I disagree with a lot of your minor points and examples... (Gaming)

by Leviathan , Hotel Zanzibar, Wednesday, April 06, 2016, 16:45 (3156 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Final Fantasy XV has to sell 10 million units to be considered a success. (source) Let that sink in. The only FF game to do those kind of numbers is FF7.

The only reliable numbers we have for Destiny are what was revealed in the lawsuit: 6.3 million (source) Even with numbers like that, we can't get significant content (despite buying it for year one) and we are instead treated to microtransactions.

I'm pretty sure we are already in, or will be in soon, a world where the most innovative, boundary pushing games will either be so expensive they can't be made, or they will be too big to fail. Forget VR and 4K gaming. They've got to figure out how to keep pushing games forward while actually being able to pay people…

This is going to be bad for the industry, and the wall may be closer than people think.

...But feel you on this overall note here.

It's a related feeling with movies, too. They can make huge swaths of money and considered a failure before the opening weekend is over. It's an industry now that needs a franchise with a perfected routine and heaps of licensed auxiliaries to be successful. We'll see infinite Star Wars sequels but a movie like the first Star Wars was in its timeframe will probably not happen in this current climate. Maybe on TV, but chances on the screen seem slim to me right now.

Similarly, I look now mostly to smaller games that innovate on different levels than graphics and complexity, and am instead surprised when a big game comes along that captivates me (it still happens, just not as often). Hell, I don't even think voice acting should be a standard for games, and I think making the graphics a reality-engine for every type of experience misses so many opportunities for great art. With graphics that suggest and stimulate instead, the player gets to build the world in his head, making it better than anything an engine could do. The more realistic the graphics, the harder it is to imagine it as something more, and the more easily distracting the flaws are (dead eyes in Ass-ass-in games for example). I don't need a fancy remake of FFVII because Cloud's voice and looks were perfect in my head. His Mako-infused eyes were full of passion and confusion in my memory, because I contributed to the experience as much as the work did.

It's sort of like putting circles in your painting that are cropped off by the edge of the canvas. The effect is, mentally, your brain completes the circle, extending the image into new dimensions that it couldn't be on its own.

...I think I switched topics, didn't I? Anyway, I thought sharing some level of agreement with Cody Miller was worthy of note. :)