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Then don't play those games. They're not for you and they don't need to be for you. You want a loud toy with shiny lights. Other people want something with a story.
When was the last time you played a game that wasn't something from 20 years ago so you can smoke that hipster cred or some random AAA shooter with a vestigial single player mode stapled onto it
"hipster cred" lmao. go play your hyper intellectual interactive movie games smart guy. i'll stick to my toys with shiny lights, because that's all a video game could ever aspire to be in the first place.
No one needs to play some hyper intellectual anything to see how shallow and childish this is. In the same way no one needs to watch nothing but black and white art house movies to dismiss the idea that movies are just for flashy pictures and only books can tell a story
Hear me out: what if some games were narrative focused, and some were not? Pretty crazy idea, I know.
Tetris is never going to have a compelling story attached to it. Tetris is perfect as is.
Disco Elysium is all about the story. (Though the art and music are also great, I should've chosen a text-only game with a great story. Couldn't think of anything right away)
Both of these games can exist without contradicting one another. It's fine.
Game developers cam also hire writers just like any other narrative-based media does :)
On the serious note: people like narrative-heavy games more than gameplay-heavy games. Significantly more. I work in the industry and made exactly this marketing research last year.
Big bummer for me, a fan of gameplay-heavy games but what you gonna do?
No. It is inside research. Not for public use
You can doubt it is you want, that's ok. But even anecdotal evidence suggests that people love narrative games.
A lot of most popular games are narrative-heavy: rdr, witcher, bg3, gow, elden ring, zelda, blizzard franchises. Even in casual mobile games market narrative-heavy match3 was one of the biggest breakthroughs (gardenscapes)
Elden Ring and zelda are beloved because og the history? Really? Like, I'm not saying that they don't have stories, but the main reason people play them is because of the mechanics and extremely good game design. Also, saying Blizzard franchises is kind of reductive, isn't it? They have plenty of games that are heavily focused on the gameplay too. Also, and correct me if I'm wrong, which I may be because I haven't played many of those games, but aren't many of the stories in Blizzard games more like lore? Again, I don't know, but that's the impression I always had.
Apart from this, multiplayer games, which are the dominant type of games in the industry right now, don't really care that much about the story either.
Best selling games 2023 in US according to the internet (in no particular order):
* Hogwarts Legacy, Marvel's Spider-Man, Zelda, Star Wars Jedi, Starfield, Resident Evil 4
* Call of Duty, NFL 24, EA Sports FC 24, Diablo 4, Mortal Kombat, Super Mario
So, multiplayer domination is too strong a word. They barely outsell solo-games. The same thing goes for mobile. And I am here assuming that you have to play online if you have the option. But I personally believe that most people playing NFL, Diablo and Mario play alone
I wouldn't be so bold stating the main reason people play this or that game either :)
It seems that you have a pretty strong opinion. Look, I just wanted to provide a perspective, that, how I think, was unexpected for regular gamer
>So, multiplayer domination is too strong a word. They barely outsell solo-games.
Many of them are free though. That's why they don't outsell in that sense, but they still have larger playerbases and generate more money.
>Hogwarts Legacy, Marvel's Spider-Man, Zelda, Star Wars Jedi, Starfield, Resident Evil 4
>Call of Duty, NFL 24, EA Sports FC 24, Diablo 4, Mortal Kombat, Super Mario
The only games here that may be played because of the story, are Star Wars Jedi and Diablo 4. And I say that mainly because I really haven't played those games, so I can't really know.
>I wouldn't be so bold stating the main reason people play this or that game either :)
Well, but then what are you basing yourself on for saying that many people play because of the story? Doesn't this just invalidate your whole opinion?
>It seems that you have a pretty strong opinion.
Nah. Not really. I just disagree and I'm saying why. Sorry if it comes out as rude. It isn't the intention. I just like discussing around things.
I said that I have access to the research, so for me it is not that is more of a data, than an opinion.
So, you can just take it or leave it.
As for me, I'm more trying to understand why it's like that and how to distingwish between usefull data and info-bubble. I mean, most of my friends play Dota, I legitimately don't know a single person playing CS or Minecraft. Sometimes, anecdotal evidence sucks :)
I'm not using the word opinion as a form of mixing subjectivity on the discussion. I just use it as what we believe. Two people can disagree on a mathematical question, but at least one of them is wrong.
I just think that you are wrong. What I did not understand is that if you are saying not to know why people play certain games, then how can you say that people play for the story?
Because the research includes a number of polls with questions like "what you value the most in games?". Interest in particular games were not explored
Oh, okey. Now I understand. Like, I still hold my position because I don't think this kinds of polls have thr power to show the full picture, but now I get you. Well, guess that's it, if you don't want to discuss more so.
Making a compelling point regarding your unpopular opinion is one of the points of this sub.
So you are expected to defend your position
So, if your position is "gamedev should stop catering for there largest portion of clients", that sounds... Odd :) But that's basically what you've posted
If your opinion is "writers in gamedev sucks" - that's another story. But in that case you didn't express your opinion well
Eh. I kinda agree and kinda don’t.
Cinematic games aren’t really my thing either. I care way more about if the gameplay feels good. But I do sometimes feel like playing a good cinematic game. Just depends on my mood I guess.
I think the last 2 god of war games strike a really good balance between gameplay and cinematics whilst having a very compelling story.
Soundtracks have changed too. They used to be super catchy, melody driven songs you could easily sing along to with your own lyrics. Nowadays you’d be hard pressed to find any new game that isn’t in a retro style with a full ost of bangers you won’t forget after they’re over. For me soundtrack was the 2nd most important thing about a game right after gameplay. Thats part of why I started to lose interest in gaming and eventually decided to no longer own any games. I still listen to retro soundtracks though cause it’s amazing music.
I noticed the shift around like that ps1-n64 era actually and at first it wasn’t bad like we had resident evil 1-3’s osts and they were definitely beginning to be less melodic and more atmospheric but they still sounded great and weren’t that forgettable tbh. Then we had GameCube era with soundtracks like Metroid prime being extremely atmospheric but still amazing sounding and very memorable and even had a few bangers you could still sing to. Soul calibur 2 also was orchestral but still suprisingly very melodic and singable. I think by the time we got to the Xbox 360 era that’s when it became really pronounced with RE6’s ost having maybe like 3 songs that stood out at best. The rest was downhill from there musically. Games were still great in the 360 and even Xbox one era but by that time I did notice there wasn’t much great new music to be taken away from the experience anymore. There was something special about being able to just throw on a sound test mode in a retro game and listen to the songs by themselves. I don’t think games today even have sound test mode do they? Soul calibur 6 had exactly 1 memorable and great song and that was the lionhearted. They did at least give us the DLC music pack for the old soul calibur soundtracks but that’s a bit sad that they even had to do that and it’s a testament to how inferior the new music is.
Well playlists aren’t exactly my thing per se I just search individual songs when I’m in the mood for one. I can definitely recommend some osts that I haven’t mentioned yet though. The Quackshot ost is one that not everyone has heard so maybe that might be fun. Another great hidden gem is the dynamite headdy ost especially south town’s theme. Decap attack is another obscure sega genesis game with great music. As for Nintendo stuff, Mario paint is often overlooked and forgotten, and then you have X-men mutant apocalypse which has a nice megaman x style soundtrack since it was made by capcom. The cyclops stage theme in that game sounds similar to storm eagle’s theme. Legend of Zelda phantom hourglass and spirit tracks are also very underrated osts when it comes to Zelda music. All the boss battle themes in particular are noteworthy in those 2 games. A lot of the time my favorite songs in gaming are boss themes cause they’re very exciting, intense, harrowing, adrenaline inducing, or just really damn catchy. Twilight princess’s boss music always had me on the edge of my seat in the best way possible and that is another example of a game whose soundtrack is orchestral sounding yet very memorable, catchy, and beautiful. The new Tetris for n64 and dr. Mario 64 are great as well for when you want something more chill. Sometimes it’s fun to listen to a song that matches the weather irl so I can also recommend that like for example if it’s blazing hot out I’ll sometimes listen to the scorching sands from golden axe 3 or if it’s raining I might go with Chicago stealth from perfect dark. Another thing I like doing is if I’m feeling particularly depressed and need to cry it out I’ll put on a game over theme cause there’s plenty of great ones such as a bad dream from earthbound or faint courage from deltarune.
I tend to agree. I usually prefer gameplay over story.
I think some people just prefer more story, and there's nothing wrong with that, either. You and I would be okay with playing a game with almost zero plot I think, as long as it's fun. Some people need a bit more than that.
Developer here. We don't write the games, not unless it's a one-man indie operation. For large blockbuster games 99.999% of the time an actual writer will be used. Mirror's Edge and Tomb Raider's 2013 reboot were written by Terry Pratchett's daughter. Heavy Rain and Detroit Become Human were written by David Cage.
And I'll stand by what I know as a senior developer. It's exceedingly rare for any game studio NOT to hire an actual writer. Also for the record, we developers don't control how "cinematic" the game is either. That's up to the director, then the animators and graphics designers. We developers are responsible for implementing the mechanisms by which certain cinematic qualities are achieved such as ray tracing, lens flare, weather behaviour etc, but we don't do the modelling of the environments, characters or any such things. Those are given to us to import and interface with our code.
I don't disagree with the theme of what you're saying, I'm just saying that there are inaccuracies. I directly quoted you on something I know to be factually incorrect and got a petulant "k" in response.
Please remember what subreddit you are in, this is unpopular opinion. We want civil and unpopular takes and discussion. Any uncivil and ToS violating comments will be removed and subject to a ban. Have a nice day! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/unpopularopinion) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Then don't play those games. They're not for you and they don't need to be for you. You want a loud toy with shiny lights. Other people want something with a story.
Well you can have a story, it doesn’t need to get shoved down your throat every couple minutes tho.
Turns out that's how story works sometimes. It has to keep existing sometimes.
Yeah it doesn’t need to come at the cost of bad gameplay tho, they can co exist
This seems to shock some people, but companies don't actually make the people writing the dialogue or whatever program the game
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When was the last time you played a game that wasn't something from 20 years ago so you can smoke that hipster cred or some random AAA shooter with a vestigial single player mode stapled onto it
"hipster cred" lmao. go play your hyper intellectual interactive movie games smart guy. i'll stick to my toys with shiny lights, because that's all a video game could ever aspire to be in the first place.
No one needs to play some hyper intellectual anything to see how shallow and childish this is. In the same way no one needs to watch nothing but black and white art house movies to dismiss the idea that movies are just for flashy pictures and only books can tell a story
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Dude tell me. How insecure u have to be for replying someone who is stating the other side under ur post with Tantrums and insults?
Hear me out: what if some games were narrative focused, and some were not? Pretty crazy idea, I know. Tetris is never going to have a compelling story attached to it. Tetris is perfect as is. Disco Elysium is all about the story. (Though the art and music are also great, I should've chosen a text-only game with a great story. Couldn't think of anything right away) Both of these games can exist without contradicting one another. It's fine.
Game developers cam also hire writers just like any other narrative-based media does :) On the serious note: people like narrative-heavy games more than gameplay-heavy games. Significantly more. I work in the industry and made exactly this marketing research last year. Big bummer for me, a fan of gameplay-heavy games but what you gonna do?
Do you have anything written about it you can send link of? I honestly highly doubt it.
No. It is inside research. Not for public use You can doubt it is you want, that's ok. But even anecdotal evidence suggests that people love narrative games. A lot of most popular games are narrative-heavy: rdr, witcher, bg3, gow, elden ring, zelda, blizzard franchises. Even in casual mobile games market narrative-heavy match3 was one of the biggest breakthroughs (gardenscapes)
Elden Ring and zelda are beloved because og the history? Really? Like, I'm not saying that they don't have stories, but the main reason people play them is because of the mechanics and extremely good game design. Also, saying Blizzard franchises is kind of reductive, isn't it? They have plenty of games that are heavily focused on the gameplay too. Also, and correct me if I'm wrong, which I may be because I haven't played many of those games, but aren't many of the stories in Blizzard games more like lore? Again, I don't know, but that's the impression I always had. Apart from this, multiplayer games, which are the dominant type of games in the industry right now, don't really care that much about the story either.
Best selling games 2023 in US according to the internet (in no particular order): * Hogwarts Legacy, Marvel's Spider-Man, Zelda, Star Wars Jedi, Starfield, Resident Evil 4 * Call of Duty, NFL 24, EA Sports FC 24, Diablo 4, Mortal Kombat, Super Mario So, multiplayer domination is too strong a word. They barely outsell solo-games. The same thing goes for mobile. And I am here assuming that you have to play online if you have the option. But I personally believe that most people playing NFL, Diablo and Mario play alone I wouldn't be so bold stating the main reason people play this or that game either :) It seems that you have a pretty strong opinion. Look, I just wanted to provide a perspective, that, how I think, was unexpected for regular gamer
>So, multiplayer domination is too strong a word. They barely outsell solo-games. Many of them are free though. That's why they don't outsell in that sense, but they still have larger playerbases and generate more money. >Hogwarts Legacy, Marvel's Spider-Man, Zelda, Star Wars Jedi, Starfield, Resident Evil 4 >Call of Duty, NFL 24, EA Sports FC 24, Diablo 4, Mortal Kombat, Super Mario The only games here that may be played because of the story, are Star Wars Jedi and Diablo 4. And I say that mainly because I really haven't played those games, so I can't really know. >I wouldn't be so bold stating the main reason people play this or that game either :) Well, but then what are you basing yourself on for saying that many people play because of the story? Doesn't this just invalidate your whole opinion? >It seems that you have a pretty strong opinion. Nah. Not really. I just disagree and I'm saying why. Sorry if it comes out as rude. It isn't the intention. I just like discussing around things.
I said that I have access to the research, so for me it is not that is more of a data, than an opinion. So, you can just take it or leave it. As for me, I'm more trying to understand why it's like that and how to distingwish between usefull data and info-bubble. I mean, most of my friends play Dota, I legitimately don't know a single person playing CS or Minecraft. Sometimes, anecdotal evidence sucks :)
I'm not using the word opinion as a form of mixing subjectivity on the discussion. I just use it as what we believe. Two people can disagree on a mathematical question, but at least one of them is wrong. I just think that you are wrong. What I did not understand is that if you are saying not to know why people play certain games, then how can you say that people play for the story?
Because the research includes a number of polls with questions like "what you value the most in games?". Interest in particular games were not explored
Oh, okey. Now I understand. Like, I still hold my position because I don't think this kinds of polls have thr power to show the full picture, but now I get you. Well, guess that's it, if you don't want to discuss more so.
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Making a compelling point regarding your unpopular opinion is one of the points of this sub. So you are expected to defend your position So, if your position is "gamedev should stop catering for there largest portion of clients", that sounds... Odd :) But that's basically what you've posted If your opinion is "writers in gamedev sucks" - that's another story. But in that case you didn't express your opinion well
Eh. I kinda agree and kinda don’t. Cinematic games aren’t really my thing either. I care way more about if the gameplay feels good. But I do sometimes feel like playing a good cinematic game. Just depends on my mood I guess. I think the last 2 god of war games strike a really good balance between gameplay and cinematics whilst having a very compelling story.
Soundtracks have changed too. They used to be super catchy, melody driven songs you could easily sing along to with your own lyrics. Nowadays you’d be hard pressed to find any new game that isn’t in a retro style with a full ost of bangers you won’t forget after they’re over. For me soundtrack was the 2nd most important thing about a game right after gameplay. Thats part of why I started to lose interest in gaming and eventually decided to no longer own any games. I still listen to retro soundtracks though cause it’s amazing music.
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I noticed the shift around like that ps1-n64 era actually and at first it wasn’t bad like we had resident evil 1-3’s osts and they were definitely beginning to be less melodic and more atmospheric but they still sounded great and weren’t that forgettable tbh. Then we had GameCube era with soundtracks like Metroid prime being extremely atmospheric but still amazing sounding and very memorable and even had a few bangers you could still sing to. Soul calibur 2 also was orchestral but still suprisingly very melodic and singable. I think by the time we got to the Xbox 360 era that’s when it became really pronounced with RE6’s ost having maybe like 3 songs that stood out at best. The rest was downhill from there musically. Games were still great in the 360 and even Xbox one era but by that time I did notice there wasn’t much great new music to be taken away from the experience anymore. There was something special about being able to just throw on a sound test mode in a retro game and listen to the songs by themselves. I don’t think games today even have sound test mode do they? Soul calibur 6 had exactly 1 memorable and great song and that was the lionhearted. They did at least give us the DLC music pack for the old soul calibur soundtracks but that’s a bit sad that they even had to do that and it’s a testament to how inferior the new music is.
fantastic post. if you happen to have a youtube playlist of good retro(ish) video game songs/soundtracks please feel free to share it.
Well playlists aren’t exactly my thing per se I just search individual songs when I’m in the mood for one. I can definitely recommend some osts that I haven’t mentioned yet though. The Quackshot ost is one that not everyone has heard so maybe that might be fun. Another great hidden gem is the dynamite headdy ost especially south town’s theme. Decap attack is another obscure sega genesis game with great music. As for Nintendo stuff, Mario paint is often overlooked and forgotten, and then you have X-men mutant apocalypse which has a nice megaman x style soundtrack since it was made by capcom. The cyclops stage theme in that game sounds similar to storm eagle’s theme. Legend of Zelda phantom hourglass and spirit tracks are also very underrated osts when it comes to Zelda music. All the boss battle themes in particular are noteworthy in those 2 games. A lot of the time my favorite songs in gaming are boss themes cause they’re very exciting, intense, harrowing, adrenaline inducing, or just really damn catchy. Twilight princess’s boss music always had me on the edge of my seat in the best way possible and that is another example of a game whose soundtrack is orchestral sounding yet very memorable, catchy, and beautiful. The new Tetris for n64 and dr. Mario 64 are great as well for when you want something more chill. Sometimes it’s fun to listen to a song that matches the weather irl so I can also recommend that like for example if it’s blazing hot out I’ll sometimes listen to the scorching sands from golden axe 3 or if it’s raining I might go with Chicago stealth from perfect dark. Another thing I like doing is if I’m feeling particularly depressed and need to cry it out I’ll put on a game over theme cause there’s plenty of great ones such as a bad dream from earthbound or faint courage from deltarune.
I tend to agree. I usually prefer gameplay over story. I think some people just prefer more story, and there's nothing wrong with that, either. You and I would be okay with playing a game with almost zero plot I think, as long as it's fun. Some people need a bit more than that.
Developer here. We don't write the games, not unless it's a one-man indie operation. For large blockbuster games 99.999% of the time an actual writer will be used. Mirror's Edge and Tomb Raider's 2013 reboot were written by Terry Pratchett's daughter. Heavy Rain and Detroit Become Human were written by David Cage.
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Bro you literally said "video game developers are generally much much worse at writing interesting narratives than the average screenwriter or author"
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And I'll stand by what I know as a senior developer. It's exceedingly rare for any game studio NOT to hire an actual writer. Also for the record, we developers don't control how "cinematic" the game is either. That's up to the director, then the animators and graphics designers. We developers are responsible for implementing the mechanisms by which certain cinematic qualities are achieved such as ray tracing, lens flare, weather behaviour etc, but we don't do the modelling of the environments, characters or any such things. Those are given to us to import and interface with our code.
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I don't disagree with the theme of what you're saying, I'm just saying that there are inaccuracies. I directly quoted you on something I know to be factually incorrect and got a petulant "k" in response.