Why the RPG Hate?
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My first thought was, (Holy crap, what games are he talking about? I haven't seen a mainstream release like that in years! I want to play whatever it is that he's railing against!)
Maybe he's talking about Frayed Knights: The Skull of S'makh-Daon. In which case, sorry dude. But I really don't think your average PC game journalist has even heard of my game yet, so it's unlikely. If you limit it to just mainstream games, I really don't know what non-MMO game would fill the bill in the last seven or eight years. Was Mass Effect 2 a stats-heavy leveling nightmare that overdoes it on the fantasy tropes?
Okay, snarkiness aside I'm actually on board with the idea of RPGs designed to appeal to new audiences. A HUGE chunk of the role-playing games I affiliate at RampantGames.com are designed for non-fans of the genre. The Aveyond series, Ella's Hope, the Lilly and Sasha series, Millenium series, the Witch and the Warrior, and others. I don't really expect these to be (gateway) games that will eventually lead to more hardcore RPGs. Yeah, I used to hope for them being more (entry-level) titles that would lead down that path, but it's not a common occurrence. I'm okay with that. And I'm mostly okay with mainstream games trying to do that too, to appeal to a different audience. And I really do enjoy these games. These casual, girl-friendly, RPG-lite, jRPG-style titles have been known to suck me in for hours. And I have little doubt I'll push triple-digit hours playing Skyrim on its release.
I just wish there were enough game devs (indies & mainstream) trying to fill that gaping void in the genre where the kinds of classics I love used to come from. But it's a more niche audience and it's a lot harder to make the numbers work. (I'm talking budget / dev time / cost numbers, not the internal game numbers, though that can be challenging too).
Which brings me to the question of the title of the blog. Why is it so popular these days for journalists to bash on a subgenre that's been an endangered species for over a decade? Why the fear and loathing of RPGs? Why the RPG hate?
