Why We Don't See Quality Games?

After a long time; I'm writing something since this subject came into my mind. While I was talking to one of my fellow Nooby Tomas Velez (@Dramus) about how the quality of music deterioted which eventually turned into a subject of quality of games. I've been thinking a lot about the factors and such enough to justify the deterioration of the quality of games and what are the reasons behind all these mess.

 

First and foremost, I will definitely bash last year’s so called smash hit Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, which I have been doing this for months. I would like to ask people a question: Did Modern Warfare 3 bring something extraordinary new for the gamers or even set a barrier for future games to come? I don’t think so. I remember the last Call of Duty that I praised most is the first Modern Warfare. For me it’s a polished game with a bunch of content and yes their final so called “Epic” chapter which is like only 5 hours long. For a AAA game, this is inexcusable. Still people bought it; the game was yet another blockbuster. It would seem that people will take anything that is given to them without complaining. The saddest part is that the size of the queue during the midnight launch of the MW3 was 10 times longer than that of Max Payne 3 (which I consider a superb game with everything well balanced and polished enough to justify $60 price tag). Before I head out for reasons, let me add another example.
 

 

 

I have been very much supportive of how Diablo III is being handled, considering Blizzard came under fire because of this release. I would consider this Diablo III problem as the problem of the year (just like the Sony hacking problem last year). I guess a majority of people started hating the game, cursing the game, regretting that they payed for the game, their expectations were shattered and so on. Mind it, Diablo III is a great game, heck it can be the PC game of the year from many sites. Still people are not satisfied, especially the early Diablo veterans and stopped playing the game. I can recall that Blizzard has a great history of after-sale of each of the games they sold and Diablo III is not an exception. I started playing Diablo II for the first time in 2003. It was not a perfect game and there were many gameplay flaws, balancing issues, glitches and so on. Blizzard had released 13 patches (I think more) from time to time to make the game really standout. I am expecting the same for Diablo III. Keeping faith on such game do pay. Last week I got news that Blizzard is releasing a new patch which will enable players to raise their characters 100 levels more, which is called paragon level, after they reach level 60, which is great news. That’s means there are many higher level challenges and items that can be expected plus a challenge of reaching 100 Paragon level. Still the damage is already been done and I wonder how much Blizzard has to work out to make the existing players come to play.

 

I was reading Megan Bethke’s (@XBoxBetty) review on the Walking Dead Social game. Yes the word Social means the game should be less gameplay, more people hits. Judging by how she hated the game, I can clearly say that this is what is expected for games that are released in mobile platform. It will be quite interesting to note that such social games have huge fanbases or users other than the games that people have to buy. If I look through the Google Play app from my Android phone, I will see that games which are free and which are social have like 500000 average users playing it. The numbers are rising. Within few days there will be another such social free game and the consequence will be the same: Less gameplay, more people hits.
 

 

 

 

So who is to blame for all these? Game companies are literally milking from us. We are actually getting without thinking. Consumerism at its peak. So if we keep on buying games that offer nothing new then the game companies should not be worried about at all. They can keep on maintaining the popular franchises running through people minds for at least a year before another title of the same franchise comes out. As long as majority of the people are happy, I don’t think the companies need to make unnecessary investments to bring something new and exciting. Plus the world economy is bad and companies will literally make big risks to get a new ip. Most gaming companies are just trying to survive. Milking franchises is the logical option since we gamers will take anything without complaining. When a popular franchise remains on a person’s brain, it will give a prejudiced opinion that the game is bound to be good and good games are meant to be bought on the first day.

 

And, that’s why Max Payne 3 didn’t see the same level of success as that of MW3 since MP3 came after 9-10 years since MP2 came out. People forgot about that game completely. We gamers are very much restless. We just can’t seem to wait. We are just like a pack of hungry wolves trying to grab our meat to fill up our satisfaction meter. Speaking of restless, yes that’s what happened in case of Diablo III. We are very much restless and do not have faith on the games we own. We are not happy with what we have. We want more and we cannot be satisfied with what we are provided. See Diablo III came 10-11 years after Diablo II launched, which is naturally the same exact case as that of Max Payne franchise. We all forgot about the services Blizzard provided or even how much we enjoyed the game from time to time even though the game had to see 13 patches during its lifespan. As for mobile games are concerned, we are restless enough to download every free games available without even bothering about premium games (unless the games are too good enough to make people buy). This includes social games. So naturally we are getting used to simple type of gameplay and social mechanics and once we get used to it and grows on us, there is no complaining. Regular Farmville or Mafia Wars in Facebook are free, simple, anyone can play and the userbase is huge. Plus people are restless enough to buy Facebook credits.

 

 

So who are actually to be blamed? It is us gamers. We are restless, we do not care whether the games are good or bad as long it belongs to a popular franchise, we tend to forget what the game companies did so much for us, we tend to avoid paying money as much as possible. If game companies do not get money then what can you expect from them anyway?