The Decline of the RPG or: Shut Up, It’s All Your Fault

There’s been a lot of talk recently about the decline of the classic RPG. It’s largely been centred around developer Bioware, specifically their two sequels Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age II and their so-called “dumbing down” of their predecessors RPG elements. But there have been mutterings throughout the rest of the genre. There have been complaints about the influx of more action-oriented mechanics into what is supposed to a measured, stat-heavy genre. And let’s not forget the current trend for shoehorning RPG elements into any old game.

Read any game-related message board on the internet, and you’ll find countless threads attempting to identify the culprit. They blame everything from cross-platform pollination to executive meddling. But gamers are wrong to point their fingers at these as the cause of the decline. They talk as if this is a problem that has appeared suddenly, that has snuck up on the genre and got it in a headlock. That isn’t the case. The RPG has been going downhill ever since the genre came to computers. And what’s more, it’s all your fault.

It’s a bold statement, I know. But it’s true. There are a number of factors that have, over the years, nudged the RPG down the road it so clearly walks today, and you are complicit in all of them. You are the sole reason why there were fewer abilities in Mass Effect 2, why Dragon Age II took place in a single city, and why every game and its dog feels the need to inexplicably include experience points.

You don’t believe me, do you? Perhaps I should explain.

Let’s start with graphics, shall we? When the RPG was first thrust into the electronic limelight all those years ago, the graphics were primitive, to say the least. Game worlds were represented with the most basic of images, with little to no animation. Some games, like Rogue, even resorted to plain ASCII graphics. What attempts were made at more complex graphics, such as Wizardry‘s first-person perspective, looked like crude versions of those wire-frame computer images they sometimes have in Eighties’ science fiction films.

The upside of all this was that, due to the lack of processing power given over the to graphics, these games tended to be mind-numbingly complex. In Nethack, for instance, just about every item you find can be used in just about any way you can think of. But, of course, as the technology advanced and the genre’s popularity increased, demand grew for better graphics. Developers began using tilesets, and then pre-rendered isometric backgrounds, until finally the 3D era dawned in the mid-nineties.

But what does this have to do with the decline of the RPG? Well, I’m no programming expert, but it stands to reason that the more space on a disc taken up by graphics, the less space for everything else. So on one end of the spectrum we have something like Ultima, with its simple graphics but complex gameplay. And on the other end we have something like Mass Effect 2, with its impressive graphics but apparent lack of traditional RPG complexity.

But all of that isn’t your fault, right? Wrong. You have always demanded better graphics, and if a game’s graphics aren’t up to snuff, you will criticise it. And developers will take this criticism into consideration when making future games. Take the Dragon Age series, for example. One of the biggest criticisms you threw at Dragon Age: Origins was that its graphics were relatively primitive compared to other major releases. Bioware took this on board, and with Dragon Age 2 set about updating the graphics. How much manpower do you think was diverted from the real meat of game design to create a brand new graphics engine?

Admittedly, it is a small segment of gamers who prioritise graphics over everything else. But in an industry whose consumer feedback is gathered indiscriminately from the internet, it is the vocal groups who will be listened to, no matter how small. And the graphics whores are nothing if not vocal.

This idea of consumer feedback brings me neatly to my next point, namely the relationship between gamers and developers. The advent of the internet has given gamers unprecedented involvement in the development process. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that the games industry has more consumer involvement that any other entertainment medium. More and more, developers are looking to message boards to gauge fan reaction to their latest releases and gather intel for the sequel.

It’s a fantastic relationship. Imagine if the film industry could benefit from something similar. We probably wouldn’t have two god-awful sequels to a god-awful Transformers film. But this relationship has its darker side. You see, gamers are a lot of things, but articulate isn’t one of them. Ask the average gamer what they thought of any given game, and they’ll probably say that this feature “sucked”, or that feature was “awesome”. Developers can easily find out what parts of their game you didn’t like, but when it comes down to how to improve those parts, you are useless.

Case in point: Mass Effect. The consensus among gamers was that Mass Effect‘s inventory system was unwieldy, at best. During the course of his adventures through the future, Commander Shepard found countless armour suits and upgrades, and most of them were nothing but vendor trash. You told Bioware this, and Bioware listened. Mass Effect 2′s inventory system was stripped down to the bare minimum, with only a handful of armour pieces and upgrades available. And you hated it. You accused Bioware of dumbing down, of abandoning the hardcore in favour of the casual.

But your anger was misplaced. You shouldn’t have blamed Bioware. You should have blamed yourself. Had you told Bioware what you wanted from a new inventory system, rather than just bitching about the current one, none of this would have happened. Bioware should be praised for taking the time to listen to you, but instead you demonise them for lacking the ability to read minds.

You want a hell of a lot from your games. Better graphics; a more cinematic experience; fluid gameplay. You tell developers you want these things, but you don’t tell them how you want them done. So developers grope blindly for what they think will please you. And despite their best efforts, when they get it wrong, you act as if you’ve been betrayed.

It comes down to a misplaced sense of entitlement. You think, because you can go on the internet and demand that a game be made the way you want it, that you play a vital part in the development process. You think this gives you the right to berate developers who “get it wrong”.

This is bollocks. In all but the most commercial of examples, artists do not create for an audience. They create for themselves. The audience is a secondary concern. Of course, publishers are in it for the money, and so they take passing interest in the audience. But developers, first and foremost, make games for themselves. All artists create works that they want to experience. The best directors make films that they want to watch. The best musicians make music they want to listen to. And the best developers make games that they want to play. It’s when fans are pandered to that problems begin. It’s these problems that have been dragging the RPG down these past years. Problems created by you and your insistent, vague and often contradictory demands.

But has the RPG really been in decline? Are we approaching an event horizon, at which the RPG as we know it will cease to exist, crushed into oblivion and absorbed by the greater gaming morass? I’m not convinced. Sure, if you play Wizardry and Dragon Age 2 back to back, the first thing you’ll notice is the relative lack of complexity in the latter. But what Dragon Age 2 has over Wizardry is a far greater focus on narrative and character development. It’s this focus that has been driving the genre for the past ten to fifteen years. Think about it. Would Baldur’s Gate 2, Planescape: Torment or Morrowind be as great as they are without their detailed, consistent and immersive worlds?

What I’m trying to say, in my rambling, barely coherent way, is that the RPG is not declining. It is changing. There have been a few missteps along they way (all your fault, naturally), but by and large the RPG has undergone a metamorphosis from esoteric pseudo-spreadsheet to fantastical world simulators in which we, the players, are allowed to define and play a role. It’s a transformation not to everybody’s taste, but ultimately it has allowed the genre to spread it’s wings and give us some truly brilliant games. Now, can we please stop all this bitching just kill us some dragons?