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Just now Eiji Aonuma – producer of the game series titled Legend of Zelda – stated that games with linear plots are increasingly losing popularity and most players prefer more open titles that offer more freedom in exploration and decision-making. He also added that players today only turn to linear adventures out of nostalgia, making it clear that for the so-called only older players miss corridors. The most interesting thing he admitted, however, is that while he personally agrees with the preferences of older players, as a producer he has to keep in mind that this is not the most profitable setting at the moment.
Author: Ewelina Stoj
Whether we played the first Baldur’s Gate or Fortnite as a child, I’m sure that in both cases we enjoyed the game equally, and that’s what gaming is all about. However, one might get the impression that 30 years ago there were so few games that each title was more appreciated – we went from A to Z and didn’t give up, even if we stopped liking something about the game for a while. Maybe that’s why playing as a child seemed more valuable in the past than it is today, when there are so many game productions. And the more of them, the greater the chance that this collection will contain a lot of painfully average games. This could also be the reason for the false (?) assumption that today’s games have no value.
Nowadays, developing linear games, where the plot is ambitious, clear-cut and single-stranded, and where the tasks occur one after the other, is not a particularly lucrative activity. Game developers know full well that completely different games sell much better today.
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What does it look like in reality? Are today’s games less valuable than those of 10, 20, or 30 years ago? Personally, I think this is actually the case, and I’m sorry to say it really was better. This is subjectively better, because the youngest generation doesn’t seem to care much about what they get from subsequent development studios. However, there is no denying that the profile of gambling changes significantly from decade to decade and year to year. From an action-based, intellectual entertainment, it becomes a shooter or racing game that requires reflexes and gets the heart rate up. As someone who has always looked for an interesting, sometimes educational storyline in games, I can’t hide my disappointment at this change.
Need for Speed Heat – a typical example of a brainwashing game that cannot offer anything surprising
However, these are not all the changes that have affected the game recently. For several years now, mainly thanks to giants like EA and Ubisoft, sandbox games, i.e. games from the so-called open world, have become increasingly popular. In fact, we rarely see (apart from independent productions) linear games that offer one task after another and enchant us with a compact, captivating and unique story. Because the sandboxes are so extensive, the plot of subsequent productions becomes extremely blurred and the playing time extends to hundreds of hours. However, developers know that there is a lot of potential in such extensive universes to regularly enrich them with paid add-ons. On the other hand, after spending so much time in a production, players become so attached to it that they willingly spend money on microtransactions, which only makes their time in the game more enjoyable and attractive.
The latest Assassin’s Creed installments (except Mirage) are a perfect example of how to use DLC to keep the player entertained for hours.
We live in times in which the quality of products (of all kinds) has long since given way to the desire to earn a lot of money quickly. Therefore, it is not surprising that developers prefer to create games that allow you to make money for many years (see GTA Online), which do not require special care, rather than those that require a lot of effort and are sold only once. Firstly, this approach creates rather undemanding games, and secondly, there are a lot of them, and each one is similar to the previous one. However, the younger generation has no comparison with older games. Little does he know that these productions could look completely different than the 500th quest, “Find the Cinquefoil Rhizome.” On the other hand, I also have the impression that if I were to see a 12-year-old sitting in front of a title like Planescape: Torment today, he would gasp for air in front of the wall of text and inevitably escape this “torture”.
GTA Online is a goose that lays golden eggs, and one can’t help but think that other developers are doing their best to breed them too.
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In my opinion, part of the intention was to “train” the players by giving them progressively worse performances. Generations passed, we complained a little about the declining standard of games, and finally a generation came along that doesn’t complain when playing Minecraft, for example, but is actually excited by what the developers can offer them. At this point, one could also blame the increasingly lower level of education, which means that young people not only have fewer and fewer demands on entertainment (the really low level of content in these titles is enough for them), but also with games that are related to it struggling, not coping You need to move your brain properly. Of course I’m not generalizing because, as always, the demand is largely generated by fashion, but no matter how you look at it, the vast majority of young gamers get lost in mediocre titles that don’t require the use of their brain too much, but only certain reflexes learn.
Minecraft – every child has probably heard of this game before
Young minds are currently so overloaded that additional mental effort in the form of challenging games is definitely not a priority
Normally, a person subconsciously needs other people to live, in the so-called As it becomes more and more difficult for us to build relationships in the “real world”, we rely on at least virtual ones. As you can easily guess, technology has made people more and more afraid of approaching other people. It’s hard to believe that the biggest minds in the tech world did this on purpose, partly to sell contact with other people for money. through online games. In addition, developers are well aware that even making their game available for free (free-2-play) can bring them high income by selling telemetry data to third parties. This data can shed light not only on how the human psyche works under certain conditions (games that allow moral decisions), but also on how people in space behave during a threat (all military games).
Telltale’s The Walking Dead series of games is an excellent tool for social research. Many conclusions can be drawn from players’ decisions, and those conclusions can be…monetized
The belief that games like these will no longer exist also results from observations of the slowly (but still) developing VR industry. Currently, the implementation of games for glasses (we are talking about non-ported games) requires a focus on mechanics, which is why developers sometimes lack the time and energy to deliver an ambitious plot in this area too. Therefore, we can assume that the development of VR games will be very similar to that of 3D games – that they won’t be overly ambitious games at first, but we can still have (false) hope that they will eventually become so. In turn, in the further development of 3D games, the focus will be mainly on graphics and new technological solutions, so developers will probably not have time for anything else, including preparing a meaningful, striking and educational plot.
More games are being added to VR platforms every week. However, the vast majority are the proverbial flakes. In fact, only ports from other platforms can be called ambitious (Resident Evil 4), although we can’t forget Half-Life: Alyx
In addition, the takeover of one studio by another that is simply larger does not help, which is why the so-called content is becoming more and more standardized and therefore does not promote young people in any way and therefore closes them to more valuable content (because they cannot recognize and appreciate it ). As a wise man once said: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And so smaller development studios with potential are bought up by tycoon publishers, which usually ends up forcing their own vision on the developers and preparing another shallow sandbox, a spectacular racer or another shooter that offers pointless entertainment. And I’m not saying that there aren’t completely ambitious projects these days (see the recent Baldur’s Gate or Disco Elysium), but I would recommend coming to terms with the idea that the upcoming games, like the rest of the world, will only offer that so-called an excess of form over content, and if any of us want to return to ambitious content, we will actually just have to lose ourselves in things from the past.
Disco Elysium is a game with space for up to 1 million words. This is an extremely ambitious, unique work of our time, but it is impossible to imagine that it would reach the average teenager of today. It’s a shame, it’s a shame
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