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I think a lot of toxicity in game development and anticipation has probably come out of the x-killer, y-clone, z-replacement mentality, even if comparison is a natural tendency.₁

I mostly consider myself a dabbler in MMOs (played a ton of the EQ2 trial, MUDs) in terms of experience with a wide array of those. You say you've done a ton, so it's definitely more than I've played. Among the top of my most played ever games though has got to be Guild Wars, if you want to count that among (instanced) MMOs. Some really knock-down, drag-out internet fights on that front. Path of Exile is probably a few hours behind, but instanced style again.

₁e: Movies seem slightly more grown up here. I usually don't here about a new show in terms of ThE nEw BaTmAn KiLlEr, although copy/ripoff/clone is still passed around.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2021-12-17 05:56:38)

Of course it's not 1:1. Movies and TV though have created some fairly long lived nerd culture and fandoms, some which can be pretty argumentative about their that stuff. A person who's been a Trekkie since the 1960s might have invested as much if not more time in the subject matter as a MMO fan has for a game.

Making a game to "kill" another popular game has had a pretty mixed history. Game companies were doing that with Doom. Before that, there was the catchy Genesis does what Nintendon't. Yet there's a mountain of "Doom clones" that weren't very good, and people still enjoyed their Super Nintendo. "How is it better than Doom," free advertising for Doom. "Man Doom sounds like a pretty great benchmark. I should try it." Gaming press has had a lot to do with this. I bet I could dig up some 90s copies of PC Gamer with just that problem.

Development focus should be more on making games that people want to play and importantly will want to keep playing. A lot of games I've played have an alright hook but just lack a certain lasting power for me. And no, the answer shouldn't just be "oh, well we can put in an event where a player can spend all of Christmas week playing our game for an exclusive hat."

#unpacking

I like holiday events. Even ones I don't celebrate.

uziq wrote:

games don't compare to movies because a movie lasts 90, or 120, or 200 minutes.

I should probably add to this that outside of long-term stuff like MMOs or Skyrim, there are games out there slotted into movie-like brief chunks of expected playtime. 90, 120 minutes, completely doable. More games like that, please. Compact, yet complete experiences with an end reachable in a short afternoon without speed running.