The Rise and Fall of Franchises 84
Next Generation has a piece up discussing how game franchises evolve, what makes them succeed, and (in the end) what can make a game franchise fail. From the article: "We regard the evolution of video games largely as the realization of a singular idea: realism. By 'realism' we mean capturing the external world in which we live. Like many art forms - such as photography and cinema - video games have largely been driven by developers' desire and consumers' appetite for greater realism. It is possible to argue that the popularity of cinema derives from the medium's flexibility and power to induce a sense of realism in the spectator, as movies - much like our lives - use language through dialogue, manipulate cinematography and visual effects, and sounds to represent the world or capture our imagination."
Realism isn't everything (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Realism isn't everything (Score:2)
Re:Realism isn't everything (Score:2)
Re:Realism isn't everything (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, the reason for the move to CGI in animation is that its cheaper and faster to do a CGI animation film than a conventional frame by frame hand drawn.
Re:Realism isn't everything (Score:1)
If this were even close to true the saturday morning cartoons aired today would be CG. CG is a much bigger endeavour than a hand-drawn movie. Sure, the animators have to draw a lot of frames by hand. But for a CG shot to work you need people to build the models, generate and apply textures, rigging, animation, compositing, FX (i.e. smoke, fire, e
Re:Realism isn't everything (Score:2)
Well, even South Park is CG these days (they don't hand draw anymore) because it was so tedious.
Cell animation takes millions of man hours when you do a full feature budget with dozens if not hundreds of people doing cell by cell (remember 24 frames per second times 120minutes X 60 seconds X 24 is 172800 frames that you have to sketch, paint, photograph and then edit). Not only that many of the drawings will have to redone
Re:Realism isn't everything (Score:1)
That's sort of like saying "If I had a computer to do my homework on, I'd save lots of time because I wouldn't have to clean up my messy handwriting!"
A humanoid CG character has anywhere from 100 to 200 bones in it's body for posing. Each of these bones has 9 motion curves attached to it to describe its position in 3D space. (Position, Rotation, Scaling. In most cases, Rotation is all that's used. That's still 3 motion curves per bone.) All of these bones are
Re:Realism isn't everything (Score:2)
Right, but it is rather hard to find people that can just up and immitate any art style so you can crank out all those frames. It is done, but arthouses tend to get specialty people who can immitate style (kind of like how all of Miyazaki films have the same style). This is easy to do in say Korea or Japan because of the many aspiring Manga artists, but in the US it is a bit different.
Most of our niche cartoons are rather stylized..
Re:Realism isn't everything (Score:1)
Re:Realism isn't everything (Score:2)
Re:Realism isn't everything (Score:2)
Re:Realism isn't everything (Score:1)
Re:Realism isn't everything (Score:2)
Even 2D shows like The Simpsons probobly have a fair amount of computer drawn and generated animation.
Not to mention the whole "South-park is 100% CGI" thing)
IMO, one of the best uses of 3D in a "traditional" animated cartoon is in the Disney Tarzan movie.
Re:Realism isn't everything (Score:2)
Re:Realism isn't everything (Score:2)
Re:Realism isn't everything (Score:1)
Fudd: [takes careful aim with his shotgun]
Bugs: [stuffs carrot in shotgun]
Fudd: [camera pans downward as the disctinctive rapport of gunfire fills the air. blood and carrot juice splatter the ground.]
Porky: "Thhththtthat's all folks!"
Re:Realism isn't everything (Score:2)
The Warner team in their prime could have produced a witty fractured fairy tale like Shrek. But anything more subtle and demanding, in character, in story, in action, almost certainly not. The Iron Giant, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, are unmistakably rooted in the Disney
Re:Realism isn't everything (Score:2)
More industry created crap... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:More industry created crap... (Score:2)
Re:More industry created crap... (Score:2)
"All right, all right, you made your point."
-- Call of the Simpsons [snpp.com]
Re:More industry created crap... (Score:2)
That's why I still play Civilization III and Battlefield 1942 all the time. They never crash on me and I can depend on them to still be fun.
Re:More industry created crap... (Score:5, Interesting)
Better graphics does not automatically mean lesser gameplay. This is an oft repeated mantra of the 'games were better when I was a kid' set.
Strangely, the parents of those people think that games were better when they made you THINK, like Scrabble.
And their parents thought it was best when games made you PRODUCTIVE like being chained to a loom for 60 hours a week.
But really, today's games generally have far more depth than their predecessors. It's not like Missile Command was rocket science. Compare that to something like Rise of Nations.
In fact, Rise of Nations would have been impossible to do WITHOUT the graphics, because there are so many different types of units to represent.
Or look at something like a good First Person Shooter. In Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, a key part of the game is having the enemy blend in with the environment. This just doesn't happen when you only have 256 colors at 400x600.
Re:More industry created crap... (Score:2)
I don't know why they're blathering about the holy grail of realism. Everyone's already said that more realistic graphics don't automatically mean a better game. In some ways, more realistic graphics don't even mean better graphics. Example: I remember seeing a new XBox commercial featuring a basketball game. They were yammering on and on about how "you can see the sweat! My GOD! Did you see how realistically the sweat is streaming down his face? You must go buy this title r
Re:More industry created crap... (Score:2)
You would think by now that people talking about improved graphics would realize that throwing around a term like realism automatically triggers a dozen slashbot posts like the above.
This kind of sentiment is about as idiotic and useless as saying 'why don't they just make good games/music/movies', as if 'good' or 'gameplay' was a well understood
From TFA (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate this person already.
Other than that, there was a little bit of interesting commentary in there. He touched on a couple big things I have to agree with, though. Human opponents or teammates (or both) will almost always trump AI. Single player games can be great, but their strength as a franchise will usually fade...eventually you are just doing the same thing with prettier polygons.
Though for some reason, doing the same thing with prettier polygons is more desireable when you are doing it with or against other human beings.
Re:From TFA (Score:2)
Re:From TFA (Score:1)
VF4 in particular is EXTREMELY deep and technical. Mastering a fighter can take months at best, and then you get to test your skills in quest mode against AI fighters modeled after Virtua Fighter world champions...the AI in this gam
3D -can- be better than 2D...*sometimes* (Score:1)
Personally I prefer the King of Fighters games to Street Fighter. I like Darkstalkers better, too. People forget that Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat aren't the only 2D fighters around.
Don't get me wrong...I don't hate 3D fig
Re:From TFA (Score:2)
Re:From TFA (Score:2)
Agreed (Score:2)
Now, how many people play Starcraft II?
Many blame the game's non-existance, but I feel the problem is in the conversion to 3D graphics.
Re:From TFA (Score:2)
Seriously, though, I stopped buying Sony products over this attitude, back in the days of the Playstation 1. This is why we've had how many failed Castlevania games, but people still rave about Symphony of the Night.
Also... I guess the success of the Gameboy and DS really prove his point here. I always wonder if there isn't a hidden [amazon.com]
Boring drivel... (Score:2)
Re:Boring drivel... (Score:1)
Larsal
Don't Wanna Go There (Score:3, Insightful)
Better watch that line of argument. The "film franchise" has manifested itself with multitudinous (and qualitatively regressing) sequels.
Anybody ever see "Jaws 3"?
Re:Don't Wanna Go There (Score:2)
Re:Don't Wanna Go There (Score:2)
"GTA Riverdale:
This Time It's Personal"
<grrr
Re:Don't Wanna Go There (Score:2)
Did this make anyone else have a mental image of a pimped-out Archie mowing down Reggie with an MP5 while Betty and Veronica lean on a Lincoln in bikinis?
actually. (Score:4, Insightful)
EQ2 for instance went for the "make things look more real" approach, and look where they are.
Re:actually. (Score:1)
And you can prove that this is the reason EQ2 is doing worse than WoW? Don't be shy now.
Re:actually. (Score:1)
Less money spent on tuning WOW's graphics is more money spent on tuning WOW's balance.
Re:actually. (Score:2)
Re:actually. (Score:1)
Re:actually. (Score:2)
So no, I will not say that going for more realistic graphics was the reason EQ2 has failed, but I will say that in playing both I got a feel for where each put their money. Even on the last day she played it my wife confessed that it looked beautiful, but just lacked in actual gameplay. After they supposedly revamed things she tried again and came to the same conclusion a second
Realism, shmealism... (Score:4, Insightful)
EA was complaining about dropping sales last year. Well, COULD it be that their customers didn't want to buy the 10th hockey sim? Or the 5000th shooter?
You can add explosions, as many as you want. You can add visual and audio effects to blow the player off his chair. If the game doesn't offer more in terms of gameplay than he already got, essentially, in Quake II, the game simply and plainly sucks.
You CAN actually offer more than stupid "killemall" in a shooter. Hitman and IGI are classic examples of shooters that don't rely only on your trigger finger. And I loved both of them, despite (or maybe even because) the quite obvious fact that neither was a graphic orgy.
Realism is, plain and simple, overrated. What matters is a cool gameplay that keeps me busy for more than the usual 8-10 hours.
Re:Realism, shmealism... (Score:1)
what the "fi" is going on here? (Score:3, Funny)
infi nitely
fi ring
fi nd
What the hell is wrong with this guy's spell checker?
Re:what the "fi" is going on here? (Score:1)
Probably a ligature (Score:2)
But that's just a guess
Re:Is it me... (Score:1)
Interesting but for the most part, entirely irrelevant. If he was publishing a report that was 20 pages long this might have been appropriate.
I read TFA because I couldn't seem to make any real sense of what the quote in the summary was trying to say.
After reading two pages and skimming two more, I realized why. There was about one page of interesting material tightly pack
Immersive != Realistic (Score:3, Insightful)
There is nothing that kills the feeling of immersion for me more than inconsistency - photorealistic models with crappy animations, detaled characters but barren environments (a la Everquest 2), etc.
Creating a consistent and believable environment is an art form. Some games get it right, most don't.
MOD PARENT UP! (Score:2)
Abso-fricken-lutely!
The first game I ever really loved was Ultima IV. The graphics were nothing to write home about, but the story and world was so immersive the quality of the graphics did not matter.
Baldur's Gate was a great game, and it was by no means photorealistic. Planescape:Torment was the best ever and it would not have been improved by adding more polygons to the characters.
The same is true for other genre
We have a winner! (Score:2)
Ding! Give that man a cigar!
Realism isn't important per se, what is important is that the world is internally consistent. If I'm playing a D&D type game, I shouldn't find an uzi laying about. On the other hand, a person tossing a fireball at me would be expected.
Re:Immersive != Realistic (Score:2)
Truer words were never spoken. I literally laughed out loud the first time I saw my character in Oblivion running forwards and strafing at the same time. Their feet simply slide across the ground, and the animation is not even close to being locked into the terrain!! With games like GTA it's usually difficul
Gamers with Blinders (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Complete failure to understand their comparators. Are consumers really demanding more "realism" out of photography? What? Was there a lack of realistic photographs, or do cameras only take abstracts? In movies, the authors might be forgiven for thinking that the demand for more realistic special effects is a demand for realism, but isn't "photorealism" the ultimate standard for graphics?
2. Complete failure to understand their heritage. Video games don't necessarily replace movies and photographs -- there were games before them, and still are; and most of those games were designed for human interaction. I remember sitting down in front of the NES with the family or friends, don't they?
3. Confusion over history. The NES didn't kill the Atari, that generation was already dead at the hands of endless revisitation of the same game. .
What absolute crap.
Larsal
cost versus realism (Score:1)
/me is old (Score:2)
SUSQUEHANNA HAT COMPANY!!! [clown-ministry.com]
*tears off hat, stomps on it*
My Kids like playability.. (Score:3, Interesting)
What? (Score:3, Insightful)
It appears as if the writers pulled this together via shallow internet research rather than any actual experience with or understanding of the subject. By shallow I mean, punching a few terms into google and extrapolating the 2 line summaries into multiple paragraphs.
For example...
"Virtua Fighter, in an ever-crowding Fighter genre, became RPG Shenmue in November 2000 for Dreamcast; Shenmue II in fall 2001 for Dreamcast and Xbox; Shenmue Online is expected as an MMO on PC some time."
VF did not become Shenmue. The finished games have nothing to do with each other. At best, Shenmue was believed by some to be a VF RPG during it's development and possibly shared some assets in early development.
While not as popular as it was in the VF2 (dozens of VF2 machines packed into japanese arcades)era the series still exists entirely seperate from Shenmue as VF3, VF3tb, VF4, VF4:Evo and VF5. Anyone who had a casual interest in the series would know this and anyone who doesn't can find out as the top google results for "shenmue" + "virtual fighter" will spell it out.
The observations on joysticks, Duck Hunt, the fighting game genre, game to movie adaptations and likely much more equally unresearched, unsubstantiated and completely off-base.
Re:What? (Score:1)
So all I need to make a great game is:
1) SWEET 3D GRFX!
2) MULTIPLAYER PWNAGE!
It really makes me sad that people think Design-By-Checkbox is a valid strategy. As we've all seen, it's very easy to make a 3d game that has openended driving and missions, but very hard to make GTA. It's very easy to make a simple puzzle game with pieces to line up, but very hard to make Tetris.
I can't ima
Can't even finish TFA - total crap (Score:3, Insightful)
Graphical realism as the driving force behind the industry. On what basis? Because photography and cinema has been striving for greater realism? Really? Since when have photographs been unrealistic (well, actually kind of increasingly what with airbrushed celebs etc)? And cinema striving for greater realism? That's why films like The Matrix were so successful was it? That's why special effects are now so important for blockbusters? Even relatively artistic films aren't better because the visual representation is more real.
Complete rubbish.
I stopped when I read that console gamers had had to wait for the Xbox for online gaming. But then that's because I'm a Sega Dreamcast fanboy. PSO - Phantasy Star something. I can't remember what that O stood for.
Still, another great troll from next gen. Remind me to only ever read that site via submissions to slashdot. The last few articles linked have been rubbish too.
Re:Can't even finish TFA - total crap (Score:2)
Sensual realism is not all there is... (Score:4, Insightful)
I just like to make a comment about the realism as described in the article, without getting into whether I agree with the article or not. One thing that the author of this articles seem to miss is that realism is defined as "life-like". Though making a game looks and sounds real is a part of it, but it's not the only part. For instance, a game of "go" or "weichi" has been around for a long long time, and still enjoy a cult-like following in some parts of the world. One of the reasons for its appeal is that the game has very life-like philosophies behind it. In other words, the presentation is abstract, yet the lessons one can learn from playing may be applied to real life.
On another train of thoughts, one can push the article's main idea and arrive at the conclusion that the best game is not playing at all... I.e. the most realistic experience one can get is... real life.
Cheers.
B. Pascal
Speaking of franchises rising and falling ... (Score:1)
The Driver developers have realised that gameplay > graphics and that on foot animations actually are worth coding into the game. Fancy that. And the new police car/avatar seperate notoriety meters and awesome new garage options are really well done. Although I still think that anyone that purchased a copy of Driv3r at full price should be sent a free copy. And an opti
Nitpickery - and musings on multi-player (Score:1)
Re:Nitpickery - and musings on multi-player (Score:1)
Re:Nitpickery - and musings on multi-player (Score:1)
ironic (Score:2)
realism (Score:1)
Drooling Moron? (Score:2)
I have a question... is the guy who wrote this article a drooling moron? (Warning, caustic sarcasm to follow...)
Realism (not Naturalism) (Score:1)
Realism isnt believability. (Score:2, Interesting)
plus, realism is subjective. If i show 100 people two pics, one photo and one cg, 50% choose the photo as the real image and 50% choose the cg image...does that mean the cg is as real as real life. What if more people choose the cg image...does that mean the cg image is more real?
Meh... realism sucks (Score:1)