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"Your Lack of Faith is Disturbing" (How You Feel About Game Developers)
JohnShields
Member Posts: 35
I'm curious... what does it take, or has it taken for you to give up on an MMO developer? Are there any specific companies you most absolutely wont buy a game from because of something that had happened?
I bring this up because I've seen a trend over my many years of MMO gaming. Technically I've seen this trend across all genres but specifically MMO's. These developers make the same mistakes over and over, take your money, and then basically run. They shut their doors and windows and don't listen to a word the consumer says, and their games slowly die off with you footing the bill until you get tired of it.
I'm curious to see how many of you are upset by the business practices of these developers. I for one swore up and down I would NEVER buy another Cryptic game. I was with them in Champions, and then Star Trek Online and they dropped the ball over and over. I watched companies like SOE take their games and overnight completely ruin them beyond any sort of recognition. Other developers have taken games and KNOWING that there were problems, went forward any way (ie. All Points Bulletin, Fallen Earth... at release... Age of Conan, etc). Only to go near total loss with not so much as an acknowledgment of their mistake.
Anyone else have this experience? For the record just so you know where I'm coming from... I've been gaming for the last 22 years (or so), and MMO gaming since the original Everquest, Ultima Online, and Dark Age of Camelot. I've played almost EVERY worthwhile MMO and FPS (and many not so worthwhile). I've watched countless games come and go at the drop of a hat. It's a little disappointing when you sit down and watch the industry closely.
Comments
I think most developers are not completely beyond redemption. I care more about the game behind the name, but if a game company has a bad rep with me personally in the past I take that into strong consideration and do my research.
Very rarely I will buy a game, usually off of Steam, that does not play at all on my computer. In that case, I will never buy a game from that company again. Ever.
The vast majority of current developers are a bunch of greedy jack wagons who wouldn't know a good game if it slapped them in the face.
That is how I feel. That is all.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
you played mmos for 22 years and you still playing them? you must have low standards , i dont have any " anti " company beliefs, its more about "noone " is capable anymore to create proper mmorpg that would be worth investing time into, i dont have much fait in gw2 either, archeage is only game thats worth following, im sure gw2 will be great and fun, but how long will that last,
a rpg in shooter clothes thats how i feel about gw2, no endgame, focused on pvp, i can play one in 20 mobas forthat or one in 09999999999 shooters
I'll never buy another game that has the EA logo or name anywhere on it. Reasoning is that they have caused my harm to quality of the video game industry than any good they may have done at any point. They have destroyed tons of great studios and buried tons of great IPs.
For me to even try another Themepark game it would almost have to have a "M" rating. I will give any sandbox game a shot though.
That statement doesn't really have a lot to do with the developers themselves.
But hey, it'll get a lot of "me toos" for sure.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Eh, but altering my post does? What are you doing lol, nothing better to do?
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
I've been gaming for 22 years, less in MMO's. But no I don't have low standards. I play games to see what the industry is doing with them. Ocassionally I'll find a game that I can sit down with and play for a couple years before moving on... but I'm ALWAYS playing something new. I've beta tested hundreds of games just for the chance to see what these guys are doing.
But that experience has given me the unique opportunity to make note of the practices of game developers and especially those that expect you to continue to pay a subscription fee. Lots of good and bad going on that I've seen.
I won't buy anything with the EA name attached to it. Many reasons for this.
BW is now on my listed also but they are now EA, they failed with SWTOR and DA2 anyway, knew ME3 wasn't worth the cost.
I hate all blizzard games now and the OB for D3 confirmed they are still on my list but might buy D3 just for the co-op.
I'm not a Blizzard fan myself... but not because of anything they've necessarily done. I just don't like the quality they put out (everything is too cartoony for me). But that's their target group, so it's not a fault per se. The fact that Diablo III is $60 for launch where plenty of games are still $50 is another reason not to get it (I don't like gouging).
Bioware dropped the ball on TOR as far as I was concerned. But they don't put a lot of effort into their games. I'd be willing to give them another go if they came out with a new MMO... but certainly not again if they repeated their mistakes.
I will say though that for a new company, Trion was a huge surprise to me. Some of these developers pop up out of nowhere and sometimes catch me off guard. Others just take the same path and think we'll be dumb enough to buy into it. Unfortunately there are those that will.
You don't honestly believe that developers are greedy do you? WHY
It's very difficult to maintain any sort of a positive perspective about the industry in general after the last four years.
I credit most of this to production costs. For the parent company (the one funding the project) this puts incredible pressure for return on investment. They cut corners, they cater to the widest possible player base, and they come up with new ways to milk more out of the consumer.
The bottom line is that the suits are now the ones designing games. That simply doesn't work out as a win for anyone. All we end up with is hyper-commercialized crap competing with other hyper-commercialized crap, and the suits can't figure out what's going wrong.
It's time to let the DnD nerds design the games again. Until that happens, we're in for more of the same.
Sure, developers and publishers are greedy. So are players. It's part of human nature. The proper response is to give them money when they make a game you like and not when they don't, so that their greed will lead them to make games that you like. Sitting here and whining about them being greedy doesn't do any good.
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I'm willing to cut developers a lot of slack if they take risks and try some innovative things that just don't work out. I'm rather less understanding when they do something that has been tried and failed dozens of times before. And I'm not at all understanding when they make decisions that make me think, how could they possibly have thought that was a good idea, even on paper? For example, Atlantica putting its regularly scheduled maintenance on the American servers during evenings in the US--exactly when the most players will want to log on and play.
Way to stick to your guns. Your post is like a greatest hits list of the same things the rest of the people in this site hate...
As far as the OP, there isn't a company I would stay away from. If I am intrigued by a game and it seems like it would be fun to play then I would check it out.
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
It's not the developers that are messed up it's the top dog's that call the shot's that are. The coders, artists, sound engineers, server techs all the way to the janitor are just folks who follow orders. Making an mmorpg is no different than buying or starting any other business. They pitch a idea to a investor and if they bite, get the money they need to start production.
Right now i feel that the mmo genre doesn't really know what it wants to do, going forward. You still have companies selling the huge sub numbers of one mmo that was an anomily and successful for the last 6 or 7 yrs. You have your regular mmo devs that followed that path and have produced some pretty dull titles that have left them but no choice to either shut them down or make them FTP with cash shops.
You have SPRPG companies stepping into the mmo genre for the first time, trying to push successful console titles and blurring the lines between SPRPG with coop features and horrible implementation of mmorpg systems, that leave just a bad taste in the mmo player community mouths.
You also have the indie companies that are so underfunded, but try and not walk the beaten path with their ideas. The titles usually come out horribly on the tech side, but really new and refreshing on the concept side.
It's like the music biz. Once a recording studio has a new and fresh hit maker. Every other company copies it, until it becomes a parady of itself. This is where i feel the mmo genre is at right now.
I don't lose faith in developers. The people who make games can, and generally do, learn from their mistakes. It always comes down to money; do we have enough funding to make this better, do we have enough time, is this going to please investors enough, etc. The developers are seldom in control of that, their job is to make the game, it's someone else's job to sell it. And in order to meet that money goal, deadlines are set, corners are cut, ideas are dropped, complexity is consolidated and content is chopped up into DLC.
I don't blame the developers for that.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
Pretty impressive replies thus far. A lot of good comments. Curious to see what other people have to say.
Ah, don't let that one get you ya. Not worth it.
Anywho, for whatever reason, I don't think the gaming industry is attracting the passion-filled creative minds that it once did. Not saying that there are not a few exceptions here and there, but judging by what has been pumped out the last several years (with respect to mmos in particular), something is clearly way off.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
Dont confuse quality with aesthetic style. "Cartoony" is an artistic choice, not a lack of quality.
That having been said, I've never been a fan of Blizzard either. I enjoyed Warcraft 2 way back when, but thats the only game of theirs I've ever really been fond of. Still, I wont refuse to try any of their future games.
I cant say there's any company I'm outright boycotting, but I have 0 love for EA. They are, in my opinion, the embodiment of everything that is wrong with the gaming industry. That having been said, I did buy SSX, and I do enjoy the game, but if the rumors are true, and Nexon does buy EA, I would not be the least bit disappointed if they were to disband the company, fire upper-management, and keep the developers on their individual studios.