IGN - Why RPGs Dominated 2011

Dhruin

Dhruin

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I'm not sure Why Role-Playing Games Dominated 2011 actually proves the point made but it does give a summary of the year in AAA RPGs, with some good observations along the way:
Dragon Age II shared a lot of similarities, but didn't endure the transition to a streamlined gameplay style nearly as well. BioWare offered heaps of items but simultaneously deemphasized Item acquisition by locking out the ability to equip armor on your party outside of preset upgrades, and in the process destroyed the thrill of item discovery. It was like trying to pick something to wear to a wedding out of a closet with three nice suits and thousands of ragged t-shirts. Eventually the entire game felt like one long backtracking mission. There was plenty of decision points and a handful of memorable moments, but those couldn't allay my fear that Dragon Age II was a sign that big budget role-playing was becoming too diluted and concerned with mass appeal for its own good. I was even more concerned after playing the PC version of Fable III, a game too terrified of confusing players to do anything interesting. Then the Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings came out, and I felt stupid for worrying.
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More information.
 
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call my logic flawed, but Dragon Age II was NOT an RPG in my book.
 
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Good year for games in general with TW2, skyrim, FONV dlcs, 2 assassin creeds, batman, zelda, dark souls etc.

Nice to see a piece against the blandification of rpgs on a site like ign, it's a big slap to the face of bEAware and Moulinex.
 
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KapitanUnterhosen said:
Good year for games in general with TW2, skyrim, FONV dlcs, 2 assassin creeds, batman, zelda, dark souls etc.

Nice to see a piece against the blandification of rpgs on a site like ign, it's a big slap to the face of bEAware and Moulinex.
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Also not a bad year for the PC rpg market demonstrating its worth. Skyrim and Witcher 2 PC sales each are roughly equivalent to the sales of both console versions of either Dragon Age II or Dark Souls. Perhaps some developers and publishers will weigh things like that (and consider things like pre-launch leaks of console versions of their games) when considering whether or not to delay the PC versions of major releases or even ignore the platform altogether.

Unfortunately these things aren't really enough to cause them to consider the PC to be as valuable of a platform as the Xbox360. Considering some of the issues PS3 users have to deal with as the perceived second tier for many multiplatform releases (often unfairly considering sales breakdowns for titles like Red Dead Redemption and Batman: Arkham City), having the PC seen as competitive for that spot might not yield all that much benefit as far as its treatment goes in some cases.
 
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KapitanUnterhosen said:
Good year for games in general with TW2, skyrim, FONV dlcs, 2 assassin creeds, batman, zelda, dark souls etc.

Nice to see a piece against the blandification of rpgs on a site like ign, it's a big slap to the face of bEAware and Moulinex.
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Okay I agree with you but your calling Batman Arkham City a RPG? Its not even listed as a rpg.

As for DA2 its a rpg but not the a dominating rpg this year. I never seen a game get so much attention. People either hate it or love it. I used to hate it but now I mellowed out and enjoy it a little.

Its not perfect but its not a abomination either. I'm looking forward to next year with the three big Rpg's.
 
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jhwisner said:
Also not a bad year for the PC rpg market demonstrating its worth. Skyrim and Witcher 2 PC sales each are roughly equivalent to the sales of both console versions of either Dragon Age II or Dark Souls. Perhaps some developers and publishers will weigh things like that (and consider things like pre-launch leaks of console versions of their games) when considering whether or not to delay the PC versions of major releases or even ignore the platform altogether.

Unfortunately these things aren't really enough to cause them to consider the PC to be as valuable of a platform as the Xbox360. Considering some of the issues PS3 users have to deal with as the perceived second tier for many multiplatform releases (often unfairly considering sales breakdowns for titles like Red Dead Redemption and Batman: Arkham City), having the PC seen as competitive for that spot might not yield all that much benefit as far as its treatment goes in some cases.
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In Germany, the PC retail boxed disc version of Skyrim has been selling more copies than the Xbox and PS3 versions of MW3.

http://www.vgchartz.com/weekly/40881/Germany/

Skyrim (PC retail disc): 42,179
MW3 (PS3) 39,459
MW3 (Xbox 360) 17,879
MW3 (PC) 17,398

If you were to add Steam sales and digital downloads to the PC retail disc sales, who knows how much it is, but certainly much more than the console versions.
 
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Thrasher said:
Thematically? :/
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Hey I guess even people with degrees in English like Charles Onyett conflate theme and motif. One might counter that by suggesting that the presence and consequences of choice - whether large plot-direction related decisions or strategic choices on how to tackle certain obstacles - was and has always been an important theme in Deus Ex games. It might not be a theme from within the perspective of the story created through any one play-through, but in could be argued to be a theme when viewing the whole work encompassing all possible game-play and stories derived from it.

Maybe it would have been more correct for them to say that boss battles were incongruous with the motifs present throughout most of the rest of the game; they were most egregiously out of step with the motif of "player choice" in terms of overcoming most obstacles since even defeating them with a stun button cut to a kill cut-scene.

CountChocula said:
In Germany, the PC retail boxed disc version of Skyrim has been selling more copies than the Xbox and PS3 versions of MW3.

http://www.vgchartz.com/weekly/40881/Germany/

Skyrim (PC retail disc): 42,179
MW3 (PS3) 39,459
MW3 (Xbox 360) 17,879
MW3 (PC) 17,398
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Yeah, though I'm sure someone is dying to point out how inaccurate VGchartz is - though those inaccuracies and methodology flaws are more likely to bias results against PC sales rather than in favor of them. If those figures give some qualitative idea of the relative strength of sales, even if they say nothing else, this does at least suggest that developers and publishers should consider the importance of the PC release in achieving better international success.

I imagine part of the relative popularity of Skyrim on the PC in non-english markets may be due to the ability to choose to use English or other voice recording sets in lieu of the sometimes-awful non-English localized versions. You can even, with some cleverness on the user's part, opt to use localized subtitles and menu text with the voice set of your choice. Now if only that were an officially supported feature. I suppose it was an easier and more complete process than getting German audio with English text in some of the Gothic games I purchased off steam and GoG though. If the the German voice acting in Skyrim is as bad as the English voice-acting in Gothic games - I can understand the desire to be able to mix and match. I am not sure if the PS3 version does let users do that, but there are plenty of German 360 owners who have posted about being unable to do so.
 
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jhwisner said:
Hey I guess even people with degrees in English like Charles Onyett conflate theme and motif. One might counter that by suggesting that the presence and consequences of choice - whether large plot-direction related decisions or strategic choices on how to tackle certain obstacles - was and has always been an important theme in Deus Ex games. It might not be a theme from within the perspective of the story created through any one play-through, but in could be argued to be a theme when viewing the whole work encompassing all possible game-play and stories derived from it.

Maybe it would have been more correct for them to say that boss battles were incongruous with the motifs present throughout most of the rest of the game; they were most egregiously out of step with the motif of "player choice" in terms of overcoming most obstacles since even defeating them with a stun button cut to a kill cut-scene.
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Nicely done retort.
 
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I was mostly just impressed with how politcally correct everything was stated. As in technically that is correct but I can see where he might have gotten it from, but stated much more eloquently. I won't team up on another person with an English Degree though...

So, to the title (also strangely unconnected to the content) - why did they dominate? Because there were some disappointments and some great ones? :p
 
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Whats with the fucking full-screen unskippable Ad? I can't read this article either on my iPhone nor on internet explorer. Fail.
 
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If you classify everything and their mothers as RPGs then yes RPGs dominated the market but anyone can take the liberty and classify them as puzzle games .
The question for me is if any of the 2011 games will become a classic , The Witcher 2 is one of my favourite games ever and i will try DX after cashing xmas bonus :p but i don't know if 10 years into the future some people will still mod and play those games as they do with Daggerfall or Bloodlines.



GhanBuriGhan said:
Whats with the fucking full-screen unskippable Ad? I can't read this article either on my iPhone nor on internet explorer. Fail.
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what ad?
/me pets addblock
 
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