About the swearing part..;. Fallout 3 has plenty of swearing... Guess who made it...
they are not obsessed with political correctness ... they are obsessed with sales. more importantly initial sales. they want as wide a market as they can get and that is the only truth to it.
Just something I have been thinking about recently. I have been playing games and RPG's going back to the original Ultima series on the Apple IIE, my first RPG experience on the PC was Arena by Bethesda back in 1994!. Now alot of you would know about Bethesda if you are fans of the RPG game world because they are responsible for the fantastic and highly decorated Elder Scrolls series, Skyrim being the latest and greatest of the series. Now don't get me wrong, I know alot of you guys are fans of Skyrim, I love it too, I have invested over 1000 hours playing different charachters and whatnot on multiple play-throughs. Despite loving the series and having played all the TES games there are some things that have always been tugging away at me each and every time I played them.
The second thing that I have noticed is how soft Studios such as Bethesda have gone on the Adult route not just in terms of sexual content, but themes and images that appeal to a more mature gaming audience. It's almost as though Bethesda's PR have got together and decided that things like Nudity and Swearing are a no-go as it might push up the games Rating and not allow 12 year olds and below from playing. Early on in the TES 1 or 2 games there were images of a naked though heavily pixelated nymph, in Morrowind you had scantily clad Dancers on stage, then in Oblivion and Skyrim nothing. Its almost as though Bethesda have lost what they set out to do when they think of the game that THEY would want to play, violence and dismemberant are fine as long as there is no nudity or swearing we can still sell the game to kids !!
CDPR have these concerns of mine quashed in the Witcher series! They have openly admitted that they want to create a game that they themselves would love to play and that means WITH a meaningful storyline, meaningful quests (Unlike alot of Skyrims go and fetch this quests) and Adult Material that they would expect Mature gamers to enjoy. Is it becuse CDPR are not Western and restricted by Western limitations, ideals and generally are less prudish? If so I wish all the Western RPG makers would situp, take notice and learn to evolve.
Releasing a Mature game is not a weakness, it is a Strength! Gone are the days where a majority of the worlds gamers were kids, the industry has evolved, Grown up if you will, but I think some game Developers are being left behind! What do you guys think? Have CDPR gone too far or are we just too used to Western ideals?
Well...I'm not as huge fan of TES lately, since Morrowind both Oblivion and Skyrim are harder and harder to chew.for me. Only recently I found out why, the games didn't really change to worse, mind you. And then it hit me, that's the very reason.
The way Morrowind told a story was kinda ok, in that time. But the next two games didn't improve it at all. So the story is rather dull, the way it's handed to you is...playing Skyrim really felt like Todd A) doesn't have a clue how to tell a stroy, B) cba to try, TES is the the only open world PRG there is, really. There's a saying in our country - A one-eyed king among the blind.
My big hope is CDPR really manage to combine a good story telling and an open world. No easy task, but someone has to do it, already. And should be praised for it for a long time.
As for the mature side. You may not agree with me, but those studios and their games you mentioned feel to me like the passion is gone, now it's just money money money. Do an R rated game and you lose a considerable portion of target demographic. (=sales)
And if the game tries to be "mature", it's either gory (even ridiculously), or it tries to look mature. Can't but mention the latest Telltale GoT games. M rated games? Why? Oh they stabbed a boy in the throat? That's cute....the dialogs are stupid. It tries to look mature, but it's so shallow, illogical, the writing is just terrible...
For me these western wannabe mature games compared to The Witcher is like comparing Goodkind's Sword of Truth to it, when comparing books. I love Terry's world, read all the books many times, but it's so silly many times. All is black and white, the good ones and the bad ones...It's gory, it can make you cry for sure, but Sapkowski is a whole different level of writer.
That is not because the developers don't want to do it, in and of itself. It because of how it is seen in the public eye. As I mentioned nudity is frowned upon by the rating system and pubic view in general. (not the actual public themselves but the ones who censor it)
+1 I don't and never will have my own family but old enough to... (My wife can't have children) The American Rating/censorship was created long ago by the purists but hasn't change much since then (that I'm aware of) It hasn't grown with us and thus developers that want to sale to the masses here must dull down certain aspects or be labeled... An M-rated game with violence is perceived differently than an M-rated game with nudity... Parents do to this stigma that hangs around it will allow their kids to buy violent games but not sexually themed games. Some developers here don't care about that, but most do...
I think that is it exactly, the Western rating system has not grown with society, at some stage the raters considered Nudity absolutely a no-go zone and it has been that way ever since despite the way Movies and media have headed. (Some would say its the same thing with the American Constitution which was written in the 1800's and in no way seems relevant to a Modern America) . Obviously given my name I am from Australia, now we basically followed America when it came to Censorship and Ratings, but recently we brought in a new Rating system for games similar to that of other Media formats such as Movies. This enabled previously banned games under the old rating system to be sold here in Australia not to mention future games that would have been blocked from now being sold under a M or R logo. So basically when it is all seen and done, Australia's rating system DID evolve when it became apparent that it was totally outdated and no longer appropiate, maybe America and other Western Countries need to do the same?
It also is an interesting concept that there is no good or evil when you make a choice, but only the consequence of that choice that matters.
...and life is scary!Yeah...a concept called life
Well, yes and no... like everywhere in the west, they have let them self be drawn into the big corporate realm, for funding and security in the free market. Problem is, now they are at the whim of financial analysts and marketing people, that all try to sell a product, not make "art". Companies like CDPR don't have those restrictions, so they can put quality over quantity.Most of the western devs are plain pussies.
That what difficulty levels are for, if done right you can have both. I wasn't and don't think the OP was simply talking about game difficulty itself, but complexity and lack of depth... That how I'm looking at it anyway.Both hard and easy games are a necessity
cdpr have the right idea since witcher 1...
this