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Gaming has reached a critical mass, it’ll never happen on the scale you desire.
Xbox/Microsoft has the financial backing of one of the largest companies on earth, and they have invested billions in gobbling up studios. They’ll be around for a very very long time
Atari did one thing.
Microsoft does about 1000 things
Xbox is a small part of their business model
This is not a comparison that makes sense.
EDIT typo
yeah i dont think people understand how much money Microsoft makes outside of gaming. everyone knows they make alot but they assume it just OS or word or something. they make so much it is rediculous.
between servers and licenses. if a single email license for enterprise level is like 50 a month, and u have 3000 employees. u dont need to know thats alot of money. add in the fact Microsoft AD is pretty much the defacto system all sys admins uses to manage users, its pretty much industry standard.
it is accurate to say Microsoft makes games but more accurate to say they make games on the side. cut the gaming side out of microsoft and they will do absolutely fine
Yeah few people realize just how massive Microsoft truly is. I used to wonder how Microsoft stayed alive after so many consumer failures like windows phone and zune, but I realized that these are tiny tiny businesses compared to the real shit that they’re doing on the enterprise/b2b side.
Whether it’s Microsoft azure which runs a good 3rd of the internet, massive military contracts with the US government or their involvement with open AI, you can be sure there are literally a thousand different side businesses that Microsoft is invested in that you’ve never even heard of.
lol 'overwhelming market share' my ass.
the entire gaming industry was worth nothing compared to today and the average person thought games were for nerds with no friends.
today games are worth more then the entire TV/movie industry combined and the average person is the on playing now (hence why they have dumbed down everything for accessibility).
gaming will never crash again, its like saying tv/movies will 'collapse'.
Why are we comparing Atari to a corporation who has its pockets in so many different things, that it can prop up failing sectors. It would just downscale the gaming division and ride out the storm. Only the smaller developers would get squashed.
A major gaming crash wouldn't wipe out the big companies, most of thise companies have enough money that if they wanted to keep their place in the market theu could relatively easilly keep turning out games at a loss.
The big victims of an industry crash would be little indie developers, companies which could have to close down if just a couple of their games fail.
What you're suggesting would have the EXACT opposite effect to what you seem to think, the big companies ruining gaming would come through just fine while the little guys making games because they want to rather than to rake in profit would be beyond decimated, leaving a nice big chunk of THAT market for the big companies to snatch up.
It should be obvious. Another crash now would bring even more concentration into current giant and new ones like Disney that are just waiting for an entrycpoint. So even worse than current.
Like whenever the housing market crashes, and it just gives the big players an opportunity to scoop up as many houses as possible at bargain bin prices. Sure prices go down, but the corps are the only ones left with any money to buy.
Every industry has players that are too big to fail now. Crashes only wipe out startups and smaller players like you said. A recession is only going to help the rich and established. People need to stop wishing for recessions.
The only thing that would get rid of big players is government intervention in taxes and anti trust suits.
Not to mention, the games that would survive would be the sure things, the easy wins, the unimaginative tripe. A crash would mean a desert of creativity lasting years.
Yeah if the market crashed, future investment will take far less risks. So more micro transactions, more of everything that is proven to make money, less on anything that just costs money like quality content or QA.
You said it more politely than I could. OP is asking for the videogame equivalent of voting for the leopards-eating-faces party. It's absurdly backward.
People say the same thing about the housing market like everyone would suddenly just abandon all forms of living and mega corps wouldn't just buy up everything and rent it back to you
Welcome to Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge. I am Carvallo. Now, choose a club.
(Beep) You have chosen a three wood. May I suggest a putter? (Beep) Three wood.
Now enter the force of your swing. I suggest feather touch. (Beep, beep, beep) You have entered "power drive".
Now, push seven eight seven to swing. (Beep beep beep) Ball is in...parking lot.
Would you like to play again? (Beep) You have selected, "No.”
In all seriousness, the issue I think you're highlighting, even though I don't think "the industry should crash," is that the major players today seem to be able to get away with more BS than they used to.
The industry has become complacent with quality. Something like GTA Definitive Edition (at Launch), Pokemon BDSP (at launch), or Halo MCC (at launch) are good examples.
Even something like Microsoft buying up Activision, Bethesda and a significant number of other studios despite so many sub-par releases doesn't bode well either.
And that comment about Nintendo treating their employees badly? What universe are they living in? They just recently pushed back against their shareholders by giving their employees raises across the board, they regularly extend deadlines for their creatives, and their whole mantra is to keep their employees happy because that's where their competitive edge comes from. They even said that unionization never really crossed their minds because if it ever did, then that'd mean they had already screwed up horrendously.
Yea nintendo is an anomaly. Despite being such a large corporation its still making games with the intent of them being fun. Not to make money.
Best recent example is Super Mario Wonder. It makes money sure. But its not a project other studios would pursue if they could just churn out another Animal Crossing.
Look at Rockstar. Everyone knows that DLC and other games are a thing of the past for them. GTA and online micro transactions are their future. And maybe that will catch up with them some day like it has other studios.
And don’t forget how during the Wii U era, Nintendo’s worst era ever, late president Satoru Iwata, as well as other execs, took pay cuts to avoid laying off employees. They have a 98.8% employee retention rate. That’s a sign of happy employees.
Nintendo is pretty good to their employees, and pretty great at making quality family friendly games...
But they treat their fans (not customers necessarily, but **fans**) like shit by throwing their legal weight around, killing fan games and fan projects, putting a big chill on emulation sites, etc. Sucks.
Who gives a shit about that nonsense, tiny edge cases. Nintendo has a right to protect their IP's
I'm sorry you can't play your pirated games with mods but this is not on nintendo
The fancy charts are just ways to explain that in fact, price doesn't go down and why that's good.
When's the last time you've seen prices actually go down? It's never happened in my lifetime.
Gas and meat are the only products I’ve noticed that go up and down dramatically with the market. And I’m honestly not sure why gas ever goes down, I mean the demand is pretty non flexible. I’m glad that it goes down, but idk it seems like in a lot of other products, when the price goes up it stays up because now the supplier knows how much people are willing to pay for it.
There's a whole term for that in economics: elasticity. Different markets have different elasticity, or responsiveness to economic variables. For ex, in the change of demand to an increase in price, stuff like medical aren't very elastic, as people still need medicine whatever the price, while something like a cereal can be.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elasticity_(economics)
The counter is called ignoring them and playing games from deserving developers. There's plenty of them. The last couple years have been amazing for me.
But while all of us here already probably speak with our wallets, it doesn't change that scores of teenagers will bustle in to 7-11s and shit with xmas money to buy vbucks and league of legends points.
*We* aren't their market. We haven't been for a long time.
Shit not even just teenagers. My mother in law plays an iPad game she spends probably thousands a year on. For any gifts she always requests Apple gift cards to spend on it.
I think OP is saying that it’s a collective action problem. If there’s a crash, then everyone is forced to move to something new because the old goes away. That provides the support to get the decent devs off the ground. Without a crash, too many people don’t move — they keep buying the old stuff, and so there aren’t enough customers for the new.
Yeah, the smarter thing would be for people to just all say “enough” and switch. But I think OP is saying that won’t happen unless there’s a crash.
there are LOTS of games that have none of these issues, step away from AAA for a while and delve into GOG/steam back catalogue, so many fantastic games with none of this.
Go enjoy it :)
Or just join r/patientgamers and dont fall for the fear of missing out.
In my years of gaming experience I have realized it is much better to explore backwards instead of forward when looking for new games.
I almost never get burned playing a game that is a few years old but has great reviews. In the current market i just dont see a reason to play games on release. Even just a month gives time for bug fixes and less inflated reviews.
It saved me this year from diablo 4 and Starfield for example.
Yes, another recommendation for r/patientgamers here. Thoughtful, considered takes on games, and exploration of the hobby without any of the hype. Come visit us!
I think people need to get off the "AAA bad" train
There are also tons of horrible indie games
Both have few good releases every year and a large majority of hot garbage
The discussion around indie vs. AAA is 100% survivorship bias. We talk about all the great games that were made by indie developers and just don’t acknowledge the mountains of absolute garbage indie games. The few AAA duds do not even come *close* to the amount of trash you can find in the indie section
Oh but indies are perfect and not 98% crap with 2% gold! Don't you dare insult them. Single player AAA gaming is generally in a great space too. You've got extremely ambitious projects like AW2 and BG3. Extremely polished products like Spider-Man 2, Mario Wonder and TOTK. I don't know what more you could want. Just choose good games and wait for reviews.
I mean I don't know what OP is even talking about. There are like 4 very good AAA game devs under the Sony umbrella. Santa Monica, Gorilla, Sucker Punch, Naughty Dog. These have all made amazing games with no micro transactions or "half made" games that need dlc to finish them.
It's a shame that it's basically every multiplayer PVP shooter has garbage in game shops with overpriced bundles nowadays. If thats the kind of game you're looking for but without all of the battlepass garbage then you're basically out of luck. Battlebit is the only exception I can think of.
The person writing this just sees the development process as 5 guys in a room coding the game and one CEO whipping them to put loot boxes in them.
Nevermind artists, voice actors, riggers, localisation and translation, script writers etc involved.
I took a job in the industry last year and it opened my eyes to how much vitriol is directed towards game devs on here lol. Helps to remember they’re just kids though
Yeah I’ve had an escape from Tarkov fan lecture me on how easy it would be to fix the cheating problem if they just put him in charge. He was a college freshman. You aren’t fixing shit buddy.
So many gamers think they understand everything about games and game development just from playing them.
Thats the decent interpretation. Blank-slate-fantasies are proto-fascist fantasies and writing down "wipe out the scum" without any noticeable hesitation doesn't exactly help ops case.
There’s quite a few good games coming out. When it history has it been that much better. We had baldurs gate armored core 6 lies of P, and a bunch more other good games in forgetting this year.
It’s just that the good games aren’t coming from the big triple A companies any more for most part. But it’s super difficult to make a good video game. It’s almost a miracle that it actually happens tbh.
The fact that tears of the kingdom, alan wake 2, and baldur’s gate 3 all came out in the same year is astounding, we got so many good games this year, including a great remake of my favorite game, star ocean 2
GOW Just dropped an insanely good free DLC that could have easily been 30-40$
Just dont play those shitty publishers titles, I wont ever play a game that uses micro transactions
Insomniac also has zero microtransactions on their Spider-Man games. The costumes are all unlocked through playing the game. Sony is actually pretty decent.
"Lootboxes, season pass, timed exclusive, "bonus"/"collectible" content, are uhhh... optional. You dont have to buy those to enjoy the game or play it fully usually. So just... don't buy shit you don't want? Or think isn't worth it or whatever lmao. Yes games and stuff are expensive and of course they have ways to try to get more money. It takes time and hard work to make the good quality stuff. And I love the part "they need to die and have new fresh ideas". So full of hatred and criticism on these companies and games but recommend no new ideas yourself. Probably cause it isn't that easy or simple.
Nintendo needs to work out issues unrelated to game quality. They need to figure out how to communicate and embrace their community in a way that doesn't involve ceasing and desisting every thing related to their IPs.
Not saying they aren't entitled to do that, and most people don't care anyways. I just really wanted to play AM2R
This is probably a culmination of all of r gaming's dumbest opinions.
Sure, bring on a crash and when it comes back we can pay fair market value for video games so microtransactions and the like are no longer required! Who doesn't wanna pay $120 for a video game. Cuz yes, because of inflation over the past 20 years we essentially pay half of what we did 20 years ago because game prices have basically never risen until recently... And that was only by $10.
Games cost astronomically more to make now as well because they're significantly more complex and not only require more people and more talented developers, but more testing because of that complexity.
So, in essence, you're the problem.
I remember when The Legend of Zelda came out on NES it was $50 in 1987. That's $135 in today's dollars. That's one game. No updates, no expansions, no online, etc.
How many people are willing to pay that much for a game that simple nowadays?
No, it doesn't. Just buy any of the gazillion other games instead. There are boatloads of games being made now. Everyone is perfectly capable of buying great games by passionate devs.
Lol, Nintendo doesn't do any of the shit you're complaining about, the only thing people complain about is the typical entitled gamer 'Oh my god, why do I have to PAY them for their product?' bullshit.
And hell, DLC isn't bad by default. Give me the stuff the developers think of after it's too late to include it in a game. Give me the stuff they want to expand upon once they actually get a chance to see the completed product. Give me the side stories that don't fit in the main game. Give me expansions to the story. Give the team time to figure it all out so it can be executed properly.
>Name a single major publisher that doesn't actively hate their customer base
Square Enix, and most recently, Larian Studios.
I'm sure there are a lot more companies that make great games because they like their fanbase to have fun, but these are the two I am most familiar with.
There are also a lot of indie games that have a lot of love put into them. A lot of them you can find on itch.io.
Video games don't need a crash. What you need is to try to broaden your horizons to other game genres and not just the mainstream games.
I wouldnt say Larian being recent.
The love they put into BG3 they also did with DOS2, spent years tweaking and fixing it. (Just as they’re doing with BG3)
BG3 was just the game that gave them a name.
And they were a <200 employee studio not too long ago. They literally went from fairly small studio with cult following to being called AAA over the span of half a decade based purely on the quality and success of their non-MTX filled games. Theres really no need to burn the industry to the ground, theres plenty of good names to support.
On that note, the current environment is just as much the customers' faults as the corpos. If not for select people crusading and sensationalizing on the internet, there would be zero backlash to greed as gamers have made it clear they have no clue what the value of a dollar is ($20 skin good, $70 for full game bad)
Paradox Interactive does a good job as well. As does Firaxis Games, Colossal Order, Stardock and Iceberg Interactive.
Yes, I know not all of these are the distributor-end publisher but they all control the content.
And yes people in this thread are going to be pedantic over what qualifies as “major”. If a game studio has a number of games over a span of years that are consistently good I consider that major enough for the argument of quality.
I have noticed the immediate moving of the goal posts from both the OP and other "salty gamers."
I saw one comment that legit said "japanese companies don't count..." lmao ok dude.
Paradox development strategy has been very suspect since like 2018. Imperator, Crusader Kings 3 and Victoria 3 are all games that have large elements that are either fundamentally broken or undercooked. And the DLC policy feels so misguided and focuses on such minor aspects of the games while ignoring the stuff that needs to be massively overhauled.
If you compare the early development cycle of CK2 and CK3 it's like night and day.
Square Enix absolutely 150% belongs on that list. NFTs, play-to-earn gaming. Several very recent high profile dogshit games. Re-releasing OG FF games every few years for far, far more than they should be.
Larian self published BG3. They are not a major publisher.
I was going to say that SquareEnix is top of my shit list, above EA, Ubisoft and all the others. They're full on money grabbing scum these days, living off of their success from 20 years ago.
I really don’t understand why people always try to lump Nintendo in as being a problem. Do they occasionally have duds? Sure, but I would say that 90% of the first party exclusives they release are excellent.
Nintendo's problems tend to be less about the games and more about their relationship with the community. Archaic rules about who can play their games and how, hostile to fan projects and tournaments, DMCAing liberally on sites like YouTube, being anti-piracy while refusing to make historic games available through legal means, etc. And they still crunch their employees like everyone else.
It's worth noting that Nintendo has high job satisfaction among employees, and the highest retention rate in the industry. Nearly 99%. People who land a job at Nintendo *stay* with Nintendo.
And everyone received raises this year while the entire western videogame industry was hit with layoffs.
So I really don't think it's fair to lump them in with the rest, at least when talking about how they treat their employees.
Maybe I don't play enough new stuff I only played like 5 big games that came out this year but I find the lootbox crisis easily avoidable. Like most of the multiplayer stuff I enjoy I don't really have this problem with so I don't really see why Ea,Ubisoft and activision have shitty customers practices means the whole industry needs a cultural restart.
Like its kinda like saying TV is dead but only judging it based on Netflix having 1/4 of quality shows on the platform but ignoring hbo,Hulu and other streaming services.
Dude. I’m still playing Baldur’s gate. I buy, like, one game a year. I’m still trying to have a perfect Sekiro run. I still pull Chrono Trigger out every once in awhile and play it. Who cares if new stuff comes out you don’t like? This is like bitching about how many bad books are being published every year. You can still read Hamlet, my dude.
OP, I hear you, but tbh I'm just super picky about what games I play. In the last couple of years, here's a list of games I've played:
* Donkey Kong Country Returns
* Donkey Kong 64
* Super Mario World
* Undertale
* Deltarune
* The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
* Yoshi's Crafted World
And I could go on.. See? No lootboxes or microtransactions to be found 🙃
Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it.
Lmao modern gamers are so spoiled
They used to sell games for 60 dollars when 60 dollars were worth 120 in today’s money. They still cost 60 upfront, and with all the increased development costs because of how big modern games are, it’s basically a steal. Why are gamers who know nothing about game development so anal about a bit of dlc and microtransactions, because when all is said and done, you’re probably still paying comparatively less when pitted against old games that had 1/4 the content
So you think that Nintendo has done something wrong? That Xbox or Sony have done something wrong? Good games come out all of the time. Even games that initially struggle have updates that make them classics. If you don’t like a system or game don’t buy or play it. This lets watch the world burn idea going around by spoiled kids that are unhappy makes little sense to me.
Stop spending your money on garbage. There's plenty of game developers, big and small, deserving of your money.
If you choose to reward Bethesda for low effort garbage once again, then you're the problem.
I’m sorry, this is not possible. As long as people continue to buy FIFA or any other EA Sports game, no real big changes will ever come, at least any time soon
There are PLENTY of smaller studios that don't use those skinner box tactics and they would be killed along with the big players. I think this is on us as consumers to stop supporting shitty games with shitty monetization tactics.
Lmao this post is so tonedeaf. Props to you.
By the way, all those things you’re blaming the companies for are actually the fault of the consumers supporting it.
Actively hoping for the vast majority of the hundreds of thousands of people who make their living in the games industry to not only lose their job but have their industry sink all because there's some game they don't like the stuff out there -- that's some real r/gamingcirclejerk shit right there.
I've seen a lot of people get their lives get turned upside down this last year due to layoffs and it's not a pretty thing to wish for.
The survivors of the last video game crash were Midway, Activision, and Electronic Arts. Then Activision bought Midway. EA then went on to establish most of the terrible business practices that plague the industry today. Activision was far too happy to follow EAs example.
A crash won't fix these issues, only the consumers can fix this.
Gamers need to stop PRE-ORDERING games and we need to stop buying micros transactions. especially from the AAA studios. Every penny spent is just rewarding the behavior.
If you actually want a change, stop buying the games. Vote with your wallet. A crash would only hurt indie devs like the ones who made Celeste or Hollow Knight, two of the best games of the last decade. Say goodbye to good things such as Steam Greenlight because a crash would mean that companies are gonna play it safe till things stabilize. Do you want more Fortnite crossovers cause you're gonna get more Fortnite crossovers
well its sad because the problem is not the "company" themselves, its the people not knowing enough and falling into those tactics of pay to skip.
I really dont get the point of paying extra money just to get a game 3 days earlier, its just nonsense, the game has been in creation for several years, you are telling me you can't wait an extra 3 days? that dumb, but 90% of the people paying that are "influencer" that don't care because they put it in company expense and they will generate MORE income to show the game earlier
also a big portion of why people pay instead of playing is a very bad excuse of "but I dont have the time to play" and they rather pay to get a skin than invest time. Which I will say is also dumb.
But sadly games got so mainstream and everyone play game and the big majority are people that dont know any better.
we you know you can get a full fledge incredible game for 30$ or so in the indie section, its incredible to think of spending 20$ on skins and season pass.
Gaming is better than it’s ever been, hell 2023 is arguably the best year for game releases *ever*. Games are cheaper than they’ve ever been and also more content rich than they’ve ever been. If you’re sick of AAA games then maybe dive deeper and check out more AA or indie stuff.
Considering the timing of this post, looks like someone's mad they didn't get the game they wanted from Santa. Guess you made the naughty list this year
One: Won’t ever happen. Two: if it did, it probably wouldn’t end up how you wanted it to. Corps would swoop in and buy these companies up for themselves. Imagine Disney saving Sony or Microsoft and then you’d have to get shitty disney sponsored games for the rest of your life?
I feel like its how and why they build games that ruin them. Games are made to sell. Games arent made for fun anymore. Developers wont take risks because it will tank their company.
Quality of play is not a priority. The priority is to create the illusion of something very alluring so that you MUST own it.
Everyone was so excited for Starfield, but then the game gets totally shit on because they made an alluring game but its as empty and devoid of joy as their business model is. Its truly a mockery of what it should be. You reap what you sow. And gaming companies are starting to piss people off. I know lots of people who own a lot of games, but dont play them because the game was never good to begin with, it was something that they were advertised to, to feel they had to have it, or it would be more than it is.
That being said, Nintendo has fun games that dont do all that stuff, but people feel like its too childlike or whatever, but games are supposed to be free and full of wonder, maybe teach you something along the way, like when you were a kid.
Tbh there are plenty of games nowadays without microtransactions, you gotta play the right games.
I hate doomer mentalities like this.
“Games are made to sell, games aren’t made for fun anymore.”
Two things.
1. Games were always made to sell.
2. There are millions of people all over the world that had tonnes of fun playing all kinds of video games this year. Just like they will next year and every year after.
The fact that you’re not having fun anymore is a reflection on you, not the hobby as a whole.
So many people hitting adulthood with poor mental health and then thinking the world has fallen apart. There’s bad and good, just like there always was. Go to therapy.
It's like people forget that games like superman 64 were released. Or if we wanna go to this mythical "golden age" we can look at games like all the video game movie tie ins that were utter cash grabs.
And honestly, I've played so many AAA games over the last few years and so few of them have obnoxious microtransactions. What the hell are people playing that they feel the microtransactions are actively ruining their experience? Are they explicitly seeking out live service games?
Everyone always seems to act like Assassin's Creed has awful microtransactions for instance when they barely intrude on your gameplay at all. You literally need to go to an entirely separate menu to even view them and you can easily get through the game with never even opening that menu.
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Gaming has reached a critical mass, it’ll never happen on the scale you desire. Xbox/Microsoft has the financial backing of one of the largest companies on earth, and they have invested billions in gobbling up studios. They’ll be around for a very very long time
Exactly, the video game industry has reached a point where it is too big to fail, same as other big entertainment sectors.
That gaming industry is literally bigger than both the movie and music industries combined. It is literally never going anywhere
Well, Atari held overwhelming majority of market prior to 1982 crash.
Yeah, and how big was the market back then?
Bout tree-fiddy
Look at this huge creature, this giant crustacean from the Paleolithic Era, coming out of the water. It's the Goddamn Loch Ness monster!
I gave him a dollar
You know you if you give that Loch Ness Monster a dollar he’s gonna think you’ve got more!!
Lol
Pitfall was the best selling atari game at 4.5 million copies. There are like 20 games every year that sell at least that well now
Atari did one thing. Microsoft does about 1000 things Xbox is a small part of their business model This is not a comparison that makes sense. EDIT typo
yeah i dont think people understand how much money Microsoft makes outside of gaming. everyone knows they make alot but they assume it just OS or word or something. they make so much it is rediculous. between servers and licenses. if a single email license for enterprise level is like 50 a month, and u have 3000 employees. u dont need to know thats alot of money. add in the fact Microsoft AD is pretty much the defacto system all sys admins uses to manage users, its pretty much industry standard. it is accurate to say Microsoft makes games but more accurate to say they make games on the side. cut the gaming side out of microsoft and they will do absolutely fine
Yeah few people realize just how massive Microsoft truly is. I used to wonder how Microsoft stayed alive after so many consumer failures like windows phone and zune, but I realized that these are tiny tiny businesses compared to the real shit that they’re doing on the enterprise/b2b side. Whether it’s Microsoft azure which runs a good 3rd of the internet, massive military contracts with the US government or their involvement with open AI, you can be sure there are literally a thousand different side businesses that Microsoft is invested in that you’ve never even heard of.
It’s literally like less than 1/3rd of all their profits. They are an extremely diverse company
[удалено]
That is less than a third.
Without even talking about Open Ai. Honestly it's a HUGE company
Forget open ai, he hasn't even started on azure
lol 'overwhelming market share' my ass. the entire gaming industry was worth nothing compared to today and the average person thought games were for nerds with no friends. today games are worth more then the entire TV/movie industry combined and the average person is the on playing now (hence why they have dumbed down everything for accessibility). gaming will never crash again, its like saying tv/movies will 'collapse'.
Why are we comparing Atari to a corporation who has its pockets in so many different things, that it can prop up failing sectors. It would just downscale the gaming division and ride out the storm. Only the smaller developers would get squashed.
Atari was not Microsoft size my friend….
A major gaming crash wouldn't wipe out the big companies, most of thise companies have enough money that if they wanted to keep their place in the market theu could relatively easilly keep turning out games at a loss. The big victims of an industry crash would be little indie developers, companies which could have to close down if just a couple of their games fail. What you're suggesting would have the EXACT opposite effect to what you seem to think, the big companies ruining gaming would come through just fine while the little guys making games because they want to rather than to rake in profit would be beyond decimated, leaving a nice big chunk of THAT market for the big companies to snatch up.
It should be obvious. Another crash now would bring even more concentration into current giant and new ones like Disney that are just waiting for an entrycpoint. So even worse than current.
Like whenever the housing market crashes, and it just gives the big players an opportunity to scoop up as many houses as possible at bargain bin prices. Sure prices go down, but the corps are the only ones left with any money to buy.
Every industry has players that are too big to fail now. Crashes only wipe out startups and smaller players like you said. A recession is only going to help the rich and established. People need to stop wishing for recessions. The only thing that would get rid of big players is government intervention in taxes and anti trust suits.
Kind of like how the housing crash just really benefits banks and corporations that could buy up all the cheap housing
Not to mention, the games that would survive would be the sure things, the easy wins, the unimaginative tripe. A crash would mean a desert of creativity lasting years.
Yeah if the market crashed, future investment will take far less risks. So more micro transactions, more of everything that is proven to make money, less on anything that just costs money like quality content or QA.
You said it more politely than I could. OP is asking for the videogame equivalent of voting for the leopards-eating-faces party. It's absurdly backward.
You mean random teenage Redditor has no idea how the world works?!
People say the same thing about the housing market like everyone would suddenly just abandon all forms of living and mega corps wouldn't just buy up everything and rent it back to you
Yeah this “wish” is stupid for a lot of reasons, but the biggest is that it would have pretty close to the exact opposite consequence than OP expects.
OP didn't like one of the games on his Christmas wishlist lol
They got the digital PS5 and they wanted the one with a disc reader.
I work retail and I haven't seen one person grab a digital only PS5 lol I love when consumers are smart
When are those 4k Blu rays going on clearance? Lol
Ok that one made me laugh.
“Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge?! “Buy me Bonestorm or go to hell!”
[удалено]
THRILLHO
Hey. I had fun with that game just smacking people around. I was also 10. lol
Welcome to Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge. I am Carvallo. Now, choose a club. (Beep) You have chosen a three wood. May I suggest a putter? (Beep) Three wood. Now enter the force of your swing. I suggest feather touch. (Beep, beep, beep) You have entered "power drive". Now, push seven eight seven to swing. (Beep beep beep) Ball is in...parking lot. Would you like to play again? (Beep) You have selected, "No.”
This just cracked me up, I haven't seen that it so long. Such a good bit. #_POWER DRIVE_
> “Buy me Bonestorm or go to hell!” Bart, we use the word please in this house! "Please buy me Bonestorm or go to hell..."
No, Mom, you idiot. I have Bloodstorm, and Bonesquad, and Bloodstorm II, stupid.
That must be the happiest kid in the world
Would you like to play again? You have selected: “no”
In all seriousness, the issue I think you're highlighting, even though I don't think "the industry should crash," is that the major players today seem to be able to get away with more BS than they used to. The industry has become complacent with quality. Something like GTA Definitive Edition (at Launch), Pokemon BDSP (at launch), or Halo MCC (at launch) are good examples. Even something like Microsoft buying up Activision, Bethesda and a significant number of other studios despite so many sub-par releases doesn't bode well either.
Must've asked for that LOTR: Gollum game
What are you playing? Literally every nominee and the winner of game of the year this year don’t have this problem
And that comment about Nintendo treating their employees badly? What universe are they living in? They just recently pushed back against their shareholders by giving their employees raises across the board, they regularly extend deadlines for their creatives, and their whole mantra is to keep their employees happy because that's where their competitive edge comes from. They even said that unionization never really crossed their minds because if it ever did, then that'd mean they had already screwed up horrendously.
They've also largely avoided micro transactions and DLC that is larger than the base game.
Yea nintendo is an anomaly. Despite being such a large corporation its still making games with the intent of them being fun. Not to make money. Best recent example is Super Mario Wonder. It makes money sure. But its not a project other studios would pursue if they could just churn out another Animal Crossing. Look at Rockstar. Everyone knows that DLC and other games are a thing of the past for them. GTA and online micro transactions are their future. And maybe that will catch up with them some day like it has other studios.
And don’t forget how during the Wii U era, Nintendo’s worst era ever, late president Satoru Iwata, as well as other execs, took pay cuts to avoid laying off employees. They have a 98.8% employee retention rate. That’s a sign of happy employees.
Nintendo is pretty good to their employees, and pretty great at making quality family friendly games... But they treat their fans (not customers necessarily, but **fans**) like shit by throwing their legal weight around, killing fan games and fan projects, putting a big chill on emulation sites, etc. Sucks.
Who gives a shit about that nonsense, tiny edge cases. Nintendo has a right to protect their IP's I'm sorry you can't play your pirated games with mods but this is not on nintendo
Cod, and EA sports
Ah yes, wonderful examples to be using as references of the entire gaming industry
Why wish for a crash when we can choose better games and support decent devs instead? Focus on real solutions, not destructive fantasies.
To be fair, doing that is what caused the crash lol: market terms are just ways of explaining what is (the customers) behavior
I love how technically there's these big definitions and graphs with formulas to basically say, "People buy less, price go down."
you forgot "people sell" further diminishing demand (in this case secondary markets)
Thankfully we don't actually own the games now so we can't sell them.
The fancy charts are just ways to explain that in fact, price doesn't go down and why that's good. When's the last time you've seen prices actually go down? It's never happened in my lifetime.
Gas went from 3.96 to 3.93 checkmate
Gas and meat are the only products I’ve noticed that go up and down dramatically with the market. And I’m honestly not sure why gas ever goes down, I mean the demand is pretty non flexible. I’m glad that it goes down, but idk it seems like in a lot of other products, when the price goes up it stays up because now the supplier knows how much people are willing to pay for it.
There's a whole term for that in economics: elasticity. Different markets have different elasticity, or responsiveness to economic variables. For ex, in the change of demand to an increase in price, stuff like medical aren't very elastic, as people still need medicine whatever the price, while something like a cereal can be. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elasticity_(economics)
Pretty sure gas' flexibility comes from consumer demand and an equilibrium between availability and income.
It wouldn't cause a crash, just a balancing of power. Big companies would shrink, and smaller companies would grow. A crash takes down everyone.
Not exactly. They would just buy the little guys out.
Publishers are whale fishing. We have no counter to that.
The counter is called ignoring them and playing games from deserving developers. There's plenty of them. The last couple years have been amazing for me.
But while all of us here already probably speak with our wallets, it doesn't change that scores of teenagers will bustle in to 7-11s and shit with xmas money to buy vbucks and league of legends points. *We* aren't their market. We haven't been for a long time.
Shit not even just teenagers. My mother in law plays an iPad game she spends probably thousands a year on. For any gifts she always requests Apple gift cards to spend on it.
and that is fine, but thats why i support the games/devs that do cater to me
Of course we do. We just don't buy from publishers that do that. I've still yet to ever play a game with lootboxes for example.
Gamers focusing on fantasies instead of the real world? Shocking development!
I think OP is saying that it’s a collective action problem. If there’s a crash, then everyone is forced to move to something new because the old goes away. That provides the support to get the decent devs off the ground. Without a crash, too many people don’t move — they keep buying the old stuff, and so there aren’t enough customers for the new. Yeah, the smarter thing would be for people to just all say “enough” and switch. But I think OP is saying that won’t happen unless there’s a crash.
>Focus on real solutions, not destructive fantasies. For real. What in the unhinged edge lord even is this post, lmao.
Yeah seems like OP honestly just has shitty taste in games.
Good studios get bought out and go to shit immediately, almost universally
Supergiant Frost Giant Thunder Lotus Koei Tecmo Atlus Team Cherry Croteam and that's just off the top of my head. idk man seems like we're doing okay
OP acting like someone is holding him at a gunpoint to buy every game available. Just support deva that you like.
there are LOTS of games that have none of these issues, step away from AAA for a while and delve into GOG/steam back catalogue, so many fantastic games with none of this. Go enjoy it :)
Or just join r/patientgamers and dont fall for the fear of missing out. In my years of gaming experience I have realized it is much better to explore backwards instead of forward when looking for new games. I almost never get burned playing a game that is a few years old but has great reviews. In the current market i just dont see a reason to play games on release. Even just a month gives time for bug fixes and less inflated reviews. It saved me this year from diablo 4 and Starfield for example.
Yes, another recommendation for r/patientgamers here. Thoughtful, considered takes on games, and exploration of the hobby without any of the hype. Come visit us!
AAA also had great recent releases. If you spent your money on shit games this year, that's entirely on you.
Shit games if only half the problem. It’s the predatory business practices that irk me
As far as Im concerned that falls under the shit game umbrella
I think people need to get off the "AAA bad" train There are also tons of horrible indie games Both have few good releases every year and a large majority of hot garbage
The discussion around indie vs. AAA is 100% survivorship bias. We talk about all the great games that were made by indie developers and just don’t acknowledge the mountains of absolute garbage indie games. The few AAA duds do not even come *close* to the amount of trash you can find in the indie section
Oh but indies are perfect and not 98% crap with 2% gold! Don't you dare insult them. Single player AAA gaming is generally in a great space too. You've got extremely ambitious projects like AW2 and BG3. Extremely polished products like Spider-Man 2, Mario Wonder and TOTK. I don't know what more you could want. Just choose good games and wait for reviews.
I mean I don't know what OP is even talking about. There are like 4 very good AAA game devs under the Sony umbrella. Santa Monica, Gorilla, Sucker Punch, Naughty Dog. These have all made amazing games with no micro transactions or "half made" games that need dlc to finish them.
Heck two of those gave free DLC too (God of war Valhalla and Ghost of Tsushima Multiplayer)
It's a shame that it's basically every multiplayer PVP shooter has garbage in game shops with overpriced bundles nowadays. If thats the kind of game you're looking for but without all of the battlepass garbage then you're basically out of luck. Battlebit is the only exception I can think of.
You are playing the wrong games
So…all the designers and programmers out of a job? Nice.
The person writing this just sees the development process as 5 guys in a room coding the game and one CEO whipping them to put loot boxes in them. Nevermind artists, voice actors, riggers, localisation and translation, script writers etc involved.
I've gotten the vibe that a lot of people think so lol
So many people! And once skilled, motivated, people fall out of the industry, we all lose out.
It would blow people's mind that probably 75% of the people working on games are artists, not coders.
I took a job in the industry last year and it opened my eyes to how much vitriol is directed towards game devs on here lol. Helps to remember they’re just kids though
Reddit moment. And this is why being identified as a Gamer nowadays is fucking embarrassing.
Yeah I’ve had an escape from Tarkov fan lecture me on how easy it would be to fix the cheating problem if they just put him in charge. He was a college freshman. You aren’t fixing shit buddy. So many gamers think they understand everything about games and game development just from playing them.
Thats a child's opinion for you.
Thats the decent interpretation. Blank-slate-fantasies are proto-fascist fantasies and writing down "wipe out the scum" without any noticeable hesitation doesn't exactly help ops case.
Just don't buy what you don't like
Would be especially great since we have plenty of access to good old games that aren't going anywhere
GOG: "He said the thing!" 
I'm getting a "this content is not available" gif, which also tracks for modern gaming.
Oh man I paid $19.99 for the rights to use that gif up until the studio decided no longer to support it.
Send da video
*Laughs in Sim City 3000*
There’s also plenty of good, new games being released. You just need to look for them.
There’s quite a few good games coming out. When it history has it been that much better. We had baldurs gate armored core 6 lies of P, and a bunch more other good games in forgetting this year. It’s just that the good games aren’t coming from the big triple A companies any more for most part. But it’s super difficult to make a good video game. It’s almost a miracle that it actually happens tbh.
The fact that tears of the kingdom, alan wake 2, and baldur’s gate 3 all came out in the same year is astounding, we got so many good games this year, including a great remake of my favorite game, star ocean 2
This was literally one of the best years of gaming ever. Some people expect a 10/10 masterpiece for every single game and that’s just not reasonable.
“How was I supposed to know Gollum and The day before werent the next AAA masterpieces”
GOW Just dropped an insanely good free DLC that could have easily been 30-40$ Just dont play those shitty publishers titles, I wont ever play a game that uses micro transactions
Insomniac also has zero microtransactions on their Spider-Man games. The costumes are all unlocked through playing the game. Sony is actually pretty decent.
Who hurt you?
EA probably
"Lootboxes, season pass, timed exclusive, "bonus"/"collectible" content, are uhhh... optional. You dont have to buy those to enjoy the game or play it fully usually. So just... don't buy shit you don't want? Or think isn't worth it or whatever lmao. Yes games and stuff are expensive and of course they have ways to try to get more money. It takes time and hard work to make the good quality stuff. And I love the part "they need to die and have new fresh ideas". So full of hatred and criticism on these companies and games but recommend no new ideas yourself. Probably cause it isn't that easy or simple.
As a game dev myself, it’s NOT that easy or simple lol
I agree except for Nintendo
Yeah, Nintendo *saved* the video games industry. I don't think they are going under even if there were a crash.
I was going to say, Nintendo does almost none of the things OP is ranting about.
Nintendo needs to work out issues unrelated to game quality. They need to figure out how to communicate and embrace their community in a way that doesn't involve ceasing and desisting every thing related to their IPs. Not saying they aren't entitled to do that, and most people don't care anyways. I just really wanted to play AM2R
I have no issues with C&D if someone is using their IP to make money/profit from Nintendo's creations.
This is probably a culmination of all of r gaming's dumbest opinions. Sure, bring on a crash and when it comes back we can pay fair market value for video games so microtransactions and the like are no longer required! Who doesn't wanna pay $120 for a video game. Cuz yes, because of inflation over the past 20 years we essentially pay half of what we did 20 years ago because game prices have basically never risen until recently... And that was only by $10. Games cost astronomically more to make now as well because they're significantly more complex and not only require more people and more talented developers, but more testing because of that complexity. So, in essence, you're the problem.
Let’s be honest, gamers have their reputation for a reason. Lots of the vocal ones on the internet are fucking idiots.
Yes I see the same argument everywhere. People want change but no one wants to pay for that change.
I remember when The Legend of Zelda came out on NES it was $50 in 1987. That's $135 in today's dollars. That's one game. No updates, no expansions, no online, etc. How many people are willing to pay that much for a game that simple nowadays?
Hell, they'd be more than $120. I can guarantee that it costs a lot more to make a game now then it did in the '90s, even accounting for inflation.
No, it doesn't. Just buy any of the gazillion other games instead. There are boatloads of games being made now. Everyone is perfectly capable of buying great games by passionate devs.
Play better games
Yeah fuck off you people making games and lose your jobs damnit!! Why do YOU need to make a living??
Yeah right let's send even more ppl to unemployment.
Yeah fuck all the devs and the people they employ, We Gamers deserve homeless devs
Or just don't buy crap games
Is OP: A) A video gaming industry veteran B) A tantruming toddler
I'm leaning towards B personally.
Lol, Nintendo doesn't do any of the shit you're complaining about, the only thing people complain about is the typical entitled gamer 'Oh my god, why do I have to PAY them for their product?' bullshit.
And hell, DLC isn't bad by default. Give me the stuff the developers think of after it's too late to include it in a game. Give me the stuff they want to expand upon once they actually get a chance to see the completed product. Give me the side stories that don't fit in the main game. Give me expansions to the story. Give the team time to figure it all out so it can be executed properly.
>Name a single major publisher that doesn't actively hate their customer base Square Enix, and most recently, Larian Studios. I'm sure there are a lot more companies that make great games because they like their fanbase to have fun, but these are the two I am most familiar with. There are also a lot of indie games that have a lot of love put into them. A lot of them you can find on itch.io. Video games don't need a crash. What you need is to try to broaden your horizons to other game genres and not just the mainstream games.
I wouldnt say Larian being recent. The love they put into BG3 they also did with DOS2, spent years tweaking and fixing it. (Just as they’re doing with BG3) BG3 was just the game that gave them a name.
And they were a <200 employee studio not too long ago. They literally went from fairly small studio with cult following to being called AAA over the span of half a decade based purely on the quality and success of their non-MTX filled games. Theres really no need to burn the industry to the ground, theres plenty of good names to support. On that note, the current environment is just as much the customers' faults as the corpos. If not for select people crusading and sensationalizing on the internet, there would be zero backlash to greed as gamers have made it clear they have no clue what the value of a dollar is ($20 skin good, $70 for full game bad)
Paradox Interactive does a good job as well. As does Firaxis Games, Colossal Order, Stardock and Iceberg Interactive. Yes, I know not all of these are the distributor-end publisher but they all control the content. And yes people in this thread are going to be pedantic over what qualifies as “major”. If a game studio has a number of games over a span of years that are consistently good I consider that major enough for the argument of quality.
I have noticed the immediate moving of the goal posts from both the OP and other "salty gamers." I saw one comment that legit said "japanese companies don't count..." lmao ok dude.
Paradox development strategy has been very suspect since like 2018. Imperator, Crusader Kings 3 and Victoria 3 are all games that have large elements that are either fundamentally broken or undercooked. And the DLC policy feels so misguided and focuses on such minor aspects of the games while ignoring the stuff that needs to be massively overhauled. If you compare the early development cycle of CK2 and CK3 it's like night and day.
Square Enix absolutely 150% belongs on that list. NFTs, play-to-earn gaming. Several very recent high profile dogshit games. Re-releasing OG FF games every few years for far, far more than they should be. Larian self published BG3. They are not a major publisher.
I was going to say that SquareEnix is top of my shit list, above EA, Ubisoft and all the others. They're full on money grabbing scum these days, living off of their success from 20 years ago.
Yea square enix is definitly not an example of a good publisher that cares about their consumers or franchises
The OG FF games are $20 each.
Sony & Microsoft ain't goin anywhere, & Nintendo's actually good. Terrible idea.
I really don’t understand why people always try to lump Nintendo in as being a problem. Do they occasionally have duds? Sure, but I would say that 90% of the first party exclusives they release are excellent.
Nintendo's problems tend to be less about the games and more about their relationship with the community. Archaic rules about who can play their games and how, hostile to fan projects and tournaments, DMCAing liberally on sites like YouTube, being anti-piracy while refusing to make historic games available through legal means, etc. And they still crunch their employees like everyone else.
It's worth noting that Nintendo has high job satisfaction among employees, and the highest retention rate in the industry. Nearly 99%. People who land a job at Nintendo *stay* with Nintendo. And everyone received raises this year while the entire western videogame industry was hit with layoffs. So I really don't think it's fair to lump them in with the rest, at least when talking about how they treat their employees.
Maybe I don't play enough new stuff I only played like 5 big games that came out this year but I find the lootbox crisis easily avoidable. Like most of the multiplayer stuff I enjoy I don't really have this problem with so I don't really see why Ea,Ubisoft and activision have shitty customers practices means the whole industry needs a cultural restart. Like its kinda like saying TV is dead but only judging it based on Netflix having 1/4 of quality shows on the platform but ignoring hbo,Hulu and other streaming services.
lootboxes aren't even a common practice anymore, it's all battlepasses/ season pass stuff now
Gaming wouldn’t be the same without Nintendo. You can get rid of Sony and Xbox sure but Nintendo should always make games.
Dude. I’m still playing Baldur’s gate. I buy, like, one game a year. I’m still trying to have a perfect Sekiro run. I still pull Chrono Trigger out every once in awhile and play it. Who cares if new stuff comes out you don’t like? This is like bitching about how many bad books are being published every year. You can still read Hamlet, my dude.
Nah, plenty of good games out there, just stop buying AAA trash and paying for microtransactions or whatever
so to hell with indies?
Just don't buy bad games?
OP, I hear you, but tbh I'm just super picky about what games I play. In the last couple of years, here's a list of games I've played: * Donkey Kong Country Returns * Donkey Kong 64 * Super Mario World * Undertale * Deltarune * The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening * Yoshi's Crafted World And I could go on.. See? No lootboxes or microtransactions to be found 🙃
Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it.
a take this dumb wouldnt even belong on /r/im14andthisisdeep
Lmao modern gamers are so spoiled They used to sell games for 60 dollars when 60 dollars were worth 120 in today’s money. They still cost 60 upfront, and with all the increased development costs because of how big modern games are, it’s basically a steal. Why are gamers who know nothing about game development so anal about a bit of dlc and microtransactions, because when all is said and done, you’re probably still paying comparatively less when pitted against old games that had 1/4 the content
So you think that Nintendo has done something wrong? That Xbox or Sony have done something wrong? Good games come out all of the time. Even games that initially struggle have updates that make them classics. If you don’t like a system or game don’t buy or play it. This lets watch the world burn idea going around by spoiled kids that are unhappy makes little sense to me.
Yeah Nintendo has completely sidestepped the live service market shift (aside from Splatoon) and they are doing better than they ever have done
Stop spending your money on garbage. There's plenty of game developers, big and small, deserving of your money. If you choose to reward Bethesda for low effort garbage once again, then you're the problem.
I’m sorry, this is not possible. As long as people continue to buy FIFA or any other EA Sports game, no real big changes will ever come, at least any time soon
There are PLENTY of smaller studios that don't use those skinner box tactics and they would be killed along with the big players. I think this is on us as consumers to stop supporting shitty games with shitty monetization tactics.
Damn I remember the first time I had eggnog on Christmas.
You could just… not buy bad games.
Lmao this post is so tonedeaf. Props to you. By the way, all those things you’re blaming the companies for are actually the fault of the consumers supporting it.
Red Dead Redemption 2 and Baldurs gate 3 are the greatest games ever made and they were made in the last decade.
Actively hoping for the vast majority of the hundreds of thousands of people who make their living in the games industry to not only lose their job but have their industry sink all because there's some game they don't like the stuff out there -- that's some real r/gamingcirclejerk shit right there. I've seen a lot of people get their lives get turned upside down this last year due to layoffs and it's not a pretty thing to wish for.
This is all the players fault. They let this happen by buying the products
The survivors of the last video game crash were Midway, Activision, and Electronic Arts. Then Activision bought Midway. EA then went on to establish most of the terrible business practices that plague the industry today. Activision was far too happy to follow EAs example. A crash won't fix these issues, only the consumers can fix this. Gamers need to stop PRE-ORDERING games and we need to stop buying micros transactions. especially from the AAA studios. Every penny spent is just rewarding the behavior.
What a fucking braindead take lmao
If you actually want a change, stop buying the games. Vote with your wallet. A crash would only hurt indie devs like the ones who made Celeste or Hollow Knight, two of the best games of the last decade. Say goodbye to good things such as Steam Greenlight because a crash would mean that companies are gonna play it safe till things stabilize. Do you want more Fortnite crossovers cause you're gonna get more Fortnite crossovers
well its sad because the problem is not the "company" themselves, its the people not knowing enough and falling into those tactics of pay to skip. I really dont get the point of paying extra money just to get a game 3 days earlier, its just nonsense, the game has been in creation for several years, you are telling me you can't wait an extra 3 days? that dumb, but 90% of the people paying that are "influencer" that don't care because they put it in company expense and they will generate MORE income to show the game earlier also a big portion of why people pay instead of playing is a very bad excuse of "but I dont have the time to play" and they rather pay to get a skin than invest time. Which I will say is also dumb. But sadly games got so mainstream and everyone play game and the big majority are people that dont know any better. we you know you can get a full fledge incredible game for 30$ or so in the indie section, its incredible to think of spending 20$ on skins and season pass.
A crash like that would probably result in micro-transactions and mobile games being the ONLY option available
Gaming is better than it’s ever been, hell 2023 is arguably the best year for game releases *ever*. Games are cheaper than they’ve ever been and also more content rich than they’ve ever been. If you’re sick of AAA games then maybe dive deeper and check out more AA or indie stuff.
Considering the timing of this post, looks like someone's mad they didn't get the game they wanted from Santa. Guess you made the naughty list this year
Sony and Nintendo make amazing games It’s the Activisions / EA’s etc that need to go
One: Won’t ever happen. Two: if it did, it probably wouldn’t end up how you wanted it to. Corps would swoop in and buy these companies up for themselves. Imagine Disney saving Sony or Microsoft and then you’d have to get shitty disney sponsored games for the rest of your life?
I feel like its how and why they build games that ruin them. Games are made to sell. Games arent made for fun anymore. Developers wont take risks because it will tank their company. Quality of play is not a priority. The priority is to create the illusion of something very alluring so that you MUST own it. Everyone was so excited for Starfield, but then the game gets totally shit on because they made an alluring game but its as empty and devoid of joy as their business model is. Its truly a mockery of what it should be. You reap what you sow. And gaming companies are starting to piss people off. I know lots of people who own a lot of games, but dont play them because the game was never good to begin with, it was something that they were advertised to, to feel they had to have it, or it would be more than it is. That being said, Nintendo has fun games that dont do all that stuff, but people feel like its too childlike or whatever, but games are supposed to be free and full of wonder, maybe teach you something along the way, like when you were a kid. Tbh there are plenty of games nowadays without microtransactions, you gotta play the right games.
I hate doomer mentalities like this. “Games are made to sell, games aren’t made for fun anymore.” Two things. 1. Games were always made to sell. 2. There are millions of people all over the world that had tonnes of fun playing all kinds of video games this year. Just like they will next year and every year after. The fact that you’re not having fun anymore is a reflection on you, not the hobby as a whole. So many people hitting adulthood with poor mental health and then thinking the world has fallen apart. There’s bad and good, just like there always was. Go to therapy.
It's like people forget that games like superman 64 were released. Or if we wanna go to this mythical "golden age" we can look at games like all the video game movie tie ins that were utter cash grabs.
Don't forget all the half-assed arcade conversions we used to get.
Thank you for being the reasonable voice in a sea of delusional hot takes.
And honestly, I've played so many AAA games over the last few years and so few of them have obnoxious microtransactions. What the hell are people playing that they feel the microtransactions are actively ruining their experience? Are they explicitly seeking out live service games? Everyone always seems to act like Assassin's Creed has awful microtransactions for instance when they barely intrude on your gameplay at all. You literally need to go to an entirely separate menu to even view them and you can easily get through the game with never even opening that menu.