Is Sony losing its publishing moxie?

[FarticusMaximus]

For me, gameplay is everything. I can put up with shonky graphics, bugs/glitches (to a certain extent), poor voice acting and whatever else as long as the gameplay is engaging. If the moment-to-moment gameplay excitement and feeling of mastery of the controls is not there then no amount of visual flash or slick mocap will make me pay attention.

I have movies for movie-like experiences. When I pick up a controller I want to be using it, not idly waiting for a prompt every minute or so, or simply pushing forward to advance a linear corridor until a cutscene arrives.

To tie back into the thread title, the focus on presentation over gameplay is why I personally felt Sony lost their mojo last gen.

 

[Prophecy2k]

To tie back into the thread title, the focus on presentation over gameplay is why I personally felt Sony lost their mojo last gen.

I honestly don't understand what possible basis anyone can have to think this is even remotely close to a reality?

A) Sony is a publisher and not a devloper. And their stable of numerous in-house developers produce such a variety of different kinds of games that it renders this assertions ludicrous.
B) Outside of RAD, whom have outright stated in PR that storytelling and narrative was a big focus for them, when have any of Sony's other devs ever made this kind of statement?

I think this [flawed] perception liekly comes from the fact that Sony's games tend to have great graphics, and many of their biggest franschises tend to de desgined around iterating on existing well established gameplay mechanics rather than chasing the "innovation" red herring (Note: Sony also produces some truly innovative smaller games too in terms of gameplay).

Making games with good graphics = / = making games where graphics is the focus over gameplay.

I don't think you can point to a single example of the latter in Sony's output over the last two generations, outside of The Order 1886. It's patently untrue.

 

[Nesh]

Ico, Shaodow of the Colossus, Puppeteer, Little Big Planet, Tearaway, Unfinished Swan and so many other games show a sign of originality to me that even Nintendo would be jealous of

 

[Sigfried1977]

I think it comes from the fact that their biggest hitters emphasize presentation above all else to be honest. I have never heard anyone speak about the likes of Uncharted or The Last of Us in the same vein people speak about Halo, or Gears, or Mario. It's always about the characters, or the story, or the visuals, or the tech. It's never about an exciting 3 minute game loop, a clever mechanic like active reload, or about how satisfying something as basic as a jump can be. One is a rather middling shooter while the other is a super basic stealth action game.
I think Puppeteer fits in there nicely as well. It's gorgeous, but as a platformer it's a glacially paced stinker.

 

[iroboto]

I think it comes from the fact that their biggest hitters emphasize presentation above all else to be honest. I have never heard anyone speak about the likes of Uncharted or The Last of Us in the same vein people speak about Halo, or Gears, or Mario. It's always about the characters, or the story, or the visuals, or the tech. It's never about an exciting 3 minute game loop, a clever mechanic like active reload, or about how satisfying something as basic as a jump can be. One is a rather middling shooter while the other is a super basic stealth action game.
I think Puppeteer fits in there nicely as well. It's gorgeous, but as a platformer it's a glacially paced stinker.

Yea, tying this concept back to the original thread, it is very much about green lighting games of a particular type. They saw the success of both UC, TLOU, Bioshock, Mass Effect, Heavy Rain etc -- games that are heavily narrative driven and marketing data suggests that this is where the gamers are going. So they green lighted more hybrid cinematic games, and this isn't so much about Sony losing it's mox, but it's just following what they thought gamers wanted.

Lets flip the discussion around for a second and imagine that The Order 1886 completely succeeded. Ground breaking game with the best story telling for an interactive game, 10/10 reviews. How would Sony look then? Did they lose their mox still or did they just hit another home run.

So it's an interesting discussion when you compare the two perspectives. Every gamer will value games differently, for me it's about the number of hours invested vs the amount I paid for it. If it doesn't work out to about 1 dollar per hour (after reselling, or purchasing at a discount), I did not get a good deal. Though I recognize this does not apply to all games, but being able to create a baseline like this also lets me define when a game is 'premium', premium being I'm willing to spend more than $1 per hour on that game.

When I look at the games list for PS4, as many of you point out, there are a lot of premium games on PS4. At least that's how I've always seen the PS library. A lot of interesting different experiences that you would never get on another console, and a lot of those games you may not invest 60+ hours in.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

A) Sony is a publisher and not a devloper. And their stable of numerous in-house developers produce such a variety of different kinds of games that it renders this assertions ludicrous.

This reads like dialogue from Inception. I think my brain is melting

B) Outside of RAD, whom have outright stated in PR that storytelling and narrative was a big focus for them, when have any of Sony's other devs ever made this kind of statement?

Isn't this Quantic Dream's shtick? Emotion! Story! Old men!

They're not my type of games so I generally aren't focussing on these types of games.

 

[FarticusMaximus]

I honestly don't understand what possible basis anyone can have to think this is even remotely close to a reality?

An open mind can be a terrible burden I know, but let's just assume for a moment that multiple people's differing opinions can be valid to themselves but don't all necessarily have to align?

A) Sony is a publisher and not a devloper.

Sony picks the game it publishes. It doesn't open up a sack, ask any and all devs to throw a disc in there, shake it up and pick the first five to publish.

And their stable of numerous in-house developers produce such a variety of different kinds of games that it renders this assertions ludicrous.

I enjoyed many Sony published games on PS3 of various genres. Hell, I bought the console specifically for one particularly innovative, gameplay-focussed, Sony published game (Demons Souls).

For me (is there any way to double-bold text?) the games coming from Sony with a solid basis in gameplay were outweighed by pretty but shallow or semi-interactive 'experiences'. I don't enjoy that kind of game, so for me Sony lost it's lustre.

B) Outside of RAD, whom have outright stated in PR that storytelling and narrative was a big focus for them, when have any of Sony's other devs ever made this kind of statement?

I never said any Sony rep made any kind of statement.

I think this [flawed] perception

I think you mean perfectly valid opinion, but please continue.

liekly comes from the fact that Sony's games tend to have great graphics, and many of their biggest franschises tend to de desgined around iterating on existing well established gameplay mechanics rather than chasing the "innovation" red herring (Note: Sony also produces some truly innovative smaller games too in terms of gameplay).

I'm confused. Is innovation good, bad or a fish?

You see I like innovation. I don't believe it truly is a type of coloured fish, and I believe it's absolutely essential to the continuation and development of the games industry. I also don't believe it needs to be contained to the smaller/indie sector.

Making games with good graphics = / = making games where graphics is the focus over gameplay.

I never said it did.

However, games have a budget. Both technically and financially. There is always a balance to be struck. Always.

I don't think you can point to a single example of the latter in Sony's output over the last two generations, outside of The Order 1886.

I can point to many. Whether you would agree or not is another matter. I'm going to go ahead and predict that you wouldn't agree, and that's fine, because it's your opinion.

It's patently untrue.

But... but... opinion?

 

[DrJay24]

Yea, tying this concept back to the original thread, it is very much about green lighting games of a particular type. They saw the success of both UC, TLOU, Bioshock, Mass Effect, Heavy Rain etc -- games that are heavily narrative driven and marketing data suggests that this is where the gamers are going. So they green lighted more hybrid cinematic games, and this isn't so much about Sony losing it's mox, but it's just following what they thought gamers wanted.

Are you suggesting that other publishers didn't see the same data and also make the same decision? I don't even know what "narrative driven" means, I'm guessing that is your polite way of saying story over game play? I don't see any less game play in UC, TLoU, Mass Effect and Bioshock than any other games. The real difference between them and other games is the other games have shitty stories. Heavy Rain is a special case, that is a separate and intentional design difference, a different genre.

Ryse, Quantum Break, Halo, etc. do they have less narrative or is MS chasing the market data?

Your conclusion is flawed, you are cherry picking data (again). Sony green lights all kinds of games, from TLoU to MMOs all the way down to story-less indies.

 

[MrFox]

"I'm not quite sure what moxie means and at this point I'm too afraid to ask."

I still think WWS should continue to leave the popular genres to third parties, and fill in the holes to satisfy their core fans. The question seems to be whether they are satisfying the core fans, I guess. All the delays made Sony look bad, and we've been spoiled by TLoU. I don't think we'll have such an amazing game for a while, from anyone.

There's a lot of gamers with different tastes who can only get their favorite genre on playstation precisely because their tastes align with Shu Yoshida. The quality isn't always there, the sales aren't always a run away success, but the problem isn't the genre they choose.

Before calling a game a success or failure, I'd wait for sales data. Analysts said 1886 will definitely outsell Uncharted 1. Now if they solve the flaws and get more production budget to grow the team and make a longer campaign, the potential is there. This is from a studio that was previously making PSP games, people expected them to turn into Naughty Dog overnight. Driveclub was filling a hold waiting for GT7 (I would have prefered a new motorstorm), Bloodborne has potential, while KZ, Infamous, UC4 and the R&C reboot are the safe bets with sequels to make money.

Even Knack was considered a success, being a launch game, and it didn't have the expensive production of Infamous or KZ (which were sequels, giving a major sales advantage). It's a new platformer franchise, which nobody else is doing anymore, this genre have degraded into milking franchises, with dwindling sales. The fact that many reviewers didn't like it is pointless, the important is that there's a good chunk of the fan base who like this type of game enough to make it financially successful, and that the sequel should improve enough to widen the fan base.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I still think WWS should continue to leave the popular genres to third parties, and fill in the holes to satisfy their core fans. The question seems to be whether they are satisfying the core fans, I guess. All the delays made Sony look bad, and we've been spoiled by TLoU. I don't think we'll have such an amazing game for a while, from anyone.

I agree to the sentiment in principle but not in practise because this would have meant no Uncharted (third person shooter) and no The Last of Us (third person shooter survival horror). I'm happy with the WWS producing games that they feel they can do better than third parties.

I'm happy with WWS doing the games that they think they can do well even if I personally am not interested in anything that Quantic Dream has done and really aren't into God of War.

 

[iroboto]

Are you suggesting that other publishers didn't see the same data and also make the same decision? I don't even know what "narrative driven" means, I'm guessing that is your polite way of saying story over game play? I don't see any less game play in UC, TLoU, Mass Effect and Bioshock than any other games. The real difference between them and other games is the other games have shitty stories. Heavy Rain is a special case, that is a separate and intentional design difference, a different genre.

Ryse, Quantum Break, Halo, etc. do they have less narrative or is MS chasing the market data?

Your conclusion is flawed, you are cherry picking data (again). Sony green lights all kinds of games, from TLoU to MMOs all the way down to story-less indies.

Really again? Right, way to derail, could you please attack my argument instead of attacking the person making the argument? I'll be honest in that the way you respond in particular to me has never had any sort of stance. I have no idea by your reading if whether or not you agree with the thread title (Sony has lost it MOXIE), or if you disagree with it. Your responses are typically just attempting to break apart my arguments, most of these straw man arguments, and you still haven't addressed the main purpose of the thread.

You really enjoy interpreting things out of context. I haven't quite figured out why, I didn't say that those games had less game play - but they aren't as gameplay focused. Games that are not narrative driven have very specific gameplay loops that lead to both mastery and longevity in terms of replay ability in a title. What do you mean you don't know what narrative driven means? It means the game is driven by the story and not the gameplay itself. How fun would any of these games be without their story attached to them, if there was no emotion ambiance to it? Do you want to make the case that UC, TLOU, Mass Effect and Bioshock players can clock more hours than Diablo, Destiny, Starcraft, Halo, Call of Duty, Tetris, and street fighter players can? I'd think you lose. Games without story are games first, never trying to tell a story, and those games have deep gameplay hooks which leads insane hours of enjoyment much after their stories/campaigns are completed.

All AAA publishers have been moving in this narrative direction, I don't dispute that, Sony likes to green light a lot of a games so they took a risk with Order 1886. Isn't that a good thing? Back to the thread, which is about whether or not Sony is losing it's mox, I was trying to say they were doing their job by green lighting The Order 1886, not the opposite. They took a risk like they did with Heavy Rain on pushing the narrative genre even more forward - hence my comment what if Order 1886 was a hit - wouldn't Sony look like genius' then?

Unless you are trying to make the stance that Sony is not doing well with their first party choices, I don't see how we are on opposite sides of this argument.

 

[MrFox]

I agree to the sentiment in principle but not in practise because this would have meant no Uncharted (third person shooter) and no The Last of Us (third person shooter survival horror). I'm happy with the WWS producing games that they feel they can do better than third parties.

I'm happy with WWS doing the games that they think they can do well even if I personally am not interested in anything that Quantic Dream has done and really aren't into God of War.

Good point. But the TPS genre was missing from the PS platform, while MS was focusing on them for their first party offering, taking control of gun-loving America. I would still consider that Sony was filling up a hole in their line up. Even so, UC is not a by-the-book shooter, it's much more story-driven and character-driven than what the genre was in those days, with exploration in the style of tomb raider, scaling cliffs, etc... It brought something more platformish and contemplative exploration than what we were used to in FPS/TPS. I mean it's still catering to their established fans in a way third parties didn't at the time, not that well.

TLoU is special, categorizing it as a pure TPS is a mistake IMO, and it cannot be compared to any other survival horror games either. It's not a zombie game. It also doesn't have a big focus on combat, the gameplay is combat but the game is focused on character development, which is really becoming a strong emphasis with Sony's studios.

 

[chris1515]

It is only the beginning of the gen. Sony and first party studio play safe for the moment launch a new ip on a new hardware is not an easy task. We will see Nathan Drake for the last time after they will continue with Last of Us and later a new IP on the Naughty Dog side. Guerrilla will do something new and same thing for Sucker Punch...

Infamous suffer from being a launch game Infamous 2 was probably a better game. A launch title is difficult to because the team works on a new rendering engine, port existing tools and with and unfinished API, artist work with new lighting method like PBS. On all side people need to adjust...

Bloodborne will probably be very good.

Sony has the Michel Ancel game Wild a 2016 game. Rime in 2015. Curious to see the reboot of Shadow of the Beast. The Tomorrow Children...

I don't expect any of this game to sell 10+ millions but they add diversity to PS4 lineup and maybe some of them will be some true gem...

 

[Nesh]

I think Puppeteer fits in there nicely as well. It's gorgeous, but as a platformer it's a glacially paced stinker.

I dont know what that means,The Puppeteer doesnt play like your typical platformer

 

[Inuhanyou]

Not all Sony's games are successes, and a lot of them don't make money or have the name recognition that MS's backed IP's have.

But what they do have is a pretty good diverse portfolio of all types of games to test the market waters, and that's what attracts me to PlayStation as a brand.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Good point. But the TPS genre was missing from the PS platform, while MS was focusing on them for their first party offering, taking control of gun-loving America.

When they started work on Uncharted the PlayStation 3 was a years from market so you could say they were hedging their bets but third person shooters became a staple genre for PlayStation 3. There were plenty out by the time Uncharted 2 launched and it was a flooded market by the time Uncharted 3 launched. Not that they weren't good games.

TLoU is special, categorizing it as a pure TPS is a mistake IMO, and it cannot be compared to any other survival horror games either. It's not a zombie game. It also doesn't have a big focus on combat, the gameplay is combat but the game is focused on character development, which is really becoming a strong emphasis with Sony's studios.

We'll have to agree to disagree. It's a TPS very much focussed on combat with some stealth. It's got more types of weapons than Uncharted and a weapons upgrade system. It's a shooter but it's also a survival horror with careful inventory management which means you can't just spam that trigger. You have to make choices about engagements.

The gameplay is environment traversal, shooting, brawling, stealth and scavenging. I'd love a Resident Evil game in this mould.

 

[Prophecy2k]

We'll have to agree to disagree. It's a TPS very much focussed on combat with some stealth. It's got more types of weapons than Uncharted and a weapons upgrade system. It's a shooter but it's also a survival horror with careful inventory management which means you can't just spam that trigger. You have to make choices about engagements.

The gameplay is environment traversal, shooting, brawling, stealth and scavenging. I'd love a Resident Evil game in this mould.

TLOU isn't a shooter at all in the traditional sense. Most of that game is played stealthily using bricks,shivs, bottles, and guns only really sparringly. It's more a stealth survival game than a shooter.

I played through that game and brely used guns ata all. I'm not sure how anyone that's played it can call it a shooter.

 

[ArcticCircle]

I played through that game and brely used guns ata all. I'm not sure how anyone that's played it can call it a shooter.

This is problem in most modern games, especially if they allow different difficulty settings. You play the same game but you play it so differently, that it might as well be totally different experience. On low difficulty settings, it's really easy just shoot your way thru everything. Survivor difficulty you have to nail most of your shots and still you might end up short on ammo in some scenarios thus stealth is obvious choice. I think it's good that game offer choice how to play the game, but at the same time it often makes discussion about the game a bit pointless. I think Thief reboot (2014) suffered most from recent games, as it's really horrible game at low, normal and hard settings, but ok at master and good at all customs difficulty settings turned on (or most, I'd say ignore chapter save only and ironman as they only waste time and make game pyramid structured).

I don't think developers should force players to use stealth, as it's very much aquired gameplay taste. I mean I love stealth, ghosting and pacifist runs, but I've never seen good way to teach stealth gameplay thru stealth segments in otherwise action oriented game. Survival horror games could be excellent to teach players in stealth, but they always offer too much resources and because of that, there's no need to learn anything new. That said, I think both Sony and Microsoft should take a chance and create pure stealth game (or as pure as it's possible as I don't think we've ever had pure stealth game, not even original thief or hitman).

 

[Prophecy2k]

I'm not sure I'd call that a probem with modern games Arctic. It's interesting though as with TLOU, I don't think I even found a gun until a good chunk of the way into the game. Even then Their use was limited to human enemies. Most of the time you're fighting the infected, and using guns will see a swarm of clickers descend on you like a flood. So I steered clear of guns.

On your point about pure stealth games though, I'd argue the original Tenchu stealth assassin games definintely were.

 

[Prophecy2k]

You really enjoy interpreting things out of context. I haven't quite figured out why, I didn't say that those games had less game play - but they aren't as gameplay focused. Games that are not narrative driven have very specific gameplay loops that lead to both mastery and longevity in terms of replay ability in a title. What do you mean you don't know what narrative driven means? It means the game is driven by the story and not the gameplay itself. How fun would any of these games be without their story attached to them, if there was no emotion ambiance to it? Do you want to make the case that UC, TLOU, Mass Effect and Bioshock players can clock more hours than Diablo, Destiny, Starcraft, Halo, Call of Duty, Tetris, and street fighter players can? I'd think you lose. Games without story are games first, never trying to tell a story, and those games have deep gameplay hooks which leads insane hours of enjoyment much after their stories/campaigns are completed.

I think you're confusing your own personal gameplay preferences for objective fact.

I clocked just as much time in UC2 MP, TLOU MP and ME2 COOP than I did in Destiny, and definintely more than COD (hate COD MP). Still doesn't mean or prove anything.

What you're trying so hard to classify as "gameplay focus" here and "narrative focus" here, doesn't exist in reality except in only the most miniscule of cases (e.g. The Order). All the game you classify as "gameplay focussed" that you mentioned merely have shit story and narrative and next to no characterisation. So it's obvious that the only thing left to leave a lasting impression on the player is the gameplay loop, but that's only because that is literally all there is to those games. Sure the gameplay is great, and has depth, but no more so than the other games mentioned.

Your mentioned "narrative focussed" games actually have good gameplay AND great narratives to go along with it. That's objectively a popular opinion that the reviews for those games reflect. The only difference is that these games ALSO have good stories to go along with the gameplay and so naturally those stories will leave a lasting impact and can often dominate the subject of discussion around those games. Gamers are humans, and so an emotional connection to a game's story or characters can be more powerful and leave a more lasting impact than the simple fun of a narrative-less gameplay loop.

The only games, outside of titles like the Order that clearly don't get the storytelling-gameplay balance right, that I would legitimately call "narrative focussed" are games like Heavy Rain, visual novels and Point & Click Adventures, of which I've always classified HR as a modern equivalent.

There's no more "narrative focus" in Sony's biggest games as any of the other major third party games. The only exception being MS, as since the original Halo, their games tend to end up with pretty shitty narratives. So maybe your perception comes from you having more a preference for MS exclusives, rather than anything else.

On the flip side, there's absolutely no reason to artificially constrain your selection to Sony's biggest AAA games (and even then there are exceptions, e.g. Gran Turismo, Motor Storm, WarHawk etc). Sony publishes lots of different games including ones with big presentation and narrative as well as gameplay, along with other pure gameplay-type games. So I would still strongly contend that Sony has lost it's moxie (whatever that is) because it's only making narrative-focussed games.