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But the state of the industry has changed greatly over the years, and the phenomenon of videogames has changed likewise. While Videogames originally started out as exotic techological wonders, they are today an everyday form of entertainement. This is not only a change in the industry, but a change in how we, ourselves, look at videogames. However. Despite continously new technology and ever-increasing experience, the developers has latley shifted more than ever towards a mainstream marketing model heavily based on never-ending franchises. "Why?" you may ask, and the reason is clear: Demand. A demand always mean money, and as the average Joe doesn't nessecarely like too much of a change, the end result is never-ending franchises. This demand has in the last decade exploded, which has driven the industry into it's curent state.
Allthough the definition of "Demand" is general, an actual demand is not. With demand comes anticipation and with anticipation comes expectations, and in the case of this fall's AAA titles; Great expectations (no, I'm not talking about the Charles Dickens novel). These expectations has a direct influence on how we judge games, and unlike demand, expectation can be a general term. In other words, many gamers these days have general expectations for any game, and these expectations are much higher than they were ten years ago.
The effect of this expectation is one of the developers biggest pains. If a team of developers know that the audience has great expectations for the title in development, that alone will put a lot of strain on the entire development team which in turn puts even more strain on the development process. As the game itself reflects this development process, the strain will have some effect on the final game's expression. In the worst case scenario the strain can become too great and the development process will break completely down, something which leaves the final game signifficantly inferior to what it could have been (not as of rating, but as of attitude and lasting expression). This strain is what I call "The ghost of Great Expectations", and one of it's most evident victims is "The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess"[*].
When it comes to this fall's AAA releases, there is no denying that they will get high review scores and that people will enjoy playing through them. But what will we think about them in 2021?
([*] In the case of Twilight Princess, the development process broke completely down about halfways through - as revealed by the "Iwata Asks" interview sessions about the game. It is also apparent in the game itself, as much of the second half completely looses it's attitude toward the player. The game suddenly becomes vast, the dungeons becomes repetetative and the atmosphere feels empty.)
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Addendum:
There will always be games that aren't affected by "The ghost of Great Expectations". These are usually the games which were made "just for the fun of it", with no intention of pleasing a demanding audience. Some examples of such games are the original "Portal", "Minecraft" and the upcoming "Rayman: Origins".
Edited by per, Fri Oct 28, 2011 6:10 PM.
