Believe it or not, this almost perfectly describes the mid-80s and the late 90s in games. It is a periodic thing in the industry, but since video games are more profitable today and have a larger audience than ever, these things tend to stay alive longer than in the previous era, where the market promptly popped and new players with fresher ideas had to take the place of the large, old, senile mammoths.
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The problem with AAA games is that studios dont take enough risks. They also dont unchain the developers to make their vision. They play it safe and water the game down for the lowest common denominator. This ensures the game appeals to the most people and will sell.
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it's not profitability that's the problem, it's cost.
When movies/games cost over $100 million to produce, the studios cannot take a risk. If a movie/game bombs, it can take years for the company to recover. If two or three bomb, it could bankrupt the company Disney being the exception here
At the same time, the big blockbusters have sucked up all the oxygen. While indie and low-budget are flourishing, the mid-market games and movies have all but disappeared. The mid-market can't compete with blockbusters for advertising, and can't compete with indies on cost. The economics just doesn't support developing mid-market entertainment anymore
It's too bad, really. Indies are all about innovation and taking risks, and studios are all about big-budget entertainment where they can't really take risks. The mid-market used to be a nice middle-ground, producing high-quality innovation, but those games just aren't profitable
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Oh, yeah, of course cost is a huge factor. The bigger a game gets and the bigger the investment, it's only natural they're less likely to take risks 'cause there's so much riding on it.
I just meant that once an industry becomes hugely profitable, there's usually a slow-down of innovation because there's a kind of guaranteed success in playing it safe, as there's a big enough market out there to get a steady return from without really needing to take risks as well. Nowadays there are very defined genres and audiences, so you can make decent profits just catering to a large audience and making a predictable game that fits its genre expectations without doing anything more. I hope that makes sense, haha.
It's a shame about the mid-market entertainment :( There's a big graveyard of devs like that which went out of business, awkwardly stuck between AAA games and budget-friendly indies. That kind of quality is now only most closely found in indies that have managed to reach stable success.
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pretty much, yeah.
Though, there's still some innovation. Annual games get incrementally better over time, hopefully, and some developers do realize that if they don't innovate, they'll go stale. The Total War series has changed significantly over the years, from the original board-game like maps, to experimenting with ship battles and multiple maps (empire), switching to fantasy, and now stealing ideas from Crusader Kings 2. Civilization V and VI both brought some interesting changes, and the latest DLC is trying to figure out how to keep the end game fun. Even the most staid of annual games, EA sports games, have tried things from time to time (trading cards about 10-15 years ago, then career-mode, now ultimate team)
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True, there are changes in AAAs, like AC recently upping the RPG aspect of the game. It does happen.
I guess people are just disappointed because these are usually small innovations that only improve specific games/franchises. They only 'innovate' so far as using a different selection of tried-and-true mechanics, rather than innovating by reinventing genres or developing their own unique mechanics (generally). These kind of innovations only improve their own games and not gaming as a whole, so I can kind of understand why people would get frustrated about it.
At the same time, there's also expectations for well-established franchises. It's not like they can just easily experiment without losing a large following of people that like their games for what they are. It's a bit of a tightrope walk :P
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If you buy an apple, you shouldn't complain about it tasting like apple. Sure, there are green apples and yellow apples and red apples, but in the end, you still want an apple.
AAA games do try different things, but they don't take big risks. If the changes are well-received, they'll continue. But when the newest GTA or COD costs literally a hundred million dollars, no, they're not going to try something completely different
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Yes. It seems to be a trend where small studios take risks, the risks pay off, the studio becomes profitable enough to be bought out by a major company, which then imposes new regs, restrictions, and expectations on the newly-purchased company, which leads to staleness and "cookie-cutter" (trash?) games coming out.
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For me gaming is still great because I pick the games I want to play instead of buying all AAA or AA or Indie games that come out.
I know what I like and what I don't so I wait for a gameplay and few reviews on youtube before buying anything.
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That is why I like to look at gameplays mostly. They just show what the game is and I can decide if I like what I see :)
I just want a good game so I never care if a game is AA or AAA or Indie or whatever. Show me the gameplay and the story and I will either add it to wishlist or to ignorelist :)
But also I have genres that I love so I try to mostly get games from that genres :)
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I love dungeon crawlers so even if 2-3 games looks like a copy of Legend of Grimrock I must check if they are a copy or just the same assets but different skills/items mechanics.
Can you give me the name of that wishlisted game?
I also have Heroes of the Monkey Tavern and The Fall of the Dungeon Guardians - Enhanced Edition that look like Legend of Grimrock but I have to check them to see if they are a copy or not :P
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Ah yes that one! 2 screenshots looks like LoG but items, equipment and enemies and combat where you can use weapon and magic at the same time looks different. Well I have to check this one day to see if this is LoG or maybe just LoG inspired puzzles (portals screenshot).
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Well, to be honest it's a completely different game, they could just make a sequel if they had to change basically every single thing, so it's not really RE2, but they went the easier route by calling it RE2 and using eyecandy, and once again it sold millions. And with that I'm not saying it's a bad game, just not really a remake, it's a different game with the same title just to attract customers.
Also, you're comparing the 2 games just for graphics now, and yet you made the choice "Graphics, lets keep it simple, games are about them fine pixels rolling on your screen and nothing else matters." in the poll.
Capcom and most Japanese developers/publishers are really then ones which started this mess of splitting games in bits and selling them as DLCs, and making always the same games or remakes, so I find it really weird that you're complaining about all the things wrong about the gaming industry and yet you support the companies which are at the root of the problem.
Incoherent much? Or did you list those problems just because you think it's the stuff people are often complaining about, but you don't feel them as a problem? I really don't understand this.
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I thought i'd end up jaded after all these years of playing but there are always games or gameplay mechanics that surprise me. Of course some games look like carbon copies, some don't keep their promises, some even barely look like games. But i agree with poster above, It depends a lot on your game choices, and we have to relearn how to buy just a few games whose we managed to revive hype and curiosity.
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Yes many games tend to adopt mechanics from other popular games, because they hope adopting these mechanics, they will be successful too. That's how we finished with many survival-multiplayer-artificial grindy-etc. games.
To re-hype, you can artificially recreate the need. Wonder what games you are curious about, and then restrict your purchases, like you would just receive one game for birthday and one for Christmas (for example). Be forced to choose or wait for some months will re-create need and hype will come back.
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I feel like there are many "good" games that are like comfort food. Pleasant to go to because it is familiar enough, it is new enough, and it scratches that itch. Generally speaking I think COD-BF, Assassin's Creed, Far Cry are the best examples of these. Are these trustworthy, enjoyable, working games? Sure. Will they blow your pants off by showing something awesome, something new, something groundbreaking? Very much likely no. And while I generally try to steer away from experiences like these, it is fine. Some people really just play to pass the time, to blow more things up, and want nothing to do with games having a message, dealing with political-social questions and topics. And that is fine.
From my point of picking a game for myself, AAA games generally produce around 5 games a year that I really want to play, with only 1-2 being genuinely unique ( Like Dishonored 1-2 was in the AAA sea) the remaining few are rather the very polished versions of already existing things. Luckily indies have me covered, and I just finished The Cat Lady ~ 15 minutes ago. I doubt many AAA games are willing to deal with similarly serious topics (suicide, death, depression, value of life, loss) as the game did, and mostly because indies have such a variety, I don't really feel like I'm missing out much with the AAA games.
Especially that I'm not super fond of the timesink open world games, they very rarely have the mechanical finesse to make the gameplay engaging and fun for 50-100 hours, and often lacking in story department. I try to stay away from them because they are pretty "thin" in the content / hour department, I don't want them to fill most of my gaming time.
I'll likely just go backwards and start playing some old RPG if I can finally collect myself and accept to spend dozens of hours on a game (that I'll likely fucking love while playing, just hard to start things...), and this way gaming stays fun for me :D
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lots of jaded people here. We're veritably in a golden age of gaming, where no matter what your taste, there's plenty to satisfy it.
Yes, big blockbusters feel the same, but that's intentional. Yes, Call of Duty Black Ops 4 feels the same as Call of Duty Black Ops 3, of course it does.... it's "more of the same". People who buy COD BO 4 expect it to feel the same as COD BO 4. EA sports games feel the same, because people are expecting the same game.
But, they do change a bit over time. there are incremental improvements, and they do experiment a little from time to time. If you play the very first COD from 2003, you'll notice huge differences. They do still innovate from time to time, such as Total War Three Kingdoms taking elements from Crusader Kings into the game. But the thing is, AAA games cost tens of millions to produce or more, some games had development costs of $250 million +, so of course studios aren't going to take risks. One or two bombs can destroy the company.
oh, and, they don't just give AAA games to the "B" team. A new COD game takes about 3 years to develop. So they have multiple teams working on it. But studios will only allow the best teams to work on the biggest-budget games. They're not gonna risk some second-rate developers to destroy a multi-billion dollar franchise
At the same time, indie games are flourishing. Minecraft was made by one developer, Faster Than Light by two. This War of Mine, Don't Starve, Fez, Outlast, the list goes on and on. Sure, there's a lot of garbage getting onto the steam store, but, one person's garbage is another person's gem. And the more games that get released, the greater the likelihood of some really great games getting released
and don't even start on developers looking to make a profit. Who doesn't want to make money off their hard work?
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Fallout 76 was made by Bethesda's main team that also created Fallout 3 and 4, Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim. Shadow of the Tomb Raider was made by the same team that mad the last several Duex Ex games, and had already been assisting on the last two Shadow of the Tomb Raider games. The newest Mass Effect was developed by Bioware.
These aren't exactly "B" teams
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had to double check some things, and realized I made some mistakes.
Fallout 76 is made by the same team that made Fallout 4 and 3. Bethesda Austin worked on the game engine, not the game design, and their main input was on the multi-player functionality
Yes, Shadow of the Tomb Raider was made by Eidos Montreal, but they'd already assisted on the two previous games, and had also developed Deus Ex Human Revolution and Mankind Divided - not exactly second-rate games. Part of the switch can be attributed to the departure of the director of the previous game and the departure of the studio head. One way or another, you weren't going to get the same team regardless of which studio developed it
True, Mass Effect Andromeda was developed by a new team, because the previous team was already working on Anthem. Sometimes people don't want to keep making more of the same game, and want to make something different. If they'd continue churning out more of the same, people would complain about the series not innovating. Mass Effect Andromeda tried to do a few things different, and it didn't work out. Damned if you do, damned if you don't
As for Anthem, it was hampered by other issues, such as the director leaving mid-production, and switching game engines, which made them have to scrap a lot of changes.
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What a dumb video. Show me these AAA games that shove politics down your throat with every cutscene. Show me the "outrage" that isn't just some small minority of twitter giving shit to games that get like 9/10 from critics and gamers while selling millions of copies. Show me all those people in outrage where a game doesn't have a message even though clearly gamers piss their pants at the mere idea of a game having a message. Praise CDPR though the only REAL DEVELOPER for REAL GAMERS these days,who made a game series based off books that had as much politics as Game of Thrones...but it's totally apolitical u guyz GOTY 10/10! This is like pandering to people who take /v/ seriously.
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I don't think so. Sometimes I even browse through Steam, find a neat little free game, and enjoy it.
Also, I tend to look at games in a timeless perspective, as in my opinion, even if the game was released before I was born, it is still new to me. If something looks fun and interesting I try it and usually enjoy it.
That's not to say negative things don't happen in the gaming industry though as you mentioned above, but I would say it would be wrong to think as if this is exclusive to now. For example, in the past there was the whole violence drama in games. There also seems to always be eras where a genre gets popular and overbloated.
Maybe when it comes to news of the happenings in the gaming sphere, it's easier to feel more invested in the negative stuff. Positive stuff is there, but negative news is just better at spreading, especially when everyone online wants to give their opinions and fight about it. I'm not going to pretend like I don't fall victim to it either. When I see cool stuff, I'm happy and its neat, but when I see seemingly bad news I want to understand what had caused it, how it could possibly be, who is causing it, why are they causing it, what are people's opinions and how are relevant parties going to react or respond.
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I have problem with "restarts" of series that have almost nothing in common with previous games. They should be sold as different game but hey - they sell better if they have famous title :) And then everybody have no idea why people are complaining even if game was somehow decent.
Beside that - most of those problems exist since beginning of gaming. Also whole gaming sector has peeks and downs during decades. If you ask me - I'm quite happy with so many games to choose from even if it's just 5% of games that are worth anything
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But even then, 5% is more than most of us can ever hope to play in our life time. :D
So much this.. One fancy site counted time needed to finish all games in my steam library and apparently I have games supply for whole life :) Not even have to buy new games!
on the other hand I have a lot of absolute garbage so maybe this score is based in some way
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I don't mind so much the AAA thing, but more just that everyone these days can put trash on steam and it makes it harder to pick out the good games. But it's like tv shows, movies, eventually everything will be "been there, done that". Only that much ideas one can invent.
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I can wholeheartedly agree with majority of the points presented in the OP, and I too have the feeling that it makes gaming that much less fun.
Also: Multiplayer showed into each and every game, even into games that were never intended for multiplayer in the first place. Being the singleplayer kind of gamer, that's something that annoys me as well.
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MP is just quite good formula to cash in with, all those microtransactions and additional features are often enabled in them after all.
Very true. That's why some major AAA companies claim that no one wants singleplayer games anymore. Because it's much harder to monetize them (but yes, they will try anyway).
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Games are what you make of them. didn't like the video mainly cause he states that games should be fun and not political, but you have to define what is a game getting political, philosophy is part of human nature and if people want to find deeper meaning in videogames let them do it, the industry is really young and undoubtedly things are going to change in it.
in the end to me it just sounds like any other things are not like when i was a kid and experience everything for the first time.
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I can somehow agree with almost everything.
I grew up in a period in which Europe was experiencing a major earthquake in the videogame industry - from the old Commodore64 games along with the arcade ones, we have been flooded with games imported from the States and ultimately from Japan, meaning that in one way (PAL adapters, emulators, fake cartridges, whatever) or another (just English-language games sold in our market) we had in a small range of years basically everything: the Super Mario series, all the Japanese RPGs from Final Fantasy to Chrono Trigger and all the other sagas, the likes of Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Killer Instinct etc., lots of sports games..
It's been really an awesome period. We used to rent cartridges in order to play everything..
The '90s were really another world - there was no indie, there was no AAA (I discovered its meaning just few days ago..).. you couldn't create shovelwares or even indie gems by yourself, and you couldn't even have on the market those hyped titles we see these years since without Internet, without a widespread knowledge of English and without advertisements, even the games we now feel as fundamental and masterpieces at those times were just normal games to discover.
Nowadays everyone can do everything. On Steam we see dozens of games added every day. We are flooded with advertisements, hype, Youtube videos, everything.. I just remember the Skyrim times and many others.. oh well, I don't care that much, if you know where to search and what to read you'll find awesome games today too and you're always able to go back to the old ones.
Multiplayer? I don't know. Ultima Online is by far the game that influenced me the most in my teenage years. I played some Neverwinter Nights and mostly World of Warcraft the first two years it came out. It is not really my cup of tea, I don't have anymore the time to dedicate to night dungeon raids or whatever, being there every single day, so I really just play what I want.
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I think it's a thing with Western games.
Japanese games tend to have not really changed in the last 20 years when it comes to politics and such.
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Everything is political, not wanting politics "shoved down your throat" is a political statement in itself, it indicates that you're most likely leaning to the right of the political spectrum (or are a self-proclaimed libertarian), which you have every right to be, just be upfront about it instead of pretending to operate in some nebulous apolitical space.
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I think political games are some of the best out there. Bioshock, Deus Ex, Spec Ops, Mass Effect, Papers Please all have political elements, and frankly it's what makes them amazing. Claiming that games are bad, because they are political is something I can't agree with.
Games are much more than momentary endorphin meters, it's quite alright, if the emotion they convey is more complex than joy. Fun is something you can find in games, sure, but they can be so much more now.
I can sort of agree with the rest, I guess.
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Honestly, bad/unoriginal games have always existed. Games used to be a lot worse when I was younger. For each Shadow of the Colossus, Ocarina of Time or Warcraft 3, we would get a parade of terrible games no one asked for, like that 50 Cent game or a 3d pacman/bomberman/sonic/mortal kombat. Remember Bubsy 3D? Duke Nukem Forever? Jesus... Rambo: The Video Game? I wish I could forget that shit. xD
The quality/quantity of games have never been higher. If anyone is not having fun with games, it's time try some other hobbies for a while. Every hobby gets boring every now and then. Taking some time to rediscover gaming is probably the best option. Trying to stop caring about achivements, min-maxing and that sort of thing that takes all the fun out of games is a good advice, if one does not want to stop completely.
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