MMOs are and always will be totally different (until I finish mine :P). I'm currently an incredibly casual MMO player because I know what computer addiction looks like and was able to avoid all the hooks. MMOs cater to the lowest common denominator and leave things like builds up to the players to figure out. That's not really what I was talking about. Long-term addiction will never equate with drawing in buyers for a finite single-player game.

I was speaking more in terms of games maturing in ways and looking back in others. Mega Man 9 and 10 went whole hog and styled themselves totally retro as retro-style games started to permeate the market, so it's an intentional step back. Other games are trying to take games in a new direction as a storytelling medium, like Alan Wake, from what I hear.

Terrible voice acting, bad jokes and unoriginal concepts?

That's only half true Blues. It's just that they are realizing now that they are marketing to multiple demographs and groups so they make games to fill them. Not everyone enjoys 2D Megaman. Sure you love it, I love it. but my friends younger brother and his friends(18-19) Hate the game. They dislike it because it looks like garbage to them. So yeah, companies are just realizing, thanks to Indie games, that a lot of people enjoy those games so they are releasing them, but at the same time a much greater chunk enjoy the games ike CoD, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, God of War. So, they aren;t going away from pretty graphics, they're just marketing a set game to a specific demograph. You're reading into MegaMan 9 and 10 way to much Blues.

Depends on the game. I've known TES series games really draw people in...badly. I would agree that MMOs market the lowest common denominator but I would say that it can permeate elsewhere. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the wall to fall nor would I walk freely thinking it won't. It can happen and might.

Good point, retro-games do offer a competent genre (and avoid the sort of thing this thread is about) but, they may simply end up on the road of simply being "bastardized versions of old games". Everything is a tightrope.
As for story-telling mediums, that again, is a tightrope. Do you want to go the full mile as MGS4 was critised for doing? Do you want to immerse it into the playing of the game? To you want to throw in quicktime events as were experienced by anyone who took up Resi4? A fair amount of "new mediums" just aren't really that good.
You can tell a great story with a great game, it's just a damn miracle when you do. Thus, cheap tricks like sex scenes occur.

Edit:
Yes, if you were satirising the video (as I presume you were (and agree)), you've ironically hit what I dislike about a lot of new games.

Oh, heck no. By no means is retro going to rule the market. But a lot of retro genres are coming back. Microsoft's XNA has specific functionality to help create 2D platformers, for instance. We're going to see a lot of them from indie developers just by that merit. Even Little Big Planet uses that genre as a base.

What I'm saying is that we left those kinds of games in the dust as soon as 3D hit. All the older game styles were relegated to low-power handheld systems, which are now getting powerful enough to move past them. So while handhelds are moving into more modern genres, those older genres are simply spreading out to other systems. But in doing so, they're also seeing some validation again.




But back on the topic of sex: sex sells. Always. It's used in commercials, movies, and everything else. Maybe not the act of intercourse, but definitely the desire for it.

I'd say that I think games in general are starting to treat it a bit more maturely, though. You do have things like Bayonetta, but even then, it's almost classy in a way because of how comfortable she is with herself. And it's incredibly forthright about what it is, which is utter camp. Bayonetta is a strong character who actually walks around entirely covered when she's not casting finishers and toys with people coquettishly. The rampant sexualization is tacky, but as a character, she's really not.

I'd argue other examples of sex, but other than Mass Effect, my knowledge of current Western games is somewhat limited. I won't argue more about Japan because they have a totally different culture about it (sex is okay, violence is not) and that's reflected in their games.

Sir I have no idea where you got that impression whatsoever, to even suggest that I would mock such a quality and highly entertaining video is unthinkable.

Fair point. But it's rather like holding onto your music from the 80s (Or whatever decade you may have been raised in). Sure, your peers will get it, maybe even your elders but those younger won't care, 99% of the time anyway.
Retro-games survive as long as the retro-game-market lived in the retro-time.

Edit: I found it amusing, but I wouldn't call it a youtube Van Gogh.

Retro isn't really what I was talking about so much as looking back to it in terms of gameplay. Retro style only appeals to people my age and a bit older who lived through it, yes. But 2D gameplay isn't as limited. It's easier to do in many ways and that means it's easier to make fun.

Gaming's doing fine. It's certainly doing better than the movie market, or at least that's my opinion on it. If you think there's something wrong with modern gaming you're just playing the wrong games.

Ahh, ok. I hold my point about the way I interpreted it but on your intention, looking back, it was good because as you said:
Edit: By the same token, we could say you're watching the wrong movies. In any medium, most of what's produced isn't that good if we're honest, and good things are few and far between. I think since it's a gaming thread, that rant has just been the one brought forth.