IMO, GTA is as close to perfection than any other game ever made. And its not just gameplay we're talking about here. Its the sheer size, the open-endedness, the depth and the quality of this game that will go down in history as the best thats ever done it.
Its pretty obvious that GTA is a game that all developers would like to make but how come it never happens. Why must we be regulated to 1 GTA, 1 Halo and 1 Morrowind per console? How come a game like True Crime: STreets of LA and Driver used the exact same formula but failed so miserably when compared to any GTA game in terms of size and depth?
I mean, look at the credits for GTA:SA and you'll get a good idea on the amount of money that went into making a game of this calibur. Look at how much audio was put into the game for instance. You have about 100 ppl who did voice work in this game when other companies usually have no more than a dozen ppl total that are responsible for over hundreds of diffrent character voices.
Character voices is just the half of it. Look at all the music stations full of content in the game. You would have to imagine that half the disc was filled with audio. So how did they still manage to fit 3 cities as well as tons of mini games, tons of statistics and hundreds of varities of missions in this game?
You can tell that this game is Rockstar's pride and joy. They're other games such as Manhunt and State of Emergency were made simply to make money while GTA was being worked on.
The ideal principal is that you must spend money to make money and Rockstar seemed to go all out in every facet of developing a game. You can tell all of they're resources were drained putting this game together. But look how the final product turned out. Huge, huge, huge world with more depth than many sports games.
So why is it no other company has decided to spend the amount of money that Rockstars spends on creating a guaranteed sucess? You can make the argument that RS got paid off of GTA 3 and went on from there but even GTA was a huge and magnificent game of its time. I'm sure its other developers who also have the money to make a masterpiece such as GTA. Why have'nt they done so? Is it cheapness? Is it lack of resources?
And this is why I get mad at companies like EA. Because I know they have the money, but will they use it to guarantee sales? Of course not. Maybe they make to many games to begin with? And dont get it twisted, its not that I have some type of loathing for EA, its just that games like GTA that remind me how a video game is sopposed to be made.
SO why does'nt any other comany follow suit and do what Rockstar does with GTA......or Microsoft and Halo.........or SquareEnix and the FF series? Why are games like these few and far between? If most games are worth 50 bones, then those games can easily be worth 100 dollars.
As much as I dont know squat about developing a video game, here's what I do know. I know that with the proper amount of resources and quality assurance, you can make a kick *** game. Rockstar has proved that with the GTA series. They also proved it with Manhunt and SoE, because those games had wayyyy less ppl in the credits than the GTA team.
I guess the only answer can be politics. Business politics to be exact. Thats why companies like Acclaim have struggled for the past 5 years and folded despite they're games always having potential to be something great. Thats why VC will propably never make a glitch free/flawless game. Its the reason why 3rd rank companies like High Voltage and 3DO will remain in obscurity till the end of time. Simple politics. Politics=funding. And where the funding goes to is'nt up to the devs. The funding can go to the marketing as was the case with a game like Fable. Or it can go all into the graphics engine as was the case with Raw 2 or Sudeki. Or it can go into the extras/features of a game such as EA Trax or licensing porposes.
Its quite obvious where all the money went into making GTA and it was'nt the graphics. GTA is a prime example on how graphics dont make the game. The graphics in GTA do the job quite simply. So why do many companies go all out for graphics and eye candy when all they need to do is focus on getting the gameplay perfected, then working up a acceptable graphics engine?
I donno? I wanna hear what you guys think because its all to baffling to me. Out of the 650+ games that have been released this year, its kinda sad that the best of the best can be narrowed down to about 5. All forms of entertainment use the same business tatics and in the end, us consumers suffer the most because we are the ones that have to weed out the good from the terrible. So why is it so hard to acheive greatness when we all know what is needed to do so? A fat budget and a ton of resources and you cant go wrong........at least, IMO anyway.......
Its pretty obvious that GTA is a game that all developers would like to make but how come it never happens. Why must we be regulated to 1 GTA, 1 Halo and 1 Morrowind per console? How come a game like True Crime: STreets of LA and Driver used the exact same formula but failed so miserably when compared to any GTA game in terms of size and depth?
I mean, look at the credits for GTA:SA and you'll get a good idea on the amount of money that went into making a game of this calibur. Look at how much audio was put into the game for instance. You have about 100 ppl who did voice work in this game when other companies usually have no more than a dozen ppl total that are responsible for over hundreds of diffrent character voices.
Character voices is just the half of it. Look at all the music stations full of content in the game. You would have to imagine that half the disc was filled with audio. So how did they still manage to fit 3 cities as well as tons of mini games, tons of statistics and hundreds of varities of missions in this game?
You can tell that this game is Rockstar's pride and joy. They're other games such as Manhunt and State of Emergency were made simply to make money while GTA was being worked on.
The ideal principal is that you must spend money to make money and Rockstar seemed to go all out in every facet of developing a game. You can tell all of they're resources were drained putting this game together. But look how the final product turned out. Huge, huge, huge world with more depth than many sports games.
So why is it no other company has decided to spend the amount of money that Rockstars spends on creating a guaranteed sucess? You can make the argument that RS got paid off of GTA 3 and went on from there but even GTA was a huge and magnificent game of its time. I'm sure its other developers who also have the money to make a masterpiece such as GTA. Why have'nt they done so? Is it cheapness? Is it lack of resources?
And this is why I get mad at companies like EA. Because I know they have the money, but will they use it to guarantee sales? Of course not. Maybe they make to many games to begin with? And dont get it twisted, its not that I have some type of loathing for EA, its just that games like GTA that remind me how a video game is sopposed to be made.
SO why does'nt any other comany follow suit and do what Rockstar does with GTA......or Microsoft and Halo.........or SquareEnix and the FF series? Why are games like these few and far between? If most games are worth 50 bones, then those games can easily be worth 100 dollars.
As much as I dont know squat about developing a video game, here's what I do know. I know that with the proper amount of resources and quality assurance, you can make a kick *** game. Rockstar has proved that with the GTA series. They also proved it with Manhunt and SoE, because those games had wayyyy less ppl in the credits than the GTA team.
I guess the only answer can be politics. Business politics to be exact. Thats why companies like Acclaim have struggled for the past 5 years and folded despite they're games always having potential to be something great. Thats why VC will propably never make a glitch free/flawless game. Its the reason why 3rd rank companies like High Voltage and 3DO will remain in obscurity till the end of time. Simple politics. Politics=funding. And where the funding goes to is'nt up to the devs. The funding can go to the marketing as was the case with a game like Fable. Or it can go all into the graphics engine as was the case with Raw 2 or Sudeki. Or it can go into the extras/features of a game such as EA Trax or licensing porposes.
Its quite obvious where all the money went into making GTA and it was'nt the graphics. GTA is a prime example on how graphics dont make the game. The graphics in GTA do the job quite simply. So why do many companies go all out for graphics and eye candy when all they need to do is focus on getting the gameplay perfected, then working up a acceptable graphics engine?
I donno? I wanna hear what you guys think because its all to baffling to me. Out of the 650+ games that have been released this year, its kinda sad that the best of the best can be narrowed down to about 5. All forms of entertainment use the same business tatics and in the end, us consumers suffer the most because we are the ones that have to weed out the good from the terrible. So why is it so hard to acheive greatness when we all know what is needed to do so? A fat budget and a ton of resources and you cant go wrong........at least, IMO anyway.......
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