Content
Added 2021-04-16 13:01:02 +0000 UTCThere's an issue in gaming related to content, but surprisingly, it's not actually the lack of content, as popular of an issue as that might be with gamers. Rather, the issue is the development of content itself.
In days of yore, character models were assembled in hours by one man. Levels could be roughly made in days. Games had started and ended development in the same year. This was a time where a dozen people at ID Software could influence an entire industry and genre for decades, when credit lists could fit onto a single screen.
Its in this environment when games or gaming companies would build upon their previous work simply by adding moar content. 10 guns? Now it's 30 guns. 100 cars? Now it's 600 cars. Large world? Now it's largerer worlds!
In the 90s, sequels to many big games weren't 2-3, but 4-5-6, and it stems from content being quick to produce.
It was done so much, it became a habit. Sequels with less content or large augments in design were often chastise for exactly that. I remember Halo 2 reviews jumping straight to criticizing "how short" the campaign was, and Deus Ex Invisible War could never shake its reputation for "shoebox size" levels.
What's the point of setting this stage?
Well, it might explain why the habit as carried on despite the blunt truth that we're living in a completely different world.
Red Dead Redemption 2 was built by two THOUSAND employees. Like Max Payne 3, it went from being a Rockstar San Diego project, to being a Rockstar Studios project, demanding the hands of everyone from their global array of development houses.
All in the name of... content.
Think about it like this. You need a level, so what do you do? You get someone to build it. You need dialogue, you hire someone to write it. You need software tools, you get a programmer to make them.
The overwhelming majority of games are assembled like any other artistic production. You're given a set date with a bundle of cash, and a list of requirements. You need something, so you get someone for said something. The difference is, filming with an 8k camera doesn't require twenty new cameraman to use it.
Yet, that's exactly how games work. There's a reason most art-team credits these days eclipse a prison's inmate list. Studios are told to meet the amount of content achieved when character models were made by Steve in a day, and are then told upon meeting that task, to make moar.
Not to mention, most films are going to be somewhere around two hours (insert Snyder Cut joke here), whereas games have little consistency across the board in-terms of duration. So an RPG is released with hundreds of hours of content built by hand, and then the answer we have for the next game is... moar.
This isn't sustainable.
Other artforms might not have to change their production process due to how much less technology has change their fundamentally development.
But for as much as I love handcrafted games, if we're going to make experiences with more variables, more branching paths, more choices, more reactivity like has always been said yet has actually been whittling down because there's not enough hours in the day, we're going to have to find different solutions.
Maybe it'll be AI Algorithms aligning generating plot-scenarios according to a character sheet, more advanced procedural generation with environments that rival the first inspection detail of something handcrafted, or really flexible game systems that generate infinite interactions, that's basically what all the top level multiplayer games are, and probably why they're so popular to make, as well as to play.
It's an issue I don't have a solution for, yet doesn't leave my mind.
Comments
On one hand there are always games that scale back a bit and series that take a break after they exhaust themselves. I agree with you whole-heartedly and have searched for games that fill a void that really old games had left as my main impact from games stems from the late 90ties onwards. I recently played Rage Racer again as an example. Even after just dipping in I was surprised by the kind of artisanship that went into building the mechanics of the experience. Same goes for Ridge Racer V. Never played V back in the day because everyone bashed the game for delivering so little while Gran Turismo offered so many more cars and so many more tracks. But Ridge Racer V delivered something entirely different and I'm ashamed I let myself hold back from idiotic reviews that didn't understand the game. When I play Ridge Racer 6 onwards it feels like a shell of what made the old games great. All in the name of more. More tracks, more cars, more everything, but less soul, less difference between cars, less depth. Why would I care for 300 cars, when there are effectively 2 driving styles? I long for the times when we had 5 cars with distinctive styles and a distinctive feel. I chose that example because it's really simple to boil down what was gained (the amount of things) and what was lost (the balancing, the depth of mechanics, the little details you'd appreciate in calmer moments of goofing around, the general structure and ruleset on which the game builds). I still appreciate smaller titles, but I miss the triple A quality in game mechanics as the development time goes into more detail and more things. Smaller gems often miss that final touch that only the best designers can pull off. But I still prefer a trial for an interesting idea over something that only tries to tie me down to sink 1000 hours and more into a game. Those two are the extreme ends of spectrum I guess, but that is the essential conflict that you seem to describe. Every game prioritizes a little bit different, but as success generally lies in more content (even if mediocre), it's the smarter decision from a business perspective.
Vilvec
2021-04-24 22:10:01 +0000 UTC
