I really disagree with their use of the term 'ruined.' Just because their tastes have changed to be more casual hardly means they've been ruined. Does that mean fans of comics are ruined if they don't read novels as much? To me it sounds really conceited that just because their game is more hardcore that anyone who doesn't play it is ruined.
I mean, I've never heard the Arma developers say anything even close to this, and their game is way more hardcore than Red Orchestra.
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Now you're just splitting hairs. If you wanted, I could say the same thing about Red Orchestra. They're not an FPS, they're a slightly more realistic WWII sim, so they're not in direct competition with the CoD casual market. Where's the line? Is Sniper Elite V2 an FPS, or is it in its own sniper sim genre? If you wanted, you could say nearly every single game is its own genre and therefore not in competition with any other game.
I do see the difference. The difference is that Red Orchestra wants to be hardcore but tries to appeal to the casual market. They could easily just ignore that market like Arma does, but instead, they say that anyone who doesn't like their game is ruined, which is a terrible choice of word.
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Arma is sandbox military shooter, it is really out of that genre.
But what I want to say... RO2 is not hardcore, it is normal FPS like they was until 2004. RO2 is only hardcore (btw, first RO was a lot harder) in comparison with nowadays casual console games. For example, first COD with expansion was too "hardcore", project igi, rainbow six, moh, vietcong, bf2 and so on...
And now we have only red orchestra. Last of the Mohicans
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That makes total sense to me. FPS games are diverging into the two different schools of casual and hardcore. Red Orchestra is caught in the middle, and it sucks for them, but it's their fault for not taking the market into account. Arma 3 only being outsold by two games at half off is a testament to the fact that there is a huge market for hardcore shooters.
You can see something similar with strategy games. Back in the day, tactics games emerged from RPGs before turn based strategy caught on. Tactics games were big for a while, but slowly, the market shifted to straight up strategy and straight up RPGs - tactics games were caught in the middle. Now, they only survive in the niche market thanks to Disgaea. We're seeing the same thing happen here. The market is shifting to hardcore vs. casual where all games used to be somewhere in the middle.
Also, I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with either type of game. I just really think it's childish of the devs to say that people who don't like their game don't like it because they're ruined. They're essentially saying that anyone who likes casual games is wrong and they're not supposed to like them.
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The problem is not about individual taste.
It is about the loss of diversity due to market shares and impact.
IDC how many ppl play CoD clones and crap, but I do care if there's nothing else left to play because someone wants that market share. Thats how games like CoD or WoW ruin gaming for people that don't even play them.
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Call of Duty, while fun, is not the most realistic shooter out there. I agree with the skill gap thing, and also with the guns. I see this happen all the time on Xbox, where you have a guy in your sights, and he sprays and prays and somehow kills you with hip fire from 80 yards out. I'm not hating on the elite players out there, because they have genuine skill, but there are a lot of ways to get effed over in that game when you've clearly had the upper hand.
To me, Call of Duty has grown quite stale. Its basically a $60 map pack with some new guns. I've yet to see something that warrants a full $60 price tag on these games. They will continue to sell though, because there are a lot of people out there that are "brainwashed" into buying almost the same identical product as last year. Yes, they add a single player campaign (I've played every single campaign in these games) but if I had to imagine the amount of people who play single player is low.
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Admittedly, they have done a remarkable job making recent CoDs as playable as it is. Any other series would be completely lame by its sixth clone. The CoD formula is a really fun one.
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I agree with Tripwire, especially about how the CoD developers have (very cleverly, in my opinion) engineered the game so that you can do very well with a very limited amount of skill (throught the use of different guns, killstreaks, equipment, etc)
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I forget what I was reading and/or watching that talked about this. Maybe Penny Arcade? Anyway, they talked about skill in games and that a well designed game will guide people up the power curve. It's also important that you can still be effective with less skill. So tactic A might be really easy to do but is still pretty effective. Learning tactic/skill B might be twice as hard as tactic A but it might only provide an additional 10% benefit. This allows worse players to compete against better players without getting too discouraged but still allows better players to have a significant advantage.
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I assure you he does not.
See, doesn't work like that. Theres no way you know what he thinks but from what I read in the interview he makes a very good point about how the players are pampered because of COD. He was frustrated as a developer because most of the feed back he received was, "not COD like enough", which shows how pampered most of the FPS audience really is.
That's what I understood from that interview.
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Is it really the CoD players' fault that simulations are not the majority's cup of tea? Why do you think it happens that most people prefer arcadey games over simulations in pretty much all game genres?
He's not selling as much as he hopes to, so he picks one of the most influental names and shits on it.
And sure he's finding an audience when the entire internet is ablaze from CoD haters.
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He didn't shit on it - he gave valid opinions on what he believes COD games have done to players, but where he did hedge, was in failing to criticize the customers/players - almost every genre right now is being dumbed-down because of crybaby gamers not wanting a challenge. Everything has to be spelled out with an arrow pointing to it and all hell will break out in the forums if they get penalized for dying (permadeath) or not getting something right. Franchise games like COD simply deliver what the younger generations want and unfortunately it doesn't stop at video games - check the job market and see how many of the younger generation cry like sissies when a company doesn't cater to their every whim - what no free bottled water, live music in the cafeteria, or a napping place where I can take naps while on the clock? Too bad those aren't made up examples...
The issue isn't so much with the developers for giving the great unwashed masses what they want, but with the very gamers themselves for demanding crap like that to start with. Every beta I've ever been in has a very vocal hardcore group of Nerf-happy fools looking to remove any and all challenge to a game - with the hardcore gamer crowd on the other end crying for equally ridiculous things. The devs simply figure that overall there are more people NOT playing games at all that would fit into the Nerf crowd, so why not dumb the game down and hopefully pull them into the fold and make even more money.
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Good interview.
Reminds me a of a little story i wanna share.
My nephew is 14 years old, he's also into gaming, especially Call of Duty (wasn't that hard to guess?).
Some time ago, i thought i'd show him what FPS titles we used to play back in the days, so i decided to introduce him to CS, UT and Quake 3 Arena.
Long story short, after playing those games he was very frustrated about how "different" they are compared to CoD.
(Probably he was just frustrated because those game didn't reward him instantly, like nowadays FPS games do.)
I don't remember the -exact- wording, but it was something like this:
"Those games aren't fun, because they are way to difficult, the aiming is strange and i get killed all the time, the movement system is slow, you can't just rush with a MG thru a horde of enemies like in COD. Also it sucks that there are no achievements"
He was frustrated and gave up on those games.
Well, pretty sad if you ask me.
Have you made similar experiences?
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Also it sucks that there are no achievements
"Arguments" like these are pissing me off to no end. Especially when i see people using achivements as a deciding point in buying a game on Steam
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Unfortunately games are about fun and kids don't seem to like losing now. They want games they can win at because winning is fun. CoD can be very mindless and is often a game I play when I don't want to try, and people seem to love that...all the time...
It's a shame.
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Welcome to the 21st century. For the last 25 years now it's gotten systematically worse, year by year. Can't give one kid the trophy, cuz it'll make the other kids feel bad about themselves (and, of course, there are no losers!). Can't correct the kids when they get something wrong, because there's no such thing as "wrong." Can't punish them, because they'll lose self-esteem. It's insane. And now those kids are adults and teaching the next generation how to be ultimate milquetoast, too. So is it any wonder some game company catered to that mindset to make a buck? Smart marketing; horrible social engineering.
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+1 these were also my first FPS I played. Wonderful old times.
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He's so right... anything to complain about it, is just reality!
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There are many points there that I agree with. The skill is compressed in Call of Duty. Red Orchestra 2 is a game I wish more people played because it's very satisfying to survive encounters with the enemy and come out victorious. The overall "experience" is better.
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I've been gaming online for years and almost every multiplayer game I get into I do well. Usually the older it is, the harder it is. I played a lot of Wolfenstein ET and the skill to dodge while aiming well really grew on me. So yeah I agree. Most of the modern shooters are so simplified. I went 50/2 on almost every Black Ops room on my first day. That of course resulted in a rain of hate and a kick every time. Then again not a big fan of uber-realistic shooters like RO is. I want my multiplayer games with a scent of whacky while enabling you to improve your skills. That's ET speaking.
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Are all of the CoD games easy-kill, railroad jobbies as described in the interview? I'm a long-time FPS nut (although always tacking "shooter" onto that is troublesome, as the greatest game ever made was Thief, and I'll blackjack you and take your gold if you disagree), but somehow I never got around to playing any of the CoD games. Ironically, I'd only just recently been tempted to finally "fix" that, because the ads for the Block Ops stuff, especially the zombie variants, looked like fun.
And just for the sake of making it interesting, the ads for BF: Bad Company 2 look insanely fun. Bought that one recently, but haven't jumped in yet.
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CoD is appealing in its own ways. Even though I don't disagree with the statement, I think it's a bit harsh to call CoD "the destroyer of the FPS genre" or something along those lines. It's a fun game and it is obvious that it doesn't really try to be much more. People spend hundreds of hours in a game not because they paid 60$ for it and want to get the value out but because the formula, while simple, works. For instance, I believe that 60$ CoD "upgrade" is worth more money than some Single Player, linear game, regardless of the story and everything around it. CoD does not enchance FPS genre in any way, for sure, but it uses simple formula to make a fairly simple game and that works. I have nothing against it really, I even enjoyed some of the CoD's for a fair amount of time. Whoever's ready to spend 60$ or so on the "new" game, it's his call. He/she's spending his/hers own money and I really don't see a proper reason to judge.
Cheers.
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And it's even easier to be a hater...show me one FPS better than COD....crickets Choose wisely, I don't want to laugh my ass off so early in the morning.
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Guys, are you sure that you read that article? Because I am not.
I am not hater, I am guy which played games since sega mega drive, so I can see (like all other older gamers) where all gaming is going... I do not care if people play only casual games or not. I am only sad because there are only two exclusive PC hardcore FPS, and servers are almost empty, because of all casual games out there... it is something like MTV (or cartoon network) in 2000 and now...
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I have been playing for 30+ years myself...I agree maybe the new generation of games seems limited on the variety, but we can only play the games that are made available to us. I don't think it's COD's fault, they just need to make another ground breaking kind of game like Zelda or Metroid was back in the day.
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FPS Better than CoD? You can't ask anything easier?
Crysis
Stalker
Metro 2033
Planetside 2
Battlefield (pretty much every single one)
Painkiller
Serious Sam
Bulletstorm
Bioshock
Arma
Doom
Quake
Fear
Fallout 3, NV
Red Orchestra
Team Fortress 2
Star Wars - Republic Commando
Borderlands
Counter Strike
Half Life
Far Cry
Prey
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Natural Selection 2
Killing Floor
Just to name few off the top of my head
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so that quote of mine was my argument? you made my day, thanks
My argument is article on top of the page. So if there are some bullshits, I want to know exact quotes and also your own opinion. That is like discussions works. Not only "nope" or "bullshits". On shitty post is impossible respond with non-shitty reply.
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It doesn't have to "catch on." It's already a thing. It's been a thing for years now. Where have you been?
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Call of Duty is the benchmark by which all other FPS shall be judged, not because of it's billions of dollars in sales, but because it's the best one out there right now and has been for years. This guy is just name dropping all the top titles knowing the backlash will get him even more attention. I like Killing Floor a lot, and have nothing against Tripwire, but this is pretty lame.
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The recent COD games are not really good, they are fancy but that's all they are.
Casual by definition and nothing more than a voicechat flame fest.
I'd pick CS, the older Battlefield games or CoD 1 over the recent COD games anytime.
It's not "the benchmark by which all other FPS shall be judged", it's just the prime example of what instant gratification has done to FPS genre.
Just as the article states, you don't need to steadily improve your skills anymore, to actually rock the game.
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Well I can say this: FPS is my favorite kind of game...if there is one better than Call of Duty, what is it? Not to be sarcastic, but totally serious. Also, muting everyone outside your party calms all those chat issues...
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I agree with what he said. Another thing I don't like about COD is that because it is so popular, literally everyone plays it. So then you got everyone thinking that they are so amazing at COD. I also don't like that Activision makes these games every year, and people buy it, whether it's actually good or not. And since they sell so well, they just keep making them. And because COD is the only FPS game that a lot of people play, they think that it's as good as FPS gets. They don't know that there can be so much more.
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no comment sir.. i mostly agreed :D but bringing down names is just...
well nvm xD
CoD is a Fine game.. i still like the stories but not really into it for the multiplayer :D
CHAINS!?
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PC Gamer interview with John Gibson about casual multiplayer games
Totally awesome article, which "hit the nail on the head".
What do you guys think? I agree absolutely with everything
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