WRPG collapse is coming

JDR13 said:

If the "C" stands for "console", sure.

Depends how someone chooses to look at it. Unless you're saying all RPG video games are crpgs regardless of platform. For example, is Dragon Warrior a crpg despite not a single game in that series even being released on a computer?

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Yeah, Dragon Warrior would still be counted as a CRPG. Consoles are just more specialized computers anyway, and there's enough crossover between consoles and computers (and were in the 80's as well), for considering them to be completely separate to be a bit pointless. I mean, Ultima, Might & Magic & Wizardry did all see NES releases.

Some of the games in those series saw console releases, but most crpgs did not, and the vast majority of JRPGs never see the light of day on the PC. It doesn't matter to me what other people choose to call them, but I don't consider a console exclusive JRPG to be a crpg. Someone needs to come up with a new acronym.

If I might add my 2 cents to this section of the thread…

There does seem to be a trend of people on this site who perpetually try to belittle the difference between a PC game and a console game and try their best to 'suggest' the distinction is irrelevant, when it quite clearly is not.

When I first got old enough to purchase my own systems I bought a PS1 and I couldn't enjoy it in the slightest. The games that are made for console, I don't know how to word it without sounding elitist, but they were just so fucking vapid. I soon sold my PS1 and started playing PC games, and had no issue of vapidity whatsoever and have remained a PC gamer ever since.

If you think designing a game for consoles doesn't 'dumb down' a game then you're living in cloud cuckoo land. Can you honestly imagine games like Fallout, Might and Magic 3 or Master of Orion being made with a console design in mind, how entirely different those products would be. Just because a game is released on PC in conjunction with a console release does not mean the design of that game is for it to have the same quality of complexity as a pure PC designed game.

It's all very well to act all superior and delve into the philosophy of a game is a game is a game, but the reality is, for me, that if people stopped designing complex games then I'd not have any games to play, its as simple as that for me. So while its great for people that are happy to stare at paint drying 24/7, just so long as they get to choose the colour of the paint, I physically cannot do it, I'd rather stare out the window for 6 hours. How people commit themselves to the utterly vapid drudgery of the average console charade of nothingnesses I have no idea, I honestly wish I was born with a mind that could enjoy that, but I can't.

For me, the difference between a console designed game and a PC designed game is everything.

lackblogger said:

For me, the difference between a console designed game and a PC designed game is everything.

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I agree. Console designed games are generally terrible. Very few games can pull off a cross platform without it being console based, PC second.

Lately, the praised products like HD or Zelda are console exclusive.

Morrandir said:

From European perspective, Witcher is an ERPG.

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E is part of W.

Fnord said:

No, CRPG is a much much older term, pre-dating the tag WRPG, and even pre-dating the very existence of JRPGs. This is opposed to pen & paper RPGs, which are not CRPGs. JRPGs are by the way CRPGs.

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Sterile tag arguing but ok let play the game.

100% sure CRPG was Computer RPG and never Console RPG and Console started during the 70's. And I never seen CRPG used for a console game.

Fnord said:

It's possible that that's what happened oversees. The golden age of pen & paper RPGs over here started in the mid 80's, and ended in the mid 90's, and during that time period JRPGs as a sub-genre became well established.

The term WRPG is really rubbish, by the way. It covers far too many types of games, all it really does is excluding a single type of RPG, while still letting all the other types count.

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Dungeon & Dragon started in 1974 and it's been a success very quickly, and so much a success that it influenced games for personal computer games, end of 70's or beginning of 80's.

Yeah WRPG isn't trying some pointless exclusion like the new absurd definition (there's in fact none) given to CRPG, it's still tagging RPG and pretend strategy games, Diablo like, or Roguelike are RPG is something I easily discard. But ok WRPG is one more bad tag, I should have used the title Non JRPG collapse is coming, he he.

Ivanwah said:

Well, consoles are computers. Computer in CRPG is to differentiate it from PnP RPGs. That is how it was first used. Later it became a differentiator between personal computer (IBM, Amiga, C64) and console RPGs.
I read that somewhere, it was way before I was even born. Ever since I started to take interest in RPGs, CRPG meant computer RPG in PC vs console sense.

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It was way after I was born, but that's also what I believed. I would add that it was like that a long time until recently a small amount of very active fans started promote CRPG tag for a totally different meaning.

I would add that there's no definition of new CRPG tag opposed to RPG, last time I succeed get one games as Din's Curse or Zombasite woud fit the tag. It's saying all the non sense.

Dasale said:

Sterile tag arguing but ok let play the game.

100% sure CRPG was Computer RPG and never Console RPG and Console started during the 70's. And I never seen CRPG used for a console game.

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Dasale said:

Dungeon & Dragon started in 1974 and it's been a success very quickly, and so much a success that it influenced games for personal computer games, end of 70's or beginning of 80's.

Yeah WRPG isn't trying some pointless exclusion like the new absurd definition (there's in fact none) given to CRPG, it's still tagging RPG and pretend strategy games, Diablo like, or Roguelike are RPG is something I easily discard. But ok WRPG is one more bad tag, I should have used the title Non JRPG collapse is coming, he he.

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That's... I don't even know where to start... You seem to have completely missed my point and started cherrypicking information out of context.

Dasale said:

100% sure CRPG was Computer RPG and never Console RPG and Console started during the 70's. And I never seen CRPG used for a console game.

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When consoles were first made is completely irrelevant. When console RPGs were starting to be made is what matters. The term CRPG, which is not really a modern term (which is what I was trying to get across), was, to my knowledge, coined in the early 80's (it might potentially have been coined at the tail end of the 70's, but I've seen no evidence of it). That was my main point.
I've seen the term CRPG applied to console games in the local gaming media.

Dasale said:

Dungeon & Dragon started in 1974 and it's been a success very quickly, and so much a success that it influenced games for personal computer games, end of 70's or beginning of 80's.

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That is true, which is why the term CRPG was created, to differentiate the two. The term fell out of favour towards the late 90's (although it did not disappear completely), and have recently become more popular again

Dasale said:

Yeah WRPG isn't trying some pointless exclusion like the new absurd definition (there's in fact none) given to CRPG, it's still tagging RPG and pretend strategy games, Diablo like, or Roguelike are RPG is something I easily discard. But ok WRPG is one more bad tag, I should have used the title Non JRPG collapse is coming, he he.

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I... don't think you understood my point at all. My point was that the term WRPG says next to nothing about what the game is about. It might be a near storyless dungeon crawler like Akalabeth or Wizardry, using turn-based combat, or it can be a first person RPG that's more action focused and completely in real time, like Skryim. The term gives no real information. Also, both Rogue & Diablo are closer to the genre founders than something like Skyrim.

I think you didn't understood my point, WRPG is saying nothing but that it's RPG that isn't JRPG, it's not strategy game, tactic game, roguelike, roguelite, pure action as some Mordor, and many more genres that aren't really RPG just games with RPG elements.

Dont you mean AAA WRPG? It actually makes sense that there arent many AAA WRPG games being made. A WRPG has high costs to make and arent "front loaded" in sales. So publishers are unlikely to fund such things at a high cost level these days because the development costs have multiplied by around a hundred since the days of games like Ultima.

I think the fact that many people are funding WRPGs on fig.co is a good sign and should be taken as something meaningful for the future of WRPG.

Right indie scene is different. But it's for indie RPG first I started collected clues that some collapse could come.

Crowd funding:
- Crowd funding is decreasing again and again, nothing seems able to stop it.
- The released crowd funding RPG looks more like failure to rebuild a hard base of fans. It attracted curious to try, and generated hugely more disappointed than satisfied and perversely it build a negative mood around WRPG.
- Sell disasters of Tyranny (not CF but obviously dragged by the wave and sort of sequel of a CF RPG), then T:Ton, are clues of the overall negativity build around WRPG crowd funding.

Indie:
- I don't see anymore the fans bases there was behind indie RPG as Eschalon Book or Spiderweb or Soldiak even if it's not trully RPG.
- I see more and more absurd comments of players expecting a polishing level rather high for indie RPG. It comes from series of significant indie games based on fake mechanism of duration increase as Permadeath, Unlocks, insane difficulty, Roguelite not Roguelike that is not that much variations as there was in Roguelike, Procedural but not really building huge amount of contents just fair variations, and those indie game can put a significant amount of budget on polishing everything at high level. Sure, but they couldn't with a RPG genre. And alas they create users expecting high level of polishing even for an indie RPG when it's absurd to expect that.
- I see cumulation of comments quoting that after-all they don't like RPG genre with some exception, and if you dig it's AAA RPG the exceptions.
- I don't see any clue of follow up of very fun very indie RPG as Antharion, or even Balrum even if a bit amateurish but can provide a lot of fun anyway. Or another example, dev of Templar Battleforce tried make RPG, looks like he gave up. And Templar Battleforce is an excellent example of attempt to build a fake duration, something incompatible with a true RPG design.

Again, there's no collapse yet, it just smells one huge is coming.

I dont know if you can say crowdfunding is decreasing on big name crowsourced games.

For example Wasteland 2 got $2,933,252 in funding. Wasteland 3 got $3,121,716 a little more but I think it is significant, many people have not heard of fig.co and dont frequently visit it as well, I think it is a pretty good result.

As for Spiderweb games, it's sad but they havent evolved and that is a huge problem, their games look the same as a decade ago.

I think many indie games are polished if by polished you mean bug free.

Wrong numbers, fig is a special case with investors, the sum of pledgers is like cut by half, here the decrease. Investors will mean even less profit for dev this making less solid on budget aspect and future projects in comparison of past crowd funding.

The only single case of true increase is DOS2. It's just a counter example, and if like Im' worry they partially screw up DOS2 release because of too extreme ambitions and hunting multiple rabbits at same time, the crowd funding case will get a huge blow.

Right now I have doubts the RPG industry from AAA to indie through crowd funding have any certitude about making RPG. Skyrim and the Witcher look more like miracles nobody can redo. It's not clear where is going RPG crowd funding and coming back of some old design not used during a long time. It's not clear how make money with a true indie RPG.

That is clues for a possible collapse.

EDIT: To tell the truth my last two divination attempt was a big fail. I was seeing the coming of Skyrim clones as a huge disaster coming. From dev having no clues about making huge very open RPG and that should result in two very flawed games. One sold per billions and for sure is impressive, another perhaps sold like crap but I had a big fun with it. Im' a bit sad the previous divination ended be right, death of most major RPG dev of all history caused by crowd toxicity.

EDIT2: Frankly it's not ended yet, about Skyrim clones, next is EDEX, crossing fingers that my anticipation of Skyrim dragging RPG to design and budget madness the clones attempt will prove wrong once more.

The pledgers is a 1/3rd of the kickstarter's but the amount gained is more than kickstarter's and that number is not including investments. I still think that is pretty good considering how little amount of people know about fig.co.

I dont see a problem with D:OS2, their game is relatively bug free at the moment. D:OS1 was fairly ambitious too.

And WRPG's like Skyrim, Fallout 4, and Witcher will keep coming from those companies as they self publish and have the capital to do so.

Damian said:

As for Spiderweb games, it's sad but they havent evolved and that is a huge problem, their games look the same as a decade ago.

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Once the latest Avernum 3 remake comes out later this year, Jeff has been saying he's doing an all-new engine. Sounds like it might be a big step up this time, but with him, who knows. Also one of his blog posts made it sound like it might be Unity.

Damian comment on Spiderweb is right what's I tried explain about collapsing coming for indie RPG.

If you want even Baldur's Gate 2 graphic quality for an indie RPG like that, it's just lost any link with reality.

But ok I hove serious doubts Damien was buying at release Exile or first Avernum trilogy. So this let the questions, did old fans died in mass? Are Spiderweb games toxic for health of players?

Or does new Spiderweb games require a quite higher budget so quite more sells and then convince many players of new generations?