Game quality has "skyrocketed" - Braben

By Rob Fahey Published 30 July, 2008

Elite creator praises latest innovations.

David Braben, co-creator of Elite and head of LostWinds brain Frontier Developments, believes there is more innovation in the games industry now than ever before.

He said it's "simply not true" to say there were loads more good games in the olden games - adding that a large amount of releases back then were "rubbish".

"There's more innovation now than ever, and not just on Wii Ware, XBLA and PSN," said Braben, speaking during the Develop conference in Brighton. "It's not just big innovation - small things too, like how user interfaces work. Think about how the way you find a group of people and get into a game in multiplayer has changed. All of these things make a big difference to the overall experience.

"People still say to me that in the old days there were tons of really different, really great games," he continued. "Not true - simply not true. Time compresses your perception. If you think about the whole decade of the eighties, you can probably only come up with a dozen or so truly great games.

"There was so much rubbish around, and now, there's less rubbish around than there was then. There are lots of great games now - the quality has skyrocketed."

Braben also reckons the increasing size of the market means there are more niches to be filled, plus more opportunities for developers with crazy ideas to be successful. He believes quality is now an increasingly important factor in commercial success.

"This has only happened in the last two years, roughly, but the importance of marketing compared to the importance of quality has changed. Quality itself is now selling games - there's a very high correlation between, dare I say it, review scores and commercial success. You can forecast game sales based on those figures," added Braben.

Braben puts that down to vast increases in player interactions on forums, comments threads and other online communications, as well as the availability of many "really very good" online review sites. He didn't mention Eurogamer specifically, but we know that's only because he didn't want to embarrass us in front of all our friends.

Braben went on to confirm that Elite IV is in development and said that Frontier won't be satisfied unless confident the game is brilliant.

Picture of Rob.

About Rob Fahey

Rob Fahey is a former editor of GamesIndustry.biz who spent several years living in Japan and probably still has a mint condition Dreamcast Samba de Amigo set.

Read more articles from Rob by visiting the Rob Fahey archive page.

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Comments (53) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • hulahoops #1 4 years ago

    Hear hear.

  • RedSparrows #2 4 years ago

    Elite IV plx plx plx

  • Darren #3 4 years ago

    "There was so much rubbish around, and now, there's less rubbish around than there was then. There are lots of great games now - the quality has skyrocketed."

    Not on the Wii it hasn't! ;)

    I think there's as much rubbish around now as there always was but the rubbish itself is just better quality. By that I mean the gameplay itself is broken but it's hidden behind glossy production values and slick graphics. The recent Alone in the Dark is a very good example IMO, Lair and Haze are others.

  • kangarootoo #4 4 years ago

    "He said it's "simply not true" to say there were loads more good games in the olden games - adding that a large amount of releases back then were "rubbish"."

    Abso, flippin, lutely.

  • kangarootoo #5 4 years ago

    "there's a very high correlation between, dare I say it, review scores and commercial success"

    He is spot on there too. It didn't used to be the case, but I've seen some good figures myself about that exact subject. Average scores over 80% correlate directly with making more money.

    We haven't heard a peep out of DB for years. Its interesting to hear his views again, 'cos he knows what he is talking about.

  • mingster #6 4 years ago

    Yeah but so have the costs involved and the manpower required and the processing/computer crunching speeds needed.
    No longer are the days of the bedroom one man coder making his name in the gaming world a possiblity.
    A la Manic Miner and Mathew Smith.

  • Nemesis #7 4 years ago

    In my world, there was Elite and then there was everything else.

    I love the Indie stuff coming through the system; much cheaper, much more fun. I've had more fun with PSN titles than the full-price games and just love digital downloads /hugs sofa.

  • louyfitz #8 4 years ago

    I dunno about this, it depends what he defines as "quality".

    I tend to find that I either like a game or I dont, graphical quality is a factor, and so is gameplay, but it's the overall vibe that the game gives me that makes me go "yeah, thats a good game"


    Halo for instance, beautiful, and the gameplay is OK, but it's every single "shit! that was close" and "Oh yeah, I took his fucking head off with that" which makes me love it.

    I guess I'm trying to say, it's not the quality of the game itself, its the quality of the moments and memories that it gives you.

    Games have been able to do that for a long time, since the days of Wolf3D and Doom 95, I'd say.

  • andywilkie35 #9 4 years ago

    "I guess I'm trying to say, it's not the quality of the game itself, its the quality of the moments and memories that it gives you. "

    louyfitz +1, spot on

  • kangarootoo #10 4 years ago

    @louyfitz

    I don't think he is saying there were no good games back then, its more a case of there not being as many as people seem to think. Some people do talk in terms of this golden age, and how loads more games back then were great and these days there is loads of crap. I read it as him basically saying yes there were great games, but there was also loads of crap stuff and there always has been.

  • Floppy #11 4 years ago

    All credit for confirming that Elite IV is still in development, and not to be released until its deem to be excellent. Sadly, I have no faith in it hitting the shelves and being a commercial success. As whichever game engine route you take, you're going to piss off either the arcadey fans or hard-core physics fans.

    Introducing proper newtonian physics into the sequels has bred a niche fan-base. Rightly so, but I could never get to grips with decellerating for seemingly ages and manage not fly past a planet by X light years :)

  • louyfitz #12 4 years ago

    @ kangarootoo

    I see what you mean, I dont agree with everyone calling one point in gaming history the golden age tho.

    My golden age was playing Goldeneye on N64, because thats when I became hooked on FPS games and games in general.

    Everyone has a different point in time that they look back to and say "yeah gaming was great then", but really it's only because you found something that you liked personally.

    Very good point tho, but there will always be good and bad games.

  • Eighthours #13 4 years ago

    360 and PS3 software sales seem to be partly based on quality, but the Wii stuff certainly isn't. Entirely due to the different market the Wii occupies, methinks.

  • kingdumpalot #14 4 years ago

    There probably aren't a better density of good games in the past, but some oldies are absolutely better than today's games. That's why I'm looking forward to GOG.com ;)

  • kangarootoo #15 4 years ago

    @louyfitz

    I tend to also think, based on my own experience, that part of the whole golden age thing was a result of remembering that early exposure to games that blew your mind.

    I love Deus Ex to bit, its an awesome title, but by the time I played it I had been around the block a few times so it probably had less of an effect on me initially and overall than playing 3D Monster Maze on the ZX81 when I was knee high to a weasel.

  • NinjaWilliams #16 4 years ago

    ...E L I T E I V...

  • mingster #17 4 years ago

    i remember being wowed by the 3dness of 3dmonster maze on the zx81 it used up all of the extra 16K wobbly rampack.
    and not being able to beat Arctic 1K chess. A chess game in 1k of memory? wtf.. was that all about..

  • mingster #18 4 years ago

    And also while im at it..
    I've got the original of elite for the spectrum..
    It took my hours to work out how to use the Lenslok protection system.
    Piece of plastic you had to fold then put on the screen to get a code to type in and play the game.
    wtf was that all about !!

  • Nocturne #19 4 years ago

    If the average quality of videogames has skyrocketed then I tempted to put it down to the long overdue end to Army Men sequels.

  • bitesize #20 4 years ago

    I've got the original of elite for the spectrum..
    It took my hours to work out how to use the Lenslok protection system.

    heh, yeah i've got that in the loft as well. never managed to get it working cos i can't get the fuckin lenslok to work!

    luckily i've got the proper original BBC version as well...

  • Feanor #21 4 years ago

    "360 and PS3 software sales seem to be partly based on quality, but the Wii stuff certainly isn't. Entirely due to the different market the Wii occupies, methinks."

    That's a nice way of saying a large percentage of Wii owners are retards who buy any old shit.

  • seasidebaz #22 4 years ago

    WHERE'S THE OUTSIDER GONE ffs

  • agparrot #23 4 years ago

    heh, yeah i've got that in the loft as well. never managed to get it working cos i can't get the fuckin lenslok to work!

    Amen, brothers - My rubber-keyed beermat and Speccy Elite allegedly still live somewhere in the loft of one of my parents. That lenslok was a kind of great idea, although some of the codes were fecking impossible to read, even once you had folded the 'wings' correctly so that the little reflecting bits were pointing the right way.

    However, I seem to remember that once you had memorised say, 3 or 4 codes, you could pretty much just load it up and try them until one of them worked. At one point, I had played it so much that I could even SEE what the code was based on its original form. Made me chuckle when The Matrix came out, I can tell ye.

    /is old.

  • dadrester #24 4 years ago

    bad demo's = no sale
    good demo's = sale

    this has a lot to answer for too i reckon, since on PSN and LIVE everyone i know downloads most demos

  • Dynamize #25 4 years ago

    "This has only happened in the last two years, roughly, but the importance of marketing compared to the importance of quality has changed. Quality itself is now selling games - there's a very high correlation between, dare I say it, review scores and commercial success. You can forecast game sales based on those figures," added Braben.

    Well there would be correlation, because PR chucks loads of money at gaming sites and magazines, then threatens a lack of future previews, exclusives and review copies if the publication doesn't deliver an "acceptable" review score or gushing preview.

    I liked the olden days when you could make a turn-based squad-level strategy game about aliens invading earth, including base building and tech trees. Space sims where you could buzz around and blow the shit out of dirty great capital ships, pyeow pyeow. A game where you had to grow crops destined for earth and defend them from hungry alien ants using various defences and your shoot-shoot gun. Or perhaps a game where you take control of a colourful group of mercenaries and use action points to shoot the heck out of bad men across an entire sectored island.

    Nah, he's right. Innovation and originality are higher than they've ever been before. You can shoot German, Japanese, Arabic OR alien people now, in a first or third person perspective.

  • Bremenacht #26 4 years ago

    I think he's wrong. I'd say there's a lot more complexity but certainly not more innovation. Take Lost Winds for example - the only innovation there is the Wiimote. Without a Wiimote, it'd just be UP-UP-UP or A-A-A - like so many other games. Back in Speccy/C64 days, there was an innovative game every other month, and an innovative twist on an existing genre every other week.

    Perhaps he means innovation in the way games are made rather than the games themselves. I'd suggest time has done something to his perception of the past. As for the his claim of only coming up with a dozen or so great games from the eighties, well that's just so wrong. Maybe time has left gaps in him memory. I also make the point that innovation does not preclude great games. Torus was highly innovative, but not great (otherwise you'd remember it :o). Halo3 was hardly innovative, but arguably great.

    His example of user interfaces is terrible. Are user interfaces that work a recent development?! Konami, Nintendo, UPTG etc. beg to differ.

  • fightman7 #27 4 years ago

    well at least braben is better than that fucking bald headed cunt molyneux. i note that eurogamer still has their bizarre fixation with the chimp-faced cunt.....he seems to appear on these pages at least once a week spouting his crap.

    more braben please - less of that molytwat.

  • TOOTR #28 4 years ago

    Right On Commander!

  • dredd97 #29 4 years ago

    elite IV you say...

    'looks up mythical in dictionary'...

    'oh it has a picture of david braben talking about elite IV'

    hasn't this game been in development since the mid nineties?

    come on david pull you finger out man, i want to play it before i die....

  • drunkymonkey #30 4 years ago

    Gee, Fightman. How many times can you mention womens' giggly bits in vulgar fashion in one comments thread about the guy who made Elite?

    Weird fixation there, too...

    Also, yeah. I find myself agreeing. Just look at the pap the Playstation 1 used to spew out, because of developers not having a clue.

    Even worse on Amgia!

  • Ryze #31 4 years ago

    Quality. I know that Eurogamer with the BBC and general Internet publicity helps UK game sales, plus Metacritic and all the others make a massive difference nowadays too.

    It's less a case of what's hot in the Arcades (Mortal Kombat), what's marketed the biggest (Rise Of The Robots), and more about what's creating its own buzz online.

  • Arwin #32 4 years ago

    But we remember those 12 games as each and every one of them birthed new genres. Does that still happen? I can't remember - it doesn't seem to happen that often anymore, and there seem to be a lot of things getting in the way of game quality. I keep thinking of what Leasure Suit Larry offered, and compare that to GTA IV. The two games are remarkably similar. It almost warrants a feature.

    These days a lot more seems to be possible, but it's the way that it is used that seems to be so lacking. Ah well, it's probably nostalgia indeed.

  • FFS #33 4 years ago

    The golden age was the 90s.

    Anyway, ironic that his is showing up in the Wii news section!

  • bad09 #34 4 years ago

    I dunno if I agree with this guy, this gen is leaving me wanting more than any other. Of course there is GREAT choice and many mind blowing games now, I mean who would have thought we could enjoy games like PGR, GTA4, COD4, Gears, MGS4 etc but I find myself more and more going back to PS2, PS1, Xbox, DC, SNES, Megadrive, even speccy with either consoles or emulators. I find many of the classic games or game styles I loved don't seem to progress to this gen, or indeed the last.

    Still a great time to be a gamer though!

    Edited by 1 at 30/07/08 @ 22:17

  • SixFootHalfling #35 4 years ago

    There are more AAA titles, butt there is also far more shovelware.

    I think the best games are far, far better than good games before, (with the exception of early sonic games), but the bad games seem worse because there is a much wider gulf between good and bad, i.e. orange box and say, ironman.

  • Gruff #36 4 years ago

    That's right Braben, quality has sky rocketed since the days you shat out the Elite sequels.

  • spammage #37 4 years ago

    Innovation and quality has met with the same dimishing returns as the hardware industry. Leaps from 8, 16 and to a lesser extent 32 technologies were profound. Dev's have to work harder now on quality and "new" features these days.

    Braben IS a genius, is a legend. What he created on the BBC Micro all those years ago is comparable to art in it's highest form.

  • evilboo #38 4 years ago

    stop swearing fightman, you needlessly rude, ignorant genital obsessive.

  • stoopidgreg #39 4 years ago

    l33t

  • Maximilian #40 4 years ago

    Elite IV is the new Duke Nukem Forever.

    I would strangle a dolphin for Elite IV btw.

  • kangarootoo #41 4 years ago

    Does that mean if Elite IV asked you to strangle a dolphin, you would do it? Like, to win its love you mean?

  • fightman7 #42 4 years ago

    evilboo - go and lick the molytwat's chimp face you thick fuckwit. fair play, hate yer guts for supporting the molycunt. and drunkymonkey - wish you nothing but bad luck you motherfucker.

    fightman is here.

  • Vin #43 4 years ago

    Come on then, what was so special about the nineties other than having to pay for cartridges?

  • Fusey #44 4 years ago

    Games in the 80s/90s are remembered as being more fun because they were the first time we had seen games like that.

    Today's games are rehashes of those old classics and because they are just the same games with dx9/10 shiny bits on them they will never have the same lasting impact.

    It was the golden age of gaming because it was the start of where we are today.
    Edited by 1 at 31/07/08 @ 11:37

  • kangarootoo #45 4 years ago

    @Nick_JC1

    I think the sorry truth is, that most people (you and me included it would seem) just get slightly more miserable the older we get.

    When I was a kid the sun was always shining, I had zero stress, and all video games were about the most amazing thing I had ever seen. These days my expectations are higher, and I view the rest of the world with scorn, cynisism and an unhealthy level of self worth.

    Actually, out of grumpy character, life is great a whole lot of the time. There have actually been a few games of late that I have looked forward to in a way I haven't felt for years. Mass Effect and Bioshock were two cases in point. Regardless of whether they had flaws or not (I actually think both were on the whole rather excellent), I recall my anticipation of both being somewhere around a level I hadn't felt since Thief 2 came out.

    So there is hope for me yet :)

  • zedzee #46 4 years ago

    I think David Braben is good at one thing, writing Elite (well, at least the first BBC Micro Model B tape version was, anyway) and he should stick to that.

    The Outsider and all that, well, just release the next version of Elite please. And let's have some mathematical strokes of genius in it, rather than just fancy graphics but crap gameplay.

  • evilboo #47 4 years ago

    oh wait - fightman!! now I remember you! sorry!! you're that 11 year old boy that swears and sounds like a wanna-be serial killer / rapist (fuck/cunt/wank/lick/mother etcetc) and who is desperate to lose virginity / murder somebody. I remember you now you frothy mouthed crazyman!!

    No-one else knows what i'm talking about cos they all have you on ignore.

    (/ignores)

  • fightman7 #48 4 years ago

    hope you get aids evilboo you thick twat

  • fightman7 #49 4 years ago

    (fightman is here)

  • fightman7 #50 4 years ago

    evilboo, ive just put you on ignore you stupid motherfucker, so i wont have to read any more of your crap either hahahaha


    hahahahha fightman is here you motherfuckers.

    (hope evilboo gets aids or cancer)
    Edited by 1 at 31/07/08 @ 17:32

  • kangarootoo #51 4 years ago

    @BuckoA51

    Its for the same reason as any grinding game I guess (WoW being the amateur example to give, so I shall give it). Elite always gave clear goals and tangible rewards. You goal is to raise enough cash to buy posh-object-X, and when save enough money you get to buy said trinket and feel cool (or not die all the time anymore).

    I think there was also something absorbing about the scale of the game. At the time (crucially) there was nothing else that gave the same sense of Space.

  • CaoSlayer #52 4 years ago

    If reviews are relate with sales...

    Why the hell Okami failed so bad?

    PD: Twice.
    Edited by 1 at 02/08/08 @ 11:06

  • uk_john #53 4 years ago

    Firstly, Braben was very careful with his words, talking about the 80's rather than the 90's for example! he also didn't mention the fact that Elite was on 8 bit machines, not PC's of the day. When you look at the innovation and range of games on the 8 bit machines like the Commodore 64 and Atari, it dwarfs what er have now!

    Also, tell me how modern gaming in the last two years is so superior, at least on PC (the only machine he didn't mention!) to point and click adventure fans? Or Simulation fans? Or hardcore RPG's? Or Puzzle Game fans? Or educational game fans? Or wargame fans? These were all genres that existed in the 90's on PC that have disappeared to be replaced by mostly shooter games!

    In my opinion, it's better to have many titles in many genres for all the different type of gamers, than just have a few high-cost AAA titles that try to put every genre within the same game! I'd rather have a 100 games to choose from where a dozen are 'great' than have a choice of a dozen titles where 6 are 'great', even if that means in the latter case, a higher percentage of games are 'great'!

    Lastly, if new is so great (and his examples were on the periphery of gaming, 'multiplayer interfaces' and 'XML'! Why is retro gaming taking off like never before, through ebay, and the 'Live' services of the various consoles? Why is independent gaming, where 'old style games' are more likely to be released, doing so well now, expanding at over 100% a year? And if modern gaming is so great, why is the market running hell for leather for casual gaming?

    The fact is, if you want to play a deep game like Elite, you pretty much still have to play Elite! Where are the Falcon style flight sims? Where are the detailed Daggerfall RPG's? Where are the innovative games like Lords of Midnight or Midwinter? Where are the great stories like in The Longest Journey?

    The fact is, if you are not a 'twitch' online shooter fan, you have been served very badly for the last 10 years, let alone 2 years! Dave Braben is out of touch, he talks just like a programmer, about technical aspects of gaming. But when it comes to the overall choice, quality and entertainment value of games, old IS better and new IS worse!

    If you don't know what you're talking about. Shut up.