[Lorric]

I should've rephrased my question

What ASPECTS of games make you go wow? Not a list of games, but a description of what makes you go wow

I don't know how to answer that.

Why are you asking? If you want to know what "makes me tick" when it comes to games, isn't what I said about my taste in games enough for you? That information is more reliable anyway than an initial wow impression. Many of my favourite games didn't wow me. Looking at the list of "wow" games, I see a common trend is a sense of grand scale and immersion into the game World.

I'm asking because I want to see if you can physically put into words what is "wow" rather than "Here's a game I find 'wow' with no indications as to why!"
I don't know what about these games made you go wow, and yet you say I should be able to figure it out by your tastes. I'm not inside your head. I see these games differently than you

Have you read my first post, the large one, on this page? If that's not enough I'm going to need you to break this down as to what exactly you need, because I'm not sure. I know you want to understand, but I don't know why I'm not getting through. It would also be better to talk about my favourite games rather than the ones that wowed me initially. Or maybe you could choose a specific game for me to talk about. Anyway, what do you want to know for? Are you trying to help me?

I like my games to be "alive", if that makes sense. That things would be happening regardless of what the player is doing, as opposed to the game reacting only to the player. As in a fight raging around the player rather than just the local enemies reacting to the player. A race would proceed whether the player was racing or not. And I want to be challenged by games. And it's always nice to feel like you're part of something, and get sucked into the World the game makers have created. A good example for instance would be right here with Freespace 2. The Colossus cutscene. They could have just told you about it, but they went the extra mile, they detailed it's construction length, it's reason for existing, and even created a bunch of fake corporation logos that designed and built the Colossus. I love that cutscene. A game where it would be the same every time I can get nearly as much out of watching someone let's play it. A game where it's not the same can be enjoyed again and again.

This conversation is getting a little out of hand.

Why?

[Luis Dias]

Because the thread was supposed to be about the PS4, and it is fast becoming the "thread about Lorric's taste in games".

[Lorric]

Because the thread was supposed to be about the PS4, and it is fast becoming the "thread about Lorric's taste in games".

Well it's not as if people are trying to talk about the PS4 and I'm getting in the way. The point will be valid if the PS4 talk picks back up.

[Lorric]

Thought that might happen. Fair enough.

[The E]

Because the thread was supposed to be about the PS4, and it is fast becoming the "thread about Lorric's taste in games".

Luckily, I have a solution for that conundrum.

EDIT:

BTW, Lorric, have you tried Guild Wars 2? Seems to me that that game with its very alive world would be right up your alley.

[deathfun]

I'm surprised then that you haven't ever bothered with GTA either
People keep walking, cars keep driving, and cops keep taking down criminals even if you're just watching the traffic. The world reacts when the player does something out of the norm.

[Lorric]

I'm surprised then that you haven't ever bothered with GTA either
People keep walking, cars keep driving, and cops keep taking down criminals even if you're just watching the traffic. The world reacts when the player does something out of the norm.

I have a few of the games, but they've never hit it with me. I haven't gone far in any of them, I've got GTA III, Vice City, and San Andreas, and each one has received less attention than the last. I did give GTA III a decent go though. They just don't sustain my interest.

[Dark RevenantX]

We don't remember the forgettable, crap games.  There were so, so many PS2 games that sucked balls, but there were so many PS2 games in general over its extremely long run that by sheer force of numbers a lot of gems stood out.  There are fewer PS3 games, and thus fewer good PS3 games, because development costs more.  This has little, if anything, to do with "mainstream gaming" taking over the market.  It was becoming mainstream before the PS2 was released.

That said, it is difficult these days for small developers to come up with decent releases on consoles.  This was the same in the old days, but now the big studios are gradually becoming less inventive so it's a net loss.

[Lorric]

We don't remember the forgettable, crap games.  There were so, so many PS2 games that sucked balls, but there were so many PS2 games in general over its extremely long run that by sheer force of numbers a lot of gems stood out.  There are fewer PS3 games, and thus fewer good PS3 games, because development costs more.  This has little, if anything, to do with "mainstream gaming" taking over the market.  It was becoming mainstream before the PS2 was released.

That said, it is difficult these days for small developers to come up with decent releases on consoles.  This was the same in the old days, but now the big studios are gradually becoming less inventive so it's a net loss.

I wonder how fewer. 98 PS2 vs 14 PS3 (I know I said 12 earlier, I've realised the two new ones I haven't played yet were still in their bag and not in the pile when I counted them) is a huge difference. 7X more to be exact. Are there 7X more PS2 games than PS3 games? Also, you'd think a superior system would be a factor in the PS3's favour, that overall quality would be higher, when it's not the case.

EDIT: Hey, you're not too far off the mark actually, at least according to wikipedia. 772 PS3 games as of January 14th vs 3,857 PS2 games as of May 2011. I think if any more were made it would be pretty negligible, and probably cancelled out by the PS3's new games since  the 14th January.

So the ratio is almost 5 to 1 in the PS2's favour, and 7 to 1 in my game collection's favour. Interesting. I had no idea the numbers were that big. I thank you for that.

[Lorric]

I decided to check out the PS1 as well.

Wiki says 2,418 games.

Now for the count...

I possess 74 PS1 games.

so I have about 1 in 32 PS1 games. For the rest...

I have about 1 in 55 PS3 games.

And I have about 1 in 39 PS2 games.

EDIT: And for the PSP, there are 802 games and I possess 10 games, so 1 in 80.

[The E]

Oh my god, how do you come up with this stuff.

First of all: Developing a game on 360/PS3 is vastly more expensive than developing a game on PS2/XBox was. This, naturally, means that fewer games are developed, and of those that are developed, most will be in categories that are known to sell well. That does not mean that there is no experimentation, just that the experimental bits are relegated to smaller titles, or introduced iteratively in sequels.

A few unreliable numbers off of Wikipedia: There are about 3800 games released on the PS2 over its lifetime, or about 300 per year (taking into account the entire lifetime of the console, from its release in 2000 to the end of production in 2012).
For the PS3, Wikipedia lists 772 games, or a rate of roughly 110 per year the console has been in production so far.

So, there are 5 times as many PS2 games as PS3 ones.

EDIT: Because you found these things out for yourself, bravo

And no, the relative power of the console has little if anything to do with the average quality of the games released on them. I would like to think that games as a whole have become better over the years, due to a concentration on fewer titles and a realization that good games sell better, but the truth is that the majority of games released is still rather mediocre.

[Lorric]

Oh my god, how do you come up with this stuff.

First of all: Developing a game on 360/PS3 is vastly more expensive than developing a game on PS2/XBox was. This, naturally, means that fewer games are developed, and of those that are developed, most will be in categories that are known to sell well. That does not mean that there is no experimentation, just that the experimental bits are relegated to smaller titles, or introduced iteratively in sequels.

A few unreliable numbers off of Wikipedia: There are about 3800 games released on the PS2 over its lifetime, or about 300 per year (taking into account the entire lifetime of the console, from its release in 2000 to the end of production in 2012).
For the PS3, Wikipedia lists 772 games, or a rate of roughly 110 per year the console has been in production so far.

So, there are 5 times as many PS2 games as PS3 ones.

And no, the relative power of the console has little if anything to do with the average quality of the games released on them. I would like to think that games as a whole have become better over the years, due to a concentration on fewer titles and a realization that good games sell better, but the truth is that the majority of games released is still rather mediocre.

I got there first.

But thanks for putting up the numbers anyway.

Didn't expect the information to be so easy to come by.

Cut the condescension please. Why should I suppose the PS3 would be different when the PS2 has significantly more games than the PS1, and I have more PS2 games? Even though I didn't have the numbers, what I do know is until this generation, the number and quality of games I have owned for the systems has increased generation on generation. Plus, loads of people, not just me, complain about gaming going to the casuals and the dearth of creativity in the industry today.

Of course the power of a console is important. My favourite series, Dynasty Warriors, would have been impossible on the PS1. And it pushes the PS2 to the limit.

[The E]

Of course the power of a console is important, but the thing is that the advances made possible by having that power available become smaller.

As an example, when the PS1, Saturn, N64 came out, lots of new games were possible that were previously very difficult to do. The jump from 2D to 3D graphics was a complete paradigm change for the industry, as was the availability of mass storage on CDs.
When the PS2 and XBox came out, games didn't change fundamentally. There were only very few games that could be done now that were previously impossible; Dynasty Warriors being basically the least impressive of those (Because similar games could have been done in 2D on previous hardware). The only thing that the PS3 and 360 did that was previously not there was easy multiplayer access; everything else was just an iterative improvement on what the previous generation was already able to do.

With this new generation, there is quite literally no improvement that enables radically new gameplay or other features; we're basically going to get more of what we have already gotten in the previous one, except faster and at a higher resolution. Now, what I hope is that the increase in development cost is not going to be that big going into this generation, so that we can get more developers (and thus more games and more ideas) into the market.


Now, the thing is, you said that you own about 1 in 36 of all games released on the PS1 and PS2, but only 1 in 55 of all games for the PS3. Has it occured to you that you have limited your sample size rather radically? I mean, I get what you are saying about not being as excited about new games as you used to, and thus less inclined to go out and purchase them, but condemming an entire generation of games, and assuming that the next generation will be even less interesting strikes me as a bit of an overreaction.

[Lorric]

Of course the power of a console is important, but the thing is that the advances made possible by having that power available become smaller.

As an example, when the PS1, Saturn, N64 came out, lots of new games were possible that were previously very difficult to do. The jump from 2D to 3D graphics was a complete paradigm change for the industry, as was the availability of mass storage on CDs.
When the PS2 and XBox came out, games didn't change fundamentally. There were only very few games that could be done now that were previously impossible; Dynasty Warriors being basically the least impressive of those (Because similar games could have been done in 2D on previous hardware). The only thing that the PS3 and 360 did that was previously not there was easy multiplayer access; everything else was just an iterative improvement on what the previous generation was already able to do.

With this new generation, there is quite literally no improvement that enables radically new gameplay or other features; we're basically going to get more of what we have already gotten in the previous one, except faster and at a higher resolution. Now, what I hope is that the increase in development cost is not going to be that big going into this generation, so that we can get more developers (and thus more games and more ideas) into the market.


Now, the thing is, you said that you own about 1 in 36 of all games released on the PS1 and PS2, but only 1 in 55 of all games for the PS3. Has it occured to you that you have limited your sample size rather radically? I mean, I get what you are saying about not being as excited about new games as you used to, and thus less inclined to go out and purchase them, but condemming an entire generation of games, and assuming that the next generation will be even less interesting strikes me as a bit of an overreaction.

I see what you're saying. Would DW have been possible on PS1 though? I can't think of anything on PS1 on that scale, even if the graphics are limited. Unless you mean really tiny models like in a RTS.

Anyway, that part isn't too important. Even if I owned 1 in 36 PS3 games, I'd only have 7 more games. I think the industry has limited me, rather than the other way around. Like has been said, with it being seemingly much harder to make these games, it's more about the money and less about creativity. So the number of games I'd want to by per bunch of games has got worse along with the total number of games available. So many shooters when you look at a rack of PS3 games. You didn't really see many shooters looking at a selection from previous generations, it was diverse. I got some pleasure just going through the shelves and looking at them all. Now, it's just meh, meh, meh... even games I knew I wouldn't buy before made me look at the screenshots and read the back. Jumped out at me and made me want to look at them. That doesn't happen with the PS3 games. I don't have a single PS3 game that I saw for the first time in a store. Mainstream just doesn't do it for me.

You could be right about the overreaction, now with this new information about the number of games produced for the PS3. I've paid no attention at all to the PS4, but I did notice the general talk in this thread about seemingly the PS4 being easier for developers to work with or something. Maybe that's a positive under the circumstances. Any idea if it will be less expensive for developers to make a PS4 game? If that is so, it might allow more games and more creativity to flow into the market, especially if it's easier to work with. I'm not optimistic though. I guess I'll just have to sit and watch and see. I do that anyway, I wait for the price to go well down before buying a new console, even if I really want to play the games.

[The E]

Personally, I believe that development costs will remain about the same as they were in the previous generation, maybe a little higher. The thing with these new consoles is that they're much much easier to work with since they're not relying on gimmicky architectures, so the amount of unique code that needs to be written to make a game run on a given platform is minimized (Well, maybe not the actual code. But the engines can all be structured in a very similar way at a conceptual stage, making it easier to produce unified designs).

In addition, both Sony and MS are acutely aware of the competition from below (Android/iOS) and from above (PC); both platforms where we have a mix of big-budget titles and low-budget indies, and they've changed their procedures to make it possible for games like Minecraft (which rely on frequent updates) to exist on their systems, which I think will mean that we're going to see more experimental stuff on these devices.

[Lorric]

Personally, I believe that development costs will remain about the same as they were in the previous generation, maybe a little higher. The thing with these new consoles is that they're much much easier to work with since they're not relying on gimmicky architectures, so the amount of unique code that needs to be written to make a game run on a given platform is minimized (Well, maybe not the actual code. But the engines can all be structured in a very similar way at a conceptual stage, making it easier to produce unified designs).

In addition, both Sony and MS are acutely aware of the competition from below (Android/iOS) and from above (PC); both platforms where we have a mix of big-budget titles and low-budget indies, and they've changed their procedures to make it possible for games like Minecraft (which rely on frequent updates) to exist on their systems, which I think will mean that we're going to see more experimental stuff on these devices.

Do you (or anyone else) know if development costs took a huge jump between the PS2 and PS3 then? And why did the PS2 manage to produce more games than the PS1?

If it's both easier to make games for it and also more flexible in what options you have, I wonder if it could see some new people coming into the business too.

Another big worry I have is the big fish devouring all the little fish and everything that allowed those little fish to come to the attention of the big fish with them. I don't understand why the big fish don't let the little fish just carry on with what they were doing before, and take the money. Instead, they do little or nothing with the companies they absorb. I wonder if they're more interested in just removing the competition. I've seen so many companies get swallowed up and the games they made that I liked with them. I miss Psygnosis the most.

I'm still feel pessimistic about the PS4, but certainly not as much as before. The number of PS3 games vs PS2 games was a big eye opener, and if there are elements in the PS4 that could encourage more creativity and ease of producing games, that can only be a good thing surely.

[The E]

According to this article, the average budget for a PS1 title was between 800.000 and 1.7 Million USD. PS2 titles were made on 5 to 10 Million dollar budgets, PS3/360 titles generally cost 10 Million and upwards.

Regarding the number of titles released on the PS1 vs the PS2: Remember that the videogame market literally exploded in that generation. While the PlayStation managed to establish itself as a household brand in the PS1 days, it was only during the PS2/XBox generation that consoles were found literally everywhere and gained wide acceptance, so the potential market for games was orders of magnitudes larger.

As for development studios getting bought out and then going under: Well, that's business. It's not designed to be fair; and while there are instances of this process going badly, there are also examples of these things going well (See also: Volition, Naughty Dog). It's just a thing that happens; it's not a good idea to get too attached to a particular developer.

[BloodEagle]

Don't forget that around the PS2-era is when porting started to get out of hand.  I'm sure that contributed a great deal to the increase in its titles.

[Mongoose]

Just a question, Lorric: how much have you looked into the digital-only titles delivered via the PlayStation Network (PSN)?  You talk about not being satisfied with the big blockbuster PS3 releases you pick up and look at, but keep in mind that those sorts of titles (the term "AAA" really is silly, isn't it?) are just a certain fraction of the games being released on that platform.  The sort of games being released on the PSN would be those from smaller and/or independent developers, the same type that frequently get released on Steam (and indeed there's a lot of cross-over of titles between those services).  I don't have the numbers to back it up, but based on The E's point about game budgets, I get the impression that a lot of these sorts of titles might have seen a physical release back in the days of the PS1 and even PS2, when development costs weren't so steep.  As it stands, disk-based releases are reserved for big-budget titles, which tend to play it a bit safer as a rule in order to recoup their large development costs, while the smaller titles stick with digital releases.

[deathfun]

I don't believe he has Mongoose as he hasn't ever heard of Journey
Which would lead to me believe he hasn't heard of flOw or Flower either