I rant that someone linked to and which I agree with. Basically a symptom of the wider trend in graphical design that every logo becomes trademark written in a plain sans-serif font.
http://www.digitiser2000.com/main-page/ ... re-rubbish
I'm sure they're rubbish because it doesn't matter for AAA sales anymore. As far as design by committee, they're looking to avoid lawsuits. For example, Coke lawyers would clamp on like headcrabs if their logo was red and white and "ribbon-like." But only if you're a large enough target to sue. And if you're part of a large enough target, of course you want it to look very corporate and monolithic.
I'm imagining a Dilbert-esque situation where a corporate employee calls up and asks for a monolithic logo (a logo that can be used on multiple similar products), the snarky graphics designer takes it literally and designs it to look like a monolith. And of course the punchline is that from all the variant choices, the corporate committee chooses the monolith because they didn't know and wouldn't ask what marketing really meant by monolithic, either.
A scroll through the Steam store page would say otherwise to logos being a dying art, however.
I think that article is narrowing down "modern logos" quite a bit though. While the old logos in the article are of a better mix, pretty much all of the examples of modern logos seems to be of American or western games. Especially North American game developers tend to not focus so much on the aesthetics as much as on realism or mechanics, making most games look alike. European developers seems to focus more on aesthetics but their work tend to become quite wacky for some reason.
I think Japanese game logos are as stylized as ever, although the general style has changed a lot over time, I don't think it's necessarily for the worse (although I am a big fan of the art of '80s and '90s games and manga/anime).
Just check out logos for: Yokai Watch, Rhythm Tengoku, Dangan Ronpa, Gunvolt, Mighty Number 9, Shovel Knight, Monster Hunter, Yakuza, Splatoon, Arms, Nier: Automata and Setsuna (especially the Japanese logo).
I'm trying to list only modern games here, that isn't part of a long running series since the '90s or '80s like Mario, Castlevania etc.
Maybe a distinction can be made between AAA titles and the rest? Those are more closely linked to and sensitive to the current hollywood formula.
I think it's more of a western thing in general, but yeah it probably has connections with current Hollywood trends (which is also heavily using realism nowdays).
Yakuza is the only AAA title with a creative logo I could think of that is not Metal Gear, Zelda or any other franchise from the '80s though.
Just because a logo is not decorative doesn't mean it isn't designed well. Negative space, alignment, balance, etc. are all very deliberately handled. But I generally have a kneejerk reaction to any "modern -x is trash. X of yesteryear is better" arguments (which are understandably expected on a retrogaming forum).
I would agree that many modern game logos are boring because they are too similar to others, just as many movie posters are boring for the same reason. But again, the logos are likely intentionally similar to others to communicate to the player that they will be getting a similar experience. I actually think the monochromatic, distressed Tomb Raider and Doom logos are stronger than their predecessors, but will likely be just as dated in 15 years as design trends continue to shift.
I think they went a little overboard with the doom logo specifically, when throwing out all of the innards/details and replacing it with the usual adobe-ready distress of the 00s/10s. I think there's a place for distress/wear, but it being the go to solution is watering out its textual content. Doom is such a strong brand in itself that it seems a bit wasteful to do this. It is also (probably unintentional) a bit more reminiscent of the logo of the uk hardcore band with the same name.
M_Tee wrote:
Just because a logo is not decorative doesn't mean it isn't designed well. Negative space, alignment, balance, etc. are all very deliberately handled. But I generally have a kneejerk reaction to any "modern -x is trash. X of yesteryear is better" arguments (which are understandably expected on a retrogaming forum).
Yeah, the whole original post is, while interesting to some degree, terribly biased and very selective in its examples to prove its own point.
I honestly think the new Rainbow Six logo is incredible. To the point where it almost made me want to play a game in a series and genre that otherwise has absolutely no appeal to me.
I don't think he meant that modern (western) logos are poorly designed, but that they are so similar and colourless compared to classic logos.
But yeah the article is very selective in its examples, that's the main problem with it as I pointed out.
Modern games are rubbish, period.
Go play some Rabi Ribi and say that again.
Looks like rabi ribi rubbi-sh to me. jk. By "modern" games I really just meant overly polished 3D extravaganzas of various sorts. Things that are old and rough around the edges are dramatically more appealing to me for whatever reason. Plus most modern games have utterly terrible music. They're all ambient soundscapes. It's like all composers have collectively forgotten how to write melodies.
GradualGames wrote:
Modern games are rubbish, period.
Even the absolutely, positively perfect, 100% best
gaming experience ever, Breath of the Wild?
Modern games don't appeal to me at all... The more realistic they look, the less interested I am, and the realistic ones are precisely the ones that tend to have the most boring logos.
Espozo wrote:
GradualGames wrote:
Modern games are rubbish, period.
Even the absolutely, positively perfect, 100% best
gaming experience ever, Breath of the Wild?
Nintendo franchises have remained good for longer but even those are starting to fade from what they once were. I didn't like Skyward Sword nearly as much as all previous instances of the franchise. I felt the music was particularly weak compared to earlier games, though still better than the "ambientsoundscapeitis" that I mentioned earlier, for the most part. I haven't played Breath of the Wild yet.
Donky Kong Country: Tropical Freeze had some nice moments in it. Some good music, and some engaging gameplay. But it suffers from modern gameitis as well: Waaaay too many in-your-face fireworks extravaganzas of EVERYTHING on the screen moving all at once. I think the game really should have been called:
Donkey Kong Country: Everything Falls
I just like the calmness of old games (relatively speaking). It's very similar to how old movies often told a story with really well written dialogue you had to pay attention to with
the camera not moving at all. Now you go to a movie and it's like a damn fireworks show with the fireworks exploding right in your face and your ears. I actually have to take earplugs to the movie theatre anymore because I have tinnitus in my left ear which sounds like sizzling bacon when I see movies like this. And I really like the sound of sizzling bacon, but only when it's actually coming from sizzling bacon.
Am I just a grumpy old man?
If it calms you, gradualgames, i picked up a switch with BotW, and the music is quite catchy. I find myself humming and whistling and doing things rythmically with these earworms in my head even though it often takes a week between finding the time to play a few hours.
FrankenGraphics wrote:
If it calms you, gradualgames, i picked up a switch with BotW, and the music is quite catchy. I find myself humming and whistling and doing things rythmically with these earworms in my head even though it often takes a week between finding the time to play a few hours.
I'm more optimistic about BotW than 99% of all modern games that are out..I'm probably going to pick it up at some point.
tokumaru wrote:
Modern games don't appeal to me at all... The more realistic they look, the less interested I am, and the realistic ones are precisely the ones that tend to have the most boring logos.
I actually find the more realistic a game looks the less realistic they look, particularly faces. The whole "uncanny valley" thing. 3D faces always freak me out. They keep getting further and further up the asymptotic graph towards "actual reality" but somehow I feel they will never actually reach it, it'll always just look weird like some satanic puppet that has come alive. Keyframe animation and movement in particular ALWAYS looks fake to me. Too smoothed and tweened. I'll take hand animation and pixel art any day over this kind of stuff...
So when games intentionally remain more fantastical, like Zelda, I appreciate it a lot more because it isn't
TRYING to look real, so it doesn't freak me out and it remains appealing.
GradualGames wrote:
I actually find the more realistic a game looks the less realistic they look, particularly faces.
Would you prefer, say, the
Cyanide & Happiness style of faces?
And if so, are you more a fan of Kris, Rob, or Dave?GradualGames wrote:
3D faces always freak me out. They keep getting further and further up the asymptotic graph towards "actual reality" but somehow I feel they will never actually reach it, it'll always just look weird like some satanic puppet that has come alive.
Is the
Kingdom Hearts version of Pinocchio also "satanic"?
Watch 30 second cutscene
tepples wrote:
GradualGames wrote:
I actually find the more realistic a game looks the less realistic they look, particularly faces.
Would you prefer, say, the
Cyanide & Happiness style of faces?
And if so, are you more a fan of Kris, Rob, or Dave?GradualGames wrote:
3D faces always freak me out. They keep getting further and further up the asymptotic graph towards "actual reality" but somehow I feel they will never actually reach it, it'll always just look weird like some satanic puppet that has come alive.
Is the
Kingdom Hearts version of Pinocchio also "satanic"?
Watch 30 second cutsceneI like both of those, they are each cartoons not trying to look realistic at all.
FrankenGraphics wrote:
If it calms you, gradualgames, i picked up a switch with BotW, and the music is quite catchy.
When there is music.
GradualGames wrote:
I'm more optimistic about BotW than 99% of all modern games that are out..
Splatoon 2 is part of the 1%, right?
When isn't there music? Every village has its distinct theme (those are the best IMO). Fighting big baddies like stone golems and ogres has a memorable hook. Riding has a song (this gets old after a while if you ride much). Stables have a song. The labyrinth and dark forest have a good common song. There's the shrine song, the tower song (this one is maybe classifiable as a long fanfare, but memorable all the same)... Even cooking/brewing has a memorable drum jingle. The bard plays songs, naturally.
The region songs are a bit toned down, leaning more on ambience.
This video of the new Samus Returns game perfectly illustrates my problem with modern game soundtracks, contrasting it with Metroid 2 on the gameboy. (or some remake of it I guess)
I would take the fascinating, otherworldly, engaging and heroic melodies of yore 1,000x over the ambient soundscapes of today. My guess is Full Sail or others have graduated 1000s of people who are like "HEY I CAN CLICK IN MUSIC SOFTWARE AND ACT LIKE I AM A GAME COMPOSER" but, very very few of them are actually composing
music. Oh well...I'm old, maybe melodies are anachronistic anymore...movies largely have the same problem. Everything just putters on with something recognizably played on instruments but, where's the next Star Wars theme? Where's the next Indiana Jones theme? Where's the next Super Mario Bros. theme? Where's the next Star Trek theme? Where's the next Labyrinth soundtrack? Where's the next Dark Crystal? Where's any music at all?
Maybe its lack of piano lessons? No idea. But it appears to be a dying art. (even though there seem to be thousands of people writing chiptunes, their talents don't wind up in modern games for some reason)
I just don't understand. It's not like having a greater palette of possible sounds makes it impossible to write melodies. Composers just
aren't doing it. On the whole, anyway. Shovel Knight is a rare exception. OH! And Undertale 's soundtrack was utterly amazing.
It's probably more a trend than anything else. I hate trends.
I understand what you're saying in general but you maybe picked the worst possible example? Aside from the opening theme, most of Metroid 2's (incredible) soundtrack is atonal noise.
Good lord, when it was announced i was looking forward to play it, but when compared to the original, i couldn't help notice how much more direct and playable the original felt. so i looked at my gameboy sitting in the bookshelf and thought i don't need anything else.
Quote:
I just don't understand. It's not like having a greater palette of possible sounds makes it impossible to write melodies.
Enter
Wall of Sound. According to that article, phil spector said he"(...) was looking for a sound, a sound so strong that if the material was not the greatest, the sound would carry the record."
Basically - drown it (a mediocre melody/lack of motif) in ensemble instrumentation, textured layering, and overdubs. Or rather today, drown it in preset soft synths and samplers and fx plugins. This can sometimes lift a mediocre song. But it's not a guarantee. That depends on your skill.
Someone like phil spector would work with a song writer or artist who introduced some melodic input or other. But when you're left to your own devices and have learned audio engineering/studio production but not necessarily music theory or have practiced an instrument, you're worse off. You can handle the tools but you don't necessarily know how you should handle them.
I love producing sound. I had a creative block and was not able to produce music all together for several years, but i was happy singing in a choir and producing distinct bell sounds using various synth techniques. So it's not like i look down on sound production. It's a craft in itself. But it's not enough in itself for something like a soundtrack.
Ultimately, i don't think it's just the soundtrack producers/composers' fault. It's more likely the fault of creative directors and trend sensitive advisors.
Metroid 2 isn't really atonal, but it's incoherent from a traditional melody perspective. It doesn't play anything close to cultural expectations. It's a bit hard to melt, predict and relax to. They went dead hard for something alien feeling, and they succeeded, for better or worse...
adam_smasher wrote:
I understand what you're saying in general but you maybe picked the worst possible example? Aside from the opening theme, most of Metroid 2's (incredible) soundtrack is atonal noise.
You might be right. I never got very far in that game, I just checked it out. I'd take atonality on 8 bit over ambient soundscapes in modern games anyway,I actually composed an atonal tune for one of my homebrew game dungeon areas.
FrankenGraphics wrote:
Good lord, when it was announced i was looking forward to play it, but when compared to the original, i couldn't help notice how much more direct and playable the original felt. so i looked at my gameboy sitting in the bookshelf and thought i don't need anything else.
Quote:
I just don't understand. It's not like having a greater palette of possible sounds makes it impossible to write melodies.
Enter
Wall of Sound. According to that article, phil spector said he"(...) was looking for a sound, a sound so strong that if the material was not the greatest, the sound would carry the record."
Basically - drown it (a mediocre melody/lack of motif) in ensemble instrumentation, textured layering, and overdubs. Or rather today, drown it in preset soft synths and samplers and fx plugins. This can sometimes lift a mediocre song. But it's not a guarantee. That depends on your skill.
Someone like phil spector would work with a song writer or artist who introduced some melodic input or other. But when you're left to your own devices and have learned audio engineering/studio production but not necessarily music theory or have practiced an instrument, you're worse off. You can handle the tools but you don't necessarily know how you should handle them.
I love producing sound. I had a creative block and was not able to produce music all together for several years, but i was happy singing in a choir and producing distinct bell sounds using various synth techniques. So it's not like i look down on sound production. It's a craft in itself. But it's not enough in itself for something like a soundtrack.
Ultimately, i don't think it's just the soundtrack producers/composers' fault. It's more likely the fault of creative directors and trend sensitive advisors.
Metroid 2 isn't really atonal, but it's incoherent from a traditional melody perspective. It doesn't play anything close to cultural expectations. It's a bit hard to melt, predict and relax to. They went dead hard for something alien feeling, and they succeeded, for better or worse...
I don't doubt it takes craft to build ambient soundscapes, too. They just totally don't move me at all. They *sound* like zero effort went into them, even though that may not be the case. I just find melodies about six hundred and eighty trillion times more immersive than wwwwaaaoooohhaahhhwhhhhhh.................wwweeeeeoooorrrwwwwww.........*BOOM* *boom* wwwwwowoo SHUT UP ALREADY AND PLAY ME A FRIGGIN MELODY!!!!! ARGH!!
....You know what's one weird exception for me? The Quake 1 soundtrack. I liked that one for some reason. It's mostly ambient. Maybe I really am just old.
Here's another funny example where I felt like it was a bait and switch.
This game's trailer had a neat soundtrack, but then the game itself? That melody is nowhere to be found.
You're terrible at picking examples of modern games.
Maybe that's why you feel they all suck. There are so many great modern games out there, and they come in so many shapes and sizes it's impossible to generalize.
Yeah, I mainly have a problem with Western games. America has always been un-creative when designing Video Games. They make a whole bunch of shooter games because they sell well, and are afraid to try anything new. I mean, we have Halo, Call of Duty, Overwatch, Gears of War, Battlefield, and Destiny. American Video Game companies, who have billions of dollars, are scared to have 1 game fail. What happens if the mass gets tired of shooter games? These companies will have already based their entire company off of shooter games, and they could possibly all fall under.
Quote:
America has always been un-creative when designing Video Games.
I thought Diablo, Fallout and Quake were pretty creative, to name the first examples i come to think of. At one point, they were even thinking of clay motion-animating the sprites in Diablo.
Then there's all those LucasArts adventure games.
I wouldn't really consider Quake as creative, but Fallout, and especially Fallout 2, is a creative and wonderful western RPG. So is Baldurs Gate.
But I agree with DementedPurple, western developers seems to mainly focus on three genres: FPS, RTS and RPG. And RPG nowdays means FPS with experience points.
Also relevant, I think this picture is great at showing just how much variety there is in modern western games character design:
Yeah, when people say they play Video Games to be something they aren't, I doubt they say bald, white, middle aged man. America has never been creative in Video Games, even in the early 1980s.
DementedPurple wrote:
Yeah, when people say they play Video Games to be something they aren't, I doubt they say bald, white, middle aged man.
lol
In the article, the difference between the colorful, dynamic game titles of yore and the flat monochromatic textography of today is the difference in graphic design from back then compared to today. Right now, we've entered the "flat" era, everything is simplified, simple colors and shapes, textures to mimic paper or something printed/stamped on paper, versus very vibrant skeumorphic design with lots of colors and variety.
Flat design has the advantage in that it can be represented anywhere. It's just text with one color, and that color can be anything and be swapped out to fit any background, and have any effect thrown on it to easily make it stand out. Sit down and think about when you actually see the game's title: It's on the box, the jewel case (note the size and shape of the side label), the disc, the manual, and in the main menu of the game. You're only looking at these things for a few seconds, then you're done.
In the arcade era, these were large banners that were lit up and prominently displayed above the game itself. The game also must sit on its title screen (and game demo and high score table) much longer and more frequently than modern games today, so it makes sense to have a bright design to attract your players. Contrast this to obtaining a game nowadays; you probably already know if you want it or not even before you shop, just from looking at reviews or gameplay demos, not the graphic design of the title.
So when compared to the 80s, game logos are bland today. It's not just game logos though, EVERYTHING is bland, and that's because we've all shown, in some way or another, that we want them bland. Easier to read, easier to discern on a launcher screen full of competing icons, easier to pick out from a stack of disc boxes, easier to see from 20 feet away, you can all come up with your own unexpected way that you've shown that you prefer flat logos.
Pokun wrote:
Also relevant, I think this picture is great at showing just how much variety there is in modern western games character design:
The reason this exists is because this is what sells in American markets. Contrary to popular belief, there's a large variety among all of these games, despite the samey protagonists, and
at least one permutation of variables is going to end up on your gaming shelf. A few years ago, everyone would've been complaining about the oversaturation in bright, colorful, bug-eyed mascot platformers in the market, and this is just the buck being passed to gritty realism, something that was
hard to achieve until recently.
I implore you all to try one of these modern games you hate so much, make a conscious list of what you don't like about the game you chose, and I guarantee there'll be another modern game (with or without a similar protagonist), but without the specific list of things you didn't like. Maybe you'll have an all-new list of things you don't like about the new game, but you'd be surprised about what's common between your lists and what isn't.
I have no comment other than providing the links that are the context of that image:
http://archive.li/4PS8Ohttp://www.ign.com/articles/2011/06/22/ ... er-designs
Drag wrote:
Flat design has the advantage in that it can be represented anywhere. It's just text with one color, and that color can be anything and be swapped out to fit any background, and have any effect thrown on it to easily make it stand out. Sit down and think about when you actually see the game's title: It's on the box, the jewel case (note the size and shape of the side label), the disc, the manual, and in the main menu of the game. You're only looking at these things for a few seconds, then you're done.
In the arcade era, these were large banners that were lit up and prominently displayed above the game itself. The game also must sit on its title screen (and game demo and high score table) much longer and more frequently than modern games today, so it makes sense to have a bright design to attract your players. Contrast this to obtaining a game nowadays; you probably already know if you want it or not even before you shop, just from looking at reviews or gameplay demos, not the graphic design of the title.
So when compared to the 80s, game logos are bland today. It's not just game logos though, EVERYTHING is bland, and that's because we've all shown, in some way or another, that we want them bland. Easier to read, easier to discern on a launcher screen full of competing icons, easier to pick out from a stack of disc boxes, easier to see from 20 feet away, you can all come up with your own unexpected way that you've shown that you prefer flat logos.
Now you are doing the same mistake as the author of the article, ignoring the fact that this flat style is just a small part of modern games. Your point doesn't explain why non-western games are still using very varied and colourful styles (not just talking about logos). I think the logo style is more of a trend, but yeah western games are generally very bland, having not enough focus on interesting characters (often one of the most important thing in a fictional piece of work), too much realism, too much black humor and just too much bad boy style in general IMHO. I for one sure don't want that.
Quote:
implore you all to try one of these modern games you hate so much
I wouldn't comment on this if I hadn't played the games.
I checked the only recently released made in japan games i had on the shelf: breath of the wild and mario kart 8 deluxe. Both follow this style. I looked up the japanese title of BoTW and it's the same style.
So i think what Drag says might generally be true for big producers, regardless of geographics. The materal analysis holds very well, imo. The divide seems to be a niche/broad market one.
That hardly seems fair.
BotW I can kinda see. It uses a fancy custom font, but then so does Doom. On the other hand, there's an extremely distinctive-looking sword incorporated into the logo, and it's not monochrome like the text (and the plant growing out of it).
You mention the Japanese logo being monochrome too. That suggests something to me; there may be another explanation in this case:
http://annyas.com/screenshots/directors/hayao-miyazaki/Mario Kart 8 Deluxe... no, I'm not seeing it. It looks slicker and more modern than your usual '80s logo, but it's plenty distinctive and very colourful, fitting in well with the image of Rainbow Road on the box. Also, did you notice that the 8 (which evokes a racecourse, possibly an antigravity one) is actually a Möbius strip?
Pokun wrote:
Quote:
implore you all to try one of these modern games you hate so much
I wouldn't comment on this if I hadn't played the games.
My problem with most modern video games, is that they feel like they drag on forever. There's almost no challenge, and as a result, thinking involved, which gets really old really fast no matter how much the scenery changes. I actually probably spend about the same time with older games, but that's because I enjoy trying to master them; most modern video games are more of a test of patience than a test of skill. Even modern "competitive" games generally have a low skill ceiling.