SuperPhillip Central writes, "I always find it hard to talk about wanting the gaming industry to grow up because I'm not exactly a beacon of maturity myself. However, I have long since been over console wars, fanboy wars, and certain-man-part-waving contests on message boards and comment sections (for the most part, that is). It's a fact, however, that so many gamers have not gotten over this mindset. This is a young industry, and because of that, it is a very immature one. This piece is somewhat of a stream of consciousness. It's an oddity of opinion pieces here, but it's one that allows me to rant about how I think that before the industry can be taken seriously, the press, the gamers the press caters to, and industry insiders need to start acting with more maturity."
Original Destiny artist Darren Bacon recalls how Bungie reacted to the art style change of Halo 4 by 343 Industries.
Bungie at that time became the most wonderful bunch of hypocrites in the gaming industry. Knowing this now, gosh the entitlement they felt was out of this world.
Nothing like buying yourself from Microsoft because you don't want to be the Halo Studio anymore, and the FIRST THING you do is sign your next IP over to Activision, for a DECADE, while they are in the middle of ousting the heads of Infinity Ward so they can exert even more control over COD while screwing out the devs at IW...
Should've come as no surprise then that Activision gutted the content of Destiny 1 before launch and was a horrible partner through Destiny 2, until history repeated itself and Bungie had to split from Activision only to wind up in the arms of another major conglomerate that also doesn't know how to handle these unmanageable devs.
Tti their credit they praised the technical abilities of 343 and I remember at the time thinking halo 4 was a huge graphical leap above reach everything else was rubbish when I actually got to play it but there was no doubt it looked good for the 360 and is probably the best looking game on the system.
But ultimately I think bungie has always had a leadership problem and going independent ultimately proved this it's only getting worse with studio heads being outed by Sony for abuse allegations seems like all bungies past success has been in spite of management not because of it.
But really I think the bungie we have today is not the same one we had in that Xbox era of Bungie
I liked the artstyle change. For the most part. Something looked worse but most of everything else looked better. Weapons and vehicles for sure. The wraith come to my mind instantly.
And how can they get mad when the bungie changed it with Halo Reach?
I know a lot of people dislike Halo 4’s arts style, but there’s thing about it I like and dislike. Personally, the Halo 4 design of Master Chief’s armour is my favourite depiction of the character’s armour.
IGN - Assassin's Creed's focus on character-driven storytelling has been buried by its RPG sandbox features, and the series is weaker for it.
A rare W opinion piece from IGN.
IMO, Ubisoft needs to setup two primary AC dev teams. 1 would focus on and release character-driven OG-style AC games for OG fans and the other would continue the current RPG-ified AC style for current fans.
Release by them Bi-annually and alternatively. There'd less fatigue and a boost to quality.
I definitely appreciate 3 more after playing it again in recent years along with the Liberation game. Back when 3 was new I was still riding high on AC2 and Brotherhood so when I played 3 I felt a bit let down. Even the ship battles grew on me.
AC2 - Yes
AC3 - Urm...I don't know
I feel they kind of dropped the ball with AC3 and with the way the story went it just didn't make sense to me at all. I felt it would have made more sense lore wise if they had it so the Red Coats were mostly Assassins and the Templars were mostly the Colonists who wanted this "new world" as a fresh start for their operations, to build a country up they'd have full control of from the start so they manufacture the war as something else while really it's just a front for the Templars vs Assassins.
It just meant that since the Red coats lose the war it explains how the Templars have gained full control of future America and how the Assassins have slowly died out by then. This entire event would have been the turning point of how things went to s**t for the Assassins and how there's not many of them left in the present.
Haythem was a lot more interesting than Connor and he should have been the main Assassin of AC3.
I thought AC2 was the greatest of the series and it is but replaying it recently, I stared to see more flaws in the game. Basically every single mission is an assassination besides a few tailing missions lol. Still, the implementation of all the new mechanics were great. The smoke bombs, disarming guards, story, hidden tombs, swimming, flying machine, multiple locations, etc. it definitely felt a bit more special to me at the time of release though
Dunno about 3, the 1st act was cool, then i couldn't tell you what happens after that. But 2 was so good! The entire acts 1-3 were al memorable, whereas i really couldn't even tell you what happens in any other AC game
Non-playable characters in certain games are meme material, thanks to their foolish behavior. These are the big-budget games with the dumbest NPCs.
Bethesda makes the most consistently stupid NPCs, like really bad... yet I still can't help but love playing their games. Guilty pleasure, I guess. *sigh* 😩
Every Bethesda game and Every Halo game. This list needed to have Cyberpunk somewhere.
That's one very well written article. Kudos.
'We get what we deserve'
I'm not entirely convinced that this is the case to be honest. It's the chicken and the egg situation. Are we the fuel or do articles provide that fuel? The whole industry is in such disarray that it's very difficult to cut through the centre of things and see the truth.
One of the biggest problems with suggesting the media is biased or propagandist is that it comes ready wrapped with cliqued responses that offer convenient escapes for even the most rabid 'fanboy'. Even the word 'fanboy' or 'troll' have become convenient mechanisms for avoiding deep and meaningful discussion, leaving us with back and forth arguments of attack and counter-attack. Are WE the problem though? Where was this born?
'This industry is young, and so immature'
I think that's an over-simplification of a more convoluted problem. Clearly, when the author says this, he is reflecting upon the nature of the gamer and not the nature of those that make the games. Listening to Naughty Dog talking about the narrative in their games, leaves us with no doubt that they are intelligent and very mature. So why is it then that some Sony fans and some dissenters can't or won't emulate the behaviour of Naughty Dog?
No, it has to emanate from some other place. You need to look no further than the internet to find your answer. With so many sites vying for your attention, the loudest and brashest are more likely to be heard first. Controversy has taken centre stage and has fanned the flames for so long now that gamers have learned to paraphrase the quick and easy retorts laid out so carefully and deliberately in these grab-the-limelight articles that flood the internet on a daily basis.
War is more lucrative than peace.
Do we get what we deserve? I don't think so. Those hapless people that get caught up in the media circus know no better; they are young and impressionable and from the safety of their keyboard, they can claim a piece of manhood, confident in the fact that they'll only sustain a bruised ego and not a fractured jaw. They're being played by a media that depends and flourishes upon hatred and division. Fanboys are as much the victim as the people they personally attack.
The industry isn't immature, it's cold and calculating and young gamers are their chosen targets. Keep them angry, keep them active and keep them locked into cycles that allow sites to manipulate them into choices they may otherwise not make. Love brings people together, but hatred of others keeps them together. As one they are easy pickings for advertising and purchasing habits.
One of the best articles I've read this week. I hope people actually pay attention to it instead of the usual. "PS4 is more powerful than...", "Halo 1/5 reviews", "Here's a new single GTA V screenshot!" and of course the "Here's some fanboy flamebait, you know you're gonna take it" articles that frequently get so popular here.
Im also a gamer who realizes the immaturity of this industry. I'd always wondered why the lack sophisticated morals in today's gaming, not that i'm comparing today's gaming with yesterday's.
Im just saying! one may believe that after several console generation, after faster processing power, and a bigger raam. Gaming today should have by now be parrellel to movie qualty!
Very good article, although he completely missed the point regarding the uproar over that 7/10 review.
SPOT-ON!