[Kaleb]

Only 28 years old for context. I cannot tell you the last time I looked forward to a new game releasing. It seems like the video game industry is in just such an odd spot at the moment, you have these random games that pop up that are clearly promoted to be played by streamers and have a life cycle of literally like a month if that (New World, Once Human, Palworld but less so I guess, I could go on).

Countless upon countless Triple A games that have lost any integrity and are clearly just money farms, all sports games nowadays are literally roster updates with maybe 1-2 new features, and then a discontinuation of support for prior years titles, not to mention I don't know one that doesn't have a game mode which relies on /insane/ amounts of MTX to even be playable.

Countless Triple A games releasing in completely broken states, completely oversold what the game would be and are just dogshit and people accept it, Cyberpunk 2077 being a good example. It bothers me people support this game when it took them like 4 years to even fix it, because in my opinion its just going to encourage this behavior to continue. I haven't played it or purchased it and never will.

I can't help but feel like we witnessed, or at least I witnessed the "golden age" of gaming in the late 90s into the late 2000s. Countless amazing games, and you could tell the developers put their hearts into them, nowadays it seems like the games are developed by people just doing a job and extracting as much money as they can.

Again I can't tell you the last time I looked forward to, or played a Triple A title and was blown away. Dark Souls is the last game I played that was like damn, that was amazing. Haven't tried Elden Ring yet but I've seen gameplay and I have a feeling it'll be good, but not as good as Dark Souls.

In fact really the games I've had the most fun / laughs out of recently have mostly been indie games, silly shit like Lethal Company, Dale & Dawson, etc. I think the video game industry has became super commercialized and Triple A games have lost all soul.

I'm not even really looking forward to GTA 6, I have 0 expectations for new games nowadays. I have a strong feeling Rockstar will reel in a lot of their edgier and hidden humor which is laced DEEPLY throughout each game. Countless upon countless easter eggs / jokes are in the GTA universe if you pay close attention. I'll be very very surprised if the Vespa is still called a Faggio in GTA 6.


And for reference I still do game a bit when I have free time, but its almost always older games.

[Confound]

I'd have to agree with you.

The big games I was / am excited for was the most recent Star Wars open world game (which I dont even think got that great reviews), and then GTA 6 and Skate 4. Outside of these, I really think in general its been a sea of sameness lately.

[Mr_Kh4os]

It has definitely felt this way for the past 4-5 years at least IMO, part of the problem I feel like is that everything is so money focused that these big corps don't let their teams actually be creative anymore. Just follow the temp trends like everyone else and grab the DLC money etc, or buy the small studios that are creative and close them(Microsoft lol).

Haven't preordered anything in YEARS.

[Kaleb]

It has definitely felt this way for the past 4-5 years at least IMO, part of the problem I feel like is that everything is so money focused that these big corps don't let their teams actually be creative anymore. Just follow the temp trends like everyone else and grab the DLC money etc, or buy the small studios that are creative and close them(Microsoft lol).

Haven't preordered anything in YEARS.

Me neither, I don't think I'll pre-order a game ever again.

---

I'd have to agree with you.

The big games I was / am excited for was the most recent Star Wars open world game (which I dont even think got that great reviews), and then GTA 6 and Skate 4. Outside of these, I really think in general its been a sea of sameness lately.

I'm also looking forward to the new Skate but since I've learned its going to be free to play, and all the delays, I'm a bit worried. I really don't think EA is above having pay to win shit like special trucks or wheels or boards that give you stat boosts or something ridiculous like that. I hope I'm wrong.

[HOMODIN]

I feel you bro, I have the same, no new game is mindblowing, or even half way there, it all just feels lame and like they would just reskin and recycle old stuff.
Personal take on games these days, they are just too easy, too shalow, too short and it feels like no true progress in graphics (when compared to NES -> N64 or similar).

[oblivikun]

yes they are all ass nowadays i agree

[bevc]

The sooner you realize you've outgrown "big release" video games;

Until they manufacture realistic sex-bots, then men of all ages will be looking forward to the "big releases". Wink wink.

And you know Elon's working on it in some lab somewhere. I bet he's building in some dead-man's switch where at the touch of a button they all launch a co-ordinated motion of grabbing their owners by the jaffas and squeezing, then marching them over to their laptops and making them logon to twitter and forcing them to retweet Elon Musk's lame jokes with laugh emojis to give him the validation he seems to desperately crave for some reason.

[Jamika]

Only 28 years old for context. I cannot tell you the last time I looked forward to a new game releasing. It seems like the video game industry is in just such an odd spot at the moment, you have these random games that pop up that are clearly promoted to be played by streamers and have a life cycle of literally like a month if that (New World, Once Human, Palworld but less so I guess, I could go on).

Countless upon countless Triple A games that have lost any integrity and are clearly just money farms, all sports games nowadays are literally roster updates with maybe 1-2 new features, and then a discontinuation of support for prior years titles, not to mention I don't know one that doesn't have a game mode which relies on /insane/ amounts of MTX to even be playable.

Countless Triple A games releasing in completely broken states, completely oversold what the game would be and are just dogshit and people accept it, Cyberpunk 2077 being a good example. It bothers me people support this game when it took them like 4 years to even fix it, because in my opinion its just going to encourage this behavior to continue. I haven't played it or purchased it and never will.

I can't help but feel like we witnessed, or at least I witnessed the "golden age" of gaming in the late 90s into the late 2000s. Countless amazing games, and you could tell the developers put their hearts into them, nowadays it seems like the games are developed by people just doing a job and extracting as much money as they can.

Again I can't tell you the last time I looked forward to, or played a Triple A title and was blown away. Dark Souls is the last game I played that was like damn, that was amazing. Haven't tried Elden Ring yet but I've seen gameplay and I have a feeling it'll be good, but not as good as Dark Souls.

In fact really the games I've had the most fun / laughs out of recently have mostly been indie games, silly shit like Lethal Company, Dale & Dawson, etc. I think the video game industry has became super commercialized and Triple A games have lost all soul.

I'm not even really looking forward to GTA 6, I have 0 expectations for new games nowadays. I have a strong feeling Rockstar will reel in a lot of their edgier and hidden humor which is laced DEEPLY throughout each game. Countless upon countless easter eggs / jokes are in the GTA universe if you pay close attention. I'll be very very surprised if the Vespa is still called a Faggio in GTA 6.


And for reference I still do game a bit when I have free time, but its almost always older games.

I only now play online games that is free, u can try old ones as osrs

[Philip J. Fry]

NGL i've been feeling the exact same, I'm 23 years old and haven't been excited for a new game coming out for a really long time. Only games I'm excited about lately is the New World release/update (even though its probably going to be shit), games nowadays i feel are just dry as hell. Hopefully within a few years they improve but as of now I'm hoping Black Ops 6 will carry me into 2025-2026.

[Kaleb]

You're 28.
You're no longer the target demographic of new and upcoming video games.
You /likely/ want the same thing you've been playing for 20 years, but updated. New gamers do not want this.
The video game industry is not immune to dynamic market trend changes.


The sooner you realize you've outgrown "big release" video games; the better. I stopped playing the majority of games at 16 and haven't really looked back. Now I just wait for nostalgic Nintendo releases.

This. For further proof of this, look at the kids around you IRL and at what they be playing.
Kids around the age of 6-14 around me mostly play Fortnite. How long has Fortnite been around? Relatively long I'd say.

As for Cyberpunk, wasn't that the fault of the shareholders and not the developers?

There was pressure from the shareholders, sure, but at the end of the day, CDPR and its developers pushed what they knew was a broken, and underdelivered product. They then spent literal years fixing it and its still not what was originally promised but people gobble it up. Fortnite is basically an "infinity" game (I think there's an industry term for it but its escaping me), like League of Legends, instead of releasing Fortnite 2 they'll just continue to develop and update Fortnite until whatever Fortnite is in 8 years, doesn't resemble at all what Fortnite is right now. They've already done that, if you look at Season 1 Fortnite in 2017 its a completely different game from what Fortnite is at the moment.

I still think I have a point here, it's not just demographics, I reject that notion quite a bit. The potentiality of just how much money could be made from video games I don't think was fully realized by "corporate" sectors until the early and mid-2000s and once they sunk their claws deeper and deeper development went to shit. For example, Rockstar Games was able to lease songs by Michael Jackson for Vice City because it was just viewed as whatever, just a video game, who cares, do you think they'd be able to afford the licensing for it nowadays, or even consider it worth the budget?

It's not people pouring their souls into making a passion project, it's an assembly line of programmers creating a product to generate revenue.

If you go back and watch documentaries like this -





Does anyone believe that's what the office culture is like at a modern-day Triple-A video game studio? I highly highly highly doubt it. It's probably ticket-punching people trying to meet deadlines and produce some product they don't really care that much about, a means to an end.

I think this is also reflected in the fact that some of the best and most fun games I've played recently are all indie developers, because again, they have the passion, they have a desire and soul behind the product they're creating, a vision. It's not just some assembly line mass produced bullshit.


I'd also argue there's still a huge demographic of people who play video games from 18-35 and they have money to spend (I'm aware parents spend money on their kids, so they're a target demo, but I think the biggest target demo is usually 18-25, although with scummy microtransactions I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't the case in the video game industry).

[illuminati▲]

@OP,

It’s not just you, I feel a mass majority of games these days are complete ass.
Too much fucking pay to win.

[Kaleb]

The sooner you realize your love is fueled on nostalgia and a yearning for the past, the sooner you can move on. Your peers (not the people you chose to be friends with that have similar interests i.e.; video games, but your peers) have likely already come to this conclusion and moved on with life.
I think you should consider plugging that need for scoreboards with something productive, like Coursera courses or some type of PD. You'll realize pretty quickly you've outgrown the industry. Casual nostalgic gaming is fine, but you should aspire to be more than the 35 year old dude wearing elf ears outside of gamestop "excited" for the new release. You won't capture the excitement of nostalgia you had as a teen or a kid; and you should embrace that.

Lol I'll actually read your post because I'm not a dork who's on some alpha shit. I game casually, maybe 5 hours a week, maybe more or less depending on projects I'm working on at the time. Its a fun way to connect with my IRL friends who have families now and who we can't always make time to see each other in person.

I'm not some 28-year-old dork with funkopops larping as Zelda, I just enjoy video games still, and think the industry has moved in a shitty direction... not sure why you're taking it there. I don't have a need for scoreboards at all, again I'm a casual gamer, even when I play competitive games and get shit on its just all for fun, I know I'm not gonna keep up with the 17-year-olds who are playing the shit literally day in day out nonstop.

There's nothing wrong with enjoying shit mister alpha badass Coursera grinder. I have credentials, I'm employed, I earn money, and sometimes I like to take a bit of time out of my day/week to play some video games, crazy right?

[Wings of Redemption]

You are right man. Typically, games are shipped half assed. They require serious updates to stabilize the game and make it playable.

Also, big time studios with a large publisher have flopped. Mainly from the pressure of the publisher. Suicide squad, gotham knights, ac mirage, star wars outlaws, etc.

[Mercury]

They definitely don't have the level of depth that they once did. It is without a doubt, more geared towards generating revenue by far at this point.

[JW1337]

You're 28.
You're no longer the target demographic of new and upcoming video games.
You /likely/ want the same thing you've been playing for 20 years, but updated. New gamers do not want this.
The video game industry is not immune to dynamic market trend changes.


The sooner you realize you've outgrown "big release" video games; the better. I stopped playing the majority of games at 16 and haven't really looked back. Now I just wait for nostalgic Nintendo releases.

This is very well put.

Also good to mention that video games are a massive industry now. Most modern AAA games are created for profit while in 2003 when Call of Duty came out, it was a passion project that just happened to be successful.