The gaming industry is fine. It’s all the AAA publishers that are shit.
The ruin of modern games is the perfect shit storm of:
- The quest for the other side of the uncanny valley, making releases closer to decades
- The death of the in-house game engine.
- The half-baked attempt to cross-platform consoles with PCs
- The half-baked attempt to cross-platform mobile devices with consoles
- The merger of Live Service Games and Free to Play
- Game prices not following inflation.
- Everyone and their brother trying to take a major cut.
Shit is more complex and resource intensive than it has ever been, we’re hardly even looking to optimize these days if it works.
You get to choose from a couple of engines, who want a serious cut, or a free engine who has serious problems on consoles.
You need the game not only to pay for itself in sales, but in in-game sales without making it to gambley or making it too pay to win.
Adjusted for inflation, Mario Odyssey is $20 less at launch than E.T. was at launch for the atari.
The baby boom in the USA was a real demographic phenomenon but every “generation” after that gets fuzzier to the point where its now just rage bait nonsense or just a proxy term for complaining about changing fashions. Even within the Boomer cohort people had wildly different experiences growing up across such a large span. That said, every game studio I ever worked for was run by Gen X and Boomer aged people.
When they started in the industry it was small teams, tight budgets, a new frontier with a low bar to entry. Now it is highly corporate, capitalized, shareholder driven behemoth (like everything else). This transform happened when the millennial cohort was in our 20s, we had no influence on this, and it mirrored similar larger-scale transformations in the rest of society.
I’m fortunate in that I basically retired early, although I wouldn’t mind going back to work with a good group of people, even for cheap. Like the old days again. I still like the work I just hate the business. But it doesn’t matter, the whole industry is in ruins now.
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The golden age of games, also happened to have publishers who were just that, publishers, not slave drivers commanding the market and shutting down studios every time they sneezed.
There’s plenty of great games these days. The “golden age” wasn’t because of the quality of games. It was because I was able to delve into them deeply and enjoy them without all the concerns of my adult life running on the back of my mind pulling me out of it.
Most definitely can be refuted. There are hundreds or maybe thousands of amazing games out there made by young and old people that appeal to both young and old people. The issue Anon is struggling with is non gamer capitalists running game companies and milking games for every last penny at the cost of quality.
I know it’s a tired example, but look at the company and team responsible for BG3. A game that is widely considered one of the greatest games to be realsed in at least the last 10 years, maybe even longer. This game was made by a company owned and operated by old people and young people. The teams directing, designing, creating, and writing this game were made up of multiple generations of people, and what was made, unimpacted by corporate greed, was a masterpiece.
Good games are products of passion and creative freedom, not money or age.
There’more great games now then ever there ever was. So many choices. Plus, the older games didn’t disapear and there is no such thing as “the Golden Age of gaming” lol. It’s just that a bunch of low- losers are spending their days on the internet crying about “woke runing my videagame” because they see a woman not having huge boobs and a bikini armor.
Im currently enjoying there Blue Prince.
There’s nothing else like it, it’s challenging, and cozy.
If you like playing detective, and bring patience and like exploring and taking notes instead of hyper-focusing on one goal, it’s tens of hours of fun.
Only thing I don’t really like about it is the drafting mechanic. I hit a lot of “ooh! I think I know how to solve that puzzle!” or “Ooh, I think I vaguely remember something in that one room that I didn’t screenshot at the time but I’m pretty sure was a clue for the puzzle I just discovered!” only to never see the relevant room(s) in a bunch of runs. Hell, I’m pretty sure based on a clue that there’s some kind of clock room (if it’s just the den, I have no idea how to figure it out so I’m assuming there’s another clock room) I haven’t seen yet at all dozens of days in, another related puzzle that requires I draft a whole bunch of related rooms that I never get enough of (unless I’m on a wrong line of thought about that) and a third related to the other two where AFAIK I’m waiting on a random item drop and the room to use it in to appear in the same run.
Even something like being able to curate the deck more than the conservatory allows would be tremendous.
Yeah, that’s what I meant with having notes and pivoting: don’t focus on one puzzle like that. Follow all the threads and when you get the chance to make this one happen, do it.
For things related to items, you have an option to make things easier, e.g. I stored the power hammer in the coat check until I got both the coat check and a room I knew I could use the power hammer in. In the like 5 runs in between I just did other stuff, there’s always plenty to do.
Again, I think I understand what I need to do for one puzzle, but if I’m right I need to draft 8 specific rooms all in the same run (I’m hoping I’m wrong and can come up with some other answer). That’s…easier said than done barring a lot of luck. It’s very much that I’m pretty sure I know what the puzzle is and what the solution is but the game is unwilling to let me draft what I need to solve it.
I’m pretty sure one of my missing rooms from the directory is some kind of elevated clock room (“High up among all the clocks”, the only “high up” room I’ve really got is the Attic and the only room with a lot of clocks is the Den so it feels like I need a new room), but I’m a few dozen days in and haven’t seen one.
If you’re post room 46 you probably know what puzzle I’m talking about, and I’ve got 5/8 of the keys and the puzzle behind one door solved. The third one I’m missing is almost certainly in one of the lockboxes in the Vault, but that’s a matter of time and luck to get vault, the right deposit box key and enough steps to get from one to the other in the same day. It’s another case where it’s not an interesting puzzle or mystery, it’s waiting on RNG to allow me to do the thing. Getting those keys, figuring out the puzzles behind the doors, and finding the rest of the red envelopes are my current big goals.
And boy do I wish that I’d got the coat check the only run to date where I got all the parts for the power hammer. Currently got the emerald bracelet in mine, which is nice but…
I’ve been playing this, too! It’s a great game!
Golden age of gaming is now, though. We get so many bangers basically for free it’s insane
Yeah, oh no a bunch of people got into an industry that they loved so much they got underpaid and lowered the value of their labour to be treated worse.
But then a bunch of them realized they could just use their passion to make something themself and get paid for it and now we are having a hard time justifying why the big industry’s “shovels” are special.It is a shame this happening to lots of industries right now for lots of other reasons too. With the big industry now trying to justify it as being cheaper to make because they automated all the people that make the product especially better.
It went to shit because big corpos realized there was money in the games industry. It went to shit because capitalism took the reins.
Bu-but Asmongold and Kirsche Verstahl told me the problem was woke gamedevs! /s
I’m aware this was sarcasm, but want to point out Asmongold is a Nazi sympathizer. No idea who the other person is.
The other is a Nazi VTuber, with her name allegedly being a dogwhistle (positive christianity if I recall correctly).
Asmongold is a priest of Nurgle.
No one I know can afford to buy a house because our generations been so royally fucked in every which way, yet somehow we are responsible for steering the entire game industry in our twenties. Right… lol.
Like they didn’t realize in the 90s
Institutional money didn’t take it seriously until the mid to late 2000s.
Big video game companies were already doing the same as today though.
That’s why most of the money hungry games were in the arcades back then. PC gaming wasn’t nearly as big.
You have a very different memory of that time
Probably because we grew up in completely different countries. Australia was very behind back in the day. We had a 2 year lag.
Games are amazing right now, what is this talking about? EA/WB/Ubisoft dreck?
Obligatory:
No war but class war.
STOP blaming age groups! It’s a divide and conquer tactic. It’s not your parent’s fault. It’s not your grandparent’s fault. It is the fault of the rising Oligarchy Super Wealthy. Their system works when we work against each other. We’re even suspicious and blame our parents and grandparents these days. WTF??
Ironically they blame their own children too
- Hollow Knight (Silksong soonTM)
- Stardew Valley
- Factorio
- Outer Wilds
- Baldur’s Gate 3
- Clair Obscur
Gaming is fucking phenomenal right now, OP is looking in the wrong direction.
Games made by gamers vs corporations are two different worlds indeed
Gaming is insane right now. I can buy a game for $10 that would have won game of the year every year straight for an entire decade. Even saying this there’s probably like 15 games that fit this category.
Gamers today get what they deserve. If they want to consume triple A slop they’re going to get fucked. Its really simple.
I almost never pay more than 5$ for a game, get the free game from epic each week since last year, and I have hundreds of amazing games in my livrary. I litteraly could stop working and play super fun games 24/7 for the next 2-3 years without spending a dime. Up to a last year, I was litteraly playing on an overclocked i5 750 (16 y/o cpu) with a 1060i gpu, and can’t think of a game that wasn’t playable. I even worked on a small VR project on that computer lol.
I agree. There is a lot of great content for reasonable prices and a lot of terrible content for high prices. It’s a thriving industry. We just need to be intentional about our purchasing decisions.
Young millennial/zillennial AAA game dev speaking.
It is 100% a top-down issue. Most devs are talented people. When you’re incentivized by quarterly returns as management, over a long enough timeline you begin to care less about game quality and more about stock prices and net revenue in addition to whatever else you need to satisfy your bloated ego, even if you started out as a passionate dev initially. The Indie and AA space is currently thriving because these incentives don’t factor in as much for them.
Just like game design, it’s an issue with a series of carrots and sticks, not necessarily the people involved (although psychopaths do exist and tend to be overrepresented in c-suites worldwide).
tldr; Capitalism ruins everything.
Not that I disagree with you but it’s more like greed ruins everything
Capitalism doesn’t ruin everything. Corporatization ruins everything.
Who runs capitalism bozo
the local coffee shop isn’t a corporation
The worse thing that can happen to your niche hobby is for it to go mainstream. US anime has been consolidated into the Sony/Crunchyroll/Funimation/Rightstuf monster.
^ ^ ^ This is true, but I also think it’s important to note the role repeated financial and cultural success has on one’s mind and ego when elevated repeatedly by both the market and culture. You are not only just financially incentivized not to innovate, but your ego continues telling you “my ideas are always good no matter what others think” after these successes, even when that’s not necessarily true and you need to be reined in by others so your good ideas can still shine and the bad ones can be challenged. This is how top-down cultural problems in studio disciplines calcify in addition to financial incentives. It’s important as a person(s) running a successful studio to not surround yourself with yes-men, which is not an easy task due to the previously-mentioned perverse financial and egoist incentives.
The funny thing is, I’ve heard about quite a few Indie studios that are just as bad. They do the very same thing we condemn AAA for - crunch, micromanaging, and even harrasment.
I was very surprised to hear that the person who lead the development on monument valley was a massive dick to his employees.(Repeatedly would use management tricks and neg people to the point of depression and feeling worthless).
So, I can totally understand the cultural success thing. Though I’d like to believe that we are better than the corporate management suite, I have to remind myself that anyone can be a dick. You can be a progressive left leaning animal lover and still be a horrible parent.
I have worked only in the indie/AA sphere, and my experience here hasn’t been all that great either. But, I had always believed the problem was in the work culture of my country itself, and that I would probably find it better to work with those outside my country. No, people are the same everywhere, just of different flavours.
Though I’d still prefer to work with like minded people vs those place capital over everything else.
This is also true. I’ve worked at a number of startup indies/AA splinter-studios (studios comprised of former devs of hugely successful AAA franchises), and most of them were horribly mismanaged. The sheer existence of good videogames is a testament to the blood, sweat and tears poured into them by groups of insanely talented people finding ways to work together efficiently.
I’m just so sad that it seems most execs in the field go play tennis or golf after work and think videogames are for losers. there is a lot of contempt and expectation that losers will just forever dish out money. if it wasn’t for this strange phenomenon that game engines are so available nowadays, we would be screwed. thank god for the indie space
Tbf most gamers are, indeed, losers.
true but not quite relevant, most people who read books are also losers. free-time activities are really everyone’s own prerogative
I mean, the other guy brought it up.
Gamers gamify a system that can be gamed. More at 11.
