The Absolute State of the AAA Gaming Industry
Vložit
- čas přidán 27. 10. 2021
- Support this channel on:
/ worthabuy
Paypal: macksgamingworld@gmail.com
Greenman Gaming Link - www.greenmangam...
Streaming channel
/ worthabuy
Merchandise Shop:
www.redbubble.c... - Hry
Remember the days of going out and buying a game on disk, and taking it home and playing it...a finished game...no bugs...no internet...no patches... and loving every moment. Do you...cos I do!
I cherish them memories.
these are precious memories, yes it can be done peeps!
God I went back to ps2. So many good games on that gen.
What a good time that was...
But I don't like disks.
They cut most of the QA once they realised players can do it. Professional QA testers are expensive.
I suspect it's why they are so easy as well now. Making a game challenging but fair also takes a lot of testing. If they just make it super easy they get less complaints.
CyberPunk was a real turning point for me. At that point I realised that there wasn't a single AAA studio I could trust to deliver a quality product. It was also a turning point in my CZcams viewing habits. Up until then there were a number of channels (I shan't name here) that I trusted to give me honest opinions but that list has been reduced to one. I don't always agree with your opinions, as you might expect given that we're not clones, but I can always count on you to be honest and I honestly can't say that about any other channel in the post CyberPunk world.
I still trust Creative Assembly. They've had some stinkers like the Rome 2 launch, but most of their stuff is consistently good and if they fuck something up, they will go above and beyond to fix it. To mention Rome 2 again as an example, they were releasing free content for years for that.
We all have our A-Ha this is shite! moments. Mine was Halo 5 that I bought on release day. I’ve never bought a game on release day since.
if anyone need those clarity on the state of AAA, you can always check on Jim Sterling, he pointed out all these shite, including the unethical crunch... his exotic behaviour may not be on everyone taste, but his information is always spot on
Yeah, the way Yong Yea ignored all the issues in Cyberpunk really opened my eyes that most CZcams reviewers are no better than corporate reviewers
@@RatedMf0rmanly god damn, i threw up in my mouth reading that shit. Ho yeah throne of britania was GREAT, oh yeah 3k and the way they dropped its support like the wet turd the game was was amaing, oh yeah the warhammer series isnt a dumpster fire with the third looking worst by the second.
Wtf are you talking about mate?
You're my favorite reviewer. As an older gamer I totally relate to your frustrations with the state of games these days, mainly the lack of innovation. I wish there was more incentive for developers to make more games I enjoy, but apparently the money is in pumping out the same old shit, so I can't really blame them. Thanks for trying to draw attention away from overhyped games. I want peoples expectations to be higher too.
This is entirely representative of what are society as a whole is becoming; dumbed down sheep that will do anything they're told. It gives me hope that we still have people like Mack that will openly not tolerate it.
Eat the bugs and live in the pods.
@@StoneAgeWarfare not me, not never
@@StoneAgeWarfare You WILL eat the bugs!
@@StoneAgeWarfare own nothing be happy.
First, games were hard because they needed to eat quarters,
Then, they became easy so you finish them fast and buy the next one,
Then, they became fragmented so you would buy DLC,
Then they became too long so you would buy boosters,
Then they became autogames, so they just play themselves.
I wonder where we are heading.
KSP 2!
Soon the game will have their own AI players that spend your money for you. Hey, even AI wants that suit of blue metallic armor with a pokemon logo on the chest, and those aren’t cheap!
VR Metaverse, we will become the games XD
@@ShikukuWabe Truth! This is a good place to insert “In Soviet Russia, games play you!”
im gonna add a "Journalist" difficulty when im creating my indie-game
This is great lol
Make sure to add a watermark on screen so we can laugh at them.
Great idea, if you don't mind ill do this to XD
As an indie dev, I see how great these games look (amazing models and texturing) and feel sad at all that wasted talent.
Like an instagram model who's a POS human being IRL
Just keep grinding man! When unreal 5 comes out you can kill some giants 😎
I've been gaming for about 35 years. I agree with you Mac. It's abysmal, but totally reflective of the complicit nature of the (much younger) gamers because they do NOT know what constitutes a good game, or a truly magical gaming experience. They haven't grown up like we have, in an industry that had to FIGHT for their audience by creating something truly innovative and pioneering, to make that breakthrough title. Something original that made us all go, "WOW! That was SO special!!".
And that spark has all but faded out....but not quite....there is still hope I feel, eve0rything comes in waves and there will be a resurgence...it'll just take a community, no, an ARMY of gamers that can tell the difference to refuse to engage any more, and then MONEY, (as always!) will be the wind that brings a new wave. Good on you mate...keep speaking the truth, keep doing your thing....big fan of your work.
So true what you're saying. As someone who is primarily interested in shooter games I've been disgusted at the last few far cry, battlefield and call of duty releases(all games I used to love). As a result I'm just not buying them anymore and instead having to do a lot more digging for other good games to play. Eventually I feel a lot more people will come to this conclusion and like you said money will be the wind
@@oisinmcgrath314 Revolution baby! ;-)
i can literally spend hours browsing steam new releases/upcoming and 99% will be garbage not worth playing for free.
@Sleepy Post even when you are bankrupt they still aint worth it
You can feel the passion in this one, loving it
I can taste the salt.
Peace is a lie. There is only passion.
Through passion I gain strength.
Through strength I gain power.
Through power I gain victory.
Through victory my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
-The Sith Code
At 11:12 he sounded like Richie off Bottom 😂🤣
The same thing that happened to the movie and to the music industry, has happened to the gaming industry: As soon as the big bucks started to flow in the gaming industry, the gaming companies switched from making their games as good as possible, into making them as profitable as possible. Just like 95% of the movies and mainstream music is complete and utter garbage, the gaming industry has also reached the same point. Just like modern technology in most cases hasn't really made our movies visually more stunning (The CGI in movies are typically really bad compared to the old school use of miniature models and real actors) the sad part is that the technology hasn't made our game development much better either (in the past few years).
this phenomena must be talked about more, you would think its a important subject for humanity to understand, can you recomend any documentary of this you describe? I can feel like all media movie, etc, everything is going to shit, its hard for me to be intertained...
tho i started to watch movies from the 80s and up to 2000, 2001 seems to be the turning point all movies turned bad (mainstream that is)
@@zed_di_dragon952 its a big plan but few would believe that. as soon as something of quality gains traction it gets destroyed as to avoid people emancipating themselves from slavery
I would have to add sports to this issue as well. I am a huge boxing fan but the sport itself is being dissolved by the constant, time wasting profit interests instead of making quality fights.
Genuinely, a strong 99% of the games I buy now are indie games. I think the last triple A game I bought was Jedi Fallen Order, a while back. Pretty much a full indie player now and I don't regret it.
yes, I think indie games are where creativity will come and will get better in the future.
Same my favorite games in the last few years have all been indie, Hollow Knight, Celeste, anything by Klei, games like Rimworld and they are billions. Only triple A games I had fun with Civ 6 and Xcom 2.
Im 20, as a kid I started on the ps2 and gameboy, and they even I am noticing the change in games, maybe games were not amazing in the early 2000's but at least you got a f***ing game out of the box lol. I remember even the terrible games of today, cod and battlefield, I swear they were not as bad as they are today, modern warfare 1 and 2 were great games, battle field bad company 1 and 2 were amazing as well.
I have hundreds of hours in some great indie games. I havn't bought a AAA game since XCOM 2 but that was a masterpiece.
Ah my daily sermon has arrived, time to hear Pastor Mack bring us THE WORDS
GameMen
@@holdthetruthhostage Sounds like Gaiman
The words the words the words the words of the pastor
Mack's channel really have been the safe place for me, to know there's still a gaming community that actually have standard to what a good game really is. I'm so sick of arguing with kids on the internet who've never played any good game in their life and treating all these shitty games like some kind of masterpiece
A refreshing rant, mate 😆👍🏻
All true!
It sounds like this game was designed for pre-teens, early teenagers.
And it's true, so many reviews are saying how great this game is. I'm glad I'm sub'd to your channel.
Game is made for auto-aimers with 30 PREMIUM FPS doing macro-transactions for cut content giving out their personal data and that data is being exploited by publishers to inflate their scam and keep people in the loop. Welcome to the brave naive world. Developers of said naive world can't face the facts so they suppress, censor people. Outsource their dirty work to influencers which get high when they receive free merch.
Free merch > free speech.
Is your mind blown how people fall for same thing every time? It shouldn't be. Because divided, singled out individuals has no chance against organized criminal entity; corporation.
Corporation is an approved scam & spy business. Their approval was obtained through manufactured consent. Corporation is not the industry of manufacturing products. Corporation is in the industry of manufacturing consent.
As well Corporations [through governments] are harvesting our behavioural/biometric data on global scale. So they can get to know us far better than we know ourselves,
and they not just predict our feelings but also manipulate our feelings and sell us anything they want- Be it a product as a service or politician.
Hardcore corporate defenders please check out "The Corporation", "Surveillance Capitalism", "The century of the self", "Stockholm syndrome", "Milgram Experiment" and "The Secrets of Silicon Valley: What Big Tech Doesn't Want You to Know")
You still don't think so? Please read TOS.
When I was a preteen I was playing mount and blade, Warcraft 3, halo, wow, Ultima online. Iq is going down every generation due to the welfare system
I think they are saying its great because they are comparing it to marvels avengers... not what it actually is. 60 dollars for a story :/
This is preschooler level, or in other terms, game journalist difficulty.
I just replayed Half-Life and that game holds up to this day. The game respects your intelligence. There are hints in the environment to tell you what to do next. It's like, "Shoot something and see what happens". Enemy AI is also great, especially when fighting the HECU. They are well-trained and co-ordinated, it's almost like the military (oh wait...)
One thing to add to the rant. Every game has just about every tag now, there is no point searching for games based on a genre. You search RPG and you can find games that are RTS games with some very basic unit upgrade leveling mechanic and woosh its an RPG now, and since you can take over a unit and control in first person the game is also a FPS, and since some units are vehicles its also a racing game, and since some units are melee its also a fighting action game, and since there is one cutscene at the start that implies a plot you can never find again, its also an adventure game.
Appeal to everyone and satisfy nobody
People call everything An RPG now its lost its meaning since when did having bullet sponge Enemies mean its An RPG. RPG= Role playing which people seem to forget.
@@John-996 indeed.. if a game has even a hint of a skill tree or some very, very basic dialog options people are gonna call it an rpg, like people are calling the division 2 an rpg and it only has one of those 2 things..
Remember that feeling when you struggled so much at something and then finally did it? Everything is so easy now you can play one handed and watch a tv show at the same time
Yeah, games used to have bragging rights, my dead Granny can still finish most AAA games.
@@WorthABuyreviews *Dead* granny lmao
@@WorthABuyreviews when I was a little prick if you got anywhere near the end of kid chameleon you were a brave hero , no saves either mind hard as shit running from a wall of spikes
@@terrytredinnick8631 Kid Chameleon had at least 100 levels. Thing was an absolute epic.
oh! I thought only certain mature-rated games, like DoA 3, were meant to be played one-handed. lol
We need a song made from "DAY ONE PATCH" asap!
so glad you use Kingdom Come: Deliverance as an example of a proper recent game. if only more developers could be like Warhorse Studios.
It was Mack's review of KCD which convinced me to play a masterpiece I was missing and also opened my eyes to how easy developers were making games.
I want to buy KC: D at some point once I clear my backlog. Looks like a great game worthy of support.
@@duke_zippy do it, it will for sure be one of the best gaming experiences you'll ever have!
KCD wasn't even that good IMO as a backer...
It is such a good game and the codex is fantastic, I found myself reading up on anything new.
Get the edition with the add ons - some of the best quests (demons in woods!!).
Yeah, it’s bad. I find myself not hardly playing anymore. I haven’t booted up a game for over a week, which is just unheard of for me. I’m slowly losing interest. I’ve never seen it this bad or been so unmotivated to play anything.
Plenty of older games to play though, but I have to admit I mostly play games with a lot of replayability.
Buy a 2nd hand ps3 and GC. plenty of kewl games on those!
and a mClassic upscaler if you don't like jaggies on the low res from retro consoles.
.
I hardly buy any new 'AAA' western games anymore ... luckily plenty of old games, Japanese and indie games to go around.
Lots of Indie developers that are well worth the time to play their games.
I replayed silent hill 2 this week. It’s not a good game when it comes to combat but it’s a truly emotional adult experience. By the end of it I felt like I’d been on a real journey. It’s rare to find this nowadays.
That's probably depression
The majority of big-budget games quality and ingenuity has been in a steady decline since the early 2010s. Thankfully, the indie and smaller budget scene has been flourishing with creativity. We really are spoiled for choice when it comes to great indie games these days
You said it: Big Budget.
The market grew massively, got much higher returns, games got bigger and more expensive, and now you want to get as much money as possible when you're putting down a big budget.
How do you maximize your chances? By going to the lowest common denominator.
Guiild Wars 2 still carries the flag for quality mmo.
Who plays indie games? I've never touched that genre since i was kid with a Nintendo DS.
@@ma-saracen dude you have no idea what you're missing out on. You should try out empires of the undergrowth :)
blame "micro" transactions. If the game is too hard they are not selling any crap. Next generation of "gamers" will think that games area meant to be easy.
My god Mack this is you at your absolute peak! Spitting pure righteous truth out and I freaking LOVE IT! Honestly thank you so much for doing this and being a beacon in a pile of corporate media schill shit.
I hope there's a AAA games crash, and only indie studios are left. Haven't bought another AAA game since Cyberpunk.
Glad to finally hear someone with a voice in the community preaching the damn truth. Tired of the AAA industry creating brain-dead games that all imitate one another to be as appealing to a wide an audience as possible. I'm even more tired of all these game reviewers, including the independent types, out here half-assing their reviews so as to not bite the hand that feeds.
AAA games only gonna change when players stop buying these as the way they are.
I've been playing mostly indie and more "old" games on Gamepass and in my Steam backlog and having a blast.
Thanks, Mack! Thanks for always being honest.
Idiots will never stop buying these games
Its Indie games or mmorpgs for me the most fun single player game I'm playing so far is pathfinder wrath of the rightousness and that game doesn't hold your hands at all
Sadly, the average consumer won't stop buying AAA and probably isn't even aware of indies or thinks that indie games are bad, just because they have a lower budget.
If it weren't for indies and middle-market games, I would have quit gaming cold turkey a long time ago. I also don't really care anymore if morons get screwed by AAA games, serves them right tbh.
Focus needs directed at the marketing/hype/promotion - not even the game - I always see reviewers and other gamers always have hope, well maybe...day one patch ya know? Give it some time its launch day its EXPECTED.
But for a year before it game out we were all just exposed to anything about this game and how much HYPE getting other humans for excitement, streamer/dev streams that only twist and bend truth, its disgusting.
I remember D&D game that came out not too long ago had RED FLAGS TO SHOW YOU WHERE TO JUMP.
I feel that everyhing out could easily be played on a mobile. Hell, Guardians would probably be lit af on my ROGphone.
I have been playing games Like. Fallout3 , Fallout new vagus, San Andreas, Bully, Kingdom Come this year. I noticed that I don't have open world fatigue I have Ubisoft fatigue as there games are just massive checklists With bandits camps and other filler.
This is all because society has gone this way, everything is spoon fed, they are told they can have anything, be anything and do everything whether or not they can, no trying or using their brains .
You speak for all of us older gamers who are insulted at what has happened to gaming.
Old Mack, he's back. Ah, a good old rant and all is right with the world. I'd almost lost hope of hearing one of those again. Love it. Pissed myself laughing. More rants, please.
That was exactly my thought haha good ol mac
Love a good mack rant
Yes, exactly!!!
I hope the pigs don't crash his crib again.
@@I_Cunt_Spell yeah same here I hate our gestapo police
Journalist difficulty will be the new normal at this rate 😱
Yes far cry 6 was bollocks because of that. Cant believe they removed harder difficulties. Infamous was fun to play. Now its washed journalist mode.
Its interesting playing old games like Re4, fallout 3 And even A newer game like Kingdoms on normal these games are tough. Playing Re8 on normal was like playing on easy.
@@jaskierbard5774 shit like that really pisses me off. Especially with FarCry when I always found it so much more fun with a more stealth-survival focus. Game doesn't really do it for me when I can just wade into a camp and shoot 10 men without worrying about dying, really loved sneaking around the undergrowth, planning an attack and having to have an escape plan if shit hit the fan.
@@bubonicduck1262 I feel that. It angers me more when tards are praising this game even though its garbage. this spells trouble for all upcoming titles. The suits make game design choices on consumer trends and feedback and most consumers have no concept of what a great game should be. Its like electing a government for the people by the people, but the people are retarded.
As a programmer, I can tell you it's not just the gaming industry, it's the whole programming field being changed into a programming machine instead of a creative process. The managements of most programming-oriented industry are searching for recipes to allow them to spit and can faster software at any expense. Thankfully there are some beacons of hope that are still seeing it as a creative process and not as an assembly line.
The writing was on the wall when the Playstation 3 showed up. The game industry stopped making games and became wannabe Hollywood to churn out as much profitable schlock as possible. Many companies, series and franchises fell off and couldn't keep up.
Then after binge watching Matt McMuscles' "Wha Happun" series, I became totally disillusioned with the game industry. Its just another stinking treadmill business.
Thank goodness Indie is growing.
There is an entire generation that doesn't know that games used to be sold on a disc, and 90% of the time, that was the final product because an online platform to fix the game didn't exist.
That's why they grow up thinking that half broken games being shoveled at their faces for shitload of money is acceptable. And that's why they think that having the developers fix the game way past their launch date while charging them for all kinds of DLCs and microtransactions are normal. 20 odd years ago MMOs where probably the only types of games that dared ask money past the initial sale, because they needed money to run servers and staff waaaay past the launch date.
I used to have to buy a magazine to get a patch for a game.
And it's going to get worse. The new generation of gamers are going to want to go back to lootboxes and Microtranactions when gaming becomes a full on service.
Ahhh, i remembers discs, so much better than tape, which was so much worse than cartridge 😂
Ahhh, i remembers discs, so much better than tape, which was so much worse than cartridge 😂
Just wait for the day one patch, you anti-patcher ! (think, anti-vaxer)
I’ve been a gamer since the 80’s, it was rewarding when a game was challenging and immersive now AAA games are dumbed down, woke nonsense.
Exactly, they were rewarding to play, when was the last time you felt rewarded after doing something cool in a game, it's all done for you nowadays.
I still go back to old games rather the new ones which bore me...
Christ, Sekiro was the last time I felt any kind of achievement. And I wanted to burn that game to the ground first time round XD opened my eyes to what difficult games could offer though!
The days when you could be years finishing a game if at all
@@WorthABuyreviews nailing an overtake in a racing Sim like Automobilista.
Outside of that, not much.
Mac, just keep being Mac. Also, can we have a "Day One Patch" song? :P
I don't bother with AAA any more, not until it's at less than £10 in a random sale. Been like that since X-Com 2.
I'm sure you remember back in the day when graphical ability was just becoming possible, the talk was "Is flashy fancy graphics going to mean gameplay gets neglected?" looks like they were right.
big aaa games are bought by parents who want to buy their way out of parenting their children, indie games are more likely to be made by gamers for gamers. this is why aaa games are for 5 year olds. in modern life getting your child to aim live weapons at people at 5 years old in high def graphics are things they want, the game is a delivery vehicle for the product. in modern life the product is not the game but the thought programming. stop thinking these games are made for any reason other than bringing the western world to its knees for the people at the top to pick clean.
@@dantevxv1501 Funny you mentioned that. The other day I made the mistake of playing a quick session of the new Streets of Rage 4 while my 4 year old daughter was drawing and she immediately got distracted and wanted to play it. I tried to dismiss it telling her it was just a video but she didnt bought and wanted to play it...Yikes
When most AAA game devs are more concerned about pushing agenda than just telling a good story and creating fun gameplay, there’s ZERO chance the end result will be a decent game. Zero.
How desperate I'm waiting for Kingdom Come Deliverance II . I prey they do it, because it will be the best RPG .
@@ivofixzone6410 It was an average game but at least it wasn’t woke and was somewhat historically accurate.
The gameplay was horrendous.
In positive news, the bell production industry in the North East has recorded record profits!
Kenshi is a great example of a game that might not look the best but there is so much depth to it, I’d love to watch you play it some time, it can get pretty crazy lol
Subnautica, The Outer World, Valheim, Rimworld and Mount and Blade 2 are all great.
Honestly you are the only reviewer I really care about. Everyone else just shovels shit around.
Angry Joe is also really good, him and his friends constantly call out these game devs for their shady practices
@@Crobian I can't watch Joe anymore. I still love his takes and I loved him when I was young, but dude is almost 40 and still acts 20. He yells all the time like a teenager and interupts people.
I grew up and he didn't. That's when I found Mack who is more mature.
Same here the only reviewer i trust
@@ernimuja6991 Mack's definitely one of the best, when I saw him shit on New World I knew he was legit haha
@@Crobian joe lost all my respect with his chilling for total war warhammer 2
That rant was cathartic as hell, thank you for saying out loud what we feel
So pleased you've used Kingdom Come footage as an example of a proper game. In terms of immersion, it's one of the best out there for me. Top top game.
Mack - the geezer that turned up in his Porsche… do you think he played too much Porsche Challenge? 😂
This was so refreshing to listen to.
I was really looking forward to Battlefield 2042 after the initial reveal, but after trying the "Beta" and seeing how absolutely broken and unfinished that mess is I got turned off. A little after I keep seeing how every critique of it is met with "oh its just a beta, it'll be fixed for launch", bunch of missing features? "Oh it'll be there for launch, just wasn't in this cause its an old build". Absolutely broken game mechanics "oh its fine, they'll balance it after launch".
How the fuck did we get to this point? People are now so conditioned to being sold a broken product they now actively defend it?!
Also if you're reading this and genuinley believe 2042 will be fixed till launch, I have a celestial object I want to sell you.
I played the beta with a friend. It was absolutely hilarious. Every couple of minutes something would break and we would start laughing. We buttered the landing in a helicopter (even with those completely broken controls) at just around 5 km/h. And the helicopter just exploded Michael Bay style. We laughed and yelled at the game for several minutes straight. It had so many bugs and other problems. Some of them not so funny, just infuriating. As usual, nothing will be fixed with the magical "day 1 patch" as all the fanboys are preaching.
Thanks for all the laughs BF 2042 beta. I'm not paying anything for you anytime soon. I will maybe buy it after a few years for 10 bucks with all the DLCs and less bugs. I'm sure it will sell millions of copies right away. People are stupid.
Battlefield has been in the will not biy list after 3. Just garbage now.
This line, that "it ll be fixed after launch" it s often a part of a paid deal. So it s better to avoid the creators that say that.
People defend mtx and lootboxes. It's literally the bottom.
@@dbqpOO So almost every dev?
Its one of those appeal to everyone types of games.
A game grandma could play!
Maximum sales potentiol!
Yep games are made for the lowest common denominator
Just like most products. Same go's for music, movies, and more.
big aaa games are bought by parents who want to buy their way out of parenting their children, indie games are more likely to be made by gamers for gamers. this is why aaa games are for 5 year olds. in modern life getting your child to aim live weapons at people at 5 years old in high def graphics are things they want, the game is a delivery vehicle for the product. in modern life the product is not the game but the thought programming. stop thinking these games are made for any reason other than bringing the western world to its knees for the people at the top to pick clean.
Hit the nail on the head! I'm 30 yrs old and have been a gamer since the age of 7. It's soul destroying how gaming has turned so horrible! It's going backwards not forwards and it has been going on for over 10 yrs.... Indie and niche games that do scratch the itch don't have the budget to deliver that ideal game so they make a real effort to give something of substance... big money games just deliver something they know they can market and sell. I can't believe its so bad, some days I ask myself is it really going to be like this for years to come... I felt like cheering mac on when he was making his points.
Well bloody said, Mac. I particularly appreciated the Kingdom Come: Deliverance nod there at the end. I still fire it up once in a while to go for a ride through the countryside and have a nice little early morning hunt just for the sheer tranquility and freedom of it. That spirit is what's totally missing from AAA games right there. Amen.
Imagine how Cyberpunk would be with only one difference: A world in wich pre orders did not excist.
I would actually have to be... you know.. good, if it wants to sell well.
Absolutely spot on. People who pre-order deserve a punch in the man purse.
Absolutely not a spot on sure the word would go around quickly that it's bad on consoles but it would take couple of days to be spread out information all people preordering are the ones who'd buy it day one either way, not looking at reviews, or just checking another paind off ign nonsense.
its not only preorders. the truth is - fanboys are ruin everything. if they like something and they will buy the next chapter/title from that company. witcher 3 has a lot of fans and they made an icon from cyberpunk even when it didnt had any screenshots. all the forums were like: "they made witcher, how could they make anything bad? its impossible!!"
@@Cypeq I think you miss the point of the idea.
If it was bad, as bad as it is in our timeline? The entire management staff would have been facing civil suits from the investors, as a lesson to the next ten generations that some things come at too high a price.
When you see at the start of a game that a "diverse" group of people were involved in the making of the game, you know the best game staff were not employed...race and gender were the criteria for staff, not meritocracy
To be fair Ubisoft have had that statement at the front of their games for a good ten years at least
@@tdurb0 ubisoft havent been good since far cry 2 or rainbow six vegas so his point still stands
@2 Corinthians 4:7-11 It'd be cool if some devs would speak up about what's left on the cutting room floor. That's my issue with political correctness/wokeness/diversity: all the things we never see because they were afraid.
@2 Corinthians 4:7-11 Oh my what a politically correct nightmare that one was. It was as if they were scared to have combat sections in the game. I am absolutely sure someone complained that the games were too violent. And that there is a woman on the cover so there should be no violence in the game. Every single upgrade felt pointless as there was no challenge. Just run around and climb stuff. You barely kill anyone throughout the entire game. I also remember lots of forced stealth sections where you have no guns. You kill more stuff in one arena in DOOM Eternal than in that entire game.
@@johnlocke4715 I didn’t say they make better games. They don’t. They make very very same-y games. It’s just not a new thing. Not every Assassin’s Creed game is rubbish
I love how towards the end, Mac gets so frustrated that he gets aggressively British! Now if only they played something like this at share holder meetings maybe one of the soulless money vampires would have an epiphany that making a good game instead of a game that pleases an equally soulless focus group could make them MORE money
I don't buy triple A games anymore, the same way I don't listen to industry planted musicians or watch copy pasted and infantilized big budget movies. If you want to find good games that actually challenge you just buy indie/old games, forget about gaming companies. People nowadays get frustrated if they don't get what they want for 2 miliseconds and need a constant influx of stimuli to keep them entertained, and that permeates the gaming industry.
On top of that, the younger guys and gals doesn't even know that the idea of a game without abusive microtransactions or lootboxes is completely feasible, we know because we have had them in the past, but they haven't. The state of the entertainment industry as a whole is so fucking sad.
I was watching some gameplay from Tomb Raider II, when you enter a new area you have no idea how to proceed and after you work out what to do you still have to actually do the puzzle or time the jump to perfection. That element of having to figure it out and use your own brain has gone entially.
I loved that about the tomb raiders,just the panning about going "wow" then going "hmmmmm what the heck am I doing!?!"
The sheer thrill and "ta-dah!" Moment when you solved the room puzzle was great but those days are well gone
Yup, I remember playing TR2 and Lara was stuck in a room for 2 days. Tried everything. Even rang the international number (boy did that cost a few bucks) on the back of the booklet for help. Finally found that I could use the sword barely poking out from beneath the guard I had slain upon entering. Good times.
@@nudgewink9366 seems like a lifetime ago when the only source of help you had with a video game was your friends at school who had it, call those phone numbers on the back of the manual or pray that your local library would get one of the game guides in lol.
I've been buying indie games and double a games more and more, because I do agree with what you say about triple A games.
I commented a while ago on something saying that because AAA games are so shit, I've moved to indie titles. Someone actually accused me of being the reason AAA games are so bad because "if they had the extra cash from people like me, they could make AAA games better"
Fucking speechless
Same here! The indie scene kicks ass, there's so much variety in stuff to play
Give me some good indie games to play then 😂. Come on.
@@niall2236 The Indie Scene is basically what the budget gaming scene was on 8 and 16 bit computers in the 80s.
I have over 300 games on Steam and 99% of them are indie and AA games.
People should look up more games and watch reviews of games that look interesting. Then buy the game if it your type of game.
The main demographic which brings in cash for AAA games are teens and small kids. Theyre the ones who have no standards due to inexperience with games, pay money for shit dlc, and need their hand held through puzzles. We were all like this at one stage bit we got lucky since gaming, corporately, was still very young 10-15 years ago. The AAA industry is the same as toys from Disney now. You can't change it as they don't even need your money anymore. Support Indie devs and put your money where quality lies. Oh yeah and raise your kids to have standards I suppose. Time to move on fellas.
More passion than old Meg sees on a busy Friday night.
Much appreciate the lack of scripting in your videos. Don't ever change that. The improvisation shines through and brings out your passion for gaming and, at the same time, your resentment towards corporate bullshit. We all share in and enjoy that.
Mack you're a total legend. AAA no thanks, I'm sticking to Stalker Anomaly.
Thank god I am also into motorcycling, playing guitar and piano and a few other things. Gaming has slipped from a reason I can't get stuff done to a reason to do stuff.
Even my wife is disappointed as she can't have a go at me for playing games all the time.
The pioneer of QTEs said that Metroid Dread was a bad game because he couldn't figure out what to shoot to progress. His solution was to probably have Samus press A A B and then watch a cutscene of her blasting the wall with missiles. These are the people that make AAA games.
Thanks for the honest reviews Mack
I absolutely respect your honesty, this is why I trust your reviews.
cant remember last time i bought a video game, just playing old stuff
The thing I love about newer Tomb Raider games is that you can actually turn off the white paint showing you where to go. The game suits noobs and pros in this regard. Even has extremem survivor where saving at camp fires is the only way to save.
For this game they just went full hand hold 😩
They were good except for Shadow of the Tomb Raider. It’s like a completely different team made that game, I love the first 2 , though.
If you stop covering these AAA games the way you do there won't be anybody left to warn us.
Not exactly. The weak core game mechanics reveal themselves in gameplay videos and trailers. Lockon autoaim and qte events spotted. Only the forced autoaim in the aircraft was hard to spot because of minimal of gameplay progression shown before release. His rants are what I come for mainly.
I also watch acg, jim sterling, angry Joe and switchup. I'm very critical to games and no bullshit there on these channels👍 but of course Mack is outstanding👌 I doesn't play pc, but I always watch his reviews even if I'm not interested in the game. I watch him for his humor and excellent rants. He's the best💯👏👏👏
God I remember the good old days of 2005 when games were creative and were not afraid to do new things. I always wondered as a kid what the great future would hold. Shame the gaming industry is in the way it is.
I think it's a result of upper management and owners putting pressure on maximizing the profit to risk ratio. Similarly to music and movies, most of it is dumbed down to the lowest common denominator since that's where the lowest risk is. And by spending millions on marketing and an appealing IP, they can ensure a high profit.
look into indie games, i think that is where the creativity will be in the future.
@@Ralphunreal "will be"? It already is at least for the past 10 years.
I havent felt any need to play an AAA tittle for 15 years.
you realize there are more games available to buy on more platforms than any time in history correct...?
@@garyc4019 How many of these "more games" worth playing though?
The developers invading your personal space is a big thing I've been warning people of. Sony is quite possibly the worst. Their "limited" terms of service says they reserve the right to record your keystrokes.... who the hell do they think they are telling me that if I want to use the product I bought, I have to let them record my KEYSTROKES?!
Xbox too?
@@yurichtube1162
I have no idea. I've never seen an Xbox game that says you agree to let them download a keylogger onto your PC if you want to play a game.
havent touched a AAA publishers title in over 10 years...
but yeah, indies are thankfully strong these days.
The harsh reality is that AAA gaming peaked around 2004, right about the time HL2 came out, since then an entire generation has grown up thinking this is the standard for top tier gaming and they judge games not based off groundbreaking games that pushed the industry forward like HL2 but this kind of rubbish in your video. I'm so happy I was in my early 20s when gaming peaked, back when all I did is crack one off, go out and get smashed with my mates, try and pull (which I failed at miserably) and play games for hours and hours often with my mates sat around a couch. I feel sorry for the kids nowadays. They are missing out.
Kids are so low T now they can't even crack one out.
@@1000sofusernames haha! I proper laughed out loud at your comment! Brutal, but true.
I love a good rant.
Man this video was spot on calling out all the garbage these years
Piracy has never been better
If your a indie or AA game studio, please don't sell out to a AAA company. You are the future of gaming nowadays.
Take the emulator pill. You'll never have to look at AAA games again.
How do I get into that? Every game that I was anticipating this year has been a huge letdown
Mack will never emulate old console games.
Lol i've actually been doing nothing but emulation the past 2 months. And have rediscovered my love for gaming
I really wanna download the emulator thingy, but I'm so scared it might messed up my computer. Like, I can't even update my drivers without messing up something. Do u guys have any tutorial on how to get into it that is actually safe?
@@jesuisemeli Depends on what you want to emulate but emulators can be downloaded from their official sites. Retroarch is a front end that has many different emulators for many systems.
There are many guides on CZcams to help you set up emulators. If you can't update drivers properly though you may have an uphill battle lol.
Keep fighting the good fight Mack.
I feel you. I've been gaming for 26 years but over the last few years I have played less and less AAA games and instead leaned heavily to indies. Much happier in my gaming now.
I wish Mac would crowd fund a game and hire his own team to make something he'd love.
I wish i still had the energy to give a crap, glad someone still does. Frankly i get more excited about taco fridays then any new games, cause i know it’s probably not gonna be good. Tacos won’t ever disappoint thou so there’s always that.
Hey! I used to get excited on Fridays because the new games were out. Wander down to HMV to buy one at lunchtime. Read the manual on the train on the way home from work. Spend a couple of hours trying to get it installed and running and then play over the weekend. Happy days sadly long gone but thanks for reminding me.
i never get excited about game news or releases anymore, cyberpunk 2077 was the last draw for me then new world was just the cheery on top of pure disappointment in the AAA gaming industry.
Have you tried putting creme fraiche or sour cream in your taco? I learned that a few years ago, tacos have never been the same.
@@fredrikbystrom7380 no i havent tried that yet but now i definatly will, thx for the tip ^^
What exactly is taco Friday? A public holiday?
Mack is the voice of reason.
AAA Early Access is what I call it. Dupe you into buying trash, get paid BEFORE they get critiqued.... then FINISH the game and look like good guys who "care" about their "community". Everything is a fucking "community" too now a days... Great video WAB!
My gaming library on steam is incredibly small. The only AAA game made recently in it is Halo MCC. Everything else I play is made by indie devs
Preach!
Cyberpunk was the first game since the PS3 version of GTA V that I preordered, mainly because of the way the industry has been going and that lack of trust of both developers and shill reviewers (90+% of all review outlets). Needless to say that it's sure as shit the last game I'll ever preorder too (got a refund but fuck that noise again). Best game I've played this year is Astro's playroom, a god damn pack in with a system.
It's a joke the state of things, too few developers have the nouse or the balls to push the envelope. I'm lucky to get 2-3 games a year that are worth my time anymore. E3 typified it this year, with all the shills and snot-nosed fucks lapping up the 3rd, 4th, 5th+ entry in 'Living on past glories X franchise', with bugger all of real intrigue to look forward to
Same Gta5 and then Cyberpunk. Although I went to mid night release for Red Dead2. Cyberpunk was really disappointing not sure if Any game is really going to Live up to expectations After Cyberpunk Just seems like devs Are going lower and lower in quality.
Mack destroys ACG’s “Rep” in a second. Love it.
I unsubscribed from him man it was to much BS
I unsubbed to him last week. A lot of the "independent" reviewers I used to like don't come across as being independent anymore. They've slowly merged into the same industry that's shoveling out all this AAA garbo
ACG just says what everyone wants to hear guy praises anything that has nice graphics
ACG is tight with MrMattyPlays who shilled Cyberpunk despite knowing how awful it was before release. Birds of a feather...
@@jamespaul6315 yh skill up is a genuine good channel i respect them but lets get back to acg lol
good old days when we played the game more than the script did for us lmao
Im sitting in Covid-Germany and it was good to hear a normal person like Mack.
The Industry: "ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?"
Us: No...
'Sold to the prick over there' 🤣🤣 fuckin love your rants man. Spot on aswell. One of the best games I've recently played is 'a procession to calvary' small indie game had me scratching me head in parts and sucked me right in with its individuality and story.
As a gamer born in 1986 you are by a LOOONNNNG margin my favourite game reviewer/critic. Down to earth and you know your shit! Keep it up Mack!
I like the whole minute where you said SHINY, That was great !!
Mack, that rant was beautiful… ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL!!!!! And so so true. The state of the so-called triple A gaming industry in a joke. The problem is that there are millions of idiots out there that will still buy the shite.
I might play them but not buying :)
If only more reviewers were actually honest like you. Then this wouldn't be a problem.
I don't think they're being dishonest. I think the review space is just full of AAA casual tier gamers who are mainstream normals. They have a journalist degree and they game as a secondary or tertiary hobby. They just want credits for writing for some outlet.
They don't know what a good game is. They only know when a game let's them get to end credits with minimal effort. Work smarter not harder kinda thing.
Edit: missed an A
No. The shear majority of buyers, especially AAA games buyers, don't actually watch any reviews.
This is also the case for most consumer products, even for more expensive stuff like smartphones, laptops, consoles, etc.
I was planning to get this for the weekend tbh. The fact that you were the only person on YT who mentioned this stuff, is just depressing...
We hear ya mac. Who remembers the travesty of Star Wars Battlefront 2..? That’s the last time I bought a ‘AAA’ game
Mack is on point once again. His rants always brighten my day.
Thank you Mac. One of the last bastions of real gaming observation. R.I.P. gaming industry
I think this guy underestimates game development costs...
It seems to me that the problem is that the AAA developers just want/ need to sell more product.The quicker a game is finished the quicker they can sell the player the next one. I wouldn't mind betting that the majority of 'games purchasers' (as opposed to 'true Gamers') have a short attention span and thus need to be led through the game in order to think they are getting their money's worth and thus go out and repeat the process the next week.
Love it! More people should realize the lamentable state the industry is in today.
Yup, most new AAA games bore the proverbial out of me. Recently, I replayed Kingdom Come, and Fallout: New Vegas. At the moment, I am playing throughDeus Ex: Revision.
The original Deus came out 21 years ago and its still amazing. Why cant they make games like that, even with mediocre graphics? I doubt many new AAA games will be remembered in 21 months time, let alone 21 years.
KC:D is amazing. So immersive, when it works. Still more immersive than anything else when it doesn't.
A second one is a hope i cling to.
fallout new vegas might be the best fallout to this day. had quite a lot of bugs with kingdom come (stuff like flying to the sky, falling and then dying, enemy watchmen following me without giving off an alarm at all, also found an ez way to even beat the best fighter in that training center with absolutely no skill level, the list goes on and on...), so yeah, couldnt get myself immersed in this one. but fallout new vegas, boy, what a treat!
big aaa games are bought by parents who want to buy their way out of parenting their children, indie games are more likely to be made by gamers for gamers. this is why aaa games are for 5 year olds. in modern life getting your child to aim live weapons at people at 5 years old in high def graphics are things they want, the game is a delivery vehicle for the product. in modern life the product is not the game but the thought programming. stop thinking these games are made for any reason other than bringing the western world to its knees for the people at the top to pick clean.
Same Played kingdom come And San Andreas earlier this year. Just finished Fallout 3 And now on To New vagus.
@@djinnxx7050 Yeah When works its amazing. If it Had A larger budget I can only image how great it could.
The only correct way to buy AAA games is to give them 6months to 1year of patching and then wait for a mid-summer / Christmas sale. Any gamer who pre-orders or pays full price for an AAA game these days is encouraging the publishers to release unfinished products. Also in the light of recent discoveries of working conditions in these big firms (namely: blizzard and ubisoft) I really don't want to give them any money. And I do agree with other commenters here that it is really difficult to get excited about new games when your first thought is that they will most likely be trash.
amen to that brother
Dear Mac (WAB)
This is a letter of absolute agreement with your view point. I have been a gamer for 30 years, I got my first console in 1990 and was a NES machine. I have played thousands of hours of games. I am 40, and I am still playing games. What you are describing and illustrating here is how badly this new generation or NEXT gen of games and gamers are evolving into a group of spoon fed, hand held children that feel they are owed accomplishments, rewards and satisfaction from this amazing medium, hence the reviews are in their favor, this also fuels the need for developers and publishers to shovel shit down our throats, all in an effort to make as much money as is possible.
It sickens me that its getting to the point where this entertainment medium that I so love is reaching its end. I am not getting a PS5 or Series X purely for the reasons above and in your video, that and nothing is really next gen anyways, I mean what they tout as next gen has been done on PC for years, and with cross generational support, why they hell would I spend hundreds of dollars on a PS5 of XB|X if I can just get it on a older platform. Ps, 30 FPS has never bothered me, I play games for the Single Player experience, so I don't need to 144hz 120fps at 4K, 1080p at 30 is fine for me.
Dude I really wish more review companies are hold responsible. In part they fuel the fire that dev houses need to make money and what you talk about is how accepted we or reviewers have become of these issues to the point where it seems deliberate to not damage their reputation.
WAB is really real. Keep going dude, you have my support....
Regards
The Other Jonas