Emob78: Games that try too hard. Hmmm... let's me see.
Pretty much any new game made with a budget of over $1,000,000. They say that shit likes to roll uphill. It would appear that this theory may have some evidence to support it. Sadly, AAA gaming is just trash right now. I'm really hoping things turn around. The future does not look bright.
Darvond: The face of the industry is about to make a three way change. First, there is VR. Second is the (any day now) collapse of the console market in the face of pointlessness. (If they're built on the same spec as a normal PC, what's the use?), and third, there is the always shifting role of leading companies.
Part of the reason is also corporate models of success. I'm not at all against corporations, but I'm very critical of their methods. Large corporations usually have at least 2 very adverse strategies for continued success that actually negatively affects success. Those are 1 - infinite growth and 2 - aversion to risk. Those two concepts alone do as much to damage innovation and profit than a having a corrupt CEO who was skimming off the top.
And that's why they all try too hard. A typical studio or publisher will find a certain game formula that seems to work and then just copy and paste it literally until it has exhausted all creative energy. Then the scales start to slide and a smart company will just latch onto a newer formula and hopes that it can ride that new one for a bit longer. There's no actual need for innovation or alternative strategies when the current one is seeming to be very profitable. That to me is why so many big AAA gaming companies are stifled. People buy things without conscious thought or 'putting their money where their mouths are'. If people buy crap, there's absolutely no motivating factor for the big publishers to not keep making crap. If you were an inventor and you invented some amazing machine that people would pay $100 dollars for, but then you realized through a price hike that they would also pay $200 for it, which prices is going to end up being on the sticker? I think anyone with half a brain would know the answer to that one. At that point, the actual quality of that amazing new machine is secondary, leaning towards being irrelevant.
When gamers stop buying crap, they'll soon discover the diminishing of said crap. I refer to the definition of insanity for an even clearer answer.