Biggest Problems in Game Design?

[ryan_]

I agree with both of the two things that came up extremely early. Monetization business practices and continuously investing on diminishing returns for graphical fidelity.

Monetization: the key things here for me are 1) the games as a service business model, which necessitates that every game has to either rely on multiplayer or endless episodic updates and DLC packs, and 2) the dumbing down of the reward system. For 1, it forces everything to become a franchise, and we no longer get games with coherent beginnings and ends. It also shrinks the available space in the market because it's disrespectful of people's time -- you could have played 10 single player games, but instead you invested 300+ hours into a never-ending play experience like Fortnite. It sucks the air out of the room. For 2, the basic game loop (perform task, get reward), used to be reliant on tasks that were beneficial outside of the context of the game (i.e. learn a system that teaches civics and history like Civ, or solve a brain teaser, like Riven, plan long-term strategy for your actions, like FFT), and used to deliver rewards that elevated your soul and intelligence (like well-written story content from talented writers, talent points that made you perform a cost-benefit analysis, or skills that you had to think about how to apply strategically). The f2p monetization game loop is more often a task that's useless in application (pay a dollar, watch an ad, click a button numerous times), and deliver a reward that provides dopamine but no real benefit (cosmetic items, stat upgrades, etc).

Graphical Fidelity: The things here I have a problem with are 1) opportunity cost, 2) narrow stylistic range and 3) training consumers to grade a game's worth on graphical fidelity. In terms of opportunity cost, as mentioned, it's an investment of diminishing returns. The more they invest, the more expensive it becomes for incremental advancements, and those expenses come at the cost of writers, game designers, and overall game scope. Games have become much *smaller* in scale, the quality of story and gameplay has gone down. FF15 is, to me, the quintessential example of this. For narrowing stylistic range, it used to be, when I was growing up, there was a plethora of experimental art styles -- claymation games (like Clayfighter or the Neverhood), film-based games (like Under a Killing Moon), or, my favorite, combinations of film and art (like Mortal Kombat 1-3), all sorts of different 2d art styles. Now we see only 2: photorealistic 3d and anime 3d. It's a lot better in the indie scene where there's more variety in terms of art styles, but even there I see a bland overuse of retro pixel art. Finally, training consumers to grade a game on graphical fidelity, this is not necessarily game companies' fault, but this is the key way AAA game companies retain a vice grip on the industry -- with the cost of their art styles so high and consumers viewing whatever games don't match that art style as inferior products, smaller developers, who may have better writing, gameplay, etc., aren't able to get the foot in the door they deserve. I think this mentality is changing for many consumers who have lived through multiple console cycles, but for the mainstream consumer at large, who is swayed by marketing and trends, I think it's still a long way from changing.

[Noobc0re]

No one cares aobut UX anymore. They don't care about controls, keeping the mechanics sharp, a good UI, comprehensive options menus... they know they can just squeeze a game out and get away with it because most gamers don't care about those things.

[Ultimate Goose]

One big issue is appetite, many of us want major pushes in graphics and tech and it is just getting remarkably expensive. When even fantastic AAA games that don't use aggressive financial models are struggling, I think it's bad, I also believe the mentality of all AAA companies must die that has been brewing of late is destructive. Just my opinion, please don't shoot.

I don't think the production cost is as high as we think it is, the extra costs of in-game items are unnecessary, some guy on youtube got the relevant info and pointed out the production costs are less than they used to be, according to this info, the extra costs are just pure greed and satisfying share holders and investors and the like.

[Nella_Bolt]

1. Everybody wants to make open world games without making that world feel real. Time just stops whenever you screw around and don't complete missions. There's so much grind and back and forth, like, no. I want to go have a task, do that task, and have the task be completed. Not, do this task 50 times and eventually you'll have enough for the good stuff to get to a higher task, or maybe the boss will drop something good. Now, there are games that do this that I enjoy, but that's because they're backed up by an enjoyable world, story, and characters that make me not hate repeating things.

2. The insane amount of high intense realism.

3. Every game in the triple AAA industry is me shooting dudes. Red Dead? Shooting dudes, in fact, it's just the Western GTA. Failout 69? Shooting dudes with disappointment. Black Ops? Fortnite? PUBG? Cuphead? They're all just gun games.

4. I'd also take a wager to say that the most popular games right now are ones where you can be better than the other person playing. I'm personally not a competitive person so I'd say I lose out quite a lot on games in current times. Look at Smash. I'm the only guy with a Switch that I know who doesn't own Smash and never will and get funny looks because of it. Almost every game I play or look for is either solo or co-op and it's a little annoying to see so many games that fall short because they're apparently better when played with friends or in online multiplayer.

[Sorain]

One big issue is appetite, many of us want major pushes in graphics and tech and it is just getting remarkably expensive. When even fantastic AAA games that don't use aggressive financial models are struggling, I think it's bad, I also believe the mentality of all AAA companies must die that has been brewing of late is destructive. Just my opinion, please don't shoot.

I've never seen this 'many of us' in terms of pushes in GFX for the last decade. GFX basically capped out at Crisis for me. At that point it ceased to matter. I agree that before that point, GFX outright moved units. No one would argue that Final Fantasy 8 wasn't miles away an improvement over FF7. But those 'generational leap' advancements petered out by 2010 or so from what I recall. At that point you couldn't sell on that anymore.

The mentality of the current AAA publishers (and some developers) is self destructive and we're seeing it. It can and should die off. I'm not here to shoot anyone for their viewpoint though. If anything, it's the hand held and mobile markets where a GFX push could still work and likely is still going on. I haven't upgraded my computer significantly in terms of GFX or processing power for at least eight years and it still cranks out games like Monster Hunter World (which is flipping beautiful) at max settings without strain. Said PC was a moderate outlay at the time I did the upgrades to, full disclosure there.

I don't think it's the appetite of the consumer that is the issue here, I think it's the appetite for money of the management being divorced from market realities.

[Ultimate Goose]

What do you think are some of the largest issues in game design currently?

I have to say for me personally it's story games with little to no actual game in them like Telltale games, Firewatch, ect.

I think, because games look so "realistic", when the "gameplay" doesn't seem realistic then the whole game suffers.
I think, if a game isn't the best quality graphics, then it has a higher likelihood of getting away with some problems it has.

That may be why I still like skyrim and fallout 4 lol, they don't look perfect but don't have to, they look and play like an average game to me.

[Jigen]

Monatization and it's impact on everything else.

You know what, no, there's a bigger fish to fry here.

Unreasonable expectations. (That's a management issue.)

If your expectations are unrealistic, it doesn't matter if you make the best game in your niche or even the best game in the last five years, when you fail to meet those expectations, or potentially wont, everything goes wrong. Management throws in monatization to try and make up the 'difference' between their impossible expectations and reality, harming the game. Look upon Mordor: Shadow Of War, ye mighty, and despair. That is a classic example of a game destroyed by monatization and the unreasonable performance expectations that lead to it. Look at how often we hear something 'failed to meet expectations' and this being used as an excuse for practices that bring ruin to all the developers tried to build.

The games that have realistic expectations, realistic budgeting (for example: not piles on marketing instead of the actual product.) and solid management might not be a success, but they aren't undermined into failure before they even start by such things.

One big issue is appetite, many of us want major pushes in graphics and tech and it is just getting remarkably expensive. When even fantastic AAA games that don't use aggressive financial models are struggling, I think it's bad, I also believe the mentality of all AAA companies must die that has been brewing of late is destructive. Just my opinion, please don't shoot.

[Sorain]

What do you think are some of the largest issues in game design currently?

I have to say for me personally it's story games with little to no actual game in them like Telltale games, Firewatch, ect.

Monatization and it's impact on everything else.

You know what, no, there's a bigger fish to fry here.

Unreasonable expectations. (That's a management issue.)

If your expectations are unrealistic, it doesn't matter if you make the best game in your niche or even the best game in the last five years, when you fail to meet those expectations, or potentially wont, everything goes wrong. Management throws in monatization to try and make up the 'difference' between their impossible expectations and reality, harming the game. Look upon Mordor: Shadow Of War, ye mighty, and despair. That is a classic example of a game destroyed by monatization and the unreasonable performance expectations that lead to it. Look at how often we hear something 'failed to meet expectations' and this being used as an excuse for practices that bring ruin to all the developers tried to build.

The games that have realistic expectations, realistic budgeting (for example: not piles on marketing instead of the actual product.) and solid management might not be a success, but they aren't undermined into failure before they even start by such things.