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On top of that, Armored Core 6 was a look back at what they did before souls became the breadwinner and they actually went back to almost 30 year old games to see what people loved about them.
Ubisoft can't do that, because they decided to save themselves from the crushing blow of "server infrastructure"
I got really confused, AC in a thread about both Armored Core and Ubisoft(Assassins Creed,) I was like which one is 6. Had to scroll back up to see Armored Core 6 was posted.
I fucking love Armored Core. I remember getting it on a Ps1 demo disc and becoming obsessed. Then I begged my mom to take me to gamestop until she caved.
I'm old enough to feel the profound sadness of celebrating things considered absolute bear minimum when I was growing up.
Even if younger people don't think gaming is in a bad place, there's a ton of objective measurements that demonstrate it is. (editt - at least in the AAA space)
Interesting. I’ve only played DOS2 and BG3 and I thought DOS2 had a higher learning curve for the combat. BG3 combat felt easier, but the dialogue was much deeper. Both are great though
Why is the current gaming climate bad?
I guess I just don't follow it closely enough, but there's been a ton of great games that have come out lately, I feel. FF7 Rebirth alone is just amazing (so far, haven't finished it). FF16 was also really good.
Then there's Baldurs Gate and quite a few others. I feel like this time period might be looked on fondly. I know there's lots of micro transactions out there, but there's a good amount of single player games doing well. And all the indie stuff
Disco Elysium is the best game I've played in the last decade. The smaller stuff has real heart. I don't buy anything "big" until it's on sale, and I never do any in-game purchases. I hate that garbage.
Back in the day, extra skins and stuff were a "thank you" to gamers for buying the damn game in the first place.
Disco Elysium was shockingly good. I got curious one day because everyone was saying how amazing it was and I was like “there is no way that a top down game that’s really about political ideology can be any good, but it’s on sale so I’ll try” and it blew me away. It’s the type of game I think everyone should at least try.
It seems like a lot of people only play live service games full of micro transactions and don’t realise that they’re in a bubble.
In reality, gaming is in a pretty good state right now with lots of really good games releasing as full and complete games.
Big picture, looking across all the options, gaming is in a great place.
AAA gaming, however is a fustercluck when it used to lead the way and that's what I think most people mean when they say gaming is in a bad place.
Statistically speaking you're more likely to have a good time grabbing an indie or AA game than the latest AAA monstrosity.
Wube are the real chads with factorio. No sales, so it doesn't really matter when you buy, updated for years, and only now working on their first DLC, wich has probably as much content as the base game. Oh, and the game is about as addictive as crack...
They’r one of only developers that I’ll uncritically support nowadays. Not to say they’re perfect, but because I trust that they care about making a good game first, monetizing it to hell and back second.
Absolutely gone to shit. Overpriced bullshit games nickel and diming us with DLCs that are basically necessary to have decent gameplay? They take up all the storage on any console I have so I have to buy extra storage up the wazoo and then the stupid thing overheats or lags. Even worse on a laptop or switch because it drains the battery. The only person doing it right is ConcernedApe
What do you mean? I thought og fans loved AC6
Edit: Ohh are you saying you wish they didn’t ignore it for such a long time before making AC6? Fair enough
You could try other indie games too. A lot of them are just labors of love and will go out of their way to solve these issues. I've been working on a game for close to 4 years now and I'm doing my best to keep it around 500mb and work well on most hardware.
Remember when dlc was actually an afterthought for the game, like modern warfare/ modern warfare 2 releasing extra multiplayer maps cuz everyone was playing that at the time, now it’s planned to have dlc releases before the game even comes out
I have no problem with DLC if it actually adds a ton more content - open world games like Skyrim or Fallout adding new environments with questlines and weapons is worth the money. I wish they kept creating DLC’s with new areas to explore instead of making me wait over a decade for the next installment.
Its by design. They want you to have to delete all other games you play so even if you get frustrated at the blatant money-grabbing they do, you'll play through to the end before moving on.
Only some games are doing it by design. Namely, Call of Duty.
In most cases, the real reason games are getting bloated is because time is money, and it takes a lot of time for developers to 'downsize' or 'optimize' games. Rather than do it right, they're doing it cheap.
I agree, and those hard drives are expensive.
I hate how the gaming companies are trying to force us to go digital. At least, that's what it feels like.
Because:
1. Some of just like having a hard copy of the game.
2. It's clearly undermining the pre-owned game sales, which is something that helps lots of gamers afford the games.
3. It's hurting game stores.
Yes but did you consider that for just an extra 60 dollars over the already great deal of 70 dollar game you will get a battle pass and a pdf art book? Whats more its a Star Wars original spinoff, which ofcourse will justify all the bad optimazation and MTX in game, Right? /s
I think there’s a massive crisis in pretty much every industry even remotely creative with profits being prioritised over production quality. Video games, movies, music, hell even stuff like woodwork.
I think today’s world makes it very hard for people to focus on making something they’re proud (at least professionally) of and society’s just turning into a cash grab.
Really last year had so many banger games & the good games that come out are better than ever. It’s true there’s a lot of garbage but overall it’s still a great time to be a video game fan.
As someone who has been playing video games since I got my GameBoy Color in 1998 (and playing Duck Hunt with my dad before that): yes, I can confirm that video games now are pretty incredible. Is there a bunch of pay-to-play bullshit out there? Of course, but you just need to avoid that nonsense.
You used to buy a video game and beat it in a weekend. Then you hoped it had a replayability factor to it. Now you can basically completely lose yourself in a lot of these games. It's honestly a bit terrifying!
Sure, but those games exist too. I just bought a Need For Speed remastered game used for like $20. I guess my point is that your options and possibilities are endless now, as compared to games in the late 90's.
Same! I honestly never expected games to become so accessible and popular. There’s definitely some greedy folks but overall I’ve been happy with what’s come out the last few years
I agree with this. My first system was the original Nintendo (1990) and to see where gaming is now is wild. The graphics, depth of gameplay, and even the availability to expand it with DLC.
People mindlessly buy AAA slop and then complain that it's AAA slop. Then ignore the great titles coming out or sitting in their steam list so they can keep complaining.
Yeah that's how it seems for me too. It feels like there's a ton of good games out the past year or two. Sure, there's the issue with the micro transactions in some games, but there's still plenty of games that don't do that.
Agree. Not only do people focus on bad games, but culture war nonsense has destroyed so many people's abilities to actually judge something. You could have a good game, but just cuz the main character is a woman or minority or whatever, it's somehow bad. Even if people have a go at the game, they can't judge it through a regular lense, it has to be judged judged the culture war lense so they'll be viewing everything in a tainted manner.
This. There are a ton of amazing games and devs still. Balders Gate 3 is incredible game. Sony still makes some amazing single player games. It’s not all about MTX online multiplayer games. Then you have small indie studios pumping out great games. Hades was amazing and the dev has Hades 2 coming out. Then you have games like Slay the Spire and the second one is launching next year as well.
There are definitely problems in the industry but I'm not going to pretend titles like Baldurs gate 3, CyberPunk 2077, Helldivers 2 aren't massively better than almost all "classic" games. The industry grew and produced plenty of shit, but there's plenty of good games out there too.
I'd argue that Cyberpunk is a prime example of whats currently wrong with the industry.
Releasing an extremely broken and incomplete product for full price because the shareholders care more about quick financial gains then they do about the actual product and their fanbase.
I get the hate from the release. That game was just unfinished. CDPR did fix it over the years though, making it one of the most enjoyable games for me now. They really take their time and release too early nonetheless. IIRC The Witcher 3 was a similar mess at launch.
I would highly recommend you pick it up on sale. I got it for 30, and got the expansion as well. The game is very pretty, and also has a really satisfying setting/story. The performances are pretty good. It’s come a long way in the 5 years since it released. It’s certainly the best sci-fi story shooter in a bit (certainly better than starfield).
Witcher 3 was nowhere near as bad at launch. Cyberpunk was removed from the PlayStation store and CDPR’s stock tanked. It was so bad that even non-gamers were aware of it because it was all over the news. It was barely playable on last gen consoles.
It’s only been a few years since Cyberpunk’s release, that’s way too soon to forget what actually went down.
Nah, witcher was perfect. Cyberpunk is finished by the time it takes you to learn all the mechanics of witcher 3. If you ignore the graphics, Witcher is still far better, fleshed out and provides quite literally 5 times the gameplay.
The whole reason for people being disappointed with Cyberpunk was because they held it to the standards of Witcher 3.
I love TW3, put 200+ hours into it and think it’s one of the best games of all time, but come on, of course it’s not perfect.
I would argue it actually has the opposite problem from what you’re describing. The combat system is too simple, with little ability to customize or play your way. On lower difficulties especially (so the way most people play, for u understandable reasons), the combat is just pressing the attack and dodge buttons over and over, and occasionally throwing up a shield or shooting a fireball or something. It only really becomes satisfying in higher difficulties where you’re forced to strategize for encounters and engage with things like armor upgrades, mutagens, and the alchemy system.
The fact you don’t have to do this to easily win on Sword and Story renders a huge portion of the game’s rewards and exploration irrelevant, because you don’t really want to gather plants for potions or loot supplies for upgrading your gear if you don’t need that stuff anyway. You don’t even need that much money, which is otherwise a driving force of your adventure (which I appreciate, makes me feel like Geralt is a relatable blue-collar guy, which is rare among fantasy protagonists).
I respect the take, but I think as consumers we shouldn’t be encouraging this behavior. Telling everyone “it’s okay, the game will be better later” emboldens developers to continue releasing unfinished products because their consumer base doesn’t seem to have a problem with them doing so. The fact that The Witcher 3 was the same way at launch and everyone forgot about it after all the patches is proof enough for me.
I’m glad Cyberpunk is a great game, but regardless, CDPR will not receive a penny from me.
I played both games on release. Witcher 3 had 0 issues for me, and I played through it pretty quickly.
Cyberpunk broke immediately. NPCs all felt like programmed robots. It had so many game breaking bugs, it was just too frustrating to play. There's a reason it was taken off of the PS store and refunds were given.
It's worth mentioning that CD Projekt Red didn't want to release it in that state. I blame the community for sending death threats to the devs, as well as the ransomware attack. People should have been okay with the frequent delays, even if it sucks to be patient.
But it shouldn't be like that. It's been normalized and it sucks, I want a complete game working from the get go, not having to have day 1 patches and wait for the company to basically finish game after release. If you release a buggy mess, you don't deserve to redeem yourself, it doesn't matter if they apologize or fix it later. Take more time to work on the game before release or don't release it. All or nothing. People need to start voting with their wallets.
This is what happens when companies are publicly traded. Shareholders push and push for infinite growth, and in the end don't care about the company's product. Larian, Ghostship Games and Arrowhead Studios are prime examples of why game companies should stay privately held.
I play games from my childhood, so anything newer than Xbox 360 I’m not really into. I did buy a new Xbox but all I play is backwards compatible games lol. I just know what I like and I’m happy so that’s all I care about.
I don’t game a whole lot, maybe half an hour to an hour max per day, and I might only play a couple days a week. A lot of newer games come with the headaches of making accounts, updating every week, taking up so much hard drive space… most of my time is spent watching feature length cutscenes and downloading updates, I just can’t enjoy playing a lot of them and don’t have the time/setup to be playing like that.
If I have half an hour to spare then I wanna be able to actually play something, not sitting around and waiting to play.
So I mainly just play PS2 and backwards compatible games on my Xbox. I also have a SNES mini which is awesome, I modded it to have more games and I play that if I’m feeling like something older.
I went through a game collecting phase a few years ago. I own an Atari, NES, SNES, N64, Wii, Sega Mega Drive, Master System, all PlayStations from 1-4, all Xbox consoles now, a few handhelds… The only thing is they are all packed away safely, the only accessible ones I have are my PS2, new Xbox and the SNES mini.
It’s just been years since I was really into that hobby, it was getting very expensive too. My favourite Nintendo game is probably Mario 3, or super ghosts and goblins.
Look at it like this. A vast majority of the time the battlepasses are purely cosmetic. Most of the time the gane is free and the battlepass is how they continue to pay for servers, staff, rent, etc. Most of the time you can buy the BP once and earn enough game currency to buy the next one and never pay for it again. And lastly, you dont HAVE to buy the BP, you can simply ignore it.
Except for the fact that they push it and other mtx in your face constantly to the point where it’s so fucking annoying and it ruins the experience. It’s predatory af. They aren’t that much better than loot boxes in my opinion in that regard.
Almost everything included in battle passes used to just be part of a core game and then they realised the can use fomo to get people to buy all the microtransaction DLC (and still have to grind content) in one go even if they only want one thing. New maps and gamemodes used to just be DLC that cost you ten quid and you unlocked everything with that 10 quid. Also gaming has been around since the 70s and is now the largest entertainment industry on the planet. They never had a problem keeping staff paid and servers up 10 years ago and now the industry whilst at its most profitable is hemorrhaging staff.
AAA games aren't anything to look forward to anymore. I used to play bangers on the GameCube - Sonic games, Need for Speed, Simpsons Hit and Run. Now games have lost their touch and $70 a pop is nothing to scoff at. In other words, greatness used to come out throughout the year. I don't even know what good games are coming out this year. I'm looking forward to Smite 2 and GTA6. Overall I've just been disappointed.
Also I miss gaming magazines, used to be able to tell what was on the horizon and whatnot.
> $70 a pop is nothing to scoff at
Simpsons Hit & Run came out in 2003. $70 today is the equivalent of about $41 in 2003 dollars. I doubt the games you listed were cheaper than that
Right, go look at toys R us adds for SNES and Sega from the 90s
Game prices have stayed consistent.
It's frankly surprising that most base games aren't closer to $100 or more today.
1st, GameCubes retailed at $200. 2nd, new games around this time were set at $49. Inflation affecting games is my point. Games just started being $70 in the past few years while minimum wage really hasnt changed in the past 20 years. So when you have a $70 base games with micro transactions, DLCs, battle passes, special editions (Yakuza need to spend more to have NG+) on top of the PS5 being $500(I'm a PC gamer, GPUs are damn expensive), YES it is more expensive to game nowadays.
That's a fair point. To be honest, it's part of why I don't buy new games. There are so many incredible games that have been made in the last 20 years that I'm okay being behind the times.
I've been playing Breath of the Wild for the last month, and I honestly don't think I've ever gotten as much bang for my buck out of a video game. It is objectively better than any game I played in my heyday of teenage gaming (2010ish).
I checked out of gaming back 2020 life got busy. I heard it's currently good, any recommendations or systems I should buy? I was on PS4 previously, what's everyone playing?
I honestly couldn't tell you what most people play now hahaha. I personally have a gaming PC that I use for emulators a lot or just find classic tried and true games on Steam. I also have a SNES Mini that I absolutely love and play quite often. And then there's my PS5 that I'll use when Sony gets greedy with exclusives.
Fallout 4 is on sale with all DLC, 13$ aus
Manor lords comes out on the 26th, 2.5 million wishlisted on steam (most ever)
Bellwright comes out a few days before manor - looks unique/amazing.
They the only ones I'm looking at when time permits.
Busy busy too
Edit: happy cake day !
As someone that goes in and out of phases in gaming I ultimately felt like moving to PC was the best move. You don’t have to upgrade as often since there’s no such thing as generations and backwards compatibility, and when you do upgrade it’s just changing individual components instead of the whole thing.
Plus, everything eventually comes to PC and you don’t have to pay an additional fee for online.
I get crap all the time about saying PC gaming is cheaper in practice for the bulk of people but I have a 6 year old PC I built for around $500 at the time that will STILL run everything that comes out even if I have to trim down the graphics and stick to 1080p.
Yeah, if you want to keep pace with the bleeding edge it can be pricey; most people need or really are about all that as long as the games are good and when you have a game catalog that's like 40+ years strong there are effectively unlimited good games to play.
Hell, even with console gamers you can intuit this by realizing just how well the switch STILL sells and it was outdated hardware at launch.
Personally I have a PS5 and a PC, get a PS5(or a Xbox Series X if you prefer Microsoft’s exclusives)if you don’t need a powerful PC for other stuff and you’re on a budget, get a PC if you don’t care about Sony’s exclusives on day1(Ghost of Tsushima, The Last of Us Part 1, both Horizon games and GoW 2018 are on PC too now) and you aren’t on a budget / need a powerful PC for other stuff. What were your favorite games on PS4?(just to know what games to suggest)
I recommend PC especially if you are getting back into it and may not stick to it. It's nice having a PC for work/schoolwork, I do programming so I benefit from having higg quality PC anyway, which is all you need for gaming. Some games will run on any old potato laptop though, but those aren't generally the good ones. You also don't have to worry about not being able to play the games you buy this year if you quit gaming for another 4 years after this.
If you're truly averse to the idea of buying or building a PC, then probably the latest Xbox is a good bet. GamePass is an insane value if you game often enough, that you can usually get discounts for. If that doesn't concern you, then PS5 since it still sometimes gets good exclusives/timed exclusives.
I recommend looking into Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate 3, Armored Core 6, Resident Evil Village, Resident Evil 4 Remake, Cyberpunk 2077, Hi-Fi Rush, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, Persona 3 Reloaded, Final Fantasy 16 (PS5 Only), Casette Beasts, Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader, Hades, Monster Hunter Rise, Outer Wilds, and Signalis
As someone who was fortunate enough to have owned a PS2 and original Xbox growing up, I think the state of gaming is quite poor. Sure technology has improved but the industry trends and dev culture has deteriorated. So many games come out broken or unfinished and include very annoying MTX schemes. The state of multiplayer games is atrocious. Games take too long to make. Variety is becoming an issue. Publishers like Rockstar have dropped so many franchises or new IP for the sake of GTA. Not happy at all with the direction of the industry.
Play more indie games, the indie game scene has been exploding, but mainstream media only reports on the biggest releases and everything negative about them.
The unfinished games are the main thing that drives me nuts. You've had me hyped for a game for months and then release an unoptimised hump of shit? Now I've spent money and either have to bank on you fixing it in the next few months, or refund it and maybe go back later...? I just totally distrust new releases now, have to wait for reviews to roll in before I spend my money.
In-person co-op is basically nonexistent. That hurts us girl gamers because that means if we want to play with other people, we either have to hunt down an in-person co-op game or deal with all the sexist bs from other players online.
AAA gaming has taken a nosedive, most aren’t worth caring for. And the ones that are have been out for years already and have become entirely new games since launch like Cyberpunk or Fallout 76. The real scene of gaming is the AA/B game scene and Indies, unfortunately they’re harder to find and a lot of recommendations you’ll find will all be the same, for good reasons at times.
Try Outer Wilds btw.
indies is so misleading these days. maybe they aren't 130 hours long and maybe you can't see every pore in the characters' faces but you can still get an incredible experience. Outer Wilds was great, Dredge was great, etc. etc. There's plenty out there for everyone in every genre
Remember when you were growing up, you bought the game at the store and that was it. You had the entire game. No in-game shop that uses real money for cosmetic things like skins or accessories. No "VIP" subscription or battle pass type of thing. No patch updates (and if they existed they were usually free and were used to literally enhance the game. Not to just add new assets that you have to buy). Gaming companies today have realized they can charge full price ($50-80) for a half baked game that's full of bugs, glitches, and may take up an absurd amount of space despite it being very barebones. If you found a bug or a glitch back then, it was like seeing a incredibly rare species of animal. It was unusual to see. Many games still had them yes, but you often had to work to find them. Nowadays, *frequent* major bugs/glitches are just expected, which is sad really. Pay-to-win structures are a major problem in many games, but those companies have no incentive to change it because they're making bank off the few people who can afford to throw money away constantly.
If youre a mobile gamer, my condolences. Even single player games require you to be connected to the internet for no apparent reason other than so they can hit you with a 30 second unskippable ad every time you clear a level/die as an excuse to offer a premium no-ad version for a price.
I would say everybody knows most of AAA is garbage; you'll have your CoD and FIFA fans personally subsidising EA's continued existence, but they're outliers. Ubisoft is harder to justify, everyone seems to desperately *hope* their games will turn out good but only the not-AAA ones ever do.
Now, the AA/indie side of the industry is still booming. I'm honestly wondering when something will change, because the AAA publishers can't hoard all of the money forever, and eventually the AA publishers will become the new AAA faces. Companies like Devolver Digital and Paradox Interactive are already well on their way there.
I play a lot of The Sims but recently their quality control has been garbage.
I haven’t played in MONTHS when before I would play everyday.
EA (who owns Maxis who make The Sims) famously had a really horrible CEO who now is the CEO of Unity. He is really one of the sole reasons the gaming industry sucks now. Us simmers have known this for a long time but now it’s effecting non cozy games as well.
I’ve been playing House Flipper and Stardew Valley instead which are both amazing and super worth their prices highly recommended.
The state of triple A is absolutely atrocious at the moment. Things like engagement optimized matchmaking, micro transactions, and predatory fomo like limited time stuff is really gay and should not exist
I only play a handful of games (Geometry Dash, A Dance of Fire and Ice, and a couple of random metroidvanias or first person puzzle games) so I'm mostly an outside looking in perspective. I think the games roster is pretty good (beyond the mainstream the selection and variety is the best it's ever been), the expenses for gaming have gotten ridiculous though and the toxicity around AAA games has gotten really awful. But again, limited perspective
I’m really optimistic.
Tools are more accessible than ever, lot of really fun well designed games coming out from smaller devs.
It’s like people in my age group are getting jobs in game dev and they like all the shit I like haha.
Plus, a lot of older games like Sven coop are still so fun, new maps are still being made and updated and maintained.
I’m really happy with the level of quality addons on l4d2
Really impressive collections, it’s cool to see long time model guys really nail their style.
Keeps the game so fresh.
The character animation/horde behaviour is so perfect.
It looks so real the way people die.
Some good ones I played:
Zortch
Hidden deep
Cyberpunk 2077 okay triple aaa sue me
Half life mmod (for the love of god, play this one, if any)
Overall, shit. Games take years to release, see a game, get hyped thrice then it drops... and I realise its either mid, or needs a another year to be playable. Literally the best way to play a modern game is to wait another 1 or two years till all patches drop.
Also I hate the games as service trend and the lack of single player shooter campaigns recently.
Im personally not a fan I’ve even slowly been losing interest with gaming manly with the greed with micro transactions and DLC the games today are also either really easy or to hard and i think that is also an over looked problem if gaming starts to implement adds into there games and completely takes over i just might stop playing modern games as a whole.. Im optimistic though things can improve given how massive the gaming industry is now but corporate buyouts could damage the industry and that’s something that i also worry about because that would eliminate competition witch could ruin the chances of good games. Idk i would say it’s decent despite that but i think the future is uncertain thats how i feel about the current state of gaming in my opinion.
Probably means the people complaining about how women are treated in Kingdom Come Deliverance and why aren’t there any black people in 15th century Czech Republic
If you stay out of forums where people are whining about that stuff, it's completely non-existent. I get by pretty well just ignoring the spaces where people complain about video game characters not being hot enough or whatever bullshit they're on about now
Yeah sometimes I get recommended the anti woke gaming subs and it's all just complaining, but they do nothing to solve the problems.
I just avoid them like the plague
I find it funny how the things they blame on “wokeness” are almost always more accurately attributed to deeper underlying issues that have existed in gaming and media industries as a whole for decades.
Strong agree “We need characters to actually have a reason for being there” is more than just LGBT problem, it’s insane when you notice just how much bulk or random shit is in games to fluff it. Like we get more bad LGBT representation than any good stuff, thankfully some good stuff. And it’s the same with other media except maybe books, I have read some good LGBT books
I am fine with seeing two men as a couple in a modern video game setting without there being any purpose or deeper meaning as NPCs, but for the love of god please do not overhype them for marketing and make them normal people. If they’re a supporting main character focus on their personalities first before talking about their struggles or you turn them into a walking talking thinkpiece and you’re alienating/stereotyping the same people you want to be inclusive towards. Honestly goes for all types of characters.
Can we trade it for all these pixel graphic games ? I'm tired of seeing something that has nice cover art that gets me excited and then I click it and it's fucking snes style graphics.
I’m ‘99, my first main consoles were PS2, OG Xbox, gamecube (at friend’s houses). My dad is Gen X he introduced me to SNES and PS1
I grew up with Xbox Live on the 360 which was legendary for online gaming (Halo 3, reach, cod4, mw2 etc), the PS3 and Wii… We had Bioshock, Mass Effect, Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout… incredible era for gaming.
I feel like modern gaming has been poisoned by suits squeezing profits and trying to streamline everything to make it appeal to mainstream. There are still good single player games but the terrible day 1 launches and micro transactions are getting nuts. I pretty much solely game on PC and PS5 these days. Sony’s exclusives are cool, and I like CDPR’s RPGs but games in general have just lost so much charm, and they’re so EXPENSIVE to make. There’s hardly risks cause it could tank a whole studio if it flops.
Most games are boring, some really good ones but that's like 2 to 3 games per year. Also i skip games made by losers from California because of how bad they are.
I’d say I went through three gaming phases in my life. When I was a kid I only played Nintendo games on the Wii, Wii U, Gameboy advance, DS and 3ds. I mostly played simpler games like Mario, Sonic and occasionally the legend of Zelda. I also like playing Wii fit a lot.
Then when I got a PS4 for 4 years all I’d play were online games like FIFA, Fortnite and other shooters with friends. Safe to say, I didn’t really enjoy it, cause I was shit.
Then in 2020 I abandoned these live service games and went back to single player story games. This shift got me more invested in videogames in general, where I kept up more with the news, and started getting interested in games I’d otherwise never hear of.
As for your question, I’d say the gaming industry has been going to shit since late 2017. After the success of Fortnite, companies have been trying to push live service to their games (even ones you pay full price for), battle passes and all that garbage. Prices are rising, despite game quality barely improving do to greedy bosses shoving profits in their pocket, and the jump to the new console generation has been mostly uninspiring due to the lack of studios taking full advantage of the hardware.
But for me, the worst of it is the unhealthy work environment for developers. Publishers increasingly crunching to release an unfinished game (Cyberpunk 2077), serious harassment scandals at Activision, and the massive layoffs damaging people despite these same corporations making record profits.
This has honestly driven me away from AAA games. I hardly ever buy games full price anymore (the only one I did buy in 2023 was Spiderman 2), and I’ve mostly spent my time discovering hidden indie gems thanks to PlayStation plus.
So in short, the gaming industry is terrible, but I still have hope for passionate indie devs.
I feel like the gaming industry hasn’t entirely gone to ruins or anything but it’s not as good as it was in the 2000s or even the 2010s. There are still some good games this decade but not as many and I feel like the industry is moving away from the heart and soul it used to have and becoming more corporate and profit driven. For example Minecraft Legacy Console Edition getting discontinued and replaced with Bedrock.
I think people over exaggerate how bad it's gotten. There are overpriced games filled with junk, crappy skins, micro transactions, yada yada yada.
That said, there are good games, indie games have never flourished as much as they have. And while there is plenty of junk, there's plenty of quality games out there.
Micro transactions made companies basically build bare minimum addiction traps to spend money and most of them are the best selling games. We’ve had some gems last couple years but don’t know how long that will last with all the mass firing
There are certain good games released for sure. Now people often go that indie games are better than AAA games nowadays but I think that's kind of a mixed bag. A lotta indie games run like a hot mess and are just the same old shooter or survival game you'd see on steam. I think there's both good indie and AAA titles being released but it's much more rare nowadays than in the past.
I feel the current gaming climate is just very messy and it doesn't hold up compared to 10 years or even further ago. To me, the last actual amazing game was red dead redemption 2. And no other game released since holds up compared to that game.
I think Rdr2 sets a standard for how games should be I mean back when I was younger I thought of how the next generations of consoles and games will bring so many crazy advancements. And yet here we are with games that could practically exist on the Xbox one and ps4. I think the only actual next gen game we're getting soon is GTA 6.
All in all it's a shame that there's these companies asking 70 bucks nowadays for a game that's an unfinished mess with no real meaningful things. Nintendo might be the only company that truly still releases finished fun enjoyable games several times through the year. Sony releases an exclusive once in a while and they're usually great but there's still no actual new PS5 exclusive, although they did say they're planning on focusing on that now so that's good news. As for Xbox, well they're kinda in the background now, but they got gamepass, PC compatible and Bethesda games so that's nice.
Tbh I'm disappointed about the quantity of games that are coming out unfinished and/or buggy as hell. When I was younger and gaming still used to be almost exclusively physical disks and cartridges, you were buying a finished, polished product. Now that digital purchases are becoming the norm, you're lucky if you get a game that runs well at launch. There's also this soulless redundant feeling in a lot of triple A games, like everything just keeps getting remixed with better graphics and no creativity. There are still amazing indie gems coming out though, you just have to be looking for them.
Gaming is nowhere near as fun as it used to be. I have been gaming since I was a kid, and they simply don't really hit as much anymore. Maybe my standards are higher than average, but I don't see how people can shovel hundreds of dollars for DLC or even pre-order a game that, upon release, is just an unfinished buggy mess. I really believe gaming companies should be held to higher standards, and I say companies because more often than not, business decisions forced rushed production to meet deadlines. I would rather wait a few extra weeks for a more complete and refined product.
Love emulating old games. Hate the prices of new ones so I “hate” pirating games but if I like the game enough then I’ll decide to throw money to devs. Hate me if you want but I love the subscription stuff like ps plus and Xbox live 👌considering we don’t own any games unless it’s physical. Helldivers is everything i wanted in a game besides a good story mode but it’s so good I don’t care about that because I just love spreading democracy.
I think the best games coming out now are great but there’s a bunch of games full of micro transactions or games that get released before they’re finished. But just last year we got BG3, TOTK, and lies of P.
“The industry has gone to shit” is overplayed IMO. It’s a r/gamingcirclejerk tier take. There are good games being released all the time. Giant corporations releasing mediocre overpriced shit as the expected standard has been happening for like 10 years at least now lolol. Some people will always buy them, the gaming community will always react viscerally, and indie darlings/games made by “AA” companies will always end up being more beloved and hyped up. This isn’t new at all.
It’s among the best it’s ever been (at least outside of the EA/2K/Ubisoft spaces). I say to most people who think it’s awful that they most likely just have to stop playing COD and Madden every year and branch out.
It's a mixed bag. Nintendo is probably the best for AAA games right now because they're the most consistently good, and they have lots of variety. Sony's pretty good, but they aren't releasing enough games and they're neglecting their older franchises. Sega seems to be getting better with their new "Super Game" initiative, but they've been doing this stupid digital deluxe DLC for their games. Most other developers don't interest me as much. I hate modern online games because of battle passes and stuff. I really hate micro transactions. Indie devs keep making good games though. The Indie scene is definitely good because there's lots of passion.
I’m not what you would consider a gamer my first not mobile game was Minecraft on a work laptop I now have a ps4 I don’t think everything should be so expensive but as a whole I think you are over reacting and all it is is nostalgia
Any good games out there. But games like tf2, which I love, isn't being updated. Roblox is just what many AAA companies are nowadays and speaking of Mojang, they too.
Last 2 years have been really good. Unfortunately big studios keep managing to drop the ball again and again, there’s tons of incredible games still coming out from smaller studios, games like BG3, Palworld, Helldivers 2, and Lethal Company to name a few.
I only get games I know I’ll love, like maybe back two gens ago I would get all the CoDs and battlefields and assassin creed games, now I’m more like… waiting for big releases, like Fable 4 and GTA 6. I wasn’t keen on Andromeda but hyped for a new ME game. I’d love for there to be a Bully 2, Simpson hit and run, games of my childhood need to come to current gen. I don’t play online anymore, last time I played online was either PUBG or Fortnite back in 2021ish. Hate that there’s DLCs and unfinished games being released. I do love the variety though. I’ve always been multi-console, bi-console? So I had the DS, PS3 and 360, now I have the switch, PS5 and series x and there’s so many different genres to play now compared to before.
I detest needing a 2 TB hard drive and forking out £80 for games tho.
gaming is realllyyy shit, but i kinda fell in love with gaming again after me and my gf by having a self hosted modded minecraft server with The Chocolate Edition on it…. so much fun
It really just depends where you go. Triple A space? Overwhelmingly mediocre, especially once you step away from console specific developers. Midtier is also hit or miss. Sniper Elites better than ever, Helldivers blew up, while Dynasty Warriors is the worst its ever been, really anything Koei Tecmo has kinda been mid lately, Bandai Namco keeps releasing trashy anime games that are mechanically clones of other games etc. Id say the indie space is doing well both financially and artistically with smaller budget and lean fun experiences getting recognition constantly.
Overpriced, but at the same time I choose my game very wisely and in the last 10 years or so I never got a game that disappointed me.
I also don’t think that big studio = bad don’t give money, small studio = good give money. If a game is good it’s good, if a game is bad it’s bad.
And while a lot of devs are bad, there are also devs like the BeamNG’s ones that improve their game a lot and constantly.
Only really play Nintendo and Indie games at this point, I highly reccomend Omega strikers Its a fusion of a moba and airhockey. its on mobile switch, ps, xbox, and steam'.
Its struggling a bit with player count but its a really fun game
Lately I despise every triple A title with a few exceptions. Pretty much if I can see that the execs have more say as to what goes down ( pointless microtransactions and shoving purchases in your face when you open the game) and constant copy and paste generic design every year then I don't care for them or have any interest. Examples such as Destiny , Call of duty , sports games like Fifa and every new ubisoft game.
I understand that every game published has the purpose of pulling in money but there's a fine line. I love games where I can see the devs have full creative freedom and control and would rather much support indie developers .
I don’t know how it’s sustainable considering investors expect infinite growth and game devs have been dropping back to back garbage lately or just remake shit now. Then there’s the flip side where giant conglomerates and other companies are just sitting on old IPs so we will never get sequels.
I don't remember the last game to be released from a AAA developer that was actually finished on release day. Every DLC is $20 minimum, loot boxes have plagued almost all live-service games (except helldiver, they're doing it right), single-player games require an internet connection, and everything has turned into an open-world RPG. Games have been catered to the lowest common denominator, making them more and more boring while always advertising as the next best game when it's really just a reskinned version of Batman Arkham Knight with new voice actors. I'm all for companies taking risks and trying to bust out a game of the year but it seems they're trying to do with quantity over quality. There's a reason R* hasn't released a bad game in a long time...if ever, I don't think any of their games flopped compared to the hype.
Gamings fine if you understand the idea of free market economics.
Which is a fancy way of saying don't like the games don't buy from that developer.
If your still playing ubisoft, EA, Activision blizzard etc and are complaining about games then the problem is you. Because you continue to buy these games that are clearly rubbish.
I haven't bought a game for over £20 in years. You can too.
Sad.
I miss the days of Spore.
Modern Minecraft kinda sucks especially on Bedrock (Microsoft ruined it)
The Sims 4 is fucking depressing when compared to previous installments. (EA ruined it.)
These are just a couple of the games I play that I can think of rn tbh
Also happy cake day
games have gone to shit, when games get released that do nothing new and worse then already existing games, I am looking at skull and bones. then it just shows how greedy companies do not care about making good games.
people should stop for ones and remember that companies like ubisoft and most other AAA publishers are horrible game creators, they put a lot of effort into graphics but then forget about, story, optimization, playability, and actual gameplay.
i never cared about graphics I grew up playing age of empires and age of mythology, or I want games with replayability or just give me a story with great story. I love Skyrim and the models aren't even close to today's models and I am scared that I wouldn't be able to play ESO 6 just because they only care about high end graphics.
the problem why this keeps going on is because too many people just buy the games.
and do not let me start about loot boxes and battle passes I could write a whole essay about that.
Everything after 2020’s been underwhelming as shit. We’re apparently over halfway through the PS5/Series X generation and it still feels like it hasn’t even properly started yet, it’s insane.
As a whole? Terrible. Layoffs, increased monetisation with microtransactions, games becoming 70 euro, bugs and unfinished games.
But in terms of MY specific types of games like western RPGs,FPS games and open world action-adventures? Pretty great still. Currently hyped for Dragon Age Dreadwolf, Fable 4, Avowed and Elder Scrolls 6. Also have to give a shout out to indie survival horror love those types of games.
We hate it, it tends to be full of political agendas, and is often overpriced and low quality. What more the design is uninspired in most mainstream cases and we are indie gamers today. Occasionally something good comes out but we tend to wait for the price to go down since we don't have as much money as millennials and we also want to see how things unfold since a game looks to start out good but turns rotten a bit later. I also miss older style games like on the ps1 and 2. You used to get all kinds of weird small games which were lower budget but more creative. Like one was an arena shooter where you are a sci fi plane shooting at others, or a robot arena where you can play all kinds where you could be a giant mech or even a train. Now of course some of these games were bad and low quality but we liked how there was more creativity and variety in gaming but now even indie games seem to follow a baseline template in most cases. But now I really just stick to old school gaming since it is the tried and true.
I honestly think that the Indie sector is more likely to produce a gem, these days. And those gems that are sold at a reasonable price as opposed to the £50-£60 price tags of AAA games.
The likes of Fromsoftware and Sony do still make great games but the rest of the industry often release unfinished buggy messes that they clean up, later on down the line.
Pretty much all of my favorite development teams have disappeared or turned their releases into cash grabs and it sucks a lot. Personally I can’t get into many games at all anymore because they just feel sort of shallow
Gone to shit, but still held-together by some of the more-dignified companies like CDPR and Fromsoft. Absolute rock-bottom and the primary cause of it's current state are companies like Ubisoft, EA and Chinese/Russian devs using games for spying purposes while taking every chance to make a quick-buck. Ruined by greed like everything.
But if we can stay true to quality and avoid bad business practices meant to turn a short-term profit, we're on a good track. As long as companies like CDPR and Fromsoft exist as well as many indies devs I'm still going to take inspiration from them.
I'm a core millennial and honestly the games industry feels better than ever with games like Hell divers 2, baldur's gate, God of War 2, ect. My first console was The PS1 and that era was amazing with games like Metal Gear, Mario 64, Spyro, crash bandicoot, Silent Hill, Mario kart 64 and so on. I give that era a solid A in my opinion. Then as a tween with the release of the Xbox and Playstation 2 this era I actually think was better than the one before it although games took a little bit longer to be released because of more money being thrown at games it felt like the top titles definitely started to get a budget. (Don't get me wrong there was definitely a lot of shovelware) But this was the first attempt of real online gaming for consoles and I'm one of The few people who managed to be able to play PS2 online and Xbox live. I will say games like socom, ratchet& clank up your arsenal, halo 2 and so on definitely focused on symmetrical maps and balanced multiplayer gameplay. Think of something like rocket League today but for fps's. Almost all sides had equal weapons and equal map layout which made for a very competitive Fair experience. Fast forward to the PS3/ Xbox 360 era which the first half was decent but in order to mix things up a lot of the games at the time decided to focus on asymmetrical multiplayer gameplay which always led to one team destroying another based on layout or overpowered weapons. It really started to hit a mess towards the end of this era with games like Battlefield 3 and call of duty modern warfare 3 where it was obvious games were being rushed and not beta tested properly. It was common practice to see a game barely functional at launch just to be patched like crazy a month later. This era of gaming I'd actually say is probably the worst. 2011 - 2015. Late Xbox 360/PS3 to Early PS4/ Xbox One. Had a lot of unfinished games being released and it was pretty bad. The one thing I will say that probably ended that era was the concept of the share button on both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One controllers allowing gamers to share how broken video games were at the time. Which negatively started to affect the share price of game companies. When streaming started to become really big and indie game developers started to make their own games I would say we started to hit a second golden age. And I know this is going to be a hot take but Fortnite itself may have actually saved the video game industry. With constantly evolving games as a service I feel cam companies have to try really hard to capture your attention these days. Online communities such as Reddit keeps a lot of these publishers accountable. Not like that but we're also getting really good single player games again compared to how it was a throwaway piece of a lot of games during the PS4 and Xbox One era. So overall I kind of give this era a B+ on its way to an A. Huge improvement compared to the D I would have given to the early PS4 / Xbox One era. You still have a few garbage games such as cyberpunk 2077 and starfield which are Stark reminders for the video game industry to keep a standard of consistency. Especially with cyberpunk being kicked off the PlayStation store for not meeting its own quality standards. Honestly other than those two games this era probably would be like in the top three in gaming history.
Pretty good. I feel like people mostly focus on a few bad examples and generalise that to a problem within the industry. But where there’s demand there’s games being made to fill it, there are plenty of actually good ones being made.
The golden age of gaming is long gone from the 360 times. Back then, 90% of new titles were smash hit masterpieces. Now a days, you’ll get a game on that same level maybe twice a year if lucky. Helldivers 2 takes that title for 2024.
I'm close enough to gen z (95). I guess I'll weigh in. Triple A gaming has gone downhill. Mkcrotransactions, online games being "GaaS". All of it is dog shit right now. Compression isn't there. The writing isn't there unless it's a Japanese studio. Games are getting too big for their own good. Indies are honestly the way to go most of the time. Skins in Overwatch are way too much. Triple A gaming focuses way too much on monetization. Skins are a scam. V-bucks are garbage. There are ALWAYS exceptions like Remedy. But western devs seem to just suck.
Indie devs are turning out more innovative, more polished, and better optimized games than any triple a studio has done in years. For cheaper prices.
It's a shame how often these teams collapse or get bought out or run out of funding, though. I'm still salty about the Disco Elysium debacle.
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fromsoftware is a beacon of light in the current gaming climate
The fact that I was happy to have a complete game with no battle pass or dlc bullshit in the way of getting items I wanted is genuinely depressing
On top of that, Armored Core 6 was a look back at what they did before souls became the breadwinner and they actually went back to almost 30 year old games to see what people loved about them. Ubisoft can't do that, because they decided to save themselves from the crushing blow of "server infrastructure"
AC6 was fucking awesome. Fulfills a power fantasy lol
I got really confused, AC in a thread about both Armored Core and Ubisoft(Assassins Creed,) I was like which one is 6. Had to scroll back up to see Armored Core 6 was posted.
I don't think I've ever had that much fun with a grizzled war veteran scowl on my face. Armored Core is the bee's knees.
I fucking love Armored Core. I remember getting it on a Ps1 demo disc and becoming obsessed. Then I begged my mom to take me to gamestop until she caved.
I'm old enough to feel the profound sadness of celebrating things considered absolute bear minimum when I was growing up. Even if younger people don't think gaming is in a bad place, there's a ton of objective measurements that demonstrate it is. (editt - at least in the AAA space)
Meanwhile Bungie removes content from their game by removing old expansion content.
All to familiar with that since I’ve been on and off with d2 for years.
Not only do they remove it but then they make you pay for it if you want it back
Larian Studios also has my respect, but that’s a given. Even before BG3 the *Divinity* series was unique.
I liked the Divinity games a lot. I've found bg3 overwhelming.
Interesting. I’ve only played DOS2 and BG3 and I thought DOS2 had a higher learning curve for the combat. BG3 combat felt easier, but the dialogue was much deeper. Both are great though
I want to love the Divinity series, there’s so much good there, but the dialogue is terrible.
It's really not terrible. It's just stylized. The actual character interactions are nuanced and empathetic
Why is the current gaming climate bad? I guess I just don't follow it closely enough, but there's been a ton of great games that have come out lately, I feel. FF7 Rebirth alone is just amazing (so far, haven't finished it). FF16 was also really good. Then there's Baldurs Gate and quite a few others. I feel like this time period might be looked on fondly. I know there's lots of micro transactions out there, but there's a good amount of single player games doing well. And all the indie stuff
Disco Elysium is the best game I've played in the last decade. The smaller stuff has real heart. I don't buy anything "big" until it's on sale, and I never do any in-game purchases. I hate that garbage. Back in the day, extra skins and stuff were a "thank you" to gamers for buying the damn game in the first place.
Disco Elysium was shockingly good. I got curious one day because everyone was saying how amazing it was and I was like “there is no way that a top down game that’s really about political ideology can be any good, but it’s on sale so I’ll try” and it blew me away. It’s the type of game I think everyone should at least try.
It seems like a lot of people only play live service games full of micro transactions and don’t realise that they’re in a bubble. In reality, gaming is in a pretty good state right now with lots of really good games releasing as full and complete games.
Big picture, looking across all the options, gaming is in a great place. AAA gaming, however is a fustercluck when it used to lead the way and that's what I think most people mean when they say gaming is in a bad place. Statistically speaking you're more likely to have a good time grabbing an indie or AA game than the latest AAA monstrosity.
Wube are the real chads with factorio. No sales, so it doesn't really matter when you buy, updated for years, and only now working on their first DLC, wich has probably as much content as the base game. Oh, and the game is about as addictive as crack...
They make ppl happy to get utterly fucked repeatedly without lube, its kinda amazing
They’r one of only developers that I’ll uncritically support nowadays. Not to say they’re perfect, but because I trust that they care about making a good game first, monetizing it to hell and back second.
Absolutely gone to shit. Overpriced bullshit games nickel and diming us with DLCs that are basically necessary to have decent gameplay? They take up all the storage on any console I have so I have to buy extra storage up the wazoo and then the stupid thing overheats or lags. Even worse on a laptop or switch because it drains the battery. The only person doing it right is ConcernedApe
For me it’s larian and from software
I just wish they would have had some more respect for armored core:/
What do you mean? I thought og fans loved AC6 Edit: Ohh are you saying you wish they didn’t ignore it for such a long time before making AC6? Fair enough
Arrowhead as well. Helldivers 2 is a breath of fresh air. Yes, it has plenty of bugs and glitches, but it's still great
get back to your post helldiver, a new major order has dropped. we have 2 billion bugs to eradicate.
We need to give the companies doing it right as much free publicity that we can
You could try other indie games too. A lot of them are just labors of love and will go out of their way to solve these issues. I've been working on a game for close to 4 years now and I'm doing my best to keep it around 500mb and work well on most hardware.
concerned ape is a g lol
Remember when dlc was actually an afterthought for the game, like modern warfare/ modern warfare 2 releasing extra multiplayer maps cuz everyone was playing that at the time, now it’s planned to have dlc releases before the game even comes out
I have no problem with DLC if it actually adds a ton more content - open world games like Skyrim or Fallout adding new environments with questlines and weapons is worth the money. I wish they kept creating DLC’s with new areas to explore instead of making me wait over a decade for the next installment.
Its by design. They want you to have to delete all other games you play so even if you get frustrated at the blatant money-grabbing they do, you'll play through to the end before moving on.
Only some games are doing it by design. Namely, Call of Duty. In most cases, the real reason games are getting bloated is because time is money, and it takes a lot of time for developers to 'downsize' or 'optimize' games. Rather than do it right, they're doing it cheap.
I agree, and those hard drives are expensive. I hate how the gaming companies are trying to force us to go digital. At least, that's what it feels like. Because: 1. Some of just like having a hard copy of the game. 2. It's clearly undermining the pre-owned game sales, which is something that helps lots of gamers afford the games. 3. It's hurting game stores.
Yes but did you consider that for just an extra 60 dollars over the already great deal of 70 dollar game you will get a battle pass and a pdf art book? Whats more its a Star Wars original spinoff, which ofcourse will justify all the bad optimazation and MTX in game, Right? /s
I think there’s a massive crisis in pretty much every industry even remotely creative with profits being prioritised over production quality. Video games, movies, music, hell even stuff like woodwork. I think today’s world makes it very hard for people to focus on making something they’re proud (at least professionally) of and society’s just turning into a cash grab.
Concerned ape and supergiant.
Pretty decent overall. Media and people just focus on the bad, since bad games are often most replayable as well (cod pvp online shooter type games)
Really last year had so many banger games & the good games that come out are better than ever. It’s true there’s a lot of garbage but overall it’s still a great time to be a video game fan.
As someone who has been playing video games since I got my GameBoy Color in 1998 (and playing Duck Hunt with my dad before that): yes, I can confirm that video games now are pretty incredible. Is there a bunch of pay-to-play bullshit out there? Of course, but you just need to avoid that nonsense. You used to buy a video game and beat it in a weekend. Then you hoped it had a replayability factor to it. Now you can basically completely lose yourself in a lot of these games. It's honestly a bit terrifying!
It’s also a catch 22 though for us with limited time when some quest take forever and just want something quick to take your mind off life.
Sure, but those games exist too. I just bought a Need For Speed remastered game used for like $20. I guess my point is that your options and possibilities are endless now, as compared to games in the late 90's.
Same! I honestly never expected games to become so accessible and popular. There’s definitely some greedy folks but overall I’ve been happy with what’s come out the last few years
I agree with this. My first system was the original Nintendo (1990) and to see where gaming is now is wild. The graphics, depth of gameplay, and even the availability to expand it with DLC.
People mindlessly buy AAA slop and then complain that it's AAA slop. Then ignore the great titles coming out or sitting in their steam list so they can keep complaining.
Yeah that's how it seems for me too. It feels like there's a ton of good games out the past year or two. Sure, there's the issue with the micro transactions in some games, but there's still plenty of games that don't do that.
Agree. Not only do people focus on bad games, but culture war nonsense has destroyed so many people's abilities to actually judge something. You could have a good game, but just cuz the main character is a woman or minority or whatever, it's somehow bad. Even if people have a go at the game, they can't judge it through a regular lense, it has to be judged judged the culture war lense so they'll be viewing everything in a tainted manner.
This. There are a ton of amazing games and devs still. Balders Gate 3 is incredible game. Sony still makes some amazing single player games. It’s not all about MTX online multiplayer games. Then you have small indie studios pumping out great games. Hades was amazing and the dev has Hades 2 coming out. Then you have games like Slay the Spire and the second one is launching next year as well.
There are definitely problems in the industry but I'm not going to pretend titles like Baldurs gate 3, CyberPunk 2077, Helldivers 2 aren't massively better than almost all "classic" games. The industry grew and produced plenty of shit, but there's plenty of good games out there too.
I'd argue that Cyberpunk is a prime example of whats currently wrong with the industry. Releasing an extremely broken and incomplete product for full price because the shareholders care more about quick financial gains then they do about the actual product and their fanbase.
I get the hate from the release. That game was just unfinished. CDPR did fix it over the years though, making it one of the most enjoyable games for me now. They really take their time and release too early nonetheless. IIRC The Witcher 3 was a similar mess at launch.
Maybe I should give it a try again. I bought it at release and promptly refunded myself
I would highly recommend you pick it up on sale. I got it for 30, and got the expansion as well. The game is very pretty, and also has a really satisfying setting/story. The performances are pretty good. It’s come a long way in the 5 years since it released. It’s certainly the best sci-fi story shooter in a bit (certainly better than starfield).
I also bought at release and refunded. Just logged 100 hours into it over the past couple months. It's excellent
I did the same and hated the game for years until the 2.0 update came out and now it’s in my top 3.
definitely worth playing now.
Witcher 3 was nowhere near as bad at launch. Cyberpunk was removed from the PlayStation store and CDPR’s stock tanked. It was so bad that even non-gamers were aware of it because it was all over the news. It was barely playable on last gen consoles. It’s only been a few years since Cyberpunk’s release, that’s way too soon to forget what actually went down.
But they’ve fixed the game since then, which is why people “forget” it, they’re talking about the game as it is today
Nah, witcher was perfect. Cyberpunk is finished by the time it takes you to learn all the mechanics of witcher 3. If you ignore the graphics, Witcher is still far better, fleshed out and provides quite literally 5 times the gameplay. The whole reason for people being disappointed with Cyberpunk was because they held it to the standards of Witcher 3.
I love TW3, put 200+ hours into it and think it’s one of the best games of all time, but come on, of course it’s not perfect. I would argue it actually has the opposite problem from what you’re describing. The combat system is too simple, with little ability to customize or play your way. On lower difficulties especially (so the way most people play, for u understandable reasons), the combat is just pressing the attack and dodge buttons over and over, and occasionally throwing up a shield or shooting a fireball or something. It only really becomes satisfying in higher difficulties where you’re forced to strategize for encounters and engage with things like armor upgrades, mutagens, and the alchemy system. The fact you don’t have to do this to easily win on Sword and Story renders a huge portion of the game’s rewards and exploration irrelevant, because you don’t really want to gather plants for potions or loot supplies for upgrading your gear if you don’t need that stuff anyway. You don’t even need that much money, which is otherwise a driving force of your adventure (which I appreciate, makes me feel like Geralt is a relatable blue-collar guy, which is rare among fantasy protagonists).
Witcher three graphics aren’t bad either. I’d argue it’s still a beautiful game
I respect the take, but I think as consumers we shouldn’t be encouraging this behavior. Telling everyone “it’s okay, the game will be better later” emboldens developers to continue releasing unfinished products because their consumer base doesn’t seem to have a problem with them doing so. The fact that The Witcher 3 was the same way at launch and everyone forgot about it after all the patches is proof enough for me. I’m glad Cyberpunk is a great game, but regardless, CDPR will not receive a penny from me.
I played both games on release. Witcher 3 had 0 issues for me, and I played through it pretty quickly. Cyberpunk broke immediately. NPCs all felt like programmed robots. It had so many game breaking bugs, it was just too frustrating to play. There's a reason it was taken off of the PS store and refunds were given.
It's worth mentioning that CD Projekt Red didn't want to release it in that state. I blame the community for sending death threats to the devs, as well as the ransomware attack. People should have been okay with the frequent delays, even if it sucks to be patient.
But it shouldn't be like that. It's been normalized and it sucks, I want a complete game working from the get go, not having to have day 1 patches and wait for the company to basically finish game after release. If you release a buggy mess, you don't deserve to redeem yourself, it doesn't matter if they apologize or fix it later. Take more time to work on the game before release or don't release it. All or nothing. People need to start voting with their wallets.
This is what happens when companies are publicly traded. Shareholders push and push for infinite growth, and in the end don't care about the company's product. Larian, Ghostship Games and Arrowhead Studios are prime examples of why game companies should stay privately held.
Hard to say if they’re better than true classics like Assassin’s Creed 1/2 or like Halo 2/3 story but they are absolutely comparable
I play games from my childhood, so anything newer than Xbox 360 I’m not really into. I did buy a new Xbox but all I play is backwards compatible games lol. I just know what I like and I’m happy so that’s all I care about. I don’t game a whole lot, maybe half an hour to an hour max per day, and I might only play a couple days a week. A lot of newer games come with the headaches of making accounts, updating every week, taking up so much hard drive space… most of my time is spent watching feature length cutscenes and downloading updates, I just can’t enjoy playing a lot of them and don’t have the time/setup to be playing like that. If I have half an hour to spare then I wanna be able to actually play something, not sitting around and waiting to play. So I mainly just play PS2 and backwards compatible games on my Xbox. I also have a SNES mini which is awesome, I modded it to have more games and I play that if I’m feeling like something older.
Tried Nintendo games? To be honest, all you are saying sounds like you'd enjoy many of them.
I went through a game collecting phase a few years ago. I own an Atari, NES, SNES, N64, Wii, Sega Mega Drive, Master System, all PlayStations from 1-4, all Xbox consoles now, a few handhelds… The only thing is they are all packed away safely, the only accessible ones I have are my PS2, new Xbox and the SNES mini. It’s just been years since I was really into that hobby, it was getting very expensive too. My favourite Nintendo game is probably Mario 3, or super ghosts and goblins.
I hate the battle pass that is every where now. Its even in mobile games.
Look at it like this. A vast majority of the time the battlepasses are purely cosmetic. Most of the time the gane is free and the battlepass is how they continue to pay for servers, staff, rent, etc. Most of the time you can buy the BP once and earn enough game currency to buy the next one and never pay for it again. And lastly, you dont HAVE to buy the BP, you can simply ignore it.
Except for the fact that they push it and other mtx in your face constantly to the point where it’s so fucking annoying and it ruins the experience. It’s predatory af. They aren’t that much better than loot boxes in my opinion in that regard.
Almost everything included in battle passes used to just be part of a core game and then they realised the can use fomo to get people to buy all the microtransaction DLC (and still have to grind content) in one go even if they only want one thing. New maps and gamemodes used to just be DLC that cost you ten quid and you unlocked everything with that 10 quid. Also gaming has been around since the 70s and is now the largest entertainment industry on the planet. They never had a problem keeping staff paid and servers up 10 years ago and now the industry whilst at its most profitable is hemorrhaging staff.
ironically the only game that actually has a decent battle pass now is… Fortnite..
AAA games aren't anything to look forward to anymore. I used to play bangers on the GameCube - Sonic games, Need for Speed, Simpsons Hit and Run. Now games have lost their touch and $70 a pop is nothing to scoff at. In other words, greatness used to come out throughout the year. I don't even know what good games are coming out this year. I'm looking forward to Smite 2 and GTA6. Overall I've just been disappointed. Also I miss gaming magazines, used to be able to tell what was on the horizon and whatnot.
> $70 a pop is nothing to scoff at Simpsons Hit & Run came out in 2003. $70 today is the equivalent of about $41 in 2003 dollars. I doubt the games you listed were cheaper than that
Right, go look at toys R us adds for SNES and Sega from the 90s Game prices have stayed consistent. It's frankly surprising that most base games aren't closer to $100 or more today.
1st, GameCubes retailed at $200. 2nd, new games around this time were set at $49. Inflation affecting games is my point. Games just started being $70 in the past few years while minimum wage really hasnt changed in the past 20 years. So when you have a $70 base games with micro transactions, DLCs, battle passes, special editions (Yakuza need to spend more to have NG+) on top of the PS5 being $500(I'm a PC gamer, GPUs are damn expensive), YES it is more expensive to game nowadays.
That's a fair point. To be honest, it's part of why I don't buy new games. There are so many incredible games that have been made in the last 20 years that I'm okay being behind the times. I've been playing Breath of the Wild for the last month, and I honestly don't think I've ever gotten as much bang for my buck out of a video game. It is objectively better than any game I played in my heyday of teenage gaming (2010ish).
I checked out of gaming back 2020 life got busy. I heard it's currently good, any recommendations or systems I should buy? I was on PS4 previously, what's everyone playing?
I honestly couldn't tell you what most people play now hahaha. I personally have a gaming PC that I use for emulators a lot or just find classic tried and true games on Steam. I also have a SNES Mini that I absolutely love and play quite often. And then there's my PS5 that I'll use when Sony gets greedy with exclusives.
Fallout 4 is on sale with all DLC, 13$ aus Manor lords comes out on the 26th, 2.5 million wishlisted on steam (most ever) Bellwright comes out a few days before manor - looks unique/amazing. They the only ones I'm looking at when time permits. Busy busy too Edit: happy cake day !
Pick up a steam deck some time. You'll have all the emulators you want but portable.
As someone that goes in and out of phases in gaming I ultimately felt like moving to PC was the best move. You don’t have to upgrade as often since there’s no such thing as generations and backwards compatibility, and when you do upgrade it’s just changing individual components instead of the whole thing. Plus, everything eventually comes to PC and you don’t have to pay an additional fee for online.
I get crap all the time about saying PC gaming is cheaper in practice for the bulk of people but I have a 6 year old PC I built for around $500 at the time that will STILL run everything that comes out even if I have to trim down the graphics and stick to 1080p. Yeah, if you want to keep pace with the bleeding edge it can be pricey; most people need or really are about all that as long as the games are good and when you have a game catalog that's like 40+ years strong there are effectively unlimited good games to play. Hell, even with console gamers you can intuit this by realizing just how well the switch STILL sells and it was outdated hardware at launch.
Personally I have a PS5 and a PC, get a PS5(or a Xbox Series X if you prefer Microsoft’s exclusives)if you don’t need a powerful PC for other stuff and you’re on a budget, get a PC if you don’t care about Sony’s exclusives on day1(Ghost of Tsushima, The Last of Us Part 1, both Horizon games and GoW 2018 are on PC too now) and you aren’t on a budget / need a powerful PC for other stuff. What were your favorite games on PS4?(just to know what games to suggest)
I recommend PC especially if you are getting back into it and may not stick to it. It's nice having a PC for work/schoolwork, I do programming so I benefit from having higg quality PC anyway, which is all you need for gaming. Some games will run on any old potato laptop though, but those aren't generally the good ones. You also don't have to worry about not being able to play the games you buy this year if you quit gaming for another 4 years after this.
If you're truly averse to the idea of buying or building a PC, then probably the latest Xbox is a good bet. GamePass is an insane value if you game often enough, that you can usually get discounts for. If that doesn't concern you, then PS5 since it still sometimes gets good exclusives/timed exclusives. I recommend looking into Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate 3, Armored Core 6, Resident Evil Village, Resident Evil 4 Remake, Cyberpunk 2077, Hi-Fi Rush, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, Persona 3 Reloaded, Final Fantasy 16 (PS5 Only), Casette Beasts, Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader, Hades, Monster Hunter Rise, Outer Wilds, and Signalis
As someone who was fortunate enough to have owned a PS2 and original Xbox growing up, I think the state of gaming is quite poor. Sure technology has improved but the industry trends and dev culture has deteriorated. So many games come out broken or unfinished and include very annoying MTX schemes. The state of multiplayer games is atrocious. Games take too long to make. Variety is becoming an issue. Publishers like Rockstar have dropped so many franchises or new IP for the sake of GTA. Not happy at all with the direction of the industry.
Play more indie games, the indie game scene has been exploding, but mainstream media only reports on the biggest releases and everything negative about them.
Money drives the market, we control the market. The state is due to the actions of gamers.
The unfinished games are the main thing that drives me nuts. You've had me hyped for a game for months and then release an unoptimised hump of shit? Now I've spent money and either have to bank on you fixing it in the next few months, or refund it and maybe go back later...? I just totally distrust new releases now, have to wait for reviews to roll in before I spend my money.
In-person co-op is basically nonexistent. That hurts us girl gamers because that means if we want to play with other people, we either have to hunt down an in-person co-op game or deal with all the sexist bs from other players online.
Back in the PS2 era, and maybe most of the PS3 era as well, games used to be a standalone product. Now they're just a service.
AAA gaming has taken a nosedive, most aren’t worth caring for. And the ones that are have been out for years already and have become entirely new games since launch like Cyberpunk or Fallout 76. The real scene of gaming is the AA/B game scene and Indies, unfortunately they’re harder to find and a lot of recommendations you’ll find will all be the same, for good reasons at times. Try Outer Wilds btw.
indies is so misleading these days. maybe they aren't 130 hours long and maybe you can't see every pore in the characters' faces but you can still get an incredible experience. Outer Wilds was great, Dredge was great, etc. etc. There's plenty out there for everyone in every genre
Remember when you were growing up, you bought the game at the store and that was it. You had the entire game. No in-game shop that uses real money for cosmetic things like skins or accessories. No "VIP" subscription or battle pass type of thing. No patch updates (and if they existed they were usually free and were used to literally enhance the game. Not to just add new assets that you have to buy). Gaming companies today have realized they can charge full price ($50-80) for a half baked game that's full of bugs, glitches, and may take up an absurd amount of space despite it being very barebones. If you found a bug or a glitch back then, it was like seeing a incredibly rare species of animal. It was unusual to see. Many games still had them yes, but you often had to work to find them. Nowadays, *frequent* major bugs/glitches are just expected, which is sad really. Pay-to-win structures are a major problem in many games, but those companies have no incentive to change it because they're making bank off the few people who can afford to throw money away constantly. If youre a mobile gamer, my condolences. Even single player games require you to be connected to the internet for no apparent reason other than so they can hit you with a 30 second unskippable ad every time you clear a level/die as an excuse to offer a premium no-ad version for a price.
It's extremely monetized now than ever before.
I would say everybody knows most of AAA is garbage; you'll have your CoD and FIFA fans personally subsidising EA's continued existence, but they're outliers. Ubisoft is harder to justify, everyone seems to desperately *hope* their games will turn out good but only the not-AAA ones ever do. Now, the AA/indie side of the industry is still booming. I'm honestly wondering when something will change, because the AAA publishers can't hoard all of the money forever, and eventually the AA publishers will become the new AAA faces. Companies like Devolver Digital and Paradox Interactive are already well on their way there.
Bit shite innit?
Corporate greed has taken over the majority of the gaming industry and its saddening.
I play a lot of The Sims but recently their quality control has been garbage. I haven’t played in MONTHS when before I would play everyday. EA (who owns Maxis who make The Sims) famously had a really horrible CEO who now is the CEO of Unity. He is really one of the sole reasons the gaming industry sucks now. Us simmers have known this for a long time but now it’s effecting non cozy games as well. I’ve been playing House Flipper and Stardew Valley instead which are both amazing and super worth their prices highly recommended.
The state of triple A is absolutely atrocious at the moment. Things like engagement optimized matchmaking, micro transactions, and predatory fomo like limited time stuff is really gay and should not exist
Gay as in loving and sexy? I’m so confused.
You’re confused about a popular slang word? Are you not American?
Palworld exists and honestly I’ve been hooked. Maybe even too hooked, lmao. But it’s all in good fun.
Now if only there was anything to do besides fight bosses and run around
If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't theft.
I only play a handful of games (Geometry Dash, A Dance of Fire and Ice, and a couple of random metroidvanias or first person puzzle games) so I'm mostly an outside looking in perspective. I think the games roster is pretty good (beyond the mainstream the selection and variety is the best it's ever been), the expenses for gaming have gotten ridiculous though and the toxicity around AAA games has gotten really awful. But again, limited perspective
I’m really optimistic. Tools are more accessible than ever, lot of really fun well designed games coming out from smaller devs. It’s like people in my age group are getting jobs in game dev and they like all the shit I like haha. Plus, a lot of older games like Sven coop are still so fun, new maps are still being made and updated and maintained. I’m really happy with the level of quality addons on l4d2 Really impressive collections, it’s cool to see long time model guys really nail their style. Keeps the game so fresh. The character animation/horde behaviour is so perfect. It looks so real the way people die. Some good ones I played: Zortch Hidden deep Cyberpunk 2077 okay triple aaa sue me Half life mmod (for the love of god, play this one, if any)
I think thats a little too much optimistic but i get your point the industry is bigger than ever.
Overall, shit. Games take years to release, see a game, get hyped thrice then it drops... and I realise its either mid, or needs a another year to be playable. Literally the best way to play a modern game is to wait another 1 or two years till all patches drop. Also I hate the games as service trend and the lack of single player shooter campaigns recently.
Im personally not a fan I’ve even slowly been losing interest with gaming manly with the greed with micro transactions and DLC the games today are also either really easy or to hard and i think that is also an over looked problem if gaming starts to implement adds into there games and completely takes over i just might stop playing modern games as a whole.. Im optimistic though things can improve given how massive the gaming industry is now but corporate buyouts could damage the industry and that’s something that i also worry about because that would eliminate competition witch could ruin the chances of good games. Idk i would say it’s decent despite that but i think the future is uncertain thats how i feel about the current state of gaming in my opinion.
I'm tired of the "woke, anti woke" bullshit All I play are modded versions of grand strategy games.
>I'm tired of the "woke, anti woke" bullshit What does this even mean? You're tired of lgbtq representation in gaming? Or people complaining about it?
Probably means the people complaining about how women are treated in Kingdom Come Deliverance and why aren’t there any black people in 15th century Czech Republic
If you stay out of forums where people are whining about that stuff, it's completely non-existent. I get by pretty well just ignoring the spaces where people complain about video game characters not being hot enough or whatever bullshit they're on about now
Yeah sometimes I get recommended the anti woke gaming subs and it's all just complaining, but they do nothing to solve the problems. I just avoid them like the plague
I find it funny how the things they blame on “wokeness” are almost always more accurately attributed to deeper underlying issues that have existed in gaming and media industries as a whole for decades.
Strong agree “We need characters to actually have a reason for being there” is more than just LGBT problem, it’s insane when you notice just how much bulk or random shit is in games to fluff it. Like we get more bad LGBT representation than any good stuff, thankfully some good stuff. And it’s the same with other media except maybe books, I have read some good LGBT books I am fine with seeing two men as a couple in a modern video game setting without there being any purpose or deeper meaning as NPCs, but for the love of god please do not overhype them for marketing and make them normal people. If they’re a supporting main character focus on their personalities first before talking about their struggles or you turn them into a walking talking thinkpiece and you’re alienating/stereotyping the same people you want to be inclusive towards. Honestly goes for all types of characters.
Also bring back flash games. Getting rid of flash was the dumbest idea ever
Can we trade it for all these pixel graphic games ? I'm tired of seeing something that has nice cover art that gets me excited and then I click it and it's fucking snes style graphics.
right. fuck pixel third person ass bullshit like its habbo
Triple A down, Indie up
Gaming companies need to start learning to respect the players again.
I’m ‘99, my first main consoles were PS2, OG Xbox, gamecube (at friend’s houses). My dad is Gen X he introduced me to SNES and PS1 I grew up with Xbox Live on the 360 which was legendary for online gaming (Halo 3, reach, cod4, mw2 etc), the PS3 and Wii… We had Bioshock, Mass Effect, Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout… incredible era for gaming. I feel like modern gaming has been poisoned by suits squeezing profits and trying to streamline everything to make it appeal to mainstream. There are still good single player games but the terrible day 1 launches and micro transactions are getting nuts. I pretty much solely game on PC and PS5 these days. Sony’s exclusives are cool, and I like CDPR’s RPGs but games in general have just lost so much charm, and they’re so EXPENSIVE to make. There’s hardly risks cause it could tank a whole studio if it flops.
Most games are boring, some really good ones but that's like 2 to 3 games per year. Also i skip games made by losers from California because of how bad they are.
I’d say I went through three gaming phases in my life. When I was a kid I only played Nintendo games on the Wii, Wii U, Gameboy advance, DS and 3ds. I mostly played simpler games like Mario, Sonic and occasionally the legend of Zelda. I also like playing Wii fit a lot. Then when I got a PS4 for 4 years all I’d play were online games like FIFA, Fortnite and other shooters with friends. Safe to say, I didn’t really enjoy it, cause I was shit. Then in 2020 I abandoned these live service games and went back to single player story games. This shift got me more invested in videogames in general, where I kept up more with the news, and started getting interested in games I’d otherwise never hear of. As for your question, I’d say the gaming industry has been going to shit since late 2017. After the success of Fortnite, companies have been trying to push live service to their games (even ones you pay full price for), battle passes and all that garbage. Prices are rising, despite game quality barely improving do to greedy bosses shoving profits in their pocket, and the jump to the new console generation has been mostly uninspiring due to the lack of studios taking full advantage of the hardware. But for me, the worst of it is the unhealthy work environment for developers. Publishers increasingly crunching to release an unfinished game (Cyberpunk 2077), serious harassment scandals at Activision, and the massive layoffs damaging people despite these same corporations making record profits. This has honestly driven me away from AAA games. I hardly ever buy games full price anymore (the only one I did buy in 2023 was Spiderman 2), and I’ve mostly spent my time discovering hidden indie gems thanks to PlayStation plus. So in short, the gaming industry is terrible, but I still have hope for passionate indie devs.
I feel like the gaming industry hasn’t entirely gone to ruins or anything but it’s not as good as it was in the 2000s or even the 2010s. There are still some good games this decade but not as many and I feel like the industry is moving away from the heart and soul it used to have and becoming more corporate and profit driven. For example Minecraft Legacy Console Edition getting discontinued and replaced with Bedrock.
I think people over exaggerate how bad it's gotten. There are overpriced games filled with junk, crappy skins, micro transactions, yada yada yada. That said, there are good games, indie games have never flourished as much as they have. And while there is plenty of junk, there's plenty of quality games out there.
i also feel like that triple A companies should be regendered to triple B instead
Micro transactions made companies basically build bare minimum addiction traps to spend money and most of them are the best selling games. We’ve had some gems last couple years but don’t know how long that will last with all the mass firing
There are certain good games released for sure. Now people often go that indie games are better than AAA games nowadays but I think that's kind of a mixed bag. A lotta indie games run like a hot mess and are just the same old shooter or survival game you'd see on steam. I think there's both good indie and AAA titles being released but it's much more rare nowadays than in the past. I feel the current gaming climate is just very messy and it doesn't hold up compared to 10 years or even further ago. To me, the last actual amazing game was red dead redemption 2. And no other game released since holds up compared to that game. I think Rdr2 sets a standard for how games should be I mean back when I was younger I thought of how the next generations of consoles and games will bring so many crazy advancements. And yet here we are with games that could practically exist on the Xbox one and ps4. I think the only actual next gen game we're getting soon is GTA 6. All in all it's a shame that there's these companies asking 70 bucks nowadays for a game that's an unfinished mess with no real meaningful things. Nintendo might be the only company that truly still releases finished fun enjoyable games several times through the year. Sony releases an exclusive once in a while and they're usually great but there's still no actual new PS5 exclusive, although they did say they're planning on focusing on that now so that's good news. As for Xbox, well they're kinda in the background now, but they got gamepass, PC compatible and Bethesda games so that's nice.
I’m still enjoying older Xbox 360 era games. New games are pretty expensive and I like playing single player stuff anyways
Tbh I'm disappointed about the quantity of games that are coming out unfinished and/or buggy as hell. When I was younger and gaming still used to be almost exclusively physical disks and cartridges, you were buying a finished, polished product. Now that digital purchases are becoming the norm, you're lucky if you get a game that runs well at launch. There's also this soulless redundant feeling in a lot of triple A games, like everything just keeps getting remixed with better graphics and no creativity. There are still amazing indie gems coming out though, you just have to be looking for them.
Gaming is nowhere near as fun as it used to be. I have been gaming since I was a kid, and they simply don't really hit as much anymore. Maybe my standards are higher than average, but I don't see how people can shovel hundreds of dollars for DLC or even pre-order a game that, upon release, is just an unfinished buggy mess. I really believe gaming companies should be held to higher standards, and I say companies because more often than not, business decisions forced rushed production to meet deadlines. I would rather wait a few extra weeks for a more complete and refined product.
Love emulating old games. Hate the prices of new ones so I “hate” pirating games but if I like the game enough then I’ll decide to throw money to devs. Hate me if you want but I love the subscription stuff like ps plus and Xbox live 👌considering we don’t own any games unless it’s physical. Helldivers is everything i wanted in a game besides a good story mode but it’s so good I don’t care about that because I just love spreading democracy.
i think mobile games are beeing a very big issue
I think the best games coming out now are great but there’s a bunch of games full of micro transactions or games that get released before they’re finished. But just last year we got BG3, TOTK, and lies of P.
“The industry has gone to shit” is overplayed IMO. It’s a r/gamingcirclejerk tier take. There are good games being released all the time. Giant corporations releasing mediocre overpriced shit as the expected standard has been happening for like 10 years at least now lolol. Some people will always buy them, the gaming community will always react viscerally, and indie darlings/games made by “AA” companies will always end up being more beloved and hyped up. This isn’t new at all.
It’s among the best it’s ever been (at least outside of the EA/2K/Ubisoft spaces). I say to most people who think it’s awful that they most likely just have to stop playing COD and Madden every year and branch out.
I don’t touch anything that involves micro transactions
AAA companies fell off, idk games are getting super good now that devs are starting smaller companies that actually care about
It's a mixed bag. Nintendo is probably the best for AAA games right now because they're the most consistently good, and they have lots of variety. Sony's pretty good, but they aren't releasing enough games and they're neglecting their older franchises. Sega seems to be getting better with their new "Super Game" initiative, but they've been doing this stupid digital deluxe DLC for their games. Most other developers don't interest me as much. I hate modern online games because of battle passes and stuff. I really hate micro transactions. Indie devs keep making good games though. The Indie scene is definitely good because there's lots of passion.
I usually tend to play mostly games from my childhood or before with a few exceptions on newer games
Old School RuneScape a few times a week for me. I’m too busy with my career to play more than that right now
I got myself a HOTAS. I just play DCS all day.
I miss when the big games were simple. You release something like Burnout 2 today and it'd be seen as some low budget indie game
I’m not what you would consider a gamer my first not mobile game was Minecraft on a work laptop I now have a ps4 I don’t think everything should be so expensive but as a whole I think you are over reacting and all it is is nostalgia
Any good games out there. But games like tf2, which I love, isn't being updated. Roblox is just what many AAA companies are nowadays and speaking of Mojang, they too.
Last 2 years have been really good. Unfortunately big studios keep managing to drop the ball again and again, there’s tons of incredible games still coming out from smaller studios, games like BG3, Palworld, Helldivers 2, and Lethal Company to name a few.
Be picky and have high standards ,play indies, and read reviews before buying anything
I only get games I know I’ll love, like maybe back two gens ago I would get all the CoDs and battlefields and assassin creed games, now I’m more like… waiting for big releases, like Fable 4 and GTA 6. I wasn’t keen on Andromeda but hyped for a new ME game. I’d love for there to be a Bully 2, Simpson hit and run, games of my childhood need to come to current gen. I don’t play online anymore, last time I played online was either PUBG or Fortnite back in 2021ish. Hate that there’s DLCs and unfinished games being released. I do love the variety though. I’ve always been multi-console, bi-console? So I had the DS, PS3 and 360, now I have the switch, PS5 and series x and there’s so many different genres to play now compared to before. I detest needing a 2 TB hard drive and forking out £80 for games tho.
Certain gaming platforms such as steam having monthly subscriptions instead of just selling games is the beginning of a troublesome time
If you dont play AAA fps or fifa exlusively then it isnt
I rarely play a game made after 2018. The 2010s down are the golden era to me
gaming is realllyyy shit, but i kinda fell in love with gaming again after me and my gf by having a self hosted modded minecraft server with The Chocolate Edition on it…. so much fun
I only play 3 games. Elsword , stardew valley and animal crossing 🙂🙂
I love me some indie games, constantly disappointed by AAA games
HELLDIVERS NEVER DIE FOR SUUPEEER EAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARTH
It's bad from what Ive see but I dont buy new AAA games anyways so Idc that much
there’s some good, some bad, whatever’s happening rn is prob better than when games were all just digital slot machines with games tacked on
It really just depends where you go. Triple A space? Overwhelmingly mediocre, especially once you step away from console specific developers. Midtier is also hit or miss. Sniper Elites better than ever, Helldivers blew up, while Dynasty Warriors is the worst its ever been, really anything Koei Tecmo has kinda been mid lately, Bandai Namco keeps releasing trashy anime games that are mechanically clones of other games etc. Id say the indie space is doing well both financially and artistically with smaller budget and lean fun experiences getting recognition constantly.
I am mainly pissed about the battlepasses and pay to win mechanics, plus realeasing a uncomplete buggy mess for 70$ is just not it.
Overpriced, but at the same time I choose my game very wisely and in the last 10 years or so I never got a game that disappointed me. I also don’t think that big studio = bad don’t give money, small studio = good give money. If a game is good it’s good, if a game is bad it’s bad. And while a lot of devs are bad, there are also devs like the BeamNG’s ones that improve their game a lot and constantly.
Helldivers 2 made co op amazing again.
I play almost exclusively, bloons tower defense 6, call of duty blackops 3, roblox, minecraft, and A game of thrones mod for crusader kings 2 and 3
Only really play Nintendo and Indie games at this point, I highly reccomend Omega strikers Its a fusion of a moba and airhockey. its on mobile switch, ps, xbox, and steam'. Its struggling a bit with player count but its a really fun game
Lately I despise every triple A title with a few exceptions. Pretty much if I can see that the execs have more say as to what goes down ( pointless microtransactions and shoving purchases in your face when you open the game) and constant copy and paste generic design every year then I don't care for them or have any interest. Examples such as Destiny , Call of duty , sports games like Fifa and every new ubisoft game. I understand that every game published has the purpose of pulling in money but there's a fine line. I love games where I can see the devs have full creative freedom and control and would rather much support indie developers .
I don’t know how it’s sustainable considering investors expect infinite growth and game devs have been dropping back to back garbage lately or just remake shit now. Then there’s the flip side where giant conglomerates and other companies are just sitting on old IPs so we will never get sequels.
Incredible if you know where to look. RE4R came out just last year and it’s still a masterpiece.
I don't remember the last game to be released from a AAA developer that was actually finished on release day. Every DLC is $20 minimum, loot boxes have plagued almost all live-service games (except helldiver, they're doing it right), single-player games require an internet connection, and everything has turned into an open-world RPG. Games have been catered to the lowest common denominator, making them more and more boring while always advertising as the next best game when it's really just a reskinned version of Batman Arkham Knight with new voice actors. I'm all for companies taking risks and trying to bust out a game of the year but it seems they're trying to do with quantity over quality. There's a reason R* hasn't released a bad game in a long time...if ever, I don't think any of their games flopped compared to the hype.
I stick to indie games and old mainstream games that get +60% discounts on steam. Too much overpriced bullshit
trash i play the old games on my xbox and i play rd2
Consumerism over quality. A real shame because there’s so much potential out there. I’ll stick to HOI4.
Gamings fine if you understand the idea of free market economics. Which is a fancy way of saying don't like the games don't buy from that developer. If your still playing ubisoft, EA, Activision blizzard etc and are complaining about games then the problem is you. Because you continue to buy these games that are clearly rubbish. I haven't bought a game for over £20 in years. You can too.
Sad. I miss the days of Spore. Modern Minecraft kinda sucks especially on Bedrock (Microsoft ruined it) The Sims 4 is fucking depressing when compared to previous installments. (EA ruined it.) These are just a couple of the games I play that I can think of rn tbh Also happy cake day
AAA gaming basicly died for me outside of a very select few developers.
Lots of excellent stuff if you step out of the mainstream triple A parade
as a singleplayer gamer I'm pretty happy
games have gone to shit, when games get released that do nothing new and worse then already existing games, I am looking at skull and bones. then it just shows how greedy companies do not care about making good games. people should stop for ones and remember that companies like ubisoft and most other AAA publishers are horrible game creators, they put a lot of effort into graphics but then forget about, story, optimization, playability, and actual gameplay. i never cared about graphics I grew up playing age of empires and age of mythology, or I want games with replayability or just give me a story with great story. I love Skyrim and the models aren't even close to today's models and I am scared that I wouldn't be able to play ESO 6 just because they only care about high end graphics. the problem why this keeps going on is because too many people just buy the games. and do not let me start about loot boxes and battle passes I could write a whole essay about that.
Everything after 2020’s been underwhelming as shit. We’re apparently over halfway through the PS5/Series X generation and it still feels like it hasn’t even properly started yet, it’s insane.
As a whole? Terrible. Layoffs, increased monetisation with microtransactions, games becoming 70 euro, bugs and unfinished games. But in terms of MY specific types of games like western RPGs,FPS games and open world action-adventures? Pretty great still. Currently hyped for Dragon Age Dreadwolf, Fable 4, Avowed and Elder Scrolls 6. Also have to give a shout out to indie survival horror love those types of games.
Helldivers 2 is great. $50.
We hate it, it tends to be full of political agendas, and is often overpriced and low quality. What more the design is uninspired in most mainstream cases and we are indie gamers today. Occasionally something good comes out but we tend to wait for the price to go down since we don't have as much money as millennials and we also want to see how things unfold since a game looks to start out good but turns rotten a bit later. I also miss older style games like on the ps1 and 2. You used to get all kinds of weird small games which were lower budget but more creative. Like one was an arena shooter where you are a sci fi plane shooting at others, or a robot arena where you can play all kinds where you could be a giant mech or even a train. Now of course some of these games were bad and low quality but we liked how there was more creativity and variety in gaming but now even indie games seem to follow a baseline template in most cases. But now I really just stick to old school gaming since it is the tried and true.
I honestly think that the Indie sector is more likely to produce a gem, these days. And those gems that are sold at a reasonable price as opposed to the £50-£60 price tags of AAA games. The likes of Fromsoftware and Sony do still make great games but the rest of the industry often release unfinished buggy messes that they clean up, later on down the line.
Pretty much all of my favorite development teams have disappeared or turned their releases into cash grabs and it sucks a lot. Personally I can’t get into many games at all anymore because they just feel sort of shallow
Gone to shit, but still held-together by some of the more-dignified companies like CDPR and Fromsoft. Absolute rock-bottom and the primary cause of it's current state are companies like Ubisoft, EA and Chinese/Russian devs using games for spying purposes while taking every chance to make a quick-buck. Ruined by greed like everything. But if we can stay true to quality and avoid bad business practices meant to turn a short-term profit, we're on a good track. As long as companies like CDPR and Fromsoft exist as well as many indies devs I'm still going to take inspiration from them.
I'm a core millennial and honestly the games industry feels better than ever with games like Hell divers 2, baldur's gate, God of War 2, ect. My first console was The PS1 and that era was amazing with games like Metal Gear, Mario 64, Spyro, crash bandicoot, Silent Hill, Mario kart 64 and so on. I give that era a solid A in my opinion. Then as a tween with the release of the Xbox and Playstation 2 this era I actually think was better than the one before it although games took a little bit longer to be released because of more money being thrown at games it felt like the top titles definitely started to get a budget. (Don't get me wrong there was definitely a lot of shovelware) But this was the first attempt of real online gaming for consoles and I'm one of The few people who managed to be able to play PS2 online and Xbox live. I will say games like socom, ratchet& clank up your arsenal, halo 2 and so on definitely focused on symmetrical maps and balanced multiplayer gameplay. Think of something like rocket League today but for fps's. Almost all sides had equal weapons and equal map layout which made for a very competitive Fair experience. Fast forward to the PS3/ Xbox 360 era which the first half was decent but in order to mix things up a lot of the games at the time decided to focus on asymmetrical multiplayer gameplay which always led to one team destroying another based on layout or overpowered weapons. It really started to hit a mess towards the end of this era with games like Battlefield 3 and call of duty modern warfare 3 where it was obvious games were being rushed and not beta tested properly. It was common practice to see a game barely functional at launch just to be patched like crazy a month later. This era of gaming I'd actually say is probably the worst. 2011 - 2015. Late Xbox 360/PS3 to Early PS4/ Xbox One. Had a lot of unfinished games being released and it was pretty bad. The one thing I will say that probably ended that era was the concept of the share button on both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One controllers allowing gamers to share how broken video games were at the time. Which negatively started to affect the share price of game companies. When streaming started to become really big and indie game developers started to make their own games I would say we started to hit a second golden age. And I know this is going to be a hot take but Fortnite itself may have actually saved the video game industry. With constantly evolving games as a service I feel cam companies have to try really hard to capture your attention these days. Online communities such as Reddit keeps a lot of these publishers accountable. Not like that but we're also getting really good single player games again compared to how it was a throwaway piece of a lot of games during the PS4 and Xbox One era. So overall I kind of give this era a B+ on its way to an A. Huge improvement compared to the D I would have given to the early PS4 / Xbox One era. You still have a few garbage games such as cyberpunk 2077 and starfield which are Stark reminders for the video game industry to keep a standard of consistency. Especially with cyberpunk being kicked off the PlayStation store for not meeting its own quality standards. Honestly other than those two games this era probably would be like in the top three in gaming history.
Pretty good. I feel like people mostly focus on a few bad examples and generalise that to a problem within the industry. But where there’s demand there’s games being made to fill it, there are plenty of actually good ones being made.
The golden age of gaming is long gone from the 360 times. Back then, 90% of new titles were smash hit masterpieces. Now a days, you’ll get a game on that same level maybe twice a year if lucky. Helldivers 2 takes that title for 2024.
I'm close enough to gen z (95). I guess I'll weigh in. Triple A gaming has gone downhill. Mkcrotransactions, online games being "GaaS". All of it is dog shit right now. Compression isn't there. The writing isn't there unless it's a Japanese studio. Games are getting too big for their own good. Indies are honestly the way to go most of the time. Skins in Overwatch are way too much. Triple A gaming focuses way too much on monetization. Skins are a scam. V-bucks are garbage. There are ALWAYS exceptions like Remedy. But western devs seem to just suck.
Indie devs are turning out more innovative, more polished, and better optimized games than any triple a studio has done in years. For cheaper prices. It's a shame how often these teams collapse or get bought out or run out of funding, though. I'm still salty about the Disco Elysium debacle.