Has the bar been lowered too far?

I don’t want insult any developers out there by naming games but it seems that Darwin has stopped weeding out some games that should never have gotten off the ground. Seems like way too many sub par efforts getting released these days undoubtedly due to crowd funding. I’m starting to wonder if the assumption that developer+publisher=bad really holds true these days?

Oh, go on! Name some names lest we draw our own conclusions. I assume you're talking about a game that people here like? Perhaps one of the 2018 games of the year?

He probably means one of the numerous indie pixel games on Kickstarter. Some look okay/good but alot look low effort.

Sheesh, there are scores of them every day. Let's see...

https://store.steampowered.com/search/?sort_by=Released_DESC

It's Steam that's making this possible. It doesn't cost much to get your game on Steam and you can get the deposit back if you make enough sales.

Yes I'm talking about all the steam stuff. The lazy Roguelikes. The games with uninspired designs or JRPG's that look like lazy phone ports with enough fight effects to give you a seizure.

I don't want to name games I think are garbage. I will point out a few projects that would be (or could have been) outstanding with proper funding from an actual publisher:

Someone could have applied some sanity and made this a proper RPG instead of a Roguelike

Stoneshard
https://store.steampowered.com/app/625960/Stoneshard/



With a proper budget and oversight this ambitious game could have been less buggy and actually balanced

Serpent in the Staglands
http://serpentinthestaglands.com/

I haven't played it myself, but I've heard Serpent in the Staglands is actually pretty good.

Nah, bad, buggy and broken games have been around forever.

Sure there’s more now but that’s mainly because there’s more games over all. So while there’s more bad there’s also more good. Imo anyway.

Why would you focus on the bad anyway. Unless you’re someone who only likes one specific kind of game you should be able to find plenty of good games to play.

My backlog is years long. Not bad games I don’t want to play either. Good games, that I’m itching to play but don’t have the time. There’s just to many of them.

ToddMcF2002 said:

I don’t want insult any developers out there by naming games but it seems that Darwin has stopped weeding out some games that should never have gotten off the ground. Seems like way too many sub par efforts getting released these days undoubtedly due to crowd funding. I’m starting to wonder if the assumption that developer+publisher=bad really holds true these days?

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Weren't you complaining people at Watch are too negative with kickstarter before?

Pretty much what Zloth said + early access. Early access is the biggest scam in the gaming history. Pay us so you can beta test our games, and we can deflect all criticicism by saying it's not finished yet. Fuck off, if it's not finished, don't release it.

JDR13 said:

I haven't played it myself, but I've heard Serpent in the Staglands is actually pretty good.

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I really liked Serpents, so I'm certainly grateful that it got made. But it is an indie game made by two people and it shows, so if you expect something that can compete with gaming studios you might be disappointed. Where it shines is the setting and the story (except for the very ending; I get the idea behind it, but the implementation could have been better).

Well, I can't say what the bar actually is - objectively speaking.

I do know that, even as an incredibly demanding and jaded gamer, I don't remember a time with this many absolutely fantastic games coming out.

That said, because of the absurd frequency of new releases - and the fact that it's easier to make and release games than it ever was, with the overall industry and its audience being much, much bigger than it was only a few years ago - it's obviously inevitable that we'll be seeing hundreds or thousands of crappy games each year.

But, I guess I'm lucky in how I operate as a human being. I mean, when I buy a game - it's because I'm 99.9% certain it's going to appeal to me on some level (and while I probably won't finish it, it's certainly not going to be crap) - and I can actually afford the occasional dud.

The fact that there are thousands of crappy games that I have zero interest in playing - doesn't matter to me in the slightest.

As long as there are more great games than I could ever finish - even if I tried - I'm very, very happy within this context.

That wasn't the case when I started getting into gaming in the 80s - let me tell you.

I remember when my gaming passion was at its peak - probably in the mid-90s - I was lucky to see a single good game each month, and actually great games got released maybe 2-3 times per year.

You won't believe the kind of crap I accepted, just on the off-chance it would turn out to be worth it - or even fully functional.

I am pretty happy with the pace of games but I am an atypical gamer I think. I have pretty narrow focus on what I like which somewhat helps me weed out a lot of debris from the get go.

Right now I have a full plate (full for me at least) - Still playing Skyrim and FO4, half-way through a re-play of Fallout New Vegas, started another play through of Pathhfinder a couple weeks back (although debating a switch to a Sacred Huntsman character which may reset my progress), and with all the DLC out now want to replay POE2 … but most likely will want to first do POE1 with the same character so I can carry him forward).

And when I am really bored I have Conan Exiles I tinker with a little - only got a few hours in it right now though.

Also I keep getting tempted to try ESO again. I own the game but everytime I return I end up remembering why I left. But it does have some fun content.

So for me the answer is that bar has always been there as I have always seen so many bad games out there even years, decades, ago, that I have zero interest in. If there happen to be more of them I think there are also more good games as well (probably not in direct proportion though as it is easier to make a quick bad game then a good quality game).

I do think the idea that it is easy to get a game "out there" does increase the numbers of lower quality in general though. Just like publishing a book on Amazon increases the number of badly written books. It has become easier to share things. Some do it with passion and some for a quick buck.

Like always have to weed out the good from the bad. For me, at least, that is far easier to do with a game then a book though.

Serpent in the Staglands is an excellent game, that I can confirm. As for the sudden rash of subpar materials as far as new games go, that's when I rely on friends and this site to help me weed out the inferior. That "inferior" metre can vary from person to person, and I quite enjoy some of the older pixelish style games, not all of them but some. Once you establish a few filters for yourself, it's easier to deal with the glut. I certainly prefer things the way they are now rather than how it was in the eighties or nineties, when you were grateful for the two or three good games that you got per year!

The bar hasn't been lowered at all IMO, in fact I believe it got higher. Story with c&c thanks to TW3 and visuals thanks to both TW3 and FF15.
Kickstarter just made sure products noone wanted to publish on PC do appear. In some cases used as advertising or side funding - did you play Kingdom Come Deliverance?

Sure, plenty of shovelware out there, some aren't deserved to be called videogames really especially on phones, but it works the same as with other forms of art.
There are pieces you adore and enjoy immensly, there is mediocrity and there is plain garbage. And there is an industry out there that wants to mass produce and sell as many of it, not just rare masterpieces.

Yes now you'll ask me why noone succeeded to make a WoW killer thanks to technology progress. I'm not a right person to answer as IMO WoW was and still is an overpriced garbage.

wolfgrimdark said:

Right now I have a full plate (full for me at least) - Still playing Skyrim and FO4, half-way through a re-play of Fallout New Vegas, started another play through of Pathhfinder a couple weeks back (although debating a switch to a Sacred Huntsman character which may reset my progress), and with all the DLC out now want to replay POE2 … but most likely will want to first do POE1 with the same character so I can carry him forward).

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Wowza.. I'm surprised you actually finish anything if you're playing that many games simultaneously. I prefer to focus on one game until I'm finished especially when it comes to RPGs. For me, hopping back and forth between games makes it harder to be immersed in them.

There's also the chance that if I take too long a break from one game, I can't get back into playing it from where I left off, and then I end up abandoning the playthrough.

Charna said:

I really liked Serpents, so I'm certainly grateful that it got made. But it is an indie game made by two people and it shows, so if you expect something that can compete with gaming studios you might be disappointed. Where it shines is the setting and the story (except for the very ending; I get the idea behind it, but the implementation could have been better).

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I was clear I wasn't calling Serpents junk. I was saying it would have benefited from publisher funding to be more fully realized. A game can be built by a tiny team (Vogel) but not without lowering ambitions.

I suppose its a good thing to have publishing pipelines without any barriers like we have now but to find the few gems (like Serpents) we now wade through a ton of junk. And even then only a few are really polished.

But its also a good point that rpg games have pretty consistently been a buggy mess historically. ToEE. Bloodlines. Gothic 3. Classic examples of under realized and buggy publisher backed fiascos.

I think 2018 was especially bad due to the high profile games which were released unfinished. Bard's Tale 4, Underworld Descendant, Kingdom Come Deliverance, Pathfinder Kingmaker (if I understand correctly, never played) being the major ones.
And then there is also minor ones like Insomnia.

That said, with Jagged Alliance: Rage! you also got a nice demonstration that having a publisher isn't that much of a help either.

Still...a big chunk of games I play is funded via kickstarter. And my favorite game of last year was also a kickstarter and early access title: Rimworld.

And as mentioned before buggy RPGs always existed. Thinking of Daggerfall. And isn't even Ultima 7 one of the games you are supposed to patch before you play due to horrible release bugs?

When it comes to bugs, Ultima 7 was a kitten compared to Ultima Bugscenscion.

joxer said:

When it comes to bugs, Ultima 7 was a kitten compared to Ultima Bugscenscion.

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Maybe. But Bards Tale 4 and Kingdom Come were also well playable. So it's not they were a complete mess when being released.

ToddMcF2002 said:

I was clear I wasn't calling Serpents junk. I was saying it would have benefited from publisher funding to be more fully realized. A game can be built by a tiny team (Vogel) but not without lowering ambitions.

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The same can be said about bigger gaming studios, though; all of the games I've played recently would have benefitted from more time/work/money.

And while I like Vogel's games, I can't say they are that more polished than Serpents. They come with their own set of problems. I've lost count of all the times my shaper got stuck in the door with one of his creations, because the pathfinding ai is not capable of handling a full group in Geneforge, despite shapers being the game's main theme.