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Female, Middle-Aged Gamer Speaks
http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-6-most-ominous-trends-in-video-games/
Just read through that one, and yeah, I agree with the author: the range of games available is decreasing by the year. I've been playing various computerised games for years now (since I was about fifteen or so) and quite honestly, the console gaming range these days is pathetic compared to even the variety available five years ago. Ditto the range available for PC gamers.
This is becoming a common problem across multiple media, where the amount of money required to provide content means the investors are less and less willing to take risks with what they have, so they're only willing to provide a new version of something that's already been proven to have worked. Their justification for this is "everyone liked it". There isn't any money being spent on the smaller, niche markets - instead, colossal amounts are being poured into efforts to capture the eyeballs of the One True Demographic (which appears to be 15 - 25 year old, white, middle-class, suburban, heterosexual, Christian-raised, American males).
The rest of us, unfortunately, get to spend our lives looking through shelf after shelf of what "everyone likes", searching vainly for something even vaguely different to the endless loop of FPS; FPS; oh look another FPS; and gee, did you realise there was an FPS here? We're never asked whether we might want something different. (See multiple previous rants re: choice of salt-and-vinegar crisps or vinegar-and-salt crisps when what I'm actually looking for is barbecue flavour.)
I currently have two consoles which don't connect up to the internet (the PS2 isn't designed to do so; I'm not willing to spend another $145 on a wireless dongle for the Xbox to link it into our home network. I paid about $350 for the console, for which money it should be able to work Just Fine As It Is). I like playing RPGs (and I actually prefer single person RPGs to the MMO variety, because with a single person version, I don't have to be willing to either stay up until oh-my-gods-it's-early or wake up at oh-my-god in the morning to join in raids in order to complete the bloody thing). Oh, and I'm a heterosexual female who doesn't find endless tit and arse shots to be either interesting, exciting or attractive (I instead find them distracting and condescending). I also don't like 3D content, because I have selective monocular vision most of the time (and particularly when I'm tired, stressed or cranky - so times when I'm playing a game to wind down) and this means I'm not able to use a vast number of 3D technologies - my depth perception is and always has been wonky.
If there's a game company exec out there browsing around haphazardly, looking for inspiration, here's what I want out of a game (and even though I may be a rare bird as a 40 year old heterosexual, female, Australian gamer, I'm not the only one):
* I want a good story - something that catches me and keeps me interested. Give me plot twists, give me character interaction, give me a reason to keep playing the godsdamned game past the first five minutes and the second cutscene. If you're not sure how to do this, get hold of the writers for the Final Fantasy series and ask them, because they certainly have it down to a fine art. Bioware also appear to have writers who can tell the difference between a plot and a hole in the ground.
* I want gameplay which is consistent. There are four buttons on the average console, and I'd prefer to be just using those. I should not have to remember the equivalent of the emacs macro set (look it up) in order to be able to defeat the second mini-boss.
* I want gameplay which accepts that not everyone is a hyperactive teenager hopped up to the eyeballs on caffeine and energy drinks with the reflexes of a greased ferret on crystal meth. My visual processing and verbal processing are slower than average to start with - they're only going to slow down more as I get older (and I'm part of Generation X, the first gamer generation). So have stuff which doesn't rely on pinpoint pixel perfect accuracy, or exact timing, because otherwise I'll get fed up and switch the game out.
* Oh, on that "growing older" thing, and the slower-than-average verbal processing speed - give me subtitles, and give me a way to turn off the fucking background music (for verily, background music on constant repeat is the number two reason why I'll give up on a game; no subtitles is number one these days, because I don't like trying to guess my way through games).
* Make the game in third person perspective (Third person omniscient if at all possible). I'm one of those weird people who finds First Person perspective (whether shooting or not) makes me nauseous. I get motion sick, because my eyes are telling me I'm moving, but my body is busy saying I'm sitting right there on the couch. I had enough of motion sickness as a kid for a very similar reason (scenery says I'm moving, body says I'm strapped into a seat in the car) to find the combination distasteful. Given the opportunity to avoid it, I will.
* Give me the option not to have to hear about online/multiplayer content if I don't want it. This is something I'm finding slightly annoying in games like Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep and Little Big Planet - there's such an emphasis on the online stuff that I feel somewhat left out because my PSP doesn't connect to our household wireless network (not a deliberate choice on my part; rather an inadvertent choice on the part of my partner, who opted for a secure network rather than one the PSP could participate in). So I don't play those games much.
* Have a pause function in the game. I'm female, and most of the time I'm the only person home. This means I have to be able to put the game on hold while I do things like answer the door, go to the loo, answer the phone or stir dinner. If there isn't an easy way to put the game on hold (even if it's just ducking into character menu mode), I'm going to get annoyed fairly quickly.
* Don't worry so much about making the next version of whatever everyone else is busy selling. If we want any of the famous franchises, we know where to find them. To be honest, the only franchise I'm really all that sold on is the Final Fantasy one - because they very rarely make sequels. Instead, each new FF number is a completely different plot, a different set of characters, a different world to every other Final Fantasy game. Most of them are mediaeval-style worlds, but there's a few futuristic dystopias thrown in there (FFVII, FFVIII, FFXIII) and the characters from one Final Fantasy plotline generally don't interact with characters from another (Dissidia is a special case of pure fan service, ditto the Kingdom Hearts games).
* Oh, here's a thought: have the guts to try risking a tragedy on the market. Not everything has to end all happy and smiley. Take a hint from Square Soft (now Square Enix) - their big breakthrough game for the English-speaking market was a tragedy: Final Fantasy VII. (No, really, the plot of FFVII is a revenge tragedy of a type which wouldn't have been out of place on the Jacobean stage).
Look, I'll make it simple. This is what I have on the various gaming set-ups around the house:
On the PC - The Sims 2, with packs up to "Mansion and Garden Stuff" (but not the Ikea one because my AV checker detected a virus on the DVD for it and won't let me install it).
Why? Because I like the Sims 2. It's a quiet, slow-paced game, which can be put on hold while I do things like stir dinner, serve dinner, eat dinner, and all the other little things which happen around gaming. It's also a game which allows me to make up my own stories (and like all other literary efforts, sometimes the characters won't co-operate). It doesn't require me to have a massive amount of physical skill or targeting. It's just a nice quiet game that lets me burble around at my own speed. Oh, and watching my sim boys kiss one another is kinda hot.
Also on the PC - Eyangband
Why? It's my favourite Angband variant, and it keeps me busy on days when the notion of looking at the graphics for FFVII is just too much visual processing. Easy to launch, easy to play, easy to get started again when I get deaded.
Also on the PC - Pretty Good Solitaire 99
Why? It's essentially a pack with multiple variations of patience on it. I have a mah-jongg tile version of the same sort of thing installed as well. There are about four different games I play regularly, and with all of them I play them because I can cope with the rule set, and they're pretty consistent to get out. They're quick, they're simple, they don't require me to be carrying out multiple steps in order to get the game started. Those sorts of games are a Good Thing too.
On the PS2 - Final Fantasy VII
Why? Because I'm up for a replay, and this time around I want to see whether I can manage to complete everything - defeat all the bosses, raise all the chocobos, find and master all the materia etc. Because I want to. Because I can. Oddly enough, the crappy graphics don't bother me too much. Neither do the occasional annoying side quests and minigames, because I can get through those. I can stop between battles and put the game into menu mode (or just stop dead in the middle of whatever plot point we're working through at the moment etc). FFVII is one of the few games I've actually completed all the way through, and the main reason is because I was able to get fed up with trying for 100% complete and just blitz on through to the final battle and cutscenes.
For me, Final Fantasy VII is the gaming equivalent of my Georgette Heyer romances and the various iterations of the Eddings plot-line - it's something I'll come back to again and again, not because it's original, but because it's an old friend which puts me in touch with other old friends when I play it.
On the XBox - Dragon Age Origins
Why? RPG. Multiple points of view possible. Lots of exploration time possible. Plus I'm enjoying the bitching and snarking that's going on between Alastair and Morrigan. Mind you, Morrigan's top I can live without - as a woman with large tits myself, I find myself constantly distracted by two questions: doesn't she get cold?; and doesn't that get uncomfortable?
On the PSP - Final Fantasy Dissidia
Why? Mindless button-mashing. Minimal plot. You're in it to bash up Final Fantasy heroes and villains, and that's basically what you do. Doesn't require an online connection, doesn't need huge amounts of explanation, there's enough bishounen to sink a small tugboat, and hey, you even get a Shirtless Sephiroth in there as well. What's not to like?
Basically, my preferences can be summed up thus:
* If you're going to give me a story, give me a flamin' story. Make it long, make it convoluted, make it tricky to understand - if I'm playing the game to get through the story, I'll come back and play it again to catch the bits I missed the first time (I re-read books for the same reason...). Of course, make sure that the vital plot points are made clear, but the little subtleties can be skipped over.
* If you're not going to give me a story, then give me something I can make a story out of myself - even if the story is just "How I beat the crap out of this next opponent". But don't give me a story which is so scanty it puts some of the costumes on the female characters to shame.
* If you're going to offer eye candy, have some which is suitable for a het female (or maybe even a gay male) to ogle as well. Yes, most of the gamerbois out there won't like it. Did I mention I'm not a gamerboi? It might just be worth doing a little market research and finding out precisely which proportion of the electronic gaming market these days is composed of members of the One True Demographic (see above for description) - I've a feeling they're a smaller proportion than they think they are.
Just read through that one, and yeah, I agree with the author: the range of games available is decreasing by the year. I've been playing various computerised games for years now (since I was about fifteen or so) and quite honestly, the console gaming range these days is pathetic compared to even the variety available five years ago. Ditto the range available for PC gamers.
This is becoming a common problem across multiple media, where the amount of money required to provide content means the investors are less and less willing to take risks with what they have, so they're only willing to provide a new version of something that's already been proven to have worked. Their justification for this is "everyone liked it". There isn't any money being spent on the smaller, niche markets - instead, colossal amounts are being poured into efforts to capture the eyeballs of the One True Demographic (which appears to be 15 - 25 year old, white, middle-class, suburban, heterosexual, Christian-raised, American males).
The rest of us, unfortunately, get to spend our lives looking through shelf after shelf of what "everyone likes", searching vainly for something even vaguely different to the endless loop of FPS; FPS; oh look another FPS; and gee, did you realise there was an FPS here? We're never asked whether we might want something different. (See multiple previous rants re: choice of salt-and-vinegar crisps or vinegar-and-salt crisps when what I'm actually looking for is barbecue flavour.)
I currently have two consoles which don't connect up to the internet (the PS2 isn't designed to do so; I'm not willing to spend another $145 on a wireless dongle for the Xbox to link it into our home network. I paid about $350 for the console, for which money it should be able to work Just Fine As It Is). I like playing RPGs (and I actually prefer single person RPGs to the MMO variety, because with a single person version, I don't have to be willing to either stay up until oh-my-gods-it's-early or wake up at oh-my-god in the morning to join in raids in order to complete the bloody thing). Oh, and I'm a heterosexual female who doesn't find endless tit and arse shots to be either interesting, exciting or attractive (I instead find them distracting and condescending). I also don't like 3D content, because I have selective monocular vision most of the time (and particularly when I'm tired, stressed or cranky - so times when I'm playing a game to wind down) and this means I'm not able to use a vast number of 3D technologies - my depth perception is and always has been wonky.
If there's a game company exec out there browsing around haphazardly, looking for inspiration, here's what I want out of a game (and even though I may be a rare bird as a 40 year old heterosexual, female, Australian gamer, I'm not the only one):
* I want a good story - something that catches me and keeps me interested. Give me plot twists, give me character interaction, give me a reason to keep playing the godsdamned game past the first five minutes and the second cutscene. If you're not sure how to do this, get hold of the writers for the Final Fantasy series and ask them, because they certainly have it down to a fine art. Bioware also appear to have writers who can tell the difference between a plot and a hole in the ground.
* I want gameplay which is consistent. There are four buttons on the average console, and I'd prefer to be just using those. I should not have to remember the equivalent of the emacs macro set (look it up) in order to be able to defeat the second mini-boss.
* I want gameplay which accepts that not everyone is a hyperactive teenager hopped up to the eyeballs on caffeine and energy drinks with the reflexes of a greased ferret on crystal meth. My visual processing and verbal processing are slower than average to start with - they're only going to slow down more as I get older (and I'm part of Generation X, the first gamer generation). So have stuff which doesn't rely on pinpoint pixel perfect accuracy, or exact timing, because otherwise I'll get fed up and switch the game out.
* Oh, on that "growing older" thing, and the slower-than-average verbal processing speed - give me subtitles, and give me a way to turn off the fucking background music (for verily, background music on constant repeat is the number two reason why I'll give up on a game; no subtitles is number one these days, because I don't like trying to guess my way through games).
* Make the game in third person perspective (Third person omniscient if at all possible). I'm one of those weird people who finds First Person perspective (whether shooting or not) makes me nauseous. I get motion sick, because my eyes are telling me I'm moving, but my body is busy saying I'm sitting right there on the couch. I had enough of motion sickness as a kid for a very similar reason (scenery says I'm moving, body says I'm strapped into a seat in the car) to find the combination distasteful. Given the opportunity to avoid it, I will.
* Give me the option not to have to hear about online/multiplayer content if I don't want it. This is something I'm finding slightly annoying in games like Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep and Little Big Planet - there's such an emphasis on the online stuff that I feel somewhat left out because my PSP doesn't connect to our household wireless network (not a deliberate choice on my part; rather an inadvertent choice on the part of my partner, who opted for a secure network rather than one the PSP could participate in). So I don't play those games much.
* Have a pause function in the game. I'm female, and most of the time I'm the only person home. This means I have to be able to put the game on hold while I do things like answer the door, go to the loo, answer the phone or stir dinner. If there isn't an easy way to put the game on hold (even if it's just ducking into character menu mode), I'm going to get annoyed fairly quickly.
* Don't worry so much about making the next version of whatever everyone else is busy selling. If we want any of the famous franchises, we know where to find them. To be honest, the only franchise I'm really all that sold on is the Final Fantasy one - because they very rarely make sequels. Instead, each new FF number is a completely different plot, a different set of characters, a different world to every other Final Fantasy game. Most of them are mediaeval-style worlds, but there's a few futuristic dystopias thrown in there (FFVII, FFVIII, FFXIII) and the characters from one Final Fantasy plotline generally don't interact with characters from another (Dissidia is a special case of pure fan service, ditto the Kingdom Hearts games).
* Oh, here's a thought: have the guts to try risking a tragedy on the market. Not everything has to end all happy and smiley. Take a hint from Square Soft (now Square Enix) - their big breakthrough game for the English-speaking market was a tragedy: Final Fantasy VII. (No, really, the plot of FFVII is a revenge tragedy of a type which wouldn't have been out of place on the Jacobean stage).
Look, I'll make it simple. This is what I have on the various gaming set-ups around the house:
On the PC - The Sims 2, with packs up to "Mansion and Garden Stuff" (but not the Ikea one because my AV checker detected a virus on the DVD for it and won't let me install it).
Why? Because I like the Sims 2. It's a quiet, slow-paced game, which can be put on hold while I do things like stir dinner, serve dinner, eat dinner, and all the other little things which happen around gaming. It's also a game which allows me to make up my own stories (and like all other literary efforts, sometimes the characters won't co-operate). It doesn't require me to have a massive amount of physical skill or targeting. It's just a nice quiet game that lets me burble around at my own speed. Oh, and watching my sim boys kiss one another is kinda hot.
Also on the PC - Eyangband
Why? It's my favourite Angband variant, and it keeps me busy on days when the notion of looking at the graphics for FFVII is just too much visual processing. Easy to launch, easy to play, easy to get started again when I get deaded.
Also on the PC - Pretty Good Solitaire 99
Why? It's essentially a pack with multiple variations of patience on it. I have a mah-jongg tile version of the same sort of thing installed as well. There are about four different games I play regularly, and with all of them I play them because I can cope with the rule set, and they're pretty consistent to get out. They're quick, they're simple, they don't require me to be carrying out multiple steps in order to get the game started. Those sorts of games are a Good Thing too.
On the PS2 - Final Fantasy VII
Why? Because I'm up for a replay, and this time around I want to see whether I can manage to complete everything - defeat all the bosses, raise all the chocobos, find and master all the materia etc. Because I want to. Because I can. Oddly enough, the crappy graphics don't bother me too much. Neither do the occasional annoying side quests and minigames, because I can get through those. I can stop between battles and put the game into menu mode (or just stop dead in the middle of whatever plot point we're working through at the moment etc). FFVII is one of the few games I've actually completed all the way through, and the main reason is because I was able to get fed up with trying for 100% complete and just blitz on through to the final battle and cutscenes.
For me, Final Fantasy VII is the gaming equivalent of my Georgette Heyer romances and the various iterations of the Eddings plot-line - it's something I'll come back to again and again, not because it's original, but because it's an old friend which puts me in touch with other old friends when I play it.
On the XBox - Dragon Age Origins
Why? RPG. Multiple points of view possible. Lots of exploration time possible. Plus I'm enjoying the bitching and snarking that's going on between Alastair and Morrigan. Mind you, Morrigan's top I can live without - as a woman with large tits myself, I find myself constantly distracted by two questions: doesn't she get cold?; and doesn't that get uncomfortable?
On the PSP - Final Fantasy Dissidia
Why? Mindless button-mashing. Minimal plot. You're in it to bash up Final Fantasy heroes and villains, and that's basically what you do. Doesn't require an online connection, doesn't need huge amounts of explanation, there's enough bishounen to sink a small tugboat, and hey, you even get a Shirtless Sephiroth in there as well. What's not to like?
Basically, my preferences can be summed up thus:
* If you're going to give me a story, give me a flamin' story. Make it long, make it convoluted, make it tricky to understand - if I'm playing the game to get through the story, I'll come back and play it again to catch the bits I missed the first time (I re-read books for the same reason...). Of course, make sure that the vital plot points are made clear, but the little subtleties can be skipped over.
* If you're not going to give me a story, then give me something I can make a story out of myself - even if the story is just "How I beat the crap out of this next opponent". But don't give me a story which is so scanty it puts some of the costumes on the female characters to shame.
* If you're going to offer eye candy, have some which is suitable for a het female (or maybe even a gay male) to ogle as well. Yes, most of the gamerbois out there won't like it. Did I mention I'm not a gamerboi? It might just be worth doing a little market research and finding out precisely which proportion of the electronic gaming market these days is composed of members of the One True Demographic (see above for description) - I've a feeling they're a smaller proportion than they think they are.
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I must confess to finding the GTA franchise (or, rather, what I have seen of it, not having a PS3 or XBox-anything) quite playable, although it's not a very heroic game, as these things go. Soundtrack only when in a vehicle, but it's designed as a radio, so you can change stations. Seems it's on (roughly) 3060 minutes of audio per channel, but i have not timed it.
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I admit, even though I'm asexual, I'm still shallow - I like the pretty boys you get in JRPGs. Not so much the musclebound grunts of western games, though; I'm sure half of them would have steroid problems if they were real people. And the gravity-defying boobs of both genres - well, those things have to hurt if you go running around like that. It's a practical detail that seems to escape a lot of game developers.
I think one think I do like in some recent games is the way that the game chronicles everything - like in Star Ocean 4 or FFXIII - so I can remember what I was doing even if it has been awhile since I played... and it makes it easier for ficcing, too.