Jade Raymond the Managing Director of Ubisoft Toronto has stated that a number of her employees approach her and confess that they no longer feel passionate about creating yet another first-person or third-person shooter. Raymond firmly believes that it’s now time to “give our teenage medium a kick in the balls.”
“More and more people come to me at Ubisoft and say, ‘I love games. I came into this industry with so many ideas. But I can’t continue to make shooters over and over again. I’m not even in line with the messages.’ I have that meeting a lot these days. Yeah, it’s time to give our teenage medium a kick in the balls.”
“I don’t know when we decided as an industry that in order to sell five million copies of a game you have to make a Michael Bay film. There are other options.”
I don’t get why they would stop making shooters if people is willing to buy that game and enjoys it.
That’s not the point. If the employees lose motivation, the games will suffer for it and less people will buy them because they won’t be as good.
Agree with Anon. OP can’t read apparently “I don’t know when we decided as an industry that in order to sell five million copies of a game you have to make a Michael Bay film. There are other options.”
They’re sick and tired of making the same game again and again and again, they want to innovate, they want to be creative.
OP is a faggot?
OP is a faggot.
OP pls
same as sony.thy are both nothing
While it might be all about the money for the company, it isn’t for the developers.
Im happy about this
this gives us gamers hope thatw e will start to see some new IP’s and Game types in the coming years
just look at your game collection and see the difference in what kinds of games you have
Im willing to bet most if not nearly all are shooters of some kinds
This is a good thing
Developers are the soul of gaming and without the passion and motervation of these people gaming will really suffer
shooters are just dull and boring now
we need something else
While I agree with you that it’s a good thing and I seriously hope they move on to new IPs, I disagree with you on most of the games in your collection are shooters unless you are obsessed with shooters. I have well over 2000 games in my collection and I’m willing to say less then 1% are shooters. There are PLENTY of other games out there. It just takes people to look beyond shooters and see them.
I don’t believe you. At all.
My 360 games are:
Mass Effect 1,2,3 (RPGs)
Skyrim (RPG)
Fallout 3, New Vegas (RPGs)
Dragon Age Origins,2 (RPGs)
Borderlands (RPG)
The Orange Box (Shooters)
Dark Souls (RPG)
Halo CE Anniversary, Halo 3, Halo Reach (Shooters)
Bioshock 1,2 (Shooters)
Dead Island (RPG)
Left 4 Dead 1,2 (Shooters)
Fable 1,2,3 (RPG)
Ninja Gaiden 2 (Action)
Forza 4 (Racing)
Rock Band 1,2,3 (Music)
Guitar Hero 3 (Music)
Fez (Platformer)
Limbo (Platformer)
Braid (Platformer)
Super Meat Boy (Platformer)
RE Code Veronica, RE4, RE 5 (Action- Horror?)
Witcher 2 (RPG)
Gears 1,2,3 (TPS)
Batman Arkham City ,Asylum (Action)
Red Dead Redemption, LA Noire (Action)
Catherine (Puzzle)
Portal 2 (FPS Puzzle)
Rayman Origins (Platformer)
Minecraft (???)
Alan Wake (Action-Horror?)
Lord of The Rings War in The North (RPG)
Dead Space 1,2 (Action-Horror?)
Deus Ex: Human Revolution (Stealth-Action?)
Metal Gear Collection (Stealth)
Alice Madness Returns (Action-Platformer)
Ok, so if you count, there is a total of 54 games (Not dividing Metal Gear collection and The Orange Box)
and 16 of them are RPGs, 11 are shooters, 4 are music, 1 racing, 6 are action/something, 1 stealth (MGC), 4 platformers, etc. got tired. but by the end of it, NO, most of my games are not shooters, they’re RPGs. You would only have a library like that if you only cared for shooters and not variety of other great games that have come out this generation. There is however a flood of shooters, but in the 90’s there was also a flood of platformers with the success of Mario and Sonic. The same can be said about this generation. Good games are always coming out.
Mass Effect, Fallout, Borderlands, Red Dead Redemption and Dead Space are all shooters to some degree. Therefore your argument is invalid.
How is his argument invalid? His point wasn’t regarding shooting games, it was that the Wii doesn’t sufficiently cover several genres, which he proved. Plus, many games hybridize genre elements – Metroid is a shooter with puzzle/adventure elements, for example.
*I* believe you, though. I have less games than you (about 200), but the only shooters I have are Kid Icarus: Uprising, and Hogan’s Alley for the NES.
No Metroid Prime? Your argument is invalid.
Go back to /v/.
I have about 30 Rpgs in my possession right now and only about 5 shooters, and COD ain’t in there. Final Fantasy, Persona, Lost Odyssey, Mass Effect (also part RPG), Shadow Hearts, and a huge shitload of other games are in my pile. Shooters are usually repetitive and aren’t very different from each other, that’s why people are getting tired of the whole copypasta thing going on.
Believe it or not but video game development is an artform… if the developers cant express their own ideas and are forced to do one type of game then what’s really the point?
Games are not art. They are games. A game is a culmination of multiple things, including story-line, mechanics, a product, and art.
Art is only a small portion of what a game is. The developers are forced to work on the company’s game because that’s what they’re getting payed for. Their creativity isn’t being stifled; they’re free to do whatever they want when they’re off the clock.
If games were merely art, then developers would be out of a job.
Im sorry, but reality disagree’s with you.
Hey, hey you.
Shut your mouth and go play Bastion.
Then come back and then tell me that vidya games aren’t art.
I disagree with you :P
the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.
That’s the dictionary definition of art. I think it applies here.
video games are art. ( http://articles.cnn.com/2011-06-27/tech/supreme.court.video.game.art_1_sale-of-violent-video-video-games-hansel-and-gretel?_s=PM:TECH) if they werent the 1st amedment wouldnt apply to them. also check out “gamers vs california”. also is anime not considered a form of art since it combines multiple forms of art to creative. yes i understand video games are interative but thats what makes it a game, an interactive form of art.
“Merely Art”? Musicians make a career by selling music. Does that make Music not art?
Art is a creative endeavour of expression, and games are full of it: Music, imagery, scene composition, textures, 3D models (Which could be considered analogous to sculptures), stories, and dialogue. They differ from other mediums in that they are interactive. Being a culmination of other forms does not make something NOT art: Film is Art, though it is a culmination of dramatic performance and theater, with music, and nowadays, effects, which are artistic in nature. Whilst the artistic merit of the thing may be debated: it is art, even if only a fingerpainting.
Whilst many games are trying to represent a fully real world, others are simply showing an impression of it: AN ARTISTS IMPRESSION. Games can not contain so much art without being considered an artistic endeavour, unless by the wilfully blind.
And being Artistic has no merit on whether they are games, a product, or anything else, that’s just stupid.
money is one of the main reasons creativity is stifled.
Because for most people who go into the industry they do it because they enjoy it, there is a VAST difference between a publisher and a developer just like there is a VAST difference between a musician and a record label. One go into the business doing what they love, the other go into the business to take advantage of that in order to make money.
I look forward to the day when more developers go the way of Valve and say to hell with publishers so they can focus on doing what they love and do it well.
Valve’s doing a good job of that, but they haven’t gone far enough.
CCP’s leading the way on this one.
The point of creating a game is passion. The good games come from people who are passionate about the game they are making and they have to actually like making it. If they are tired of it, it will only suck. It’s not about the money. It’s about pleasing the community. Unlike Activision with their CoD series, these people actually care about their community.
Please learn how to read and write.
and that, ladies and gentlemen, shows that people without principles, are greedy dicks.
so learn something activision…
this tidbit is about Ubisoft…
^ THIS!
@zcnoname THIS IS NOT ACTIVISION! – THIS. IS. UBISOFT!
He KNOWS that…..BUT HE WAS TALKING ABOUT ACTIVISION.
Magi cookie for you zcnoname.
And I think he knows that and was just doing a poor 300 “THIS IS SPARTA” spoof.
What’s magi cookie?
He knows that, he wants Activision to learn this lesson as well is what he meant
Why try explaining things to people?.. the rarely get it anyway -.-
as much as i love some fps games, i really think we’ve had enough of them
True. I would like a shooter now and then, but do we really need 10 big ones and tons of smaller ones every year?
i have so much more respect for ubisoft now:3
Likewise! so that respect on WiiU launch =)
oops typo lol so=show… my bad
I have respect for the employees, but the company has still made some bad decisions. Always-on DRM, is awful, and they haven’t made a good Splinter Cell game since Chaos Theory
FPS are good, but it gets old if you release a new one every 8 months.
I agree.. FPS games have over-saturated the market to laughable levels.
That sounds pretty right. Shooters are good as long as they have a good story (Third person generally. All three Mass Effects ftw. inb4 ending bitching), but it’s just so saturated with bullshit story and/or no story at all (CoD mainly…) that it needs to calm the fuck down
looks like someone is getting it. hopefully activision and all those developers get it too so we don’t see cock of doodoo anymore.
I’m glad to know there are game developers out there that actually care about games and don’t just see dollar signs.
This article pretty much puts things in a nit shell.
NUT SHELL
N.U.T. S.H.E.L.L
learn to spell… ¬.¬
Learn grammar before you correct others spelling.
*others’
I don’t know about you, but my I and U are right next to each other on the keyboard, and I’m guessing it’s the same for ceijay7. It’s most likely a typo instead of a spelling mistake. You have to actually think before criticizing others. ಠ_ಠ
Oh wait, typos aren’t spelling mistakes?
Hopefully this is a turn for the good :) You can do it Ubi!
you go Ubi, wow ubisoft got huge respect from me for saying something like that. I will support them on wii u launch, im so sick of shooters i want rpgs to be back on top again as the genre of choice IMO.
Shooters = point press button kill enemy
RPG = Vast World, Lovable and memorable characters, addictive combat, unique weapons, awesome monsters and most impotantly
A Story that you will never forget
I’d take a RPG over a FPS anyday
Yes, RPG’s just rule.
Let’s combine the two into a in FPSRPG.
Then you get Mass Effect
Mass Effect isn’t First Person
borderlands and fallout say hi!
To be fair, Borderlands was more an RPG in the “stats” way. Sure, it had some nice story, but you had to do sidequests to really find it. Fallout, on the other hand, is a much better example.
Yeah, but as much as I myself love RPGs, even the RPG genre has been suffering in recent years as well. Unoriginality and a lack of refreshing gamplay experiences plague it. After a while, you begin to feel like you’ve played this story a thousand times before and sometimes you can feel like you’re just wasting a lot of time doing more filler content than anything.
For instance, Skyrim was great with world size and tons of action in all, but admittedly, it’s not very original in actual gameplay concept, rather aimless with the story, and it’s mostly filler content, too. Final Fantasy has been as suffering franchise, long straying from the kind of experience it used to be (I would say, it tries to do some things new, but doesn’t quite do it well enough). And no offense, but until they come out with an official Pokémon MMORPG (2D or 3D) and add some refreshing game mechanics, Pokémon will only stale (more) with age. Don’t get me started on the Tales series–as much as I love them, they’re horribly recycled.
Don’t get me wrong–I love RPGs and many of these franchises, but it just wouldn’t hurt if developer would innovate the RPG genre a little more. But thankfully, I do think that’ll happen more with the introduction of an innovative platform such as the Wii U. Sometimes what inspiring games need is an inspiring platform to help inspire developers in pushing their ideas in new ways.
Ubi is at the root of this problem and some times the cause. The problem is they are not inspired by any thing. If they start making interactive movies that will be just as bad.
The medium grew up last gen people just act immature.
Gaming looses its soul when it tries to get rid of the game.
Nice. A stupid and vapid summary and oversimplification.
Shooters can also have a vast world. Have you played Crisis? Far more open than some RPGs (Looking at you JRPGs). Far Cry, and Grand Theft Auto (Though arguably not a standard shooter), both have sprawling sandbox settings, which have defined them.
Shooters have unique weapons: You’re lying now. All games can have unique weapons etc.
Loveable and memorable characters? I’d take Alyx Vance, or, and this’ll likely annoy some, Gaz from Modern Warfare, over many characters from RPGs. Character likeableness is not restricted to RPGs. You’re Wrong.
Awesome Monsters: Doom: Monsters, F.E.A.R: Ghosts, Legendary: Monsters, Turok: Dinosaurs, must I continue? Monsters are not limited to RPGs: You’re proving yourself quite stupid.
Addictive Combat: RPGs have never been defined in strict terms by combat, and in fact, Western Role Playing games have borrowed shooter-style gameplay, such as the Elder Scrolls, Mass Effect, Fallout, etc. If you mean turn based menu-driven combat: What? That’s about as far as you get from addictive or even meaningful combat.
Story: I’ll give it to you there: RPGs are usually about story. Whether I’d forget it is a matter of hyperbole, but yeah, RPGs usually are made to have a good story. So you’ve got one tiny point right. Good work. I hope you finish Final Fantasy soon.
I’d take both shooters and RPGs, the question is, whether the game is a good example of a use of it’s chosen techniques. A shooter must have a certain intensity to the gameplay, and have the player feel achievement through personal skill. Western RPGs tend towards giving the player freedom in choosing story and even their path through the world, and tend to emphasize content and player volition. JRPGs focus on tightly written, intense stories, and rely on emotional resonance, and entrancing storytelling to enthrall the player.
If a game succeeds at utilising it’s genre, it’s a good example of it. You’ve just shown that you understand none of it.
finally! a company that gets it! FPS games are ruining the market!
Its about time. As a whole, I can name maybe 3 FPS I enjoyed in the past 10 years, thats it. Half-life, Half-life 2, and Perfect Dark (ok, more than 10 years I know). The fact that actual developers are getting tired of it is a good sign. The fact that the public at large even wants things to resemble the crap Michael Bay puts out is not.
You don’t like your job Ubisoft employees? too bad, people want shooters.
TOO BAD !! THERE’S TOO MANY FPS / TPS GAMES !! IT NEEDS A CUT BACK!!
Kids want shooters
Don´t want shooters, y want real games
I couldn’t agree more.
This don’t just apply to game devs, but it applies to almost everything.
Too much of some can get stale and eventually boring and as of the last 5 years, FPS have been pumped out to the masses to the point is was more about making a “Blockbuster” then a game. What happened to the Action/adventure, Survival Horror, Platformer, RPG, NON-LINEAR FPS?!
Agreed. I love my shooters, but I’m getting sick of them being the majority of games. And when they’re showing such a lack of imagination, simply imitating Modern Warfare ad infinitum, it’s just a descent into madness. And the habit of taking other franchises and turning them into shooters (Syndicate, X-Com), is a terrible affliction.
Bobby Kotick wanted to take all the fun out of making video games. http://kotaku.com/5359567/bobby-kotick-wanted-to-take-all-the-fun-out-of-making-video-games
There were way to many shooters this generation and most of them are rip offs of call of duty witch made it even worse.
Agreed. Too many FPS shooters out there.
>Implying Call of Duty isn’t a rip off Counterstrike.
implying that counterstrike isn’t a rip off of quake
>Implying Quake isn’t a rip off of Wolfenstein.
touche, but lets not forget the 3D appended to the name of that specific title.
I honestly hope everyone making up the chain to your correction was joking. And people aren’t that stupid.
People ARE that stupid.
This happened soon after Nintendo made their first online shooter and stated they had no plans to make another.
ubisoft has always been a company ive respected. being a big metal gear solid fan at the time of the first 2 MGS games, i discovered splinter cell, and damn, i got all those too lol. the way they handle their company as a whole. much respect to them
There is a way to create games that they love while still catering to the consumers. If they make a great game, market it right, and support it, people will leave their “comfort zones” and try something new.
I hear so many people complain about Call of Duty, yet they all buy it because that’s the premiere shooter and all of their friends are going to be playing it. A lot of these people have admitted that they don’t even play the single-player campaign, they just do the online multiplayer portion. They’re missing the hardest part of the game to create, and the one place that developers really get to be creative!
Of course, these same customers will buy other games. Many of them have played the Assassin’s Creed series and loved it. Some of them are willing to try new experiences like Rayman Origins or Catherine, and I’ll have returning customers tell me that some of the most memorable gaming experiences they’ve had are with these more off-the-wall games.
Shooters will always sell, and unfortunately, Michael Bay will continue to bastardize the things we grew up on to make a quick buck with his special effects team. But there is always a place for great games that aren’t shooters. Games like Assassin’s Creed, the Zelda series, Alan Wake, Rayman, the Sims, and Pokemon.
I’m sorry but mr bay is the shit. He is also the guy behind t2 and aliens. Fps is only the interface yet that does not have to be the main ploy for online battle. The wiiu can easily change the face of fps to first person interactive.
>:0
James Cameron made T2 and Aliens, not Bay.
James Cameron would like to receive credit for two of the his films. He directed Aliens, T1 and T2. Not Michael Bay. Unlike Bay, Cameron used to be able to make good movies
Funny how both of those are credited as genious entries into their franchises, and were both made by James Cameron.
The Wiiu won’t change FPS, and whatever you mean by First Person Interactive, I know not. FPS games rely on a simple, tight, control system. Adding another screen to this is generally not advisable.
Its about time someone said this.
What they should really do is fix the damn servers and actually give a damn about game glitches, I remember when Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 came out, it was amazing, until the fraking glitches and bugs they never cared to fix, they never even responded any questions on their own forums, Im a huge Ubisoft fan, but customer service SUCKS.
ubisoft has been my favourite third party dev ever since last E3
Ubishooters such anyway. These games simply play better than most other hd games because they try not to be games and ubi could never pull off what mr bay does.
agreed
Shovelware and all ubisoft is a great company im betting this gen ubisoft will be atleast 3rd best company around video gamewise. Im guessing they gonna take all that shovelware mony and flip it into good games i hope lol
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I’m so glad to hear them say this. Hopefully we leave the COD generation behind and move on to other things with the Wii U and other future consoles. Leave luck to heaven.
wow, ubisoft just got +5000000000 points in my book.
Jade Raymond is now my hero in Ubisoft.You go, man!
Jade’s a woman. She became well known doing press for Assassin’s Creed being that she’s pretty easy on the eye.
You go, woman!
-sigh- If only Activision can realize the same…
What I don’t get is all the bile laden at Activision. Activision do what Activision do: Strike a winning formula, and stripmine it. Kotick said as much. They did it with Guitar Hero, they’ll do it with CoD, and really, I don’t expect more. What concerns me, is the habit of other developers to copy them. When everyone’s trying for a Call of Duty, then everyone plays the same game, or ripoffs of it. The problem is corporate logic stifling creative development. Call of Duty isn’t the problem: People trying to be it is: That’s why we have a million military shooters, the publishers want a share of the CoD money.
Oh snap!
They should have stopped making these type of games a long time ago. A lot of people are getting bored with them already. Is it so hard to try something new? Companies only want to stick with the same boring ideas now because they are afraid of taking a risk. But it doesn’t make sense, because taking a risk is how you learned what gamers like and don’t like in the first place. =w= Can we say “Duh”??? It’s time for people to move forward and give more innovative games a shot. :3
The mass medium will move on to the next big thing. Nowadays, the only way to make big bucks on your game is if its a shooter, otherwise many cast it off as shovelware, and you can put a fair amount of the blame on Call of Duty 4 and Halo. Very sad, I know. But it’s similar to past generations. We had the platformer fad, which was started by Super Mario Brothers, and we had the RPG fad, which I think its fair to say was started by Final Fantasy. Now we’re in the era of the shooter fad, and just like any other fad in the world, it dies out, and people will discover a new fad that will eventually die as well, and so on. Hopefully the next big thing will be something much more creative and inspirational.
The problem with moving on to something else, though, is that FPS is considered the “most adult/manly” genre. “You play Super Mario Galaxy and like it? Pfff, fag.” “You’re into those games with magic and shit? What kinda fairy-fucker are you?” The next manly ones are fighters and racers, so these shooter-raised guys will at least dare to tread into that territory.
Thanks to the preconceived notion that platformers and RPGs (because those are the ones most mentioned throughout these comments, and the farthest from what shooter-peeps wanna play) are gay or stupid or for kids or whatever, if they even try, they usually won’t like it anyway, or won’t understand it.
I remember back when a game was good based on it’s innovations, gameplay, or story. I was, like, 6 back then, but I still understood. Hell, I still play Diddy Kong Racing and Gex, as well as newer titles like Batman Arkham City or Carl On Duty: Black Cops (when I’m at a friends house). What happened to playing games because they were, y’know…fun? Instead of just mainstream or for competition?
manly? rotfl
FPS has the highest concentration of retarded teenagers on all platforms.
lol somebody actually woke up from the creatshittyfps serum that they were injected… increase the dosage….!!! olalu..!
I love shooters but I’m so glad about this, I think shooters need a cutback and make more Adventure/Action, RPG’s, Strategy, Mystery etc
Teenage medium? More like toddler and preteen medium if you ask me.
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goo jaw
I’ve read through most of the Replies now, and I have to say, most of you are thrilled, or at least pleased with what’s been going on. In my opinion, I agree with them, just stop with the FPS. Maybe we should just take a break from online gaming in general. Maybe we should finally play games for their story-lines, and actually try to earn everything. Appreciate what was put in the game. But then again, most developers will just ignore all these rants, and praises, and continue doing what will bring in the most money.
In my opinion, the majority this generation of gamers is a disgrace to me. All they’ll be able to talk about is how they “got the final kill”, or “got 360, noscope kill”. It sickens me.
I totally agree with you. I think the only game I have ever played without a story line is perfect world but for all I know it does have a story line I just haven’t noticed it yet. I also appreciate all the graphics and time that went into making it. I don’t even play WoW but from watching my dad play I can enjoy the work that went into making it.
Yeah, the tendency for using online play as a crutch for unimaginative design is really crippling. When you can release a 4 hour campaign alongside a few small maps, and hope that by switching map every 20 minutes, you can keep people distracted from the limited gameplay, you’ve hit upon a sneaky little get rich quick scheme involving very little effort.
I can’t wait for the day that gaming goes back into single player. I’ve had enough online gaming, trust me. All the effort making things for multiplayer could be used to give the gamer a better experience on a personal level. Make a better storyline. Captivate me. Make me play the game over and over, just to enjoy it. That’s what I’m asking.
I agree completely.
Us asking for a certain genre to not over saturate the market is like asking for American films to not over saturate foreign markets. I don’t like it, I don’t think anybody likes it, but it makes money and that’s how it works. Before we had too many platforms and fighting games, and before then we had too many space shooters and various rip-offs of famous games such as Pac-Man and Mario; and before then EVERY GAME WAS PONG. This is a standard and shall not be lost; creative integrity is not a livable means. You can only demand good stuff from people who are willing to listen, and in that case buy indie P.C. Games.
People who are disgusted with today’s modern generation are pretty funny. They talk about being disgusted by the kill-streaks and all that. Well, at least that’s a much more specific goal that can’t be completed as fast with cheat devices. Back in the 2D days, we had people always talking about high scores and how many points they got; or whether or not they got the final boss, which is now easy if you’re good at any game (really good with some older games.) Same thing with movies, same thing with books and everything. Whether or not the art form is comprised of a majority of good stuff or not; the audience will always fall for the fast-paced, simple minded, name based crap or no crap material.
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Most refreshing bit of news I have heard in a while. After weeks of of developers spouting retarded statements, this is awesome to see some common sense.
Now if only every game developer felt this way, the gaming industry would be a whole lot better.
GASP! Somebody getting tired of shooter games?! Impossibleu! 0_o
I like the FPS genre, but it’s becoming too much.
I mean, RAGE, Battlefield 3, Homefront, Duke Nukem Forever, Brink, Call of Duty, F.E.A.R. 3, Conduit, Crysis, Bulletstorm, Resistance 3, Far Cry, Killzone 3, and that isn’t even half of them.
I like this. I have to admit I enjoy the ocassional shooter game but in my head they all just blend together. I’d like games with a more complicated plot line that involve doing something besides killing.
This is my theory. It’s kind of like the music industry. You know, it used to be that you never had to put up with the same crap music for more than a decade. Disco only lasted through the 70’s, the 80’s only lasted through… well, the 80’s. All the dark grunge and hard rock lasted through the 90’s (and that stuff was awesome). But all of a sudden out of nowhere, the charts start to get infiltrated by rap, right around 1996 before rock was even done, rap jumped in, egocentric as ever, and it pretty much hasn’t stopped for 16 years. And it’s never going to stop, you know why? Because once you hit rock bottom, there’s nowhere else to go. Nothing is shocking anymore because you’ve pushed it all the way to the limit.
With video games it’s more like the 70’s were just Pong, Asteroids and Space Invaders. 80’s was the decade of platformers, and the 90’s was the decade of RPG’s, until incidentally right around 1996 again, 3D graphics became a reality and boom, there ya go. I don’t know if I would call first person shooters an egocentric genre, but there remains much to be said about how they’ve gotten away with referring to this as a “fantasy”. As if people actually fantasize about it. And wouldn’t you know it, 16 years later, it’s even more ubiquitous than rap music. And how much worse can these so called “fantasies” get than inflicting the worst kind of pain imaginable on people. Next thing you know, there’s gonna be a Sims game where you give people cancer. I mean how much farther can you push it?
Stop living strictly in the past. The 70, 80s, and 90s weren’t any better than now. People romanticize the past because they were younger then and had less responsibilities.
Also, rap isn’t the only music out there. There is more musical diversity now than there EVER was. You are acting like the only music there is, is stuff that comes on MTV or your local pop radio station. Give me a break.
Eh…the 70s through 90s WERE better in SOME regard. For starters, you usually need SOME actual talent to get SOMEWHERE in the industry. For instance, find me today’s Stevie Wonder. Where’s today’s Bob Dylan? Do such even exist today?
Today, you can literally be a singer who admittedly can sing, and that becomes the style. There are acts out today that would’ve been seen as parody 10, 20, 30 years ago. Many musicians can’t even play a basic piano or read music. Songwriting’s taken a hit in quality. And anyone with a large following on Instagram can suddenly launch a rap career (whether they can actually rap well or not).
Music today is far more about imagery, than talent. Far more than the past was concerned. We’ve become a far more visual society, and technology has made “music” (actual or perceived) easier to make, for sure. Success is too easy when some guy in his living room with mildly-funny antics or kitschy talent can become a “celebrity” on YouTube. At least back then, for better and for worse, you had to work hard to break into the industry, and then try to find your niche within it. You had to FIGHT to get on the radio.
This isn’t to say the past didn’t have bad music. Far be it. The past had its crap and glorified turds, for sure. But today, that junk has gotten a LOOOOOT easier. Any joker with a SoundCloud and an IG account can be a “star.”
You’re just ignoring and rose tinting the past, rather than acknowledging it.
Music: It’s gone beyond rap, to insipid club songs, and repeatitive autotuned trash: Tao Cruz (However it’s spelt), Black Eyed Peas, LMFAO, Kesha (No, I’m not using a dollar sign). You’ve just focussed on one form of music. Also, the 90s? Boybands. Everywhere. The reason people don’t remember this is because the music was crap and had no staying power. Good, truly original stuff, tends to last. Kurt Cobain lasted. Blue didn’t. Queen outlasted it’s contemporaries. Look at the old charts: They’re filled with crap you’ve never heard of: The Justin Biebers and Backstreet Boys of their day. They’re just the common denominator recycled crap, so people don’t remember it. They remember David Bowie, they remember the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, the Clash. It’s got nothing to do with things being bad now: It’s simply that you can see everything available now, not what’s filtered through society over time.
The rest is gibberish. Yes, shooters are about hurting people. So? Your opinion is based on a subjective “Worse” scale, which is entirely rubbish.
“But all of a sudden out of nowhere, the charts start to get infiltrated by rap, right around 1996 before rock was even done, rap jumped in, egocentric as ever, and it pretty much hasn’t stopped for 16 years.”
Your theory is flawed, in at least one aspect: In music, whatever the disenfranchised black folks liked and did for themselves in urban America, eventually became “universal” popular music. From ragtime to hip-hop, it’s been the same story for the past century or so, in American culture, which in turn always becomes globalized phenomena.
The root of practically all popular music in the world is an African-culture beat…and then the Elvises and Madonnas of the world always become regarded as the said “kings” and “queens” of those genres. And whenever this truth gets mentioned, a LOOOOOT of people get uncomfortable…
Video games aren’t comparable to music. It doesn’t have nearly as ugly a history and social context as music does. Your comparison fails, because your review of its history is oversimplified. Maybe mine is a bit simplified as well (the topic’s a thesis all in itself), but I’m showing the strongest thing that makes your comparison a poor one towards gaming.
Gaming hasn’t had nearly as much controversial and complex a history as music has. Also, nobody truly ties “culture” to gaming, except for said “gaming culture” which has become quite “universal” across the world, as gamification becomes the global norm.
Though, another damning aspect of your theory: When you think about it, the music of the past really didn’t go away. I’d say, now, more than ever, you’re seeing more younger artists re-using past catalogs of blues, jazz, rock (as diverse as its range has become), disco, and even 80s music, in today’s music. The future for all art mediums will be a grand conglomerate of recycling the past.
The only thing music history and gaming history have in common is its future, where people will run out of ways to create “new,” and so, we’ll see a future where syncretism is the creative standard. Where taking one idea (from the past), and combining it with another, creates something “new.” (…And probably with a soundtrack that has Africa at its core. Tee-hee-hee!)
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I personally would love to see some new platforming games, instead of FPS and war games. The problem with innovation though, is that it takes such a risk. If you look at games like Psychonauts, Rayman Origins, etc, why all received amazing reviews but failed in sales.
go back to the goods: survival horror
Halo, Crysis, Half-Life, Portal, Turok, Doom, BioShock, and possibly Farcry.
Those are the only FPS IPs needed. Failing those, I’ll settle for just Halo. It has the most potential right now, what with 4 coming out soon and two other games coming out. It actually has an interesting story, and a huge universe of canon to explore!
And no, I didn’t mention Metroid, because I believe Metroid should revert back to the SNES style side-scrolling adventure. Prime was a great series, but they still aren’t as good as Super Metroid on SNES. Even to this day. That game STILL holds up, looks great, and plays amazingly.
I’ve said it before time and time again: if they made a TRUE sequel to the SNES game, same art style, same game style, just with 1080p resolution, HD sprites (or 3d models like New Super Mario Bros. did), and awesome particle/lighting effects on a 2d side-scrolling form, it would be bed-wittingly amazing.
I wonder how infinity ward feels.
Infinity Ward doesn’t feel. It’s a cold, calculation assembly machine that churns out the same game with slightly different textures and game name.
Infinity Ward is dead.
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I cant really Complain about it. I am a fann of shooters, hell it’s one of my favorite genre yet i dont purchase everyone released but the free2play market & steam slaes may play into part why i play other games just as much.
oh god can you imagine how treyarch and infinity ward feel then? They make the exact same shit every day of every year.
New Splinter Cell with a focus on stealth again, plox
I’m still not quite sure why there’s a picture of Crysis here.
I enjoy shooters to a point, but I would love if they would make games that take me longer then a few hours to beat. I beat CoD in a few hours and within a week i had forgotten everything that happened in the game. Its not very memorable when your guessing whats gonna happen next because you’ve seen it in the last few games you’ve beaten.
They should pass on the torch for their FPS games, and do something they’ll actually enjoy. It’d be sad seeing their FPS games go away. So they should at least let other people develop them.
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I don’t want FPS games to go for good, rather cut downpn how much is produced. Maybe once a year a new FPS can be released. Then they have time to actually put detail in everything. Not just one little part. Think of the game as a whole, not as different parts. Let’s put the shooters in the past, and focus on what the consumer wants. Ask what we want most, not what our standard is, and then barely meet it. I’m tired of shooting. Let me race, let me role play, let me sit on the edge of my seat, anticiciparing on how to do this level. Set me free from the chains of a shooter.
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we should really be happy this is great news! i’m surprised it took so long though :/ but its never to late to grow a brain.
I think 2D side scrolling arcade style beat’em ups need to make a comeback.
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God, finally. Not only is there an overload of FPS lately, but they’ve even been taking games we used to love one, and twisting them into these awful half-FPS half-WTF byproducts that are shells of their former selves, trying desperately to suckle at the teat of COD and other such huge franchises.
And FPS once in a while ain’t so bad. But Jesus.
Holy dookie man, typo city.
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Well, Ubisoft could simply sell their shooter franchises to other developers, but we all know they won’t give up a cash cow like Rainbow Six no matter how uncomfortable working on it makes their employees. Maybe instead they can offer some kind of compensation? I don’t know what they would call it in France, but at my job, they have something called “do the job you’re paid to do or go work somewhere else” pay.