| The CRPG market won't die. It will, however, stagnate and degenerate into a horrible mess of Action-RPG's (the worst of these, IMHO, being MMORPG's). The problem is, we have companies such as EA running around, buying up every successful company, and then applying their own brand of game design, which is, quite frankly, abhorred! The smaller companies can't compete with larger ones, and as such, become bought out, or forced to stoop to the level that, unfortunatly, sells.
Not only that, but it's become distrubing apparent that even the once great RPG making companies (both PC and Console) are succumbing to that level. Companies such as Bioware have noticibly lowered it's standerd of quality (look at the amount of issues upon release of NWN, or the amount of dissapointment Fable was mired in for many people). The problem here, is that past success got to them, and the decrease in quality followed. Granted, Bioware still makes an enjoyable game, but nothing groundbreaking, or in all reality, impressive.
The same can be said on the console side in respects to Square-Enix (Why... why did they merge with Enix!). Since the companies debut on the Playstation (having switched from Nintendo), there has steadily been a decrease in the story/gameplay aspects of their games, in liu of greater visuals, and mundane mini-games. A company that once put out a classic once a year, has failed to release a truly great RPG since Final Fantasy Tactics (Though, Star Ocean is a damn close game to that). Hopefully, FFXII will fix that.
I feel quite confident in tying the decline of the gaming industry to the debut of Sony in the gaming market. With the Advent of the Playstation, gameplay/story has noticbly taken a back seat to the visuals and action of a game, resulting a montenous style of play. Oh well... The rantings of a classic gamer, I suppose.  |