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So I was telling my friend about how Video Games are going to be dead in a matter of years, or will just be purely online or on handhelds.

It all starts out with the Final Fantasy 7 remake. Kitase had said that if they were to remake FF7, it would take 5 years of work to reproduce the same game that it was, with better graphics, audio, and etc. Which really began to shed some light on where video games were going.

You see, Final Fantasy 7 originally took 2 1/2 years to make. And even then, that involved storyboarding, character design, and all that good stuff. But for a remake, they already know all that stuff. It's done for them! However, it would still take half a decade. Nearly two times longer.

What does this mean? Games must be shorter in length. For instance? Heavenly Sword. 7 hours of pure fun, just to be thrown aside, 60 dollars well spent! That's about 9 dollars an hour, the game is worth. There are quite a bit of people who don't even make that much on their jobs. Though it may just be me, but I'd feel cheated on my money if games lasted 7 hours.

The funny thing is... it's not even necessary. There's absolutely no reason why we HAVE to have crisp, perfect, real life looking character models with detail almost that of real life. Hell, the pinnacle of graphics was probably somewhere near the Playstation 2 graphics, where you can make out detail of your character and still have room to actually enjoy the game ( hardly ).

So I asked him... In the time Playstation 2 was out, from the time Playstation 3 first came out. What games were/are out?

Playstation 3 -

Heavenly Sword ( fail )
Assassin's Creed ( multi console )
EldersScroll 4 ( port )
Devil May Cry 4 ( multi console )
Dynasty Warriors 6 ( fail )
Call of Duty 4 ( multi console )

Playstation 2 -

Final Fantasy X
Dark Cloud
Onimusha: Warlords
Unreal Tournament ( multi console )
Gran Turismo 3
Ico
Devil May Cry
Grand Theft Auto 3 ( multi consoled but way later )
etc.


But the point is, in the time Playstation 3 has been out, MANY better games were released faster for the Playstation 2. All the reason is, is because the time is takes to make games is longer, forcing games to become shorter, and unique and original games to be a lot more scarce. Companies are afraid to try new things, in fear of wasting an opportunity to try something better. And with it, comes the higher cost of games and hardware, though it is true that Super Nintendo games were the same price as PS3 games, we have to remember that the hardware is much different in these examples. Those were cartridge, we're using Dual-layer DVD's or Blu-Ray, which are reproduced in much larger quantities.


Another unavoidable thing, is a matter of ideas for stories. Since most people are put off in playing games that use a cliche or simple story, most games that are fairly popular lead with it's originality, however over time the list of ideas one can have is going to slowly grow less and less until sooner or later, we're going to start seeing similar stories.

For instance, when FFXII was first announced, people instantly said "omg, Skies of Arcadia rip off!" all because it was about Sky Pirates, which was what Skies of Arcadia was about. A small example, but over time it gets more and more coincidental.

I don't mind if a game takes 5 years to make s'long as they do it well. Heavenly Sword was very good, and I didn't mind the shortness of it. Infact, unless it's an RPG, I want games to be short, otherwise I get too bored with them and never finish.

I don't want to play a 10-20 hour action game like God of War. I don't want a 20-hour FPS unless it's episodic. If those kind of games get that long it detracts from the quality, forcing the game into repetition.

Infact, if you can make a good looking, short game, that's PERFECT. I have no problem shelling out $69.99 to play... Which, yes, would be more than I make at 7 hours.

What about Expansions? Or instead of releasing full games, what about episode upgrades? PC's have done expansions for years, but now it seems more and more that expansion packs are available for consoles.

The idea of expansions is easy for those who wish to make easier games. They could come out with the original game, then after it's release, they could send expansions which use the same developed programming. The only difference is that there would be more to add. Hell, releasing it in a disk works as well. Look at the Dynasty Warriors Series (some may not like it, but it's a good example) With their Xtreme Legends sidegames, they have an option where you can load the original disk. By using this process, they could make expansions that do not hog as much memory.

Then there's my idea of Episode Upgrades. Using the expansion pack technology, one could develop several large "chapters" of a story at a time and release that at different times. Of course they would have to be large juicy pieces, but the idea could increase fan discussion.

Funny thing you should mention .hack considering it pretty much was just a ploy by Bandai to sell one game 4 times for 50 dollars.

I mean seriously, I got Outbreak... beat it in ONE day, and then never touched it again. I felt so cheated out of my money...

There's absolutely no way that the game itself fit entirely on the disc. It doesn't have that much content, all the maps are reused over ad over, and there aren't that many sounds. Not to mention you're just revisiting each and every town all over again, so it's not like it's an entirely new game every time but in fact it's the same exact game 4 times over with just a few minor adjustments.

It's a terrible idea unless the first one would cost 40, then the rest cost 10 or 20 afterwards. I feel that online updates would suffice, granted it would really be hard to have millions of people downloading the same data over hundreds of MB at once, but it seems more efficient.

I really enjoyed the .hack games. I rented the first ones and I bought the G.U. series. I don't feel cheated out of my money... But then again, I'm the one who likes short games.

I know that feeling. Ever play Zone of Enders? ******** awesome in my book. I loved every minute of it. All sixty of them. Sixty minutes! I was pissed at the end!

It's funny how you pointed out the most mniscule part of gaming and said it doesn't require length.

Well no s**t. Consider Gears of War was like a 6 hour game, I'd imagine the voice acting would take no more than a week to cover.