Re: Quality of games
I think the current decline in the quality of games currently is down to two things, really.
I think that Facebook games is the first one; they're becoming more popular and prevalent and there's people of all ages devoting large portions of their lives to these Mafia, Pirates, Farmville; I had a look at an old friend of my father's and she was playing Farmville to the point where she was in a huge community for it!
Speaking of Farmville, though... what's so different about that game to the Harvest Moon games I used to play on Gameboy and had other girls saying "why're you playing a farming game?!" What's so different about this absorbing, life-draining community-esque game that means it doesn't draw the same ire as WoW?
Meh, I loathe Facebook games with a passion.
The second is the Nintendo Wii; yes it's a fantastic 'party' machine, and yes it's introducted alot more demographics to gaming whereby I can ask female friends if they want to play a video game and they'll not look at me as if I was speaking Swahili or whatever.
The thing is that this increased market, thanks in part to the Wii, means that developers are flooding us with sub-par games to make a quick buck based on the 'party' aspect of the console; why pour lots of time and effort into the perfect Zelda game which will only sell to fans and the like when they can churn out WiiSports Public Toilet Edition and people of all ages will buy it?
What the Wii has done for bringing gaming to the mainstream is fantastic, but what it's done for actual game quality is discouraging to the developers for the Playstation 3 and X-Box 360; I think this is why you're seeing a shift towards more collectibles (achievements and trophies) and heavier multiplayer focus.
I'm always in the same argument with my father when he pops up and asks why Mass Effect 2 or Dragon Age: Origins isn't multiplayer; he believes that every game should have multiplayer, but then he only plays Fifa and Call of Duty. >.<
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