What things do you think should be in all games?

So, imagine if there was a gate before launch and every game had to go through. What should they check for in your eyes?

My list, feel free to add your own!

• can you customize controls freely?
  
• if it is a PC port, does it at least have the bare basic graphical options?
  
• if the game wouldn't have online anymore, could you still get all achievements?
  
• does the game have a menu option titled "skip watched cutscenes automatically YES/NO"?
  
• The ever present "does it even run decently".
  
• Does the game have colourblind options;
  

Any other ideas?
Here's some inspiration:

Its own tutorial level as a separate option in the main menu.

Is there on disc DLC?

Is there a 20gb patch to make it actually work properly?

No online trophies. I'm not a huge collector but if it's a game I love then I want them.

No censoring or pre-order bullshit. If pre-order DLC exists, it has to be available later.

A skip button on cutscenes.

^ ain't that the truth. Also, good to see you here Firma!

Lurked around here for quite some time, but then I asked myself why the hell I had not signed up yet.

All difficulties from the start.

Good to see you, if you have time shoot a short introduction in the New Members topic! :)

> All difficulties from the start.

I'm still on the fence about this. I'd say, let a cheatcode do this. For me having to unlock all modes in NGB again is a big pain in the but. On the other hand, for a first time player I really don't recommend jumping straight to Master Ninja.

But the option is there. You can give each difficulty a try.

Still, I don't think that will be a good fit. Though I'd be interested in seeing it play out. You could always give a warning i.e. "this mode is made for people that finished the game on all other settings, go in at your own risk" or something alike.

Right now higher settings in games like this tend to mix up enemy encounters by using late-game enemies earlier. And I'd be scared to lose that to make harder modes available early. Kind of like what happened to NG3 where Easy, Normal and Hard all had the same enemy compositions since they were all unlocked from the get-go.

But why would we lose it?

Was the reason NG3 had the same stuff in all modes BECAUSE the devs made them available from the start?

It could very well be. It is a trend I see, how many games do you know that switch up enemy compositions and use late-game enemies - that had an in game reveal cutscene - earlier than normal, on higher settings, that were unlocked by default? I can't think of any of them. If you know of any, please tell them! I'd be curious to see.

I've only ever seen that in unlockable difficulties.

How about two types of boss battles? A mode where you can fight one boss and a mode where it is just a boss rush. Also, maybe a survival mode? You have Bloody Palace and you have a little arena where you can pick what enemies you want and how many.

If you know of any, please tell them! I'd be curious to see.
So you're saying it would reveal later game enemies earlier? I guess that's a good point, but personally I don't care about spoilers and usually watch endings and all that before release, but I'm in the minority in that regard.

@Nadster
Sounds like a debug mode. Nier's one is great but you still can't fight bosses as far as I know.

The Japanese version of Bloody Roar 3 has one too. I got tons of use out of it back then.

Yeah I know you don't care about it, and honestly I doubt a lot of players do. But it is something I've noticed. Which is why I asked for examples of the contrary, because I can't think of them. Only one that comes to mind is games where you can unlock higher settings with cheats.

Yep, I think you're right. I can't think of a single game right now, and the only one I can think of with a cheat is MGR.

Yeah MGR:R, Vanquish etc. have cheats to access them sooner. Ninja Gaiden Sigma can see you unlock higher settings sooner if you beat Doku in Chapter 2. But...that's it.

A built-in challenge mode and speedrun mode for challenge runs and speed runs, like in games like Salt and Santuary, and it would also be cool if the challenges have some special rewards like beat the game under a certain time and you get to fight a boss or get a special ending (like metroid) or beat it without upgrading and get a different boss etc.

I would also like to see things like level creator or editor like in MegaMan powered up. I think this can be interesting in action games as players can create small levels or structures where they can put bosses and different kind of enemies and create arenas or other such areas like Nadstar said and more.
or with players can use editor to edit the game's own levels and switch things up, like mixing up the enemies or abilities like the way it happens when you change difficulty modes, but all this will be on the hands of the player and of course the ability to share what you create with others.
Although I feel having something like this in a full game, will be quite the task.

Oh yeah almost forgot I would like to see in game trophies too. Something that is actually a part of the game and upon completion you get something, like maybe unlock skins or a stage or boss battle etc.

Lots of great notes, custom modes and difficulties are a joy and something I feel not a lot of games are embracing. Who cares if it is broken or doesn't work, let me try it out. I remember when I was a kid I dreamed about a Resident Evil like game where, when you beat it, you would unlock all sorts of modifiers like a zombie that follows you constantly, no guns appearing, ammo being halved or items being randomized etc. Beating the game with modifiers would unlock even more modifiers and you could stack them infinitely.

Regarding level-creators, Dante's Inferno actually tried this through its DLC. It was a neat idea but forgot two core elements a) you needed DLC b) you couldn't play your own level. Making levels will probably be a dream for the future, but there's no reason we can't make let's say Trial maps like those present in Ninja Gaiden Razor's Edge.

Motion aiming via gyroscope should be something that is capable of being enabled or disabled for any game with an aiming component in it. Good motion aiming can only improve a game if it is appropriately accounted for. No reason for any console game not to have it as at least an option considering it only increases accuracy when it works.

I really think that's a good one, especially considering Astral Chain at the moment which cannot disable it. I think it is superior, but I'm just not used to it and prefer aiming with the stick.

Royta/Raeng wrote:Lots of great notes, custom modes and difficulties are a joy and something I feel not a lot of games are embracing. Who cares if it is broken or doesn't work, let me try it out. I remember when I was a kid I dreamed about a Resident Evil like game where, when you beat it, you would unlock all sorts of modifiers like a zombie that follows you constantly, no guns appearing, ammo being halved or items being randomized etc. Beating the game with modifiers would unlock even more modifiers and you could stack them infinitely.

That actually sounds really great, and this is the kind of thing I was talking about. Add some more things like an endless/survival mode with modifiers, like you'd be able to build some sort of maze like structure in which you'll have to survive as long as you can, with rules that you get to set, like the things you said, with lesser ammos, no guns etc.
But as you said no one is embracing things like difficulties and custom modes, primarily because I think a lot of games nowadays are targeted towards a casual audience who don't really care much about replaying the games, they just play them once and shelf them for the rest of eternity.

Regarding level-creators, Dante's Inferno actually tried this through its DLC. It was a neat idea but forgot two core elements a) you needed DLC b) you couldn't play your own level. Making levels will probably be a dream for the future, but there's no reason we can't make let's say Trial maps like those present in Ninja Gaiden Razor's Edge.

That sounds weird, so what were you supposed to do, download other player's levels?

I really think that's a good one, especially considering Astral Chain at the moment which cannot disable it. I think it is superior, but I'm just not used to it and prefer aiming with the stick.

Wait is this with the arrow legion? Can you use the stick at all for aiming?

You can already see modders slowly embracing this with their 'randomization' mods and things of that nature, as well as challenge runners doing certain things (pacafist in Doom etc.). I think it has to do with either the thought not being there, or the target audience just not being interested.

There was a very interesting, and very old, article on The Escapist where they talked about this:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/issues/issue_166/5231-Beat-Your-Game-to-Death

"This kind of statement gives industry executives pause. Someone like Sneh finds satisfaction in playing a single game extensively, rather than many games casually. But Microsoft did not introduce the Xbox merely to revive the career of the modern super ninja. Consoles need many games to support them. If developers and hardcore players determined the market, studios would produce huge, deep, complicated games, and hardcore players would purchase just a few of these games each year. The whole industry would collapse.

What we have instead is a four-way compromise between money men, developers, hardcore players and casuals. Any game made today has to satisfy all of these parties. As one might expect, this often results in disaster."

Followed by saying:

"Replayability is a selling point, but it also dissuades us from playing other games. When you play one game, you're not playing - and likely not buying - another. "

I think that's an interesting way of looking at it. If every player was busy replaying old games and staying with them for a long time, the businessmodel wouldn't be sustainable and the industry would effectively crash. You can slowly see this occure in AAA games where their releases seem (tinfoil hat theory) very closely released. Just when enough time has past to beat the game (God of War 2018) a new one pops up (Spiderman). It has really become a business in that sense.

Kamiya has often said he doesn't care for this, and just wants people to enjoy his games. If someone still plays DMC1 to this day, he is happy to hear so. I think that in the end it is sustainable, as it was back in the SNES days. But the current market needs quick releases. But back then it was mostly games, by gamers. That is no longer the case.

It is kind of interesting, one of the lesser known tales is of DAF trucks going bankrupt due to them making too good a truck. Everyone would buy one, and that was it. No more sales. They had to end up making trucks that would break down after a few years, so that people kept buying from them. Something similar can be seen with Canon, that has software in most printers that cause random errors after a certain amount of prints have been made (no joke) or just Apple in general.

> Dante's Inferno map maker
Basically yes, you made a map and others could play it.

> Arrow Legion
Everything can be aimed with the gyro, aside from the regular camera. It is also used in balancing-minigames.

These are actually very good points.
While I can definitely see that this kind of business model is needed to sustain the industry, but when people get too greedy this kind of mentality can (I mean, it already kinda has) lead to the whole games as a service business model.
It kinda makes me wish gaming was a niche hobby, and the Industry was smaller but easily sustainable.

We had that originally, where most developers were essentially 'nerds' and fans of recent games that wanted to make some themselves. Square's team making Final Fantasy were just die-hard Dragon Quest fans that made fan-game resembling their favourite title for instance. Doom was just a bunch of guys making a fun game they wanted to play with, to the point they just ripped a lot of music from CDs.

It was honestly, a better time. You see this with every medium. Starts small, niche, few lovers. Then it goes mainstream and loses that appeal. It can only, eventually, crash and burn. Especially when the mass moves on to another medium.

I always need to think back to this image, it isn't exactly relevant to the discussion we're having, but it hits the marks still I feel. It's a tad sexist and has a few dumb terms thrown about, but you get what it's trying to say.

Royta/Raeng wrote:We had that originally, where most developers were essentially 'nerds' and fans of recent games that wanted to make some themselves. Square's team making Final Fantasy were just die-hard Dragon Quest fans that made fan-game resembling their favourite title for instance. Doom was just a bunch of guys making a fun game they wanted to play with, to the point they just ripped a lot of music from CDs.

It was honestly, a better time. You see this with every medium. Starts small, niche, few lovers. Then it goes mainstream and loses that appeal. It can only, eventually, crash and burn. Especially when the mass moves on to another medium.

It's still like that for some indie devs and modders, who simply wanna make a game like the games that they played as a kid, but with their personal take, but I think that's about it.
What really gets me, is that some games feel like they're not even trying to be games, i.e they prefer the story or "the experience" over the fun gameplay, I mean with comments from devs of the last of us 2, where they said that "it's not meant to be fun", I wonder what they're even trying to achieve? It's like they're trying to emulate a movie through a game, I mean what's even the point.
And what scares me more is that what will be the state of gaming when streaming games becomes the primary way to play games.

I always need to think back to this image, it isn't exactly relevant to the discussion we're having, but it hits the marks still I feel. It's a tad sexist and has a few dumb terms thrown about, but you get what it's trying to say.

It definitely hits the mark. This sort of thing makes me wonder, whether or not should we gatekeep our hobbies.

I feel that gatekeeping isn't a good term, because it is so over the top "you're not allowed in our hobby". What I do feel is that everyone should be welcomed in a hobby, but the hobby shouldn't change because of it. If you want to play Warhammer 40.000, you should play it because it interests you. Not want to play it because it's the cool thing to do, and then ask for the game to change to fit your desires. That's my main problem right now.

If you don't like something, don't ask it to be changed to fit your wants. Do something that is targetted towards you. I know this is a tad hypocritical considering my notion on God of War 2018 or something like The Last of Us. But I do feel that those games wouldn't lose anything from simply having better or more indepth combat mechanics or something like skippable cutscenes. Just opens up the audience even more (I really sound hypocritical now haha!).

In a sense I like this about Japanese culture. There's a whole market for numerous target audiences. Some have other people reading the content, but in the end they always stay true to their core audience. If others join in, more the merrier, but you came for "X" and thus you will get "X", not "Y" or "Z".

I think it's also important to note that on the game creation side, while there are a lot of great games that are made by gamers, there are also a ton of great or interesting games made by people who aren't gamers as well.

Toru Iwatani's Pac-Man, Tetsuya Takahashi's Xeno series, Yasuhiro Wada's Harvest Moon, Kazunori Yamauchi's Gran Turismo, Fumito Ueda's works, even Shigeru Miyamoto's creations to an extent come from places that are wholly separate from a gamer's typical influences. They come firstly from their individual passions for architecture, philosophy, gardening, cars, animation, art, etc. rather than other games.

It's precisely because they were outsiders with interests and passions pretty outside of the gaming realm that they were able to create games that were innovative and unique. Gamers making games isn't necessarily a bad thing, but they're inherently more likely to make something derivative just because they're usually looking toward other games as inspiration. Outsiders are able to look at problems with fresh eyes and come up with solutions and ideas that are different than what a more insulated group would come up with.

Granted, that’s not to say gamers don’t have interesting influences outside of games to draw from, but a lot of times they’re going to be pretty similar. Generally stuff a part of “nerd culture” like comics, manga, anime, role playing, science fiction, fantasy, etc. is a given.

However, I do think if games were still more insular and made primarily by gamers, it would be problematic in the long term. It kinda reminds me of that one quote from Studio Ghibli’s Hayao Miyazaki about the anime industry where he said he dislikes how modern anime is just made by otaku for otaku and doesn’t draw on actual life experiences like anime used to at its origin. Obviously it’s a little different for games as they don’t necessarily have to be a story telling medium, but I think it still has some application here.

But yeah, I think it’s easy to say the medium as a whole was better when it was more niche and insular, but honestly, I find myself utterly enraptured by lots of the games released even now. A lot of that may have to due with my age and my jack of all trades tastes when it comes to games, but I feel like there’s genuinely something for everyone nowadays for the most part if you’re willing to look for it.

I think I might not have been very clear, my bad, I didn't mean directly "games made by gamers is how it should be", but more that they weren't as directed by men in suits i.e. the only goal is to make money, not good games. Those creators you mentioned fall exactly into what I consider "the good creators", since they work from a passion, a desire, a need. They put their vision or what they want to make above "will it make as much as Fifa Ultimate Team". That was more my point.

There's one credo I once learned at the academy and it was from John Hergarty. The direct quote escapes me, I only have the Dutch translation. I've tried to translate it back, and I still feel it holds up to this day and is applicable not just to illustration (my vocation) but also gamedesign, animation etc.

John Hergarty wrote:You don't become good at your profession just by doing your profession. Creativity should be your drive, but your passion should be life. That requires reading, looking, listening in the full spectrum of things. A source cannot come to a boil if it isn't fed. It is killing to standarise and upscaling of your tasks, that you have to make like a bunch of weak sheep at a lightning pase.

Always hit close to home that one!

Ah, I get what you were saying now. It certainly does seem like executive meddling that gets in the way of a pure vision is a lot more common, especially among the larger publishers. And that quote is a pretty great way of saying how things should be in an ideal world too.

Games are big business, and the suits writing the checks will do whatever they can to turn as much profit as possible. MTX are abundant in things they have no reason to exist in. The newest deus ex and DMC have MTX and to me it is utterly baffling.
The new Ghost Recon looks like the shooting is fun, but I'm never gonna play a full price retail game with MTX these days. It immediately lets me know it will ultimately be a soulless experience that wasn't created out of love and passion, but for profit and addiction.
The only reason old games focused so much on creative vision first was that only the hardcore played them, and everything was held to high scrutiny. Games like GTA and Call of Duty opened it up to the casual players, and thus have become the prominent market, as far as money is concerned. There are outliers for sure, but they are few and far between. Hoping Death Stranding reminds me of MGS3 and not MGS5, I guess we'll see.

This is why I am just playing through New Vegas again for the 20th time, I am looking forward to Outer Worlds, but I expect to be disappointed.

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This came to mind recently while I was saving my game after a session of playing Ghosts of Tsushima, but man do I hate how so many games don't tell me my playtime. It's kind of ridiculous. I do appreciate operating systems from Nintendo and Valve giving this information, but I'd love it even more if the game's themselves displayed this info in some form too. I think Nioh and the Naughty Dog games are the only titles on my PS4 that I could find my playtime info for.

Statistics in general are just really fun to browse through I feel, completely agree on that part. I'm also more and more a fan of games having the option to disable QTEs.