plot itself.

Kafriel from the Animesuki forums; "The game that left the best impression on me was Lost Dimension. Good plot, characters that you will eventually open up to, great battle system and amazing soundtrack. High replayability as well, but most of all: it was unbelievably fun to play. Worst game I can remember playing: FFXIII. Again, good story, passable characters, amazing graphics, but it was so damn boring. The next two instalments improved on a lot of shortcomings that each previous title had, but they remained rather stale and not really fun to play."

So it looks like depth can go a long way towards making a linear game appear more "off rails". Older games like above mentioned "Final Fantasy" have relied on pre-determined monster levels, random encounters, and scripted events to prevent players from getting ahead too soon or to act as filler. Western RPGs likes The Elderscrolls and Fable have taken Role Playing games into a whole other direction in 3-Dimensional gameplay and more or less no-holds-barred exploration and leveling. So then in 2016 are games developed by Japanese developers more or less considered flawless when compared to their Western cousins? Bug testing and beta testing goes a long way into creating the "perfect" game, and as we are well accustomed to by now is the fact that Western Videogame publishers like EA, Bethesda, and Microsoft rely on patches, and DLC ~ essentially expecting fans whom have already paid once for a game, to pay twice in order to get the "full package" and/or bugfixes (though the latter are usually applied for free via automatic system updates).

And so my last question for my interviewees is;

"What is your biggest complaint or criticism (of any game this generation)?"

David R: " Higher video game budgets I would say. Or you can use to high of development budgets for video games"

Kafriel: "People focus too much on graphics and looks, so much that they disregard the most important things a game should have: engaging game play and replay-ability. On the same topic, my biggest complaint is the trophy system. While initially implemented as a way to show off to friends, many trophies literally take the fun out of a game (e.g. Musou Orochi, an enormous game that requires playing over 50 of its characters, whether you like them or not, to an exhausting degree in order to get a gold trophy, or Dark Souls III, which focuses too much on its PvP aspect, eventually changing from an endearing environment and intriguing plot to unending rage from repeated invasions)."

The Elder Scrolls Online, one title in the TES franchise that has once again divided fans among themselves as some believe the game's time and assets could have been used for TES VI, instead is just another cash cow of the "pay to play" or "pay to win" genre. 

Dominus: "Repetitive game play from No Man's Sky. As with both roguelikes and roguelites, churning out worlds on the fly comes with the caveat of requiring game play systems to churn out fresh experiences on a long-term basis. Hello Games have the framework for a great idea, but the end result is *mostly* a very hollow one. You could similarly throw in the same complaint for Mafia III's smaller quests. I hold a much greater respect for games that make each moment, every minute to feel unique and one-of-a-kind."

So are we as a gaming community doomed to forever rely on DLC fixes for unsatisfactory game experiences or "Candy Crush Saga" level of depth and meaning? Surely as the Facebook and Mobile gaming culture grows, that community will become more easily accessible, but does it have to and more importantly should it affect PC and console gaming? As far as the DLC and Free-to-Play route goes, it looks like publishing companies are to blame

"Too many times, publishers have no clue as to what makes a game fun. They only care about how to squeeze as much money out the the gaming public as they can, which is why they have this huge push to Downloadable Content and the Free-To-Play model" ~ Rebecca Heineman. 

So with the success of games like "Cave Story", "Undertale" and "Rust" should more fan-favorite developers go rogue and take the indie route before alienating even more fans and ultimately fading away into the winds of video game history.

Next Time: Final Fantasy XV ~ what took so long? 

Links:

• Animesuki Forums
• Bioware Unofficial Social Network

Sources:

1. Wikipedia for Final Fantasy VI & Tactics, The Elderscrolls Online capture.
2. Neogaf for Call of Duty Blackops
3. Google Candy Crush Saga
4. Steam Skyrim