What is your take on the gaming industry?

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As most people here, I assume that most are interested in games and depending on age, have been for a long time. So I regular check out what upcoming games are in the workings, games released the last few years and so forth. And I find my self being less and less interested in them, because my expectations have changed based on so many of the lastest releases there have been, which have been disappointing beyond believe. I only have a PC, so games for consoles doesn't interest me, never going to figure out the controller :D So this is only based on that. But I think I have narrowed it down to three main things.

1. Half finished games

It seems that it is considered perfectly acceptable today to release half finished buggy games, where some of the bugs are so obvious, that there is no way that these weren't noticed during testing, but were simply ignored. To me this really ruins my excitement, because buying a game, which you think looks fun, only to get slapped in the faced by an incomplete product that hardly works really ruins everything.

2. Games seems the same

This is probably a lack of understanding regarding game development, but it some how seems strange, when some AAA games are released, how they can take such a long time to make. Most of the time, they seem to use the same structure that have been used in the last 50 games of that genre. I haven't tried Anthem, so this is not to have a go at it, but have seen some game play videos of it and heard that it have been in development for 6 years, which seems like a fairly long time when you look at it. The AI seems pretty standard like you see in most other games, then you can fly around, which I wouldn't assume is that difficult to program, but besides that, the way of steering seems a lot like that of any other 3rd person game? Again this is not to have a go at Anthem, simply use it as an example, could just as well take Far cry or any other game for that matter. But according to those that have played Anthem, there is not really a complex story either with a lot of options as is common for these types of multiplayer shoot and loot games, which I assume would take a lot of time to program, which characters, quests and so forth. So most of the mechanics you see in games today, have they really changed that much? I would assume that most developers would be able to program these common things in their sleep by now or pretty much copy/paste it from one games to the other :D

Also it seems that a lot of games are being dumb down and a lot of publishers are afraid of trying something new or expand on a genre, but instead play it save or maybe they just misunderstand what makes a certain game good in the first place. Thinking of Mass effect, which to me at least is one of the best games of all times and then seeing it ending up in something like Andromeda, which I could see, how could have been an amazing game, but they screwed that one up, as they seem to forget what made the first one good or they simply rushed it. And personally for me, the characters, story and simplification of choices ruined it for me. All the things that made me like the first one. My impression is that most people share this view on it, so how it could end up as Andromeda, with poor story, characters and choices is a mystery to me.

3. Micro transactions

Weren't sure whether I should add it or not, as I personally don't have a huge problem ignoring them. But decided to add them anyway, due to the subconscious effect they have. Whenever I see a game, which is not free to play and it have MA in it, I can't help thinking that something is intentionally missing from the game, so it can be sold later on. The feeling that the companies adding these, have a meeting about how little content they can add to the game and still get away with it or how the game can be designed so people feel an urge to buy this extra content, intentionally removing or making the game worse due to this.


Because I have found my self being much more interested in indie games for quite a long time. Simply because they seem to be more willing to do their own stuff and take chances and try something new and none "mainstream". Some how there seem to be more passion behind their games than the big studios.

I think the lastest "big" game release that have really excited me were Divinity 2, which also lived up to being very good, one of the best RPG games I have played. And it didn't hide it self behind cool/deceiving trailers and so forth, but showed actual game play. (And obviously Cyberpunk 2077, otherwise I wouldn't be here in the first place :D)

So just wondering if this lack of excitement is shared by others or what your view is?

(Try not to have a go at certain games to much, obviously it difficult not to use examples. but its meant more as a view on the industry as a whole)
 
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227

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They're public companies for the most part. There's X number of potential customers with Y amount of free time that Z number of competitors are attempting to monopolize, and the companies are expected to rake in more and more money faster than the industry can grow to accommodate that expectation.

Microtransactions and loot boxes and all of that stuff is a way to kill two birds with one stone by engaging normal users in a steep grind to unlock extra content for increased engagement while the whales pad out the companies' profits. And creative risks don't always pan out, leaving most companies reluctant to be the first to try anything.

Also, little developers are dying left and right. I know big games get all of the attention whenever the industry comes up, but smaller developers are being suffocated by shovelware that relegates them to relative obscurity before they even get close to recouping their budgets. We're talking 5-20 user reviews for genuinely creative games, even after thousands of dollars of promotion. Somehow, that's even scarier to me than some AAA games being derivative.

We have to burn it all down. It's the only way.
 
Excellent topic. There was a time that games held some excitement for me. That was when games actually had a story that sucked you in, may have had DLC's that extended the story. There was a time that you played the game again later on. There was very little of anything 'on-line' but some had that option if you wished, and micro-transactions didn't exist.

Not now...

It should be no surprise that it's all about the money now and get as much money as you can, anyway you can. Seems to be the main goal for most of the games that are produced now. I do understand this...to a point. I am quite aware of how expensive it is to produce a video game especially on a triple A level. As an older player, and I'm sure that many 'younger' players would be surprised at how many of us gray haired older folks (guys and gals) really do play video games, I have seen the over all quality of games take a noticeable decline during the last five years in quality. I refer to 'quality' in terms of story line, re-play ability, and keeping my interest in terms of entertainment value. Sure, graphics, and other technical merits have made games more visually appealing but for myself, that doesn't make a good game. Then we get to the issue that most / all games are based on the console market and it appears that the PC market is an after thought, that is a long subject all by itself...let's move on shall we?

What really annoys me is the fact that most games have to be played on-line, or you have to log in before you can even play the game. Plus you have to use a 'digital download', physical discs are almost unheard of now. I don't want to rely on digital downloads, for the kind of money we have to put out for a game (good or bad) I want the disc. Most of the games to date are MMO based and may have a short story line, the idea that the producer wants you to play 'on-line' and then move into micro transactions in one form or another. I don't enjoy play on-line with other players and have had too many bad experiences when I did try.

I could go on, but in short, there is no excitement for myself regarding new games. I'm even in some doubt with 'Cyber Punk 2077' for a variety of reasons already mentioned in other posts, I'll do a wait and see after the release. It is sad, there was a time that I had some excitement when a new game was going to be released, but I'm afraid that those days are done. No excitement here, not any more. I always wait till after a game is released and then make the decision whether I'll make that purchase or not.

Good topic.
 
Rise of the Indies from Steam should be hottest thing now, imho. Studio Wildcard is already showing sign of wealth and popularity and they are only 5 year old, theres hundreds of indies coming after them, well I expect at least 10-30. Because of Steam its so fast to rise as gaming company, compared to old-school companies like CD Projekt Red, no-one didnt even know them for first 5 year or so. I personally cant wait to see when Steam Indies get rich, its old-school versus them in the future, how well old-school companies hold against them? Or is Gabe gonna be the only one who gets rich?
 
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It's a weird industry right now. As popular as games have become, the industry is still very much operating like it did in the early years. Some games are now costing as much or more than it takes to make a hollywood blockbuster but movies get released quicker, get tax incentives and the workers are unionized. . With all that in mind it's easy to see why there are things like micro-transactions and half finished game. It may feel crappy as a consumer but really the whole industry needs some sort of makeover.
 
The industry is going to hell in a handbasket.

With ever increasing popularity, innovation has died and games are becoming more and more homogenic and repetitive. And paradoxically, while technology is getting upgraded constantly and at great speed, the games themselves are getting simpler and simpler (from a consumer prspective).
 
I find it interesting people say game industry is becoming repetitive, the fact is we have way more different kind of games what we had like 10 year ago, for example, Xcom's kind of games are here, Doom? Diablo and its clones like Path of Exiles kind of game, just new a few. Survival online genre etc. Sandboxes are here. Ive a feeling Space Simultros are making a comeback too, like BGS's Starfield, thats IF its space simulator.
 
1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Yes

But that's mostly only the AAA segment. That's becoming more and more a business, even overtaking Hollywood. So, yeah, studios want to release games as fast as possible (1), with as little risk as possible (2) and with as much profit as possible (3). Fortunately, not all companies are like this. Either way, we never had as many games as we have now. We're getting overwhelmed and buried by the amount of choices. This means that, unfortunately, it's more difficult to find the hidden gems.

To put it simply, now we have both more quality games than in the past and more junk games than in the past.
 
I've been gaming since the 80s Had a BBC,spectrum, commodore.the lot. Then xbox/ps2 for a few years. I got my first PC in 2001 and never looked back.

For me it's as simple as categories of games and if there are any great games in those categories. I have to say for each of the categories I like, there are. Racing games, RPG, strategy, sports sims, TBC, x4 games,survival.etc etc..there are great games out there for all of these categories.

I used to be in the music industry. I hope it doesn't go the same way as that industry.
 
... the fact is we have way more different kind of games what we had like 10 year ago...
Than why I find it really hard to find something that can engage me and am replaying games from 10 years ago?

They've watered the games down so much...
 
Than why I find it really hard to find something that can engage me and am replaying games from 10 years ago?

They've watered the games down so much...

If you say so, but man I remember time like 10-15 year ago when theres was WoW and half million first person shooter etc. Things are great now. If you dont like watered down games go for strategy games.
 
Definitely seeing rushed games. I don't think they all feel the same though. I'm not sure if this is because I'm oblivious, or because I only play 2-3 games a year. Also, I don't think I've ever had to deal with microtransactions in games I've paid for, so they haven't bothered me yet ... but that may be because I stick to single player games mostly.
 
There are a lot of interesting comments here already.

Microtransactions and loot boxes and all of that stuff is a way to kill two birds with one stone by engaging normal users in a steep grind to unlock extra content for increased engagement while the whales pad out the companies' profits. And creative risks don't always pan out, leaving most companies reluctant to be the first to try anything.

I agree with you that these type of grind quests seems to be very popular as a carrot in front of a donkey or they purely rely on the excitement of gambling, I know of two people in RL that have played away pretty much everything they owned, in both cases ending up loosing their family and being in debt. I like that there are some gambling elements in games which are not based on real money, I mean loot boxes would be fine, if they could only be obtained through playing the game. But its very obvious and should be expected that companies know and base a lot of these ideas on how people gamble in RL and then exploit it. Which is sickening to me and still don't understand why people would ever buy and support it. But then again, im not a gambler in general, which could explain, why I don't really understand people doing this in the first place.

What really annoys me is the fact that most games have to be played on-line, or you have to log in before you can even play the game. Plus you have to use a 'digital download', physical discs are almost unheard of now. I don't want to rely on digital downloads, for the kind of money we have to put out for a game (good or bad) I want the disc. Most of the games to date are MMO based and may have a short story line, the idea that the producer wants you to play 'on-line' and then move into micro transactions in one form or another. I don't enjoy play on-line with other players and have had too many bad experiences when I did try.

Agree with most here, I do disagree with the physical discs as my experience with them are very poor. For instant, the computer I have now, which is fairly old, came with Windows 7 on DVD and I installed it back then. Then the computer screwed up forcing me to reinstall. So I throw in the DVD and it refuse to read it, I haven't used the DVD drive or the DVD more than once and its broken the second time I have to use it. Luckily I had some old 12-13 year old DVD drive laying around, that decided it would read it. So digital downloads are much better in my opinion, you can get all the updates and for what its worth, don't have to waste all that plastic on all these DVDs.

I do however agree that all these MMO games tends to be very shallow in terms of content, especially the storytelling seems like no effort have really been put into them, again they just need something that barely works. And respect for those companies that do put effort into the story. But still I can't help thinking that rather than expanding on this, meaning more interesting choices in the story, they still narrow it down as much as possible, and in a lot of cases to the point where you get the feeling that whatever you choose doesn't really matter anyway. And as you I prefer single player games, if I want to at least try to get a good story. The moment I hear a game is MMO, my expectation for a good story just vanish.

I find it interesting people say game industry is becoming repetitive, the fact is we have way more different kind of games what we had like 10 year ago, for example, Xcom's kind of games are here, Doom? Diablo and its clones like Path of Exiles kind of game, just new a few. Survival online genre etc. Sandboxes are here. Ive a feeling Space Simultros are making a comeback too, like BGS's Starfield, thats IF its space simulator.

Besides a few genres, I don't think there is a lot more different kinds of games than there were even 15 years ago. X-com is based on the old X-com (Which is probably the best strategy game ever made in my opinion). And I love the new one as well, even though I do like some of the simplification that they have made, I still think that they could have pushed it further, in regards to cover system, character roles, such as commanders, items and equipment of soldiers etc. Diablo 3, which in my opinion at least, were a game originally designed purely for micro transactions, which luckily for Blizzard went under the radar by most consumers. But due to the game being designed for that purpose, hurt the game play and what the game could have been to the point that, at least to me, Diablo 3 is by far the worse in the series and also the game have been dumbed down to the point, where you don't even have to chose what gear you want to use, as they have decided that for you already, you just have to collect it. It obviously depend on the game and how "brutal" the company behind it want to MA it, as not all games suffers from being ruined by it. But regardless of how you put it, there is very few if any benefits for MA in a game, but can be accepted if the game is free to play to begin with.

In regards to Starfield, very little is known and after the excellent release of Fallout 76, which personally was never a game that excited me in the first place, my hopes and expectations for Starfield is fairly low to be honest, so little is known about it, that it could just as well be another buggy MMO set in space filled with MA. I hope its not, but taking into account the way the industry is going and the Fallout 76 release, I really have no expectations that it will be any good.

But that's mostly only the AAA segment. That's becoming more and more a business, even overtaking Hollywood. So, yeah, studios want to release games as fast as possible (1), with as little risk as possible (2) and with as much profit as possible (3). Fortunately, not all companies are like this. Either way, we never had as many games as we have now. We're getting overwhelmed and buried by the amount of choices. This means that, unfortunately, it's more difficult to find the hidden gems.

To put it simply, now we have both more quality games than in the past and more junk games than in the past.

Maybe its a shift in the entertainment industry, because even a lot of the blockbuster movies seems to be following the same path. I grew up with the first 3 Star wars movies and is not a huge fan, but I do put them as some, if not the base science fiction movies ever made. But having seen the new ones and I mean all of them, not just those Disney made, but obviously can't deny that "The Last Jedi" just added the final nail in the coffin, they manage to ruin it. Which in my opinion were done by poor storytelling, weak characters to the point where Chewbacca is probably the most interesting character left, even though they tried to destroy him as well. Movies designed so sell products and with no respect to the lore of the original movies.

I do agree, at we obviously have a lot more games, but im not sure that the amount of quality of games released is higher, compared to back then. You can do things in games today that you couldn't back then, in terms of graphics and sounds etc. But I do think there is a good reason why the amount of quality games is not that much higher if at all than what you would expect. Back when I grew up these companies were very respected like EA, Blizzard and so forth as they released good games, because if they didn't they simply wouldn't make it, you didn't have the choice like you have today, to release a buggy mess, with an excuse of fixing it within the next year or two, so they had to release quality games. So to see how much heat they are receiving now, which can't be blamed on people flaming them, some of the stuff that these companies do and release is just not right and should never be accepted. It should never be argued that its ok for a company to purposely release a product that doesn't work. That games have bugs in them is accepted, because these are complex products with a lot of things capable of going wrong, but it have always been like that, its not something new. And its not an excuse to not, at least try to fix as many of them before release as possible. So if you count how many games are being released today and how many of them is of actual high quality, I think you will find that there are more back then in comparison. Remember a lot of the IPs today are based on games made back then and is the reason why a lot of these companies even got as far as they have today. Think about how many new IPs that have been created the last few years that actually makes it? Its really few, most are based on these old games as I see it.

Mass effect could have made it, it might come back if we are lucky, but if it doesn't it didn't really last that long.
 
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I'm not sure if this is because I'm oblivious, or because I only play 2-3 games a year.

I don't really much of anything these days anymore; no time, no interest, name a reason. But the notion (mine) about the sameness has gradually built up over a long period when I played a lot more and still tried things out of the blue over a generally interesting premise. Nowadays it doesn't take much more than a look to know (yes, know) what playing a game would approximately feel like (to me). And most games just tend to fall in the category of "not worth my time".
 
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Guest 3847602

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Honestly, situation for me is anything but bleak, I have way more games that I'd like to play than spare time.
I've yet to play the new Hitman, Ace Combat, Dirt Rally 2, DLC for Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Metro Exodus... TW: Three Kingdoms and Imperator: Rome will be coming out soon, and I'm very close to finally caving and picking up Civ6. So yeah, I don't think I ever had as many options as now.
 
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The number of games I'm actually interested in is pretty low. Strategy used to be favourite genre (mostly RTS games like AoE or games, which combine RTS and city building like Ceasar or Settlers). Most of today's strategy games are developed by small companies and often don't even look better than some games released 20 years ago. So I just keep playing them. Frostpunk showed that it's possible to create a good strategy game, which actually looks appealing. Let's hope AoE 4 will be good.

In General I think the mainstream just prefers simple games. I bought Jurassic World Evolution during the steam christmas sale and it's graphics and the animations are awesome, but the gameplay itself really lacks any depth. The old zoo tycoon games had a lot more to offer.


Microtransactions ruined one of my favourite game series (NBA 2k). The focus on microtransctions is absurd. For some game modes you either have to grind endless hours or you pay. That's an absolute no go. In the end it's the customers' fault though. If noone was willing to pay, player progression would have to be much faster to keep players satisfied. Now you pay twice the price for the same experience.
 
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Most of what I know about the modern game industry is from random headlines, news articles, and YouTube videos -- so most likely I'm only seeing the worst news (because they get the most clicks/views) with an occasional positive piece here and there.

Games newer than 2014 that I've bought and played for more than a few minutes I'm pretty sure I can count on one hand; most of what I have bought have been older games. Plus I love playing even just one or two games for thousands of hours. :p
So, I can't say I know anything about whether modern games are, as they are often said to be, the same thing released over and over and over again with a fresh coat of paint and a handful of minor updates. Same goes for half-baked releases, although I have seen irrefutable proof of that one.

I also never play multiplayer games (except for GWENT), so I don't really have first-hand experience with lootboxes and other microtransactions. I do know I dislike the idea of them in paid games, though -- some of what I've seen and heard is outrageous -- and their existence makes me happy to be a single-player fan.
 
Definitely seeing rushed games. I don't think they all feel the same though. I'm not sure if this is because I'm oblivious, or because I only play 2-3 games a year. Also, I don't think I've ever had to deal with microtransactions in games I've paid for, so they haven't bothered me yet ... but that may be because I stick to single player games mostly.

Rushed games has always been part of game industry, and sadly I cant see them going away, if you have a staff of 100 guys, it takes easily 3-6 month to polish the game, it can cost you 1+ mill to polish a game. Recoup that you need to sell 50-100k games more at launch. Most games sell 500k to 1mill at launch. Companies like EA can pull off 3 mill at launch but thats EA, but their staff is easier bigger.
 
Rushing a game is not necessarily worth it, at best it is a short sighted practice. I mean, cutting down the development time of something that would take 4 years with polishing to 3.5 years (and released in a barely beta state) may make it 12.5% shorter, but what if the terrible reception costs a lot more than 12.5% in sales? And poor reputation eventually affects even the sales of future titles.
 
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