Post E3 - The Battle for the 2014-2015 Supremacy

Well folks, the big event has passed and all that its left are the reactions to everything that was shown. Let's analyze the stuff that each of the biggest companies presented at the conference and see how well they did with their respective showcases. Anything counts in the fight for the hearts and minds of gamers around the world, so without further delay, lets begin our little recap:


Category: First Party Companies

How it went:
Microsoft content for this year E3 was actually not bad. It featured known franchises like Call of Duty, Halo, The Witcher 3 and Fable while giving us a glimpse of new things like Sunset Overdrive and even the return of the cult classic Phantom Dust and the appearance of some other third party games. This time around Microsoft focused on gaming itself, which is a good thing compared to the blunder they made last year so it is an improvement and their appearance on stage looked refreshed (even the music track at the beginning of the conference sounded like a warrior on a struggle).

On the other hand, the hype and speculation they caused prior to the conference was not entirely satisfied, as not even one of the most rumored games were shown and most of the showcase was based on obvious decisions, most of them already known to the public. In summary a good conference, but a missed opportunity to turn the tables and get the best out of the occasion.

Final Score: 7 / 10

How it went:
Sony's conference went the same path as Microsoft's, but with a game lineup that seems a little stronger. Games like The Order, Little Big Planet 2, No man's land, Let it die, ABZU, Bloodborne, Uncharted 4 and a whole bunch of good indie titles and other goodies like a new DLC for Infamous: Second Son. The only drawback was that after each trailer for a new game we had to see the numbers 2015, meaning the almost all of the games mentioned will be coming next year, which means a pretty dry Christmas season for the PS4.

As for the appearance that the company had for the conference, the first thing that very surely everybody felt was the big hole left by Jack Tretton as he left the company. Also the new CEO kind of lacked the charisma that Tretton had and that was kind of a disappointment, but let's cut the guy some slack, its his first time in that position. Another thing was talking about movies, series and apps. That kind of thing took precious time away that could had been used to promote games and talking about games well... There were no surprises which prevented the conference from having that "boom" effect that it had last year.

Final Score: 7.5 / 10

How it went:
Nintendo's conference was different as it was last year, where instead of giving a physical media briefing they gave us a 50 minute podcast with the newest things that Nintendo had to offer. The showcasing was very good and straight to the point with the occasional hilarious mini sketches made with clay figures (which reminded us all about robot chicken). This year, Nintendo did everything right with their presentation and in those 50 minutes they showed some very ineresting looking games like Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Yoshi's Wooly World, Bayonetta 2, Mario Maker, Splatoon, Hyrule Warriors accompanied by real heavy hitter like the real Wii U Legend of Zelda and Xenoblade Chronicles, ending with a small clip of Miyamoto playing Wii U in front of a blurred TV with a game that looked like Star Fox. Later on the Star Fox game became official on the Nintendo Treehouse event, along with two other Miyamoto games that made good use of the Wii U pad in an effort to bring more interest into the heavily criticized controller (see the Legend of the 7 Stars: Nintendo keys to victory.)

Final Score: 9 / 10


Category: Third Party Companies

How it went:
EA's conference had a little more bang this year with a showcase of Dragon Age: Inquisition that clearly showed that the game has really progressed from when it was shown for the first time. The new Battlefield game, called Battlefield Hardline gave a twist to the known Battlefield formula with a more urban setting and a cops vs bad guys scenario even featuring an open beta available on PS4 from the moment the game was shown. They also showed The Sims 4, which is good news for the fans of the series (I know people that still play the previous games a lot as if they still were brand new) also showing a little bit of work in progress for Mass Effect 4 and of course their line of new sport games which is a given for EA.

The appearance of their conference was classy and directly to the point, which is a plus to any third party conference out there. The woman playing the cello was a nice touch and everything ran smoothly

Final Score: 8 / 10

How it went:
This year, the Ubisoft conference went very straight forward, announcing games like Assasin's Creed Unity, The Crew, Far Cry 4, Tom Clancy's: The Division and Valiant Hearts: The Great War and Rainbow Six: Siege. All went well  in an all around conference that sparked new interest for their upcoming games in the way that Ubisoft has done since the first time they stepped on the E3 conference floor.

The conference was neat and complete, showing the games that with the pass of time have made Ubisoft grow from a common third party / publisher to a powerful gaming force. Another story that came up just after the conference was that they did not mentioned the Wii U at any time, fueling the notion that the company has abandoned Nintendo. Ubisoft representatives said this was not true and told people from the gaming media that they still had faith in Nintendo and would be talking about new games for the Wii U at a later time.

Final Score: 8 / 10

To wrap things up

To get this out of the way first, the winner of this year E3 event is:

This is because it was a complete showcase that not only was good, but it basically accomplished most of our expectations and had nothing boring about it, been funny at times and a hype train on others. This Nintendo E3 presentation has started to make the Wii U look like the underdog that is slowly recovering (sort of like the 3DS did before it) and it gave us a lot to talk about, becoming the first time in years that Nintendo actually wins an E3 event and making us all feel like the Nintendo of old has emerged.

It is also important to point out that this year there were NO losers. All conferences were good, they showed their stuff and set the stage for a very busy (and wallet beating) 4th quarter 2014 going all the way to 2015 which will most likely be the year of the mother of all battles in the console war of this generation. The most important thing is that after all is set and done, gamers around the world are the ones with a real advantage with all the games coming up in the future. So sit tight and get ready, because this year E3 event showed us that this generation will be just awesome.

Has the gaming industry forgotten about millennials?

Some weird topic that just popped into my head and I thought was good enough to start the blog. it begins with a simple question, Has the gaming industry forgotten about  the so called millennials? Take into account that this comes from a "millennial" point of view since I was born in 1984, so let's go ahead and dig deep into this idea.

One of the great rpg franchises that deserve to come back.

The end of the millennial:

First of all, it would be a good thing to define what a "millennial" is. As they say, a millennial (or generation Y) is a person born in the time span from 1980 to the early 2000's. It is the generation that ranges from the styles of the 80's, the easy going abundance of the 90's and the shock of the early 2000's. From a gaming perspective, millennials have been there from the very beginning of gaming as an industry up to the point where everything changed. As a generation we are criticized for many things, most of that criticism coming without any facts, but if there is one thing in which we never faltered it is our taste for gaming.

It is not as exaggerated as path-cutscene-path, but it doesn't even come close to the designs of old.

Change for the sake of change:

When we talk about change, we mean the ways in which the industry has managed to change from one business model to another. At one point, some people used to say that the video game industry was immune to the effects of the economical crisis and we as gamers were totally believing it, because quality standards were still high regardless of the monetary turmoil. So imagine what a shock it was to see it all change and basically leave hanging a whole generation that grew accustomed to a gaming style that nowadays is called "niche", "core" or worst of all "not feasible". It can't be denied that great games have been released in these newer generations, but the change in style is very noticeable. Let's start by comparing these two styles as past and present and see which characteristics make them differ.

Past:

• Complex game design based on exploration.
• Vast use of various types of resources (graphic, sound and user interaction).
• Strong emphasis on story line.
• Gameplay over graphics.
• Games made to make you think hard in order to progress or develop skills over time.
• Medium to high learning curve.
• Product was almost every time a full game.
• Development cycles ranging from 2-4 years at minimum.
• Fiction topped reality in game content.

Present:

• Simple game design based on presentation.
• Recycling of game resources.
• Strong emphasis on making the player addicted to the game.
• Graphics over gameplay.
• Games made in a way that it doesn't annoy or frustrate gamers in any way (a.k.a easier difficulties).
• Low learning curve.
• Semi-complete product followed by tons of updates and downloadable content.
• Development trend of making games in 1 year.
• Reality tops fiction as visual artists make visual material closer to real life.

Every gaming company has their own Warios, screwing things up for the rest of us.

Change for the sake of money:

Each of the reasons why these two styles are complete opposites come from the same principle which is cheap production costs and maximum profits. Don't get me wrong, I am well aware that gaming in within itself is a business, but if we had to describe these two styles with a phrase, the past one would be "Make a kickass game so it sells well" while in the present it would be something like "Make a game that sells and somehow convince people that it is badass".

This is where millennials exit the scene as the ones who were dropped out as the prime customers of the gaming industry. Millennials lived through the many gaming eras that came to pass starting from the early Atari days and if one thing is to be expected from seen how gaming evolved through time is for games to get better; meaning longer, more challenging and more engaging. Millenials are a generation of gamers that have big expectations about gaming productions and will never forget the growth that the industry had, taking big leaps into better gaming experiences. This kind of thinking did not sounded so well to publishers and company investors because it meant more expenses and high risks.

This is when the people in business suits made the change and took power out of the artists hands and gave it to their "market analysts" or "mechandising people". The result of all this is the refusal to evolve and the embrace of a system that began simplifying games to a point that they mostly resemble a bad game from the 8 bit era, but with nice graphics. All this just because it is cheaper, faster and low risk. It is quite ironic for them to keep treating games like simple toys while at the same time saying that gaming has become a full fledged entertainment media with something for everyone. It just doesn't make sense.

Broken down Zero = how our gaming intelligence is treated.

This way of thinking prevented millennials from passing the torch to the newer generation as the new kids were lead to believe that the game development style from the past was too long, boring and passé while the one of the present was cutting edge and cool. People who still prefer the gaming style of the past are labelled as "hipsters" or called "people who still dwell on the past". Companies became rigid, most of the time ignoring what gamers want and using "modern gaming" as an excuse to give us less for our buck. Then as an excuse to get millennials even farther from having any influence, they began to release HD Remakes of famous games of the past just so they don't sell well and use that as an excuse to say "You see? Those games don't sell well any more. There is no reason to make new ones or follow that style of gameplay..."

The stale paradigm theory:

I have the little theory about how things should had been compared to how they are now. If we look into how the gaming industry was evolving, it would seem that people born in the mid 80's would have the industry at their feet from a content perspective. People who became gamers at that time would grow at the same pace as the industry does. So when they were kids the content of games would be mostly directed toward kids, then when going through their pre-teenage and teenage years the content would still be directed at them, then in early adulthood they would still be the poster children of the industry because now they would be the ones with money to spend and have the bigger enthusiasm toward games.

I apologize for the crappy style point chart he he. Just wanted to show the theory in some visual way.

If you see the small chart above, you can see that the emphasis in gaming content grew as people grew if you were a gamer in the 80's. Proof of this come in the games that were smashing successes at the time for each point on the time spans. In the 80's you could picture Mario, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Ninja Gaiden, Mega Man, Loony Tunes games, etc. As soon as the 90's came, more serious and beat them up/fighting/violent games became the norm, and at that time it captivated pre-teens and teens quite nicely. After that it all turned into a cinematic experience with a ton of JRPGs, survival horror and action games, now directed towards the teen-early adults age range. After that when the new millennium came, games became even more serious and adults were able to experience great experiences while still giving good stuff to the teens. 

Now after that, as gaming became entertainment media, it should had kept on the early adults/adults zone but instead it went back to the teens and got stuck there (with the occasional treat to adults over 40 which are points off the chart). Why did this happen? Because those age ranges meant cheaper development and lower risk. Please have in mind that this is just a theory.

Where could all the good stuff be? (btw Child of Light IS good stuff)

To wrap things up:

My conclusion is that millennials were taken out of the gaming scene as the biggest gaming market, because we grew accustomed to excellence and excellence costs more money, money they do not want to spend. So they trained newer generations to love watered down experiences and phased out everything that would resemble the gaming industry standard that lived up for almost 30 years. Don't get me wrong, I am not implying that we should still have games that look and feel exactly like in the past. What would be healthy for the industry is to mix up both old and new, past and present styles of development and come up with games that can show how much we have technically evolved, but without degrading the overall experience.

Currently, that mix between old and new is something that is mostly been done by indie developers, but big time companies are taking the hint like Square Enix, that have learned their lesson with Bravely Default, the people at Capcom who already promised that Resident Evil 7 will return to its "survival horror roots", after seen the franchise's value plunge drastically after Operation Racoon City and Resident Evil 6 or even games like Call of Duty or Titan Fall with new gameplay interactions that resemble the crazy first person shooter experiences of the past. The millennials may be out of the scene, but big chunks of our gaming taste are washing ashore and it is a matter of time until game companies are forced to do something about it.  

There is still hope my friends...