Why Some Games Start Tanking In Quality

[KBWarriors]

It's a pretty obvious one and it's something that happens to just about every company at some point or another once their success hits another level. Is it because the developers don't have the same passion they used to? Nope, that's not it at all. Is it because the resources of the company dwindle or go down? Nope, that's not it either.

What determines when a company's game starts slacking in quality?

The answer is simple really... when the game stops being made by gamers and being made by suites.

Look at Blizzard Entertainment for example. It was no secret that Mike Morhaime and the developers were die hard nerds and loved what they did. Did they make money for what they did? Well of course, they had to make money to support developing great video games and with each release, you can tell that their was passion in the content they released. Fast forward to July 9th, 2008 and that's when (in my opinion) Blizzard made the worst possible mistake you could ever make... merging with a company such as Activision.

If you know anything about Activision and the CEO behind it, you know that he's a money driven greedy dick. If the world was ran by him, games wouldn't have a cost but it would be individual based on the amount of money owned by the person buying the game. It would more than likely cost 75% of all your money. The guy has way more money than he'll ever know what to do with, so will his sons and grandsons down the family line but he's still constantly thinking of ways to nickel and dime people. Anyways, enough about the merger.

The problem is once a company goes public, it no longer answers to the public. They still have an obligation to please the public but it answers to the investors. Without investors, the company would essentially tank and lose a good majority of their money. What do investors care about? Investors don't look at the quality of the video games or if the customer base is happy, they could care less, they look at the assets of the company and how much money it'll make them.

Take a look at Diablo 3 for example... when Jay Wilson was presenting some videos and older videos of the game, it was simply amazing. Everyone was hooked and it seems like the resources were being put into the right place. However, to cut down on resources and development cost, they pulled a ton of the features, reverted a lot of beautiful interface changes back to basic and drawn out interfaces and allocated the team elsewhere. The result?

They sold over 12 million copies of the most anticipated game of all time simply because of the name... and where do those numbers stand today? How many of those people angrily fought with their credit card company to get a refund, uninstalled the game or just straight up refuse to play it? I don't know the exact number behind the D3 development team, but it doesn't take a developer to know they're moving at a snails pace.

It's not because companies lose passion for what they do, it's because instead of answering to the customers or the loyal fanbase, they instead start making their games based on how much money it'll make them.

Look at GGG (Path of Exile). The game's not bad, it's developed by a small handful of developers and it's FREE. However, wait until they either A: Go bankrupt or B: Get bought out by another company. They'll take the path that every beloved OG company has.

WWE, Blizzard Entertainment, those are just a couple of my two most loved companies from back in the day that sold out and stopped making products for the fans. It's a shame really.. to see just how corporate this world is anymore and to see how everything really is about the money.. even down to the nickels and the dimes.

[Deleted]

I can say that as for the WWE their best time was when they where fighting against WCW for rating so they upped their game and had some awesome and epic storylines. Now that they are pretty much unchallenged they don't need to because fans have nowhere else togo.

Also from personal exprience if you do something you love as a job after a while you stop living to work and start working to live. I watched my dad go from an amazing photographer who had exibits in museums in my home city to someone who now does it as a full time job and gets no real enjoyment from it (there was a time he would only take great pics and never waste a shot, now he takes as many as possible and sorts through them for ok ones.)

I think it was Peter Townsend or Roger Daltery who said he no longers plays for the music, but for the money.

[slackjawsix]

I dont really see quality dropping, but i do see Innovation and Creativity dieing, take a game COD, the first modern warfare was loved, it was able to make slight changed to the regular FPS games and make a series that is still the most popular in the world. It keeps the same formula now in every sequel with only a few changes here and there. These games dont lack quality but alot of people hate them because its the same thing every sequel, its a well made game but if they dont change things around the FPS market is gona stay still and wel see less changes and improvements to the way they are played

[KBWarriors]

I can say that as for the WWE their best time was when they where fighting against WCW for rating so they upped their game and had some awesome and epic storylines. Now that they are pretty much unchallenged they don't need to because fans have nowhere else togo.

Also from personal exprience if you do something you love as a job after a while you stop living to work and start working to live. I watched my dad go from an amazing photographer who had exibits in museums in my home city to someone who now does it as a full time job and gets no real enjoyment from it (there was a time he would only take great pics and never waste a shot, now he takes as many as possible and sorts through them for ok ones.)

I think it was Peter Townsend or Roger Daltery who said he no longers plays for the music, but for the money.

As far as WWE goes, I'm still one of the older die hard Attitude Era fans. The attitude Era and the stars who lived it defined the era.

The APA would have backstage segments where their room was an open room but they had a door in the middle of nowhere. You weren't allowed to talk to them unless you went through their door.. it was amusing.

There was backstage events, matches and fights all the time.

Your main lineup stars were Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Undertaker, Triple H, The Rock, etc. They had so many stories going on at once it was hard to keep up unless you watched both Smackdown and Raw.

Now.. their main story is... John Cena.. and what's that? Oh, more John Cena.. for the sole purpose that he keeps the younger crowd drawn in and buying their crap.

Their backstage segments are done in offices with posters and advertisements hanging everywhere. Plus, the amount of commercials is just beyond absurd... "We interrupt your commercials to bring you more raw." They have one main story going now days that usually involves Cena and other than that, they could care less about any other stars on the show.

I never got into Call of Duty but I know it gets a lot of memes about it made for being so unrealistic in terms of online combat. *Gets shot 14 times* lives *Gets stabbed by guy shot 14 times* dies is a common one I've seen. Plus XBox is cheaper and caters more to the mass crowd so it gets far more attention than PS3 games. Look at Medal of Honor for example.. they don't put as much attention into their Multiplayer aspect but the Single Player scenarios are amazing. They're so well done, well constructed and they do a lot of thorough interviews with the people who actually do that job for a living.

Unfortunately, the game doesn't get the attention it deserves since the mainstream sell out company has a firm grip on the FPS market.

[Dhrizzle]

It's not as simple as big business = evil companies. Blizzard went public in 1994, before Warcraft, Starcraft or Diablo had been released. They were bought by the uber-huge Vivendi in 1998, the same year Starcraft was released and before Diablo II, WC 3 or WoW. In other words, unless you're really upset about there being no sequels to the Lost Vikings and Rock'n'Roll Racing most of the Blizzard games you love were produced under the auspices of an evil money-grabbing mega-global corporation.

There's lots of reasons a game produced by a big company might disappoint you. For starters you may be expecting a game that grabs you as hard as its predecessor did nearly a decade ago, that's going to be tough to do. Also you have to accept that with an audience of millions it is going to be a lot harder to meet everybody's individual expectation; for someone who wants to play through a couple of times, experiment with characters and retire the game after 60+ hours until the expansion (the way I like to play RPGs) D3 (in my opinion) was a far superior experience to D2. For someone expecting to grind the content for years to come in the same way as D2 it likely came as a disappointment. Of course it's hard to gauge what the actual opinion of the public is, with millions still playing clearly something was done right for some people.

Sometimes games get rushed. This isn't just a problem for large developers, indeed having Blizzard's (or Activision's, or EA's...) massive buckets of cash to play with can allow developers to take a little longer getting it right (for smaller companies this can lead to bankruptcy). The trouble is smaller developers suddenly having access to these huge resources can lead them to overextending themselves; an interview with one of the BioWare co-founders claims EA gives developers "enough rope to hang themselves". They spend too much (meaning they have to give the game a broader appeal) and try to do too much, so when they have to release the game to actually show a profit some features end up being sub-par or removed (at least Blizzard tend to snip out the features they feel are not up to scratch).



WWE being trash is not much of a surprise. I was also a fan around the same time you were, going on to the early Cena years, but I think that was an unexpected high-point considering how trashy the franchise has been for most of its existence. For me the real pain was when TNA went from being an enjoyable, minimal-bullshit pro-wrestling show to recycling old WWE story-lines and pantomimes.

[Deleted]

As far as WWE goes, I'm still one of the older die hard Attitude Era fans. The attitude Era and the stars who lived it defined the era.

The APA would have backstage segments where their room was an open room but they had a door in the middle of nowhere. You weren't allowed to talk to them unless you went through their door.. it was amusing.

There was backstage events, matches and fights all the time.

Your main lineup stars were Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Undertaker, Triple H, The Rock, etc. They had so many stories going on at once it was hard to keep up unless you watched both Smackdown and Raw.

Now.. their main story is... John Cena.. and what's that? Oh, more John Cena.. for the sole purpose that he keeps the younger crowd drawn in and buying their crap.

Their backstage segments are done in offices with posters and advertisements hanging everywhere. Plus, the amount of commercials is just beyond absurd... "We interrupt your commercials to bring you more raw." They have one main story going now days that usually involves Cena and other than that, they could care less about any other stars on the show.

Same here, I used to love the APA.

I remember Stone Cold blowing up the DX bus, or that insane no holds barred match between HHH and Mankind when he was pedigreed onto pintacts.

[Yunru]

I am stil waiting for a world law for a game quality.

In other words:
If the game is not up too the standard (and too buggy) the law would prevent selling the game.
If the devloper lies abauth the game there are huge fees. And so on.

[Deleted]

I dont really see quality dropping, but i do see Innovation and Creativity dieing

this was prob the biggest "mistake" of D3 they were trying something new and different than just redoing D2 in better graphics..
They tried out AH which was a big mistake they tried out open builds etc. etc.

But people didn't like it because they wanted D2

[Zogarth]

I think one of the reasons why many of us don't enjoy games as much as we used to, was because back then games were made for gamers, but today games are made for everyone. The market is bigger than ever, and stuff like mobile gaming is huge now. So developers will have to try to make games that please the masses.

[bbr]

PoE has real potential.
If anything they could go Crowdfunding now,. they have SO many fans that they could rake in a ton of cash.

Look at starbound,. they've already raised 1 million,.. way beyond their original expectation.

If you got a good concept, and the ability to show off results, crowdfunding has some really good future prospects.

[Slaughty8]

I will never understand the mentality of "expecting a game that grabs you as hard as its predecessor did nearly a decade ago" because it is impossible. Why?
1. You are older, you enjoy things differently, if you wouldn't, then something is wrong
2. These old games everybody is mentioning were one of their (our) first on their (our) gaming journey and these were made up to the limits of technology back there. For instance, I know that:
- I will never feel the same with any game as I felt while playing Diablo 2, Heroes III, Fallout Tactics, Unreal Tournament, Half-Life, Morrowind, X-Wing Alliance and many more
- But, I do feel different and at the same level, excitement feeling when I am playing best of the best games that are "new", there are not many of them, so: Half-Life 2, Skyrim, Bioshock, Starcraft II, LoL, Guild Wars 2 and a few more

The quality did not change, games evolved. Just like cars, you can say, that you loved 60-80s cars and nowdays it's not the same because of automatic-electronic spam and instead of pointer indicators and manual windows control, you have sci-fi hud telling you everything + electronic windows control. It is the same story.
Also, ppl have different needs and tastes now.

Just like Heoroes III vs V or VI, many ppl love these new or even IV, but I honestly love II and III and can't feel the same with new ones.

[Alvito]

Best example is Pacman, it was all down hill after Mrs. Pacman got into the picture.

[Vankrys]

the gaming industry is changing, and it's not going back to its origin, it can't now.

on one hand, games have tremendously increased in quality, graphic fidelity, sound engineering, but not only. Games have improved in many other way, story telling, directing, gameplay element too. Developers have learned in the past 20 years what works and what doesn't, they have created genre, refined genre, and we probably haven't seen it all.

on the other hand, the video games industry is victim of it's own success. Now games sale millions of copy. They cost hundred of millions dollars to make and can generate 10 times that amount when successful. Everyone want a piece of the pie. When you invest hundreds of millions, you want insurance you will make your money back, so you play it safe. Same old fifa every years, same CoD. Square enix try to change the tomb raider formula and called it a disappointement (did they say faillure) because it only sold 6 millions.

We are in an era of refining the genre, polishing the games. I don't see we are going to see breakthrough in the video games industry nowaday, like we had in the 80s. we are going to see small evolution of known genre. And maybe someone, possibly an indy, will create a new revolutionary genre, but i doubt we would see those revolution from big publisher. MOBA genre came from a custom game mod of warcraft 3 i believe.

Now, more than ever, the costumer need to be wise, to be informed, to be critic in his choice of game. Diablo 3 is the perfect example. 12 millions sales, undeniably a tremendous financial success. But how many bite to the hype and regret their purchase after. I believe the game is quite good, but has a targeted audience. But the hype behind the game intice players that are not targeted by the genre, and as a result, they didn't like it and severely critic it. I'm among them. I don't think games are declining in quality, quite the contrary. I don't even think we aren't seeing innovations, because innovations there are. Just at a much slower pace.

What we need now is a public informed, wise and critic. We need independent game critic, not influenced but publisher, giving their most objective opinion they can come up with. youtube does help, but i wonder how much of the public use it. Not so long ago, my older brother were still buying game from the cover art or the theme, not having any clue whether it's gonna be any good. that need to change. If the public were well informed, games like diablo 3 wouldn't have spilled over his targeted audience, and as a result, sales will be lower, but you would have heard far more positive feedback from the game.

[Afrospinach]

I think one of the reasons why many of us don't enjoy games as much as we used to, was because back then games were made for gamers, but today games are made for everyone. The market is bigger than ever, and stuff like mobile gaming is huge now. So developers will have to try to make games that please the masses.

Games for gamers sounds a bit elitist, but there is definitely a "please everyone" philosophy proliferating that is dooming everything to mediocrity. Can't be too hard or too complicated or you might drive someone away.

[Powerogue]

It'd definitely explain the introduction of microtransactions with the vanity mounts and such. I've seen it happen in more than just WoW. If the company is smart, they hold together with the same general crew so the game doesn't lose its direction.

[Slaughty8]

I think that more niche products could solve the problem, but still, there will be someone who will want to sale as much copies as possible and reach as big as possible audience, this will never change. But still, niche products appealing to small groups of ppl are great for gamers.

[panterarules]

Games used to be relatively cheap to make. It wasn't a gamble for a big company to make a new game, hell... even a new genre.

Now games require immense investment. An incredible amount of money goes into 3D modelling and coding. You can probably count on one hand the amount of new titles that have come out in the last couple of years. Companies know they will make money from existing titles so that's what happens.

Another reason is that computers, owning a computer, screwing around on the internet, playing video games (apps for eg.) has become very mainstream. In the 90s if you played computer games you were more or less a geek. Players wanted more advanced and intricate combat systems. RPG's in particular attracted players who would spend hours upon hours playing them. Now..for better or for worse (worse for me ;D) everything is simplified down to the core concepts as the old crowd of geeks and nerds only makes up for a very small percentage of buyers. Everything inconvenient has been removed from games, even huge parts of combat systems (mana in WoW?) all because, as Blizzard (for example) would say 'it doesn't make sense'.

[Dhrizzle]

I think that more niche products could solve the problem, but still, there will be someone who will want to sale as much copies as possible and reach as big as possible audience, this will never change. But still, niche products appealing to small groups of ppl are great for gamers.

This is why I think the games industry is pretty much in the best state it has ever been. Indie developers are in a great state with Steam and Humble-bundles giving them a platform to sell on.

Indie devs who prove themselves and wish to go on to bigger budget productions have the options of merging with large publishers in order to get more resources for the expensive bits.

[Wynnyelle]

Corporate greed definitely plays a major role in game quality. In fact, I consider it to be the #1 factor hurting the industry right now. There are still some great developers out there that other developers can learn from (CD Projekt Red, looking at you) who do not spend a fuckton of money on advertising and obnoxious DRMs and still produce great quality games that make a decent profit. Meanwhile, larger corporations spend millions on unnecessary expenses and end up barely breaking even or not even making a significant profit because they didn't manage their budget properly, and then they blame it on the consumer. Look at the latest Tomb Raider game. It was a pretty decent game, in my opinion, yet financially it was not successful due to Square Enix being retarded with their money, despite selling millions of copies.

[Deleted]

Games are still made and sold by companies, like they always were. Companies want to make money.

What is happening is that more and more people get into gaming these days and therefore spend more money on games. If a company has succes with a certain game they will use that same formula over and over again untill they stop making money of it, this is why we see a lot less creativity in games these days. They will also try to release games at a much higher pace as they used to, which is also a reason games seem to suffer. I'd rather wait 3 years for an original and innovative game myself than have 3 horrible sequals, which are most of the time just a newer version of the first game, in those same 3 years.

Don't get me wrong, the quality of these games are probably higher than any games released in the past, but, with a few exceptions of course, there is nearly no innovation or creativity left in the majority of games released these days.