The Battle Our Industry Faces

Mainstream Accessibility Versus Fanbase Appeasement

by exterminat

©2011 Nicholas Laborde

Gaming has been anywhere but in the decline in recent years, with no end in sight.

Five years ago, the Wii brought gaming to the forefront of consumer desires, allowing for ease of use and the ability for anyone to finally get in on gaming, while Nintendo promised the core gamers their “real” titles.

The year is now 2011, and more often than not I find myself thinking, “What the hell has happened?”

I look at the newest Hitman title, and it’s a cover-based shooter with autosaves and regenerating health.

I look at any new FPS, and it’s brown with bloom exploding all over the place.

Our industry has changed throughout this generation; fingers are not being pointed at anyone in particular.

It’s everyone that’s causing the problem.

Look mom – video games!

The biggest problem we as gamers face is that of the newfound mainstream aspect of our passion.

No longer is gaming a sacred ritual restricted to the nerdiest of guys in their basements, where only the coolest of the cool and the “bro-est” of the “bro” would preside.

Anyone and everyone can join in the fun now with tons of new ways to play, and it’s revolutionized how games are played and how they are made.

That’s what our industry is adapting to, and not necessarily in a positive way.

I’m all for change, and being able to share my passion with other people – especially ones that I care about – is a wonderful thing. I do admit that gaming becoming such a mainstream affair is a little unsettling, but it’s simply the way it has always been doing.

But when the entire industry begins to build itself off of these new consumers and methods, the end is in sight.

Developers (and the industry as a whole) face a vigorous battle: mainstream accessibility versus fanbase appeasement.

A valiant war…

We can put this into simpler terms: money versus respect.

In this day and age that Cliff Bleszkinski accurately predicted, rarely can a game survive without it being AAA. The middle ground is completely dead.

There are small indie games, and then there are big blockbuster hits. Gaming converting to the mainstream has caused the slow death of the middle ground over the years, with it finally culminating as of late into a plethora of either really phenomenal experiences or terribly bad ones.

As a result, the stakes are higher than ever. Developers’ doors are closing at the highest rate in history, and the game is simple: go big or go home.

Unfortunately, that’s business: it’s all about money, no matter how much you care.

Developers can take one of two routes in the wonderful year of 2011: A) Drastically change up a classic formula to make another sequel or a reboot to your franchise, making it accessible in the process and hoping it will sell millions, or B) continue doing what made you the developers you are today; while you may not rake in the cash, you’ll be respected by your fanbase and loved much more than if you sold out by doing option A.

I understand that we honestly can’t have a game series that stays precisely the same over every iteration, moreso if the series is nearly a decade or so old!

The fact of the matter is that you can’t just sell out. Hitman 5 (Hitman: Absolution) is the focal point for much of my criticism.

What was a classic stealth-oriented game with tactical, precise gameplay and limited save options is now a cover-based shooter with forced action segments and regenerating health. To top it all off, the original voice actors aren’t even returning!

Excuse me, but what the hell?!

I’m sure this decision was made after the publisher reportedly lost a few million dollars in their last fiscal year, blah blah…

Sellout or Sell in?

Do you think this is right?

I most certainly don’t. Sure, I understand that the companies have to make money. That’s a given, and it’s a tough world out there (especially nowadays). But you can’t just decimate a game series that has many loving and caring fans by selling out in order to make some quick cash.

Another example: Splinter Cell Conviction. I’ll make myself clear: I loved the game, and I loved it as a game. But not a Splinter Cell game.

Splinter Cell was known for doing what it did best, and that was stealth.

I’m not talking about your TAKE COVER AND HOPE THEY DON’T SEE YOU type of shenanigans; I’m talking legitimate sneaking through the dark, creeping through terrorist bases in the dead of night, hanging upside to break necks, using cool gadgets as the human embodiment of the Fifth Freedom, and so many other things that combine to create an elegant stealth experience.

Conviction? More or less a cover-based shooter with assisted aiming and a little bit of wall climbing. It wasn’t true Splinter Cell at all.

The public doesn’t know particularly why the original version of Conviction was scrapped, but that version of Conviction looked much more entertaining and rewarding than the one we got.

This is the gaming industry, not the movie industry. We want quality products from hard-working names that we know, trust and love.

It is not like other industries where the leader of one of these groups can live like a rockstar, making tons of money and half-assing all their products to get even more money.

It’s an everlasting battle that has defined this generation, and undoubtedly shows the signs that we most desperately need the next step forward in gaming.

Otherwise, we’re going to get more Hitman: Absolutions.

Absolution

What do you think?

Can we forgive developers that take the Conviction or Absolutions route?

Should we be open to the fact that life is about change, and that must come to our favorite games as well?

Or, instead, should we make our voices heard, and make sure that if drastic changes are made, the developers clearly and openly know how their fans feel about it?

It’s an altogether touchy subject, but is one of the biggest issues in our modern industry.

And until the next generation of hardware hits shelves, this will continue to become more and more of an everyday problem.

©2011 Nicholas Laborde

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Filed under: Xbox 360 Tagged: | "First Person Shooter", Game, Hitman, nintendo, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Conviction, Video game, Wii