With the latest reviews on Gamespot.com being sub-stellar, I have come to ask the question: are gamers changing their minds as to what they want to see in video games?
We all know that social and mobile games have been picking up steam lately, and console games seem to be nitpicked more than ever. Graphics do not matter to people as much as they used to, it seems. I also believe that smaller-scale and more digestible games are getting better reviews than larger games. It goes to show that it is not how large your game is, but the experience you provide within that time-frame Portal and Super Meat Boy are perfect examples of these: shorter games, which probably did not take long to develop and also has less overhead with smaller teams. The games did outstanding critically.
Clif Bleszinski furthered this claim by a recent statement that he made, referring to the release of the Game Dead Space 3: "In the 60$ disc based market horror doesn't fly." http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/02/13/cliff-bleszinski-horror-games-dont-work-in-disc-based-market
He is saying that it's a struggle for certain genres to even think about being successful on traditional consoles, because of the high expense costs to develop them and the high turnover rate of the games that are resold back to stores. I know that I wouldn't watch The Shining just for fun on a Saturday evening. Horror itself is a very one-time thrill that loses it's appeal once it has been accessed.
A recent review of the Gearbox game Aliens: Colonial Warefare also didn't fair to well: it received a 4.5 out of 10 review on Gamespot.com, yet it is at the top of the popularity chart right now (http://www.gamespot.com/aliens-colonial-marines/). Will this hurt sales? It can't help them, that's for sure.
With a smaller-scale game it is harder to get the exposure of a big budget game, yet when one can, they tend to be more lucrative than the bigger ones.
My theory is that smaller games are naturally good games and are poor at marketing. When they start getting more players, the games market themselves though. Then, the game is already good and a snowball effect of sales is created. Take Minecraft, for instance. I knew nothing about the game until it became popular on PC. Then it exploded with console releases and merchandise.
It feels that reviewers are even giving support to the smaller games now and helping them combat the larger studios. Larger studios are then answering by closing down, as has been happening lately--with Vigil Games and Junciton Point Studios of Austin, TX to name a couple.
It truly is an interesting time and it seems that the gamers are making the choice more than ever whether a game studio will be successful or not. With the current rate that markets are going, the future feels like Youtube and user-made content will be more popular than large-scale movies. Commercials are already turning more to Youtube stars than to better known athletes to help brand their products.
If there could be a title to this dilemma, I would call it the Abstract Expressionism of Gaming (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_expressionism).
-Ken
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