Waiting for the Fall

I’ve been playing a lot of Minecraft lately. Specifically, I’ve been playing it on my PC using a mod collection called the "Direwolf20 Feed the Beast" collection. It adds all sorts of fantastic mods to the game; stuff that adds magic, industrial machines, new ores, new enemies and in fact, in some cases, entirely new dimensions. It is this incredibly dense, highly polished and seemingly endless procession of features and activities. It takes a game that already seemed to provide infinite replayability and exponentially jacks it up to some kind of hyper-infinity that likely is slowly eating away at the quantum flux of the whole universe. We’re going to end up living in a The Neverending Story nightmare, where we’re just floating on fragments of reality surrounded by the devouring Nothing created by my playing this game.

This is bad for the universe as a whole certainly, but for the games industry it’s even worse. Bad enough that the universe collapses, but what’s really unforgivable is that I have invested so many hours into a single game, finding a way to constantly enhance my experience without handing someone more money. Or, to put it another way, I had more fun than I should have been allowed without cashing back in.

Looking at the way the core of the games industry operates suggests that games are built to deliver a finite, intentionally limited, amount of fun on a per-dollar-spent basis. The result is some games that seem to be built with the explicit intent of being fun enough to be interesting, but not actually fun enough to exist as a complete and coherent thing. My gaming experience with something like Minecraft is anathema to this model.

Mainstream video games often feels less like a product and more like a doorway into a cash-syphoning system of diminishing returns, designed intentionality around hamstringing the customer. As far as I can tell, the biggest industry leaders have become so out of touch that they’ve backed themselves into a corner where this is the only way they know to make money. They’ve built a broken system and then locked themselves inside as it slowly builds toward a monumental collapse.

Which may not be a bad thing.

One of the common questions we’re asked on the podcast is something along the lines of, “Am I a bad gamer because I try to buy games on sale?” The answer is devastatingly simple: No, you are not. I do not position that as an opinion; I position it as a fact. Beyond the answer that sales support well run and responsible game developers, the broader point is that you owe nothing to an irresponsibly run industry. If Tomb Raider doesn’t make money unless it sells three million copies at full price, then that’s a broken and unsustainable system. It’s a great game, certainly, but it was terribly managed somewhere along the line.

I don’t know if that somewhere is in the office of the developer, the publisher or some other factor, but the revenue model doesn’t work, and you absolutely should buy that game at half or 75% off if you’re so inclined. Doing the right thing for yourself as a consumer isn’t the bad thing; forcing yourself to purchase it at full price because someone botched the plan to recoup expenses — and therefore enabling that kind of nonsense — is the bad thing.

I don’t even think the industry is kidding itself into thinking it’s got a sustainable plan anymore. Ask anyone if sales of three million before making a cent off the endeavor is a good business model, and my guess is that they’ll say no. But here we are, and the problem is far from uncommon. What’s unfortunate is that the solution to date has been to treat their customers as greedy adversaries who are immorally unwilling to part with the precious money-lifeblood that they guard so jealously. Isn't it just possible, though, that the solution could instead be to create trimmer, more realistic models for game development even for AAA game development?

I look at this industry and I get the impression that their most desired interaction between me and my game is for me to purchase it (preferably on a closed console system) at full price on day 1, play it for a few days, have a measured and reasonably bounded amount of fun, buy whatever add-ons are already available to enhance that experience, stop playing after a week so I can buy whatever new game is on the market, and return yet again when they offer the next morsel of over-priced gameplay (all without selling my used copies back to anyone). I look at that in comparison to my experience with Minecraft, where I bought the game during its development, was pushed inconceivable amounts of content and patches at no additional charge, enjoyed dozens of hours of the vanilla game, accessed the wealth of available player created content, and then played more.

Oh sure, the industry might respond, that’s because Minecraft became wildly successful and profitable, because it was created on a reasonably small budget by a lean but highly skilled team that was willing to make short-term concessions in order to deliver an exceptional end product that wasn’t built on a long-term monetization plan. To which I respond: exactly.

There are a lot of excuses made about why that isn’t a scalable model. Which is interesting, because it seems like every time people come along and demonstrate a positive gamer response to being treated fairly and with respect, the gut response is to say why that game or developer or situation was an edge case that can’t be applied to the bloated, sluggish, creatively-bankrupt, recklessly manipulative, volume-obsessed monster publishers that have sloshed and cavorted across the landscape of gaming like corrupt old gods shambling in malice across the face of the young world. To which I respond, again: exactly.

I realize that what I’m saying here has the flavor of irrational gamer screed, that really we should just grow up and realize that hitting customers with sticks is just a cold hard fact of business, and we should stop being children about it. Don’t people realize that it’s against the law not to hit customers with sticks? Not doing so would be a disservice to shareholders, who, by the way, are in the business of stick sales.

Fair enough. I’m finding myself a lot less inclined to be worried about whether we are being reasonable to the supposed business realities of game-making, realities which seem to be dispelled on an ever-increasing basis. After all, it’s an unequal model when we are asked to apply reason to a system that is not willing to apply reason in return.

So there is a part of me that waits for collapse, because I suspect that the longer it takes for collapse to arrive, the more painful it will ultimately be. Worse, I fear what will become of the business of gaming on the large if it never comes. I think in this moment where independent gaming is strong, where there are creative models for funding development and publication that can generate substantial dollars, we are in a unique place where if the collapse of the old model came tomorrow, the aftermath would be manageable.

I wonder what would fill the void, because I seriously doubt the answer is “nothing.” I ask myself: What if this was a year where there was no Call of Duty, no Assassin’s Creed, no Madden, no Halo, no Need for Speed, no Battlefield, no established recurring franchise from the major publishers that needs to sell to at least 5 million people to be considered remotely successful? What would take those games’ place? And, would I like that better? Would you?

Comments

Having got sick of those recurring established franchises, I've already filled the void with a vast array of top quality games that are already being released.

Imagine if all that AAA money was released into making 3 times as many 'mid tier', quality, well budgeted games.

I would miss it somewhat. I don't know if you could get the polished high-end graphics in an open world that AAA can deliver, and I like having a game that can wow me in that way occasionally. Perhaps the biggest thing we lose is long storylines in games not fully driven by storylines; I'm sure an indie could make a game that does 90% of XCOM, but the length of the story (and thereby the speed of progression) would likely be accelerated. I'm not sure why that seems to be the case from my view. Or if it's even true.

EDIT: Regardless, I agree with the premise. Every AAA publisher could collapse and we would be just fine. Except for those wanting competitive multiplayer shooters and realistic sports games.

Preach on, Sean!

I welcome the collapse. As I see it, the indie developers are willing to take risks and try things that are less conventional, where as you usually can know what to expect on a new AAA title. Furthermore, because the indie guys are developing on smaller budgets, I'm seeing better, cross platform compatibility.

To be clear, I'm not advocating the end of AAA development. I'm advocating the idea of AAA development as it currently stands failing and a new model for that kind of development taking its place.

Elysium wrote:

To be clear, I'm not advocating the end of AAA development. I'm advocating the idea of AAA development as it currently stands failing and a new model for that kind of development taking its place.

Like?

I've been saying this particular sky is falling since I was last on the podcast.

I will say I think the last paragraph is a bit I ff base. The only big studio games left standing will be the CoD and the Maddens. They make money.

Minecraft-related question. Wanting to get back in to it but it doesn't seem my original minecraft login works anymore. Have they changed their system at some point when I wasn't looking?

Elysium wrote:

What if this was a year where there was no Call of Duty, no Assassin’s Creed, no Madden, no Halo, no Need for Speed, no Battlefield, no established recurring franchise from the major publishers that needs to sell to at least 5 million people to be considered remotely successful? What would take those games’ place? And, would I like that better? Would you?

I already don't buy those annual or semi-annual games you mentioned, so if they didn't release this year (or even never saw another release), it wouldn't bother me at all. I did buy and really like Saints Row 3 and 4, but if that series saw no new release for the next few years (or ever), I would be perfectly fine with that. What I'm getting at is that there is already a plethora of really good games by small and mid-tier indie developers, some (most?) of which are delivering experiences that you would never get from any AAA studio.

Wow, it's eerie how much your post sounds like a carefully-phrased version of what I've been saying for several years now. I'm really tired of game companies trying to take advantage of me. I'm even more tired of other gamers telling me that that's just how it is, and to suck it up.

Minecraft has sold thirteen and a half million copies, and I imagine it will probably hit about fifteen million, when all is said and done. This is not coincidence. It started cheap, it developed into something great, and every step along the way, Notch was just focused on being decent to the people who'd given him (at first) or his company (later) money.

I go out of my way to be good to companies that treat me well, and I scorn those that treat me like dirt. If more people did that, many fewer companies would treat us like dirt.

"Sucking it up", accepting the lousy deals, means the next deal will be even worse. It will keep getting worse until enough of us laugh, and tell game companies to take a hike.

It's our fault, not theirs.

Their mission is to give us the worst possible deals that we'll take. The fact that so many of us will take them is the problem.

Oh, and:

What if this was a year where there was no Call of Duty, no Assassin’s Creed, no Madden, no Halo, no Need for Speed, no Battlefield

I haven't bought any of those in a long, long time, but I have more games than I really know what to do with.

I wonder what would fill the void, because I seriously doubt the answer is “nothing.” I ask myself: What if this was a year where there was no Call of Duty, no Assassin’s Creed, no Madden, no Halo, no Need for Speed, no Battlefield, no established recurring franchise from the major publishers that needs to sell to at least 5 million people to be considered remotely successful? What would take those games’ place? And, would I like that better? Would you?

Imagine there's no Madden
It's easy if you try
No rosters to sell us
No newly rendered sky
Imagine all the people
Gaming for today...

Imagine no Call of Duty
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no killstreaks too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a gamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will game as one

Imagine no Assassins
I wonder if you can
No need for stealth or dagger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all their worlds...

You may say I'm a gamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will game as one

I wonder what would fill the void, because I seriously doubt the answer is “nothing.” I ask myself: What if this was a year where there was no Call of Duty, no Assassin’s Creed, no Madden, no Halo, no Need for Speed, no Battlefield, no established recurring franchise from the major publishers that needs to sell to at least 5 million people to be considered remotely successful? What would take those games’ place? And, would I like that better? Would you?

Halo, Battlefield, COD, AC, Madden, and NFS clones.
I might. I loved Section 8. I am still boycotting Origin. We might even get a space sim!
Speaking of sci-fi shooters,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-bLT...
The single player campaign is here
http://www.indiedb.com/games/renegad...
http://www.indiedb.com/games/renegad...
I like one comment on youtube, "like Battlefield and Planetside had a baby".

AAA Football, Soccer and arcade military shooters (COD et al) will weather the storm. Those genres target a HUGE audience, sports games also have pretty low annual budgets. It wouldn't surprise my to see some mergers in the big publisher space so as to consolidate more of that business under a single roof.

The question that I have is how the big platform holders will react to a smaller volume of AAA titles coming out. They really only make money when people pull a box off the shelf. I think Nintendo is learning what life is like when you only have first party games to keep your platform afloat (it's hard!). Sony seems to be pushing hard to build a business around smaller games. It honestly seems like Microsoft is whistling past the graveyard, perhaps we will start to see some adjustments from them once the mgmt. shakeup is done.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
Elysium wrote:

To be clear, I'm not advocating the end of AAA development. I'm advocating the idea of AAA development as it currently stands failing and a new model for that kind of development taking its place.

Like?

Not sure there's a clear answer, but if part of the point is that a large part of the gaming community would be just fine with at least a partial collapse, it's really up to them to figure it out. i.e., their problem, not ours.

"Sucking it up", accepting the lousy deals, means the next deal will be even worse. It will keep getting worse until enough of us laugh, and tell game companies to take a hike.

It's our fault, not theirs.

Their mission is to give us the worst possible deals that we'll take. The fact that so many of us will take them is the problem.

Stylez wrote:

Minecraft-related question. Wanting to get back in to it but it doesn't seem my original minecraft login works anymore. Have they changed their system at some point when I wasn't looking?

Yes. They re-did their authorization system a while ago. You'll have migrate your Minecraft account to their new general Mojang account system. Instructions on how to do so are here:

https://help.mojang.com/customer/por...

Elysium wrote:

I ask myself: What if this was a year where there was no Call of Duty, no Assassin’s Creed, no Madden, no Halo, no Need for Speed, no Battlefield, no established recurring franchise from the major publishers that needs to sell to at least 5 million people to be considered remotely successful? What would take those games’ place?

The answer is startlingly simple. It's already happened, in a manner of speaking. Looking back over what I played in 2013, there were a mere two games that meet the criteria you laid out. Bioshock Infinite, and Tomb Raider, both of which I purchased during "fire sales" (for $15 and $10 respectively, I think).

And I played a lot of games this last year. It's fair to say that I could have avoided those two titles, and still been happier than a pig in sh*t, with many more fantastic games to play than there are hours in the day to play them.

And in the most circley-jerky kind of way, I can largely lay the blame for this turn of events at the feet of our own dear community. The culture of GWJ gifting during steam sales has basically obsoleted the AAA model entirely for me.

I don't think the problem or the solution is so straightforward. As gamers with jobs, most of us here have a luxury of different economics. I do not think that money is the limiting resource for us, but rather time. Because you spent so much time on Minecraft, you did not have time to play with other games. Monetary cost or not, I think that there is a glut of games out there. These publishers aren't competing as much for our money, as they are for our time. Most of us are willing to spend the money, if we decide to devote the time to a game. A lot of problems stem from this fact.

I find that the market is inflated. It cannot support its own weight and expectations. It has to collapse, but like any capitalist gluttony, it won't go down easy or quietly. I suspect we will soon see very underhanded tactics by the big ones, trying to subvert the new funding models. All it would take for them is to buy out a few prominent projects that were funded through Kickstarter, and kill them quietly. The stink would all be on Kickstarter as a funding model. A lot of people would become very shy with their money on Kickstarter. The whole revolution would stop dead in its tracks. But the big ones would still be on their death march.

When it comes to the franchises, I find that they bring nothing to the table. There are plenty of shooters and murder simulators around willing to fill the void. When it comes to sports games, I find that EA with their anti-competitive behaviour is actually a severe detriment to the genre. There are fantastic driving simulation games out there these days that rival anything the big ones may release. I'll also take Dishonored over Assassin's Creed any day of the week and twice on Sunday--which is to say that other studios are quite capable of delivering superior experience to that of the big one's artistically bankrupt cash mills. And finally, let's not forget that most of the competitive e-sports started from free mods (Counter-Strike, DOTA, etc.).

Which brings me to one big company that seems to consistently embrace community and their customers, while raking in the money hand over fist: Valve. Whether it's support for the original modding community, or artistic asset sales in established games, they seem to embrace their customers getting extra value from their games. And if Valve makes $0.08 per customer getting extra value, so much the better.

I'll also take Dishonored over Assassin's Creed any day of the week and twice on Sunday--which is to say that other studios are quite capable of delivering superior experience to that of the big one's artistically bankrupt cash mills.

It strikes me as a little odd to hold up a AAA game published by a large corporation with lots of franchises (ZeniMax) as an alternative to a AAA game published by a large corporation with lots of franchises (Ubisoft). Can you help me understand a little bit better the distinction you're making here?

I'll also take Dishonored over Assassin's Creed any day of the week and twice on Sunday--which is to say that other studios are quite capable of delivering superior experience to that of the big one's artistically bankrupt cash mills.

Uh, Arkayne isn't exactly small or independent. They're owned by Zenimax. The mobygames credits lists is a couple of hundred people.

Jonman wrote:

And in the most circley-jerky kind of way, I can largely lay the blame for this turn of events at the feet of our own dear community. The culture of GWJ gifting during steam sales has basically obsoleted the AAA model entirely for me.

Mission: accomplished.

MoonDragon wrote:

I find that the market is inflated. It cannot support its own weight and expectations. It has to collapse, but like any capitalist gluttony, it won't go down easy or quietly.

I'm pretty sure I predicted "class war" in the bold predictions thread.

One thing that we've learned now is that things that have sold at least three times will continue to do so as long as the product is decent and allows them the launch "burst" of multiplayer and social energy that comes with a popular new game being out. The AAA titles could choose to be inventive for the better (AC4), or could simply CoD it up for a while and rake in the cash.

We rebooted Spider-Man 5 years after Spider-man 3 came out. They both grossed over $750 million dollars. And, yet, Spielberg and Lucas are predicting the end of the blockbuster. They don’t mean that we will cease to have incredibly popular movies. They do mean that they predict a string of movies that cost over $250 million each will all lose money and spark a change of mindset for the whole industry--not that they'd all be making movies like Chronicle, but they'd consider it.

It is in this idea that we have hope. Indie games can be produced in such a way to allow their pure entertainment value to propel them into the social spheres of the consumers and eventually profit. PC gaming is at the forefront of this. AAA games that you can clearly delineate on the consoles aren’t so black and white on the PC, and—as consoles continue to become a one-stop entertainment center that resembles a PC more and more—perhaps we will see a similar trend.

I see a big instigator for this movement to be the slow eradication of physical media. When people go to the store to buy actual discs, they are usually buying the big titles (despite my attempts to make my friends “go weird” and check out the next Phantom Brave-esque game coming out every few months). However, when virtual exchange becomes commonplace and a clear way to do it (“Why drive to the store?”), the playing field is leveled a bit. Maybe you can sort by rating and see that this game you’ve never heard of can be downloaded immediately for $15 and is rated higher than lots of the uber-popular titles you expect every year. You just may download that game, along with lots and lots of other people.

I remember when I used to go to Gamespy (rest in peace) and look at the upcoming release dates. The most indie or undercover I ever got there was Midnight Club and Parappa the Rapper (I almost typed “Raper”, which, no doubt, would have been a much tenser game. Maybe the next “Typing of the…” game will be you pushing him away?...ok, too far). Now accessibility is instant. Early access games are common on PC and creation has become integral with entertainment and the standard for price that Steam and other services causes in our minds has made big titles need to be REALLY good for educated gamers to pay full price for them. With entertainment AND creation being coupled in this manner, games can’t get away with being crappy more than once.

Just as the podcast had mentioned that Valve likes to release bits of information and gauge public reaction, developers are now releasing bits and bits of actual games and doing the same thing. They just know they have to come through; because shattered trust is hard to repair in a gaming world with so many options. If you’re looking to get support year after year for rehashed material, check out the growing disdain for certain things in Madden and how NBA Live doesn’t exist anymore despite efforts to revive it (since sports games are the flagship for annual games). If NBA Live had been great, we’d be in a nice 2010ish Winning Eleven…ahem Pro Evolution Soccer and Fifa living together. But, it’s getting harder and harder to coast by. Worse even, you may release your game unfinished and the internet gets littered with bad reviews even if it’s a pretty serviceable game by the 8th patch (See Rome II TW).

But, if you give quality that evolves a la Minecraft, suddenly the developer is like a car dealership. “You don’t sell them the car to sell them the car. You sell them the car to sell their family cars for the next 30 years.” Just don’t falter, because even previously impeccable companies like Blizzard are just one Diablo III away from polarizing their fan-base like they’re Augusto Pinochet.

As for those big titles like GTA that take half the GDP of Samoa to make (literally), tread carefully. The end of the blockbuster is just the end of an idea, and when games just get bigger and bigger without necessarily getting better and you still ask for our loyalty to hold strong…just call us Mr. Glass.

cube wrote:

Uh, Arkayne isn't exactly small or independent. They're owned by Zenimax. The mobygames credits lists is a couple of hundred people.

Well, Arkayne is a studio that's been slowly developing, over time. Dishonored was probably their first true AAA game.

For a long time, Arkane was a B-level studio with a lot of talent. They did, for instance, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, which mixes incredible level design and game mechanics with some of the most atrocious voice acting I've ever suffered through, and a story that felt like it was written by a 14-year-old.

My impression from the Wikipedia article is that Zenimax recognized their talent and bought them, and then teamed them up with Bethesda, which they also own, to come up with something brand new at the AAA level. So it's not a 'machine' game, being churned out by a bunch of folks on a treadmill, it was an attempt to make something genuinely new.

Sometimes, AAA works, and I think Dishonored is an excellent example.

Jonman wrote:
Elysium wrote:

I ask myself: What if this was a year where there was no Call of Duty, no Assassin’s Creed, no Madden, no Halo, no Need for Speed, no Battlefield, no established recurring franchise from the major publishers that needs to sell to at least 5 million people to be considered remotely successful? What would take those games’ place?

The answer is startlingly simple. It's already happened, in a manner of speaking. Looking back over what I played in 2013, there were a mere two games that meet the criteria you laid out. Bioshock Infinite, and Tomb Raider, both of which I purchased during "fire sales" (for $15 and $10 respectively, I think).

I might give you BioInf, but Tomb Raider, really? Read the bolded part again, then read this
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/05/squ...

I see what is described as the application of the wider issue of people / companies preferring to make money via rents.

In the case of large gaming companies the preference is to extract rents from established franchises; however those games locked themselves into a cycle where there is an ever high expectation of "quality" defined as graphics and engine, hence a portion of the development expense. Unlike movies where you cannot patch the product when it is out in the theaters, games can be thrust onto the gaming community with half baked portions because the model that has come into place is the day one patch (etc.).

I can see a future where AAA titles are increasingly sold exclusively through a publishers store only in an effort to keep the price per unit high. I further see a future where the cycle time gets ever more compressed (to try and save on development costs) resulting in ever more DLC that arguably should have been part of the published game.

That can work only on PCs though, since publisher's stores don't really get to appear on mobile, console and soon Steam box devices

I don't think there'll be an E.T-style collapse. The industry has already been changing. First it was social and then it became mobile. Along the way the small studios started getting successful enough to add production value and depth to games that prior might have only lived as Flash games on addictinggames.com. We even had to create the term "mid core" for those.

There's still AAA games. And there's still huge reliance on them to drive the two large console sales and traffic through a lot of brick and mortar places. But they are not the be-all/end-all of the high profile games business anymore.

The entire "video games business" is very broad and covers an entire spectrum of society from core gamers through people who play with the same passion and energy but who don't call themselves gamers. The money is flowing all over the place and it's not being measured by the same verticals as the late 90s and early 2000s.

That I think is the best thing that could have happened. We don't bend on any one company's whim. Entire franchises, studios, publishers and whole devices can come and go. But gaming will survive and thrive and continue to employ plenty of people.

Aristophan wrote:
I wonder what would fill the void, because I seriously doubt the answer is “nothing.” I ask myself: What if this was a year where there was no Call of Duty, no Assassin’s Creed, no Madden, no Halo, no Need for Speed, no Battlefield, no established recurring franchise from the major publishers that needs to sell to at least 5 million people to be considered remotely successful? What would take those games’ place? And, would I like that better? Would you?

Imagine there's no Madden
It's easy if you try
No rosters to sell us
No newly rendered sky
Imagine all the people
Gaming for today...

Imagine no Call of Duty
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no killstreaks too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a gamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will game as one

Imagine no Assassins
I wonder if you can
No need for stealth or dagger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all their worlds...

You may say I'm a gamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will game as one

Someone should have told you this earlier: Awesome.

In my mind, content tourism may be the enemy of good game design and maybe budgeting.

Content tourism, in this context, refers to games-as-production-value-themepark. Games designed to entertain the audience by providing them with 5-8 hours of scrolling audio-visual flare with solid but unremarkable and undemanding gameplay to move the show forward.

These games tend to not be designed for replayability. As of late, the practice of bolting collectible suitcases and whatnot to give the illusion of replayability has become the norm. Don't sell that game back to Gamestop yet! You haven't found the 15 audio logs that unlock scans of speed painted concept art we grabbed from someone's office at the last minute! And the thing is, there's an audience for this. To some degree at least. There -are- plenty of people for whom video games are not a hobby, but just the new boob toob - a way to kill some time after work and it's worth $60 worth of novel graphics for some folks to experience that.

Games which are designed to last, to be replayed over and over or that are open-ended like Minecraft... they're just not understood by a significant portion of the gaming audience the AAA industry aims for. Can't tell you how many times I've watched the prototypical AAA customer look at Minecraft and ask "why would anyone spend ten bucks on THAT" as they are waiting to spend six times as much for a five hour tour of expensive motion capped animation and the dried tears of 1000 texture artists.

It may sound bitter but I am just making the funny. I'm not saying there shouldn't be a place for interactive experiences like that. Of course, if the economics aren't working out - because it gets ever-more expensive to impress that audience - then the industry still has a problem on its hands.

There is though, a reason why people are still playing Super Mario Bros 3 25 years later, a few hundred K worth of data that happens to be artfully arranged.

For the record, I used Dishonored as an example of a great game that I would much rather play, than iteration 9 of an established AAA franchise in exact same genre. And if Dishonored can do, so can many other games.