Disable GC entirely

[Nick Sabalausky]

On Tue, 9 Apr 2013 20:15:53 +1000
Manu <turkeyman at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9 April 2013 11:32, Nick Sabalausky
> >
> > I can't help wondering how big the "big games" world really is
> > anyway, though. I know there's huge sums of money involved, both
> > cost and revenue, and lots of developers, but...well, let me put it
> > this way:
> >
> > Maybe I'm just projecting my own tastes into this, or maybe this is
> > just because I don't have sales/profits/etc charts for the last
> > 10-20 years to examine, but lately I'm finding it difficult to
> > believe that "AAA" games aren't becoming (or already) a mere niche,
> > much like high-performance sports cars. (Ie, big money, but small
> > market.)
> >
> > Part of this is because, as I see it, the "big/AAA games" *as they
> > used to exist* up until around the early 2000's don't seem to be
> > around much anymore. The big business development companies have,
> > for the most part, split their non-sports product lines into two
> > main areas:
> >
> > 1. Mobile, Casual IP tie-ins, "Free-2-Play", etc.
> > 2. Interactive movies.
> >
> 
> Where is Call of Duty? Grand Thieft Auto? Starcraft? World of
> Warcraft? Is Uncharted an interactive movie? What about Tomb Raider?
> Mario? Zelda?
> Gears of War? Bioshock? They have lots of cinematic presentation, but
> clearly complex and involved gameplay.
> God of War?
> 

First of all, I should emphasize that I'm not making an actual
statement of "big/AAA tiles have a tiny audience". Just that, due to a
combination of factors, I can't help getting the feeling that they're
either headed towards being niche, or are perhaps at least somewhat
closer to niche than they're typically considered. Like I said
previously, these could very well be unfounded impressions.

Secondly, with those "two main categories" I pointed out, I did say
"for the *most* part". Clearly there are exceptions.

With that in mind:

- Call of Duty?: Can't speak for the original series, but for Modern
  Warfare, yes, most definitely. I do actually like what I've played of
  Modern Warfare (and was very surprised by that), but that doesn't
  change that it's most definitely an interactive movie.

- Grand Thief Auto?: This one's an oddball since it's sort of two games
  in one: A sandbox title and, if you actually do the missions, then
  yes, definitely an interactive movie.

- Starcraft?: Starcraft is 15 years old, so it isn't an example of a
  modern AAA title in the first place.

- World of Warcraft?: That would probably fall in the "casual"
  category. It's not an interactive movie AFAIK, but my understanding
  is that it's not much of a videogame, either. If you ignore the
  theme, it's closer to "Second Life" or maybe "Words With Friends"
  than it is to "Warcraft" or a cinematics extravaganza. But the D&D
  theme admittedly makes that considerably less-than-obvious.

- Is Uncharted an interactive movie?: What I played of the first one
  (from what I can remember, it was a while ago) didn't seem to be.
  Although the gameplay did feel a bit weak (FWIW). The demo of the
  second certainly seemed to fall into "interactive movie" though.

- What about Tomb Raider?: I wouldn't have any idea. When I tried the
  original fifteen-plus years ago, I was so turned off (within
  minutes) by the barely-usable controls that I've never paid the series
  any attention since.

- Mario?: Depends which one. Galaxy, yes. Sunshine, yes to a somewhat
  lesser extent. 64, not particularly, no (but it was starting to
  head that direction). New Mario and 8/16-bit mario, definitely no.

- Zelda?: Skyward Sword, definitely yes, it's Harry Potter with a green
  suit. The DS one, mostly yes. Twilight Princess and Wind Waker,
  borderline (I did quite like Wind Waker, though). Pretty much
  anything else, no.

- Gears of War?: Wouldn't know, I don't have a 360. But if it's
  anything like Bulletstorm, then yes.

- Bioshock?: From what I could stand to sit through, yes. And from the
  playthrough video of Bioshock Infinity in the PSN store, yes. (Right
  from the beginning I was wishing so much the player would kill that
  side-kick lady so she'd shut the hell up.)

- God of War?: If the first one is any indication, yes. It's borderline
  "Dragon's Lair without cell shading".


> They have lots of cinematic presentation, but clearly complex and
> involved gameplay.

In the ones I identified as "interactive movie", cinematic presentation
deeply permeates the entire experience, gameplay and all. As one
example, even during the "gameplay" sections NPCs very frequently won't
shut the hell up. "Blah blah blah BLAH BLAH blah blah BLAH." (Side
note: Journey, while not much of a game, was a notable breath of fresh
air in that regard. I respected the fact that *it* respected *me*
enough to not spoon-feed me every inane detail the writer could think
of.)

Furthermore, any "game" that takes literally 30+ minutes to reach the
real meat of uninterrupted gameplay most definitely counts as
"interactive movie". This includes, just as a few
off-the-top-of-my-head examples: Assassin's Creed 2 (god what a turd,
never played the other versions though), Zelda Skyward Sword (takes at
least a full 2 hours to reach anything remotely resembling real Zelda
gameplay), and Bulletstorm (Was the dialog written by a fifth-grader?
And does the redneck NPC ever shut up? And as an unrelated side note:
why have we gone back to using view-bob again? FPSes stopped doing that
in the late 90's for a very good reason - it was literally nauseating -
and still is. If I wanted nauseating camerawork with pre-pubescent
dialog, I'd watch a J.J. Abrams movie.)


> 
> The volume of games release is decreasing in recent years. This is
> due to a lot of factors, and the industry is suffering at the moment.

Again, perhaps unfounded, but I can't help wondering if the industry's
suffering is directly related to the enormous amounts of resources they
keep throwing at cinematics and photo-realistic rendering. If the
industry has been pushing that stuff so hard...and the industry is
suffering...it's time to examine whether or not there might be a
connection. Maybe there aren't as many people with $60 worth of
interest in such games as they thought. Or maybe there are. But in any
case, it's something the industry needs to reflect on, if they aren't
doing so already.


> 
> Games console generations have a 5-10 year lifespan, so it's not
> exactly an annual investment.

But it's still an up-front cost with a real potential for
sticker-shock, and despite Sony's claims to the contrary, they're
primary use is just games. So it's a non-trivial cost-of-entry which
hinders casual-audience adoption.


> And they're cheaper than phones and iPad's amazingly!

Well, those things are outrageously expensive anyway, what with the
combination of "palm-sized battery-powered super-computer", plus
"telecom greed" (telecom is known for being one of the most
anti-consumer, anti-competitive, greed-driven industries in the world),
plus Apple's trademark cost inflation (for a significant number of the
devices out there, anyway).

And in any case, most people already have such devices for non-game
purposes. So gaming on them usually has a very low cost-of-entry
compared to dedicated gaming devices. Therefore: "casual audience
friendly".


> Demos are a known problem, that will be addressed
> by the coming hardware generation.

Ummm...what?!? The current generation is already more than perfectly
capable of handling demos just fine. The only problem is that many
(obviously not all, but still, "many") AAA titles choose not to do
them. You could talk about demo size restrictions, but that's an
artificial store-imposed limitation, not a hardware one. Fuck, I've
got *entire* full games (plural) on my PS3's HDD with room to spare,
and downloading them (over WiFi no less) was no problem (and yes,
legitimately). There is absolutely nothing about demos for the next
hardware generation *to* address. Either the studios/publishers put
them out or they don't. Hell even the previous generation had demos,
albeit disc-based ones (which *was* a notable problem in certain ways).


> I think it's only 'niche' by total volume. The percentage of
> 'core'/'hardcore' gamers is decreasing, but that's because the overall
> sensis is increasing. There are a lot more gamers now. Girls are
> gamers now! 51% of the population who were not previously in the
> statistics...
> 

Perhaps so, an interesting point. But then if that's so, why would the
industry be suffering? If there's really that many more real gamers
now, ones that like the big-budget cinematic stuff, shouldn't that mean
enough increased sales to keep things going well? Or maybe there really
are more gamers who like that stuff than before, but an even *greater*
increase in the developers' interest?


> So is it the "core" gamers buying the modern AAA/big-budget titles?
> > Honestly, I'm not seeing it. From what I can tell, these days
> > they're mostly switching over to indie games. As for why that's
> > happening, I figure "Core" gamers are core gamers *because* they
> > play videogames. Modern AAA/big-budget titles, are *not* videogames
> > except in a very loose sense, and core gamers *do* frequently take
> > issue with them. Modern AAA/big-budget titles are interactive
> > movies, not videogames, because their focus is story, dialog and
> > cinematics, not gameplay. So core gamers have been moving *away*
> > from AAA/big-budget titles and towards indie games.
> >
> 
> Tell me Call of Duty and friends don't sell. They make squillions.

Yea, they do. And so does Porche. And yet most drivers have never
touched a high-performance car and never will.

But how much room is there in the market for a big-budget games that
*do* sell fantastically? Room enough for *some* obviously, the Italian
sports cars of the gaming world, but is there really room for much more
than a few?


> There are less successful titles than in recent years, and that's
> largely because the industry is sick, and kinda antiquated...

The question then is: What made it sick? My suspicion, and again this
is only a suspicion, is that at least part of it is the production of
big-budget cinematic extravaganzas overshooting demand. It wouldn't be
too surprising for the industry to suffer if they're all trying to
shoot the moon, so to speak. And it would seem that they are trying to,
from what you've said about top-tier being so competitive.


> You may be right, traditionally self-identified *core* gamers are
> moving indy, because it's an innovative sector that's offering what
> they like about video games. But they've had their place taken by...
> 'normal people', you know, the kinds of people that go to the cinema
> and watch movies. There's a lot of them, and they still buy lots of
> games.

Maybe so, but I'm unconvinced that they buy a lot of AAA titles
per-person.


> So is it the "casual" crowd buying the modern AAA/big-budget titles?
> > Definitely not. They're the ones who tend to be intimidated by 3D
> > environments and game controllers and spend their time on Words With
> > Friends, Wii Waggle, PopCap, etc., rarely spend much money on
> > gaming and rarely venture outside iOS, Android and Web.
> >
> 
> What's your point here?

Just saying that I don't think the "casual" gaming crowd is buying a
whole ton of AAA cinematic titles. Some, sure, but significantly more
than that? I'd be surprised.


> 
> I know there is and will always be an audience for the modern
> > AAA/big-budget cinematic interactive-movie "games". But I don't see
> > where there's a *large non-niche* audience for them. There's maybe
> > the multiplayer-FPS enthusiasts, but that's a bit of a niche
> > itself. And I don't see a whole lot else. It's the "Italian
> > sports-cars" of videogaming: Just a big-budget niche.
> >
> 
> Well, a 'niche' that's bigger than the entire film industry is not a
> niche that one can ignore.

Bigger than the film industry? I know that's true in terms of revenue,
and even profits IIRC, but in terms of audience size, ie number of
people? I've never heard that claimed, and it would surprise me.
Remember, niche doesn't mean small profits, just small audience. And I
never said anything about ignoring it ;)


> I don't think the number of big-games players has significantly
> decreased though. It might have peaked, I haven't checked numbers
> like that for a fair while.
> What has happened, is the concept of the 'video games' industry has
> dramatically expanded. Basically everyone is a 'gamer' now, and
> everyone has some 99c games in their pocket.
> It's a whole new industry that is being explored, but since the
> statistics are all conflated into 'the video games industry', I can
> see how you might see it that way.
> 

Well, even looking exclusively at Console/PC, I still get the
impression that AAA titles are becoming a harder and harder sell. But
like I said, I don't have actual figures here, so I could be mistaken.


> The business model is changing shape too, thanks to the indy/casual
> thing. $60 is silly (and I'd love it if I could get games for $60
> btw, we pay $90-$120 here.

Ouch! (Out of curiosity, would that be Europe, Australia, New Zealand,
something else? I've heard that New Zealand in particular it can be
very difficult to get games quickly and inexpensively. But then I've
heard a lot of grumbling about Europe's VAT, too.)

I did pay $80 for Conker's Bad Fur Day, back many years ago. And right
before its cost came down, too ;)  'Course that high cost was for
entirely different reasons (N64) than in your case.


> yanks get fucking everything subsidised!),
> people aren't happy to spend $60 on entertainment anymore, when
> something that can equally entertain them costs 99c.
> I reckon AAA will start to sell in installments/episodes,

Some of them have already been trying out episodic (Half-Life 2, Sonic
4 - the latter is underrated IMO). Actually, from what I can tell,
there's been a *lot* of talk about moving to episodic gaming for some
time now. So that wouldn't surprise me either. OTOH, I would have
expected to see more of it by now already, but maybe there's just been
a lot of inertia in the way.


> or start
> leveraging in-game sales of stuff a lot more to reduce the cost of
> entry.

That's definitely been taking off. Don't know if it's working or not,
but that sort of thing is all over the PSN Store. I'd be surprised if
it isn't working though, because it does seem to make a lot of sense in
many ways.

Closely related to this, have you read the latest Game Developer
Magazine (April 2013)? There's a lot of very interesting, and
convincing, discussion about Free-2-Play and F2P-inspired models having
a lot of promise for AAA gaming, and some implication that the current
(old) AAA model may be a sinking (or at least outdated and slightly
leaky) ship. "Money Issues" on page 4 was particularly interesting.


> One thing I've heard reports of, contrary to your assertion that AAA
> is losing participants to the more innovative indy area, is 'casual
> games' are actually bridging previously non-gamers into big games.

Really? That was Nintendo's intended strategy with the Wii 1, but I'd
heard they never got much conversion ratio (and I know they wound up
alienating a lot of core gamers and developers in the process).
The people would buy a Wii just for Wii Sports or Wii Fit and then
never buy much else.

So that's interesting if the conversion is happening with indie
games...and unfortunate for N, as it suggests they should have been
more indie-friendly and download-friendly like 360, PSN and Steam.
Which I could have told them from the start, but meh, they never listen
to me ;)


> You suggest games are becoming
> interactive movies... this isn't an accident, they sell extremely
> well! And I think this trend will continue as a larger percentage of
> the audience are becoming women... I don't think Call of Duty or
> Grand Thieft Auto are going anywhere just yet though.
> 

That does suggest though that such people still aren't really
interested in videogames. They're just interested in the hot new type
of movie.