The trend of Sequels, Francise, New IP Getting Dumbed Down

[synthetic]

This is not really a rant rather than an observation that no doubt lot of us have shared, and intends to collectively ponder on the reasons why.

This trend involves many more titles than the few that I am about to list, but should you agree with the notion you are welcome to add to it.

Titles that I've personally been rather upset about: ME from 1 to 3 consistently getting dumbed down to a remarkably unimpressive experience.

As much immersion ME3 might've lacked, for me it did not compete with DA2 which I found to be an utter and complete waste of my time. Given how much I truly enjoyed DA:O (fck it, its DA1 for me, end of story) I am willing to forget about the bust sequel and pretend everything will be fine with the third.

The whole Aliens and AVP series: I have played Colonial Marines, and regret the space it took on my hard drive. Articles from this year discussing Obsidians Aliens RPG that got flushed in 2009 are partly to blame for this thread.

Star Wars RPG line: SWTOR was-is an utter, unimmersive and uninteresting mess of mmo grind randomness, seasoned only with the abundant bugs I experienced daily when I played it.

Having not played latest Hitman, I can merely rely on the feedback that seems to indicate this enduring franchise followed the same path.

For many reasons, DX:HR and TES series seemed to have followed the very same pattern, but in both cases the previous release was so bad that they actually managed to improve upon that, breaking the linear decay of content playability.


Now, many gamers seem to have agreed with this without me having necessarily spoken up about it. I see complaints about ruined franchises all the time, but when it comes to this type of trend then the feedback seems to be absolutely overwhelming. The very few that are completely happy about where the titles have ended up at must feel very special, but gaming community is hundreds of millions, not to add a zero there, and you cannot disappoint absolutely every single gamer.

But, I wonder, why is that? Regardless of the typical elements of improvement developers have to try and follow (cheapest ways of pushing new titles next gen without it being next gen ) it is quite obvious that for them to have hugely successful sales (which AAA titles naturally target) they must have some kind of understanding of player base preferences. *Why* is it that in spite of all the corporate data mining and analysing capacity the majority could agree the titles are being dumbed down? Am I missing something here, such as something like the intended target customer lacking capacity for literacy?It is also rather impossible to blame the average console gamer or the involved tech handicaps here since several of mentioned successful titles were only ported to PC to begin with.

Why is that games have been consistently going shit past.. decade? Increase in gaming populace aside, is there a crucial mistake the developer predictions have made, or does it really do just come down to that? Super expensive games that push shinies (and often failing at that) but completely disregard the rest of the content.
Ragnar Tørnquist argued against George Lucas' comment about games being not nearly as involving or immersive as movies currently can be, stating the complete opposite. After experiencing many fantastic games, I fully agree with that, but yet I see the trend actually taking after Lucas' opinion of games. Games that are supposedly revolving around story are becoming quickly inferior to movies (or in some cases they are becoming movies!) which is *not* why I started playing games to begin with.

[Psychotic]

For many reasons, DX:HR and TES series seemed to have followed the very same pattern, but in both cases the previous release was so bad that they actually managed to improve upon that, breaking the linear decay of content playability.

I didn't think either of these were too bad. But DA2 is a prime example of how good games get turned to shit very quickly. The latest Hitman was, at least in my opinion, pretty good, too.

Games, in general, get "dumbed down" because that's the current demographic. Despite how young most of us probably are (I don't think many of us are in our late 30s) the audience changes rapidly. Most of us grew up in times of challenge, when games didn't have much direction or popularity. Those times are long gone.

I've found that lowering my expectations is for the best. I shouldn't have to but nothing is going to change whilst the current demographic is a washed in impatience and a hatred for inconvenience or any form of work at all.

For all the joys the internet has given us it also spawned a generation of instant gratification and the demand that we apparently need everything without work. It's this attitude that has, at least in my opinion, ruined a lot of industries from gaming to film. Even something as sacred as a book is no longer safe.

I don't think there's anything "special" about the decline in challenge and the rise in "convenience". It's the fact that most gamers are either too lazy to bother working for their reward or simply don't have the time. People like us effectively have to rely on mods (which is why Skyrim is so great) or the hope that an indie dev will fill the gap we have.

"Welcome to the 21st century."

[synthetic]

I agree that it is less obvious with the quoted-mentioned titles and as such serve as poor examples to illustrate the true scope of this problem.

You suggest it is the demographics (and through that the tremendous increase in gamer numbers) that play a major role, but it doesn't very well explain the distinct lack of praise when criticism is abundant. Surely the target audience has access to internet (not that online activation doesn't hint that).

If we are looking for mechanics, then expectations do play a considerable role, but I don't think it is possible to lower expectations enough to enjoy copy paste world with scripted waves of clone baddies. Thrill and smooth experience is what I expect from any game, movie, book. Not unlike having a problem with a book that is missing pages.

Unfortunately it is also true that other mediums are affected, and I just had a discussion with someone the other day as to how one can produce predictably well-received book series for the masses.

You mention instant gratification and convenience, but for me that does not answer the big question pounding in my head when I played DA2: "why would anyone play this rubbish??!" Aside from the few that might have a particular thing for hairy dwarf chests there was nothing gratifying about the game, where certain cliché elements in the original could certainly be interpreted as such. Not nearly enough tits and gore.

While I can certainly see that the gamers have become dumber (not to be taken literally, it stems from normal statistical average and is tied to the mass currently involved with gaming), I am really getting the feeling that it cannot account for all the flops. It is almost as if developers, too, have gotten dumber.

[Psychotic]

If the game in question is being criticized by pretty much everyone (like the case was with ME3, DA2 and D3) then my only suggestion is that somewhere down the chain someone doesn't understand how gamers or games usually work.

It tends to be a case of bad management overall. Mass Effect 3's problems, for example, apparently stemmed from the theory that the two lead writers holed themselves up in a room jacking each other off over their "great ideas". Nobody else got much, if any, say in the matter and so nobody could critique their ideas before deadlines struck.

When you are a higher ranking "official" amongst the community you can also gain a very big ego. Lots of Blizzard employees suffer from this, for example. They've been in the industry for over 10 years so some of them think they're righteous Gods amongst mere mortals because of this.

In general, I don't actually find many horrible games. I really don't. Dragon Age 2 was fun but much of it's storyline was dumbed down. I loved the streamlined combat personally, and this is coming from someone who loved playing Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale (both frightfully complex in today's market). Overall DA2 suffered largely from tedious quests and a badly drawn out plot. Where it shone was in combat and character design (which is still fairly common in BioWare). I love dwarves and Varric was awesome.

Likewise, Mass Effect 3 really wasn't as bad in retrospect (and I'm considering making a retrospect review on this title). It's ending was still shot to hell but I am not going to discount ~30 hours of fun because the last 20-30 minutes were bad. That's bloody stupid. The plot and combat were fine until that point, and character design is still superb.

[synthetic]

If we're talking title-specifics, I did enjoy ME3 but seemed more like a weird DLC for ME2 I suppose. For similar reason its ending didn't bother me at all, because I was so shocked by the random kid thing that I picked a completely random choice and jumped into some kind of void. In retrospective I don't remember its endings at all, and the cut scene of what came after calmed me down enough to pretend the kid thing never happened. Because of this, even though ME3 imo perfectly illustrates the gradual trend of dumbing down games, I personally still appreciate the trilogy as a whole. Doesn't mean it didn't leave me with a few questions about the general game development direction, though.

I like the entire stereotype of dwarves but didn't like Varric personally. That said, he was hands down the best fleshed out character in that game. If we're talking gratification, I wish that interrogator chick would've taken her top off, because her tantrum didn't concern me as a listener-viewer much.

[Psychotic]

The issue with the interrogator was that she was random. She was essentially a nobody in the larger scope of the story sent to pick up any leftover pieces.

My belief is DA2's storyline was so poor because it was only designed to introduce a new character - Hawke - into the Dragon Age mythos, so that players could better associate with him in future titles that may flesh out the mythos' story a bit. DA2 also served as an excuse for more Templar vs. Mage conflict but didn't really express it well enough, in my opinion.

However, like Mass Effect I don't believe the writers actually know what they're doing with Dragon Age. They might have but since a lot of the original writers aren't at BioWare (or are working on totally different things) new things have had to be put in place.

People at BioWare have already said that the ending for ME3 was just one of a few examples, and I argued that they clearly didn't know what were they wanted to go in the first place, as so little games seem to these days.

I am by no means a renowned writer but I believe, and I know a few worthy authors do to, that it's usually better to write a story's ending first then fill in the games. Knowing where you're going makes it easier to find the path there in the future, but if you don't know what you want or where it is how can you ever hope to get there?

Sorry for the rather off-topic nature that was but I figured it was relevant to the games in general and why, story-wise, some might end up poorly received.

[synthetic]

If the story and at least some of the atmosphere comes out right, I am fully willing to ignore buggy or awkward gameplay. This is why I love Obsidian, yet would agree with the occasional comment about the overall quality of their releases. This is why I like KOTOR2 more than KOTOR1; and generally explains why I loved Bloodlines even though that game initially had game-breaking bugs and all kinds of awkward. I also quite enjoyed Alpha Protocol, but it did not manage to make me replay it. Even not the most polished games can pull you in just nicely, but with lot of recent games all we see is lot of polish and nothing to be pulled into.

I suppose ME3 ending seemed like a great idea on the paper and was supposed to be shocking. Well, it at least partially accomplished its goal. I do agree though that the writer should have a clear understanding of where the story is going, but while twists season the story you can also break it by twisting it too much. DA2 imo was flaccid from start to finish and there wasn't much to twist. Random interrogator? Yea, great idea, lets put completely random chick in the opening scenes and shove her attitude in your face.

[Psychotic]

The idea of knowing where to go doesn't necessarily prevent plot twists. It's a general concept rather than a fully fleshed out idea.

Had BioWare stuck with the "dark energy" story they'd have likely fleshed it out more, but at least they'd have known where they stood. Problem is they really had no clue even from the end of ME2.