SPOTTED

• 3:25pm EDT - March 11th, 2013
• 1

Been gaming since 1980.  Every system in my lifetime has gotten better....until now.  The PS2 was a better "gaming" machine than the PS3.  Games are just lacking nowadays.  Graphics are fine, but gameplay/mechanics are steadily getting worse.  So they try to cover this up with silly things like internet browsers, youtube apps, etc etc etc.  Some fail to see the truth.  Nice article PSU. 

jrc1978 | SilentCivilian

• 3:41pm EDT - March 11th, 2013
• 2

It's also possible that game developers are getting too big for their britches and trying to do too much too fast. There needs to be a certain level of quality control. This is similar to what the auto industry just went through. On top of that, I guarantee you there are too many overpaid employees at these companies quickly drying up the funds. They need to focus on efficiency and quality so they can do more with less and control costs for the customers. That's my 2 cents.

Bones311

• 3:48pm EDT - March 11th, 2013
• 3

@1 well thats a completely subjective stance that you're trying to pass off as fact. which is pretty small minded. To think that just because you enjoyed the games of yesteryear better than now means that the industry as a whole is going to crap means you're just a whiney brat. Go and try playing games from last generation. Controls are crap, movement was stiff and hard to control, aiming was slower and stiffer. Game play mechanics have both remained the same and evolved... so you can go either way. This is like someone using windows 98 and then complaining that windows 8 is a piece of crap because you're not used to it. They're two different things that suit the needs that change as the times do. Deal with it.

SPOTTED

• 4:48pm EDT - March 11th, 2013
• 4

@above...and thank you for your very own "completely subjective stance."   Another problem these days...it's no big deal to be a complete hypocrite.  I can't believe my opinion would send you into such a frenzy.  Laughable.  Did you think I was responding to you or stating "my thoughts" as I read this...Hey SPOTTED! What are your thoughts?  Picture me rolling...

Damn noobs, always trying to get me to notice them. 

Alpha2

• 5:15pm EDT - March 11th, 2013
• 5

@Bones311 Change for the sake of change is not good, it's forced and often results in problems because it's not planned and issues arent accounted for. Win98 worked fine, Windows VISTA on the other hand WAS garbage. Windows 7 is actually pretty good. Windows 8 is worthless unles you have one of those new tablet PCs. The reality of the PS2 is that it had more exclusives, it had far more AAA titles and was better positioned in it's generation than the PS3. The PS3 might have more options for things like netflix, internet browsing and have blu ray, but that's not exactly making it a better over all "game" system than the PS2, heck half of the features aanounced for the PS4 don't even make it better than the PS3 What matters is what developers do with the tools.

Of course if the PS3 had won this generation it would be easier to say all of that it bunk and that SPOTTED's opinion is worthless, but in many cases the video above echoed exactly what he's saying. Developers are getting lazier and they're asking more from us while we're getting less effort from them in general. This whole article and the video attached are all about DEALING with it, by actually standing up and complaining and not taking what we're given like a bunch of mindless lemmings.

Disgustipated

• 6:46pm EDT - March 11th, 2013
• 6

I have to agree with this documentary. It brings up a lot of things I have felt for a few years. Kids today or even adults that didn't play games before but do now are very spoiled and in some ways missing out.

I do owe a big thanks to Nintendo because that was the first game console I was blown away by. I remember going to a friends house and seeing it works it's magic for the first time and I went home and begged my parents for one. As a whole, it really did change things. Then you had supernintendo and Sega Genises. Great consoles as well. The controls for that time were state of the art and it was crazy that you could go to an arcade and then be able to play arcade games AT HOME. Kids today wouldnt want to touch it because back then some games you had to FIGURE OUT. You didnt have instruction manuels as you played the game, you had PAPER manuels that actually had instructions in it.

Guess what else? if there was a glitch in the game, you were stuck with it. No patches, BUT YOU HAD A COMPLETE AND WHOLE GAME. NO DLC. You go to the store, pay your money, take the game home and enjoy. They made games challenging then. Most games didn't really follow a specific pattern like they do today. Every First person shooter is the same mechanics in some form or another. The creativity is lacking, companies are less inclined to take risks. I once read an article that game companies wanted to do more sequels on already proven franchises. Yet I read a rumor that the Next Batman Arkham game will not be made by Rocksteady, who did a fantastic job by the way, but by Warner brothers. Why? If it isnt broke dont fix it.

Non complete games. I think the downfall of current generation consoles was that the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 not only had to be updated every so often with new versions but they would also add and or take away features. Back in the ps2 days there wasn't anything like that. That was the last time, any customer actually OWNED their console and all its parts. Greed has taken  over quite a bit more this generation. Now games now have patches to fix bugs or whatever, also DLC is a big deal. Guess what? It didnt used to be like that. Games came whole and even game makers like Acclaim and midway had "secrets and cheat codes" in their games. It was FREE. It was just the joy of trying to figure it out and or talk to a community of people and asking questions. It was awsome when you did something and tried to figure out what it was to repeat. You felt accomplished in finding a code or cheat. Now you just pay money or "DLC" that's right. You pay about 5 or 10 dollars to add stuff to a game you already bought. Total B.S. when they release a game at launch then in about 6 months or less release DLC for purchase, then in about a year's time, they release a "Game of the year edition" which has ALL the DLC on the game already. So you can buy and full and complete game  FOR A LOWER PRICE. do the math on that one. A 60 dollar game plus however much for the DLC is going to be OVER $70 U.S. wait a year and get a Full and complete game AKA "game of the year edition" and pay probably 50 or 60 dollars. Total garbage. Prime example is Neatherrealm studios. Release Mortal Kombat, a franchise that USED to offer these secrets and cheats for free when they released their games, now releases a game, then releases DLC then a year later releases a Mortal Kombat Komplete edition? Does nobody but me find this  practice extremely degrading as a customer?

Current gen kids, are just being fed trash and think its cool. Granted the graphics are alot better looking now then before, You can take a crap wrap a bow around it, and it's still a piece of crap. I just hope the main focus of the next generation isnt putting to much faith that keeping people connected is by implementing more social media. The whole point of a game console is to be able to enjoy playing games on it. Or watching a movie. Its about entertainment. If a crap game entertains you great. But it will just be the same games coming out and being recycled until you get bored and tired of it. I dont buy every game that comes out every tuesday. I wait for the awsome games to come out.

Bones311

• 6:49pm EDT - March 11th, 2013
• 7

@spotted... wow. look who got butthurt over a little criticism. "frenzy"? "noob"? "trying to get you to notice them".. you really are a whiney brat who is trying to get people to notice you. So, I'm a hypocrite cause i said subjective things? like what? that controls WERE crap? yup thats an opinion, that has been echoed by every game developer this generation, and the generations past. You see, game controls are one of those things that are always being improved upon, so for me to make a generalized statement that they're "Crap" which is me sayin "they're subpar to this generation" isn't subjective more than collective idea constantly being improved upon. However me telling you you're a brat is subjective, but still true.

if you somehow think me detailing the flaws of controls in the past is subjective then you should grab a dictionary, because the obvious contrast between generations does not equal an opinion.

@alpha, I'm not saying the change for sake of change is good... nothing in what i said was meant to seem that way. I'm saying that times change and so does technology so there needs to be improvements made, changes to keep up between one piece of hardware or another. perhaps if i said you wouldn't take a video card from 10 years ago and say "this is better than video cards today" it would have been a bit more straight forward. My analogy with windows is merely that windows 98 was made for technology and resources in 98, windows 8 utilizes newer resources and technology. we didn't have wifi in 98 so it wasn't built into the operating system, but windows 8 can handle that. The correleation between that and this generation (specifically controls and gameplay mechanics) is that with more computer power means more possibilties with gameplay thus meaning that controls need to be optimized to meet new gameplay. You wouldn't want the stationary camera of early resident evil games to plague a game where you need to see 360 like portal.

I'm not sure if you two have a hazy memory of the last generation but there were MAJOR flops in games, and there were major sucesses. Studios churned out series that people hated and there were series that people loved. EA, Ubisoft and Activision were already under scrutny for just being money hungry. so whats the difference between then and now?

 I'm not sure what games spotted was a fan of last generation and we all know a few franchises were killed this generation (like socom) and thats a shame, but a few instances of that don't define a generation. My point is everything evolves, especially when it comes to technology, you can't lament the new with a yearning for the past... because then you're just a sad sack living in the past. Xbox this generation was a more open platform than ps3 due to  hardware and the wads of cash microsoft threw at developers for exclusives. i dont really hear anyone going around saying "i have an xbox360 and i feel last generation was better". blame the ps3, blame sony for restricting the potential of the ps3, whatever... but GAMING as a whole has not gone down hill.

Also this argument against DLC is so blindly stated constantly. there are TWO ways DLC is implimented. the bad way, which is making something that is minimal and charging more for "extras" that should have been there in the first place. the second way is making a robust game and giving the option to expand upon that. Expansion packs have been around forever... and you know what? no one went around saying "that should have been in the first game!" instead they would equate crappy sequels as "1.5 version of (whatever game)" or "it might as well be an expansion of the last game".  But now... because DLC is so prevalent, it seems the majority seem to believe it should have been in the game in the first place. A game like Battlefield 3 or even the bad company games made FULL ROBUST GAMES and then offered even more for the consumer... some of it was even free cause dice is good like that. Are you going to tell me that those DLC exemplify a game that wasn't complete? You can't blanketly vilify a thing such as DLC because some companies impliment it as a sneaky money maker.

IAmBlutoo

• 8:49pm EDT - March 11th, 2013
• 8

I'll take the PS3 and all its games over the PS2 and all its games.

OsborneLV | Eric_Osborne

• 1:52am EDT - March 12th, 2013
• 9

 The entire video is based on used games not working, its already been said that won't happen. and even the guy in the video said himself that its very unlikely to be true. thanks PSU i just wasted 30 minutes of time.

Steelgear2k

• 7:12am EDT - March 12th, 2013
• 10

I thought this video was really over-simplistic and overly focused on a couple of big misses over the past couple of years. lets not forget that failures did occur 'in the golden age' of gaming between 1985 - 2008. the Gamecube even though it had some high quality games failed due to the sheer amount of low quality ports.

I particularly think that Mass effect 3 is overly criticized, the mass effect trilogy in general has probably the best production values of this generation in terms of story and character development. its was always going to be a difficult trilogy to end, it could have been done better but i still thought it provided a decent amount of closure, granted i have only played the extended cut.

I do agree with certain aspects and some market sectors that are at risk or are pushing it a little bit. Franchises on a one year release schedule cannot maintain quality, your Fifas, Maddens, CoDs etc. However the user base for those titles has maintained for a number of years. If this video were made 5 or 6 years ago the same argument could be made for franchises like Medal of Honor and Guitar Hero which didn't survive or at least not in the same format. 

Game developers should be able to make mistakes, if you remove the ability to make mistakes you kill innovation. they will stick to an 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' mentality which leads to a series of diminishing returns.

Lets not forget EA in 2008, in 2008 EA released a number of new IPs unprecedented because it is probably the most conservative developer in the world, except perhaps maybe blizzard, it usually sticks to franchises it knows will work. this results in:-

-Army of Two

-Dead Space

-Mass Effect

-Mirrors Edge

-Spore

-Warhammer Online

It also rebooted titles that had become stale and were under-performing

-Burnout Paradise

-Battlefield: Bad Company

The majority of these games were critically acclaimed and were well received among consumers that played them, however this resulted in EAs worse financial year ever. Since 2008 EA have launched 2 new IPs, DragonAge & Dante's Inferno, but has shown a consistent revenue. can you blame EA for pumping out a new, basically unchanged Fifa every year if people want it. Fifa 13, unchanged as it was and therefore costing almost nothing in development, sold over 12 million copies. 

I am confused over your stance on DLC, you say that to add content in the past you had to create a sequel which encouraged quality, but you also say that low quality sequels, e.g. Fifa or CoD, could be DLC in the form of updates to roster or to multiplayer. you cant have it both ways.   

Nakatomi Uk | Nakatomi_Uk

• 12:55pm EDT - March 12th, 2013
• 11

I enjoyed the era from the NES to PS2 than anything over my gaming life and I started gaming from 1986, since then the PS3 has been good but not fantastic nowhere near as good as the PS2 because I loved RPGs and there hasnt been any as good as the PS2 for the PS3

shadowjin | shadowjin

• 3:04pm EDT - March 12th, 2013
• 12

@ Bones311 100% agree. you took all the words out of my mouth. (both post) people seem to forget a game you played at the age of 6-10 or whenever a player started to game , will always have an impact over newer games.I enjoyed FF7 (playstation) and Final Fantasy 3 (6 in the US) which had pixles because it was Super NES or what i had a Super Famicon.

I enjoyed them most than any other recent RPG because at that time simply because i was a kid, had a cheap sound system conencted to the TV . My fathers old boxed stereo system and no care in the world.  Many factors play into old games are better than newer for to those that hold onto nostaglia. Some just fail to see it and think everything is going down hill because they no longer have the same excietment.

I enjoy alot of newer games ie Uncharted, Ninja Giaden etc

Alphas2: "Windows 8 is worthless unles you have one of those new tablet PCs" Thank you for passing that opinion off as fact by stated the obvios. Not worth showing you everything else improved under the hood. Im sure its based off "start screen" being moved round. News flash: your boot up screen is the start screen. Dont like it take a second and select desktop. 

Disgustipated

• 6:44pm EDT - March 12th, 2013
• 13

Part of the problem with DLC and newer games in general is not that some of them are not exciting. Some games of today are pretty fun and entertaining. The vast majority however is a combination of non original stuff and to be honest, in the playstation 2 era, a game like marvel vs capcom or MVC2 even, you had the ability to unlock other characters and I believe at one point even play as a boss by doing a cheat code. That cost absolutely nothing and added a new excitement and different play mode and experience for that game. Things like that dont happen now, or are very rare if they do happen now days.

But how many times can you play a first person shooter or a game like Rage, or Borderland and get a sense of originality. Its pretty much the same concept and you know from the get go what to expect. If games and the next generation want to truely push forward they have to stop following a pattern. Games like call of duty succeed in part because there isnt any other game choice. It has dominated the market and is in my opinion fun but there have been so many other games that try to copy it that there is not many if any FPS that are fun or as fun.

New tech and what consoles are capable now is crazy when you look at it, but the point is not to stay in the ball park. The playstation 3 slogan used to be, "Play Beyond" sadly the market was dominated by game makers that didnt seem to want to try to figure out how to push it to its limits. To go beyond, in the next gen, DLC now is not worth it. If its a map pack or a character skin. Its just a marketing tool to milk more money out of the customer. That is the practice that has primarily dominated the dlc, and is sad because as I mentioned before, just 15 years ago things like 'DLC' didnt exist and no body made you pay for it. It was a cheat code that was completely free. Its a bit insulting to see dlc come up for purchase but then a month or two later even with call of duty go to the store and see the latest call of duty game with the maps that used to be dlc on the game disc. But if you just HAVE to have that map pack you're going to pay money, when it should have been on the disc in the first place. Some of that dlc is already made up, but is a timed release and is another marketing tool.

To go beyond that and to get your monies worth, the ps2 era had cheat codes and secrets, so in the next gen and to push the envelope further, why not have one game that you buy. A "DLC" for that game would not be a map pack or a character skin or weapons but ALL of that AND it would be an expansion of the story, new boss battles, new areas to explore, new cutscenes almost like another game, You could litteraly make your one game that you bought into weeks worth of extra playtime. It would be an extension or something, it would be an entire world. That is something that would really push things forward.Im talking DLC that you couldnt possibly add to the disc without making it a two or 3 disc game. That is dlc I woudnt mind paying for. If you want a new character for your sports game, great. if you like a new map pack, fine. but all its really doing is making a push for the gaming industry to be stale and just sit still because it works. I mean if the big push for the ps4 was social media then thats weak sauce. Its a game console. I understand sony as a company wanting to dominate every aspect of a customers life and they want to be the brand you use and play but I think the approach that they are trying to market themselves as more than a game console is not the best way to go. There are dedicated blu ray players that dont play games but are made to only do one job and do it well. Maby in order to excell the game companies need to remember what they sought out to do in the first place.

Another aspect is the fact that all these different models have came out, in the 5 years of the current games life. Used to it was one console model and thats all you needed. Now there is this gig or that gig, the fat big model or the slim model or the super slim model. Thats a little bit retarded and uncalled for especially since the conosles arent even 10 years old yet. Too much Too quick, too soon. The other aspect is things being taken away. Like I had a 60 gig launch model stollen from me, I cant get another one because its not manufactured any more. Its that kind of 'innovation' that is hurting the gaming market and hopefully it wont continue.