The only difference between the two here is that when you transition to eye rolling tiresome you just care less. Caring less doesn't make something no longer truly awful, it just means you don't care enough to put your energy into raging against it.
Modern Gaming Sucks!!! Or Does It?
- Thread starter CriticalGaming
- Start date
No, it’s perspective. I’m staring down the barrel of increasing cost of living, unattainable housing, minimal wage growth, political instability in my region and abroad and I’m closer than not to having two teenage girls to look after. Gaming no longer being the special boy in entertainment is something that frankly just doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.
Hence, you care less. It's not that the problem isn't just as bad as ever, it's that you don't want to devote as much time and energy to it. Nothing matters in the grand scheme of things if you let yourself become detached enough.
Can you articulate a particularly compelling reason I should care as much as I did ten years ago?
I don't care about everything in game either; mainly in the AAA space, but I do what I can see it suck less for those developing games and those on the consumer who don't know when they're being conned. We all have our own lives and struggles like everyone else. You got stuff going and trying to get by. I don't blame, nor judge you. You're good guy @Gordon_4. Looking after what most important to you. Never let anyone tell you different.
Modern gaming is far, far more complex next to what accounted for the most ambitious games back in the 8/16 bit days. There are also a lot of Indie/AA games that are better made than something comparable back then. On the whole, things have gotten better in terms of programming techniques, game mechanics, ease of use (fuck me is what most people trying to install a PC game thirty years ago would say), ie the development end of things.
The business end is, you guessed it, where 99% of the shitty modern baggage enters the picture. Suits thinking they know what’s best and whose main concern is to pad profit margins at the expense of their workers’ own wages, health, sanity, creativity, etc. How many times does it need to be illustrated to them that this only leads to disaster. CDPR, Volition, EA, Ubisoft, ABK, etc. Take your pick. Yes good management is critical and there are still budgets to adhere to where creatives do need some boundaries, but that can be done in a much healthier way than it typically seems to be lately.
We also haven’t gotten less corrupt as a society in general; the powerful elite have just found different loopholes to stay ahead in the game. This includes the gaming industry, but the bright side is at the very least, little steps are slowly being taken to help correct that.
The business end is, you guessed it, where 99% of the shitty modern baggage enters the picture. Suits thinking they know what’s best and whose main concern is to pad profit margins at the expense of their workers’ own wages, health, sanity, creativity, etc. How many times does it need to be illustrated to them that this only leads to disaster. CDPR, Volition, EA, Ubisoft, ABK, etc. Take your pick. Yes good management is critical and there are still budgets to adhere to where creatives do need some boundaries, but that can be done in a much healthier way than it typically seems to be lately.
We also haven’t gotten less corrupt as a society in general; the powerful elite have just found different loopholes to stay ahead in the game. This includes the gaming industry, but the bright side is at the very least, little steps are slowly being taken to help correct that.
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I don't think they're not suggesting you should. This isn't a personal attack on anyone who does or does not feel the games industry has taken a turn for the worse; it's simply a nigh objective acknowledgement that the industry has taken a turn towards maximizing profit over innovation that once kept the gaming landscape diverse and interesting. If you (like myself) have settled into the camp that life's other priorities make feelings about the current industry a trivial matter, that's fine, but it doesn't change the fact that 10 years ago, the lazy, greedy, and predatory practices of today were nowhere near as prolific as they are today and will be for the foreseeable future. It's not about why "you" should care; it's about the fact that there's been a substantive change in the industry to the detriment of those who do care.
Industry will always maximise profit; the only entity who doesn't exist to solely make money is the Government, and even that is dependant on your point of view of government and its role. I can absolutely see and agree that the Games industry has however taken the low path to do so very often. But to be honest, I think if you want to fix gaming - which remember is entertainment - then we probably need to fix life in general. The more miserable people are, the more they're willing to spend on escapism of any calibre because they can justify getting nickel and dimed to feel like they're Master Chief or Luke Skywalker or Captain America or Lara Croft or Bayonetta or Samus Aran for a few hours because that feeling is what it keeping the black dogs at bay. But if people are overall happy, then they won't accept any old tosh; they're gonna want value for their escapist dollars.
If wishes were horses, I guess.
Sounds like a systemic problem. Like a growing issue with our system. Of which we have no choice but to survive in. But whom very few benefit from. Which waters down art to hollow bland products, which chases an ephemeral propaganda dream that promises eternal growth. Which reduces us all to nothing more than cheap, disposable tools, cogs even. Which causes people to suffer and die if they aren't lucky or psychopathic enough to afford effective healthcare and/or housing. Whatever that system is now called, that's where all this degradation of mainstream entertainment is coming from. Anyone who's had to deal with the music industry is all too familiar with this. And it won't stop, it won't get better, it will rinse everything and everyone you love dry, and once they're all dead or barren they'll be thrown away and replaced by the next perceived golden geese.
Only potential for any hope of improvement for these things is unflinching mass organisation along with solidarity and an educated understanding of why anyone promoting the "guiding hand of the free market" are either fools or wealthy charlatans.
Only potential for any hope of improvement for these things is unflinching mass organisation along with solidarity and an educated understanding of why anyone promoting the "guiding hand of the free market" are either fools or wealthy charlatans.
I think you guys are forgetting what 10 years ago actually was. 10 years was 2013 the Playstaion 4 was about to drop that year. On disc DLC, day 1 DLC's, microtransactions, all of this was already going on 10 years ago.
If you talk about an era without this stuff you have to go back over 17 years to before internet was a thing on console hardware, at least by default.
I think business practices have been pretty garbage since the dawn of time with video games, but if you want to label the excess monetization as the downfall that's fine. It's one thing to rally against those practices and actually gaming has begun to withdrawl from that these days with a few outliers.
But your aguement can't be "monetization is shit and therefore gaming is shit", because it's simply not true. Those things center around a very small percentage of games in the modern market. Most games coming out are free from that, and most games released today are genuinely better than most games of yester-year. More content, more mechanics, better game design principals, better graphics (obviously), better acting, production value, it's all better in a general sense.
I think the reason this mentality is so prevalent with certain people is that many people loved game franchises that have gone downhill, Call of Duty, Halo, Battlefield, whatever. They are long time fans of games melting into the live service model, so they equate that to all games and therefore say "all games are shit now". And it's simply not true, it's just spite because the game series you loved it not what you loved anymore.
I mean hell even the typically corporate greed from publishers like EA, aren't all greed greed greed. The Dead Space Remake is free from bullshit, Jedi Fallen Order free from bullshit. Activision pushes out Crash and Spyro remakes with no nonsense, Crash 4. Square puts out tons of stuff that avoids the greed, in fact their greedy shit always fails while their straight up passion games succeed hugely like Bravely Default, Octopath, Dragonquest, Final Fantasy. Capcom has made huge turn arounds in how they've made games recently.
And look every company is going to stumble, either making something awful like Platinum games and Babylon's Fall. But most of the time they are trying to make good shit because developers want to make good shit. If these publishers also made the games, then they'd all be garbage probably. Luckily developers make games and no developer wants their game to be bad, it might be bad because their ideas are stupid but the goal isn't to make a bad game.
I just cannot agree with these sentiments, that are exceptionally nitpicky and blanket. None of them hold water when you look at the overall games landscape year to year.
Could agree more.
Games are entertainment; yes, they are, and any systemic issues that find the industry overtly abusing its clientele's predilection for their product for profit is just as shallow as taking personal offence as the addicted. It's ultimately all very trivial with anyone with any modicum of self-control being able to easily avoid it all, but calling a spade a spade, regardless of personal investment, will never be off the table.
I don't disagree with any of this. Its just harder now for me to muster the same piss and vinegar against this when weighed against what else affects my life in ways that will have consequences beyond me being disappointed.
There's a scene in the Star Trek TNG episode 'Deja Q' after Data has saved a (mortal) Q from a justifiably vindictive alien. In the scene Data is for once, quiet, since he was damaged. Q then tells him essentially, for all Data feels he is missing vital parts to be fully human, he is a better human than Q. That's kind of where I'm at. I'm Q; and everyone who still has the energy to fight this good fight is acknowledged as better than me. I guess Ally Sheedy was right when she said in the Breakfast Club that when you grow up, your heart dies.
I don't know, why should you care about [INSERT PROBLEM YOU'RE HAVING RIGHT NOW]? Do you expect to be caring about [INSERT] ten years from now? Should you?
You've chosen to be detached from something that is a problem, that doesn't change how severe said problem is, only that you've become detached from it.
Gaming has mainly gotten more complex in how good and big they look, but with regards to game mechanics and things that effect game mechanics, games (especially AAA) have been extremely stagnate. Sure, overall gameplay/controls are less janky and more smoother/better feeling but that became a thing 2 generations ago when studios like Naughty Dog or Bioware could make a third-person shooter just fine with very little experience. However, the top tier gameplay from a few generations back is better than it is today because control schemes have gotten too homogeneous and streamlined. Just look at how simple say The Witcher 3 is with regardless to complex gameplay systems (there's basically none), kinda why I knew Cyberpunk hype and promises was bullshit from the start. Ubisoft is still making the same exact games, they are just better looking and bigger. With the whole Live Service boom, the main addition is gear/loot when these systems are easy to do and predate video games themselves (it's just basic math). Look at the new God of War games and how extremely little you can interact with the environment but they added gear/loot to the series and guess why? One is easier to do and the other isn't.
Advocating for personal responsibility in this day and age, how could you say it's actually someone's own fault?!?!
I couldn't agree more though. Every single one of these live service style games I wouldn't play even if they didn't have the loot boxes or microtransactions or battle passes because the gameplay isn't good enough for me to even want to play them. I remember playing the betas for Destiny and The Division and uninstalling them after just playing for an hour because the games were garbage and I didn't even want to play them for free, they weren't worth my time let alone my money.
Not trying to defend Phoenix (even though this is one of the rare times where he says something sensible), but:
- Super Metroid
- A Link To The Past
- Both Super Mario World games
- Kirby's Superstar Saga and Kirby's Dreamland 3
- Turtles in Time
- Sunsetriders
- Battletoads in Battle Maniacs
- Run Saber
- Super Castlevania IV
- Nosferatu
- Donkey Kong Country
- The Ninja Warriors Again
I didn't say it didn't exist, I suggested it wasn't much.
I think part of the problem is the realistic graphics these days. More of the game LOOKS like it should be interactable, so people expect it to be. When it's not always the case and it's just very pretty level and environment design in a gameplay area much like you'd find in a SNES game. Graphics have probably, in a way, messed with what people expect a video game to be able to do because of how much detail something like a basic skybox might have. So the player's imagination wants to try to do all these different things that are just out of the scope of the game, and it's the fault of the graphics tricking you into thinking more of the game is playable.
There's definitely more I can pull up from the SNES or Genesis days, but I didn't want to do an overly long gag.
And that's what's even more ironic, is that these older games or budget double AA and Indie games have more environmental interaction that puts most of these AAA realistic looking video games to shame. A game like Prodeus has more environmental interaction, than your typical Call Of Duty campaign or "realistic" military shooter/cover shooter clone. Vanquish, a shooter from 2009 has more environmental interaction than nearly any shooter from the 7th generation. Only some of the Gears of War games slightly beating it out.
What also doesn't help otherwise the publishers, developers, and console makers has spread throughout the decades. Microsoft is guilty of this. Sega is guilty of this. Sony is definitely guilty of this. Even Nintendo had their moments of being guilty of this. While graphics are important, I prefer art style and visual fidelity over nearly anything that's photo realistic. The problem with realistic graphics, is that a majority of them age in a few years and will look even worse, if the gameplay is terrible or not good (something a lot of cover shooters from the 7th generation suffer from). At that point you might as well just have a glorified light show. That is why gameplay is just as important and more so.